the change of the Air or the year the great Aspects of the Sun and Moon violent passions and errors in diet she was more cruelly tormented with them But although this Distemper most grievously afflicting this noble Lady above twenty years when I saw her having pitched its tents near the confines of the Brain had so long besieged its regal tower yet it had not taken it for the sick Lady being free from a Vertigo swimming in the Head Convulsive Distempers and any Soporiferous symptom found the chief faculties of her soul sound enough For the obtaining a Cure or rather for a tryal very many Remedies were administred thorow the whole progress of the Disease by the most skilful Physicians both of our own Nation and the prescriptions of others beyond Seas without any success or ease also great Remedies of every kind and form she tryed but still in vain Some years before she had endured from an oyntment of Quicksilver a long and troublesome Salivation so that she ran the hazard of her life Afterwards twice a Cure was attempted though in vain by a Flux at the Mouth from a Mercurial Powder which the noted Emperick Charles Hues ordinarily gave with the like success with the rest she tryed the Baths and the Spaw-waters almost of every kind and nature she admitted of frequent Blood-letting and also once the opening of an Artery she had also made about her several Issues sometimes in the hinder part of her Head and sometimes in the forepart and in other parts She also took the Air of several Countries besides her own native Air she went into Ireland and into France There was no kind of Medicines both Cephalicks Antiscorbuticks Hysterical all famous Specificks which she took not both from the Learned and the unlearned from Quacks and old Women and yet notwithstanding she professed that she had received from no Remedy or method of Curing any thing of Cure or Ease but that the contumacious and rebellious Disease refused to be tamed being deaf to the charms of every Medicine Further this so long possessing the out-parts of the Head though it could not invade the cloysters of the Brain yet when I visited her unfolding its ends in some other parts of the nervous kind it had begun to stir up most cruel pains in her members and also in her Loins and bottom of her Belly as is wont to be in the Rheumatism and in the Scorbutick Colick If we should inquire into the Aetiology or the Causes of this inveterate Disease we can suspect nothing less than that the Meninges of the Brain being from the beginning more lightly touched had afterwards contracted an habitual and indelible vice It appears by the History that the distemper at first arose from a Morbific matter which was translated into the Head after an ill cured Feavour Then perchance by reason of some hurt brought to the Membranes the tone of the Fibres was so much endamaged that afterwards the Humors flowing in them both the nervous and others being heaped up to a fulness or growing hot by mere aggravation raised up the fits of the Headach But at length the diseased cause growing worse by reason of the frequent fits it seems that the unity of those Fibres were so much broken that from thence little Tumors or Scirrhous knots or swellings being riased up in all the exterior Meninge or in a great part of it produced pains almost continual and those apt to be made worse or imbitter'd upon every light occassion Certainly it seems most likely that the invincible and permanent cause of so long and yet not deadly Headach proceeds from some such thing viz. a Scirrhous Distemper of the Dura mater the Pia mater being in the mean time safe For from any other cause if there had beee a conflict of Nature and Medicine with the Disease either a quick death or a joyful victory had far sooner been obtained A noted Gentleman of about forty years of Age strong and healthy going a journey for a whole day in a continual rain the wet beating on the hinder part of his Head caught cold and the next day he began to feel a pain in that part which in a short time after becoming very bitter afflicted him night and day and kept him almost continually without sleep For the Cure of this Distemper Phlebotomy Purging Glisters Blisterings and Remedies to cause rest yea and many others of every kind though diligently applyed by the Counsel also of many Physicians helpt little or nothing When the Disease notwithstanding these grew every day worse after a fortnights time preternatural swell'd kernels and painful arose all about his Neck the pain in his Head nothing remitting Further the Tendons of his Neck being very much distended and stiff became very troublesome to him to which in a short time succeeded Convulsive motions and a sudden leaping of the Tendons in several parts with a delirium and at length the sick person worn out with pains and watching yielded to death Though we had not leave for the dissecting the dead body yet it may be suspected that both the Pericranium and the Meninges in the hinder part of the Head cloathing the Cerebel where they are more thick and very nappy were first affected and then from thence the evil was afterwards communicated to the whole Head and wandered into all the nervous stock when as in those Membranes transpiration was hindred from the cold and the wet and also the tone of the Fibres very much hurt it is probable that the nervous Liquor watering them being then hindred in its motion and stagnating did burthen the containing bodies then that being depraved in its Complexion grew hot with other humors flowing thither and being at length coagulated with them grew together into Scirrhous and Strumous Tumors and so laid the copious seed-plot of a most grievous Headach Then afterwards when through watching and perpetual pains a great inordination of the Spirits and a great Discrasie of the Juice watering the Head were produced for that reason the knotty Concretions in the Neck the stifness of the Tendons and at length Convulsions and Convulsive Motions followed in the Brain and in the whole nervous Stock and so when as the animal oeconomy or regiment was much decayed and that the motion of the Praecordia could not be continued the vital flame expired Sometimes deadly and incurable Headaches are no less raised up from a fiery swelling and Imposthum than from these kind of knots and little pimples of the Meninges Sometime since a young man of the University whenas he had complained for a fortnight of a most grievous pain in the Head incessantly afflicting him it was at length increased by a Feavour and afterwads waking Convulsive motions and talking idly followed at which time a Physician being sent for letting blood Clysters Plasters Revulsives Blistrings also internal Remedies which call away the Flux of the Blood and Humors
nothing brought to it but that its passages like a course or wide strainer suffers all the grosser particles both Saline watery and earthy easily to pass thorow them Besides these more remote leading causes which become the act of the stirred up Morbific there are more strong Evident Causes for so great danger does not hang over the Brain as that its whole compass should be invaded from every morbid provision nor upon every light occasion But there are many and diverse occasions by which the sleepy assaults are seen to be incited the chief of these are great Surfeits Drunkenness especially of Wine or the Drinking immoderately of Strong-waters then after such excess to lye all night or sleep in the open Air further an evacuation of the Serum by otherways after having been long suppressed also if Spaw-waters being drunk in a larger quantity and not again render'd presently by Urine threaten a Lethargy And so also do recrements of other Diseases either not well or not at all Cured being translated to the Head so as a continual sleepiness often happens after acute Feavours or such as continue long and other Chronical Diseases and especially the Headach Frensie Empyema or collection of gross Humors upon the Lungs and the Colick Thus much of the Lethargy whose assault proceeds from the Cortex or shelly part of the Brain being affected to which succeed either an eclipse or an exclusion of the Spirits there inhabiting with a sleepiness and oblivion But as non-natural sleep so sometimes what is preternatural begins from the Spirits being first dejected and which is usual to succeed another Cause It is obvious to any one that this ordinarily happens from more strong Opiates without any previous flood or stopping of the cortical part of the Brain for it is not probable that Narcoticks stir up the Humors and send them to the Brain when it plainly appears that all the effervescences and flowings of these are allayed by them But if it should be asked after what manner and by what means Opiates cause sleep and sometimes a deadly Torpor or sleepiness we say That this Medicine is a certain kind of poison beating down or extinguishing the Animal Spirits by its blasting the Blood and solid parts in the mean time being almost untouch'd Wherefore when the Animal Spirits become raging and as it were struck with madness running hither and thither and will not be quieted and allayed Opiates being administer'd like water flung upon a flame destory some of the outmost bands of them so that the rest being lessened and flying inwards quietly lye down We have at large discoursed of these things in a particular Tract Of the Operations of Medicines on the Humane Body For the present we shall note which is to the purpose that Narcoticks or Medicines causing rest being taken at the mouth do put forth their powers partly in the Ventricle and indeed immediately and partly in the Brain both that and the Mass of Blood mediating By what means Narcoticks do operate whilst in the Ventricle and provoke sleep we have shewn Chap. XV. When they are moderate in either province they gently intoxicate some unquiet Spirits and so immediately quiet the rest but if any one takes Opiates in too large a Dose he shall presently feel hurt both in the Ventricle and in the Brain and a little after being insensible shall suffer a greater evil in either to wit a mighty heaviness and as it were an immoveable weight in the Stomach which seems to opress both it and the neighbouring parts indeed by this sign the Fibres of this place the Spirits which before actuated them being broken become without life and as it were dead then by reason of the Opiate particles being carried about with the Blood to the frame or compass of the Brain and instilled into its Cortical or shelly part the Spirits being driven away from thence or extinguished an irresistable and oftentimes a deadly sleep follows yea I have sometimes known from a more grievous hurt inflicted on the Ventricle only by the use of a more strong Narcotic Death it self to have followed before sleep could creep upon them coming by a long way about A strong man vexed with a most cruel Colick for ease sake whilst a Physician was sent for took rashly a great quantity of Opium a little after he had taken it he complained of a great burthen oppressing and mightily weighing down the Ventricle His Friends and the by-standers gave him Cordial waters Wine and Strong-Waters but without any ease This oppression creeping wider ahout the Precordia raised up pains and swoonings but still being awake and constant in mind he cryed out that his spirits more and more failed him till about three hours after complaining that his sight was gone he presently dyed But that we may return to the Lethargy as it is a Disease and not the effects of Opium whence we digressed concerning which we are yet to enquire whether it may arise from a Narcotick Humor begotten in us as some Chymists assert We shall tell you our conjecture that we think this 't is sufficiently plain that there are other sorts of Morbific particles produced in our Bodies than those commonly called Elementary and Humoral and that they do affect after a various manner viz. besides the Watery Earthly Bilous Phlegmatick or Melancholic we may find others Vitriolick Nitro-sulphureous and others participating of enormous Sulphurs and Salts and active to our evil The Convulsive Pathology can by no other means be delivered and explained unless by supposing that some extraneous little bodies and as it were Nitro-sulphureous which sticking to the Spirits and at last cast off by them stir up the Explosive that is Convulsive force In like manner we may think that others of another nature may perhaps be begotten such as are of a Sulphureous Vitriolick or Narcotick nature which when they creep into the Brain and nervous Stock fall upon some Animal Spirits which they by chance do meet with extinguishing and fixing them ordinarily induce their losses and eclipses such as happen in the Vertigo Apoplexy or Palsie as we shall more fully shew hereafter In like manner in a great fit of the Lethargy though it be improbable that these kind of Narcotick particles should be in heaps derived from the Blood into the Brain in so great a quantity that they should at once overturn the spirits dwelling in its whole precincts and fix them yet we may believe that this may be some part of the Cause Wherefore in every long sleepiness or Lethargick disposition we do suspect the Animal Spirits to be burthened with such a Lethaean Copula and that we should direct the darts of every Medicine against it Thus much concerning the formal reason subject and causes of the Lethargy properly so called the summ of all which is That the Animal Spirits the inhabitants of the exterior Brain being hindred from their wonted
Brain may be prevented and also that what is already impacted may be discussed or taken away Further the Animal Spirits ought to be rouzed up or excited and all sleepiness or stupidity shaken from them For this end ought to be applied Purging Blood-letting Cupping-glasses Blistering Plasters repelling and discussing Topicks and Cephalick Medicines to be given and chiefly such as are impregnated with a Volatile Salt and many other means of administrations already recited But if this Disease coming upon other Distempers happens to a person whose Body is already much worn out the Blood vitiated or greatly depauperated you must seriously deliberate before taking away of Blood or Purging yea also abstain very much from them Yet sometimes that the Conjunct Cause or matter of the Disease impacted in the Brain may be put into motion it may be expedient to take away Blood moderately either from the Forehead or Temples by Leeches or from between the Shoulders by Cupping-glasses and Scarification Here Blistering Plasters are in chief esteem to be applied not only to the hinder part of the Neck or Head but to the Legs and Arms and other parts of the body by turns Further let there be given frequently the Spirits of Harts-horn of Sut of Sal Armoniack Amber or a Mans Scull Coral and others impregnated with other Cephalicks with a Iulep or any other proper Liquor The forms or Receipts of these and of other Remedies used in these cases together with the Histories of the sick and examples of Cures are extant in the description of the aforesaid soporiferous Feavor so that there is no need to inculcate here again the same or such like There yet remains an other sleepy Distemper or kind of Lethargy or continual sleeping commonly called Carus which is greater than the Lethargy and somewhat lesser than the Apoplexy and is so near akin to this that it often passes into it but yet it is wont to be differenced from either For those sick with the Carus breath well for the most part and when they are strongly pulled they move their Members sometimes lift themselves up open their Eyes and often speak which Apoplectical persons do not yet the same though excited or moved do scarcely understand any thing or plainly discern in which respect they are distinguished from such as have the Lethargy From these it appears that the Conjunct Cause of the Carus doth penetrate deeper towards the middle part of the Brain and hath its seat in the outmost border at least of the Callous Body wherefore the Animal Spirits being restrained from their wonted expansion within this Emporium the acts of the Imagination and Memory cease and although the Species being impressed from a more strong sensible is directed inwards and oftentimes the local motion is retorted to it yet because this impression reaches not to the Callous Body by reason the Spirits are there amazed or stupefied the sick know nothing what they feel or do The Conjunct Cause of this Disease therefore is very often the same but somewhat more strong than that of the Somnolency Coma and Lethargy The Morbific Matter is seen to possess both the Cortex of the Brain and the Marrow lying under and being carried forward some greater bosoms of the middle part and the upper borders of the Callous body yea sometimes as this matter is partly carried forward by degrees these Diseases arise and every next is but the augmentation of the former But sometimes the Morbific Cause without any gradual progress thorow these parts affects the middle part of the Brain at the first assault and there as it is more lightly or more deeply placed causes the Carus or the Apoplexy In which case it is not to be thought that the whole compass of the Callous Body like the Cortical part of the Brain should be possessed by the soporiferous matter because it is sufficient this matter rushing into any one place and invading some part of the middle Marrow that presently for that reason an Eclipse or at least a beating down of the Spirits follows in all that region After this manner it is wont to be when the Carus comes upon a malignant or ill handled Feavour or upon the Headach or some Convulsive Distempers or when it is excited by a blow on the Head or by a fall or by reason of an Imposthum broken in the Meninges for by reason of these accidents the interior Marrow of the Brain is wont to be so pressed together shaken or otherways altered that presently the tracts or paths of the Spirits are obliterated or blotted out The prognostick of the Carus for the most part is but evil especially if this Disease comes upon a malignant or a long continued a gentle and not Cured Feavour or on a Woman in Childbed no less danger is also threatned if it follows after other Cephalick Diseases or is excited by reason of a Wound in the Head but yet in these cases all hope of Cure is not presently to be cast off for I my self have observed some sick after this manner and esteemed desperate or past all hope to have recovered The event of this Disease is wont to be various either in Death or in health The Carus passes not rarely into a soon killing Apoplexy that after first the animadvertive faculty being lost with a short breathing and without motion then by reason of the evil being transmitted to the Cerebel there follow alterations of breathing and the Pulse and quickly death it self But sometimes the Morbific Matter setling more deeply and falling from the Callous Body into the streaked Body one or both together the Brain clears up a little so that the sick look about them talk and know things yet in the whole body besides a Palsie or Dead-Palsie on one side follows but so that life is not out of danger for oftentimes when the Brain begins to be restored the Cerebel grows worse that for that cause the Spirits there being evilly disposed or affected which perform the offices of the vital function and merely natural either Convulsions are stirred up in the Bowels and Precordia or deadly impediments of the Pulse and respiration yet sometimes when the Morbific matter is not so plentiful nor very malignant it is partly supped up into the Blood and partly shook off so that the sick grow perfectly well again The Curatory Method suggests the same intentions of Healing and requires wholly the same Remedies as those which are wont to be administred in the Lethargy and the Apoplexy Wherefore there will be no need to add here a company of Indications nor to heap together a great pile of Medicines But what seems more to the purpose that I give you one or two Histories of sick people of which I have many by me A known person of about forty years of Age who having through Intempernace lost his health took I know not what Medicines
is carried impetuously or inordinately to the Head and the nourishing Juice being half Concocted or depraved is fixed there to the Membranaceous Fibres it causes painful pullings or haulings to follow for hence it is that exercise bathing violent passions reading or any serious intention of the Mind upon a full stomach hurt those troubled with Headaches Sometimes the nutritious Juice is not presently or easily mixed with the Blood but being carried fresh to it by and by stirs up a turgency so that many constantly after eating are troubled with an high Colour and oftentimes also with an Headach This commonly but amiss is imputed to the obstruction of the Liver when indeed it proceeds from an evil disposition of the Blood hardly bearing the mixture of the fresh Chyme Wherefore such a distemper follows for the most part dangerous Feavours and especially the Small Pox and sometimes great Surfeits 4. There yet remains another sort of Evident Causes to wit by which the leading Causes or predispositions to the Headach are actuated plainly different from the former irregularities of the Blood Serum and nourishing juice to wit when Headaches very often most terrible follow by reason of Convulsions begun in other parts and from them continued to the Head 'T is an usual thing for a certain sense or feeling of a Formication or little pricking to creep forward from the Hypochondria as also from the region of the Stomach Mesentery Womb yea sometimes from the Members or outward parts to the Head and by and by sometime after to excite a pain that will last for a good while This kind of Distemper which is wont oftentimes to be the forerunner of the Vertigo also of the Epilepsie or the Apoplexie is commonly believed to be the ascent of Vapours when indeed it is only a Convulsion begun in the extremity of some Nerve which creeping upward towards its original and then coming to the Skull for as much as it either is communicated to the parts within the Head or to the Meninges either one or both of them it stirs up Convulsions or pains Which passions notwithstanding follow this Formication or tingling brought from elsewhere sometimes as a sign and sometimes as the cause We have in another place largely enough unfolded the reason of the former to wit it being shown that when the Morbifick matter possesses the beginnings of the Nerves or the nearest parts to them in the Head a Convulsion oftentimes beginning from the ends of the same Nerves being carried thence upwards towards the places first distemper'd ascends as it were by a creeping forward wherefore not only upon the Vertigo but upon the Headach a Vomiting comes very frequently But further an Irritation in some distant Member or Viscera is sometimes the occasion and in a sort the cause of the Headach to wit when the Morbifick matter is heaped up even to a fulness of Turgency in the part of the Head already disaffected there is need only of a light Vellication or pulling of the Containing Fibres that this matter being stirred should cause a fit of the Disease to which movement it often suffices that by intimate concent of some distant Inward as the Ventricle Spleen or Womb with the Head the nervous Fibres should be pulled or hauled for presently from thence the trouble being communicated by the Nerves some Membranaceous Fibres of the Head being evilly disposed and burthened with the Morbific Matter begin to be strained and wrinkled and so when the Mine of the Disease is moved from its moved Particles the Fibres are urged into grievous and continual Corrugations Headaches that seem to begin after this manner from the Viscera and commonly called Sympathetic are wont to be ascribed to Vapors viz. by supposing a Mine of the noxious humor to lye hid in some Inward from which being moved whilst the Effluvia ascend into the Head and there sharply pierce thorow and pâ—ll the nervous Fibres pains are excited We have already so plainly refuted this doctrine that there is no need here to bring any other reasons to oppose it But in the mean time let us inquire whether pains of the Head do not arise also by other means besides a Convulsive communication thorow the Nerves by reason of the Morbific Cause lodging in the Stomach Spleen and other places Concerning this we may suppose that Matter oftentimes degenerate is heaped up in remote parts which carries its hurt to the Head by the passage or Circulation of the Blood 'T is a usual thing for Corrupt humors viz. sometimes sharp sometimes acid or austere to be heaped up in the Ventricle Bile in the Liver atrabilary or melancholic dregs about the Spleen yea and other sort of degenerate Matter about the Mesentery Womb or other parts from which being heaped up to a fulness of swelling up a Fermentative Miasm or Infection is fixed to the Blood from which that being as it were imbued with rage impetuously grows hot and partly by its swelling up and partly by transferring what is incongruous into the Membranes of the Head stirs up fierce and cruel fits of pains As to the Ventricle that it is so some obnoxious to this Disease have plain experience Because some of them after the Bile or Choler flowing in the Stomach and others after a noted soureness and ravenous hunger most certainly expectia fit of the Headach The reason of which seems partly to be that those contents of the Ventricle being supped up by the Blood make it hot and stir up in the same a Cephalic Turgency or swelling up moreover from this kind of sharp Vitriolick or otherways infestous matter being heaped up and moved within the Stomach a Convulsion or Corrugation very troublesome is impressed on the Fibres and the extremities of the Nerves there inserted which immediately being continued into the Head by the passages of the same Nerves of the eighth pair and of the Intercostal is communicated to the Membranes and the nervous Fibres predisposed to painful wrinklings By reason of the same Reciprocal Communication between the Stomach and the Head a nauseousness and Vomiting as we said but now follows upon the Headach viz. the Membranes being stirred up into painful wrinklings by the Morbifick matter even as is wont by a blow or wound and transferring the evil by the passage of the Nerves to the Ventricle guiltless of it self a vain endeavour of Vomiting sometimes arises nothing remaining within the Ventricle that should be cast forth yet sometimes from a cruel shaking of the Inwards in striving to Vomit the Gallish or Pancreatick humor either one or both of them being thrust forth into the Duodenum and cast forth by Vomit is ignorantly taken for the Cephalick matter 2. The pains of the Head are wont to be imputed no less to the Spleen than the Ventricle and indeed 't is ordinarily observed in Hypochondriacks obnoxious also to this Disease when a Pain
motion and emanation lye down in a profound and inextricable sleep but they are hindred either by the proper vice of themselves because having taken or being distemper'd by some Narcotick they are as it were coagulated and become immoveable or because their exterior tracts or paths in the Brain are obstructed and possessed by some strange guest so that there is no fit space granted them for their expansion The symptoms of this Disease which now come in order to be explained the chief are Sleep and forgetfulness or a cessation of every other knowing or spontaneous function unequal and slow breathing a Feavour and oftentimes the distemper growing worse Convulsions a leaping of the Tendons and at length universal and deadly Cramps or Convulsions As to the too former of these we mentioned before that Memory is deficient altogether for the same reason as Sleep exceeds to wit forasmuch as the Spirits inhabiting the outward part of the Brain being either bound up or expulsed from their tracts do not irradiate or beam forth from the Callous Body into the Cortex or shelly part of the Brain by which imagination or waking is made nor do they being carried inwards and repeating their former footsteps represent the Ideas or Images of things before acted Indeed Sleep Watching and Memory are affections of the same parts and places of which it is no light sign and which vulgarly appears by experience that Opiate Medicines by which Sleep is provoked being often given hurt the Memory Yea I my self knew one having taken a strong Hypnotick or Medicine to cause sleep after being sick with a Feavour lived many nights and days without sleep and almost wholely lost his Memory especially as to any thing long past As to what respects the other faculties of the Corporeal Soul to wit the Imagination Appetite or desire Sense and Motion although no Narcortick or sleepy chains are cast upon the Spirits destinated to these offices and that the Pores and passages of the interior Brain within which they are wont to expatiate are seen to be open enough yet these Spirits because during the fit they are denied their commerce with the others bound up of themselves lye down and are overcome by Sleep For as a continual sleepiness beginning about the root of the sensitive Soul to wit the Cortex or shelly part of the Brain immediately its whole province is obscured as it were with a veil to wit the knowing desiring and self-moving part of the Soul and also the intellect it self its windows being every where shut up hardly speculates or beholds any thing Further the power or force of this Disease is seen to be extended to the other part of the sensitive Soul presiding o're the Cerebel and its Regiment wherefore during the fit of the Lethargy the respiration and Pulse are altered for that becomes unequal and slow sometimes drawing the breath deep and long sometimes short repeated and as it were double and this being great and swift diffuseth a feavourish heat thorow the whole body The reason of the former if I am not deceived is this to wit that the same Morbific Cause which infects the outward part of the Brain and its inhabitants infects also in part the Cerebel and the Spirits there serving for the motions of the Precordia which being by that means disturbed and hindred though they omit not thir tasks yet they perform them difficultly and with interruption hence the Diaphragma and Muscles of the Thorax do not so easily and swiftly as before perform their Systoles but laboriously and with a longer straining or endeavour and sometimes with repeated tryals or forces This kind of unequal long and difficult breathing frequently happens also in a Phrensie wherefore some judge the cause both of this and that to be from the inflammation of the Midriff or Diaphragma but amiss because the symptom in both these Cephalick Diseases depends on the Cerebel participating the hurt of the Brain grievously distemper'd As to the Feavour of one troubled with a Lethargy to be known by the great and quick Pulse hot breathing with a burning of the Tongue and Mouth without any heat in the extream parts some deduce this from the same cause as the Lethargy to wit either from Phlegm putrefying in the Brain or from a cold inflammation of the Brain Others on the contrary affirm the Feavour to be the primary effect and thence the Morbific Matter to be carried into the Head from the burning Blood Concerning these we grant that a Lethargy comes often after a Feavour but we can say nothing of the Phlegm putrefying in the Brain or of its frigid Inflammation which is as much as to say icy fire for if this be malignant or of evil custom happening also to Children old Men and other Phlegmatick Scorbutick or very Caecochymical persons or such as are full of ill humors about the height of a Disease not well Cured oftentimes in the place of a Crisis the feavourish matter being snatch'd into the Head induces a cruel and oftentimes a deadly Torpor or sleepiness which notwithstanding ought not to be esteemed the symptom of the Disease but of that Feavour After this manner I have often observed and elsewhere have particularly described that Soporiferous Feavours and as it were marked with a certain sleepiness have raged and become Epidemical at sometimes by reason of the evil constitution of the year But it is no less usual when a Lethargy is the principal distemper for a Feavour to follow and to owe to it as much its original as its Cure for a Feavour beginning after a continual sleepiness that being shaken off or discussed ceases soon of it self such a Feavour we think to arise not from the Blood growing hot by reason of the strife of intestine particles but because of the impulse of the containing and neighbouring bodies variously altering and disturbing its course For indeed the right temper of the Blood very much depends not only on its particles being truly mixt and overcome but also upon the motion impressed on the Heart and the Vessels or the Organical Circulation to wit that its Liquor may every where flow with an equal and alike flowing and ebbing which if finding any where a stop or Remora it be retarded its motion is made more impetuous and with a Feavourish tumult in the whole channel besides This manifestly appears in violent passions acute pains a breaking of the unity in all which the Blood being obstructed in one place or straitned it is snatched more vehemently in others and conceives a Feavourish heat for this cause to wit lest the thread of its circulation should be broken on which life necessarily depends wherefore as the Proverb says None dyes without a Feavour For how poor or deficient soever the Blood is and that the strength of all the moveing parts are weak yet in the instant agony of Death by the mere impulse of
Nature they either pursue their functions or the nervous Fibres every where erect themselves and put forth their utmost endeavours that they might drive forward the Blood flowing in them and Circulate it with a rapid motion I once visited an illustrious Lady who for some time had been miserably afflicted with Colick and Convulsive distempers and quite worn out and at length fell suddenly into a deadly Lethargy When I perceived her Pulse to beat strongly I prescribed that four ounces of Blood should be taken out of the jugular Vein which immediately leap'd from the opened Vessel with such force that I believe if it had been suffered the whole Mass of Blood would have flowed thence for the next day after her dead body being opened I found scarce four ounces more of Blood in her whole Body and yet she dyed thus in a Feavour The reason of the Lethargick Feavour is wholely the same which is seen to arise only from the Vital Organs being very much incited by labouring Nature and therefore vehemently driving about the Blood The prognostick of the Lethargy is shut within a strait limit for the fit of the Disease being for the most part acute is soon terminated either in Death or health and for the most part it is wont to give more of fear than of hope If it comes upon a malignant Feavour or hard to be cured or if it comes upon other Cephalick or Convulsive Diseases as the Headach Phrensie Madness Epilepsie or also upon a long and grievous Colick or Gout the Physician can predict nothing but evil nor is it less to be feared if it happen in a Body full of evil Humors or one long sick or in an old Man In like manner it is an evil omen if the sick being presently overwhelmed with a great Torpor or stupidness and almost Apoplectick cannot be awakened and if he breaths unequally and slowly or with a great snorting then the Disease increasing and the sick troubled with tremblings Cramps leapings of the Tendons and at length with Convulsive Motions it is to be esteemed desperate or without hope But if the Distemper be excited without any great foregoing Cause with an only Evident Cause as a Surfeit Drunkenness or by the use of Narcoticks a blow on the Head or some not deadly stroke we may expect the event to be less deadly or mortal Then if the Distemper arising from such occasions happens to a Body before whole and strong if it does not wholly take away the Sense and Memory at the first assault and after a short time the symptoms begin to remit a little of such a sick person you ought not to despair In every Lethargy if any Cause of the Disease is seen to be cut off and removed so that if by the help of Medicines or the instinct of Nature copious and helpful evacuations by Sweat Urine or by Stool do follow with ease or help or if by applying of Blistering Plasters a great deal of water flows forth if a swelling or great whelks or pustles break out behind the Ears or in the Neck if frequent sneezing happens or water flow from the Eyes or Nose thence a certain hope of health may be expected Hippocrates l. Coac c. 145. mentions a Cure of the Lethargy to be often made by the distemper of the Thorax saying That many Lethargicks that are stuffed with Phlegm have recovered Which words are wonderfully wrested by Interpreters Mercurialis understands by suppuration the putrified matter of the Disease to be evacuated by the Ears and Nostrils Prosper Martianus will have Hippocrates to be understood in the word Lethargy not the disease of the Head but of the Breast But wherefore are all these subterfuges when it often happens that the Morbific matter at first fixed in the Head and stirring up a continual sleepiness or Lethargy the same being thence supped up by the Blood and deposited in the breast doth produce an Empyema or a spitting like those whose Lungs are wasted In the description of a Soporiferous Epidemical Feavour which raged in the year 1661. we noted the same to have happened to many Concerning the Cure of this Disease for that it has no respite or truces it is not to be deliberated on after a sharp Clyster being given let a Vein be opened presently for the Vessels being emptied of Blood they are more apt to sup up the Serum or other Humors deposited in the Brain Further in this case I advise rather to open the Vein in the Neck than that in the Arm. Because by this means the Blood being very much heaped up within the bosoms of the Head and perhaps standing still is more easily reduced to an equal Circulation Letting blood being performed immediately other remedies of every kind are to be made use of Let Vesicatories or blistering Plasters be applied largely to the Neck and Legs anoint the Temples and Face with Oyl of Amber or Cephalick Balsoms lay over all the Feet a Cataplasm or Poultis made of Rue Crowfoot and Pepperwort with black Sope and Bay-salt use hard frictions or rubbings to the Members frequently apply to the Nostrils Salt of Urine or Spirits of Sal Armoniac Then let there be administred Cephalick Remedies Take of the Water of Poeony Flowers of black Cherries Rue and of Walnuts simple each three ounces of the Water of Poeony Compound two ounces of Castor tyed up in a rag and hung in the glass two drams of Sugar three drams mix them and make a Iulep let it be given about four or five sponfuls every three or four hours also with every Dose of this give twelve or fifteen drops of the Spirits of Amber or of Sal Armoniac or a paper of the following Powder Take of the Powder of the Root of Poeony the male of a Mans Skull of the Root of Virginian Serpentworth or Snakeweed of Contrayerva each one dram Bezoar and of Pearl each half a dram of Coral prepared one dram make a Powder and divide it into twelve parts Further here it is to be considered whether an evacuation either by Vomit or Stool should not be made I know that this is variously controverted among Authors and I have also known it performed with various success which being weighed and laid together I shall briefly propose my opinion If the Lethargy should arise upon a Surfeit or a late Drinking or if from taking some disagreeable things or Narcoticks presently let a Vomit be given wherefore you may give Salt of Vitriol with Wine and Oxymel of Squills or in strong bodies an Infusion of Crocus Metallorum or of Mercurius Vitae with black Cherry water Let it be given and if it doth not work of it self provoke Vomiting with a Feather thrust down the Throat But if the fit of the Disease comes upon a Feavour or any other Cephalick Distempers or if it be raised up primarily or of
in so much that in walking he sometimes would fall flat on the ground Being sent for to Cure him I prescribed Phlebotomy with a gentle Purge and after a little respite to be repeated again further I took care to have the Electuary and mixtures given him such as we noted above with Blistering Plasters and other administrations not to be neglected A fortnight after no ease following from these I gave him a Vomit of the Salt of Vitriol and the infusion of Crocus Metallorum by which when he had easily vomited ten times he began to find himself better and by using further altering Cephalicks for about a fortnight more he became perfectly well and from that time for six years he took yearly spring and fall a Vomit with some other Medicines though he continued in perfect health A certain Gentleman about sixty six years of Age when he had lived for a long time obnoxious to a light Vertigo and that was wont to be excited only occasionally about the end of the last Autumn labouring more grievously with this Distemper he also became forgetful Being sent for to visit this Man after he had been sick about three weeks I found him very much changed in his looks and countenance the vigor of both being diminished Seeing that he was daily distemper'd towards evening with a small Feavour his Pulse beating high and vehemently I first caused blood to be taken out of his Arm and after six or seven days out of the Hemorrhoidal Veins and then I took care for Blisters to be made behind the Ears and hind part of the Neck and two large Issues between the shoulders Inwardly at physical hours he took daily Cephalick Medicines almost of every kind Within a months space he seem'd to recover and began to walk abroad and to take care of his houshold affairs and other businesses but in the beginning of the Winter taking cold by going daily abroad he fell into a little Feavour with a greater perturbation of the spirits within his Head for becoming every evening delirous he hardly knew what he said or did But within seven or eight days blood being taken away and a slender dyet used the Feavour vanished but the distemper of the Brain was changed from its former state For the Vertigo wholly ceasing he became very forgetful and Paralytick in all his right side As to his Head being asked whether it was clear and free from the dizziness and confused Phantasms he answered that as to those things he never was better in his life For he well understood his infirmity knew his Friends and Relations and others who came to visit him but could hardly remember the names of any of them and when he began to talk of any thing he wanted words to express his mind Then as to his Distemper in his side in his right Arm and Leg there was not only a â—oosning wholly and a want of motion but in either there grew a great white waterish Tumor in so much that not only the Cure but his life was despaired of to be long prolonged yea the Magistracy and Offices which he held were sought for by others However I did not desist from my curatory work the most skilful Physician Doctor Wharton being called to my assistance Carefully administring to the sick by our joint counsels we prescribed solutive Pills to be taken at times and in Medicinal hours on other days Cephalick Antiscorbutick and Antiparalytick Remedies His head being shaven we ordered a Plaster of Gumms and Balsoms to be laid upon it and the loosened parts to be anointed with Oyls and Balsoms and to be strongly rubbed Whilst these things were doing with some success as to the greater clearness of his intellect I know not from what cause he fell into a Feavour in the midst of the Winter so that for several days and nights he grew extreamly hot with burning great thirst and interrupted sleep his tongue being scorch'd and having a white scurf his Pulse was high his Urine red and full of contents We abstained from Phlebotomy by reason of his Age and Palsie and especially because of the Dropsie begun in the distemper'd side but with a slender dyet prepared of Barly Broths and Grewel we order'd him day by day Iuleps Apozems and other Remedies moving Sweat and Urine and when about this time the Issues between his shoulders flowed very much the sick man began to grow better as to his Memory and Palsie and from thence profiting daily and by degrees growing well of both his distempers together with his Feavour he was restored to perfect health within a fortnight and is still living in health In this sick man there was a notable motion and a various change or translation of the Morbifick matter for what was at first in the middle part of the Brain viz. sitting on the Callous Body stirred up the cruel Vertigo the same afterwards increased and as it is probable being further diffused into the infoldings of the Brain brought forgetfulness or oblivion to the former Distemper Then forasmuch as the same matter being moved by the Feavour and a little discussed falling partly on one of the streaked bodies brought the Palsie of one side and being partly expulsed into the compass of the Brain almost took away the Memory the Callous Body in the mean time obtaining a clearness and lastly it was not without the help of the other Feavour that the Morbifick matter being discussed from these two last nests was wholly carried away the sick being restored to health Lately being tired out with the continual complaints of a certain man troubled with the Vertigo after many other Remedies tried in vain I prescribed at length that for the space of a month he should take daily twice a day about a spoonful of the following Powder drinking after it a draught of the Decoction of Sage or Rosemary impregnated with the Tincture of Coffee Take of the Powder of the Roots of the male Poeony two ounces of the Flowers of the same bruised and dryed in the Sun one ounce of the whitest dung of the Peacock half a pound of white Sugar two ounces make a Powder It is scarce credible how much help he received from this Remedy visiting me after a month he seem'd a new and another man being freed of the Vertigo he not only confidently walked about but was able to take care of his houshold affairs and to meddle with any hard business which he was not able to do before CHAP. VIII Of the Apoplexy As the seat of the Vertigo so also of the Apoplexy seems to be within the same more inward cloyster of the Brain viz. the Callous Body to wit because in either Distemper although in a far different degree the imagination and the common sense are affected viz. in the first the irradiation of the Spirits is wont to be obscured in some places and as it were broken with interspersed shades but in the latter the
as Powder of Coral and Pearl black Cherry Water or Water of Cowslip Flowers or Poppy Water and others sweetning and cherishing the spirits These being thus premised concerning the first and most light manner of foolishness or talking idly we will proceed to its higher degree viz. the Phrensie which is far longer and more durable than the former Distemper In the Delirium a perturbation of the Spirits inhabiting of the Brain being excited is like a waving of waters from a stone flung into a River but in a Phrensie their commotion seems as it were the storm of waters raging in a tempest The Phrensie is defined to be a continual dotage or deprivation of the principal faculties of the Brain arising from an Inflammation of the Meninges with a continual Feavour To this Disease there is another of kin viz. the Paraphrensie commonly called or additional Phrensie whose cause is not an inflammation of the Membranes which cover the Head but as they affirm of the Diaphragma Further in either Distemper as also in the Pleurisie but falsly it is affirmed that the Feavour doth arise as it were only symptomatical from the same conjunct cause viz. from the Inflammation of some part But indeed that the Phrensie doth rather succeed the Feavour and is produced because the boiling blood doth transfer its adust or burnt recrements to the Head Hippocrates long since and now every common body observes to wit for that the Urine of one sick of a Feavour being changed from a troubled and thick into a thin and waterish Urine shews a Phrensie at hand Wherefore from hence the cause of this Distemper is concluded to be a translation of the Feavourish matter into the Brain But as to the conjunct causes of the Phrensie and Paraphrenesis we may easily shew that the former doth not always proceed from the Inflammation of the Meninges nor this latter from the Inflammation of the Midriff I have often seen in Anatomical Dissections the Meninges yea sometimes also the exterior compass of the Brain beset with an inflamed tumor and the sick not distemper'd with a Phrensie but on the contrary with a stupidity and have dyed with a Carus or some other sleepy Diseases And truly that it is so reason plainly declares for the Meninges being inflamed and by that made more tumid press together the Brain very much and about its compass shut up the ways and passages of the Spirits so that the functions of waking and memory being hindred the Lethargy as it appears de facto necessarily follows Nothwithstanding far otherways in the Phrensie all the passages and Pores of the Brain for the excursions of the Spirits seem to be too largely open because the Images hidden or laid up are raised all at once out of the utmost and all the places of the memory which together with others suggested from the Phantasie to the common sensory tumultuously bring forth such manifold and highly confused notions There is only wanting to the sensitive soul for its expansion to be straitned or loosened within the Head which certainly the inflammation of the Meninges would effect rather than that it should be dilated above measure and that all the Pores of the Brain should be unlocked and carried beyond its wonted compass Perhaps it may happen from a long continuance of this Disease that the Blood being greatly heaped up within the Vessels of the Meninges and there stagnating that it may at length bring forth an Inflammation in them and then for that reason we may suspect because it often so falls out that the Phrensie doth pass into the Carus or Lethargy of which phrensical persons often dye No less do we reject the Inflammation of the Diaphragma which cause of the Paraphrenesis Galen in times past and moved by this authority most Physicians in every age since asserted Anatomical observations plainly prove the contrary Some time since dissecting the dead Carcase of a Maid dying of a sudden Leipothymy or swooning away we found in the fleshy part of the Diaphragma a great Imposthume with a bag full of filthy matter and watery little bladders yet she was not troubled ever with a Delirium or Phrensie Some time since also when we had made an Anatomical Inspection of a Gentleman of the University of whom we have made mention in a late Tract who dyed of a long spurious Pleurisie it manifestly appeared that a great Imposthume being ripened in the Pleura and the intercostal Muscles and broke inwardly that a vast plenty of matter had flowed forth into the cavity of the Thorax which gnawing the Diaphragma lying under had made a great hole in it nor was this man however in all his sickness Delirious or Frantick Wherefore I think this Distemper scarce ever to be produced from such a cause but that opinion seems to arise from hence because oftentimes in a true Phrensie together with a continual raving the motion of the Diaphragma is wont to be hindred or perverted as is gathered from the unequal and difficult breathing to wit sometimes anhelous or breathing short and as it were suspended sometimes short and swiftly repeated with sometimes a double breathing which kind of symptoms and also at the same time the alienation of the mind are said to proceed from the Midriff being inflamed and for that reason convulsed wherefore the Ancients called the Diphragma Phrenes But there was no need for this if they had consider'd that the whole action of the Diaphragma doth depend upon the flowing forth of the Animal Spirits from the Cerebel and therefore there is a necessity if the Phrenetick matter invading the Brain some part of it should with it rush into the Cerebel that besides the raving the motion also of the Midriff though of it self innocent should be altered as we have shewed elsewhere more largely Therefore the formal reason of the Phrensie seems to consist in this that the Animal Spirits being at first very much irritated in the whole Brain are driven into inordinate very confused and also impetuous motions so that the acts of every Animal Function are depraved and variously perverted and at the same time very many Ideas of things being raised up out of the memory the old are confounded with the new and some evilly joined or wonderfully divided are confounded with others the imagination suggests manifold Phantasms and almost innumerable and all of them only incongruous and the common sensory represents the images of sensible things distorted double or incoherent that hence the mind and the will choose or pick out nothing but ridiculous and impertinent conceptions and passions and cause the actions of the body to become almost only irregular Moreover the spirits being struck as it were with madness tumultuate not only in the Brain but also in the Cerebel and every where in the nervous Stock wherefore Frantick people not only talk idly but breath unequally speak aloud strike with their fists fling about their hands
Reins appeared most sound and firm but the right Kidney was almost consumed a small heap of the Glandâ—la's being only left all the Vessels and the Vreter being joined together and wholly shut up so that no Urine at all had passed there of a long time The left Kidney being large enough contained within the cavity and its passages a great heap of Sand or Gravel and little Stones besides there was a round hard and whitish stone fallen into the Vreter three inches deep and there fixed and had wholly shut out the passage of the water the Membrane of the Vreter where the Stone stuck was become so thick and callous and so free from pain that here it could by no means be moved either upwards or downwards It seems in this case that when the coagulated Particles of the Blood and nervous juice to wit the Saline fixed and the Acetous meeting together at first in the Reins did stir up for a while the Distemper of the Stone afterwards by the use of the abovesaid Powder the saline Particles being still thrust forward into the habit of the Body and not easily rendred heaped together the Goutish seed plot in the Joints the Reins being in the mean time free But at length when by the drinking of his own Urine the saline Mine was brought back into the Reins the Disease of the Gout was changed into the mortal Disease of the Stone CHAP. XV. Of the Colick Passion IT has been mentioned in the former Chapter by what right we have referred this Disease among the Distempers of the Brain and nervous Stock to wit both in respect of the Symptoms urging which are pain and Convulsive motions as also from the reason of the cause by Charles Piso placed in the head and truly not improbably Concerning the word Colick from the Intestine called the Colon we shall not strive for that it is supposed though wrongfully to be chiefly affected in this Disease The Distemper may be described That it is an hauling or notable pulling of some parts of the Abdomen or the Belly from whence a very acute pain arises and with it for the most part a Vomiting as also Convulsions and Contractions almost of the whole Viscera of the Belly are wont to be joined And for that the Navil and its neighbouring parts are sometimes as it were with a Perforation or boring thorow drawn inwards and sometimes swell out with an inflation or blowing up and as it were with a great leaping forth the Intestines by an inverse motion of the Fibres are oftentimes pulled together upwards wherefore the Belly being extreamly bound together renders little or nothing yea although it be often provoked by Clysters it doth not easily part with its contents It appears clearly that the Ventricle with the Duodenum and the bladder of Gall are in like manner pulled by Vomiting and by the casting forth of great plenty of yellow or green Choler Sometimes the Vreters and the bladder of the Urine are so contracted that in all the fit the Urine is wholly suppressed or but very sparingly rendered Besides a Vertiginous Distemper of the Head frequently preceeds or follows the fits of this Disease yea the Colick growing worse and inveterate oftentimes causes pains in the outward members and at length ends in the Palsie Therefore forasmuch as very many parts are wont to labour in this Disease we shall inquire which is primarily affected and by what means the other suffer then what is the conjunct cause of the Disease in what place it subsists and from whence it draws its original As to the part primarily or first of all distemper'd though the Disease being urgent the whole region of the Belly is wont to be disturbed yet its primary seat ought to be placed where the pain chiefly infests and pertinaciously sticks But this by the consent of very many Physicians is said to be some where in the Gut Colon. Wherefore Celsus saith That the Colick is a Distemper of the greater Intestine which also reason seems to perswade something for whether the Morbific Matter is supposed to be heaped up in the Cavities of the Intestines or to be wholly fixed in their Membranes certainly there are extant deep little Cells in the folds of the Colon for its receptacles and thick coats of this Intestine in which the peccant humor may be deeply fastned But indeed this opinion to which we cannot easily assent as also the denomination of the Distemper seems to have grown in credit in the Schools of the Physicians from this only because we ordinarily observe that the Intestines enter into pains and torments being irritated by wind medicines Choler and perhaps other humors contained within their cavities hence as it is obvious may be inferred that the Colick pains do arise from the sharp and provocative contents of the Intestines and especially of the Colon. But if it were so without doubt those things which loosen the Belly and draw forth plentifully the wind and the dregs or Faces should give certain ease the contrary of which often happens to wit by some more violent or often Purging the Disease has grown worse Wherefore that the seat of this Disease and the nature of it may be truly known we ought first of all to distinguish here concerning the torments of the Belly or pains commonly esteemed for Colicks to wit these are either meerly occasional arising from a solitary evident cause and ordinarily happen without any previous disposition to some men and especially to those who being of a tender constitution have very sensible Fibres and Spirits quickly dissipated after this manner disagreeable or unwonted eating or drinking also medicines taking of cold and many other alterations about the six non-naturals oftentimes excite great perturbations with pains in the Viscera of the lower part of the Belly which kind of Distemper ought to be esteemed not the Disease but only Symptoms excited from a manifest cause But besides the Colick properly so called happens to some not only produced by an accidental cause but falling upon some men predisposed by a peculiar right depends wholly upon a foregoing cause ripened by degrees The more grievous fits of this Disease for the most part have their periods and observe the changes of the Air and Year further being excited they do not easily give place to any Remedies nor quickly pass over but notwithstanding the use of Fomentations and though the Belly be taken down very much by Clysters or Purging they oftentimes continue with great fierceness for many days and sometimes weeks The pains in every fit still repeat the same part and are followed with a concourse for the most part of other the like Symptoms But the pains of the Colick though they have not the same seâ—â— in all but sometimes exercise their cruelties under the Ventricle sometimes about the Navel or the Hypochondria and sometimes in the lower part of the Belly or about
the Loins yet as often as they are repeated in the same sick person they mostly observe the same nest For the unfolding the Aetiology of this Disease it is not enough to affirm that the Intestines are pulled either by their sharp contents or irritated by the Blood and other humors poured into them and breaking the continuity For as to the former it is extreamly improbable that the Bile or Choler or Phlegm or the Pancreatick Juice or any other simple humor or growing hot or fermenting with others should be able to excite such fixed cruel and long continuing pains Besides because the Intestines being besmeared with their own dung cannot be easily pricked by the Contents though sharp nor are they wont to be exasperated by them insomuch that the sharpest stools which oftentimes fetch off the skin at the Fundament very little trouble or not at all the passages of the Guts further these being grievously provoked whatever is troublesome contained in their cavity is easily shaken forth and either by driving it forward upwards or downwards is quickly thrust forth as is plainly perceived in the Disease of the Choler and other Dysentrick Distempers nor indeed is there almost any loading of these provoking the Membranes and stirring up pains which may not be exterminated or carried forth of doors by one purge or other Then secondly as to what respects the suffusions of the Blood or Serum within the coats of the Intestines by which an Inflammation or painful Tumors are excited Indeed we grant that sometimes it may so come to pass yea I have known it by ocular inspection but from thence we have observed not the Colick but the Iliack passion to have been excited For when I have opened several dying of the Iliack passion I found almost in all that the cause of the Disease and of their Death was an Inflammation or Ulcer of some Intestine neither is this any wonder because a Solution of the continuity in a very tender and highly sensible Membrance doth stir up Convulsions and painful Corrugations or wrinklings together and so continual and cruel that therefore the Peristaltick motion of the distempered Intestine whereby the dung or dregs of the Belly are carried forward toward the Anum or Arse-Gut should be hindred and wholly inverted Therefore that we may thorowly inquire out both the Matter and Mine as also the seats and the ways of flowing to them of this Disease of the Colick by some other means it may deservedly be suspected that it is the nervous Juice and its Recrements and that the rather because this passion hath so intimate an agreement or consent with the other Distempers of the Brain and the nervous Stock as we have already shewed Charles Piso hath affirmed That as most distempers of the whole Body so also the pains of the Colick are excited by a Serous heap or deluge gathered together in the head and he contends that the seat of this Disease is neither in the coats nor cavities of the Intestines but in the Peritonaum or inner rim of the Belly and that the cause sticks wholly in the Brain near the original of the Nerves To wit he supposes which he saith he hath found by Anatomical observation The serosities laid up in the hinder region of the Brain to beset the little heads of the Nerves of the wandring pair and so some of the utmost branches and shoots of them inserted into the Peritonaeum or inner rim of the Belly by the Caul to move into Convulsions and from the contraction or drawing together of this most cruel pains both in it and in the underlying Viscera as it were breaking them to pieces to be excited For the proof of this opinion he brings an example of a certain man dissected being dead of a most grievous fit of the Colick in whom the hinder region of the head near the Cerebel was so much drowned with a clear water as also the nervous original of the wandring pair that the marrowy substance appeared very much moistened like wet Paper Sect. 4. Chap. 2. But indeed though we should grant that the Colick should arise from the humor of the Brain and from the default of that watering the nervous parts yet we think that this painful passion is excited not after that manner as this Author has laid down Because we think neither the seat of this Disease to subsist in the Peritonaeum nor its primary cause to be within the head For as to this although the Morbifick matter being heaped up in the head near the origine of the Nerves doth sometimes produce in the parts at a great distance Numnesses Cramps and Convulsive motions as we have elsewhere shewn by many instances with the reasons of the Distemper yet it is much otherwise in a very cruel pain such as the Colick is wont to be For as to this being excited which always proceeds from a breach of the continuity it is required that the dolorifick cause or improportionate object should be fixed in the distemper'd member itself or at least a certain part or portion of it Neither is it sufficient to say that the Convulsion proceeds from a remote cause and so the pain from the Convulsions For although pain oftentimes doth produce Convulsive motions yet these do not produce pain of themselves at least great and continuing long Wherefore in the pain of the Colick the matter drawing asunder the sensitive Fibres and pulling them one from another and so provoking them into painful Corrugations or wrinklings doth not still stay in the Brain but descending from thence thorow the nervous passages towards the Intestines seems to be heaped up somewhere in their neighbourhood nigh to the pained parts and there either growing turgid or swelling up by reason of their fulness or growing hot with some other humor do bring in the fits of this Disease We indeed reject the Mine of the Colick from the Peritonaeum because this Membrane being very thin and gifted but with very few and only small Vessels is neither capable of any great affluxions of Humors neither can it self though pulled together be able to urge the Viscera lying under it into pains by compressing or drawing them together But the Morbific matter being slid down from the Head by the Nerves into the Belly finds very convenient nests in the Mesentery in which very many and great Nerves have there their noted infoldings and distributions Wherefore as this part is very sensible and very much obnoxious to the flowings in of the humors of the nervous Stock it may be deservedly affirmed to be the seat of this Disease of the Colick We have shewn formerly the causes of some Convulsive motions in the Abdomen which are commonly called Hysterical to lye hid in the Mesenterick Infoldings moreover in the same places we did then assert That the Colick pains had sometimes their nests and confirmed it sufficiently by Anatomical observation But
the second enunciation 39. how little the Brutes Soul can do in respect of man 40. Authors for two distinct Souls in man ibid. which reason also dictates 41. the rational does not exercise the Animal faculties nor obliterate the sensitive by its coming nor transmute it into a mere power ibid. by what bond united to the Body ibid. the corporeal its subject ibid. created and poured into the formed Body not propagated extraduce 42. plurality of Souls in man manifested by their differences ibid. the rational of it self without affections and how it governs and orders them and the Phantasy 43. in things to be known the corporeal obeys it but not in things to be done and inclining it self to the flesh fights against it ibid. how 't is reduc'd to obedience ibid. it oft seduces the mind ibid. it s twofold state 45. its lucid part feels or perceives the impulse of all objects and is moved by them 56. after what manner the corporeal Soul is affected in Melancholy and Madness 191 Spirits their distinct offices in various provinces c. 24 25. how they receive sensible species so very divers 57. the Animal the immediate subject of Sleep 87. for what causes they lye down of their own accord 89. compell'd into sleep by Narcoticks 90. their penury perswades to sleep ibid. the distemper of the Animal Spirits being after a diverse manner as it is the cause of the Phrensy so it is of Melancholy Madness and Stupidity 188 compared to light they are opacous or full of darkness 189. these kind of Spirits in Melancholy compared to those in Chymical Liquors for they are not like the Spirits of Blood as they should be nor the Spirits of Wine for such are rather in the Phrensy but like acid Spirits distâ—â—â—â—d out of Salt Vinegar c. ibid. Stygian Waters like the Animal Spirits in Madness ibid. three chief affections of acetous Chymical Liquors which agree with the Animal Spirits in Melancholy 191. after the Animal Spirits in Melancholy being for some time vitiated the conformation of the Brain is also hurt ibid. how the Animal Spirits acquire a disposition like to Stygian Water 202. the original of Madness either from the Spirits themselves or from the Blood 203. it begins from the Spirits for two occasions ibid. Squinting whence it comes 82 Stupidity arises chiefly from the failing of the imagination and memory 209. wherefore the Organs of these faculties labour in this Disease ibid. chiefly the Brain first as to magnitude and by reason of figure ibid. as to substance or texture 210. its evil conformatiâ—â— as to its pores and passages whence Stupidity sometimes proceeds from both of them being in fault together ibid. what the antecedent causes of foolishness are ibid. ripeness and the declination of Age dispose some to foolishness 211 great hurts of the head sometimes cause dâ—ting or want of ingenuity ibid. and frequent Drunkenness ibid. and vehement affections ibid. and the more grievous Diseases of the head ibid. the differences of this Disease 212. how Foolishness and Stupidity differ ibid. Stupidity its degrees ibid. the prognostick ibid. if from an hurt of the head evil ibid. if excited from a Lethargy it admits of Cure ibid. sometimes 't is cur'd by a Fever ibid. the Cure requires both a Master and a Physician 213. what the Labour of the former ought to be ibid. what the Medical intentions are ibid. what kinds of remedies are shown ibid. T. TAngible species immediately carried either to the cerebel or to the stroaked Bodies 61. and from thence go forward sometimes to the other faculties ibid. Taste of kin to feeling c. 62 63 Tears their matter 80 Touch the same Nerves are observ'd to serve for its sense and motion 63 V. VEnus an enemy to the Brain and Nerves 55. necessary to the preserving of the individual 62 Vertigo its seat 145. a description of it ibid. the causes and manner of an unnatural one ibid. why looking down from on high and passing over Bridges cause it 146. how Drunkenness causes it ibid. from what causes the preternatural one is wont to be excited ibid. sometimes 't is a symptome of other cephalick Diseases sometimes 't is excited by reason of the distemper of other distant parts viz. from the Stomach Spleen c. 146 147. not by reason of Vapors elevated from these parts 147. its immediate subject is the Animal Spirits ibid. it s formal reason ibid. it s conjunct cause 148. is seen by things helpful and hurtful ibid. the more remote foregoing cause ibid. the differences of this Disease ibid. its prognosticks 149. the Cure ibid. the curatory method shown 150. why vomiting Medicines are so much noted in this and other Diseases of the head ibid. what is to be done out of the Fit for prevention sake ibid. cases and examples of the sick in three Histories and the reason of the case of the second History described 151 152 Vices of the Brain noted 148 W. IN Waking the Spirits inhabiting the cerebel are disturbed with the Spirits of the other Regiment 93. why those being disturb'd perform their offices better whilst these lye quiet in sleep ibid. a double consideration of waking 95 Long Waking of two sorts 't is either the symptom of other Diseases or a Disease it self 138. how many ways the unquiet or elastick Spirits stir it up 139. its causes assign'd ibid. its Cure and History ibid. Natural Waking its cause consists in the restlesness of the Spirits and the openness of the cortical part of the Brain 138 Want or paucity of the Spirits oftentimes the cause of the spurious Palsie 166 Watching preternatural depends either upon the restlesness of the Spirits or the openness of the cortical part of the Brain 139 Weeping its causes and the manner of its being made described 80. wherefore a bewailing is oftentimes joyned with weeping ibid. wherefore it comes from sudden joy 81. why mankind only or chiefly weep ibid. Wise and strong men why not always begotten of wise and strong men 210 Withering or blasting of Trees like the Palsie 164 FINIS Advertisement DOctor Willis's Practice of Physick being all the Medical Works of that Renowned and Famous Physician Containing these Ten Treatises following viz. I. Of Fermentation II. Of Feavers III. Of Urines IV. Of the Accension of the Blood V. Of Musculary Motion VI. Of the Anatomy of the Brain VII Of the Description and Use of the Nerves VIII Of Convulsive Diseases IX Pharmaceutice Rationalis the first and second Part. X. Of the Scurvey Wherein most of the Diseases belonging to the Body of Man are treated of with excellent Methods and Receipts for the Cure of the same Fitted to the meanest Capacity by an Index for the explaining of all the hard and unusual Words and Terms of Art derived from the Greek Latin or other Languages for the benefit of the English Reader With a large Alphabetical Table to the whole With Thirty Copper Plates Done into English
what Causes the Blood is wont to be moved and to bring 〈◊〉 to the distempered Head The Blood delivers to the head the morbific matter received from any other part A Flux of the Serum sometimes from meer fullness Sometimes from other Causes Sometimes the watry humor suffering a flux offends the Head Hence in those that have the Headach as in Convulsive Diseases there is often a clear and copious Vrine The recrements of other parts often carried violently to the head with the Serum The evacuation of the Serum thorow its right ways being suppressed brings its flux to the Head 3 The nutritious juice sometimes the cause of the Headach either 1 Because it is carried with the Blood into the Head 2 Because not being agreeable to the blood it stirs up its effervescency Sometimes the evident causes of the Headach are Convulsions somewhere begun and continued by the passage of the nerves into the Head Convulsions beginning after off are sometimes signs of an Headach shortly to follow Sometimes also the cause of it Coâ—vniâ—â—â—e Headaches seem to arise so from the Viâ—â—era not from Vapours But this sympathetick Distemper perâ—â—ps proceeds elâ—ewhere by reason of an evil ferment communicated to the blood So sometimes it seems to be caused from the Ventricle The Head and the Stomach intimately conspire and mutually affect one another 2 How the Head-ach seems to arise from the Spleen The like reason is for this Disease arising from the Liver Mesentery or Womb. The kinds of habitual Headach are noted It is either Continual â— Intermitting The Fits of the intermitting either periodical or certain â—â— iâ—certain and wandring The prognostick of the 〈…〉 is â—asie or diffiâ—â—lt to secured also the 〈◊〉 of the Disease safe or dangerous By what signs we may pronounce it safe and easie to be cured By what difficult By what scarce possiâ—le By what dangerous Accidental Headach easily cured The habitual affords more indications Two chief scopes of Cure 1 To cut in two the Bed â—â— Root of the Disease 2 To root out the Conjunct Cause The â—â—st or Tinder of the Disease the blood serum nourishing juice nervous Liquor and the Recrements caried thorow the Blood How the inordinations of the Blood may be taken away and prevented The pain of the Head from the serous heap â—ow to be cured Phlebotomy Purges Pills Purging Powders An emetick Powder An Apozem A decoction of woods A Cephalick Decoction impregâ—ated with the Tincture of Coffee Tâ—e Headach from other barious mixt with the serum how to be cured The Headach arising from any Inward how to be cured Rais'd up from the fault of the nourishing Iuice how to he handled Frequently follows the Small Pox and Measles Easily cured An Electuary A Iulep Antiscorbutick Remedies good for it The Headach raised up from the vice of the nervous humour how to be cured It s fault either private or particular Or universal and then letting of blood or stronger Purges are not convenient Remedies called Cephalicks proper here Of which sort are these which are convenient in Disâ—ases of the Brain and in these kind of Headaches A great many of these every where to be found in Physical Books An Electuary Iulep A distilled Water Tablets Tinctures Spirits The use of millepedes notably helps The other part of the conjunct Cause consisting in the weakness or evil conformation of the distempered part how to be handled We are not to despair of the Cure Here those Medicines are only profitable that cut off the inkindling or root of the Disease Chyrurgical Remedies chiefly help here of which are 1. Plasters Medicines raising Whelks and Blisters Liniments Fomentations and Bathings help not An Embrocation or a dipping of the head in cold water oftentimes helps Issues Issues made upon or near the distempered place help little The opening of the Skull cry'd up by many but rarely or never attempted Whether salivation in inveterate Headaches without any suspicion of the Venereal Disease ought to be administred The means and manner of salivation by Mercury unfolded Salivation not always safe wherefore to be suspected in Headaches What the cutting of the Artery may profit in this Disease Nevertheless in this Distemper it is often helpful and by what means is shown Farriers use the like practice And perhaps it may be convenient for the curing of strumous or running humours such as the Kings Evil. The History of a continual and a deadly Head-ach A continual and inveterate Headach passing into a Lethargy A second History of an incurable Headach in a most noble Lady labouring with it for twenty years Remedies of every kind for the curing this Headach try'd in vain Conjectures concerning the reason of this cruel Disease A third History of a deadly continual Headach A conjecture concerning the reason of the Disease A fourth History of an Head-ach excited from a fiery Swelling or an Inflammation of the Meninges An History of an Headach raised up from an Impostâ—ume in the Meninges A continual Headach we always to be accounted incurable An intermitting Headach whose Fits are uncertain are so frequent that we need shew no instances of it The sixth History of a periodical intermitting Headach The Cure of the same The reason of this Case unfolded The seventh History of the same Distemper excited by the default of the nervous Liquor The Cure of it The reason of the Case unfolded An Instance of an intermitting Headach which seem'd to be excited from the womb The eighth History of an intermitting Headach seeming to aâ—ise from the Stomach A reason of this Case delivered The like reason is for other Headaches seeming to arise from the Spleen Liver Mesentery c. The Seat of the Lethargy is the same with that of Sleep and Memory to wit about the Shell of the Brain By this name both the Fits of the Lethargy are called And also the soporiferous disposition or Sleepiness Of which there are various kinds The continual Sleepiness the Coma c. In every Lethargick Distemper there is an excess of Sleep and a defect of Memory The essence and causes of natural and non-natural Sleep rehearsed The causes of preternatural Sleep are An infartion or obstruction of the outward part of the Brain and a recess of the Spirits from thence Sometimes this sometimes that is the cause The Lethargy oftentimes from the serous heap overflowing the outward part of the Brain And sometimes from a Dropsiâ— of the whole Brain Not only a plenty of humour but the malignity often causes this Disease The proâ—atarctick causes of the Lethargy In what respect they are in fault Both the Blood begetting evil humours and sending them to the Brain and the Brain too easily receiving them Vpon what occasions the Brain is prone to the Lethargy The evident causes of this Disease Another conjunct cause of the Lethargy consists in the afflicting the Spirits with some narcotick How opiates causes Sleep How they operate in the Ventricle 〈…〉
what meaâ—â— in the Brain The History of one presently kill'd by taking too large a Dose of Opium Sometimes a Lethargy arises from Narcotick Particles begotten in the Body Even as Convulsions from a nitro-sulphureous or explosive matter What things belong to the Theory of the Lethargy Its symptoms The chief of which are a sleepiness and oblivion By what means the other faculties of the Soul to wit the knowing desiring and locomotive are affected The evil of the Disease reaches also to the Cerebel Hence breathing is often hurt or altered This proceeds not from the Inflammation of the Midriff From whence the Lethargick Feaver Not from Phlegm putrifying in the Brain Nor is the former always the cause of it in the Lethargy Lib. de Morb. Convuls Cap. viij p. 96. More often the effect of this Disease proceeds from the Organical Circulation of the Blood being hindred or altered How none dyes without a Feaver The Prognostick of the Lethargy When the Disease is desperate When it is only so When some hope may be conceived From whence more hope may be had Whence more of hope than of fear A red Swelling coming upon a Lethargy sometimes cures it Lib. 9. of Convulsive Diseases The Cure of the Lethargy Phlebotomy almost always necessary Outward Administrations Internal Rememedies Iulep Spirits A Powder A Vomit or Purge How they are indicated When to be avoided Starification Catharticks Erthines Sneezing Powders and Apophlegmatisms c. A Blistering applyed to the Forepart of the Head very much helps The first History The reason of this A second History The third History The Cure described Sleepy Diseases do not arise by reason of the Ventricles of the Brain being filled with water The ends or limits of the Lithargy as to the places distempered are constituted Some sleepy Distempers lesser than that viz. Sleepiness and the Coma The Caros is greater than it Continual Sleepiness described It s Seat assigned In what respect it differs both from the Lethargy and the Coma. The conjunct cause of Sleepiness What the deluge or Anasarca of the Cortical part of the Brain is To which happen an heaping up or as it were a stagnation of the Blood about the compass of the Brain Also a Torpor or Sleepiness of the Spirits The Cure of Somnolency An History The 〈…〉 Sick 〈◊〉 The sleepy Coma. The reason of it The Coma is either a primary Disease or it comes after other Distempers The Cure of it when it is a Disease of it self The Cure of the Coma as it is the symptom of another Disease In Lib. Of Convulsive Diseases Chap. viij 3 Of the Caros How it differs from the Lethargy and the Apoplexy The Seat of the Caros is a little deeper in the Brain than that of the Lethargy It s Conjunct Cause The Caros is either a primary Disease or it cometh upon other Distempers The Prognostick of the Carus The event of this Disease is various sometimes it passes into an Apoplexy Sometimes into the Palsie It s Care is the same with the Lethargy and the Apoplexy The first History Another History Long Waking is either the symptom of other Diseases or else is a Disease of it self The cause of natural Waking consists in the restlessness of the Spirits and the openness of the Cortical part of the Brain In like manner also preternatural Watching depends upon one or both The former means described by shewing how many ways the unquiet or elastick Spirits stir up long waking First Because being recalled for Sleep into the middle part of the Brain they grow tumultuous Secondly Because being called back into the nervous Stock they impetuously leap forth And so either into the interior Nerves serving the Praecordia and Viscera Or into the Spinal Marrow and the exterior Nerves The causes of the aforesaid Distempers assigned The Cure of them declared The second sort of thorow or long waking arising both from the too much openness of the Brain and from the unquietness of the Spirits its foreleading Cause Which also causes waking in Melancholick People For the same reason Coffee causes waking An History shewing an example of this Disease A description of the waking Coma The cause of this Distemper shewn It is more often a symptom of other Distempers than a Disease of it self The Seat of the Incubus is in the Cerebel A Description of it It most often proceeds from natural causes The Seat of this is falsly placed in the Brain The Praecordia truly labour The cause doth not stick partly in the Brain and partly in the Breast The next cause of this is the hindrance of the inflowing of the Spirits to the Praecordia This not in the Parts affected Nor in the Nerves themselves But happens in the Cerebel where the first Spring of the Spirits is From whence the sense of the Weight proceeds Whence loss of motion proceeds Wherefore the fit being so grievous is so soon ended without leaving any evil Whence after the Fit the tremblings of the Heart and the Praecordia The Incubus of it self rarely dangerous The Prognostick of the Incubus The Event of it is shewn It s Cure Infants and Boys obnoxious to this Disease how they ought to be handled The Stat of the Vertigo A Description of it The Causes and the Manner of the non-natural Vertigo The Reasons of them shewn Why looking down from on high and passing over Bridges cause a turning round in the Head How Drunkenness A perturbation of the Spirits in the Brain and a revocation of them from their flowing into the Nerves depend mutually on one another From what causes the preternatural Vertigo is wont to be excited Sometimes the Vertigo is a symptom of other Cephalick Diseases Sometimes it is excited by reason of the Distemper of other distant parts viz. from the stomach spleen c. and so by two means 1. Either by reason of the Flood of the Blood being kept back 2 Or by reason of an inordinate recourse or flowing back of the Spirits towards the Brain Not by reason of vapours elevated from these parts is it excited The immediate Subject of the Vertigo is the Animal Spirits The mediate the Callous Body It s formal reason It s Conjunct Cause 1 From the perturbation of the Spirits 2 From their ways or passages being obstructed This is seen by things helpful and hurtful The more remote foregoing cause of the Vertigo consists both in the vice of the Bloud and of the Brain The Reason of the former explained The vices of the Brain noted The differences of this Disease It s Prognostick The Cure of the Vertigo There are three chief intentions of healing 1 To take away the root or feeding of the Disease 2 To remove the procatartick causes 3 To take away the Conjunct Cause The Curatory Method as shewn Why vomiting Medicines are so much noted in this and other Diseases of the Head What is to be done out of the Fit for prevention sake Electuary A
propagate its Species or produce other Souls for which end it Continually lays up from its provision an incentive matter and Continually desires to expose it to an inkindling It is natural for every Animal without guide or example to take its proper food and to Swallow it down both that the web of the Body being daily increased might grow to its due magnitude and also that the Soul as it were its woof being daily supplyed with new plenty of Spirits may be able to be Coextended or stretched forth equally with the Body and able to perform lively the Acts of its Functions Then assoon as the Lineaments both of the Body and the Soul being sufficiently drawn forth and the Compass and Bulk of each Compleated some Animal Spirits superfluous from the individual work begin to abound and so seperate into the genital parts with a Subtil humour picked from the whole Body as it were into a Store-house destinated for the propagating the Species and there being lay'd up forme the Idea of the Animal which afterwards is transferred into a fit Matrix for to be perfectly formed The genital Humour is not as Hippocrates formerly taught and as now commonly believed carried from the Brain into the Spermatick Vessels for no peculiar passages lye between that and these Bodies far remote but without doubt the bloody mass it self sends its most noble part into the Genitals as well as into the Brain Wherefore when as there are no Nerves that reach to the Testicles and that there are noted Arteries sent and admirably made thorow wandering Passages and frequent engraftings of the Veins to wit for that End that they may carry the most pure flower of the Blood as it were thorow the winding Chanels of an Alembick distilled by a long passage and so wrought and made most highly subtil into those parts what is superfluous of this or less clarified the Veins do not only receive and carry back but also because from the much Spirit a great quantity of Serous water which serves always for its Vehicle abounds therefore the Water-Carryers are produced in these parts abundantly more than in any others But that a great loss of the genital Humor doth hurt very much the Brain and the Nerves and bring to them a notable debility the reason is because the blood as it makes up the losses of the seed destinated for the propagating its Species carries thither and bestows whatsoever is most precious of its own in the mean time as the Brain is defrauded of its due provision by the great plenty of Spirits being carried into the Spermatic Bodies yea as the blood is not able sufficiently to impart to the Genitals out of its proper store it remands or snatches its Tribute from the Brain and other parts that it might be there bestowed so that not seldom the strength of the whole Soul and Body is consumed on the mad insatiate fulfilling of Lust or Venus and in these desires everyone or the unskilful complains of Flames and feels the blood not only to flame forth but a greater fire increasing to make hot the marrow yea oftentimes it is known to burn up the Flesh Inwards and Bones and to reduce them to a rottenness As to that most quick and Intimate Commerce of the brain with the genital Members for as much as the Venerian imagination Causes presently an insurrection in these parts and on the other side a swelling up of the seminal humor stirs up the Venerial Imagination the Cause is not an Instinct thorow the private passages of the Nerves which are wholly wanting reciprocated from this to that but because for the Act of Generation greatly necessary and performed with a most vehement Affection one part of the soul by it self or one part after another is not moved but the whole Hypostasis together and on a sudden and is inclined or snatched towards the Genitals hence every most light incentives of Lust are most swiftly powred forth thorow the universal parts of the Soul fiery of themselves and Extreamly perclive or apt for such fires Whilst this Corporeal Soul being inkindled like flame in the animated Body on every side diffuseth Heat and Light we may take notice of its various tremblings shakeings inequalities and irregular Commotions these sorts of Irregularities to be observed concerning the phasis or appearance of this Soul of which we treat tho they are more perspicuous in Man than in Brute Animals yet they altogether respect the inferiour Soul of Man which is Common to him with the Brute Animals But that we may briefly handle some of these Affections of the Corporeal Soul first it is to be noted that its flame does not always flame forth equally For besides that its food is sometimes afforded more plentifully and too sulphureous sometimes more thinly and less inflameable so that the Flame is inlarged or Contracted its accension also in the praecordia tho of it self moderate and equal is wont to be variously shaken by the fanning of Passions so that it is carried sorth sometimes into an Excessive burning as from Anger and Indignation sometimes this vital flame is in danger to be always blown out as by sudden Joy and another time almost suffocated as by sudden fear or sadness In like manner the Systasis or Constitution of the Soul from the rest of the Affections being exposed as flame to the winds is diversly changed in its appearance as will more clearly appear when we shall speak particularly of its Affections Nor do these sorts of Inordinations only proceed from the sudden impulses of Passions but sometimes the Vital flame habitually becomes decayed weak and as it is were half exstinct as by intemperate Cold and also as is observed in the phlegmatick diseaâ—e the dropsie longing of maids and other diseases in whom the Blood being too watery like moist and green wood sends forth but a small and inconstant flame and almost overwhelm'd with fume and vapour But sometimes the bloody Liquor being more sulphureous than it ought is almost wholy inkindled as happens in a Choleric Complexion and in an intemperate Feavor According to either of these hights as the inkindling of the vital flame is altered so the lucid particles which flow from it to wit the beamie texture of the Animal spirits diversly shines and breaths forths from the decayed or bound up inkindling of the Blood the sphear of the sensitive soul is seen to be straitned and to be drawn in within the limit of the Body and to be immerged or sunk down so that it doth not sufficiently actuate or illustrate the whole frame of the Brain and its Appendix On the Contrary when the Vital Fire is very strong so it doth not burn forth too much and feavourishly the Constitution of the Animal Spirits being made greater in it self is much inlarged forth far beyond the Compass of the Body so that any one exulting for Joy
parts or particles But as soon as they have taken flame from some incentive being put to it by and by their Particles being rapidly moved and as it were animated produce a shining with Heat and Light and not only make light all about them but Create innumerable Images of all things that are seated near them and thickly object them on every side In like manner the Vital humour in an Egg remains torpid and sluggish in the beginning and like to unkindled matter but as soon as it is actuated from the Soul being raised up presently like an inkindled fire it excites Life with Motion and Sense and in the more perfect Creatures with heat Further the Animal Spirits as Rays of Light proceeding from this Fire are Configured according to the Impressions of every of their Objects and what is more as it were meeting together with reflected irradiations cause divers manner of motions Then what is vulgarly delivered that Matter out of which Natural things are made is meerly passive and cannot be moved unless it be moved by another thing is not true but rather on the contrary Atoms which are the matter of sublunary things are so very active and self-moving that they never stay long but ordinarily stray out of one subject into another or being shut up in the same they cut forth for themselves Pores and Passages into which they are Expatiated Yet it may be argued That if the Soul of the Brute be Composed out of these whilst the same is Extended and is Corporeal it cannot perceive For it admits the Species of the Object into its whole self or into some part of it self not the first because then neither the Senses would be distinguished one from another nor any of them by a perception or common sensation of these But if as indeed it is it shall be said that all the sensible Species being received by appropriated Sensories to a certain part of the Soul to wit the first or common Sensory where they are perceived Then it may be again objected That so manifold and divers Species or Images of sensible things which at once are Conceived from Objects cannot be painted forth in a certain small part of the Brain but that some should obliterate or blot out or at least Confound others I say none ought to wonder who hath beheld the Objects of the whole Hemisphere admitted thorow an hole into a dark Chamber and there on a sudden upon Paper exactly drawn forth as if done by the Pencil of an Artist Why then may not also the Spirits even as the Rays of light frame by a swift Configuration the Images or Forms of things and exhibit them without any Confusion or Obscuring of the Species But yet tho it be granted That the Images of sensible things are represented in a certain part of the Soul to wit actuating the Brain it self to which there happens a most speedy Communication with the whole and also with the several Parts however we are yet to inquire of what Kind of power that is which sees and knows such like Images there delineated and also according to those Impressions there received chooseth Appetites and the respective Acts of the other Faculties That we may go on to Philosophize concerning this matter I profess indeed whilst I consider the Soul and the Body to wit either of them by it self and distinct I cannot readily detect in this or in that or in any material subject any thing to which may be attributed such a Power with a self-moving energy But indeed when I consider the animated Body made by an Excellent and truly Divine Workmanship for certain Ends and Uses nothing hinders me from saying That it is so framed by the Law of Creation or by the Institution of the most Great God that from the Soul and Body mixed together the same Kind of Confluence of the Faculties doth result by which it is needful for every Animal to the Ends and Uses destinated to it In most Mechanical things or those made by humane Art the Workmanship Excels the matter who would think there could be an Instrument made out of Iron or Brass being most fixed and sluggish Mettals whose Orbs like to those of the Celestial without any external Mover should observe almost continual motions the Periods of which being renewed at a constant turn or change should certainly shew the spaces of Time No Body admires that a rude and simple sound is given by wind blown into a Pipe but indeed by Wind sent into musical Organs and that being carryed variously thorow manifold openings of Doors into these or those pipes that it should create a most grateful Harmony and Composed Measures of every Kind this I say deservedly amazes us and we acknowledg this Effect far to Excel both the matter of the Instrument and of the hand of the Musitian striking it Further altho the Musical Organ very much requires the labour of him playing on it by whose direction the spirit or wind being admitted now into these anon into those and into other Pipes causes the manifold harmony and almost infinite Varieties of Tunes yet sometimes I have seen such an Instrument so prepared that without any Musitian directing the little doors being shut up by a certain law and order by the mere Course of a Water almost the same harmony is made and the same tunes equal with those Composed by Art And indeed Man seems like to the former in which the rational Soul sustains the part of the Musitian playing on it which governing and directing the animal spirits disposes and orders at its pleasure the Faculties of the Inferior Soul But the Soul of the Brute being scarce moderatrix of its self or of its Faculties Institutes for Ends necessary for it self many series of Actions but those as it were tunes of harmony produced by a water Organ of another Kind regularly prescribed by a certain Rule or Law and almost always determinated to the same thing This indeed holds good concerning the more imperfect Brutes in whose Souls or Natures are inscribed the types or ways of the Actions to be performed by them which they rarely or never transgress or go beyond and that according to the vulgar saying in the Schools They do not so much act as are acted yet in some more perfect Brutes whose Actions are ordained to many and more noble Uses there are far more Original Types and to their Souls there ought to be attributed a certain faculty of Varying their Types and of Composing them in themselves for the Brutal Soul it self being so gifted naturally as she is Knowing and Active concerning some things necessary for it she is taught through Various Accidents by which she is wont to be daily affected to know afterwards other things and to perform many other and more intricate Actions But how all this may be done without calling an immaterial Soul into play to wit by what
Deliberation through innate faculties and acquired habits which truly if the whole be compared with the functions of the humane Intellect and its Scientifick Habits it will hardly seem greater than the drop of a Bucket to the Sea For to say nothing of that natural Logick by which any one endoued with a free and perspicacious mind probably and sometimes most certainly concludes Concerning all doubtfull things or things sought after if that we mind how much the humane mind being adorned by Learning and having learnt the Sciences and liberal Arts is able to work understand and search out it would be thought tho in an Humane Body to be rather living with Gods or Angels For indeed here may be Considered the whole Encyclopaedia or Circle of Arts and Sciences which excepting Divinity hath been the Product or Creature of the Humane Mind and indeed argues the Workman if not divine at least to be a particle of Divine Breath to wit a Spiritual Substance wonderfully Intelligent Immaterial and which therefore for the future is Immortal It would be tedious here to rehearse the Subtil Wiles of Logick and the extremely curious web of Notions or of the Reason of Essences or Beings where the things of Natural Philosophy being unfolded by their Causes are dissected as it were to the Life the most pleasant Speculations the profound Theorems or rather Celestial of the Metaphysicks or supernatural things yea and the grand Mysteries of other learning first found out by humane Industry But above the rest is it not truly amazing to see the most certain Demonstrations of the Mathematicks and therefore a-Kin and greatly alluding to the Humane Mind its Problems and Riddles how difficult soever to be extricated with no labour yea and many things of it attained and most glorious Inventions What is it below a Prodigy that Algebra from one Number or Dimension which at first was uncertain and unknown being placed should find out the quantity of another altogether unknown What shall I say concerning the Proportions of a Circle a Triangle a Quadrangle and other Figures and of their Sides or Angles variously measurable among themselves being most exactly computed what besides that the Humane Intellect having learnt the Precepts of Geometrie and Astronomie takes the spaces of inaccessible places and their heights the floor or breadth of any superficies and the contents of solids yea the dimensions of the whole Earthly Globe measures exactly the spaces of hours and days the times of the year the Tropicks by the progress only of a shadow yea it measures the Orbs Magnitudes and Distances of the Sun and Starrs for a long time to come Calculates and exactly Foretells their risings and settings motions declinations and Aspects one to another we should want time should we go about to enumerate the several portentous things either of the practice or speculation in the Mathematicks Then if passing over to Mechanical things We shall consider the several Works and Inventions of Workmen and the artificial Smiths-Works wonderfully made there will be no place for doubting but that the humane Soul which can so famously understand invent and find out and effect I had almost said Create things so stupendious must needs be far above the Brutal Immaterial and Immortal especially because Living Brutes obtain only a few and more simple Notions and Intentions of Acting yea and those always of the same Kind and not determinated but to one Thing altogether ignorant of the Causes of things and know not Rights or Laws of political Society further they make no Fires or Houses nor find out any mechanical Arts they put not on cloaths nor dress their food yea unless taught by Imitation they know not how to number Three When therefore we have plainly detected in Man besides the Corporeal Soul such as is Common with Brutes the prints of another superiour meerly spiritual we shall next seek out by what bond and by what necessitude these twins are conjoyned and intimately come together in the same Body Some of those who have shew'd the difference between the Souls of the Brute and of Man affirming the Irrational or Corporeal peculiar to them would have the Rational Soul of Man to perform not only the Offices of the Intellect and Discourse but also the other Offices of Sense and Life yea to do and administer the whole Oeconomy of Nature To which opinion however it may have prevailed in our Schools the opinions of most learned men of every Age has been clearly opposite That I may not be tedious in rehearsing of many I shall cite only two Authors but either of which is worth a Multitude in the Confutation of this Assertion One is that famous Philosopher Peter Gassendus who Physic. Sect. 3. lib. 9. Cap. 11. differencing the Mind of Man as much as he could from that other Sensitive Power of his by many and very remarquable notes of discrimination yea as 't is said in the Schools by Specifick Differences he has as they say divided the whole Heaven between Because when he had shewed this to be Corporeal Extensive and also Nascible or that may be born and Corruptible he saith that the other was an Incorporeal Substance and therefore Immortal which is Created mediately by God and infused into the Body which opinion he shews Pythagoras Plato Aristotle and many ancient Philosophers besides Epicurus very much to have favoured excepting however that they for as much as they not knowing the beginning of the Soul they judged Immortal affirmed it taken from the Soul of the world to slide into the humane Body and it to be refunded again either immediately into that Soul of the World or mediately at length after a Transmigration thorow other Bodies The other suffrage concerning this matter is of the most Learned Divine our Dr Hammond who unfolding that Text of St Paul to the Thessalonians 1 chap. 5. v. 23. The whole Body Soul and Spirit says that man is divided into three parts to wit First into the body which is the Flesh and Members Secondly Into an Animal Life which also being Animal and Sensitive is common to Man with the Brutes And Thirdly into Spirit by which is signified the rational Soul at first Created by God which being also Immortal returns to God Lib. Annot. on the New Testament p. 711. He Confirms this his Exposition by Testimonies taken from Ethnick Authors also from the Fathers And truly it is most evidently plain from what hath been said That Man is made as it were an Amphibious Animal or of a middle Nature and Order between Angels and Brutes and doth Communicate with both with these by the Corporeal Soul from the Vital Blood and heap of Animal Spirits and with those by an intelligent immaterial and immortal Soul And indeed Reason persuades us plainly that 't is so to wit for as much as we find in our selves as by and
Desire and then an inflowing being made into the appropriate Nerves into a Prosecution of the desired thing all this is performed without the Image of the Object increased by the Imagination also without any Perturbation known in the Praecordia or the Blood It is much otherwise concerning sensible Desires got by Custom for when as a Fruition once happens to the Spirits inhabiting this or that Sensory of a more pleasant Object having moderate things in Contempt afterwards desire the same and being not long Content therewith still aspire to others more pleasant so the Palate being accustomed to more delicate Victuals loaths every thing unless spiced Aliments and prepared with most exquisite Sawce In like manner may be observed concerning the Smelling Sight Hearing and other Sensitive Functions to wit that the Appetite proper to any of them for as much as it once exceeded what sufficed Nature is always carried to more excellent Objects and they for the most part only fresh the reason of this seems to be that the chief Pleasure of the Sensitive Soul consists in a more lively Motion and larger Expansion of the Spirits implanted in every part but such a Motion of them depends very much upon the Excellency also the Variety and Change of the Objects For whatsoever moderate or too familiar thing happens to the Spirits it little affects them for every motion supposes a Superior and a Virtue of the Object somewhat unlike to the Agent wherefore when any Object by daily use obtains a Similitude or Equality with the Spirits that is less apt to move them therefore that the Activity or the lively unfolding of the Spirits which is the Effectress of Pleasure may be continued a long time leaving the Fruition of every old and worn-out Good it always tends to new and more high things After this manner thô every Organ of Sense puts forth Desires peculiar and proper to themselves it reiterates them with a perpetual change but for as much as Objects applied through Corporeal Contact rather than by Effluvia affect more vehemently the Sensory therefore the greatest Company of Desires arising from the Sense are wont to be referred to Luxury or Lust. The Desires of the Spirits dwelling in the other Sensories for as much as they take only the Species or the little Bodies falling off from sensible things and less thick Embraces therefore they are more temperate and are often directed to better uses But our wants are chiefly Imaginary and proceed from Opinion and from hence a most plentiful Crop of Desires grows up For indeed every Man breaths after Felicity or after a certain Divine State wherefore it seeks very much things apparently Good which are said to Conduce to this State and endeavours to obtain them But having followed certain Goods it finds not the desired Satisfaction in them therefore it seems to want others and then again others So for as much as Men always tend to the highest Good or last end and that he attains it not in his life-time there is a Necessity of infinite Wishes and Desires concerning the intermediate Goods Hence it is that whatsoever another has yea whatsoever of Good the Phantasie can conceive or feign presently we believe we have need of it and therefore we desire it and wish for it So though there is an immense Company of Concupiscible things yet as most Men place their felicity in Riches or Honours hence the Chief Species of Desires arising from Opinion and therefore not to be satisfied are Covetousness and Ambition As to Aversion this Passion seems only to be the former inversed and in like manner to take its Original either from a certain Defect perceived by the Sense or taken from Opinion for a Sense or Opinion of want calls to either a declination of the same manner of State Wherefore when the Animal Spirits in the Sensories are deprived of the Enjoyment of a necessary Good or of what they were before accustomed to they either conceive or set before them the approach of its Contrary and these being very unquiet let go the Embraces of every present Object and set themselves to perform or enter into a new Confederation until either the Sense or the Opinion shall detect some apparent Good to the desire and following of which the same Spirits are busied And so Aversion being for the most part a Passion of it self Vain and quickly perishable terminates in the desire of Good that may supply the Defect so Carefully shun'd Having shown after this manner for what Causes and upon what Preparations or fore Occasions the Sensitive Soul enters into Passions of Desire and Aversion Let us now see after what manner or ways of Gesticulations or Gestures she is Composed in either Affection As to Desires begun from the Organs of the Senses it is observed that whil'st the Spirits there implanted are carried towards the absent Object all fruition being left they as it were naked and destitute of all helps like Beggars ask an Alms which as they most greedily desire as it were about to take by force that Good they exceed the limits of their Subject and oftentimes when the Desire is vehement almost the whole Soul is drawn into Parties and by a certain going out from the Body wanders towards the desired thing or at least emits a Portion of it self That it is so it plainly appears in that mad affection of Lust in which the genital Humor containing Fragments picked from the whole Soul is poured forth In like manner in a pleasant Sight Sweet Odor and most pleasing Harmony the Animal Spirits as it were lifted up role together out of the Sensories towards their Objects but on the contrary in Aversion they betake themselves inward and sometimes forsake the Sensories themselves As to desires excited by reason of the Opinion of want the Sensitive Soul being impatient of a Lot so poor becomes very instable and unquiet all the acquired Goods of its Body it neglects and disesteems also refuses to hearken to the dictates of Reason yea being altogether precipitate in desires she always looks outward and as it were with wings is ready to fly to this or that apparent Good hence by the disorder of the Spirits flying hither and thither the Nervous Parts are variously distracted and Men betray their desires by their Countenance and going also the Breast and the Praecordia being moved together the Blood like the Sea working with the winds is compelled into various Fluctuations that those affected sometimes grow Pale and sometimes are over-spread with redness also from the same Blood entring inequally and impetuously the Confines of the Brain succeed inconstancy of Judgment and frequent Changes of a thing proposed as sometimes they will do this anon that as if ten Minds were together by the Ears in one Man According to the aforesaid Characters or Scheams the Sensitive Soul is composed about absent Good and Evil and not
It is shewed elsewhere why the Eye-lids being affected at the approach of Sleep with a kind of heaviness or weight desire to be closed whether we will or no or thô we strive against it where we treat particularly of Sleeping and Waking There is nothing to be observed but what is Common concerning the Hairs of the Eye-lids and Eye-brows to wit these hairy Walls or Mounds like Ramparts are constituted with a double Series or row of noted Pallizadoes for the defence of the Eyes by which care is taken before-hand lest any troublesom things should unawares fall into the Eyes or lest that any thing should slide into them from the Head We will pass from the Eye-lids to the Glandula's or Kirnels of the Eye which indeed stick to their Back and put forth the Humour belonging to the Eye thorow proper Passages which lye open within the interior Superficies of the Eye-lids if that a super-abounding serous Humor is poured forth more than it ought into the Eye that falling down into a Cavity like a Bason nigh the greater corner enters there two little holes from which going out into a singular passage is carried even to the end of the Nose where it is sent forth of Doors at an open passage besides the serous Humour in a Man being plentifully heaped up nigh to the Opthalmick Kirnels drops forth in Tears Indeed the Eye leans on these two Kirnels as it were soft stays laid under its round Cushion one of these sited nigh the greater corner of the Eye is wont to be called commonly the Lachrymal Kirnel thô the other better deserves the Name To this belong Arteries Veins and Nerves also excretory Vessels which are of two sorts to wit out of this Kirnel open two or three water-carriers into the inward Superficies of the Eye-lid out of which the watry Humor drops forth upon the Ball of the Eye besides two passages also open into the Ditch of the inner Corner which carry not thither the Water as some think but sends forth what is there deposited and superfluous from the excretory Vessels and received by them and then it is carried forth of Doors by one Channel which going thorow the Bone of the Nose passes thorow its passage This Channel was first found out by Nicholas Stenon who has ingeniously described its make and Use. This little Channel stretched forth from the Kirnels of the Eye thorow the passage of the Nostril even to its end is like a Sink which sends forth of doors the serous filth apt to be too much poured forth on the Eye by a secret passage Hence is to be noted that not only in Weeping excited thorow Grief but as often as Tears are pressed forth from the Eyes by any thing bitingly pulling them an humidity distils from the Nose But as to the Vessels which are properly Lachrymal it is observ'd that three or four Lymphaeducts or water-carriers reaching from this Kirnel into the Eye-lid one of them opens into the Margent of the Upper Eye-lid another into the Margent of the Lower Eye-lid with a little Dam raised in either and send forth the water in Tears or Weeping between the hairs of the Eye-lids themselves I have sometimes seen in an Ulcerous disposition of this Kirnel a filthy Matter to have dropt forth by Compression from those two Lachrymal Puncts The other Kirnel of the Eye commonly nameless but deserves chiefly to be called Lachrymal beginning at the lesser corner of the Eye leaning on the back of the Eye under the Upper Eye-lid is carried forward almost to the inner corner As to its Figure it is cleft into many Lobes distinguished by various distances between from every one of which water-pipes ascend into the Eye-lids and opening thorow the Lachrymal Puncts within its inward Superficies pour forth water requisite for the watering the Eye both for its Motion and for Weeping The most Learned Doctor Stenon has clearly and sufficiently described this Kirnel also with the Lachrymal Vessels and express'd them with apt Figures whatsoever of superfluous Serum sweats forth through the Lachrymal Vessels of this Kernel slides into the greater corner for that it is seated in a sleep place and from thence is sent away through the same excretory Vessels of the other Kirnel as it were by a common Sink Besides these Vessels carrying the water from the Kirnels into the Eye and the excretory of its superfluous Humor through the Nose there belong to the Kirnels of the Eye some others designed for other uses to wit Arteries Veins and Nerves From the Carotid Artery gotten within the Skull and about to ascend towards the Brain a noted branch being sent into the Compass of the Eye imparts shoots to either Kirnel carrying Blood to them plentifully To this Artery which besides the Kirnels of the Eye respects also the chief parts of the upper Jaw is adjoyned a Vein which reduces the Blood from them yea and to both these a Nerve is added for a Companion to wit the Ophthalmick Arm of the fifth Pair which variously binds about and knits the sanguiferous Vessels with many shoots sent forth in its whole Progress and also distributes many little shoots into the Kirnels themselves From these we may easily gather that from the Blood carried thorow the Arteries to either Glandula or Kirnel a watry Humor requisit both for the perpetual watering of the Eye and also occasionally for the matter of Tears is sifted forth and there heaped up for the aforesaid uses As to the former these Kirnels even as others implanted elsewhere imbibe the Serum carried to them for constant food to wit because the Arteries carry the Blood thither more copiously than the Reins are presently able to sup back wherefore what is watery is imbibed by the substance of the Kirnel as it were a Spunge the bloody Humor being sent away by the Veins For this reason because the Nerves bind these Vessels therefore as often as the Serum abounds too much in the Blood destinated for the Brain these Arteries being provoked by the Nerves and bound together it is separated or bolted forth and carried more plentifully than it was wont towards these Kirnels But as to Tears oftentimes poured forth in great plenty from these Kirnels of the Eye that it may the better appear by what means and for what Causes this is done it seems very opportune to discourse concerning Weeping and Crying and of the Causes and manner of its being made which yet shall be done briefly and succinctly because the more full Consideration of these properly belong to the Doctrine of the Passions In the first place therefore concerning Weeping we observe that it doth chiefly and almost only follow upon great Passions of the Mind to wit great Grief Sadness Pity sudden Joy and the like to wit whensoever the sensitive Soul being struck by either a disagreeable or unaccustomed Object is as it were compelled inwardly to
pain of the Head is wont to be accounted the chiefest of the Diseases of the Head and as it were to lead the troops of the other Affections of that part for that it is the most common and most frequent symptom to which indeed there is none but is sometimes obnoxious so that it is become a Proverb as a sign of a more rare and admirable thing That his Head did never ake The Headach though it be a most frequent Distemper hath so various uncertain and often a contrary original that it seems most difficult to deliver an exact Theorie of its appearance containing the solutions of so manifold and often opposite things This Disease being constant to no temperament constitution or manner of living nor to no kind of evident or adjoyning causes ordinarily falls upon cold and hot sober and intemperate the empty and the full bellied the fat and the lean the young and old yea upon Men and Women of every age state or condition Hence because they cannot satisfie any one sick with this Distemper with the causes of it most commonly they say they all proceed from Vapours Further the Cure of this Disease is more happily instituted not so much by certain Indications as by trying various things and at length by collecting an Extempory method of Healing from things helping and hurting Wherefore if I should go about to untye this hard knot by drawing forth the matter more deeply and more accurately I must ask for pardon if I am carried by a long compass thorow the various Series and Complication of Causes and if at length by any means the Aeriology or the Reason of this Disease may be fully detected a more certain way to its Cure may be opened Therefore that we may go on more fully to institute this Pathology or shewing the Causes or symptoms of this Disease we ought first of all to unfold the Subject and the formal reason of this Disease together with the Causes and differences then to subjoyn the Curatory method and to illustrate it with some more rare Cases and Observations As to the former as all pain is a hurt or violated Action or a troublesome sension or feeling depending on a Convulsion or a Corrugation of the Nerves the Subject of the Headach are the most nervous parts of the Head that is the Nerves themselves as also the Fibres and Membranes and such as are more and most sensible seated both without and within the skull But the parts of this kind which are affected with pain are first the two Meninges and their various processes the Coats of the Nerves the Pericranium or skin compassing the skull and other thin skinny Membranes the fleshy Panicle of the Muscle and lastly the skin it self As to the Brain and Cerebel and their Medullary dependences we affirm That these Bodies are free from pains because they want sensible Fibres apt to be wrinkled and distended the same for the like reason may be said of the Skull 2. But whensoever pain is excited any where about the nervous parts of the Head its formal reason consists in this That the Animal Spirits being drawn one from another and put to flight cause the containing Bodies to be pulled together and wrinkled and so stir up a troublesome sension or feeling But that which so distracts the Spirits that from thence a troublesome feeling arises is some improportionate thing rushing upon the Spirits themselves or on the Bodies containing them which entring the Pores of and spaces between the Fibres pulls them one from another and so drives the spirits dwelling there into disorder 3. As to the differences of the Headach the common distinction is That the pain of the Head is either without the Skull or within its cavity The former is a more rare and a more gentle disease because the parts above the Skull are not so sensible as the interior Meninges nor are they watered with so plentiful a flood of Blood that by its sudden and vehement incursion they may be easily distended or inflamed above measure Secondly The other kind of Headach to wit within the Skull is more frequent and much more cruel because the Membranes cloathing the Brain are very sensible and the Blood is poured upon them by a manifold passage and by many and greater Arteries Further because the Blood or its Serum sometimes passing thorow all the Arteries at once both the Carotides and the Vertebrals and sometimes apart thorow these or those on the one side or the opposite bring hurt to the Meninges hence the pain is caused that is interior which is either universal infesting the whole Head or its greatest part or particular which is limited to some private region and sometimes produces a Meagrim on the side sometimes in the forepart and sometimes in the hinder part of the Head There are many other differences of this Disease to wit That the Pain is either light or vehement sharp or dull short or of continuance continual or intermitting its approaches sometimes periodical and exact sometimes wandring and uncertain Also by reason of the Conjunct Cause which as shall be declared by and by sometimes is the Blood sometimes certain excrements of it as either the Serum or nourishing juice or vapours or wind sometimes it is the nervous liquor sometimes a congression or striving of it with the bloody liquor The Headach may be called either bloody and that either simple or else serous vaporous or otherways excrementitious or else Convulsive from the humor watering the nervous Fibres and irritating them into painful Corrugations Concerning these that we may proceed methodically we shall rehearse in a certain order the various kinds of this Disease with their Causes and it seems good that we distinguish the Pain of the Head to be either accidental or occasional and habitual The former is wont to be excited without any foregoing cause or previous disposition by the solitary evident cause as when an Headach happens almost to all men after the drinking of Wine Surfetting lying in the Sun or vehement exercise also in the fitts of Feavours to wit forasmuch as the Blood being incited more than it was wont and boiling up immoderately very much blows up and distends the Membranes it passes thorow yea the Serum and Vapors copiously sent forth from it then growing hot and rushing on the Membranes pull and provoke the nervous Fibres Secondly The habitual pain of the Head hath some procatartick or more remote Cause fixed somewhere by reason of which it is troubled either constantly or often so that though it sometimes intermits yet it often returns of its own accord and is excited also upon every light occasion but this whether it be continual or intermitting hath neither always nor only the Suffusions or too great Evaporations of the Blood or Serum for the Conjunct Cause although these are often present where notwithstanding they are rather
instead of the Evident Cause than the Conjunct but beside an evil procatarxis or a certain predisposition is always affixed to the part affected or wont to be distemper'd by reason of which the aforesaid Causes also the inordinations of the Nervous Liquor and the meeting and growing hot of it with the bloody Serum or the Nutritious Juice raise up the fits of pains Although the more remote Cause of the Headach be manifold and diverse so that its several kinds can scarcely be number'd yet for the constituting it these two to wit either one or both of them do chiefly or for the most part lead the way viz. First The evil or weak Constitution of the affected part Secondly Then because of the more easie and ready heaping up of the Morbiâ—ic matter in it As to the former the parts of the Head obnoxious to pains are the Nervous Fibres belonging to the Membranes Tendons the Musculous flesh and other sensible Bodies the Morbid provision of which consists in their evil conformation or debility Of these that the former is sometimes innate and hereditary appears from hence because the Disease is often delivered from the Parents to the Children and seems to be done chiefly by this means because the covering of the Head being made more thick or more close than it ought neither the humors nor the vapours do easily pass thorow wherefore being by these restrained and hindred in their Motion and so heaped up the Meninges Pericranium and other sensible parts being too much stuffed or inflated or hauled receive pains to which happens that sometimes by reason of the original intemperance of the Brain the Humors or Vapours about the parts hanging like an arch over it are variously heaped up together 2. But it more often comes to pass that the Vices of an evil Conformation by which these or those parts of the Head are disposed to the Headach are contracted anew and that by a various kind of production for sometimes by Cold taken by reason of the Northern winds Snow or Rain the Pores of the skin in some region of the Head yea and the nervous Fibres themselves are so closed up or otherwise perverted or weakned that they are not able to bear the outward air nor the agitations of the Blood or Humors but presently the Headach arises Nor is the predisposition of the Headach less rarely produced in the disorderly useing the six not natural things For the Blood being stirred up above measure upon any cause whatsoever impresses by its boyling up or by the insinuation of the Serum or Vapours a breaking of the unity in some nervous parts or some other sort of hurt for which reason as there is a present Headach by and by stirred up so afterwards there is a disposition to the same upon every light occasion But oftentimes a disposition to the Headach not easily blotted out is induced by a vehement Passion Surfeit Drunkenness also by a blow wound or contusion of the Head so that either the proper or excrementitious humors being heaped up and standing in those parts being afterwards moved of themselves or growing hot with other inflowing juices stir up inflations or painful haulings or pullings Yea I have known Inflammations Imposthumes Whelks Scirrhous tumors growing to the Meninges with the Skull and other Diseases of an evil conformation excited in the Membranes of the Brain by which at first for a long time frequent Headaches and most cruel and then afterwards a sleepy and deadly distemper hath been induced the cause of the Disease not detected but after death by Anatomy and indeed it is to be suspected that inveterate and pertinacious pains in the Head which return and dayly become more tormentive in spight of all Remedies depend upon some such invincible cause 2. Not only an evil conformation or the breach of unity but also sometimes a meer weakness or enervation renders some parts of the Head obnoxious to the Head-ach for when as the Fibres are somewhere so infirm that they are neither able of themselves to rule the proper humor nor to resist the incursions of a strange humor the part so disposed by reason of any light occasion is moved into painful wrinklings These kind of debilities of the Fibres sometimes external accidents as the excess of cold or heat sometimes also errors in Dyet or living as Surfeit Drunkenness and especially sleeping at noon moreover great Catarrhs and a long lodging of a sharp Serum are wont to bring in So much for the primary more remote cause of the Headach which is also fixed and rooted The other cause of it secondary and moveable consists in a ready and easie heaping up of the Morbific matter about the predisposed parts from which come the fits of pains and their approaches But as the matter is manifold it is wont to be heaped up after a diverse manner and to excite pains which affect after a diverse sort This as we have said is either the Blood or its Serum or the nourishing Juice or the nervous Liquor Every of these being variously disposed or imbued with feculences or dregs are by degrees heaped up about the predisposed parts of the Head sometimes before the fit and sometimes that coming they are plentifully cast down But sometimes one only humour with its plenitude and acrimony distends or provokes the sensible Fibres sometimes more meeting together by their mutual growing hot pull or haule the Fibres and so stir up painful Convulsions We shall briefly take notice of the several kinds of these with their signs and the manner of their being made When therefore a part of the Head as chiefly the Meninges or some region of the Pericranium is predisposed by reason of an evil conformation or debility to the Headach the approaches or fits of the Disease are wont to be excited by reason of the various incursions or coming together of the following humors sometimes of this sometimes of that humor and sometimes of many together 1. Sometimes the Blood it self being incited into a more rapid motion and boiling up into the Head is straitned or stopp'd in its passage about the predisposed places and from thence being by and by heaped up there distends the Vessels greatly blows up the Membranes and pulls the nervous Fibres one from another and so brings to them painful corrugations or wrinklings For this reason those obnoxious to the Headach are forced to shun all occasions by which the Blood should grow hot above measure as drinking of Wine Exercise Baths c. 2. The Serum being more copiously heaped up in the bloody Mass oftentimes conceives a sudden Flux either of its own accord through meer fulness or stirred up by an evident cause and so presently running forth from the Blood doth not only rush into the Lungs but very often into the Head and being poured upon its Membranes or Muscles is copiously heaped up about the parts predisposed to
Inflation a Rumbling or some other Perturbation of the distemper'd Spleen happens in the left-side that the Headach as if raised up by it by and by frequently suceeds hence presently 't is the voice of the people that these Vapours being sent forth from the disturbed Spleen stir up the pain of the Head But indeed we may grant that the Headach arises sometimes from the default of the Spleen yet reject this opinion that it ought for this cause to be imputed to Vapors but indeed either to an evil Ferment transmitted into the Blood from the Spleen or from a Convulsion from thence communicated to the Head by the Nerves because in the Spleen evilly affected the Melancholic humor being degenerate sometimes into a Vitriolic Nature sometimes a biting sometimes a sharp or otherways infestous is oftentimes heaped up which of its own accord being shaken forth by reason of plenitude or occasionally by reason of some perturbation and being confused with the Blood impresses a Fermentation upon it by which its Liquor rushing by it self on the Membranes of the Head or growing hot with the nervous Liquor causes painful pullings or haulings Further it is no less probable that sometimes a Convulsion being excited in the nervous Fibres which are very much disposed about the Spleen brought thence by the passages of the Nerves of the wandring and Intercostal pair and continued to the Head impresses the like Distemper to the Membranes predisposed to it 3. A reason may be also rendred according to the same Pathology to wit either from an evil Transmission of the Ferment or a continuation of the Convulsion for Headaches which are said to be raised up by consent from the Liver Mesentery the Womb and other parts The habitual Headach the Aetiology or the Reason of which we have already sufficiently handled is yet divided into certain kinds to wit it is either Continual or Intermitting but the periods of this are sometimes determined to a certain time and are sometimes wandring and uncertain we shall speak briefly of each of these 1. Sometimes therefore it happens that some are afflicted with a Continual pain of the Head to wit for many days or months little intermitting unless when sleep helps in which case we suppose that there is not only present a Procatartick or leading cause but also a Conjunct somewhere fixed and constant For besides that the parts affected or that are wont to be affected are weak and their watering liquor much depraved is apt to stagnate or to grow hot with other humors there is moreover oftentimes excited in them a breaking of the unity to wit an Inflammation a red and painful swelling a Scirrhous tumor or Imposthum or of some such kind about which whilst the humors of divers kinds do meet together and are heaped up there arise almost perpetual pains by reason of the nervous Fibres being continually pulled or hauled These kinds of Headaches do not rarely end in sleepy distempers and at length deadly for when I have opened the Heads of many dead of these Diseases the signs or footsteps declaring the aforesaid kinds of Morbific causes have appeared some examples of these shall be added hereafter 2. The habitual Headach is for the most part Intermitting whose sits as they are certain and Periodical or coming at a set period of time are wont often to return in the space of half a day and night or once in twelve hours Some more rare cases I have known which exactly repeating the Fits came every other day yea once in a week or a month It is an usual thing for Headaches that seem to be driven away to return again about the Equinoxes or Solstices to wit because at these times the Blood and Humors conceive greater Turgences or risings up than are wont and therefore are more apt to grow hot with the watering Liquor of the nervous parts of the Head and to renew the wonted fits of pains But when about these times of the year Headaches return they are not prorogued by a longer accession for a great while but for the most part having gotten subordinate periods they are wont to infest at some certain standing hours for the space of twelve hours When therefore a Periodical Headach hath its daily fits for the most part the reason of these as of Intermitting Feavors ought to be sought from the fault of the Morbifick Matter arising to a plenitude at a set time and then growing hot For it may be supposed that the proper Liquor is perverted somewhere about the Membranes of the Head and the nervous Fibres evilly disposed or doth not well pass thorow them wherefore when the nourishing Juice placed also on the same parts from the Blood is not presently assimilated nor doth well agree with the other humor at length from both of them heaped up together and disagreeing a mutual growing hot arises and from thence a painful pulling of the Fibres but for that the fits of the pains are not always at the same distance after Eating but arise in some sooner and in others later and sometimes before sleep and sometimes after the cause is that partly the offices of Concoction and distribution of the Aliments are performed sometimes sooner sometimes later and partly because in these the nervous Liquor and in those the nutritious Juice is most in fault wherefore as the fulness of this happens sooner and of that later so the times of the fit vary we shall illustrate these afterwards with observations made concerning the cases of sick persons 3. When the fits of the intermitting Headach are wandring and uncertain the Procatarxis or foregoing cause of the Disease is neither great nor constant nor is the Evident Cause continual Wherefore when that either cause is oftentimes absent and one of them often wanting the fits of the Disease are not tyed to certain times but in some they are as it were by chance and accidental in others in whom a predisposition to this Distemper is a little more firmly rooted the pains of the Head more frequently molest and are ordinarily excited by reason of various occasions yea and for some they are wont to be most certainly expected The reasons of the fits so variously happening appear clearly above from the Aetiology delivered of this Disease besides the whole business shall be illustrated anon by examples CHAP. II. The Prognostick and Cure of the Headach SO much for the Causes of the Headach which being so various and diverse and their Series so perplex'd and intricate it will not seem easie to keep one Method concerning all cases of the Sick whereby we may be led presently to the true knowledge and Cure of this Disease nor is there less difficulty concerning its Prognostick But common experience affords some observations from which it may be gathered that the Cure of this Sickness is sometimes easie sometimes difficult or scarce possible so that from thence it may be
lawful to declare the event of the Disease either safe or very dangerous or wholely uncertain Truly if any one enjoying formerly a perfect Health should fall into something a cruel Headach and of some long standing by reason of a more strong Evident Cause as drinking of Wine Surfeit Venus immoderate Exercise or such like forasmuch as the fore leading Morbid Cause is not as yet firmly laid we may pronounce such a Distemper to be safe enough and not pertinacious But if the Morbific disposition should be inveterate so that for many years the fits repeat often of their own accord and upon every light occasion this though not dangerously sick yet we predict it not easie to be Cured Further the Cure will be yet more difficult if Hypochondriack or Hysterical Distempers oftentimes troublesome are oft wont to excite the Headach at every turn or if the taint of an inveterate Venereal Disease be rooted in any distemper'd part If that the pain of the Head shall be not only inveterate but almost continual that we might suspect it to arise from an Inflammation or a Scirrhous Tumour an hot Swelling an Imposthum or Worms there is none or very little hope of Cure especially because the sick will refuse great remedies as Salivation or opening the Skull which if they be made use of perhaps at any time with any fruit or success yet the former and this two for the most part are wont to be tedious to the sick before they can effect any thing worth the trouble and expectation The pain of the Head either Continual or Periodical if it be great and hath joyned with it a Vertigo Vomitting or other Convulsive or Soporiferous Distempers shews a suspicion of great danger even which often passes into a deadly Apoplexie and not seldom into an Epilepsie Palsie Blindness Deafness and other funestous and incurable Diseases The Curatory method of the Headach comprehends many Indications and those of a various kind according to the manifold Species Causes and differences of this Disease which will not be an easie thing here to set down and rehearse in order The accidental Pain of the Head with the remote Evident Cause and its consequences ceases for the most part of its own accord or at least is taken away by letting of Blood Rest and Sweat The habitual Pain by reason of the diversity of Causes viz. both the Procatartick and also the Conjunct suggests also different intentions of Healing we shall here briefly touch upon the chief of these and to which all the rest may be placed In every habitual Headach whether Continual or Intermitting there are two chief scopes or intentions of Cure to be met with to which all the other Curatory intentions ought to be aimed and by which we should provide against either Cause of the Morbid Procatarxis 1. To wit in the first place that all the Tinder or inkindling of the Disease be cut off you must endeavour that both the matter flowing to the distempered places of the Head or those evilly disposed or apt from thence to flow to them be supprest or called from thence to another place then moreover that Convulsions in other places excited and that are wont to be propagated from thence into the Head be prevented 2. Then secondly it must be indeavoured if it may be done that the Disease it self or its Conjunct Cause may be rooted out that the places of the Head predisposed to Headaches whether they be only enfeebled or hurt in their Conformation whilst they are defended from the frequent Excursions of the infestous matter may recover their former state and vigour Which kind of Indication though it be very seldom suddenly or wholely performed yet sometimes the Cure is by degrees laboured out by diligence and care however fixed and rooted the Morbid matter be As to what appertains to the first scope of healing which is first and especially to be regarded we said that the Matter or Humours which are wont to be gathered together about the parts of the Head predisposed to the Headach and to excite the fits of the Disease are either the Blood or the Serum or the nourishing or nervous Juice or Liquor Moreover with every one of these Vapours and Effluvia's as also Recrements sometimes Bilous sometimes Melancholic sometimes Acid Salt Sulphureous and of some others of a various kind taken into the Blood from the Viscera sometimes from those and sometimes from these we have shewed to be transferred by its passages into the Headâ— against the force and incursion of all these Medicinal fortifications are to be instituted 1. And in the first place if the leading cause to pains or a disposition thereto lye about the Membranes of the Head for that the Blood being hot and apt to rise up rushes by heaps into the Membranes of the Head and when it cannot easily pass thorow them distending the Vessels above measure and pulling the nervous Fibres excites the fits of this Disease whose signs are a Sanguine temperament heat and a flushing or redness about the head and face also an high pulse and shaking with veins distended with Blood presently it must be endeavoured both that the Blood be made more sedate that it may not be so readily moved into rage or swelling up as also that it be not incited and boiling up may not be carried with a greater tendency or inclination into the Head than into other parts nor in like manner be compelled to stagnate by reason of the bosomes of the Meninges being too full Wherefore if the fit infests long let blood in the Arm or the Jugular Vein out of the fit sometimes it is expedient to take Blood from the Sedal Veins with Leeches to wit by this means that the Blood by chance boiling up may be brought down towards that place to which it often tends of its own accord Let there be Medicines of Vinegar Rosecakes and Nutmeg or some other Epithems or Medicines of the same nature applyed to the Head Also give to drink Iuleps Emulsions or Decoctions which allay the fervour or madness of the Blood Let the Belly be cooled and kept soluble by the use of Clysters Moreover for prevention use at times Whey or Spaw-waters also drinking of Water a thin and a cooling diet help the shunning of Wine spiced Meats Baths Venus violent motions of the mind or body yea and of all hot things is to be ordered Then for the fixing of the Blood its Effervescencies or growing hot must be prevented for which Distilled Waters Juices of Herbs or Decoctions Electuaries Powders and especially Crystal Mineral are in frequent use There is no need here to add a method or particular forms of Medicines when in this case almost every body labouring is wont to be his own Physician being taught by frequent experience from things hurting or helping 2. It is rarely that the Blood alone or only by it self is
things more concerning this but that we expect shortly to be made publick by the Learned Physician Doctor Needham an exact method of Salivation and a full account of it as to its measures and effects and its benefits and hurt There is yet a celebrated Remedy remaining among Chirurgical helps viz. a cutting or opening an Artery This was of great esteem among the Ancients and some of the Moderns make use of it and very much cry it up But it appears to our observation that this so cry'd up success most often fails Nor no wonder because reason holds not at all on which the Ancients depended that the Arterious Blood was different from the Venous or that of the Veins and was in greater fault and more rageing and therefore to be let forth Nor indeed is there any reason wherefore the Blood being drawn from the Artery rather than from the Vein near the pained place should bring ease but rather on the contrary more help ought to be expected from opening of the Vein because the Artery being emptied receives and draws nothing from the distemper'd part but the Vein being opened draws from the place of the effused Blood and from its whole neighbourhood and oftentimes sups back and renders to a Circulation the Blood and other Humors heaped up and stagnating near the nest of the Disease But however that we may not recede too much from the practice of the Ancients we shall grant that sometimes it may be helpful though attributing nothing to the section of the Artery and not immediately yet causally and only by consequence and by accident to wit forasmuch as the ends of the Artery being cut grow fast together so that the passage of the Blood by that way is shut up for the future from hence when as a lesser provision of Blood is carried by the Artery towards the place and the like still carried away from it by the Veins it therefore sometimes happens that the nest of the Morbific Matter sometimes lessened and its mine is by degrees consumed For this reason this administration oftentimes succeeds happily in diseases of the Eyes Further Farriers make use of the like practice for the Curing of evil tumors in the Legs of Horses to wit they take and bind the Artery by which the Matter flows to the distemper'd part and in the mean time that which was impacted partly evaporates and is partly supped up by the Vein And I have heard that the same has been try'd by our Harvey and not without success for the Curing also of Strumous and Scirrhous Tumors in the humane body I might here subjoyn many other kinds of Remedies yea also the prescriptions and forms of Medicines which are wont to be administer'd for the Curing of Headaches both by Physicians and by Empericks but enough of these are to be had in Physical Books It will be to our purpose that after the delivering the Aetiology or the reason of this Disease so confusedly shown and its Therapeutic or Curatory part sufficiently shadowed for the more clear illustrating of these things that we add some more rare cases of sick persons and examples of a continual and most grievous Headach which also for an invincible cause was oftentimes deadly A Woman of about fifty years of age after she had labour'd for about six months with a most grievous pain in the Head troubling her almost perpetually under the Sagittal Suture or the seam that goes thorow the length of the Skull dividing it into two parts yielding to no Medicines or method at length fell into a Lethargy with a partial resolution of her members from which notwithstanding being shortly recovered by timely Remedies she awaked with the Headach as cruel as before moreover within two or three weeks after relapsing into the sleepy distemper she departed this life Her skull being opened there grew from the side of the third bosom to the Membranes a Scirrhous Tumor three fingers broad by the coming between of which both the Dura mater for a little space was grown to the Pia mater and the sanguiferous Vessels which should open there into the cavity of the bosom were stopped up Further the cranklings or turnings in of the Brain both the exterior and the inward cavity was filled with a clear water From these things being observed the invincible and at length deadly cause most clearly appeared to wit the most sensible Fibres of the Meninges being continually pulled and torn partly by reason of the breaking of the unity and partly from the humor belonging to the Nerves being there heaped up and stagnating together with others flowing thither and growing hot with it were provoked into Convulsions perpetually or painful Distentions Afterwards when the Blood being for a long time hindred in its circulation by reason of that Tumor or that at least it could not pass thorow it by any means sent copiously away from it self the Serous Water as its manner is whereever it finds an hindrance and at length a Dropsie in the Brain was raised which was the cause of the deadly Lethargy I remember I have seen the like case in another whom I have opened Further as I think the disease in many troubled with Headaches doth depend on the like invincible cause I will however describe one example yet living of this kind of Distemper Some years since I was sent for to visit a most noble Lady for above twenty years sick with almost a continual Headach at first intermitting She was of a most beautiful form and a great wit so that she was skilled in the Liberal Arts and in all sorts of Literature beyond the condition of her sex and as if it were thought too much by Nature for her to enjoy so great endowments without some detriment she was extreamly punished with this Disease Growing well of a Feavour before she was twelve years old she became obnoxious to pains in the Head which were wont to arise sometimes of their own accord and more often upon every light occasion This sickness being limited to no one place of the Head troubled her sometimes on one side sometimes on the other and often thorow the whole compass of the Head During the fit which rarely ended under a day and a nights space and often held for two three or four days she was impatient of light speaking noise or of any motion sitting upright in her Bed the Chamber made dark she would talk to no body nor take any sleep or sustenance At length about the declination of the fit she was wont to lye down with an heavy and disturbed sleep from which awaking she found her self better and so by degrees grew well and continued indifferently well till the time of the intermission Formerly the fits came not but occasionally and seldom under twenty days or a month but afterwards they came more often and lately she was seldom free Moreover upon sundry occasions or evident causes such as
when the Sun is in the Equinox the light on the Horizon and have neither perfect night nor perfect day so these only enjoy a kind of twilight betwixt sleep and waking The Waking Coma is rarely a Disease of it self but for the most part it is a symptom coming upon other Diseases as the Feavour Phrensie Lethargy and the like wherefore it requires not a Curatory Method peculiarly but there is only need that to the Remedies prescribed for the first or primary Disease there should be added other Cephalicks which may dispel these clouds and meteors of the Brain or if both will not be expelled together the same Medicine which cherishes the parts of the one getting the better will immediately overcome the other so in the Waking Somnolency it is convenient to procure either perfect sleep or perfect waking and in this case I have often given Narcoticks with good success CHAP. VI. Of the Incubus or Night-Mare THUS much concerning the morbid exorbitancies of irregular sleep and waking which are almost proper and as it were of the region of the Brain and affect not the Cerebel but rarely and that secondarily and collaterally as hath been shown But there remains a distemper commonly called the Night-Mare in Latine the Incubus which is both peculiar to this Region and also seems in some measure analogical to the sleepy diseases forasmuch as its fits arise for the most part from sleep by reason of the Animal Spirits being bound in the Cerebel or suppressed their eclipse or interruption though short about the exercise of the vital function is induced That the subject nature and causes of this Disease may be the better known we shall first consider its Phaenomena or the appearance of it The fits of the Incubus or Night-Mare for the most part and indeed only falling on one in sleep are used to be excited mostly after the stomach is loaded with undigested meats and lying on the back in Bed They who labour with it seem to feel the hurt chiefly in the Breast and about the Praecordia for respiration being suppressed and very much hindred they think that a certain weight lying heavily upon their Breast doth oppress them which weight mocks their imaginations with the Image of some spectre or other and this whilst they think to shake off or put away by the moving of their Body or members they are not able to stir themselves any way But after a long space and sometimes till they are almost dead they at last awake with a strugling about their heart and being more fully rouzed from sleep the imaginary weight suddenly vanishes and the motive force of the body is restored but for the most part a trembling of the heart remains and frequently a swift and violent beating of the Diaphragma Then the fit being over the deception of the phantasie conceiving the horrid image of the Incubus or spectre is perceived The common people superstitiously believe that this passion is indeed caused by the Devil and that the evil spirits lying on them procures that weight and oppression upon their heart Though indeed we do grant such a thing may be but we suppose that this symptom proceeds oftenest from mere natural causes though what they are and in what place the Morbific matter doth subsist is not agreed on among Authors nor indeed is it easily to be assigned Because the imagination is deceived and the error being propagated further into the senses themselves so imposes on the sight and feeling that they believe they plainly see and feel a monster of this or that shape or figure lying upon them and for that the loco-motive faculty of the whole body is hindred in the mean time some have placed the seat of this Disease wholly in the Brain and would have the oppression of the breast to be merely phantastical But although we grant the monstrous shape of the Incubus which is conceived to be a mere dream the Precordia to be truly affected is apparent and the motion of the Pulse and breathing is suppressed or hindred for that the heavy weight of the breast is plainly felt by most in their waking yea and when thorowly fresh awaked and when that is removed the tremblings of the Heart and Diaphragma and inordinate motions follow whence it follows that these parts labour and suffer a real hurt Wherefore others that they might the more easily unloose this knot dividing the Morbific Cause assign a portion of it to the Brain and another to the Breast for they say that the motion of the Lungs are hindred by a viscous and very gross humor impacted about them and that doth excite as it were the oppression of a bulk lying on them with want of breathing then Vapors being raised to the Head do fill the principal Nerves and so hinder the loco-motive force which opinion no more likely than the conceptions of those troubled with the Night-Mare deserves not to be assented to because there are not any signs of this humor heaped up about the Praecordia which appear before or after the fit yea when this region is very much burthened as in the Phthisis Asthma or Dropsie of the Breast the Incubus does not therefore infest more frequently or more grievously Further it appears not how the matter heaped up in the Praecordia should be only troublesome in sleep or by what passage or way the Vapours from thence so suddenly inducing want of motion should be elevated to the Head Wherefore the Reason or Aetiology of this Distemper I think to be taken or judged of far otherwise Therefore this heavy weight or load lying on the breast seems indeed to be left because the motion of the Heart and the organs serving for breathing is hindred for from the motion of the heart ceasing or being hardly performed the Blood in its bosoms and in the breathing or Pneumonick Vessels statgnating and being there very much streightned a sense of as it were a weight opresses the region of the breast which also seems therefore the more grievous because the Lungs Diaphragma and Muscles of the Thorax being hindred in their motions and as it were bound together at the same time with the heart do labour with a great endeavour to exercise or to put forth themselves But the most hard question yet is concerning the Cause by reason of which the motion or action of the Praecordia is suppressed or hindred This seems impossible to be done by matter impacted in the organs themselves of which indeed there must be a very great deal to suffice for the hindrance of so many parts and some signs of it at least would appear somewhat out of the fit wherefore it seems that we may rather say that the action of those parts are hindred because the influx of the animal spirits are hindred or suppressed This is frequently done in Convulsive Distempers as we have elsewhere declared and have clearly shewed by
same is wholly darkened and suffers a full eclipse The word Apoplexy denotes percussion and by reason of the stupendous nature of the Disease containing as it were something divine it is called a Sideration or Blasting for those taken with it being as it were Planet struck or with an invisible Numen fall suddenly to the ground and being deprived of sense and motion and the whole animal function ceasing unless that they breath they lye a long time as if dead and sometimes yield to death But if they revive oftentimes they are taken with an universal Palsie or else of one side The immediate subject of the Apoplexy and the nearest are the Animal Spirits inhabiting that region of the Brain where the principle faculties of the knowing or understanding soul reside to wit the Callous Body but we conclude the mediate subject to be the middle part of the Brain because from hence the instincts of all spontaneous motions proceed and in this the perceptions of all sensible things are terminated by what means the Cerebel and Praecordia and all the other parts both Animal and Vital are secundarily affected we shall shew anon when the symptoms of this Disease and their reasons are delivered Upon the coming of the Apoplectick fit all the acts of every spontaneous and knowing function to wit which depend upon the brain it self are forthwith hindred and cease the reason of which is because the Animal Spirits being suppressed in their chief place of meeting to wit the Callous Body both their next motion of expansion in that place as also their flowing forth into the nervous appendix is wholly defective For therefore by reason of such an eclipse of them in that place an immediate and an universal darkness is caused in the whole animal region which is under this government yet in the mean time the Pulse and respiration as also the motion of the Ventricle and Intestines are after a sort performed either perfectly and freely or at least interruptedly and with pain forasmuch as their actions proceed wholly from the Cerebel which is not at all or but little hurt by the Morbifick matter But it will seem difficult to be explained after what manner and from what causes the Animal Spirits are so suddenly and all at once suppressed and as it were extinguished about their first spring of emanation so that all sense and motion depending thereon ceases every where Concerning this there are many and diverse opinions of Authors whilst some place the cause of the Apoplexy in the Heart and others in the Brain then some lay the fault on the intemperance of that and others on the evil conformation of this Further the obstruction of the Brain is said by some to cause the Apoplexy in the greater Ventricles by others in its Pores or lesser passages then the obstruction being taken for the cause of the Disease and wholly binding up the lesser Pores of the Brain is said to excite the fit either because the afflux of the blood for the begetting of Spirits is hindred from those parts or because the flowing forth or emanation from thence of the Animal spirits is kept back It would be a tedious thing to examine the opinions of every one and to consider the weight of their reasons The Theory of this Disease seems to be very exactly delivered by the famous Webferus for in the first place for the finding out of its so abstruse and hidden causes he brings Histories or Anatomical observations in which the Phaenomena are declared in many dead Carcases of those dying of this Disease to wit in three struck or blasted he had found the blood extravasated or out of the Vessels here and there in great clodders and had largely marked the substance of the Brain in another the Serous Colluvies had overflowed the whole head both without and within the Skull From these footsteps of this most hidden Disease thus detected the Author concludes That the principal places affected are not the greater Ventricles but the middle marrowy substance of the Brain and Cerebel which is every where porous and indued with very small passages both that the vital spirits may flow in thither from the blood and that the animal may flow forth But indeed he affirms That the whole cause of every Apoplexy doth consist in these two viz. either in one of them or both of them together to wit either because the flowing of the blood thorow the Arteries to the Brain is deny'd or else by reason that the flowing forth of the Animal Spirit from the Brain and Cerebel thorow the Nerves and Spinal Marrow is prohibited or for both these causes together As to the former he proposes a threefold means whereby the blood may be hindred viz. First Either by reason of the obstruction of the inner Carotid Arteries and of the Vertebrals to wit which happens in the greater Vessels and chiefly about the ascent of the Brain from the blood concreted into cloddery pieces or in the lesser Vessels which pass thorow the brain from a Viscous Matter planted in them Or Secondly the flowing in of the blood is detained from the brain by reason of the compression of those Vessels which sometimes happens because the Paristhmia or Kirnels of the hinder part of the Neck do so swell up from a Serous heap of watry Humors that by pressing together the Arteries passing thorow shuts forth the passage of blood to the Head Or Thirdly The bloody flood may be hindred because a Vessel being preternaturally opened within the Skull great quantity of blood is poured forth which should otherways go to the benefit of the brain As to the other cause of the astonishing Disease viz. from the flowing forth of the Spirits being hindred he affirms that may be caused by two ways to wit either by reason of the obstruction of the beginning of all the Nerves caused by a serous inundation or by a sudden compression of the same which is caused either by an heaping up of too much blood in the Meninges or in some parts of the brain it self or in its Ventricles or else by a disposition of the Phlegmonodes These most ingenious reasons indeed seem to challenge our assent for that more probable or more likely are not easily to be brought but because we think some of these are to be altered and others to be added therefore we shall here institute though not a different yet somewhat another reason of this Disease And in the first place though we grant that the flowing in of the blood may be sometimes denyed to the Brain yet we do not believe that it only happens after the aforesaid ways nor that for that reason the Apoplexy doth arise We have elsewhere shewed that the Cephalick Arteries viz. the Carotides and the Vertebrals do so communicate one with another and all of them in several places are so ingraffed one in another mutually that if it happen that many
changed therefore instead of the Electuary let there be substituted for two or three weeks sometimes the Spirit of Sal Armoniack with Amber or Coral or else impregnated with humane Skull or Castor sometimes Elixir of Poeony or Tincture of Amber or Coral or Elixir Vitae of Quercitan or the simple mixture also instead of it may be drunk compounded Waters or Water of black Cherries or Walnuts or the simple Waters of Rosemary or Lavender sometimes a draught of Posset-drink with Flowers of the male Poeony or the Lilies of the valley boiled in it or a draught of Tea or Coffee in the morning let the water of which it is prepared have such ingredients first boiled in it or let Chocolate be prepared after this same manner Take of the Powder of the Root of the male Poeony of humane Skull prepared each half an ounce of the Species of Diambrae two drams make a Powder to every paper add of the Kirnels of the Cocoe Nuts one pound of Sugar what will suffice of this make Chocolate take of it half an ounce or six drams every Morning in a draught of the Decoction of Sage or of the Flowers of Poeony or such like Take of the Powder of the Root of the male Poeony of humane Skull prepared each one ounce and a half of the pick'd Root of Zedoary Cretick Dittany Angelica Contrayerva each two drams make a fine Powder of them all add to it of the yellow of Orenges and Lemons Candied each two ounces let all be beaten to a Powder take about half a dram or a dram an hour before and after meals For ordinary drink let a Vessel of four gallons be filled with ordinary Ale in which six handfuls of white Horehound dryed had been boiled of Anacardine and Cardomums cut and beaten each one ounce and a half of it make a bag to hang in it First of all a very strict dyet ought to be ordered let a temperate dry and open air be chosen let good and wholesome meats be eaten and slender meals Let suppers be sparingly taken or none at all Let noon-sleeps drinking bouts and other customary things about the non-naturals be shunned I could here propose many Histories of Apoplectical persons to wit of some who were once or twice touch'd and yet living and of others who have dyed at the first assault or in the second or third fit The most Reverend Father in God the Lord Gilbert Archbishop of Canterbury recovered of a grievous Apoplectical Fit six years ago God prospering our medicinal help to whom we render eternal thanks and from that time though he sometimes suffer'd some light skirmishes of the Disease yet he never fell or became speechless or senseless But we shall not stay upon this or other examples to unfold them largely because there is nothing in them very rare that may illustrate the Aetiology of this Disease Some of their dead Carcases I have dissected but only of such as the cause of death was from some former great hurt of the head as some blow or by means of some blast in all which the extravasated Blood or an Imposthum was the cause of their death We have been prohibited often by their Friends from opening those dying of an habitual Apoplexy who expecting to have them revive again held it as a deadly thing and so wholly forbid Anatomy But I shall here relate a notable Anatomical observation taken about five years since at Oxford An ancient Divine an honest and a godly Man indued with a fat body a short and brawny Neck being long unhealthy and living a sedentary life contracted a very Scorbutick evil disposition being troubled with a difficult and laborious breathing with an heaviness of the Head and unwonted numness was scarce able to endure any thing of labour or exercise more than that he daily went and came from his Chamber to the Chapel and Hall one Morning he came to the Chapel a little before Prayers begun and while he was on his knees he was suddenly struck and immediately became speechless and senseless and fell on the ground but being carried thence and his cloaths taken off he was put into a warm Bed I and other Physicians being presently sent for and coming as soon as we could possibly we found him not only without Pulse sense and breathing but all his Body cold and quite stiff nor could he be recalled to life or heat by any Remedies or ways of administrations though used for some time by which we suspected that the Pulse of his heart was wholly hindred at the first stroke and that its flame being put out presently all motion of the Blood was suppressed The next day seeing the Carcase dead enough and stiff we opened it nothing doubting but that the Distemper so suddenly mortal would shew clear marks of it within the Head But there or in any other part was not the least shadow of this most cruel Disease The Vessels watering the Meninges were moderately filled with Blood without any Inflammation or Extravasation The Brain the Cerebel and the oblong Marrow with all their processes and prominences appeared every where thoroughout firm and well coloured both without and within nor was there any Serum or Blood poured forth any where within the Pores or passages nor yet within the greater Ventricles nor heaped up yea the Choroeidal Infoldings placed both within the cavity of the Brain and behind the Cerebel seem'd free from all fault so that the Morbific matter equally thin and subtil like the Animal Spirits whom it affected remained wholly invisible and we could only argue its presence by the effect But lest this should lye hid some where without the Head after the contents of the head were diligently inspected we came to the Breast where the discoloured Lungs being through the whole stuffed with a frothy matter manifestly shewed the cause of the short and difficult breathing But the Heart was sound and firm enough free from any obstruction or fleshy Concretions Further neither in the neighbouring parts or in others about the Viscera was found any Imposthum or Ulcer by whose contact or stink the Heart could be suddenly oppressed or the Vital Spirits if this be possible might be choaked Wherefore in this case nothing could be suspected else but that the Animal Spirits implanted within the middle of the Cerebel were put to flight and as it were extinguished suddenly by some malignant or narcotick or otherways deadly Particles so that the motion of the Heart presently failing like the first moving wheel in a Clock or Watch immediately all the other functions their impulses being taken away wholly ceased CHAP. IX Of the Palsie THE middle of the Brain or the Callous Body to which we have assigned the seat of the Vertigo and Apoplexy seems also to be the primary distemper'd place in the Epilepsie Concerning which as also concerning Convulsie Diseases since we have elsewhere largely treated we shall
or other Distempers of the Brain or nervous System if it be not in a short time altered for the better or gives not place to Medicines it remains for the most part incureable 3. If that a total resolution follows from a total obstruction in the beginning of the oblong Marrow or from the Back-bone being vehemently hurt and that sense and motion are both taken away the Distemper is hardly or scarce at all to be Cured 4. Those who are once cured of a Palsie arising from an evident solitary cause do not so easily relapse into the same as when the Disease depends upon a procatartick cause 5. A Palsie happening to men of years to Cacochymical very Scorbutical and intemperate persons although the Distemper be not very great is difficultly Cured As the Palsies are manifold and are from diverse causes so the Cure is not to be instituted always after one manner but after a various method to wit appropriate to every kind of this Disease For the most part there are these three kinds of it or rather there are three means of healing of which there ought to be had concerning the Cure of this Disease now this now that or now another to wit because resolution whatever or in what place soever it be is either caused 1. from an external accident as a stroke a fall a wound excess of cold or the like suddenly Or 2. It succeeds to some other Distemper as the Apoplexy Carus Colick or a long Feavour Or 3. It is primary and a Disease by it self by degrees excited and depending upon a procatartick cause or a previous provision Concerning each of these we shall speak particularly 1. Therefore when the Palsie is caused by reason of some accident with a vehement hurt there are not many intentions of healing but only that the part hurt may recover its pristine conformation And first of all that the Blood and other humors flowing to it being weak and distemper'd and staying there might not increase the hurt Phlebotomy is most requisite in this case and presently to be celebrated then the belly being made slippery by the use of Clysters and a slender dyet if the matter requires it let there be instituted either easily digested meats or moderate Hydroticks or water meats to wit that whilst the sick is kept in bed he may continue in a gentle sweat that all the superfluities may copiously exhale from the hurt part and that the Spirits being gently agitated may repeat their former ways and tracts within those Pores and passages so unlocked by the warm Effluvia's For this end the Powder ad Casum described in the Augustan Pharmacopoea or as it is in ours is of common use let there be given of Irish Slate to the quantity of about a dram in a draught of white Wine warm'd or of Posset-drink made of it and repeated every six or eight hours Besides if there be at hand the Decoctum Traumaticum let it be taken ever now and then frequently in Posset-drink or a Decoction of the Roots of Madder or of Butter-bur or of St. Iohns-wort Flowers Further in the mean time let the distemper'd part be carefully lookt to which may be easily known partly from the hurt inflicted and partly from the loosened members If there be any thing dislocated in it you must take care that as soon as it can it may be put again in its place if a Tumor Contusion or a wound be excited they are to be succour'd by Balsams Liniments Stuphes or Fomentations or Pultesses But if nothing preternatural appears outwardly let a Plaster of Oxycrocium and of Red-lead each alike what will suffice be laid upon it and let the sick be kept quiet and in a moderate heat for three or four days If the resolution remains confirmed and the afflux of new matter be not feared let more resolving and discussing Remedies be applied to the distemper'd places wherefore make use of Fomentations and hotter Oyntments yea natural Baths if they are at hand or at least artificial Sometimes it may be expedient for the distemper'd Members to be wrapped in Horse-dung or in warm grains and to be kept so for some time and lastly between whiles besides the use of these to add Clysters and gentle Purges But if no help follows these administrations the sick ought then to be handled with the like long method and with the same Remedies as those that have an habitual Palsie or any other coming upon other Diseases and confirmed which means of Cure for every common Palsie more deeply rooted shall be shewed anon 2. When the Palsie coming upon a Feavour Apoplexy Carus or other Cephalick or Convulsive Diseases is greatly and suddenly excited first the Physician ought to endeavour the taking away of the conjunct cause which hath almost ever its seat in the oblong or spinal Marrow Wherefore at the beginning of the Disease Blood-letting and Purging if nothing shews the contrary Clysters Vesicatories Cupping-glasses Sneezing Powders Oyntments and other administrations used in Cephalick Diseases to wit which by any means may shake off or pull away the deadly matter fixed to the Medullary Trunk or to the little heads of the Nerves coming from it are to be made use of If that at first the force of Medicine effects nothing within fifteen or twenty days for that the Distemper is radicated and become habitual it must be expunged by a long method and equally by preservatory as well as curatory Indications of which we shall speak anon 3. The habitual Palsie depending upon a procatartick cause whether it be in fieri or in disposition or whether it be made or in the nest or bird either requires a peculiar means of healing There are two chief causes of the former in both which the Curatory Method respecting only the fore-leading Causes is designed after the like manner to wit whether any falling dangerously ill of the Palsie or growing well of it relapses into danger the same Remedies almost are to be insisted on The intentions therefore of healing are First That the offices of Chilification and of making of Blood be rightly performed and matter for the procreating the Animal Spirits be supplied both laudable and sufficient to the Head then Secondly That the Brain being still firm and well made the heterogeneous Particles being excluded it may admit all that are fitting and rightly exalt then into Animal Spirits For these ends I think convenient to propose the following method which ought to be varied according to the various constitutions of the sick In Spring and Fall that they enter into the ordinary course of Physick yea the whole year besides some Remedis are in constant use Blood-letting is not always convenient to all men But though we forbid this it is not for the same reason with the Ancients supposing the Palsie to be a cold Disease but because the Animal Spirits are both procreated out of the Blood and
if the business will admit it let the Paralytick members be covered over with hot grains or with the refuse of the Grapes when flung out of the Wine-press or let them be thrust into the belly of a Beast new slain or bathed in an artificial Bath or in the natural Baths and be kept for a long while in any of these But if these help not you must then come to universal Remedies or great Remedies of which sort in the first place are Diaphoreticks or sweating Medicines Mercurial Medicines stirring up Salivation and strong Vomiting Medicines of each of which we shall speak briefly In the Cure of the Palsie sometimes Diaphoreticks or Medicines causing sweats do very much help and that they sometimes are hurtful the common people do ordinarily observe Wherefore it is very requisite that we should unfold the reasons of this so different effect and that so indications may be taken as to the use or rejection of them Therefore a plentiful sweating is wont to be helpful sometimes to Paralyticks chiefly for two reasons to wit for that it doth thrust forth or exterminate in a great measure the impurities of the Blood and the nervous juice being apt to breath forth so that the Morbific matter doth not flow any more to the Brain and the distemper'd parts and that whatever hath already flowed forth from them is partly conveyed forth of doors Then Secondly Because the Effluvia's of heat falling away from the boiling blood do very much open the nervous Passages before obstructed whilst in evaporating they pass thorow them and make an open way for the Spirits Wherefore this administration is chiefly and almost only convenient for those whose Blood is not stuffed with fixed Salt and Sulphur but is diluted with a limpid and saltless Serum For on the contrary Paralyticks whose blood and humors are full of fierce Exotick and fixed Particles of enormous Salts and Sulphur and unfit to be exhaled do often receive great harm by a violent and forced sweating Of this kind of effect we have assigned these two causes to wit because that the Morbific Particles by reason of agitation being too much exalted become more outragious then secondly because these being more plentifully brought to the Brain and nervous Stock they oftentimes increase the old obstructions and not rarely produce new That a plentiful sweating or Diaphoresis may be easily provoked both internal Medicines and outward administrations are wont to be made use of The former stir up either the Blood or Serum into an heat or provoke the heart into more swift motions and for that cause whether one or both be done when the bloody liquor is rapidly circulated thorow the Heart and Vessels and is wrought into a frothy swelling up there is a necessity that very many Effluvia's which are the matter of sweat should go away from it For this end Medicines of a various kind are commended to Paralyticks of which the most noted are a Decoction of Guaicum Sarsaparilla c. Spirits and Oyl of Guaicum the simple mixture Flowers and Spirits of Sal Armoniack Aurum Diaphoreticum the Salt of Vipers as also the Powder and Wine of the same the solar Rezoartick minerale Tincture of Antimony c. External administrations move sweat because they hold in and stir up the moderate heat in the whole body and so the blood being made hot is compelled to move more swiftly and to evaporate more and at the same time the Pores of the skin being unlocked readily let forth all the Particles that are apt to exhale For this use besides the Bed-cloaths which only hold in the Effluvia's of heat sent from the body about it still there are little sweating Chairs or Stoves made hot with Coals or with the Spirits of Wine also Hot-houses and Baths of various kinds and forms and our natural Baths are wont to be made use of But of all of them our natural Baths of the Bath if they agree with the temper of the sick are thought to be the best Remedy which the many Crutches hung up as so many trophies of this Disease being overcome belonging to many Cured of the Palsie do sufficiently shew But as the best Medicines if they prove not a Remedy to the Disease often pass into poisons so the use of Baths when it cures not some Paralyticks renders them much worse so that when as the sick had before many members distemper'd and resolved or loosened there was no other occasion for them of leaving behind them there their Crutches unless it were because they could use them no longer We have above shewed the cause of this to wit because bathing shaking or moving the blood and all the humors more exalts all the Morbific and extraneous particles and they becoming more outragious drives them from the Viscera into the bloody mass from whence when they cannot easily evaporate entring into the Brain and nervous Stock increase the Paralytick Distemper and very often adds to it the Convulsive For this reason Bathing sometimes actuates or stirs up the Nephritick and the Gouty disposition and further in many where there was not a disposition it causes a spitting of blood the Asthma or Consumption Wherefore Baths ought not to be tryed without the advice of a Physician and then having tryed them if they seem not agreeable they are to be soon left I have by my own experience sufficiently try'd and known also by that of several other Physicians that some Paralyticks have been cured by Salivation excited by Mercury But I think this kind of Remedy is only to be used to the habitual Palsie to wit which hath its foregoing cause in the Blood and Brain easily moveable and its conjunct cause in the nervous appendix not very fixed But when this Distemper is caused from an outward and great hurt or follows upon the Carus Apoplexy or Convulsions a Salivation or spitting is attempted in vain and sometimes not without great hurt But whoever are indued with a weak and too loose a Brain and are obnoxious to frequent Convulsive motions are not rashly to make use of Mercury Yet sometimes a Salivation in an habitual Palsie are not very fixed hath highly profited forasmuch as by taking away the impurities of the blood it cuts off all the nourishment of the Disease also because some Mercurial Particles whilst passing thorow the Brain and entring the nervous passages divide the Morbific matter impacted in them and drawing its parts one from another variously disperse some forward and others backwards when oftentimes it is the fault of other Medicines that they only urge forward the heap obstructing the ways of the Spirits so that if they pull in not to pieces they drive it more firmly into the obstructed places In some measure it is for this reason also that Vomits do frequently yield notable help in the Cure of the Palsie to wit because they draw away the nourishment of the
swelled up with too much heat or being pregnant with an invenomed matter is the parent of the Delirium forasmuch as it insinuates into the Pores and passages of the Brain either fierce and untameable particles or such as are malignant and deadly to the Animal regiment First As to the first in the fits of intermitting and in the height of continual Feavours the blood growing hot by an immoderate burning sometimes stirs up the Delirium by the mere force of its Ebullition or boiling up to wit for that it swelling up very much whilst it passes thorow the small shoots of the Arteries every where diffused thorow the outward compass of the Brain it very much blows them up and distends them and so pressing together the substance of the Brain variously drives in the Spirits and as it were compells them into very confused troops Moreover from the blood so swelling up with a frothy rarefaction the Effluvia's of heat and with them heterogeneous particles entring into the Pores and passages of the Brain agitate the Spirits and tumultuously snatch them hither and thither Secondly Almost for the like reason Drunkenness a deep Sleep or a Delirium is brought in to wit forasmuch as the bloody mass doth insinuate the spirituous particles of the Wine by which it grows hot into the Pores and passages of the Brain by which the Spirits dwelling in them are either plainly overturned or are moved into inordinate and confused motions For that the untameable little Bodies of Wine or Beer plentifully drunk open the shut places of any Brain how sound and firm soever it be and penetrating deeply into the Marrowy passages disturb and plainly overturn the Acts both of reason and of the imagination Thirdly The blood suggesting not only feavourish and turgid or vinous and untameable particles but sometimes malignant and as it were venomous to the Animal regiment stirs up a Delirium either with or without a Feavour As to the former in the Plague Small Pox malignant Feavours although the heat be but moderate the malignant matter being translated to the Brain because it dissipates a great company of Spirits rather than that it drives them into tumults brings forth abrupt incoherent and at length distracted notions For the like reason also some intoxicating and venomous things taken inwardly and as some affirm outwardly applied quickly cause a Delirium This is commonly reported of the furious night-shade Mandrakes and some other plants as for the roots of wild Parsnips the thing is very well known A certain intimate friend of mine told me and he was a Man that might be credited and also very learned That he entring into the House of a certain Gentleman found the Mistress of the Family her Daughters and all her Maids excepting one become all at once Delirious and speaking absurd and incongruous speeches run up and down and leaped about the House and for that he plainly thought them all mad he learnt of the sober Maid who had her reason and was her self that all that had happened from their eating of Parsnips which she had not tasted Which indeed the event shewed to be true for after they had tired themselves and fallen to sleep they all at length awakned sober We have not here leasure to examine whether this or other kinds of intoxicating things infestous rather to the animal government than the vital do communicate to the Brain their evil by the passage only of the Blood or also in some measure by a contact of the spirits residing in the Ventricle But moreover we advertise you that sometimes a Delirium is excited from a want and great dissipation of the Animal Spirits because their series or orders being kroken off and drawn one from another like as if they were tumultuarily heaped together cause confused and incongruous notions Hence it is observed that some have become Delirious by great Haemorrhagies or long watchings and excessive want of Food for this reason many are wont to die delirious and talking idly There remains the other kind of Delirium in which the Blood being faultless the Animal Spirits flowing some where in the nervous flock first enter into disorder then the same affection creeping thorow the nervous passages to the Brain stirs up the Spirits inhabiting its middle part into a Delirium This is sufficiently obvious in the passions that are called Hysterical to wit after a swelling up of the Belly and an oppression of the Heart doth succeed sometimes a lying speechless sometimes a talking idly with weeping and laughing In like manner I have observed in a most cruel Colick that sometimes after great torments about the Bowels and the Loins they have fallen into a Delirium then a little after this ceasing the torments have returned I knew a young Maid as we have somewhere else mentioned from the taking of an Emerick Potion whilst it worked was wont constantly to fall into a Delirium I have also often noted that a Gangrene beginning in some external member has caused a Delirium And this in a Wound or Ulcer is ordinarily noted for a mortal sign because it denotes the Animal Spirits in the distemper'd part to be slain Nor doth this symptom coming upon those who are long sick and almost worn out give any better prognostick in the fits of intermitting Feavours it is almost ever safe but in continual Feavours dubious and of something a suspected event in malignant it more often fore-speaks evil in Convulsive Diseases the first assaults of a Delirium for the most part are free from danger but yet its frequent coming frequently turns that disposition into a Carus Apoplexy or Palsie This Distemper as often as it is seen to be safe enough requires not a Cure for the fit quickly and easily passes over yet because some who have a loose and weak Brain and the Animal Spirits too easily dissipable and apt to flight and confusion being disturbed by any light occasion are wont presently to grow Delirious and to talk idly therefore there is need of Medicine for these not only of Hellebore but also Cephalick Remedies which may strengthen the Brain and fortifie it against the incursions of the Morbific matter also which may fortifie the Animal Spirits and render them more fixt and strong for resisting We have above described the forms of these kind of Medicines and their manner of administration which are profitable for the taking away the foregoing cause of any other Cephalick Disease A Delirium coming upon continual and malignant Feavours requires a peculiar was of healing for in the first place it shews the morbific matter dangerously translated towards the Head and therefore ought to he called back from thence by any means for which end may be laid Plasters that draw blisters to the hinder part of the Neck other Plasters or Pultisses or the flesh of living Creatures or their warm bowels to the feet inwardly may be taken temperate Cephalicks
it will seem to the purpose for us to inquire into the reasons A long Gout oftentimes gets to it the Scurvey and some Scorbutick Distempers are so like the Gout that they are not easily distinguished The reason of the former is both the like Dyscrasie of the Blood in either Distemper depending upon a fixed Salt as also for that Gouty people being for a long time fixed either to their Bed or Chair the Scorbutick disposition easily comes upon them Secondly The Scorbutick Distempers which imitate the Gout are the Rheumatism and the wandring Scorbutick Gout the reasons and causes of which and how they may be discerned from the Gout we need not repeat here having already delivered them in our tract of the Scurvey The Gout hath so near a relation to the Stone or Gravel in the Reins that either distemper as if they had the same original most often meet together for scarce any is sick of the Gout but is found to be also obnoxious to the other Disease Further an inveterate Gout is wont to excite stony Concretions in the Joints such as the Stone doth in the Reins Hence I think it is most likely that the Stone or Gravel in the Reins doth arise from a like if not wholly the same cause that we assigned for the Gout to wit the Saline fixed matter being deposited from the Blood in the Reins doth grow hot with the acid humor being there poured forth thorow the nervous passages and by that means doth frequently induce Nephritick pains or of the Reins then from either matter being coagulated after growing hot doth form the Stone For the illustrating this Pathology farther here being no place for it it shall be deferred to another time Every Body is wont to give a Prognostick of the Gout to wit that it is safe enough but most hard to be Cured 1. As to the former this Distemper is not only free of it self from danger but on the contrary preventeth most other Diseases For Gouty people by reason of the Saline fixed Dyscrasie of the Blood are little obnoxious to Feavours but for the most part live free from a Consumption and other more grievous Distempers of the Bowels or Head because the Recrements of the Blood and nervous Juice are continually laid up in the Joints 2. But as to the latter the so great difficulty of Cure the reason is that for the taking away the foregoing cause of this Disease there is required a most perfect amendment of a double Humor viz. of the Blood and nervous Juice to wit that they may beget no Saline fixed or plainly acid Particles and moreover a restitution of the weakned Joints neither of which can ever be easily obtained And besides this it happens that the Conjunct Cause of this Disease subsists in places greatly at a distance so that the virtues of no Medicine are able to reach them Sometimes it happens by reason of the Fluxions of the Gouty Matter being suppressed or beat back that sometimes torments of the Ventricle of the Bowels and of the Belly sometimes a straitness of breathing an Asthma or other Distempers of the Breast and sometimes also an Apâ—plexy and other sleepy or Convulsive Diseases are excited which being observed it may be objected that the Mine of the Gout is not the same as we but now described because its Saline part if it were the same which is destinated for the nourishing of the Joints would not be from thence expelled or deferred or laid up elsewhere then as to the other part to wit the laying up of the acid seeds in the accustomed place it seems that it should not be easily repercussed or of it self suppressed in its way or any where else translated to be very hurtful to any part But indeed it is easie to reply to this that an acetous portion of the Gouty Matter may be repelled or suppressed flowing thorow the nervous passages and so it being poured in to other parts doth oftentimes excite most grievous evils Indeed the nervous Liquor and its Recrements for that they consist of very subtil and active Particles upon every light stop or repulse are driven into diverse deflections and flowings moreover when these grow turgid or meet with the Particles of humors of another kind and grow hot with them they stir up various Distempers or such as are painful and Convulsive and not rarely because the dissimilar Particles are mutually coagulated sometimes Strumons sometimes Cancrous or otherways malignant Tumors arise Instances very remarkable of these kind of effects we have shewn in our Treatise of Convulsive Diseases But especially concerning a Maid who by reason of the Inguinal Glandulas or the Kirnels about the Groin being hardly pressed and hurt with a Truss for a Rupture fell into a Vertigo and Convulsive Distempers and shortly after had great Scropulâ—'s or running Sores growing on the same side in the Neck After the same manner by reason of the Goutish Mine being restrained from its wonted place and suppressed within the nervous Passages or otherways translated sometimes most wicked Distempers arise Whilst I was writing these I was sent for to a Noble Matron who sometimes past being obnoxious to the Gout and that very much after about three months last past she had laboured almost continually with a languishing of the Ventricle with a queasiness â—auscousness and vomiting at length I know not upon what occasion falling into frequent swoonings or loss of spirits a little after she was troubled with a Vertigo with a loss of memory and sometimes with a light Delirium and when she had continued thus for some days and free in the mean time from the Gout and growing well in her stomach she eat with an appetite broth twice or thrice in a day and once a day flesh meat and digested it without any trouble by this manifest sign indeed it appears that the Recrements of the nervous humor which were wont before to fall down by the Spinal Nerves into the Feet to the Mine of the Gout afterwards being deposited in the Ventricle thorow the Nerves of the wandring pair and the Intercostals did stir up the continual troubles in it which at last partly restagnating in the Brain and being partly translated into the Cardiack Nerves or those going to the Heart those last Distempers of Swooning of the Vertigo and the Delirium succeeded The Curatory method suggests three primary Indications the first of them Curatory to be administer'd only in the Fits for the allaying the pains and for the sooner ending of them Secondly Preservatory being destinated for the intervals of the fits endeavours the taking away of the foregoing cause of the Disease that the fits of the pains may more rarely or less or not at all be repeated Thirdly Vital which institutes by what kind of food and by what Remedies strength may be sustained in the cruel Torments and life be prolonged and also refreshed or
Recrements of the nervous humor subsiding here as it were upon its bottom neither can be drawn back by any of the Vessels nor pass into the cavities of the Intestines there is a necessity that it must erect in this part it s morbid nests The evident causes are of a double kind to wit first those that do injury to the Brain and nervous stock by causing a greater provision of the Morbific matter or secondly those which by agitating or shaking the Blood and humors stir up the Mines gathered together and before quiet and provoke them into painful heats or fermentings It would be tedious here to examine the manifold and diverse occasions by which the Colick pains are brought upon those predisposed for these often are caused by great inordinations in the six non naturals and the mutations of the Air and the Year and moreover by what help should be expected by the untimely administring Medicines themselves From what has been said the differences of this Disease may be easily known For first by means of the causes we have shewn the Colick to be either accidental which is caused by reason of the Intestines being provoked by sharp contents such as we but now described it Secondly By reason of the place affected the Colick is sometimes superior sometimes inferior sometimes lateral or of the side as the Morbific matter is fixed either sometimes in this part sometimes in that part of the Mesentery or in other infoldings of the Abdomen Thirdly By reason of the sickly condition and temperament of the sick it is called a Bilous or Cholerick a Phlegmatick or a Melancholick Colick also either simple or Scorbutick not that these imaginary humors excite of themselves the Colick but according to the dispositions of the Body distemper'd various Symptoms are made or caused to vary As to its Prognostick it is commonly known that the accidental Colick to wit excited from a solitary evident cause is most often safe and with an easie matter cured but the habitual as to its disposition it is very difficult to be rooted out so that the fits may no more return and its fits sometimes are pertinacious notwithstanding Remedies and sometimes continue many days yea weeks and months 2. The Colick disposition frequently succeeds long intermitting Feavours and continual being evilly handled for that the nervous Liquor being highly vitiated gathers together many Recrements which are deeply deposed into the Infoldings of the Abdomen as it were the more open receptacles Further for this reason an Epidemical Feavour rages some years to which the Colick is joined as its Pathognomonick or peculiar Symptom hence in like manner a long and grievous Scurvy causes also the Colick because it perverts the nervous liquor 3. After the Colick pains have raged for sometime in the Belly they fall oftentimes into the Loins and then the Disease increasing or growng worse they enter upon the members and the muscles almost all in the whole Body and at length oftentimes end in the Palsie which certainly is a manifest sign that the Morbific matter is not carried by the Arteries but by the Nerves and that its subject or seat is not the cavities or the coats of the Intestines but the nervous Infoldings of the Mesentery For because the Lumbary pains or those of the side do come upon the torments of the Belly besides that the Nerves of either place communicate the cause is further for that the Morbific matter being much increased in the Head slides down not only into the wandring pair but also into the spinal Marrow and entring into it and setling in its bottom causes pains to arise in the Loins and afterwards in many other Nerves which proceed from the Spine or Back-bone and in other Members and Muscles distemper'd lastly it brings in the Palsie by the passages of the Nerves being stuffed by the Morbific Matter heaped up to a plentitude in them 4. The more cruel Colick and very much raging whose cause is an Inflammation or an Imposthum of some Intestine for the most part induces the mortal Iliack Passion The Curatory method in the Colick as in most intermitting Diseases suggests three primary Indications The first of which Curatory to be administer'd in the fit respects the allaying of the pains and for the sooner and more easie taking away the coming of the Disease Secondly Preservatory which shews the taking away the cause of the Disease without the fit that the fits may not be often repeated or more grievously infest Thirdly Vital which supplies Remedies for the preserving of strength in the torments and most cruel Cruciations and for the cherishing of the Spirits Concerning these we shall speak a little more sully in order 1. We almost only respect the Curatory Indication in the accidental Colick for the evident cause which is an irritation of the Intestines by sharp contents being removed the pains for the most part cease of their own accord nor do they return without the like occasion Wherefore for the quick curing of this Disease the practice is well enough known to every common person among the vulgar to wit presently to administer softning Clysters Topick Anodynes and Narcoticks to which if a Feavour be joined or feared letting of blood is often used with success We shall set down forms of these and the order of using them in the Cure of the habitual Colick Therefore for the healing of this Distemper in the fit there are two chief Intentions to wit both to take away the painful breach or solution of the unity and to allay the burning or growing hot of the Fibres and the Spirits in them For the former you must endeavour both that the matter impacted in one or more Mines may be shaken off or subdued and also that a flowing in of new matter may be hindred The second Intention which ought chiefly and continually to be insisted upon is performed by Anodynes chiefly and Narcoticks After what manner and by what Remedies every one of these are methodically to be done we shall now shew you Most often the Cure of the pain of the Colick and that rightly is begun with a Clyster Let this at first be gentle and only emollient by which the Corrugations or the wrinklings of the Fibres may be allayed and the burning Spirits flattered or pleased For this end warm Milk with Sugar or Molossus or Syrup of Violets is convenient as also Emollient Decoctions of Mallows Marsh-mallows Mercury with the Flowers of Melilot and Elder with the Oyl of Almonds or of Olives also a Decoction of a Sheeps-head or Calves-feet sometimes a Clyster of mere Oyl of Olives or of Linseed Oyl is wont to help before any others But if the more gentle Clysters do not loosen the Belly nor are easily ejected there must be given such as will more provoke and press or as it were stroke forth the humors by the little mouths of the Arteries For which end
much more profitably to be given by which when the Blood is poured forth and its serosities plentifully precipitated the nourishment of the Disease is cut off and the bloody Mass being emptied receives part of the Morbific matter so that its reliques are more easily shaken off For this end Take of the best Spirit of Tartar rectified half an ounce let half a dram be given twice or thrice in a day in a spoonful or two of the following Iulep drinking after it five spoonfuls of the same Take of the Water of the leaves of Burdock or of Aron or of Arsmart one pint of the Water of the flowers of Elder and of Chamomil each four ounces of the compound water of Gentian of the compound Water of Raddishes each two ounces of Sugar six drams mix them together After the same manner as the Spirit of Tartar may be given in a just Dose sometimes the Tincture of the Salt of Tartar sometimes the simple mixture or the Spirit of Sal Armoniack succinated or impregnated with Amber Take of Millepedes prepared two drams of the flowers of Sal Armoniack Tartarized one dram of the Oyl of Nutmegs half a scruple of Turpentine what will suffice make a Mass and let it be made into Pilâ—s take three or four once or twice in a day drinking after it a Dose of the Iulep or of the following distilled water five or six spoonfuls Take of fresh Millepedes or Hog-Lice cleansed one pint and a half the outer rind of six Oranges and of four Lemons six Nutmegs let them be cut small and add to them one pound of the crumbs of stale white Bread all being bruised together and well mixed pour to them four pints of new Milk and of Sack one quart let them be distilled according to art and the whole liquor mixed together you may sweeten it with Sugar or the Syrup of Violets as you please In a long and pertinacious Colick to those who are of a more cold temperament and Viscera Purging Spaw Waters or Whey with the Syrup of Violets are wont to be given oftentimes with great help for both liquors where they are agreeable being plentifully drunk refrigerate the stomach and the hot Intestines and presently loosen and help them in their painful Cramps and wrinklings or from the Convulsive winds or blasts that extend them besides they chiefly help as I suppose for that they tame and subdue the Saline Particles of another nature insinuating themselves into the Morbific Mine and other Saline and irritative Particles inhabiting it and oftentimes carry them forth by Purging In this Disease as all things are not convenient for all men yea neither the same thing always for the same person there is dayly need of the careful observation of a prudent Physician that by the co-indications from things taken that hurt or help a right method of healing may be instituted and varied as occasion serves 2. The Vital Indication ought to be joyned to the Curatory and that between whiles For when the sick being afflicted with torture watching Vomiting and abstinence almost continual often fall into languishment and sometimes in danger of their lives Remedies which sustain strength refresh the Spirits and procure some truces against the fierceness of the Disease to wit Cardiacks or Cordials and Hypnoticks or such as cause rest have here their turns Take of the Water of the flowers of Chamomil and of Elder each four ounces of Barlyed Cinnamon and of the whole Citron each two ounces of Pearl powdered one dram of Sugar three drams make a Iulep take of it five or six spoonfuls Take of the Powder of Pearl and of Crabs Eyes each one dram let it be divided into four parts let one part be given twice or thrice in a day with the Iulep or with a Decoction of the roots of Contrayerva Take of the Conserve of Clove-Gilliflowers one ounce of the Confection de Hyacintho of Alchermes each two drams of Pearl powdered half a dram of the Syrup of the juice of Citrons what will suffice make a Confection give of it the quantity of a Nutmeg three or four times in a day with the Iulep In less hot Constitutions Spirits of Harts-horn of Sut of Sal Armoniack impregnated with Amber also the Tincture of Antimony or of Coral do oftentimes give notable help Opiates are of necessary use in the Disease of the Colick without which the sick cannot live nor the Physicians nor those who attend them be at quiet or have any leasure time Take of the water of Cowslip flowers three ounces of the Syrup of Poppies half an ounce of Aqua Mirabilis two drams mix them and make a draught to be given going to sleep If the pains be very strong and yield to no such Remedy prepared Opium and its compositions ought to be given The Laudanum of Paracelsus or the London Laudanum Pills of Styrax or of Hounds-tongue are convenient a Solution of Tartarisated Opium from sixteen to twenty grains is much used by me Which Medicine indeed I have given with very good success to some that for a long time have been miserably vexed with this Disease sometimes a great while every night or every other night 3. The Preservatory Indication hath only place in the intervals of the fits and endeavours the taking away the present foregoing cause of the Disease and hindring it for the future so that the fits of the pains may seldom or never afterwards return For which end the Blood and the nervous liquor ought to be purified leâ—t they should beget the morbific matter and conserved in its due temper and the Brain and the nervous Infoldings of the Abdomen corroborated leâ—t they should too readily receive it For these ends a strict dyet being ordered let them enter into a course of Physick Spring and Fall such as we prescribed for the prevention of the Gout Vomiting in this case is never to be omitted if it be agreeable to wit by which the Emunctories of the Viscera being emptied the Recrements of the Blood and the nervous Liquor which otherwise would augment the morbific matter may be received more plentifully besides the nervous Infoldings and all the parts are so shaken that nothing of that which is about to go into the Mine of the Disease is suffered to stagnate or to be heaped up there Let Purging for three or four times with due intervals and also in a hot Constitution Phlebotomy be celebrated moreover let altering Remedies and especially Chalybeats or such as are made out of Steel when they do not Purge be daily taken at medical hours But before all other Remedies whatsoever the drinking of Mineral Waters such as come from Iron for a month in the Summer time is wont to give the greatest help But when these are drunk you must take heed that they be rendred well and quickly by Urine or Stool lest if they should chance to stay long in the body
by S. Porâ—â—age Student in Physick Printed for T. Dring and C. Harper in Fleetstreet and I. Lâ—igh at Stationers Hall Price Thirty Shillings There is now Published the second Volume of Dr. Nalson's Impartial Collections of the Great Affairs of State from the beginning of the Scotch Rebellion in the Year 1639. to the Murther of King Charles the First wherein the first occasions and the whole series of the late Troubles in England Scotland and Ireland are faithfully represented taken from Authentick Records and methodically digested with a Table Published by his Majesties special Command Sold by Thomas Dring at the Harrow at the Corner of Chancery-Lane in Fleetstreet The Contemplation of the Soul pleasant but difficult It Conduces to the knowing of the Manners of Men and the Diseases of the Soul It distinguishes the Rational Soul of Man from that other of the Brute Some have affirmed the Soul of the Beast to be an Incorporeal Substance to wit the Platonists and the Pythagoreans Cap. 2. de Nat. Hom. Others an Incorporeal form as the Peripateticks Others affirm the Soul to be Corporeal and either something out of the Elements or the Blood c. The Opinion of Epicurus that the Soul is made out of Atoms The late followers of the Philosopher Epicurus have affirmed the Soul to be made of Atoms Others of them deny it to have Sense and Perception as Gometius Pereira Cartesius Digby and Others Others attribute to the Corporeal Souls sence and Perception and further the use of an inferior Reason as Nemesius De Nat. Hom. Cap. 1. Phys. Sect. 3. Membr post Lib. 8. Cap. 4. Who asserts the Soul to be a little flame or a Certain fire Why the Soul of the Beast seems not to be an incorporeal and immortal substance It is shown that it is Material and Coextended with the Body The Suffrages and Reasons of very many Authors perswade that the Soul of the Brute is not only Corporeal but Fiery The more Ancient Philosophers and Physicians have so affirmed Also many Moderns of great Note Hon. Faber Tract de Plantis et gener anim c. Arguments and Reasons perswade the same thing The diffinition of Fire and Flame by its Causes and Essences agrees also with the Soul of the Brute The Souls of all Brutes after the manner of Fire want a two-fold Food to wit a Sulphureous and Nitrous There are three things to be Consider'd of Concerning the Soul of the Brute It s Subsistance or Hypostasis In its Life or Act. In its Offices and Operations Animals are reduced into Classes either according to the Organs of Respiration Or according to the Vital Humour and they are either without Blood or of frigid Blood or hot Blood Bloodless Creatures are either of the Earth or Water It appears that Insects have fiery Souls because they want Sulphurous and Nitrous food Malpigius de Bombyce p. 28. These have Lungs or numerous wind-pipes the Orifices of which if stopped up by Oyl presently death follows The Heart of the Silk-Worm is long unequal and stretch'd forth thorow the whole Body The Brain is wanting the Spinal Marrow being sufficiently large The Vse of the Parts is exposed Why such numerous Wind-pipes Wherefore the Heart is so long Bloodless Creatures belonging to the Water Soft Fishes The Anatomy of the Oyster The Muscles opening and shutting the shells Circular Muscles moving the Gills The Mouth of the Oyster The Ventricle of the Oyster The Liver and Mesentery The Intestine An Intestine in an Intestine Which perhaps is the Spinal Marrow It s Pericardium with the Heart and Vessels The Gills The Description and use of them The motion of the Gills depends upon the Circular Muscles Shelly and crusty Fishes contain waters in their whole bodies to wit whereby they may be able to live out of the Waters The parts and Viscera of Fishes swiming backwards are inversed The Brain of the Lobster The Nerves and spinal Marrow The Oesophagus The Ventricle from which there is a passage into the Liver and Messentery De Bombie p. 40. Things answerable to the Liver and Messentery in Insects Spermatick Bodies Two Yards in the Male. Two Wombs in the Female The Pericardium and Heart The Aorta The Gills The Gills of the Lobster have three Bosoms Two of these carry about the Vital Humour The third receives and casts out the Waters flowing to it Shelly and Crusty Fishes receive the Waters that when they remain dry they may be able to live The Gills of Crusty Fishes hanging from the Sides or Ribs are moved as it were by shaking Pendulums Whether there be fiery souls in bloodless Creatures From whence the vital humour becomes bloody Why the bloody Brutes are some of them more hot Animals others more cold Why some are indued with an heart with a twofold Belly Lungs others with one Belly and Gills or Wind-pipes dispersed Description of an Earth-Worm It s local motion The little Feet It s Snout It 's Brain Oesophagus Pericardium and Heart White Globes which are Spermatick Bodies The like to these in other Insects The Ventricle of which there are three Bellies c. The Intestine An Intestine in an Intestine which is in the place of the Liver and Mesentery The holes in the back of the Earth-Worm which seem to be Wind-Pipes Earth-Worms and Fishes abound in nitrous Salt being almost wholy destitute of a fixed and Volatile Salt In the next degree of the more frigid bloody Creatures are Fishes They are indued with an one Bellyed Heart and Gills The Structure and use of the Gills Not all the Blood but a part only is carryed thorow between the Gills at every Circulation Fishes breath by the Gills wherefore Fishes rejoyce rather in the Waters than in the Air. Certain Animals change the Regions of the Air and Water Brutes of a more cold blood which are framed with a Heart with a two-fold Belly and with Lungs On which the faculty of diving depends In the highest form of Animals are those of an hot Blood They are furnished with a two fold belly'd Heart and Lungs How the Lungs differ in Birds and four footed Beasts For what end the Lungs are perforated in Birds That the Souls of the more hot Brutes is chiefly Fire In Man the Corporeal or fiery Soul is subordinate to the Rational The parts of the Corporeal Soul A double Subject of the brutal Soul The blood or vital Liquor The Nervous juyce or animal Liquor From hence two parts of the Soul Flamy and light To which may be added another the Epiphysis or dependence of the whole Soul viz. the Genital part The parts or Members of the Soul The Flamy part of the Soul in the Blood Which we have shewed to be truly inkindled The sensitive part of the Soul divisible and extensed The Animal Spirits constitute its Hypostasis The Brain and Cerebel two roots of the sensitive Soul The substance of them two-fold viz. Cortical and Medullary To them are
are either too much cast down Or elevated above measure 2 Madness beginning from the Spirits succeeds Melancholy or the Phrensie 1 By what means it comes upon Melancholy 2 How upon a Phrensie 2 The Original of Madness sometimes from the Blood 1 It is either Hereditary The Reason of which is shewn 2 Or acquired and so either By reason of errours in the six Non-naturals Or by reason of Poysons An History of a Mortal Madness from eating the leaves of Wolfs Bane The Reasons of the symptoms of Madness explained 1 Wherefore Mad-men are audacious 2 From whence their immense strength 3 Wherefore they are never tired 4 Wherefore they are not easily hurt The Differences 1 In respect of the Original 2 By reason of the Magnitude 3 In respect of Time The Prognostick The Cure What the indications are of continual Madness 1 The Curatory Indication As to Discipline As to Medicine Phlebotomy Vomiting Medicines Purging Medicines The preservatory Indication Altering Medicines Whey An Expressions An Electuary A Iulep Distilled Waters Specificks A Decoction and Infusion of Apples Other Chirurgical Remedies 3 The vital Indication Histories and Examples of mad people are to be sought in Bedlam or Hospitals for mad people The Cure of Intermitting Madness The Curatory Indication Preservatory Stupidity arises chiefly from the failing of the Imagination and Memory Wherefore the Organs of these Faculties labour in this Disease 1 As to Magnitude 2 By Reason of the Figure 3 As to its Substance or Texture 4 The evil conformation of the Brain as to its pores and passages 3 Stupidity sometimes proceeds from both of them being in fault together What the Antecedent Causes of Foolishness are 1 An Hereditary Disposition Why strong or wise men are not always begotten of strong and wise Man The first Reason A Second Reason 2 Ripeness and the Declination of Age dispose some to Foolishness 3 Great hurts of the Head sometimes cause Doting or want of Ingenuity 4 Frequent Drunkenness 5 Vehement Affections 6 The more grievous Diseases of the Head oftentimes excite Foolishness The Differences of this Disease How foolishness and stupidity differ Degrees of stupidity The Prognostick of the Disease Evil if from an hurt of the Head What is excited from a Lethargy admits a Curt. Sometimes it is cured by a Feavour The Cure requires both a Master and a Physician What the labour of the former ought to be What the Medical intentions art What kind of Remedies are shewn 1 Evacuating Remedies 2 Altering Medicines Spirits A Distilled Water Tinctures Elixirs An Electuary Coffee Chocalate Physical Beer Outward Applications A Cap or quilted thing for the Head A Plaster A Liniment The Distempers of the Gout and Colick are Distempers of the nervous Stock The Subject of the Gout Its appearances rehearsed The parts affected The Morbifick Matter It is not any simple or singular Humour suggested from any of them In the Mine of this Disease two humours concur and mutually grow hot In like manner as when the Spirits of Vitriol are poured upon Oyl of Tartar A Vitriolick Matter partly supplied from the Nervous Liquor Either Matter growing degenerate or depraved turns to the Gout 1 From the Blood for that it becomes full of a fixed Salt 2 From the nervous Liquor for that it is acetosous or sharp The former is as it were the feminine Seed of the Gout The other masculine The Procatartick or foregoing Causes of the Gout 1 A Mine of fixed Salt laid up about the Internodia or Knitting togegether of the Bones This Matter is not meerly Excrementitious nor a Bilous or Phlegmatick Humour To this previous procatarxis to wit a fixed Salt the Discrasie of the bloud and the debility of the Distemper'd Member doth help What the Saline Particles of the bloud ought to be to wit in a middle state between fixation and volatilisation When being too fixed they become Morbifick And so they bring forth the Scurvy Dropsie and other Diseases and especially the Gout The Saline fixed or Arthritical Disposition of the Blood proceeds from various Causes 1 Sometimes it is Hereditary 2 Oftentimes acquired by reason of an evil manner of living From what Causes the debility of the Ioynts is excited 2 The other foregoing Cause of the Gout from the acetous part of the nervous humour Such an acetous disposition does not come upon the whole Mass of the nervous humour but only some portions or recrements of it It is shewn that acetous fluxions do proceed from the nervous humour And so part of the Gouty Mixt is sent from the Brain and Nerves The evident Causes of the Goutish Fit 1 The drinking of sharp Liquors 2 Immoderate Exercise 3 Evacuations being suppressed 4 The Circulations of the Heaven Air and Year The differences of the Gout 1 As to the places affected 2 As to its Original 1 In respect of other Diseases It is wont to be complicated with the Scurvy 2 With the Stone The Reason of this is shewed The Prognostick of this Disease The Gouty Matter being restrained or any other way translated oftentimes excites dangerous Distempers The acetous recrements of the nervous Liquor do chiefly effect this The first Instance of such aâ— Effect A second Instance The Cure Three primary Indications 1 Curatory for the allaying the pains in the Fits 1 For the taking away of the Breach of the Continuity Phlebotomy Purging Forms of Purges Vomiting Altering Medicines or such as preserve from the Gout Pills An Electuary 2 The Spirits ought to be allayed or quietâ—d 1 By Topick Remedies Pultesses A Fomentation Outward Narcoticks Resolving Topicks consisting chiefly of Saline Particles even analogic or correspondent to the Morbific Mine Forms of these Plasters in the declination of the Fit Opiates 2 The preservatory Indication out of the Fit Usual Purging and Vomiting Phlebotomy Altering Medicines called Antidotes of the Gout Pills A Distilled Water Tinctures Powders Medicated Beer A Milk Diet. Drinking of ones own Vrine A notable History of the Stone converted into the Gout and on the contrary of the Gout into the Stone The reason of this shewed by Anatomical Observation Why the Colick is counted among the Distempers of the Brain and the nervous Stock From whence the denomination A description of the Disease The seat of the Disease is not always or often in the Intestine or Gut Colon. viz. neither in its Cavity or Coats Pains commonly taken for Colicks These are merely accidental or habitual These latter are properly the Disease The conjunct cause of the Disease are not the Contents of the Intestines Not the humors impacted in the Membranes The nervous Liquor seems most of all to contribute to the cause of this Disease Charles Piso 's Opinion cited and examined The seat of the Morbiâ—ick Matter not in the Brain The part primarily affected in the Abdomen not in the Peritonaeum But more rightly it seems to be the Mesentery Where the seat of the Distempers called Hysterical often lyes hid The Colick-mine is affirmed to be within the nervous and other mesenterick infoldings of the Abdomen From which planted thereabouts the Colick Symptoms are excited The yellow or green Bile or Choler that is cast forth by vomiting in the Colick-Fits is not the material cause of this Disease Wherefore pains of the Loins often come upon the Colick pains In what the foregoing cause of this Disease consists 1 The nervous Liquor is in fault because the Morbifick Matter is gathered together in it 2 The nerves of the wandring pair and their mesenterick Infoldings because they receive into themselves this matter The evident causes of this Disease The differences of this Disease It s Prognostick The Cure 1 The first Indication Curatory What the chief Medical intentions are in the Fit For the most part Clysters are to be begun with Which are at first to be gentle afterwards more sharp Clysters Fomentations Pultesses An Oyntment Cold Fomentations Opiates Evacuating Medicines Vomiting Medicines Purges Salivation Baths Diureticks Mineral Purging Waters 2 The Vital Indication suggests Remedies Cardiack Hypnoticks 3 The Preservatory Indication by which are indicated Vomiting Purging Altering Remedies The Objection of Charles Piso solved The first History The Reason of it The second History The Reason of it The third History The Reason of it shew'd