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
to the finger and the spleen is pricked and extended but without heaviness and it comes sooner When vulgar Physitians understand not these two tumours of both Liver and Spleen how blindly do they go to work with thousands of Juleps and they protract the cure that they may be largely rewarded and when they have done more hurt then good they affirm it to be a Schirrus and from Galen incurable But they are very ignorant for this cloudy wind fixed on the bowel in time by the natural heat somentations fasting an extenuating and hot diet given by women and Empericks being discussed the humour vanisheth and the pain also and the foolish Doctors contemned I exhort therefore the ingenious that love their honour and the truth to search narrowly and learn to know Symptoms from those of other diseases It is hard but excellent For many Patients as ready to dye for pain cry out only from wind which if corrupted and come from a putrid and venomous matter and run through the members with intolerable pain needs an exact Artist to know the wind and the matter producing it and distinguish the disease from others To this belongs the Tympany Dropsie when wind gets into the membranes of the belly with pain and so into the spaces Hippocrates Aph. 2. Sect. 4. speaks of this thus They that have pain about the Navel and Loyns that will not be cured by medicines will have a dry Dropsie There are three sorts of Dropsies Anasarca Ascites and Tympanides which Hippocrates calls the dry Dropsie Anasarca is a preternatural increase of the bulk of the body here the feet swell first at night chiefly after exercise or when they have long hung down they pit with the finger the body is all soft loose and pale weak and tired with the least pains it is like the Green-sickness in women only the Dropsie swells the body but in the other there is paleness and trembling of the heart in motion and shortness of wind going up stairs and the body is heavy and sluggish The cause is the same in both too much cooling of the Liver and Veins The Liver cooled the sanguification is hurt then comes crude and watry blood which taken into the hollow vein goes over all the body and there is Anasarca and if the water from the Liver stretch the skin without there will be bladders If these break the water gets into that part of the Peritonaeum which is by the lower belly and then there is the second kind of Dropsie called Ascites With this by degrees the belly is filled and it swells unmeasurably the skin being loosned and the rest of the body pines away If the body or the belly be turned the water makes a noise But in a Tympany there is no fluctuation of water but the sound of a drum when you strike or fillip the belly with your finger For Galen aph 12. sect 4. saith in these the air is beaten which is contained by the skin as in this kind of disease the wind is struck by the skin which is below Cold of the bowels and veins is cause of all these Dropsies The Ascites or watry Dropsie is from more cold the Tympany from less for water cannot be turned to wind without heat Great thirst follows all chiefly Ascites and Tympany the first because the water is salt and putrefied that is detained and the other because there is seldom wind alone in the belly without water which putrefies also the wind takes away the moisture of the stomach and then it is dry and desires drink This is thirst the desire of moist and cold or both In externals we see that though the Earth be very wet with rain yet when wind comes it dryes it wonderfully in a short time and consumes the moisture The same is done in the body for one in a Tympany hath a thirst beyond Tantalus the more he drinks the more he may and to satisfie the enemy in his bowels he destroys himself with much drink Also they in the Colick thirst from the same cause Also wind swells the Cods and the Womb it gets by invisible passages into the cavity of them or after Child-birth by the Orifice of the womb or after bathing or fomenting or it breeds there from some other cause and there is straitned and so it stretcheth the womb If the stretching be in the upper part of the womb by force of the wind sent thither it ascends and goes to the Midriff and stomach and lyes like a ball there and oppresseth it Hence it is often driven down by the hands or fists or by other solid bodies into its proper place But if either side of the womb be distended or stretcht more then the rest it gets by a Convulsion into the right or left Croyn the Pecten and the lower belly are blown up and pained sometimes a noise is heard all over the body there is belching and swelling of the Loyns and pain in the Reins and Hips and when the belly is smitten with the fingers there is a sound like a drum and the wind breaks forth at the mouth of the womb Soranus said this was called a flatuous cold As wind gets into the womb of a woman so it gets into the Cods of a man with a disease or without and is a disease by it self I have seen in a Tympany the Cods of a man swollen as big as a Hogs bladder For the wind which at first was only in the membranes of the Abdomen and Peritonaeum being now increased and requiring great space breaks them and gets into the Cods and fills also the whole body Wind also extends the Cods without a disease in man and chiefly new born children and makes the Hernia called Pneumatocele or windy Rupture Sometimes it gets within the common membrane of the stones and puffs up all the Cods alike but when it gets between the tunicles of either stone called Erythroides and Dartos then one side of the Cod is only tumified This tumour is transparent and not heavy as that of You may try it in the dark with a Wax-candle held on the part opposite to your view Priapismus a Symptom of the Yard hath two causes one is the fulness of the Arteries of the Privities the other is wind bred in the fistulous Nerve This fills the Nerve so that it swells and makes the Yard stand without a venereous desire Galen meth med 12. saith there is another kind of Priapism when the Yard extends against desire For the Nerve that makes the proper substance of the Yard being hollow and filled with wind causeth it So Priapism is a permanent enlargement of the Yard in length and thickness without desire of Venery and wind is the cause as appears by its quick rise and sudden fall which no humour could make But Palpitation goes before this Priapism of wind but not before that which is from the dilatation of the Artery We have shewed how wind fills the internal