it admits no farther industry therefore the Ages following and ours according to the ingenuity of the best in the time did refine and digest into order those parts of Physick that seemed imperfect They cut off what was superfluous and supplied what was defective and did all with such industry that the Art seemed to have a new face For no part of Physick though obscure and hard can now be concealed For famous men have not ceased to study the Heavens and Stars with their motions and the Nature of the Elements and to search into the bowels of the Earth and to find out by great labour the force of Herbs and all Plants and to know all sorts of living Creatures nay to search into the bowels of Mankind by a kind of cruelty that they might be preserved against the storms of so many malignant Causes This is the reason why we bestow our labour and study for the Common Good in writing this Book and others and in perusing Authors out of which we have gathered this Treatise of Wind that troubles the Body of Man Men are of divers ingenuities and every one follows that which his Nature and heat of Spirit draws him unto Some follow Musick and the Mathematicks others Morality others Religion without any respect to other Sciences Some in obedience to their God Belly follow head-long after lust and spend more time and pains in pleasure and luxury then in honesty and lay up treasure by any means good or bad to maintain their lusts These vain Wretches having nothing but a body which shews their manhood pass away and their memory rots But such whose Souls dwell more nobly in them and think of the adorning of their Divine part lose no time for meditation that they may declare things more clearly to Posterity and be famous to Eternity Of this sort there are many in our Age chiefly Physitians who have so laboured to purge and adorn their Science that no Age hath done more For no Science is so absolute in all things but there is something new that the Ancients did not take notice of or leave unfinished For humane industry is fed by meditation and grows hot by an unwearied force And a generous Soul submits his private studies to the Judgment of the Learned and grows more studious afterwards For if his works are approved by them he is more inflamed to go forward if not he labours to recover his honour and to hit that the second time which he missed at the first Fall how it will an ingenious generous Spirit loseth nothing but gets much This is the cause why we have taken in hand to clear that part of Physick which treats of Wind and is of great consequence to mankind that we may not live in silence as if born for our selves And the rather because there is no disease more usual and vexatious chiefly in the North and less understood by Physitians though indifferently learned then those of Wind. And there is no part of Physick more neglected by Authors for none hath written exactly of Wind but Hippocrates and he hath written so that little benefit is to be gotten thereby We confess the reverend old Man had a wonderful Spirit in shewing the Cause of every Disease But he useth Arguments far fetcht and such as teach rather the Wit of their Author then the knowledge or Cure of the Diseases that come from them And he handles but slightly the breeding of Wind from meat drink of flegm He only speaks of the force of the Air breathed in Nor is it a wonder For his Age was very temperate and no ways given to Luxury Also the Country he lived in chiefly Cous was a temperate Island and did not breed these torments from Wind. But our Age from Gluttony and Drunkenness affords few that are not tormented with Wind. Therefore we shall provide that such as are troubled therewith may be cured and that by bad diet they do not relapse and be again troubled therewith And we shall leave Hippocrates who wrote on this subject more learnedly then profitably and discover for the Common Good those Principles that we know by Experience to be profitable Farewel W. R. A Short TREATISE Concerning Wind in Mans Body CHAP. I. That Wind is a Spirit and of the Division of Spirits I Suppose none doth question but that that substance whether it be air wind or blast which is strong to be heard or felt though not to be seen is called a Spirit For so Hippocrates calls them in his Book of Winds And Galen saith they are spirits Epid. 1. Com. 3. And in his Book of the difficulty of breathing and differences of breathing and in his Prognosticks and that a belch is a kind of spirit and doth after a sort communicate with the spirits of breathing Thus it appears by these sayings of Galen that wind is a spirit now there are differences of spirits therefore I shall shew the nature of all spirits and begin from the chief to the meanest Spirits are either within or without our bodies They without are of three sorts There is the spirit of the living God and of universal Nature and of the Soul The spirit of God shews his hidden Majesty and Power and goes through all things and is every where comprehending all things It hath the minds and souls of all in its power and can carry them where it pleaseth The spirit of Nature is that which all the Philosophers and Poets so commend Plato calls it the soul of the world Galen calls it a mind brought hither from above Aristotle Lib. de mund ad Alex. sets it forth more plainly by this definition saying this spirit is an animate substance that generateth in Plants and living Creatures belonging to all being largely extended it contains all rejoyceth all carrying the vital soul of the world with it and Nature it self and making all things live that it gets into Also there is a spirit under the form of every mortal and concrete thing which knits it to its thick body being of a mean condition between both it joyns things different being like unto both and this spirit is governed and preserved by the other which is the universal spirit of all Nature To these three differences of spirits Arist Lib. de mund adds a fourth saying that wind ariseth from a dry exhalation when it is cast off by cold so that it spreads abroad it self so that wind is only much air stirring about and forced and this is called a spirit also For air is strong though not visible but known by its effects and our apprehensions and Hippocrates in his Book of Wind saith that all that is between Heaven and Earth is full of spirits Also the spirits in the body are comprehended in their several members for they are natural vital or animal All these are called by the name of innate or imbred spirits wind or the flatulent spirit that the great and little world Man might
A New and Needful TREATISE OF SPIRITS and WIND Offending Mans Body Wherein are discovered their Nature Causes and Effects By the Learned Dr. Fienus And Englished By William Rowland A. M. For the Improvement of Physick and more speedy Cure of Diseases LONDON Printed by J. M. for Benjamin Billingsley and Obadiah Blagrave at the Sign of the Printing-Press at Gresham-Colledge-gate near the Church in Broad-street 1668. To the Royal Society the Virtuosi SInce the Evening preceded the Morning in the account of the first Day and the most precious of Lights sprung out of Darkness as it much countenances thâ—â—… Philosophers Privation and their Veritatem in puteo so it seemeth to tax their presumption who speak frequently of the Light seldom of the Darkness that is in them Whilst you the true Off-spring of the first and purest Virtue in your noble and masculine Humility though you had very large Accomplishments to boast of deemed it your highest Glory to obtain a Royal Commission from the most Heroick Spirit of England to dig unitedly for Truth and Knowledge as for hidden Treasure And this not like those envious Monasticks who what they found would ever have confined soly to their reclused Cells but most ingeniously for dispersing of it to the Universal Benefit of all Mankind without exception If then small things may hold Resemblance with greater and the least Addition of Knowledge to your own Country cannot but be matter of rejoycing to your goodness I shall not cease to hope but this Translation and Contribution of this kind of knowledge to the English and its humble Dedication will have a fair and kind Acceptation with your Wisdoms Not in the least supposing either the Subject being of Wind and Spirits or this Discourse can be strangers to your general reading but some what to stir up your joynt and inspective minds to the advancement of these Studies to farther degrees of Perfection and if possible to reduce them to the needful use of Physick Not only all Diseases Pains and Distempers being of late imputed to venomous Spirits generated in Mans Body but their Cure also to the efficacy of those undescernable forces in Nature benigne Spirits But may some reflect what must we now dig for Winds as for hidden Treasures Seriously you may without disparagement it being no Solecism to admit of Flatum as well as Veritatem in puteo And indeed in the sense of this worthy Author Where may not you find them Or is it not rather a question What can be performed without them Or rather if once throughly understood in their various differences and properties What may not be done by their assistance And that the Spirit of Spirits may constantly be your guide shall ever be the earnest desires of the Admirer of your generous Aims and Intentions William Rowland A New and Excellent TREATISE OF Wind Offending Mans Body In which is described the Nature Causes and Symptoms of Wind Together with Its speedy and easie Remedy By W. R. M. D. LONDON Printed by J. M. for Benjamin Billingsley and Obadiah Blagrave at the Sign of the Printing-Press at Gresham-Colledge-gate near the Church in Broad-street 1668. To all those whose Bodies are troubled with Wind or any Diseases caused thereby IT is confessed by all that no temporal Blessing is better then Health therefore it is to be admired that most men should so much slight and neglect it the worth whereof if we consider we must say with the Poet Amphion O blessed Health with thee 't is ever spring And without thee there is no pleasant thing She is the cherisher of all Wisdom Science and Arts and the only solace that we find in this troublEsom life By the presence of health all humane actions and strength of body beauty riches and whatsoever is esteemed among men do flourish she failing by malignity of evil causes all other things fail which were before in request and a disease follows which is the fore-runner of death Now who can expel a disease but by avoiding and excluding the causes that breed and feed it nor can the causes be avoided or excluded before they are known Therefore the chief way to cure a disease is to know the causes And if we carefully consider them it will appear that no thing in the whole world is more miserable then man and if you except his diviner part the Soul nothing is more frail and obnoxious to the injuries of all things For what is there in the whole Creation by which a man is not assailed and opposed and sometimes hurt For the Heavens and the Stars by their conversions and malignant aspects bring plagues heats and extreme colds and divers inconveniences to Mankind And the Elements are plainly perceived to be more injurious then they For the Air hath been infinite ways pernicious to Mankind as by Hail Rain Storms Thunder and Lightning And the Earth by terrible motions and quaking and opening of it self and by breathing forth pestilent vapours from its Dens and Caverns And the Water with stinking vapours from Inundations Fens and standing Pools And the Fire also by many Conflagrations Moreover all sorts of living Creatures by one unanimous consent seek the destruction of Mankind nor are the Herbs Shrubs and Trees with their fruit freed from that pernicious Spirit Besides all these as if they could not do mischief enough to Mankind man himself is enemy to himself by Thefts Brabling Murther and Wars and many innumerable wicked actions And which is worst of all man is so cruel to his own Nature and so mad that he torments his weak body by inordinate lusts daily and nightly riotings and surfeits so that he runs head-long into all manner of diseases and defiles his divine part the Soul and brings the wrath of God upon himself Therefore he said well that compared mans life to a warfare upon the Earth Hence it is that wise men to oppose so many mischiefs desired nothing more then to invent some Art to preserve them and theirs from the injuries of the things mentioned and free them from diseases Therefore Apollo gave noble Principles at first to the Art of Physick which were after celebrated by Aesculapius and then by Machaon and Podaleirius so that all did highly esteem them as Homer writes The learn'd Physitian that can cure well Doth all Professions in the world excel The Sons of Aesculapius delivered this Art to their Posterity not by writing but by traditional instruction to the time of Hippocrates Hippocrates that came from Hercules and Aesculapius grew so excellent in Physick that he got great Renown by his Works in Coos and among the Thessalians and Athenians that gave him divine honour next unto Hercules He was the first that committed this Art to writing and left us his Works which Galen purged from thorns and weeds and put it into such Order and Method that he made it almost compleat But nothing in the world of this sort can be so exact that
be alike is joyned to these The natural Spirit is made when the more pure or aerial part of nourishment turns by concoction into thin blood like a vapour This takes force from the imbred spirit in the Liver and goes to the Heart by the hollow vein with the rest of the blood then by heat being more refined it turns to a sort of air and becomes a vital spirit which spread through the whole body by the arteries gives life part of this carried by the arteries of the neck into the net-work of the brain and so into the ventricles increaseth by the air received at the nose and by force of the spirit imbred in the brain becomes animal and being sent to the whole body gives sense and motion The spirit we shall speak of differs much from these and is the fourth spirit in our bodies of the same nature with wind and it is so called It is gross and not so aery or thin as the other You may best know the nature of it if you consider the air in a South or North wind The windy spirit in us is like the South wind and the natural is like the North. Let us leave the innate or imbred spirits which are well described by others and speak of the flatuous or windy spirit CHAP. II. Of the Analogy or Proportion between the flatuous Spirit and Wind or the Wind in Man and in the Earth THere are two things that chiefly blow up our bodies and prepare them for diseases diet and the air Food though at first unlike is at length made like us and turned into the substance of the body Therefore by long use the body will be of the same nature For all Diet though well concocted keeps it in a natural and genuine condition therefore Lettice and other cold things though they be overcome by concoction yet cool the stomach and whole body and produce cold blood So Wine and Garlick produce hot blood Fish Cheese and salt Meats gross blood By which it is clear that not only the spirits and humours by which we are preserved are changed but the constitution of the whole body Therefore a cool diet prepares the body to breed wind by oppressing the native heat Also too much of the best meats and drinks such as burdens Nature cannot be well concocted or turned into good blood but many crudities will be which will cause obstructions and rottenness or corruption by which the natural heat is suffocated as the wiek of a candle by too much grease This crudity and abundance of humours is gathered in all chiefly the Northern Inhabitants these as if it were too low a thing to slay with a sword or hang with a halter or fight publickly kill themselves with kindness they contend in drinking healths and riot night and day and add new surfeits to the former and leave not off till they vomit what they take in or are ready to burst forgetting the saying That gluttony and drunkenness kill more then the sword When too much food is taken it causeth a disease It is no wonder if such have many excrements and wind which for their abundance are not easily voided Also the Country and air is of much force For a hot Country as the Summer inflames the spirits dries the humours and increaseth Choler which causeth most acute diseases But a cold and moist air as it is in the North is like the Winter stupifies the spirits stops the Pores and burdens the body with many superfluous humours and oppresseth the native heat Hence the concoction is weakned and there are crudities and fluctuations of food in the stomach distillations chronick diseases stones worms wind and the like These breed in Man the little world as in the great unto which Aristotle compares him For as in the great world there are four Elements Fire Air Water Earth so there are the same in the little and as in all those Elements are divers substances bred as in the earth stones and trees in the water divers Creatures in the air thunder lightning rain so in man there are bred bones as stones and worms and lice as living Creatures and distillations as rain and wind or a flatus like the wind in the earth To be short the image of the Universe is clear in man For God when in six days he had wonderfully made the world and set all things in order so that nothing seemed to be wanting made man as the abridgment of all the rest to extol his Divine power and wisdom and admire his works Moreover there is nothing in Heaven or Earth the like whereunto may not be found in man if you diligently search and consider the Soul is his God the understanding and will are his angelical Spirits heat cold moisture and driness answer to the outward Elements In the heat appear divers flashes and fiery representations Frenzies Inflammations Erysipelas Feavers In the moisture are distillations and Nodes that come from thence like hail also the humours ebbe and flow in the veins and arteries But the earthy Element of this little world is most like the great in which are stones which our bones do resemble and Ovid calls the stones the bones of our great mother Earth As the Plants Corn and Trees are in the Earth so are the hairs in man As Galen saith hairs grow as Plants For as some grow by the art of the Husbandman others by natural causes only so in animals the head is like a Wheat or Barley-field and the hair in other parts is like other plants in drier ground What shall I say of the Earthquake when many exhalations are bred in the bowels of the Earth by force of the Sun and Stars from a moisture that is sunk into the Earth and from the matter of the Earth when they cannot get forth by reason of the Earths closure or the grossness of the wind there must needs be an Earthquake in part So when flatuous spirits or wind is shut up in the cavity of the body and strives to get out there is great trembling as Langius saith if we may confer great things with small as wind shut up in the bowels of the Earth makes it tremble when it strives to get out so a flatulent air or wind being kept in by the covers of the Muscles and other parts that may be stretched shakes them till it breaks through the Membrane that covers them the vulgar ignorant of this suppose this to be the soul or life-blood While it goes forth without doing hurt at the Pores there is no trembling but if they be stopt it hunts about and gets into cavities and strives to break through so the wind striving to get out shakes the body There is another reason of this trembling The wind shut up in the cavities being beaten back by the heat of the bowels and natural motion grows hot by reason of the want of freedom and so thinner This insinuates it self into any part even the
or six ounces or according to strength Then prepare the matter with this Apozem against Melancholy and flegm Take Succory roots Elicampane Polypody each an ounce and half Germander Dodder Ceterach Hysap each a handful flowers of Elder Chamomil each a pugil Cappar barks and Tamarisk each six drams Liquorish half an ounce Anise four drams Raisons a pugil boil them to a pint and half strain and clarifie and add Syrup of Succory with Rhubarb Oxymel each two ounces Diatrionsantalon Cinnamon each a dram make an Apozem for four doses in the morning After this preparation purge thus Take Rhubarh and Agarick each a dram Senna two drams Ginger and Spike each half a seruple Cardamoms half a scruple infuse them in Chicken-broth twelve hours and strain and add Confectio Hamec Diaphoenicon each a dram Syrup of Roses solutive an ounce Or give this Powder Take Senna four scruples Rhubarb half a scruple Diagredium two grains Aromaticum rosatum eight grains Sugar two drams give it in Cock broth The next day give half an ounce of this Electuary and four ounces of Mead or Capon-broth after it or make it into Lozenges Take Dialacca a dram Confection of Bay-berries Diarrhodon each a scruple with Sugar dissolved in Borage water and Wine make Tablets of a dram weight give one in the morning at noon give Cock-broth made with Polypody and Borage flowers Rosemary Calamints or half an hour before dinner this Ptisan Take Barley four ounces Smallage Fennel Succory roots each three drams red Pease Pistacha's Currans each an ounce Hysop half a handful boil them to a pint and half strain it with six ounces of white Wine and add Cinnamon a dram and Sugar This is good also before supper Four days following prepare with the Apozem mentioned in a strong body give it twice a day and if there be a very soul body give every other night two or three of these Pills Take Pill aureae foetidae each half a dram Troches of Alhandal four grains with Oxymel make five Pills These do wonders in carrying of the prepared matter When the Syrups are spent purge with Confectio Hamec Pills of Agarick foetidae c. Also Montanus his Syrup Chap. 18. is excellent After the body is sufficiently purged correct the distemper of the bowels outwardly if the Liver be too hot foment the right side with Oyl of Roses two parts Oyl of Wormwood one part and a little Vinegar Or with Wormwood Plantane Waterlillies red Roses Sanders boiled in Oyl If the obstruction of the Spleen be the chief cause foment with this Take Dwarf-elder roots Madder each two ounces Calamints Pennyroyal Ceterach Bayes Chamomil flowers each half a handful Agnus castus seeds Bay-berries each an ounce Wormwood a handful Boil them in Forge-water and foment then anoint with Oyl of Capars and bitter Almonds Or this Liniment Take Ammoniacum Bdellium each two drams Galbanum half a dram dissolve them in Vinegar and with Oyl of Capars Dill and Goose grease each six drams make a Liniment And while these are done regard the stomach and wind there from the Chapter of the Inflation of the stomach Or thus Take Mints a handful Calamints Organ each half a handful Chamomil Rosemary Stoechas flowers each a pugil Wormwood half a handful Mastich a dram Cinnamon Cloves Wood Aloes Galangal red Coral each a scruple make a Quilt for the stomach sprinkle strong Wine on it and apply it hot Give every day a Lozenge prescribed with the Syrups to open and expel wind and Clysters that extenuate wind and open CHAP. XXI Of the Cure of the Colick I Shall speak by way of Presace First expect not any other Cure then that of wind alone or joyned with glassie flegm Secondly be careful lest it turn to a Joynt-gout as Hippocrates lib. 6. epid part 4. aphor 3. saith one that had the Colick had a Gout and then his pain of the Colick ceased but returned when the Gout ceased Thirdly bleeding is good if the disease be vehement and there be Plethory or Fever Fourthly beware of strong heaters chiefly before flegm is evacuated Fifthly let the chief means be Clysters Sixthly cupping doth little good but in season and in a fit body Therefore consider first whether the pain be from a flegmon in the Guts or Choler that corrodes the inward Membranes or glassie flegm or from wind that stretcheth If so then observe if the pain be vehement or moderate with or without a Plethora or fulness If there be much blood with great pain presently after a Clyster open a Vein lest great pain attract blood and cause an Inflammation or a Fever Then use strong Clysters of Hiera Indi major Hiera Logodii for no medicine can better purge flegm from the Guts For Galen lib 5 meth saith that nothing taken at the mouth can come with its full force to the Guts but a Clyster without trouble reacheth them therefore a Clyster is best for things taken at the mouth must needs be hot for the disease is cold and contraries are cured by contraries and must be given in great quantities at the mouth if they do good But all hot things being of thin parts easily pass through the Meseraicks and bring hot distemper to them and to the Liver and make the blood flow Also heat melts the clammy flegm and makes more wind and a good medicine abused becomes venom Therefore I advise Physitians to be wary in the use of Mithridate Treacle Diacalamints and other Heaters in Colicks before she glassie flegm fixed in the Guts be purged and then use them not often The best way is by Clysters first emollient to carry the common Excrements As Take Diacatholicon ten drams Hiera simple with Honey half an ounce Sugar an ounce Salt a dram and half dissolve them in a pint of the Decoction of Mallows and the five Emollients Chamomil flowers Bran and red Pease Then as Galen lib. 2. ad Glauc saith inject Oyl of Rue Bayes or common Oyl in which are boiled Heaters that extenuate as Cummin Smallage Parsley Aniseed Seseli Lovage Carrot seed Rue and Bay-berries adding Bitumen Or this which is stronger Take Calamints Pennyroyal and Tansey each a handful Chamomil flowers a pugil Cummin Carrot seed each three drams Bay-berries half a pugil In a pint of the Decoction strained mix Oxymel of Squills an ounce Oyl of Ruâ— three ounces Electuary Indiamajor six drams Hiera Logodii a dram make a Clyster If these do not cure repeat them or others according to the greatness of the disease plenty of flegm or wind or weakness of the patient remembring that still after the Clyster he lye on the side pained In the mean while give things moderately hot at the mouth as the Decoction of Chamomil flowers in white Wine or of Cummin which are excellent with an ounce or two of Oyl of sweet Almonds Lineseed or common Oyl Or give new Oyl of sweet Almonds warm three ounces Or Take Rhenish Wine four ounces Oyl of