fixednesse of a bone as also in the fractures of bones For the Chyle of the stomack is the same after growth as it was in a Youth But all that is at length discussed without any remainder of it self it again retakes the nature of a bone in a callous concretion in the solidness of fractures And therefore for that very cause all Chyle is volatile and thus far it sometimes doth assume the disposition of spirit in the venal bloud Not indeed because there is a natural spirit in it and diverse from the venal bloud but rather because the whole venal bloud hath obtained a spiritual Character in the promise John 5. The water the bloud and the spirit are one But I will teach concerning digestions after what sort that sowreness in the Chyle may be transchanged into a volatile Salt whose excrementitious part is banished with Urine and Sweats But the very Masse of venal bloud through the fermental virtue of the heart and assistance of the Pulses doth passe over into Arterial bloud of yellow looking reddish whence it is made vital spirit And so is not the air or vapour of the venal bloud but the venal bloud it self is brought into arterial bloud and from thence at length into vital spirit For the Office of the Liver is univocal and is called Sanguification but not the creation of spirit which do differ far from each other For neither do so many and so diverse Offices belong to one bowel especially because the rude heap of venal bloud is not yet a fit seminary for the spirits For it is sufficient for the Liver being enriched with so few Arteries and a communion of life that it performeth a true transmutation of the Chyle into venal bloud and a true generation of a new Being But in the heart as it were the fountain of life it is first of all meditated concerning vital Beginnings For the Venal bloud is there extenuated into Arterial bloud and vital air which two are wholly perfected by one only action according to the more ready and slow obedience of the venal bloud For the venal bloud is made with the in-thickning of the Chyle or Cream therefore by the separation of the liquid excrement or urine But the spirit is made with the attenuating or making thin of that which is in-thickned Both which actions so opposite do not therefore agree with one Liver But if the Schools will have a natural spirit to have fore-existed in meats but to have received a perfection in the Liver But yet it easily expires in things boyled cocted and roasted And if any doth by chance remain that spirit is not the hepatical or Liverie one of our Family Goverment I confesse indeed that the Spirit of wine is the spirit of Vegetables and is easily snatched into the Arteries as it were a simple Resembler previously disposed that it may easily passe over into vital spirit But from thence the Schools do frame nothing for their spirit of the Liver For the Spirit of wine is immediately snatched into the Arteries out of the stomack without digestion Neither is it taken as a vital companion by the degree of venal bloud it is also easily from thence gathered that the vital spirit doth not presuppose a natural one And what I have said is manifest For truly they which suffer fainting or trembling of the heart do presently and immediately feel the spirit of wine to be admitted into the fellowship of life for neither then also are they made drunk by much wine abundantly drunken Otherwise Wine being as yet corporally existing within the stomack drunkenness doth not from elsewhere proceed than because the winie spirit is abundantly snatched into the heart and head and there breeds a confusion of the fore-existing spirits it self being a stranger not yet polished in the shop of the heart Therefore the venal blood it selfe let it be the spirit of the Liver corporal coagulated into a matter and subjected to a vital Goverment with me it may be so so that we understand it Rhetorically to wit the venal bloud it self to be an object capable and a matter that it may thereby be made Spirit And in speaking Phylosophically or properly there is no spirit in the venal bloud made for it self by the Liver because the labour of Sanguification seperation of the Liquor Latex Urine and Sweat doth employ the Liver to wit while those do most swiftly pass thorow the slender Flood-gates of small veins For the venal bloud although it received an entrance of it self in the Meseraick veins yet the true generation of the same is made also the endowments of small threds and coagulation under the most swift passage together with its Whey through the small Trunks of a hairy slendernesse But if also the generation of spirit doth moreover employ the Liver Truly besides the vain generation of the same the Liver is to prostrate it self like an Asse with too much fardle and plurality of offices And it is sufficient for the venal bloud that being made a Citizen of the veins it doth partake of life and be illustrated with a vital light Therefore even as by the ferment and labour of the heart the venal bloud is made arterial bloud and volatile spirit So a ferment the Vicar of the heart being drawn from the arteries they are also made so volatile that after their consumings they leave no remaining lees that do go forth with a totall transpiration of themselves Therefore the heart doth frame out of the venal bloud arterial bloud which it fitteth and extenuateth by the same endeavour and makes so much vital Spirit in the arterial bloud as the groseness of the venal bloud and the resisting substance of the same doth permit in so little a space wherein it is agitated and shaken together within the bosoms of the heart yea indeed neither is it enough to have known the venal bloud to be Spirit also to be brought over into arterial bloud and to grant a vital Spirit by whose favour it may be informed by the minde and be made animate and from hence at length to be translated into the bosoms or stomachs of the Brain there to receive the various limitation of Characters So that it is made motive in the thorny marrow or Spina Medullae as we have seen in the Shops optical or of the sight which if they are through some errour brought to the tongue they are plainly unprofitable for tasting Wherefore it comes to passe that oft-times the fingers are benummed some moveable part looseth its sense being left either feeling or motion for that the parts are bedewed with a strange and wandring Spirit For the Authours of touchings are unfit for motion and those of this likewise for them But moreover it behoveth to have known the disposition of the vital Spirit For truly it will sometime sufficiently appear that of soure Chyle partly venal bloud and partly salt Urine and the excrements are made But that that excrementitious
which b. also denies for their Bodies after the Resurrection Therefore it behoves that we are Born again of Water and of the holy Spirit For as from the Beginning man was created and had not proceeded from a being born of Flesh So whatsoever is afterwards born of the Flesh is Flesh But the Water the Blood and the Spirit are one and the same in Christ John 5. and these three do denote an indifferent and one only Baptism in valour or effect Wherefore the only new Birth unto Life Is by Water and the Spirit in the participation of the virginal Body of Christ alone For truly it is alike impossible for Flesh to enter into and see the Kingdom of God as for to ascend into Heaven by a Motion of ones own and that is granted to none but to the Son of the Virgin who for that end descended from Heaven who was in Heaven while the same Son spake these things to Nicodemus and the which a little while after ought moreover for the same Cause to be exalted in the Cross The same therefore which descended from Heaven that he might be incarnated of the Matter of the Virgin is he in whom the Water the Virginal Blood and the holy Spirit are one The Spirit therefore which maketh the Corrupted and Adamical Man to be renewed by Water doth so regenerate the inward man from a new Generation in the Spirit that it becomes a true Spirit to be glorified by rising again whose Voice the Sons of Adam shall hear yet shall they not know from whence it may come or whither it may go because the Spirit the Regenerater is the glorious God himself who breatheth where he will and thou now hearest his Voice by Faith and the Sacrament Thus every one who is born again of the holy Spirit is made Spirit and united to him who is not known from whence he may come or whither he may go I call these earthly things although they touch at a spiritual Generation and new Birth because they have some things like unto them in a sublunary Nature which things every one hath not indeed every where known and therefore neither doth he believe them For the Generations of Bruits do happen from a watery Liquor and a seminal Spirit Notwithstanding those things are not therefore plainly terrene or earthly and naturally intelligible by the Vulgar which the Lord speaks to Nicodemus because the reason of the Love of God is no more conceived in this New-Birth than of his infinite goodness To wit it remains unpassable why he would adopt Man for a Son and Co-heir of his Kingdom yea reduce him into a Spirit of a God-like Form who shall materially be born again of Water For that mystery of love exceedeth all the understanding of Angels Yea to believe and contemplate of the actual Person of Christ in an old Man a Woman a young Man a poor diseased Man a miserable and naked poor or little esteemed Man or Woman none can naturally understand it unless he being compelled by Faith hath subjected his understanding unto Faith So neither are we able to conceive what one thing all are made by that new Birth of Baptism in Christ without a difference of Sexes or Nations unless we are holpen by Faith At length it was not enough for the Love of Christ to be born in the form of a Servant and so to be exposed unto Scorn But moreover he ought to suffer a most sharp and most exceeding reproachful Death the which so cruel and disgraceful Death himself in the abounding goodness of his Love cals his Exaltation But he brings it into the similitude of the exaltation of the Serpent Nehushtan Not indeed because the Serpent did any more represent the form of the Son of Man than the Fork did the Cross but only the likeness of impure Man slidden into Death through the perswasion of the Serpent the likeness of whose Servant the Lord was to assume Therefore the Son of Man ought to be exalted not indeed as being unhurtful in the Fork or as it were an unsensible brazen Serpent and the which otherwise being a live one was perceivable enough to be most fit to hang up But the Son of Man must be exalted alive he being full of Love and also at length to die in that Cross that the deserved New-Birth or Regeneration might be made effectual by his Death For truly else without the Death and Exaltation of him Crucified a Participation of the new Birth by Water and the Spirit had not succeeded neither had Death Perished So that plainly from a deep mystery the similitude of the Fork Cross and Saviour was fetched for a similitude of an incarnated Servant and him compared with the brazen Serpent Neither also did Israel Worship God in the Serpent otherwise Moses by the Command of God had been the Author of Idolatry Neither therefore is a live Serpent bound to the Fork as neither likewise his dead Carcass but his brazen Image only as being uncapable of Life that by this mystery it might be manifest that the whole similitude in that the exaltation of the Fork or Pole and Cross did manifest and clearly hold forth unto us the Flesh of Sin which the Son of Man by way of similitude represented was plainly uncapable of Life and of the Kingdom of God no otherwise than as the brazen Serpent was Therefore it is simply and absolutely true That unless Man be born again of God and doth partake of the unspotted Virginity which the Lord Jesus drew in his most glorious Incarnation from the material substance of the Virgin his Mother the hope of Salvation is for ever cut off Wherefore also from thence it is manifest that from the intent of Creation nothing but a Virginal Generation was afterwards required And by consequence that a Seminal Impure Beast-like and Adamical Generation was by the Craft of the Devil drawn and exhausted from the Apple wherein the Fewel of Lust was Therefore unless the Adamical Flesh doth again die and an unspotted Virgin-Flesh be restored in us in its stead by the favour of the holy Spirit who saveth those that are to be saved freely it is certain that the first intent of our Creator should be frustrate whatsoever may be otherwise done or hoped for For in the Beginning it was sufficient to be born because also then they had been born of God But after the Fall it thenceforth behoveth the Adamical Flesh to die and perish and to be again renewed or re-born of Virgin-Flesh which the holy Spirit by Water stirs up in us while we wish or desire to be Members of that Head and Branches of that Vine We are therefore regenerated in the Lords Body by Grace unto the immortal Life of the Age to come and that we may be raised up again in the Participation of Virginity Death must interpose and whatsoever is Adamical in us be blotted out We all indeed shall rise but we shall not all be
by devouring and consuming of the radical moisture whence it would follow That the heart is the Torch of a consuming fire But notwithstanding seeing the substance of the Heart and Pericardium or case of the Heart and also of the Bloud is not fit for fire They have been forced to confesse that fire not to be fire and that heat not to be fiery yet devouring but they have said It is sufficient for them to have described the Fewelor Torch or Beginning of heat Metaphorically As if nature should admit of Metaphors For first of all I remember that some swooning Virgins were beref't of Pulse and breathing so far as was conjectured by humane judgement and so for some hours were bewayled among the dead yet that they revived and being married afterwards to have lived without sicknesse and to have brought forth five or six times For they were cold as Ice assoon as their Pulse had failed from whence I began to be doubtful whether the Pulse were not made rather for the effecting of Heats sake than through the occasion of fetching in cold whence I began to account the final causes of Pulses to be frivolous and so also I suspected the presaging part of healing to be weakened And that I thus prove For there is Hedge or Partition between both bosomes of the Heart in it self as long as life remains So Porie That by the attraction of the ears of the Heart for on both sides it is reckoned to be eared by way of proportionable Resemblance because it hath as it were Bellows the Veinie Bloud doth passe from the hollow Vein forming the right bosom of the Heart by its passage and wanders into the left bosom not likewise from hence to the right bosome Because the pores in the hedge or partition it self are triangular whose Cone or sharp point ending in the left bosom is the more easily encompassed or pressed together but the Base of that Triangle in the right bosom never but by death But the bloud of the left bosom is now arteriall and is the bloud of a true name being diverse from the bloud it self as being yet in the hollow vein in colour and subtility or fineness Wherefore I must needs not without cause have found out a new or fourth digestion in the left stomach of the heart For no otherwise than as the bloud of the veins differs from the cream and chyle so also doth the bloud of the Arteries differ from the thick bloud of the veins although by a neerer kinne and cloathing of the Heavens they have after a sort returned into one Family Yet in that is the specificall difference of both that the arterial bloud is informed by the immortall Soul in the left bosom but the venall bloud not and that it is illustrated onely by the light of the sensitive form participatively but not informatively For the other digestions do require rest But the fourth is perfected by an uncessant continuation of motion Not indeed that the very motion of the heart is the formall transchangeative cause but onely that it concurs dispositively Indeed in the left bosom of the heart as it were in a stomach doth a singular most vitall and lightsom Ferment dwell which is a sufficient cause of the venall bloud its being transchanged into arterial bloud even as it is chief in the transmutation of arteriall bloud into vitall Spirit Because all venal bloud doth naturally tend into its own end which is nourishment yet at last it is dispersed and vanisheth away into a vapour or into a Gas unless it be stayed by the Coagulum or co-thickning of growth But the arterial bloud hath for its aim not indeed that it may incline into a smoakiness or excrement For if that thing come to passe it happeneth to it from a Disease and by accident After another manner the proper object of the arterial bloud is to be brought over into vitall Spirit which if afterwards it doth also vanish let this be unto it besides its intent Seeing that every Being doth naturally desire to remain For the vitall Spirit is a light originally dwelling in the Ferment of the left bosom which enlightneth new Spirits bred by the arterial bloud to wit for which continuation of light the Arterie is lifted up For thus the Spirits are made the partakers of life and the executers thereof even as also the Vulcans of continued heat Therefore the life of man is a formall light and almost also the lightsom or clear sensitive Soul it self and so death doth forthwith follow the blowing out of this Because the immortall minde is involved in the sensitive Soul which after death slies away this other perishing But far be it that that vitall light be called fiery burning and destroying the radicall moysture and that by the continuall plenty of the smoakie vapours hereof it should defile the heart and Arteries But it is a formall light even as I have said before concerning Forms for neither shall he ever otherwise describe the in-most essence of life who had seen the formall lives of things even in an Extasie Because words are wanting and names whereby these may be shewen or called as it were by an Etymologie from a former cause And although God had shewen to any one the essence of life in a composed Body yet he will never give his own honour of teaching it unto any Creature Seeing life in the abstract is the incomprehensible God himself For so by little and little the meat and drink ascends into the Chyle or juyce of the stomach into the juyce of the mesentery or Crow into venal bloud and at length by arteriall bloud unto a most thin Skie or Air the vitall Spirit and the prop of the Soul which exchanging doth presuppose a motion of the heart For neither is it sufficient that the Ferment be effective efficiently that the arterial bloud be quickened and turned into Spirit and it to dwell in the left bosom of the heart unless a pulsative motion doth concur which is likened to the motion whereby sowrish milk or cream by a true transmutation is changed into Butter For by the motion is made an extenuating not indeed of the soure but of the salt arterial bloud neither therefore is it turned into a fat or butter but into vitall Spirit of the nature of a Salt and so of a Balsam For so the arteriall bloud is by motion heat and the Ferment changed into an Aiery or Skyie off-spring the immediate Inne of a vitall light Wherefore the Bloud VVater and Spirit are one and the same For if that light be in the Spirit but this be carried thorow the Arteries into the whole Body also that light ought to be on every side continuall to it self seeing it is the property of light else to be extinguished Therefore the Arteries ought to remain open so indeed that they do never remain long pressed together wherefore it was also meet that the pulse should dilate the same nor
rage Furthermore the transmutation of the Arterial bloud into Spirit which is begun in the heart is ripened in the current of the Arteries or stomach of the heart Neither therefore is it a wonder that in the Spleen abounding with so many Arteries a Ferment and the first motions of the heart are established instead of a stomach the mentall and sensitive Souls being indeed Saturns Kingdoms For the digestion of the heart is with a full transmutation of the arteriall Bloud into Spirit without a dreg and smoakiness Because it is that which neither containeth filths nor admits of diversities of kinde neither doth the Spirit the Son of heat degenerate by reason of heat Indeed it is the immediate operation of the sensitive Soul alwayes univocall or single like to it self and to life for the life that is uttered by vitall motions Therefore the chief aims of the Pulses are 1. A bringing of the venall bloud from the bosom of the hollow vein unto the left womb of the heart 2. An increase of heat 3. A framing of arterial bloud 4. And again a producing of vitall Spirit 5. And then there hath been another ultimate aim of Pulses to wit that the original life residing in the implanted Spirit of the heart may be participated of Therefore I will repeat what I have said elsewhere To wit that some Forms do glister as in Stones and Mineralls but some moreover do shine by an increased light as in Plants but others are also lightsome or full of light as in things soulified And so a vitall lightsomness is granted to the vitall Spirit by a kindling not indeed of fieriness but of enlightning and specificall or differing by its particular kindes So indeed Fishes do not live more unhappily are more straightly and lively and longer moved than hot bruit Beasts The Schooles in the room of those things which I have already demonstrated do suppose the bloud in the Liver to receive the nature of a Spirit which perhaps they therefore call naturall To wit such an Air as is wholly in all juyces of Herbs and from hence at length they will have the vitall Spirit to be immediately bred and made But I do from elsewhere derive the Spirit and from a far more noble race But whether the Schooles or I do more rightly phylosophize let the Reader judge who now drinks down both Doctrines together he being at least mindefull of that which I am straightway to say to wit that sometimes the whole arterial bloud and the nourishable Liquor created from thence or the nearest nourishment of the solid parts are at length dispersed by the transpirative evaporation of the Body without any dregs or remainder of a dead head And therefore that the Reader may from thence think that the arterial bloud is of it self inclined that it may sometimes be made Spirit which is not equally presumed of the vapour of the venall bloud For therefore they have been ignorant that the whole bloud of the Arteries is often turned into a spiritual vapour or vitall Spirit But the venall bloud if it be changed in our Glasses by a gentle luke-warmth into a vapour it leaves a thick substance and at length a Coal in the bottom Therefore the Doctrine of the Schooles is far remote from the knowledge of the Spirits who think the vitall Spirits to be framed of a vapour or watery exhalation for they have neglected in this vapour of the venal bloud how of bread and water and venal bloud prepared thence not indeed a watery exhalation as they think but a Salt and enlightned Spirit is stirred up and its heat not onely made hot but also making hot For no Authour hath hitherto diligently searched into that vitall light whereby the Spirit is enlightned and is after a sort made hot So that the Life Light Form and sensitive Soul are as it were made one thing Again the rotten Doctrine of the Schooles confoundeth the ends of Pulses and breathing To wit that Breathing is made for the nourishment of the vital spirit the life of the fire which they will have to be nourished with aire the cooling refreshment of the heart and expelling of smoaky vapours For they intend or incline to nourish the vitall heat and coolingly to refresh or to diminish it which things how they can agree together let others shew I am willingly ignorant thereof at least in the greatest want of vital spirit and while the increase thereof is chiefly desired then indeed there is the least and slowest elevation of the Arterie And on the other hand while the Spirit aboundeth there is the greatest elevation of the Artery I confesse indeed that breathing is drawn by the bridles of the Will or by the instruments of voluntary motion but the Pulse not so But seeing that a sound breast may satisfie by its breathings the ends of the Pulses the Pulse should not therefore be necessary as long as any one is cold and his breathing doth sufficiently inspire But seeing notwithstanding in the mean time the Pulse doth not therefore pause surely there must needs be one cause or necessity of the Pulses and another cause or necessity of breathing For we percieve the necessities of breathing we also do measure our breathing at our pleasure and some can wholly press it together or suppress it in themselves But why do we not feel the more vitall and no less urgent necessities of the Pulses Chiefly seeing it is the life that is the Original of sensibility which alone indeed doth feel all its own necessity and doth alone exclude us from every act of feeling Wherefore hence I conjecture that there are other necessities unknown to the antients I know indeed that from the Arterial bloud and from the vital spirit there are no dregs filths or superfluities expelled as I shall shew in its place but that smoaky vapours are wanting where there is no adultion but that the venal bloud in the wasting of it self by the voluntary guidance of heat doth produce a Gas as water doth a vapour or exhalation And that that Gas which the Schools do signifie to be the spirit of the Liver or natural spirit of the venal bloud is subsequently of necessity expelled it remains without controversie For otherwise a man being almost killed with cold should the sooner wax hot again if he should for some hours hold his breath understand it if the breath should be drawn for cooling refreshment notwithstanding neither indeed in that state doth he notably stop his breath upon pain of death Also a fish wants Lungs and breathing for the bubbles which do sometimes belch forth are blasts of ventosities of digestion but not breathings But Frogs and Sea-monsters that utter a voice have little Bellows which perform the office of Lungs yet Fishes are not colder than Frogs yea Frogs and Horse-leeches are preserved under the mud all the Winter from corruption and do live without breaching yet not without a Pulse Therefore there is one
to us out of Scandia called Weedaschen combusted for the most part out of the Pine and some out of the Oak which do infect the Hogs-head wherein they are carried with a more moist aire to wit with a melted Salt Therefore the woods of the Hogs-heads being thus salted when they are burnt they melt like Horn and do almost wholly degenerate into Salt for part of the ashes also is made a Salt by reason of the contained Salt which afterwards they name Potaschen For else the ashes of the same wood the Salt being taken away do remain ashes and are not made Salt Whence indeed it is manifest that the Salt of the ashes doth afterwards make a Salt like to it self by co-melting and that indeed a fixed one And therefore there doth arise a fixedness in the composed body by reason of the Salt and co-melting which otherwise doth not exist So when Tartar of Wine is burnt sixteen Ounces of it doth scarce yield two Ounces and a halfe of Alcali Salt therefore thirteen volatile Ounces and a half have perished in the calcining Yet if these are distilled and are at length imbibed in their own remaining Coal they will as yet yield four Ounces and the third part of an Ounce of Salt by co-hobating Therefore what thou seest to be done thy self being Judge concerning the four Ounces and a third part judge thou the same touching the two Ounces and halfe of the former Alcali Hitherto doth that belong which I have elsewhere spoken of Aqua vitae being fixed in the Alcali of Tartar and the same thing happens in distilled Vinegar Hence therefore it appeareth that the volatile Salt of a thing is fixed in its own fixed Alcali or Salt Yea likewise that the whole ashes was before volatile and fixed under the first co-melting of combustion But that the volatile Salts which were nigher to their Essences departed together with their Essences in the first torture of the fire Yet note that although an Alcali be made of the spirit of Wine in the fixed Salt of the Tartar nevertheless as the Salt of the Aqua vitae was changed by the Wedlock of Essence yet one is to be separated and distinguished from the other in the univocal or single fixedness of them both As the Alcali of the Spirit of Wine being powred on Aqua fortis becomes red but the Alcali of Tartar doth not change its colour Wherefore also there is among Alcalies their own Common-wealth and the Adulteraters of money do labour very much about Salt of Tartar he Alcali of Salt-peter being contemned Also an Alcali Salt being prepared as is here said of the Spirit of Wine doth by the joyning of it self change the Savour of the Lixivium or Lie of Tartar So as that it becomes the astringent Balsam Samech of Paracelsus the which before it had the Savour of a Lixivium was an expert Balsam and did resemble a Caustick on At length hitherto that suits that rotten and putrified Woods do scarce leave a Salt in their ashes Because the volatile Salt departed with the Sulphur through a Ferment of putrefaction And so there was at least as much volatile Salt in the thing or composed Body as is found to fail in the ashes that is the whole whence it followes that the volatile Salt fetched as well from the Sulphur as from the Mercurie is materially the same with the Alcalized or fixed Salt And therefore a volatile Salt is fixed and likewise a fixed Salt is made volatile the formal property of the composed Body remaining Again it followes That the Sulphur of a composed Body being distilled and the Sulphur of a Coal are of the same particular kinde although this be imprisoned but that is free Truly Handicraft-operation taught me these things after that I knew how to seperate the three things from ordinary composed Bodies without a corruption of matter I learned that every combustible Body hath in it a volatile Salt which by the snatching of its own sulphur unto it is fixed into an Alcali In the mean time that part for the most part aboundeth which escapeth the embraces of the co-melting volatile sulphur In which co-melting the action springs into the Sulphur of the thing Which understand thou by an example of distilled Vinegar This I say seeing it is water impregnated or got with childe of a sharp volatile salt if it shall through the action of its sharpness touch any thing by biting it is straightway co-agulated which afterwards by combustion is found to be a fixed Alcali Yea if the sharp and volatile Spirit of Vitriol shall corrode a Mercurie alike volatile the sharpness of the Vitriol is fixed into a true Alume Which Handicraft-operations I do moreover shew in drawing them to the scope of a totall consuming in the Venal Bloud If the Air let him who can comprehend the secret doth in the first place volatize the Sulphur of the composed Body with the every way seperation of its Salt this Salt which else in the Coal should be fixed into an Alcali by the fire is made wholly volatile and climbs upwards sometimes in a liquid shape and oft-times in the form of a Sublimate and hath the whole constitutive temperature of the composed Body This Salt is demonstrated by Handicraft-operation but its demonstration is known to few although it listeth us to make it plain At least it from thence appeareth that the true use of the Air in the Pulse and breathing was not made known to the Antients by reason of the ignorance of the Art of Alchymie Likewise from thence it is manifest that from a continual necessity the Air is drawn inward for a peculiar end that it may cause the bloud of the veins else through our heat not to be discussed but rather to be condensed to be plainly volatile without the remembrance of a remaining dead Head But in Fishes as the venall bloud is not stirred by heat but onely by the vitall Ferments of the parts So neither was there need of breathing For truly those living Creatures might freely want breathing whose venall bloud wants the fear of heat Because it is a thing unseparable from heat that the more watery part of the venal bloud being exhaled the remainder doth wax clotty and at length doth degenerate into a dry lump unless by the uncessant attraction and Wedlock of the Air in the Bride-bed of the Lungs and Breast the Air it self should be co-mingled with the sulphur of the bloud it being as it were the seperater of the waters and should bring forth the sulphur changed in its last essence and breathed thorow the pores together with a watery vapour by an unperceiveable Gas That was not a naked office of cooling refreshment although it be in the Schooles so thought who are wont to measure all things by heat and cold but the vitall Ferment of the Arteries being adjoyned for this cause perhaps and that especially the Arteries do accompany veins thorowout the whole Body
of all things as well in generation as in the transmutations of meats throughout the course of life which office doth properly respect the inbred or implanted spirit But now how and whence the spirit floating in the Arteries may be constituted by occasion of the Blas of man already described consequently I have undertaken to explain in this path their Office and Properties The Schools teach That nourishments are first changed into Chyle and then into digested juice and venal bloud and so that a certain naturall spirit is made in the Liver which afterward by a repeated digestion of the heart is changed into vital and at length is in the Brain made animal or sensitive so as that the natural spirit is ordained for nourishing of the parts but the vital for the preserving of the same and the animal for the functions of sense motion and the soul But I think it hath been far otherwise Phylosophized and farther proceeded For they had known out of Hippocrates That a certain spirit is that thing which causeth violence or maketh the assaults But it was not sufficient to know that there is a certain Spirit to have told by what instruments it should be made or what it might act unlesse they should explain also the disposition substance and properties of the same together with the manner of its making I have elsewhere delivered That of any plant and fruit a ferment being applyed Aqua vitae or a water of life may be made which thing seeing it is commonly known while out of Grains Hydromel or Water and Honey and juices it frameth a water of life The Proposition needs no demonstration But Aqua vitae is a volatile Liquor Oylie as it is wholly enflamed and wholly Salt as being sharp biting as being detained the longer in the mouth it burns the upper skin of the gums and lips and is one and the same simple thing and so it containeth two only and not the three Chymical Beginnings So indeed That according to the will of the Artificer the whole Aqua vitae may be made Salt or Oyl that is That those Beginnings are not Beginnings not constant things but changeable at the will of man But the Wine as to its Winie part contains a spirit answering to Aqua vitae For this is searched through the Arteries of the stomack unto the head without the maturities of other shops So that if more wine be in the stomack than is meet drunkennesse follows as the spirit of the wine doth flow more largely into the head than that by a fit space or interval it can be changed by an individuating humane limitation For from hence the changing and likewise the operation of the ferment is manifest Notwithstanding in Wine that spirit is milder than Aqua vitae which is drawn forth by distillation which thing appears from the like in Oyl of Olives For the Oyl which they call Oyl of Tiles or Bricks or Olem Phylosophorum being distilled doth far differ from the Oylinesse which is drawn out of simple Oyl by digestion only with the circulated Salt of Paracelsus for that circulated Salt is seperated the same in vertue and weight after it hath divided the oyl of Olives into its diversities of parts For a sweet and twofold Oyl is seperated out of oyl of Olives even as a most sweet spirit out of wine being far severed from the tartnesse of Aqua vitae Whence I have learned by consequence That whatsoever is distilled only by fire doth far recede from the vertues of the composed body But in us although meat doth putrifie after its own manner to wit if that putrefaction be a mean of transchanging a thing into a thing yet in our digestions by that putrefaction I speak of the action of the ferment of the stomack Aqua vitae is not extracted out of Potherbs Graines Apples or Pulses For truly the intention of nature is not then to procreate an Aqua vitae and there is one ferment in us whereby things are resolved into Chyle and another whereby things do send forth an Aqua vitae or a water of Life out of themselves For while herbs do putrifie in water through a ferment the stalk stumps or stocks and leaves do remain whole in their antient figure and hardness for the extraction of Aqua vitae which being eaten by us are turned into Chyle and loose their first face Wherefore I have comprehended as many varieties of putrefactions and as many dungs of one bread different in the particular kind as there are particular kinds of living creatures nourished by bread Yea further far more ferments of bread because bread doth putrifie as yet by more means as well of its own accord as from an appointment But what is spoken of bread as much is said of other meats The Schools indeed knew That nothing doth profit us which should not contain a Beginning or Essay of life in its root and so therefore they do admit of the air for the increase of spirit being deceiued by the Lessons of Poets who call them Vitall airs to wit they would have in the venal bloud a spirit of the Liver naturally actually to be and to glister like air For they thought it to be a vapour being ignorant that a vapour is never made an uncoagulable Gas an air sky or wild exhalation but that it alwayes remains water Therefore they thought a vapour exhaling from the venal bloud hunted outwards even as out of a certain luke-warm Liquor should be that spirit of the venal bloud whence vital spirit should be materially framed But surely the venal bloud as long as it flowes in the vessels of the Mesenterie and Port vein is void of spirit Wherefore it being also called out by laaxtive Medicines it is voided forth stinking without any notable token of weaknesse which comes not so to passe if it hath once well touched at the hollow vein Because then the venal bloud is Homogeneally or after one and the same kind sealed in its entrance that it may be made the bloud of the Artery and spirit and therefore it is in the Holy Scriptures indifferently with the Arterial blood called a Red spirit in which the Soul inhabits Although that be properly understood of the Arterial bloud Because the Scripture is there speaking of men stabbed or slain whose venal bloud is poured out together with their arterial bloud I shall at sometime teach concerning digestions that whatsoever is made or composed in the stomack that doth wax soure there by a ferment also Sugar it self not indeed with a sournesse or sharpness of Vinegar Oyl of unripe Olives Citron or Vitriol but by its own like ferment and with a specifical sowrenesse although it symbolizeth or coagreeth with other sowre things in that which is sowre Yet the sharpnesse is diverse from them all by an internall power And that sowreness of meats is perfectly volatile Neither doth that hinder that the Chyle in Youths doth assume the
An Argument for the Position 7. Another Argument 8. A third 9. A fourth 10. A fifth 11. A sixth 12. That the Mind doth not create the sensitive Soul as neither that another Mind is drawn from the light of the Mind 13. A seventh Argument 14. The Mind imprints an Image on the seed of the Body but not the Image of God that is it self 15. It is proved 16. An eighth Argument 17. What is generated by the Parents after sin 18. Even unto the 74. Article or Content a reasoning from the holy Scriptures 75. That it resists Christianity for Man to be called an Animal 76. Some Agreements of Fathers with the Position 77. An every way convincing Argument out of Augustine for the Position 78. A solid Argument for the Position 79. From the rule of falshood 80. The progress of Satan 81. The birth of Faunes and Nymphs 82. That there are Tudes-quills in the Canaries 83. Objections against the Position unto the 88. Article 89. An irregular race of Fishes 90. There is no figure of the Water neither doth it fall down circularly 91. The fructifying of Trouts 92. The unvalidity of the seed of the Male. 93. The prosperousness of Fishes strengthens the Position 94. Worms are the admonishers of a Resurrection without a material seed of the Male. 95. The Chick is formed of the yolk and the seed of the Cock doth materially remain without 96. A seventh Objection unfolds the Causes of the Flood 97. The common divulged explication of this Text confirms this Position 98. An Interpretation about the motive Principle of the Flood 99. Gyants were not from the first intent of Creation 100. The proof of a Prophetess NOw therefore the suspitions of a Law Disobedience and of a Curse being removed I proceed unto a Demonstration of the Position For which in the Frontispiece the most glorious Incarnation of the son of God by the most pure arterial blood of the alwaies unspotted Virgin his Mother is premised And then the Text hath strewed the way for me Except ye shall be born again of Water and of the holy Spirit That is unless ye are co-partakers in the new regeneration of those that are to be saved of the unspotted and most chast incarnation of the Lord Jesus and are as it were Members of that Head and as it were adopted Sons ye shall not be branches of that Vine For whatsoever is born of the flesh of sin and of the concupiscence of the flesh is flesh uncapable of eternal Life and of the Kingdom of Heaven And he which sowes in the flesh doth reap in corruption And whatsoever he shall reap is flesh and corruption it self For after what manner the holy Spirit had generated in Eve all the posterity of men that the mind of man is not able to attain unto unless the sacred Text had manifested the way thereof in the God-bearing-Virgin who indeed conceived not of but from the holy Spirit whom therefore Gabriel had foretold onely to overshadow the Virgin her self who was perpetually unspotted And therefore the Church calls the Eternal Father The first person of the holy Trinity The Father of the Eternal Son Neither doth she suffer the holy Spirit to be called the Father of the humanity of Christ because the material generation of Christ was drawn onely from his Mother Wherefore neither doth his conception from the holy Spirit include any Paternity or Fatherliness But as that generation proceeded without a begetting of the holy Spirit the which indeed about the conception of Christ was busied without begetting so it is safe for us to contemplate that wholly after the same supernatural and divine manner of over-shadowing in Eve had the generation of adoptive children and of the divine Image been established Therefore the Father of Lights is the onely Creator of all Soules as also supereminently of the Immortal Mind Therefore the generation of Man by the Father of Lights the Giver of Life in the creation of the Mind had been finished or perfected from the substance of Eve and from a co-operation of the holy Spirit in conceiving For as that conception of men had been plainly supernatural so also there had been a supereminent chastity of the Mother in the state of Innocency such as is now in the regeneration by Water and the holy Spirit Wherefore I will endeavour to stablish the stated Position First by a Reason from Nature And afterwards to confirm it by Reason and Authority fetched from the holy Scriptures And Lastly To fortifie it by the Opinions or Precepts of Fathers First of all it is agreeable to Reason that if God would make his own Image in flesh and blesse it by Posterity that that ought to be done in the Mother being a Virgin but not in a Woman defiled by Adam least God should have Man his competitor in the intended Incarnation of his own Image Otherwise if man should prevent and by preventing overthrow this holy and unpolluted production of mankind for whose sake he hath seemed to have framed the Universe afterwards also every generation of men so to be produced should happen after a bruital manner and whatsoever should be born thereof should be naturally uncapable of eternal glory For it is agreeable unto Reason that the Immortal Mind before the Apple was eaten had never made an off-spring Immortal in Duration because nothing is able of or by it self to produce that which is infinite in Duration but God alone whom therefore as yet unto this day in Adamical generation the Church confesseth to be the one only Creator of the Immortal Soul Else if the Mind should be able to produce any Infinite and Immortal Being thenceforth of an Infinite Duration out of it self and the which therefore should be a Substance now it should of necessity cease to be a Creature and should be a Creator Therefore the Mind never could nor never shall be able to produce an Immortal substance and by consequence it fights with the Divinity that the Mind which before the eating of the Apple had immediately undertaken on it self the whole government of the Body had of it self generated the Image of the infinite God and had generated a substance infinite in Duration Wherefore there is altogether an unlike reason whereby the mortal Lights of Life or mortal Souls do issue forth and whereby an immortal substance is created So that it is unpossible to the whole Nature that the Mind should generate a substance like unto it self Seeing that to produce a spiritual and immortal is reserved for God alone even altogether by the consent of all For truly such a Production presupposeth a creating of nothing otherwise if the Mind had intended before the Fall to produce a substance like it self of nothing seeing that thing is altogether impossible unto it it ought to divide and separate it self into Parts In the next place neither had it ever been the intention of the Mind to generate a mortal or sensitive Soul
idly to be denyed that Iron or the Fragments of Iron are in the Fountains of the Spaw but the Vein of Iron to be in them For truly there doth more Virtue occur in the Vein than in the Iron to wit of those subtile Parts which the Furnace filched away in time of Fusion Wherefore the Juice Spirit or hungry Salt call it as thou listest doth not grow within the Vein of the Iron so that there may be a like co-melting of both in the Waters far be it The Salt hath obtained other Wombs in the Earth from whence the Water sliding by melts that Salt and snatcheth it away with it self as it were a Cousin-germane being once the Son of another Water But if therefore it be the longer detained in a notable hollowness about the Vein it suppeth up more of the Vein into it self as doth Pouhontius and this the Fountain Geronster doth as yet more amply do But Tonneletius being richer than the two foregoing Fountains in a hungry Salt yet is poorer than the same in the Vein For from hence it is Cold and more troublesome to the Stomack Therefore which-soever Fountain doth more provoke Stoole is the more fertile in the Vein Neither indeed was that thing unknown to the Antients who used the Scale of Iron for the loosing of the Belly Virgins also taking Stomoma or the Powder of Steel are wont also to vomit on the first dayes Geronster therefore hath received more of the Vein than Tonneletius but as much of Salt but mitigated by reason of the Activity of the Vein received into it and therefore that Salt hath become more gross and corpulent But Savenirius is far more washy in Waters having the least of the Vein and hungry Salt and therefore it sooner finisheth the Action of the hungry Salt and Vein and the Medicinal water sooner dyeth And for the same Cause it most easily passeth thorow the Stomack is sooner concocted and doth penetrate The presence therefore of the Spirit acting into the Vein enlargeth the Pores in the Water and works up the Water of the Fountain unto a lighter weight It is further to be noted that even as in Wines and unripe Oyl of Olives there is a fermental boyling up So the Action of the hungry Salt it self is made And not only upon the Vein while it gnaws and passeth thorow the same but also it operates for some time upon the same being snatched away with it Pouhontius I say far longer than Savenirius c. until that the Activities of the Spirits being worn out of exhausted as well the Agent as the Patient the thing dissolving I say like as also the thing to be dissolved do decay or faile in the same endeavour CHAP. XCVIII A Fifth Paradox 1. The virtues of a hungry Salt 2. The effect of obstruction 3. How far Fountains may act in a Man 4. Whom they may not help 5. An example of an effect by it self and by accident 6. A Woman is subject unto double Diseases 7. The faculties of the Vein of Iron 8. An objection 9. A Solution 10. After what manner Iron opens and after what manner it doth binde 11. A proof by an allied Example 12. Whether they are convenient in the Stone and how far 13 That is a Cloakative Cure which doth onely expell the Stones 14. The Waters of the Spaw are for a Cause that the Stone doth the more easily re-increase or grow again 15. Wherein the true Cure of the Stone is placed 16. From whence the remedy is to be fetched and of what sort it is 17. The first qualities are in Fountains 18. Water not Air is Internally moist 19. The Virtues of Rellolleum and Cherto 20. An objection 21. A resolution thereof WE being now about to Treat in a brief Method concerning the Virtues of the Fountains of the Spaw and being to speak by the Rule of a supply will resume that no other Natural Endowments are to be found than those which are drawn out of a hungry Salt and the dissolved Vein of Iron Wherefore seeing a hungry Salt dissolves Muscilages cleanseth them away consumes them and sends them forth therefore first of all it helps Stomacks that are beset with Muckiness also by the same endeavour it dispatcheth the same preter-natural sliminess which we have called a Coagulable excrement of things in us being crept a little more deeply and inwards as well into the innermost Chambers of the Veins as into those of any Bowell but by so much the slower by how much farther it hath taken its Journey from the mouth Hence it doth not sluggishly succour the obstructions arisen in the Liver Spleen and Kidneys and Fevers the Dropsie and Jaundise bred from thence For the matter obstructing being consumed the obstruction ceaseth which otherwise seeing it is a hinderance whereby the Spirit of Life may spring the less freely throughout all Places and perform its offices Therefore it deprives the parts which are behind it in a future order of a Vital Communion and consequently calls for Putrefactions Therefore the Waters of the Spaw being drunk are convenient altogether in all Diseases which arise from the Enemy Tartar being received and Coagulated within besides Nature So that a sufficient Root of Life be remaining that is if they are drunk seasonably enough Yet with that adjoyned Limitation that the Power of the Waters doth not Transcend the Hypochondrials or places about the short Ribs For the Waters do not reach beyond the Reins to wit unto the Heart Lungs or Brain Wherefore also the Waters of the Spaw do not succour those affects which are Naturally or peculiarly from a property of Passion unless by accident The reason is Because seeing Minerals are altogether unapt for nourishment they are banished out of the Body with the Urine the last excrement of Salts to wit the Commerce whereof the lively Arterial blood doth no longer suffer Therefore if they may seem to bring any help unto the Head Heart or Lungs all that is to be reckoned to happen by a withdrawing of the affect which causeth a distemperature therein by a Secondary Passion and consent In the next place neither do the Waters of the Spaw profit in Epidemical Endemical and Astral Diseases as are the Plague Plurisie burning Coal c. as neither do they very much profit in those Diseases wherein a Poison subsisteth being either inwardly received or bred or participated of from contagion As also neither in Diseases of Tincture such as are the Leprosie Pox or Foul Disease the Morphew Cancer Falling-Evil c. Wherefore we do not well agree with those who commend the Water of the Spaw for all Diseases altogether without Exception And so that they extoll the same even unto blasphemy To wit There is no cause that we having obtained the Fountains of the Spaw should now henceforeward be amazed at the Miracles of Ancient Waters or of the Fish-Pool of Siloah or of Jordan curing of Naaman seeing here also we see those
Ferments as many Varieties of Putrefactions and as many Dungs of one Bread as there are particular Kindes of Animals nourished by Bread Yea and moreover there are more Ferments for the Corruption of Bread because also Bread doth putrifie after many manners as well of its own accord as through the Odour of Places and Impressions of Agents And that which is said of Bread the same thing may be understood of other Foods The Schooles taking notice also that nothings will profit us but that which in its Root containeth the Flourish of Life therefore also they would that the Spirit of the Liver being actually natural should glisten in the Venal Blood like an Air And they have thought it to be a Vapour and therefore also they have confounded it with an Exhalation Not knowing that a Vapour is Water but that it is not a Gas a wild Spirit an uncoagulable Air and Skie Therefore they have thought that a Vapour exhaling out of the out-chased venal Blood even as elsewhere it breaths out of any lukewarm Liquors was that Spirit of the venal Blood from whence the vital Spirit should afterwards be materially framed Of which I have elsewhere profesly spoken For indeed whatsoever defcendeth into an healthy Stomack if it be concocted by the Ferment of the Spleen it waxeth sharp through the fermental and specifical Sharpness of our Species And Superfluities being first sequestred from thence it is at length turned into venal Blood Which Blood after the Bound of its Digestion is transferred into the Heart and is made Arterial Blood which in the holy Scriptures is called A ruddy or red Spirit wherein the Soul inhabiteth For it is made fit to pass over into Vital Spirit and the remainder thereof to undergo the last Digestion of the solid parts and at length without that its residence to exhale into the Air Therefore also for that very Cause it ought to be volatile and to have assumed the Disposition of a Spirit in the Heart Furthermore that Sharpness of the Stomack by Virtue of the ferment of the Gaul is converted into a Salt even as elsewhere concerning Digestions And the Actual Saltness is separated with the Urin and Sweats because it became Excrementitious But the Mass of the venal Blood it self seeing it cannot pass over into Spirit but by the Vital Ferment of the Heart I say there is made a substantial Derivation or Translation of the Venal Blood into Arterial Blood and of the Arterial Blood into Spirit wholly throughout the whole without any residence and separation of heterogeneal Parts because the Excrements are first withdrawn from thence and the Substance of the Heart is restless being continually busied about this Office of Transmutation that it may uncessantly effect Arterial Blood out of the Venal Blood and of this vital Spirit So that a certain natural Spirit doth not fore-exist in the venal Blood from whence as it were of the matter whereof vital Spirit may be made But the whole venal Blood it self if there shall be need is made Arterial Blood and from thence â—ital Spirit Therefore the making of Venal Blood in the Liver and the making of Arterial Blood in the Heart do differ For one is a true transmutation of the Chyle into venal Blood and the generating of a new Being But the other is an extenuating of the Venal Blood into a volatile Arterial Blood and into a Vital Air For venal Blood is made with a thickning of it self and with a Separation of the liquid Excrement or Urin. But the Vital Spirit is made with a melting of that which is thickned and an Aiery extenuation thereof to wit whereunto the Arterial Blood affords a Degree or Mean I confess indeed that the Spirit of Wine is snatched as a Spirit into the Arteries as a certain simple Symbolizing and previously disposed thing that it may easily passover into vital Spirit but the Schooles do from hence conclude nothing for their Spirit of the Liver Therefore let the venal Blood be the Spirit of the Liver it self coagulated and the fore-existing Matter of the Vital Spirits Which Spirit indeed hath the Nature together with the Power of a Body that it may be Spiritualized Therefore even as from the Ferment of the Heart the venal Blood is made arterial Blood and a volatile Spirit So in the Arteries as it were in the Stomack of the Heart and the Ferment of the Heart being drawn the Arterial Blood it self passeth over into the Common-wealth of Spirits Yea the secondary Humours also or the immediate Nourishments of the solid Parts are by degrees made Volatile least they should leave a remaining Residence behind them but they make an egress with a total transpitation of themselves The Heart therefore by its Ferment frameth arterial Blood out of venal Blood the which by the same endeavour it so fits and extenuates that moreover so much of vital Spirits is made out of the arterial Blood in the Arteries as it were in its Stomack as the Grosness and resisting Substance of the arterial Blood in so small a space wherein it is agitated or wrought in the Arteries permits to be made And there is well nigh a single Action while the venal Blood passeth over into arterial Blood and the Arterial Blood into Spirit Because they differ not in their Shops and likewise in the Degrees of Digestion Extenuation and Subtilizing For as much of arterial Blood is bred of venal Blood and as much of vital Spirits is made out of the arterial Blood by the same Feâ—ment of the Heart as is needful for every one of them and the Faculties of concocting are able to make Neither is it sufficient also to have known that the venal Blood doth ascend into arterial Blood but that the arterial Blood passeth over partly into vital Spirit and partly departeth into the Nourishment of the solid Parts Also that at length of vital Spirit it is made animal and the which receiveth an ultimated or utmost Determination in its Nerves so indeed that it is made visive or visible Spirit in the optick Nerves or Sinews of Sight but being exorbitant from thence and being derived into the Tongue it should be plainly unprofitable for tasting even as also the Aanimal Spirits the Authors of touching are unfit for Motion and those of this for them But moreover it behoves us to have known the Marrow of the vital Spirit For indeed of the Sharpe Chyle partly venal Blood and partly a Urin and sweat is made But that excrementous Saltness of the Urin is a volatile and Salt Spirit the which being co-fermented with Earth at length a Salta-peter is formed wherefore that Salt Spirit is excrementous The venal Blood indeed by Distillation shews unto us also a saltish Spirit plainly volatile not any thing distinguishable in Smell as neither in Tast from the Spirit of the Urin Yet essentially different in this that the Spirit of the Salt of Venal Blood cureth the Falling-sickness but the
of Long Life For first of all the Moon doth not heap up or expel this venal Blood although the purgation of the Womb be co-incident with the course of the Moon For that coincident is unto both terms or limits by accident for otherwise if that purgation of the Woman should be from the Moon it self verily all Women should be Menstruous on the same day and at least-wise those which should dwell in the same Climate Or at least-wise all young Virgins should likewise suffer the same with the new of the Moon which is false For if some Ships do follow one Pretorian or chief leading Ship which in a dark night hath a Lanthorn in stead of a Flag The Lanthorn indeed affords onely a Sign of their following but the Wind Stern and Governours of the Stern shall be the immediate efficient Cause of their following So the Moon like a Torch finisheth the task of her circle in four weeks and six hours So also a Woman for Reasons straightway to be added For the Woman ought to encrease and nourish her conceived generation from her own blood unto a just stature of the Young and to feed the Infant being brought forth with her own blood being turned into milk Therefore she had need of a greater plenty of venal Blood and therefore while it should not be supt up for those ends it should also become superfluous and by consequence be voided or expelled Yea although a Woman eats and drinks much less then a Man yet she abounds with more blood That is the shop of the venal Blood makes more arterial Blood in the Woman than in Men even out of a more sparing meat and Drink From whence it of necessity in the next place follows That in the Woman more is turned into a profitable nourishment and in the Man that more is changed into excrements But how it is manifest what or of what sort that superfluous blood may be let all know that the venal Blood of Man ought to be renewed in a space of daies wherein the Moon measures all her particular courses through the Zodiack For that is the space wherein the venal Blood is kept in its Balsam it being longer reserved it is corrupted For truly he that aboundeth with Blood it must needs be that by nourishing he spends the same on the family of Life or that he transchangeth it into fatness phlegms of the Latex or other drosses as Sweat or diseasie Excrements For the Woman hath small pores the fleshy Membrane under her upper skin doth enrich her with much fat neither therefore can she consume so much Blood superabounding in her as she daily makes or concocts The bound therefore of the course of the blood being finished that which is barren becomes all superfluous the which therefore Nature is busied in casting forth and sequesters it unto the veins of the Womb as unto its appointed emunctories For the blood departs unto those proper places nor those likewise strange ones because for the ends already declared the Menstrues is the superfluity of the Blood of the Woman alone And it becomes burdersome by the very title whereby it is superfluous And as yet by so much the more because then it puts off the vital Spirit no othewise than as some Wines after the Years end become strengthless For these ends therefore and by these means the venal Blood is made an Excrement afterwards a poyson and attaines worse faculties in going But at length it assumes the horrid properties of a new dead carcase For therefore the Menstrues of the first dayes is more infected than that which flows forth in the following dayes For although the expulsion of the Menstrues be the proper office of the Veins Yet the collection of the same even as also its renewing and sequestring do belong unto the Monarchal Archeus of the Womb. Therefore indeed that which is most hateful is the more speedily cast out of doors whereby it first separated it self from the good blood and for this cause it being the longer detained about the Veins of the Womb for that cause also it is the more poyson some In the next place although this Poyson masks it self with the shew of venal Blood yet the favour of the vital Balsam being by degrees laid aside it ascending unto the malignity of a cadaverous or stinking Liquor assumeth the disposition of a poyson and hath degenerated from the former nature and properties of Blood The which handy-craft operation proveth For truly a Towel that is dipped in the Menstrues if it be plunged into boyling water it contracts an un-obliterable spot for the future and the which at least-wise in the third washing falls out of the Towel it being made full of holes no otherwise than if it should be corroded by the sharp Spirit of Sulphur That which after another manner is a forreigner to the bloud of a Man whether it shall flow forth through the Nostrils Wounds Hemerhoides or Bloody-flux or next if it shall fall out from Ulcers like a more wan clot From whence also it is manifest that the Menstrues hath an aluminous tinging property any besides a cadaverous sharp poyson fit for gnawing or erosion But as it once enjoyed the Seal of the Archeus of Life whereof it being afterwards deprived it obtains a fermental faculty full of a powerful contagion as also hostile sharpnesses For that Blood through its divers degrees of malignity stirs up diverse passions within on the miserable Woman For when as it being once sequestred from the other blood unto the Inns of the Veins of the Womb hath received the aforesaid sharpness of malignity and from thence is supped back again into the branches of the hollow vein by a retrograde motion of revulsion which is made through large cuttings of a vein or symptomatical wrothfulnesses which are the stirrers up of Fluxes of the Womb it causeth Swoonings Heart-beatings Convulsions and oft-times horrible stranglings But if the Menstruous Blood being not yet derived unto the Veins of the Womb or plainly severed from the rest and so neither hath as yet had its utmost mischief or corruption It is detained with a certain inordinacy and stirs up divers conspicuous Symptomes in many places From what hath been said before therefore it is manifest That Women great with young Nurses weak or sick Persons blood-less Women those that are become Lean those that are not of a ripe age and swift or circular movers do want Menstrues because also Superfluities It is also false that all Menstruous Blood without distinction is poysonsom or hurtful And likewise that we are nourished and grow big in the Womb by the Menstrues For truly the venal Blood of the Woman hath not the condition of Menstrues before that untill it being unfit for nourishment is enfeebled or deprived of Life and brought bound unto the sink For neither doth he who drinks Wine drink Vinegar although this be made of that As neither is he fed with Excrements who eateth
Judge be taken away from the society of these according to the Law of God For if the Work be limitted unto any outward Object that work the Magical Soul never attempts without a medium or mean therefore it makes use of the Nail or Arrow aforesaid Now this being proved that man hath a power of acting per nutum or by his beck or of moving any Object remotely placed It hath been also sufficiently confirmed by the same natural Example that that efficacy was also given unto man by God and that it naturally belongs unto him It hath been hitherto an absurdity to have thought that Satan hath moved altered and transported any thing and to have applied Active things to Passive by local motion onely per nutum since indeed they doubt not that he himself was the first moover in the said motions that by those outmost parts or extreamities whereby he toucheth he can snatch away transferre or any way move at least an aiery body which they feign yet wanting a Soul Absurd I say it is to think that Satan since his Fall hath retained a Magical dignity whereby he acteth any subjects by beck alone because that was once his natural gift but that the same natural faculty was withdrawn from man as denied unto him and given unto the Devil the most despicable of Creatures But if there are any such effects proceeding from man they have also attributed them at least to a suppliant or servile compact with him Open your eyes for Satan hath hitherto promiscuously gloried in your so great ignorance as if thou didst make his Altar smoak with the Incense of Glory and Dignity and didst extract thy own natural Dignity as pulling out thine own Eyes and offering them up unto him We have said that happily every Magical faculty lyes dormant or asleep and hath need of excitement which is perpetually true if the object whereon it is to act be not most nearly disposed if its internal phantasie doth not wholly conform to the impression of the agent or also if the patient be equal in strength or superiour to the agent therein But on the contrary where the Object is plainly and most nearly disposed as Steel is for the receiving of a Magnetism or plainly weak and conscious to it self as the Murderer Adulterer Thief Witch are then the Patient without much stirring up the alone phantasie of the more outward Man being drawn out to the work and bound up to any suitable mean yeelds to the Magnetism The Magitian I say always makes use of a Medium for so unless a Woman with child shall stretch forth her hand unto her Leg Fore-head or Buttocks the Young will not be marked in the Leg Fore-head or Buttocks For so the words or forms of Sacraments do alwayes operate Because from the work performed But why Exorcisms or Charms do not alwayes operate the defect is not in God but onely because the unexcited mind of the Exorcist or Charmer renders the words dull or uneffectual Therefore no man is a happy or succesful Exorcist but he who hath known how to stir up the Magical virtue of his mind or can do it practically without Science Perhaps thou wilt say That in the Armary Unguent or Weapon Salve there was obtained no other Magnetical Virtue than what was begotten by the Phantasie of the Compounder Thou errest Yet if that should be granted thou wouldest be never the better thereby because the effect should thereupon happen not to be ascribed to Satan For so the Unguent would be Magnetical or attractive not from a Phantasie inbred in it but from that which was imprinted on it from without by the compounder since there can be no nearer Medium of the said Magnetism than humane blood with humane blood Truly the blood alone as the most disposed subject should be sufficient for the Oyntment and the other Simples would be in vain which is false especially Bulls blood and honey where there is a sufficient cure without the blood of a Bull by the Weapons of the Wounder being bathed in the Unguent without being distained by the blood of the Patient which is false Lastly the Magnetism of the Unguent should be plainly general because the person compounding it had intended by his Phantasie to effect an impression too liberal wandering uncertain and unsold for all Wounds of man and also of all bruit Beasts What if he shall not intend the Cure of a Dog Shall therefore the Oyntment not be for Curing the Wound of a Dog Fie What hath Bole Armeniack what Lynseed-Oyle what Honey and lastly what hath the blood of a Bull of disposition to the Wound of a Horse or Man that on those as on a proper mean and not on any other the Phantasie of the compounder should be imprinted the which notwithstanding if they shall be banished out of the composition they will render unguent Barren and void of Efficacy The natural Phantasie therefore of the Unguent is the cause of the Magnetism or attractive influence and the proper cause of the Cure and not the Imagination of the Compounder Behold Thou hast our that is a Christian Phylosophy not the Dotages or idle Dreams of Heathens Beware I beseech thee that thou for this cause cast not me also into censure who hast been too ready in thy censures I am thine and a Roman Catholick whose mind hath been to ponder of nothing which may be contrary to God and that may be contrary to the Church I know that I was not born for brawlings or contentious debates not to Write the Commentaries or Patronages of another Therefore what I knew I was willing to divulge abroad in the liberty of a Phylosopher I shall as yet subjoyn this one Clause Whosoever attributes a natural Effect so created by God so bestowed on the Creatures unto the Devil he estrangeth the honour due to the Creator and reproachfully applies the same unto Satan The which under thy favour I shall speak it if thou shalt well recal under thy Anatomy thou wilt find to be express Idolatry I beg of God our most Clementious Father that he would be favourable or merciful to the Faults which from humane not stubborn ignorance and frailty we have contracted Amen There are three bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the holy Spirit and these three are onely one and presently speaking of the humanity of Christ There are three that bear record in Earth the Blood the Spirit and the Water and these three are onely one We therefore who have the like humanity it s no wonder if we contain Blood and a Spirit of a co-like Unity and that the action of the Blood is meerly spiritual Yea therefore in Genesis it is not called by the Etymology of Blood but is made remarkable by the name of a Red Spirit Depart thou therefore whoever thou art from thy stubbornness and acknowledge thou another Spirit in the Blood besides the evil Spirit unlesse thou canst go
black Choler and jesting or merry ones from blood Surely otherwise we should all of us be daily jocound doaters or deprived of blood For feverish doarages are especially fetcht out of a feverish matter creeping into the shops of dreams and not from elsewhere But not that it forsakes the body that it may enter into the mind And likewise a doating delusion should never happen in a burning Fever in a Synochus or continual Fevers but alwayes in Quartanes and black Cholery Diseases Truly a Doatage is already from the very Beginning of Fevers To wit where the Fever and the Cause of the Doatage are jointy in the Root For the malice being encreased and the Organs weakened by little and little the Doatage or Delusion ascends unto the maturity of its own perfection So in Wine and also in some Simples yea and likewise in feverish Excrements a hidden Doatage is covered neither doth it bewray it self unlesse the power thereof shall ascend into a Constitutive mixture At leastwise all things do by the same Royal wax according to the Genius of their own malice Rage on the Organs of the Phantasie even as elsewhere concerning Madnesses The Seed therefore of the doating Delusion lurked from the Beginning in the feverish matter which at length is promoted unto its due malignity If therefore Madnesses differ in their matter and efficient cause That is in their whole Species and Being Surely the Falling-sicknesse and Madnesse do much farther differ from each other and do more differ in a forreign Seed than that one onely black Choler being exorbitant in its Seats should bring forth both Even as elsewhere concerning the Dunmvirate Madnesses I will say in one word are all nourished by the arteries and in the Inn of the Hypochondrial or Midriffes According to that saying In whom a vein beats strongly in the Midriffs those are estranged in their mind Therefore also they oft-times want an exciting disturbance before they relapse into a Mania or bruitish madness Because this is bred by a perturbation very like unto that CHAP. VII The Succours of Physitians are weighed 1. Of what sort the Succours of Physitians are 2. The vanity of the same 3. The hurt of local Medicines and their feigned derivation 4. The water in Vesicatories was meer venal blood 5. An Objection solved 6. A Vesicatory or embladdering Medicine is more cruel than the letting forth of blood 7. To what end Vesicatories were devised 8. A Clyster why hostile to the bowels 9. A Clyster never reacheth unto the gut Ileon 10. Laxatives in a Clyster are the more sharp being hurtful as purging things are but less hurtful 11. A poyson hurts to have taken it inwards by whatsoever title and entrance 12. That Fevers are never drawn out by Clysters 13. They therefore hinder long life 14. A Clyster how it names Physitians 15. A fore-knowledge from the use of Clysters 16. It is a blockish thing to nourish by Clysters 17. A conjecture 18. The common sort of Physitians are taken notice of I have determined to examine the common Succours before I determine of the nature of Fevers But those are Scarifications openings of the Fundament-Veins Vesicatories and others of that sort and they all concut unto the diminishments of the blood strength and body And the which therefore have already been sufficiently condemned under universal Succours They are indeed foolish aids about the superficies of the body when as the Central parts labour and are besieged and the which not being freed from the enemy it is vain and hurtful whatsoever is attempted by the gestures of such Apes Surely it is a vain rudiment of hope to be willing by consequence to remove the root out of its place by taking away the guiltless blood from the skin which thing Prince Infanto the Cardinal by his exhausted veins the Circuite of his Tertian Ague nevertheless remaining hath confirmed to Anatomists with a mournful spectacle And likewise a Paracenthesis or opening of the belly nigh the navil in the dropsie ought long since to have extinguished the like kind of hope For there it is plainly an easie thing to draw out waters from the nigh Center and daily to draw from the fruit a part of the water at pleasure But in vain because not any thing of the root departs And so incision nigh the navil doth only protract life for a few dayes But let Vesicatories or embladdering Medicines be alwayes exceeding hurtful and devised by the wicked spirit Moloch For the water dropping continually from thence is nothing but venal blood transchanged For while any one scorcheth his hand or leg the fire calls not the whey of the blood unto the burned place Neither doth that water lurk in any other place and waiting to run to it with loosened rains while the skin should be at sometimes scorched The water should be deaf at the call of the fire neither should nature obey a commander from without What if a water swims on the blood which they call Choler surely that floats not as being separated from the blood except after its Coagulation or Corruption Embladderers therefore intend this but not Preservation and Healing That salt water therefore is not but is made it is not separated I say from the Blood but the Blood thereof is transchanged into water very like unto the Dropsie Flux and the like defects By so much therefore are Vesicatories fuller of danger than the cutting of a vein Because this is stopped at pleasure but that not the which after the cuttings of a vein and vain Butcheries of the body is at length dreamed of for the hinderances of a Feverish Coma and so for the adulterating of a latter effect For they rejoyce to awaken the sleepy or deep drowsie sick by reason of the pain of so many Ulcers And however thou considerest of the matter it is a cruel torture of Butchers For neither is the drowsie sick ill at ease because he sleepeth But he sleepeth because he is ill at ease And so to hinder the sleep is not profitable But that only prevaileth to take away the root of drowsiness They therefore who suspend the sleep only by pains do cruelly drive the sick headlong into death For they flatter the people in being cruel toward the sick party In the mean time they persevere in the office of a cruel and unfaithful Mercenary Helper For if the drowsie feverish person sleep or being pulled be daily awakened such stupid allurements perform not the least thing in Fevers Wherefore I am wont to give my remedies in at the mouth and food at set hours nor to regard whether he shall sleep or not I say that antient saying with the Apostles If Laxarus sleep therefore he shall be healed For the tortures brought on him that hath a Fever have never profited any one But as to what pertains to Clysters it is a frequent and shameful aid of Physitians I at leastwise in times past never perswaded and described Clysters
or is joyned to water perisheth and is reduced into nothing For if the Schools had brought the vital spirit or sky-le air instead of fire they might have seemed worthy of pardon But they had rather become foolish in the dream of Epimenides than not to have found an Humour like unto fire that according to lying conceptions a quaternary of Humours might arise For for air they have feigned a priviledged Humour which should not be excrementitious after the manner of its two companions And therefore they now and then call these nourishing ones yet for the most part superfluous ones if not also liquid dungs But profitable ones especially in that respect not indeed as if they do nourish the spermatick parts besides the Cases of the Gaul-chest and Spleen but at least they are most miserable members which are constrained to be fed only with excrements and to yield to the priviledge of the kidneys But they note a ridiculous profit of yellow Choler that it spurs up the fundament and urine when as in the mean time pale urines are more incontinent than tinged ones Yea the belly of those that have the jaundise which they say is deprived of Choler by reason of a thy excrements is ordinarily loose enough But seeing the three Humours which are feigned to be in the blood differ not from themselves being rejected but only in the infamy of supersluity the radical moisture it self could not but be nourished by excrements if both the Cholers and phlegm were for nourishing But that a plenty of Choler which they say is daily may after some sort be supposed There is at least every other day in a Tertian ague a large quantity cast up by vomit also besides its daily consuming which they say is necessary for nourishing Yea the plenty of this feigned Choler more cleerly appears in the jaundise which they define only from a stoppage of the Chest of the Gaul So that then th◠urine is nothing but meer Gaul and the whole habit of the body and also the internal parts the most inward and the most outward to be Gauly The which since they are accounted nothing besides Gaul it being no longer ejected through the paunch Hence it is discerned that threefold more of Choler at least is daily generated than of blood being connexed of the three other Humours together They being badly mindful that sixfold more of tincture departs through a jaundisie urine alone than otherwise in an healthy person the belly and urine do utter together whence at least it followes that the jaundise is not the obstruction of the Gaul alone as they think For the orifice of the Gaul being shut presently the Gaul say they exceeds the whole blood in quantity For neither is a leeky and cankery tincture such as frequently proceedeth out of the stomach very frequent in the jaundise Moreover they say that phlegm is carried with the blood thorow the veins and at length changed into blood So that they constitute the proper shop of the blood and its promiscuous efficient as well in the veins as in the Liver But at leastwise a quaternary of Humours fagleth if yellow Choler differs out from black that only in the thickning of re-coction and if phlegm differs not from blood but but 〈◊〉 in a lukewarmth and cherishing For roasted flesh is not wont to be distinguished from raw in kind wherefore neither should phlegm dissagree from blood but only in its maturity as unripe Apples do from ripe ones But they could never shew phlegm in the veins except fibers which seperate themselves in warm water by cutting of a vein and so neither do they begin to be or to be seen before the death of the blood For as long as the blood is profitable for nourishing of the parts the more solid part thereof was undistinct from the rest of its body Because it was a true and entire composure For that thing is one every side obvious in the frame of nature For since nature acteth for ends known unto her Authour one-part always more readily receiveth the impressions of the Archeus than another For the end of the venal blood was a nourishing of the solid members And therefore it by little and little breaths after and attaines the degrees of solidity The blood therefore as soon as it is perfected in the Liver it assumeth in its more mature and more spermatick part white fibers or threds and the beginnings of a desired homogeneal curd which at first it had not in the veins of the mesentery as is manifest in those have the bloody flux Indeed it is therefore the best and most-perfect part of the blood which the Schools call phlegm and the which I know to be akin to a more solid and spermatick constitution The Schools I say name phlegm the daughter of crudity old age and defects even in a child a youth and a man For I dissent also in this from the Schools because for the proving of phlegm they offer nothing but snivel meer filths and liquid dungs to be beheld such as is oftentimes cast forth by vomit the kitchin of the belly being defective For oft-times that which is shaved of by a cruel draught as also the snivel of the nostrils and that which is spit out by reaching from any vice of the lungs whatsoever are the meer phlegm of the Schools which filths indeed are prepared by diseasifying causes through the errours of the last digestion And so great is the dulness of the Schools that with their own Galen they condemn the food of sinewes membranes tendons c. Because they think them to be the mothers of phlegm Neither do they heed that the similar parts and those of the first constitution are of a spermatick or seedy nature and those altogether by an undistinct confusion they call phlegmatick ones As being ignorant or at leastwise unmindfull that we are most nearly or immediately nourished by the same things whereof we consist And so if the homogeneral similar parts and those of the first constitution are condemned by the Humourists as phlegmy Surely one of these two must needs be true Either that the Schools know not now to distinguish phlegm from a secondary and spermatick Humour or plainly that there is no phlegm at all in the blood And that that which they have supposed to be phlegm in the blood is the beginning and foundation of the secondary and immediate nourishment of the solid members Now I must speak of yellow Choler which is supposed to be in urines with the admiration and grosse ignorance of fore-past ages CHAP. IV. The signification of the urine according to the Antients 1. The division of Urines 2. No unfit observation of Paracelsus 3. The Authours aime 4. It hath been erred hitherto in judgment concerning the circle of the urine 5. From whence the circle in the urine is 6. A childish opinion of Galen 7. It is proved that Gaul is not in the urine 8. The unconsiderateness
objection from Arts. 17. Why the Water may be reckoned the first-born Element MY sight is carried on a useful good but not on vain reasoning Wherefore seeing the Auncients do call back nature and every of its operations to the account of Elements Qualities and Complexions resulting in mixture and the Schooles do even to this day hand forth this Doctrine to their young beginners in Medicine to the destruction of mankinde I will again and again set upon the dissection of the Elements whereby it may appear that they have erred hitherto in the Causes of Diseases I will every where relate Paradoxes and things unaccustomed to the Schooles and it will be hard for those to cease from the Doctrine drunk in who do believe the whole truth to have flowed into Galen Galen hath delivered in many Volumes and with a tedious boasting of the Greeks that every Body the Earth Water Air and Fire excepted doth consist of the Wedlock of these four united together and so from hence that a Body is to be called mixt Moreover that the whole likeness and diversity of bodies doth arise from the unlike conflux or concurrence and continual fight of four Elements But the Schooles that came after do as yet dispute it as undecided whether the Elements with their forms do remain in the thing mixt or indeed whether in every particular mixture they are deprived of their essential forms and the which by a peculiar indulgence they do re-take from the seperation and general privation of the form of the thing mixed At length from the unlikeness and combate of the Elements they bid all the infirmities and first-born fewels of our mortality to descend Surely it is a wonder to see how much brawling and writing there hath been about these things and it is to be pitied how much these loose dreams of trifles have hitherto circumvented or beset the World they have prostituted destructive vain talkings in the faires of the Schooles instead of the knowledge of Medicine and so so damnable a delusion hath thereby deceived the obedience of the sick in healing Therefore the juggling deceipts of Pagans being cast behinde me I direct my experiences and the light fteely given me according to the Authority of the holy Scriptures at the beholding of which light the night-Birds do fly away Therefore it is chiefly to be grieved at that the light of truth being had darkness is as yet taught in the Schooles of Christians In the beginning therefore the Almighty created the Heaven and the Earth before that the first day had shone forth Afterwards in the first day he created the light and divided it from the darkness Secondly he created the Firmament which should seperate the inferior Waters from the waters that were above it self and named that Heaven Therefore it is hence plainly to be seen that before the first day the waters were already created from the beginning being partakers of a certain heavenly disposition because they were hidden under the Etymologie of the Word Heaven Yet they were a-kinne to these lower waters to which they were once conjoyned before their seperation In the next place that darkness covered the face of the deep and that that deep did point out the Waters because then all the Waters above the Heaven being as yet conjoyned to ours upon the Earth did make an Abysse of incomprehensible deepness upon which the Spirit whose name is Eternall was carried that he might with his blessing replenish his new Creature of water Therefore it is manifest that the Creation of the Heaven the Water and the Earth was before a day neither that it may be numbred with the six dayes Creation afterwards described Because it pleased the Eternall also to rest on the seventh day which in respect of the aforesaid Creation would have been the eighth if it had been a day And therefore it is not reckoned among the number of dayes because the Creation of the Elementary matter was made before a day sprang forth Lastly by this Text the Firmament is not onely the eighth Starry Heaven but and also that which by our Authority we distinguish into seven wandring Orbs or Circles Which the teacher of the Gentiles hath seemed to contain in one But the Chrystalline and first mover for another and at length the huge Heaven of an incomprehensible greatness wherein every righteous man shineth like the Sun for the third although that Empyrean Heaven joyned with its two fellowes being taken for the second perhaps another may remain for the third Which may be the bottomless retiring place of Fountain-light full of Divine Majesty and unsearchable At leastwise the Firmament reacheth from the Moon even to the conjoyning of the Starry Heaven and seperateth the water that is above it from these lower ones and therefore the Heaven with the Hebrews soundeth where there are waters But the Lights and the Stars began on the fourth day and were set in order in the Firmament Therefore in the beginning the Heaven Earth and Water the matter of all Bodies that were afterwards to arise was created But in the Heaven were the Waters contained but not in the Earth hence I think the Waters to be more noble than the Earth yea the Water to be more pure simple indivisible firm or constant neerer to a Principle and more partaking of a heavenly condition than the Earth is Therefore the Eternall would have the Heaven to contain Waters above it and as yet something more by reason whereof it is called Heaven that which we call the Air the Skie or vitall Air. For therefore neither is there mention made of the creating of the Water and Air for that both of them the Etymologie of the Word Heaven did include Therefore I call these two Elements Primigeniall or first-born in respect of the Earth But no where any thing is read of the Creation of the fire neither therefore do I acknowledge it among the Elements and I reject my honour or esteem with Paganisme Neither also may we with Paracelsus acknowledge the fire by the name of Lights and Stars to be a superlunary Element as neither to have been framed from the beginning the which notwithstandig it should needs be if it ought to resemble or partake of the condition of an Element Therefore I deny that God created four Elements because not the fire the fourth And therefore it is vain that the fire doth materially concurre unto the mixture of bodies Therefore the fourfold kinde of Elements Qualities Temperaments or Complexions and also the foundation of Diseases falls to the ground For our handicraft operation hath made manifest to me that every body to wit the Rockie Stone the small Stone the Gemme or pretious Stone the Flint the Sand the Fire-stone the white Clay the Earth cocted or boyled Stones Glasse Lime Sulphur or Brimstone c. is changed into an actual Salt equall in weight to its own body from whence it was made and that that Salt being sometimes
the foundation of nature by which all waters are strained thorow that all of them may keep a Communion among each other from the beginning of the Creation unto the end and from the Superficies or upper part of the Earth even to its Center And moreover the water detained in this Soil of Sand is perhaps actually greater by a thousand fold than the whole heap of Seas and Rivers floating on the Superficies of the Earth And that is easily verified by supposing the whole superficies of the Earth also to be covered with waters to the depth of 600 paces Therefore it followes respect being had to the Diameter of the Earth that there is easily a thousand times more water under than upon the Earth For truly dry Sand drinks up at least about a fourfold quantity of water in the same extension of place yet I will not have it that although the Quellem be the last ground or Soil to the Digger that all subjected grounds are every where to be found by order For the aforesaid Sand which sometimes overwhelms it self perhaps to a thousand paces beneath the Horizon elsewhere boils up with speed under the open Air yea and oft-times in the top of Mountains Of which thing the Schooles with their Aristotle being ignorant do toughly hold that all true springs do owe the cause of their continuance from the Air co-thickned into water when as notwithstanding they cannot maintain that thing because in the tops of the highest Mountains springs do oft-times leap forth where another Mountain of the like height is not neer nor a water-Channel extended on either side to this Therefore they hold their peace with a lofty look and are silent at the unwonted miracle of the thing Surely as long as waters do wander in the living and vitall Soil of the Earth and are detained in the Sand Quellem so long I say they are not constrained to bring forth by the water drawing lawes of Scituations No otherwise than as the bloud while it is nourished with life in the veins so long also it knowes not above and beneath and it is as well in the fore-head as in the feet But at the very moment wherein it once falls out of the veins or the waters do disgorge themselves out of the Quellem they cease not to flow down by obeying the lawes of Scituations Therefore the Sea in its own ground doth sup up the received waters in the sieve of the Virgin-Sand For so according to the wise man however all waters do flow into the Sea yet it never re-gorgeth them again Because by one onely thread there is a continuall passage out of the Virgin-Sand into Springs Streams Rivers and the Sea to moysten the Earth and appointed to enrich it with Mineralls Whither again the waters being driven they are supt up partly by the Quellem and partly do snatch the Air. So indeed doth the Universe distribute its waters and lay them aside for divers fruits And therefore I have meditated with admiration that the Almighty hath set before him the necessities of ungrateful immortal men as the aims of things I return to the Earth I have found for certain that the original Earth doth no where of its own accord concur to the mixtures of fruits slide thereto by chance nor that it is assumed by nature nor is found to have assumed the works of nature or art And therefore the reason of mixtures waxeth lean the number of Elements Qualities and Temperaments ceaseth and so they are lying fopperies which have been hitherto stifly and ignorantly garnished out by the Schooles For of a man Wood c. be it dust or ashes that is left by the fire yet Earth is never drawn out for else our burying places would soon swell Therefore the Earth is at least the remaining wombe but not the Mother Which if it should sometimes have a conflux unto fruits or mixt bodies it would either abide in the same and so by the solution of art or nature would sometimes be found or should return from thence which is false or plainly should be taken to the mixt Body and in it should cease to be Earth being already changed into another thing and so should be elsewhere diminished which I will straightway shew to be alike false or by the death or dissolution of the thing should return again into earth and there should be a daily and repeated returning of one and the same Element from a privation to a habit Or if this should not return into earth it should remain changed into fruits and so the whole Earth had long since gone into fruits and nature had lost her constancy and had mocked the first aims of the Creator or the earth had returned from the dissolved mixt body into another Element the impertinency whereof ceaseth For truly it is not natural to water or air to turn another Element into its own substance From hence I will straightway demonstrate that never one drop of water is turned into air or likewise air changed into water Which changes notwithstanding do appear lesse labour some than of the earth into water or into air And therefore if nature hath not as yet attempted the more easie transmutations after what sort shall it presume on the more difficult ones For otherwise the earth should be â—upt up and brought to nothing by Elements that are so much more large co-touching with it and more active But the Father of the Universe being a lover of Concord hateth discord and brawlings and chiefly in the Elements which that they might be the stable props of nature he hath not created the same fighting ones For he hath also directed the Elements to their appointed ends and lawes of continuance to wit that he may bring forth and nourish his own fruits for his own honour and the use of man Notwithstanding neither the honour of God nor mans necessity did any where or any way require the battels devourings strifes of the Elements their trampling on each other as neither the exchanging or nourishing of one by the other Nor lastly that at the end of an Element to increase it self by covetousness hunger luxury or necessity with the destruction of anomer For neither are they guilty of the fault of coverousness or hatred as neither do they desire to be nourished Last of all neither have the Elements obtained an Archeus a kitchin or properties for that transchanging Therefore the whole Doctrine of the Schooles concerning the elementary War is an old Wives fable Therefore the earth is never taken or of its own accord doth materially run out of it self into the constitution of bodies And there is by right made no mixture in nature which can firmly grow together under the unity of the natural composed form unless it be between juyces and spirits On the contrary no pulverous or powder all co-mixture doth tend to generation but there is onely an apposition or applying presently of its own accord and again
At length the one onely Fountain and Spring of waters which thou hadst placed in the heart and top of the Earth is afterwards spread abroad into a thousand veins which did almost every where pierce thorow the Globe of the earth to far better uses And moreover thou hast also dashed the Sea almost into every Creek of the earth that there might be the greater fellowship of Mortalls thereby Therefore if thy punishment be blessed and happy what shall the free gifts of thy blessings be Oh Lord keep us for the exceeding greatness of thy goodness within that number who shall praise thy great and mighty deeds for ever in the sanctifying of thy name But although that one onely Fountain now ceased neither Lands being now rent asunder one alone was not enough yet perhaps the same entrance of waters remained Because in the sweet Sea between Roest and Loefelt according to the Table of Gothland a Gulf of waters is described by Olaus whereinto Ships Marriners being not aware and their endeavours being in vain are supt up For indeed it is the mouth into which the waters of that Ocean do fall and by one onely passage were before the Floud carried thence unto the aforesaid Fountain But afterwards that passage like the hollow vein was diversly distributed and hedged in by a Rock by some thousands of veins ending upon the face of the Quellem from which afterwards the waters being drunk up do hasten from far unto their appointed offices Moreover that Whirle-poole or Gulf if it ought to be any where and Olaus be a true Writer or if not at leastwise it is fitly in the Sea as well for the sweetness of the Sea as for the long and round figure of the World by me straightway to be proved In the next place if one onely Fountain were for the moystening of the Earth the aforesaid Whirle-poole shall be sufficient especially because the bottom of the Sea hath the Sand Quellem longly and largely laying open which would be sufficient for the drinking up the water And the rather because the Sea doth sometimes wash upon and rince the earth on every side and thorow many middle spaces Therefore the Sea being supt up in the said Whirle-poole it is by little and little brought thorow stony Channels and hence by lesser pipes thorow a great part of the earth Notwithstanding they are scarce over whelmed beneath the Soil Keyberch but as often as the veins of the Whirle-poole do cut or touch at the Quellem rising up thorow middle places and rushing forth into a Fountain indeed the sweet veins do perish and veins of Sea-Salt are produced Otherwise the briny Liquor if there be also any in the Gothick Sea doth through the lively Archeus of the Earth lose by degrees the nature of Salts or if the Ferments of Salts in places do any where exist those very waters do put on the seeds as well of divers Salts as of Stones and Mettalls and are changed into the same fruits For so neat gemme nitre aluminous vitriolated Sea Salts do grow of the water they as it were promising the first birth of the water to themselves And then from hence they do decline or decay into Bur or the first off-spring of Mineralls and degenerate by the guidance of the seeds So some fruits of the water do stop up the passages of their own Fountain and by their last ripeness do attain the perfection of that Minerall whose appointments the seeds did bear before them which were entertained in the Ferments of places Moreover as that Northern Whirlepoole or Gulf doth also sup up Fishes within it so it sups up the same exceeding small ones the greater being detained within the Channels Where oft-times they are either made Rockie or wax filthy through putrifying or also are seasoned with the Balsam of the soils as also that Fishes are oft-times found digged up which the Husband-man and others being amazed at do think they were born in undue places and without a seed Furthermore whether the Conduits have received the water or at length have drunk up that Quellem the waters are at least there endowed with a lively and seminall property For no otherwise than as a vein even in a dead Carease preserveth the bloud contained in it from coagulating or curdling which is a corruption of the first degree truly by a stronger Reason that right agrees to the veins of the earth which is not yet dead Therefore the water is supt and drawn within the lively soil of the Earth whence it having gotten a common life Come let us worship the King by whom all things live it knoweth not the Scituations of places it easily ascendeth unto the tops of Mountains without trouble together with the Quellem that it may from thence send forth fountains without ceasing VVhich things surely being unknown to the Schooles they have left that place of the wise man Coheleth or the Preacher scanty or barren where he saith all Rivers hasten towards the Sea the which notwithstanding doth not therefore re-gorgethem again For truly Rivers do return to the place from whence they came forth that they may flowagain Which words have been corrupted heretofore with divers modellings or qualifications Because springs in the tops of Mountains were not seen to proceed from the Sea whither they at length do rush Therefore Springs have been hitherto falsely judged by the Schooles to take their Beginnings and Causes from Air condensed or co-thickned by the force of cold between the hollow places of Mountains ready to fall upon each other The which I in a little Book concerning the Fountains of the Spaw printed in the year 1624 at Leidon have shewne that they have themselves after the manner now delivered in this place Therefore the true originall of true Springs being manifested it hitherto remains unknown to the Schooles The Scripture-Text entire and cleared But seeing the same Law course and re-course of waters from the Quellem into Fountains and at length from Fountains into the Sea was kept no lesse in dayes wherein it hath not rained for three years and more than when the whole year doth almost wax barren with a continual showre we must know that it is sumcient for the Earth that it doth not send forth such bountiful Springs through its Water-pipes and steep-running Brooks as by the common besprinkling of Dew and Rain Moreover before I shall come to the unchangeable substance of the water wherein the Schooles do promise that Air is easily changed into water and this likewise into it I will first clear up another Paradox To wit that the Globe being composed of Earth and Water is indeed round from the East thorow the West into the East yet not from the North into the South but long and round or of the figure of an Egge Which thing in the first place hath much deceived Saylors Because the Waters do slide with a more swift course from North to South than otherwise
that last sub-division of their finenesses and Atomes all Seeds Odours and Ferments which they lifted upward with themselves do dye together and do return into their first Element of water whence they were materially formed Hence Clowdes as long as they are Clowdes do stink in Mountains but not after they are by the greatest colds there extenuated into the last division of fineness And this necessity hath been in nature that the middle Region of the air should not far of from us be most cold For therefore the water alwayes remains whole as it is or without any dividing of the three beginnings it is transformed and goes into fruits whither the Seedes do call and withdraw it Because an artificial diligent search hath shewen me indeed after what sort the three first beginnings and that in a proportionable sense are in the water yet by no art or corruption of dayes are they to be divided from each other For an Element should cease to be a simple body if it be to be seperated into any thing before or more simple than it self But nothing in corporeall things is granted to be before or more simple than an Element The water therefore is most like to the internall Mercurie of Mettalls the which seeing it is now stript of all manner of spot of Mettalick Sulfur it as well cleaves to it self on every side by an undissolvable joyning as it doth radically refuse all possible division by art or nature Hence Geber had occasion given him to say that there is no moysture in the order or course of things like to Mercury by reason of the Homogeneall or samely kinde of simplicity continually remaining with it in the torment of the fire For truly either it being wholly changed in its own nature flees away from the fire or it wholly perseveres in the fire through the transchanging of its seedes I confess indeed that I learned the nature of the Element of water no otherwise than under the Ferule or Staffe made of the white wand of Mercury But since I have from hence with great pains and cost thorowly searched for thirty whole years and I have found out the adequate or suitable Mercurie of the water I will therefore endeavour to explain its nature so far as the present speech requireth and the slenderness of my judgement suffereth First of all the Alchymists do confess that the substance of Mercurie is not at all capable to endure any intrinsecall or inward division and they shew the cause because by a homogeneall and sweet proportion its watery parts are by an equall tempering conjoyned to its earthly parts the aiery and fiery ones being suppressed in silence for that these should flee away if they were in it neither do they contain the cause of constancy here required and therefore that both these cannot forsake each other by reason of their just temperature they embracing each other though against the fires will In the first place the errour of the auntients hath deluded them concerning the necessary confluence of four Elements into the mixture of mixt bodies But surely that errour was not to be indulged by Alchymists because they are those who durst not enforce or comprise the air and fire of Mercurie when as they treated of its constancy And then because it was very easie for them to experience that the water after what manner soever either by art or natural proportion it was married to the Earth yet that it never obtains a constancy in the fire as neither to be at any time truly radically joyned to the Earth Because water after what manner soever it be co-mixed with Earth ceaseth not to be water For neither shall manner or proportion ever make water to degenerate from its own essence as neither shall any conjoyning of it with Earth be able to procure that thing But water remaining water is born alwayes to flee away from the fire Surely it is a ridiculous thing that the water should rather love a proportioned weight of Earth than an unequall one and that for that loves sake it should against its will the rather forsake that temperament of Earth For truly when the speech is concerning the co-mingling of four Elements it is understood of pure Elements and those plainly unmixed together and so not defiled with any spot of mixture or otherwise prevented by any disposition For neither doth the water carry a ballance with it nor beares a respect as to weigh the Earth that is to be co-mixed with it that it may be the more toughly conjoyned to the same I greatly admire that the wan errour of the co-mixing of Elements being received hath brought forth such soâ—tish absurdities among all the Schooles and that they by that absurdity alone have locked the gate of finding out of Sciences and Cauâ— Mercurie doth not indeed admit into it or contain so mâ—ch as the least of earth 〈◊〉 is alwayes the Son of water alone Yea earth and water can never be compelled into any naturall body or be subdued into an identity or sameliness of forme by whatever skill that thing be attempted For Tâ—les or Bricks if from moyst Earth they are boiled into a shelly stone they do not receive water but for the guidance of the Clay but earth hath a seed in its own Salt whence the Clay becomes stony through the coction of Glasse-making Therefore of the water and earth there is onely a powring on and applying of parts but not an admixture of growing together For whatsoever is meet to depart into a compounded Body and of divers things to be converted into this something this must needes be done by the endeavour of the working Spirits and so far of those things that do contain them as they do promote the matter by transchanging it into a new generation But the Elements are Bodies but not spirits and much lesse do they also act into each other The Earth therefore ought first to loose its Being and be reduced into a juyce before it should marry the water that by embracing this water gotten with childe by the seed it might bring it over into the fruit ordained for the conceived seed But what agent should that be which should transport the earth into a juyce and not rather into water since the earth being a simple body should be changed into nothing but into a simple body its neighbour Surely another co-like Element should not cause that seeing nothing of like sort hath been hitherto seen to agree with the water or air Nor at length should the earth intend the corruption of it self since this resisteth the constancy of Creation Therefore although part of the earth may be homogeneally or by way of simplicity of kinde reduced into water by art yet by nature onely I deny that thing to be done seeing that in nature an agent is wanting by which agent alone onely mediating the Virgin-earth or true earth is reduced into Salt and from thence into water Let it be for
a Lesson to Chymists That the Earth although it was in its first constitution created yet properly it is even a fruit of the water Therefore neither do generations or co-mixtures ever happen in nature but by a getting of the water with childe And so that as long as the water is chief in the seed never any generation proceedeth from thence Therefore much lesse is there a flowing compound body to be exspected from thence because it resisteth the fruitfulness of the fire And that thing least of all as oft as water and earth are mutually connexed to their own bodies Therefore the constancy of bodies is onely in the fire in the family of Mineralls and indeed most perfect in the purest Mettalls Because the Eternall hath not created moysture to be â—â—kened in its constancy to metallick Mercurie And therefore there is in Mercurie it self even as in the Elements a near reason of an uncapacity to be destroyed For truly I have discerned in Mercurie a certain outward Sulphur containing the originall spot of Mettall the which because it is originall therefore is it also taken away from it with difficulty Which at length nevertheless being seperated by art skilful men say that the Mercurie is cleansed of a superfluous Sulphur and superfluous moysture Because afterwards it may not by any fire be precipitated or cast into the form of Earth by reason of its greatest simpleness whereby it is compared to the Element of water For it hath lost its earth that is its Sulphur which earth in the center of its essence is no less from the Element of water than its remaining refined Mercurie which earth albeit it had from its first beginning most deeply co-mixed with it self If therefore the Mercury in its former state had a suitable temperament of earth and water therefore at leastwise after the taking away of that Sulphurous earth it had lost its anâ—ient uncapacity of being devided the which rather by a contrary disposition of relation it haâ—h hence-forward câ—nfirmed far more firm to it self for ever For Mercurie after it is spoiled of that Sulphur is found not to be changed by any fire because it is the Mercurie of Mercurie But the Sulphur is death and life or the dwelling place of life in things to wit in the Sulphur are the Fermenâ—s or leavens putrifactions by continuance o â—ours specificall savours of the seedes for any kinde of transmutations The Mercurie therefore being cleansed of its originall spot and being a Virgin doth not suffer it self to be any more laid hold on by Sulphurs or seeds but it straight-way consumeth and as it were slayeth these except its own compeere For other sublunary bodies are to weak that they should subdue pierce change or defile Mercurie of so great worth Even as it well happens in other bodies where the seed which lurketh in the Sulphur sends it self into water But the Salt and Mercurie of things as it were womanish juyces do follow the conceptions of the Sulphur For Aqua fortis is not wrought upon Mettalls or Mercurie but by the beholding of the Sulphur For the spirit of Sea-salt without the conjoyning of some embryonated or imperfect shaped Sulphur doth not therefore so much as dissolve the common peoples Mercurie Therefore the Sulphur onely is by adjuncts immediately dissolved and changed by the fire which successive change the other parts of the compounded body do afterwards undergoe not but for the Sulphurs sake Therefore Mercurie of Mercurie or in Mercurie remaineth safe as well in fires as in its Liquor the air Otherwise if a Corrosive matter should touch on that Mercurie the pains of many might happily be recompenced Because the whole Root of transmutations is in the Sulphur Therefore there is another Sulphur of Mettalls internall to Mercurie it self and therefore it remains untouched by every corrosive thing no lesse than from the destructions of fire and air Yea a totall ruine of things should follow if every thing dissolving should pierce into the innermost Root of dissolving And although Silver dissolved in Aqua fortis may seem to have perished as being in the form of a water yet it remains in its former essence Even as Salt dissolved in water is remaineth Salt and is fetched from thence without the changing of the Salt Which thing surely should not thus come to passe if the thing dissolving should in the least be joyned in dissolving and should not be stayed by the Mercurie of that composed body Therefore the inward kernel of the Mercurie is not touched by dissolvers and much lesse is it pierced by them But the ignorant being astonished at the novelty of the Paradox will urge If the water be not pressed together nor its parts go to ruine and Gold be of water alone whence therefore have Gold or Lead their weight For truly water hath not pores bigger by ten fold than the whole water In the first place as this doubt doth not take away doubts so it argues nothing against the matter of Gold to be taken from water onely For truly if Gold should be of four proportioned Elements and air and fire are light ones I therefore may likewise object from whence hath Gold its weight But if it consist onely of Earth and water from whence hath Gold its ten fold weight Therefore an argument which of it self doth not drive away difficulties doth nothing presse the adversaries But since it behooves an Interpreter of nature to be ready to search into and render the causes of nature I will shew from the premises that the seed of Gold hath a power of transchanging the water into this something which is far different from water Wherefore it is agreeable to nature and reason that in transmutation the water doth sustain as much pressing together going to ruine and aduniting as great Stones or Mettalls do overpoyse the water in weight and as much as the necessity of the seed doth require Because that of nothing nothing is made Therefore weight is made of another body weighing even so much in which there is made a transmutation as of the matter so also of the whole essence Therefore the water while it undergoes the lawes of the seed it is also bound to the precepts of the dimensions of its own weight co-thickning and going to ruine For if the water of its own accord flies up out-flees the sight in the shew of a vapour a hundred fold lighter than it self and yet remains water why shall not the water while it is made this something neither is any longer formally water also receive thicknesses greater than it is wont by ten fold for indeed on both sides the matter doth follow the properties of the seedes Therefore the liberty of nature is perpetuall of its own accord to cause and to suffer the pressings together of a watery body and will not undergoe those by any guidance of an Artificer yea Mountains are sooner overturned by Gun-powder Therefore there shall be sixteen parts of
water pressed together into the room of one part where Gold is framed of water Wherefore so far is it that the piercing of dimensions becomes impossible seeing that nothing is more natural or home-bred to nature than to co-thicken the body of the water but indeed although there may something appear in the water like to the three first things yet also there is no hope that they should be rent asunder from each other because in the every way simplicity of the water an adequate or suitable Sulphur is after a certain sort hidden which cannot be seperated from the other two but they all do accompany together Those are not the three true Principles which are abstracted or seperated onely by the Imagination The water therefore since it doth on every side vary off-Springs according to the diversity of their seedes thus so many kindes of Earths Mineralls Salts Liquors Stones Plants living Creatures and Meteors do rise up in their particular kindes from the blast or inspiration of the seedes For the water putrifies by continuance in the Earth is made the juyce of the Earth Gums Oyl Rosin Wood Berries c. and that which of late was nothing but water materially now burns and sends forth a fume or smoak Not indeed that that fume is air but is either a vapour or a drie exhalation and a new fruit of the water not yet appointed to be wholly turned by its seed It is proved For the Body of the air cannot make a shadow in the air but whatsoever doth exhale out of a live Coal doth make a shadow in the Sun For since the air hath a limited consistence and thickness and that agreeable to its own simpleness it followes that whatsoever is thicker than the air that is not air Moreover that which being made thin by the heat of the fire doth now exhale is as yet thicker than the air and so for that cause makes a shadow surely that shall become far more thick in the cold and shall be made visible in Clouds Whatsoever exhalations therefore do from the Earth climbe upward and are joyned in Clouds for this cause also those Clouds do stink no otherwise than as water doth under the Aequinoctial line and there the Ferment and Seed of their Concretion or growing together being consumed they are turned into pure water no otherwise than the water is after it hath escaped and overcome the bounds of its putrefaction which it had conceived under the line The dew therefore is a Cloud belonging to the Spring not yet stinking falling down before it can touch the place of cold So a mist or fogg is a stinking Cloud not as yet refined through the putrefaction of its Ferment because as many as have passed over the Alps with me have known how greatly Clouds taken hold of with the hand do stink but the Rain-water collected thence how sweet and without savour it is and almost incorruptible For when any thing doth exhale whether it be in the shew of water or Oil or smoak or mists or of an exhalation although indeed it brings not away with it the seedes of the Concrete or composed Body at leastwise it carries the Ferments upward which that they may be fully abolished from thence and that the remaining matter may return into water it behooves that they be first lifted up into a subtile or fine Gas in the kitchin of the most cold air and that they passe over into another higher Region and do assume a condition in the shape of the least motes or Atomes And that the Ferments do there die as well through the cold of the place as the fineness of the Atomes as it were by choaking and extinguishing For cold is therefore a principle not indeed of life but of extinguishment To wit as it doth sub-divide the parts of the Atomes as yet by more subtilizing them even as I have above taught And so that Woods are also the sooner consumed by fire under cold as if they were driven by a blast From which necessity verily that place was from the beginning alwayes chilled with continuall cold Because the Authour of nature least he might seem to have been wanting to the necessities of his Creature hath every where fitted ordinations according to necessities Therefore cold is naturall and home-bred to that place but not from the succeeding Chymera of an Antiperistasis Indeed the matter of fruits being brought thither must needes return into their first Being and the infections of the Ferments are therefore first to be removed by the mortifications sub-divisions subtilizings piercings choakings and extinguishings of the cold The Air therefore is the place where all things being brought thither are consumed and do return into their former Element of water For in the Earth and water although Bodies sprung up from seedes do by little and little putrifie and depart into a juyce yet they are not so nearly reduced into the off-spring of simple water as neither into a Gas For Bodies that are enfeebled or consumed do straight way in the Earth draw another putrifaction through continuance a ferment and Seed Whence they flee to second Marriages and are again anew increased into succeeding fruits But the fire the death of all things doth want seedes being subjected to the will of the Artificer it consumeth all seminall things but brings over their combustible matters into a Gas. Paracelsus affirms that three Beginnings are so united in all particular principles that one cannot wholly be freed from the other by any help of art But saving the authority of the man our Handicraft-operation containing his secret Samech hath affirmed that which is contrary to his assertion by the Spirit of Wine being turned into an un-savoury water And so neither can that man cover his ignorance Indeed the Spirit of Wine being wholly capable of burning made void of Phlegme or watery moysture and Oil it alwayes for the one half of it passeth into a simple un-savoury and Elementary water by a touching of the Salt of Tartar on it Again the same thing is made by repetition as to the other part For that man was ignorant of the thingliness of a Gas to wit my Invention and next of the properties of cold in the Air yea he thought that the vapour of the water was plainly annihilated which sottishness of that his proper form of speech is least of all to be winked at in so great a Distiller Especially because he would have the Elements to be seperable from feigned Elements rather than the three first things Wherefore from the dissection of the water delivered it now sufficiently appeares that the simple water is not crude or raw and that fire doth not take away the crudity from it which it hath not Because the whole action of the fire is not into the water but into that which is co-mixed with it by accident Galen according to his manner transcribing Diascorides word for word and being willing to measure the Elementary
and connexion Whither when the light of the Stars shall descend the folding-doores do open and shut themselves Therefore let the Key-keeper of the folding-doores be the motion of the Stars Which also moveth the Peroledes or Pavements of the Air. Therefore all heat is not made by fore-existing fire or light nor doth cold shew a naked absence of heat But the motive Blas of the Stars is a pulsive or beating power or virtue in respect of their Journey through places and according to their aspects Which circumstances in the Stars do cause the first qualities on these inferiour bodies no otherwise than bashfulness anger feat c. do stir up cold and heat in men And that thing the Stars have by the gift of Creation The Winde according to Hypocrates is a flowing Water of the Air but I defining it by its causes say that the Winde is a flowing Air mooved by the Blas of the Stars And that for a naturall winde but otherwise it is often granted to an evill Spirit that even without a Blas he should stir up windes or increase a tempestuous Blas Therefore the Air unless it have a Blas remains quiet nor hath it the principle of motion from it self but it comes to it from elsewhere Therefore the motive Blas stirreth up Windes Tempests over-flowing of Waters by running thorow the divers Peroledes of the Air sometimes upwards sometimes downwards across long-wayes side-wayes into all the Coasts of the Earth although the Elements have no need of motion yet mans necessity requireth that motion But seeing nothing was for mooving of it self except the Archeus granted to seedes it hath well pleased the Eternall to place in the Stars a flatuous violent motive force not much unlike to the Command of his mouth So that Blas is for a testimony to us that God of his excelling goodness hath made the Elements and Stars for us by measuring out bounds of these according to our Commodities Blas therefore mooveth not so much by light beames and motion as motion but as the Stars have come down unto certain places whereunto these Stars do owe their offices Therefore there are stable properties in those places but if they are not stable that happens in respect of other Stars brought with them by an analogicall or proportionable motion for the interchangeable courses of continuance Blas therefore as a Masculine thing in the Stars is the generall beginning of motion it seemes no lesse to respect the Earth than the Air and Water For the Moon according to the holy Scriptures ruleth the night as the Sun doth the day although the Moon for her own half runs not under the night For the Globe of the Earth is divided into four parts into two accesses or flowings and recesses or ebbings of the Ocean daily And it spends almost 28 houres therein and so much the lesse by how much the Sun and Moon shall in the mean time depart from or draw near to each other Blas therefore stirs up also a raging heat in the waters the winde being still But the alterative Blas consisteth in the producing of heat and cold and that especially with the changings of the windes But the Stars neither have nor give moysture or dryth of themselves For neither is moysture to be considered in nature as naked quality without a matter and therefore neither is it brought down from the Stars unto us For all moysture is from the water which was before the Stars were born Therefore Paracelsus erreth who saith that rains snow c. are so the fruits of the Stars that they are boyled to a ripeness in the Stars as it were in bottles Dryness also was in the air the seperater of the waters before the Stars nor is it to be considered without a body in manner of a quality But heat and cold are rather qualities abstracted from a body Therefore there are onely two great Lights and therefore two onely qualities of them are spread into the air from whence all Meteors are stirred or mooved For the heat of life is the property of the Sun but cold of the other Star Also the other Stars have given their names or honours to these two Lights As often therefore as the Stars of the nature of the Moon are brought thorow places of the Sun a luke-warmth is made in the air but if Stars of the nature of the Sun do run down under the same places heat is made according to which qualities of the air the Gas of the air is also diversly altered Hence indeed Blas heats after the same manner thorow the soils of the air therefore Gas also is either detained in its pavements or soils or is brought downward to us So as that the atomes of Gas being invisible through their too much smallness loosing their constriction and excess of cold do again fall together or decay into the smallest drops and hasten downwards But if indeed the luke-warmth doth affect the lower Peroledes when Gas being provoked by Blas wandereth downwards Summer Snowes are made Surely Gas being grown together through frost a luke-warmth presently arising it is melted and rusheth headlong downwards For the Mercurie of the water resolveth its Salt and the Sulphur doth as it were rowl up these two And so they fall down into rain But if indeed that thing happens in the upper Perolede the drops descending are frozen in the middle cold pavements and so they are cast down headlong into Snow and Hails But if luke-warmth do bear sway thorow some continuall Peroledes of the air daily rains do accompany it Hence also it appeares that an unequall Blas in divers soils of the air doth bring forth divers effects For oftentimes the lowermost Peroledes are luke-warm and the day is plainly clowdy and there are very many Clouds But else the second and the third Perolede are luke-warm the lower being cold whence are Snowes And so the other Troop of Meteors is caused unto us Therefore I am now confident that by Gas materially and by Blas operatively and motively their causes and manner do more clearly appear than heretofore they have done From whence Astrologers and Physitians shall be able from a founder ground to presage of some things In the mean time I leave the matters of presages untouched which God by his ministring Spirits hath laid up among his signes of good or ill Onely I will relate what Fryer Stephen of Lusignan the last of the Family of the Kings of Cyprus of the Order of S. Dominick in his description of Cyprus printed at Paris in the year 1580 page 212 rehearseth in French to this purpose About the end of the year an Earthquake happened at Famagusta which continued eight dayes But afterwards raging or Whirle-windes arose passing over the Island and entring into the Market-place of Famagusta for there by beating down a great Pallace they presently take away very many Houses with some Men. So that if some Marriners had not by the chance of
fortune come suddenly unlooked for Famagusta had been destroyed Therefore let the Reader know that the Eastern Marriners were wont on the day that they do observe such Windes to take a great Knife wherewith they make the Sign of the Cross in the Air and do utter these words In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and God was the Word and suddenly all the Whirle-winde and tempest seperates it self and ceaseth For I have seen this experiment twice And on the second time while I returned out of Cyprus into Italy For neither do I finde any thing of Superstition therein but that the Knife must have a black handle And so I can determine of nothing certainly Thus far he A wonder at least That this divelish tempest should cease and the Devill spare the whole City perhaps for the sin of one sinner Moreover about Blas this is as yet considerable If in the great heat of Summer thou holdest a burning Candle about the hole of a Window there is no foot-step for the most part of mooved Air to be perceived but throughout the whole winter however small the hole be a troublesome Winde breatheth and that continually But since there is not a greater quantity of air let us now take the air for its Magnall or sheath being constrained by reason of cold than of that which is rarefied by reason of heat there seemes not to be a stronger reason of this than of that to stir up the Winde Therefore there is a twofold Motive locall Blas in the Air one indeed which stirs up the Windes and so includes a violence or swiftness from a native power or motion But the other which followes as for an alterative Blas for co-thickning or rarefying in the air But since this is almost universall by reason of Summer and Winter it also sends forth a certain slow flowing of the Air. And although cold may equally condense the Magnall and the Air be in this respect unmoved by reason of an alterative and violent windy Blas yet seeing in the opposite Coast of the Sphere the Magnall or sheath in the Air is generally made thin onely by reason of heat the Air in the Northern Coast must needes partly go back be knit together and so occupie the lesse room and partly be gently driven forward by the rarefying and rarefied Magnall of the Air that co-toucheth with it from the other half of the Orbe And this is the cause of the Question proposed to wit of the slow and uncessant flowing in the Winter Air which we do experience through a Chap be it never so small also the Winde ceasing But not so in the Summer-time For the Magnall being once made thin through heat the air stands unmooved amongst us CHAP. XV. A Vacuum or emptiness of Nature 1. The true definition of the Winde 2. The undistinct sincerity of former ages 3. Whither the Authours invention tendeth 4. An examining of the Air by an Engine like to a Hand-Gun 5. A Vacuum or emptiness in the Air is proved 6. A Vacuum is easier believed than a piercing of bodies 7. A Handicraft Demonstration by fire in behalf of a Vacuum and five remarkable things of it 8. A Handicraft operation concerning a sulphurated Torch or Candle 9. Subsequent Collections from both the Handicraft Operations 10. Pores of the Air are demonstrated 11. Opposite suspitions are taken away 12. Inward heat and inward fire being shut up together in a Glasse how they act diversly into the Air. 13. That it acts more strongly by the pressing together of its smoak than by the enlarging of heat 14. Of what sort the sense or feeling of the Air is 15. A new end of the Air. 16. That the fire lives not by the air but onely is choaked through penurie 17. Vacuities or emptinesses in the air are needfull 18. That every thing hath hated pressing together made by its guest by the lawes of self-love 19. A Vacuum being an impossible thing with Aristotle hath now become a requisite thing in nature 20. That there is given in the Vacuum of the air a middle thing between a body and an accident and so a neutrality 21. What the great Magnall may be 22. How the Blas of the Stars is communicated without Species or particular kindes 23. The tristes of the Aristotelicks concerning the Winde 24. A ridiculous multitude and plenty of exhalations according to Aristotle 25. The Opinion of Galen touching the Windes is hissed out 26. The Opinion of Galen concerning Quicksilver badly from Diascorides and worse copied out 27. The nature of rarefied air for the confirming of a Vacuum 28. While the air is commonly thought to be made thin it is indeed pressed together by reason of the extension of of its Magnall or Sheath 29. The body of the air hath its just extension under cold 30. Why in a hotter Climate the favours of the Heaven are the greater 31. The Magnall is proved to be increased and diminished but not the air to be properly rarefied or condensed IN the beginning of the Blas of a Meteor I have defined the Winde by a true definition that is by its constitutive Causes Seeing that a thing without or besides the containing of its Causes is nothing and every thing produced doth naturally shew an originall and essentiall respect unto its own producer which is inward to it Therefore a naturall Winde is a flowing Air mooved by the Blas of the Stars And that for distinction from a prodigious or monstrous Winde raised up by the malice of evill spirits Hypocrates calls the Winde a Blast and saying that all Diseases are from blasts he reckoueth up his To Enormon or forcible blast among the chief or first causes of Diseases For such was the plainness and candour or simplicity of former times wherein because they being more blessed there was not yet such knowledge nor cruelty nor frequency of Diseases For all things were not granted to Hypocrates For it hath well pleased the Almighty since Hypocrates to have also created his Physitians He made known indeed to Hypocrates that there is in us a Spirit stirring up all things by its Blas which Spirit he afterwards by a microcosmicall analogie or the proportion of a little World compared to the blasts of the World and restrained into the order of a blast whether they were partakers of life or indeed did contain the causes of death and destruction Lastly he left it undecided whether they being stirred up from the Heaven they should shew the suitable proportions of the Heavenly Circle or at length were stirred up by a sublunary law For the race or descent of the vitall Spirits had not yet been plainly made known For none had hitherto learned by experience that the matter of Gas was water and so it had not been as yet known that the windes of the World did wholly differ from the vitall Spirit From the knowledge of the windes handed forth by me in the
into the aforesaid Bladder being pressed together laying on the ground and void of every Body however most strongly it should blow yet it could not at all blow up the Bladder because the low Countries laying on it should presse it together But if indeed a fiery exhalation be sought for in the place of the Winde or Air I have already demonstrated before that fire to be impossible and the exhalation of so great an effect throughout all the low Countries to be fabulous At length that continuall Bladder so strong and capable to be hammered thin also faileth which may sustain with its back the low Countries Seas Rivers and far more For although I have granted the same it is not because I think it to be but because that Bladder being supposed so great absurdities may also follow and the Schooles at length be squeezed to an impossibility Mountains Sulphurous places and the mansions of Mines have afforded to Countrey people whence the Schooles have them the beginnings of this Dream Alass is there every where a miserable drowsiness in searching into the causes of effects The Mountain Soma or Vesuvius nigh Naples hath burned now for some Ages with Sulphur or Brimstone and fire-Stones But it hath a gap in its top large enough whereby the smoaks and flame might expire or breath out To wit perhaps to the largeness of three filed measures or Acres of Land But a Vault that was next to the flame as being now sufficiently roasted and full of chaps at length about the sixteenth day of the tenth Moneth or December of the year 1631 by one sudden fall fell down into the Gulf of the flame But it is the property as well of some Metalls as of bright shining Fire-stones while they are melting that if any thing of water shall fall in among them they all leap asunder therefore the Sulphurs with the Fire-stones being melted in the bowels of Vesuvius they did not endure the roasted fragment falling down from the Rocks without a great deluge but the flame did vomit out all of whatsoever had slidden down from above and more Neither was this sufficient But moreover some Fountains were loosed from above into the Chimney of the fire But what have the melted Sulphurs or what the raging tempests of smoakes common with an Earth-quake Do Sulphurs thus burn throughout all the low Countries For an Earth-quake had gone before at Naples and did accompany that danger of Sodom And although they shall happen together they do not therefore partake of one onely root the which do obey divers causes that Earth-quake fore-shewing a wonder did also inclose in it a monstrous token and doth alwayes inclose some such But the belching out of Metallick Veins stands by its natural causes Surely a wretched Sophistry it is to argue from not the cause as for the cause For neither are exhalations to be believed to have been enclosed in that Earth-quake a Chimney is produced having long since a way opened for exhalations I would the Schooles hath hearkened to their Pliny that oft-times at the present time or urgency of an Earth-quake Birds the winde being still being as it were sore smitten with fear do fall down out of the Air that in a quiet Haven the Oare Galleys do leap a little But what fellowship interposeth between the Air and the Sea with an exhalation shut up under the Earth For doth the Air tremble when the Earth doth Is so small a trembling of the Air sufficient to cast down Birds which fly in every winde For because the Sand of the Sea and that indeed without gaping should leap a little for the depth of half a foot ought therefore the Superficies of the deep Sea void of Winde together with Ships to tremble A Manuscript of the Curate of S. Mary beyond Dilca of Mecheline was shewen wherein he had written that in the year 1540 once every day for three dayes space the Earth trembled before that lightning inflamed its Sand-Port and also the Gun-powder contained therein whence the City by an un-thought of slaughter being almost utterly dashed in pieces went to ruine Lastly in the year 1580 the second houre after noon the fury of the Windes ceasing the City trembled two dayes before the English invaded Mecheline and took it for a prey But what have those events happening from a fatall necessity common in the joyning of causes with a dreamed exhalation under the Earth For what could a supposed exhalation portend besides or out of it self For why should it include a future signifying of a VVar-like invasion or Lightning to come and to kindle the Vessels of Gun-powder there also kept shaking the Sandy Tower and throwing down the whole City For before that the Mountain Vesuvius belched out its bowels and covered very many small Towns with a Minerall Clod and denyed hope to the Husband-man for the time to come thick darkness under the Sun went before in the Air lamentable howlings and the Earth trembled things stirring up the required devotion of the Nation Truly the Earth trembled from its own cause for a fore-knowledge of the future slaughter threatned But the slaughter it selfe followed by its naturall causes But the fore-going signes have never any thing common with the event of future fire Since therefore now it is certain that there is no place among the Pavements of the Earth nor exhalation that layes under them and if any should be under yet that it were impossible to cause an Earth-quake yet that it is an undoubted truth that the Earth doth truly and actually tremble without the dis-continuance of its pavements or through the opening of some gap I have considered that trembling to be in the Earth no otherwise than in Brasse when as the Clapper hath smote the Bell. For as long as the Bell trembles without a cleft so long it gives a Tune The Earth also while it is shaken with its Super-natural Clapper sends forth a deaf sound because its body toucheth together indeed by Sand and VVater even into its Center yet it is not holding together by a continuance of unity without intermission And it may tremble without the dis-continuance of touching together indeed by so much the more freely if the Mettall be bended without the renting asunder of that which holds together the Earth also in trembling hath its inward Clapper more famous than the voice of Thunder But because the stroak waxeth deaf in the Sand and VVater therefore it is shaken together with a certain tune or note while it trembled yet the roaring which is sometimes heard is not of the Earth but a strange one not proper to the Earth-quake but an accidentary howling of Spirits which by the Italians is called Baleno At length I weighing the cause of an Earth-quake do know that in the first place there is a motive force in the Air whereby the Air doth commit to execution the spurre conceived in the Stars For the Stars shall be to you for
in that Well should be more troubled by Sulphur than in its neighbour-wells wherein no such thing was seen Lastly we must know that an Earth-quake is not made by the long preparation of causes from three dayes before Because then the Earth could not be lifted up in one manner at once Yea if any exhalation of Sulphur had now three dayes before fore-timely made a passage for it self at that very time it had now found a passage for it self and had sooner breathed forth that way thorow that Well before it had lifted up so great an heap on every side yea a passage being found it had made the water by its blast and boyling up to sound in the boyling and much more prosperously in the streetes that were so much lower and the exhalation had broken forth in the more neighbouring places and had burst in sunder the Hill it self more easily by rising into an heap but the Earth had not trembled Therefore I reject the example of the deed as long as the reasons opposed by me against it from its impossibility are not overthrown Therefore the Earth trembleth not because it feeleth or feareth after the manner of a living Creature but it denounceth unto us something like it and doth as it were speak unto us accusing of the stroak of the Angel or the hand of an angry God But the Earth is smitten and trembleth by the Command of God pointing out that sin hath ascended up to Heaven crying out for vengeance before his Throne Indeed the smiting doth presuppose indignation and indignation a heaped up measure of sin But the end of an Earth-quake is that the sinner may amend himself and that the righteous man may as well beware that he doth not sin as of the threatned punishment of sin Therefore an Earth-quake doth alway threaten punishments But all particular offences have chastisements suitable to themselves For Luxury and uncleanness have Plagues and Diseases for purging sacrifices and punishments But Adulteries pay their punishments by Diseases imprisonment disgraces poverties also barrenness of off-spring untimely death or the like According to that saying He that someth in the flesh shall reap in corruption But pride of life is punished by poverties barrennesses wars destructions sudden death a miserable losse of friends c. At length covetousness payes its punishments by deceits thefts juggles discommodities of some member c. But if two or three sins do abound at once among a people then punishments are also co-mingled to wit in-clemencies tyrannies breakings of a Vow or Oath juggles or deceits extorsions plagues barrennesses wars c. But if sins are conjoyned in Powers or Princes as well of the Church as in Secular ones Judges The Prophesies are full that for the injustice of the same Kingdoms are translated from Nation to Nation Which things if they happen with the rise of Arch Heresies scandalls and subversions of Altars and especially where the Poor suffer together with them it is a signe that these evills do proceed from filthinesses in-clemencies ambition covetousness breakings of a Vow and drunkennesses or gluttonies For the Prophesies do abound with threatnings that Jerusalem shall be plowed as a field the City shall be made as a heap of stones that the Pestilence and Enemy shall take away all the prey and shall lead away the Chief of the Church bound the holy place shall be defiled that they may be for a derision among the Nations But if Wars do not touch Religion the sins onely of Princes and Judges are taken notice of But the Earth trembleth being smitten especially for the sins of bloud which cry out for Heaven to be a revenger Therefore after an Earth-quake punishments are to be expected which are deservedly due to excess cruelty and injustice The trembling of the Earth therefore denotes nought but the judgements of God a Revenger To wit a good thing from an evill cause as it containeth an inflicting of punishment on the impenitent Therefore from the Lords Resurrection the Earth trembled signifying the desolation of the City and of the Jewish Monarchy which the Gospel together with the teares of the Lord foretold and which Josephus hath written down at large For no calamities are without the Lords permission nothing without its cause neither doth grief or misery spring out of the ground Job 5. Isai 45. Neither do calamities at any time happen unto us by chance It was the most rare or un-couth wickedness of men that slew the guiltless Son of God for his benefits wherefore a most rare kinde of purging of the offence ought also to rain upon that Nation which had been educated with so great favour to the killing of the men and lasting destruction of the Common-wealth As was fore-seen by Daniel Isaiah and Psal 10. But when an Earth-quake runs as it were thorow street by street a tumult of a City against a City is signified and the streetes to be desolate or forsaken For a friend saw this Chapter it being as yet in Writing he presently perceived that a naturall cause was wanting and he consented but he was angry because I had deciphered the manner and that the Earth should be smitten not indeed with a Staffe but by a note or voice and he laughed at the conjecture Why hath not God he said done those things by Gun-powder by Winde an exhalation and a vapour wherefore hath not he said it or spoken it and the Earth was moved with God there are a thousand wayes neither is it certain what mean he hath used First of all if I have given a reason why the Earth trembling doth necessarily chap by the example of a Bell which trembles after the stroak certainly he ought not to be angry with me For neither intended I that he that exceedes every manner doth tie up himself to manner and meanes But in-as-much as that friend doth inter-ject naturall meanes as are the winde a vapour an exhalation Gun-powder laid under the Low-Countries These things were already sufficiently refuted in my Writings as to be possible in nature wherefore they are again unseasonably alleadged as if God should have need of those meanes Because when God makes use of meanes in working miraculously he also often-times useth naturall things but he doth not then make use of things which are reckoned as fellow-causes For those meanes rather are and do contain mysteries than the vigour of any causality Therefore I have drawn my conjecture of the smiting voice or tone not that I am a conscious or a fellow-knower of or a searcher into divine Counsel out of that word The Voice of Thunder shall strike the Earth Moses smote the waters of Aegypt and they were turned into bloud and the Frogs over-covered the Land of Aegypt he smote the Sea with his Rod and the waters stood still he smote the Rock and it brought forth a Fountain Elisha commanded the King to smite the Earth and was wroth with him because he had not smitten it
oftner because the number of Commissionary smitings did contain the number of Victories and repeated turns of the enemy as yet to be beaten Therefore for the keeping of peace with my friend I have explained my self I confess I say willingly that I would not search into Divine Mysteries But the manner and meanes which God useth in the Earth-quake I have attained onely by conjecture But neither at length have I desired to make these things known nor that I might be taken notice of as a brawler but that the fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom may arise from the trembling of the Earth D. Streithagen Cannon of Hemsberg in his Germane Flourish hath writ down a Chronograph or Verse of the time of this Earthly trembling by reason of its unwonted strangeness and largeness of the places Smitten the 4th of April was the Earth with tumult wide From which unwonted slaughter covered Bodies down do slide From the face of the Lord the Earth was moved from the face of the God of Jacob. CHAP. XVIII The fiction of Elementary Complexions and Mixtures 1. Why the Earth hath seemed not to be a primary Element 2. That the fire is neither a substance nor an accident 3. That all visible things are materially of water onely 4. Why the place of the Air which is called the middle Region is cold 5. What the three first things of the Chymists may be 6. Some Bodies are not reduced into the three first things 7. The unconstancie of Paracelsus 8. The errour of the Chymists 9. The reducing of the three first things into the water of a Cloud is demonstrated 10. The swift or volatile Salt of simple Bodies may be fixed by co-melting 11. The three first things were not before but are made in seperating and that indeed a new Creature 12. The Oil of things is nothing but water the seed of the compound Body being abstracted or withdrawn 13. The same thing is proved in a live Coal 14. What the wilde Gas of things is 15. How a Gas is bred in the Grape 16. The Gas of Wines 17. Why much of the Grape may hurt 18. That the Gas of new Wine is not the Spirit of Wine 19. An erroneous opinion of Paracelsus 20. A twofold Sulphur in Tinne from whence the lightness of the same 21. Gun-powder proves Gas 22. Some things do mutually transchange themselves into Gas. 23. The mutuall unsufferableness of some things that are melted together 24. That Gas materially is not Earth or Air. 25. The same thing by a supposition of a falshood and seven absurdities 26. That a mixt Body is not converted into an Element by the force of an Element the Conquerour 27. A Handicraft operation of the Liquor Alkahest 28. Gas is wholly of the Element of Water 29. It is proved by the Handicraft operation of a live Coal 30. By Handicraft operation that every Vegetable is totally and materially of water alone 31. So a stone is wholly of water 32. Fishes and all fatness are wholly of water 33. Every smoak is onely of water 34. All Sulphurs are reduced into a smoak and Gas but these are reduced into water 35. Why fire cannot make Air of Water 36. Ashes and Glasse are of Water alone 37. The Gas of Salts is nothing but an un-savourie Water 38. The Gas of fruits is nothing but water 39. The Comments or devises of Schollars concerning exhalations 40. Naturall Philosophie is in darkness without the Art of the fire 41. The spirit or breath of life is materially the Gas of the Water 42. The sweat before death is not sweat but the melting of a Liquor 43. By an Endemicall or common Gas we are easily snatched away I Have said that there are two primary Elements the Air and the Water because they do not return into each other but that the Earth is as it were born of water because it may be reduced into water But if water be changed into an Earthy Body that happens by the force or virtue of the Seed and so it hath then put of the simpleness of an Element For a flint is of water which is broken asunder into Sand. But surely that Sand doth lesse resist in its reducing into water than the Sand which is the Virgin-Earth Therefore the Sand of Marble of a Gemme or Flint do disclose the presence of the Seed But if the Virgin-earth may at length by much labour be brought into water and if it was in the beginning created as an Element yet it seemes then to have come down to something that is more simple than it selfe and therefore I have called those two Primary ones I have denied the fire to be an Element and Substance but to be death in the hand of the Artificer given for great uses I say an artificial Death for Arts which the Almighty hath created but not a natural one But now I take upon me to demonstrate that Bodies which are believed to be mixt are materially the fruits of water onely neither that they have need of the Wedlock of another Element to wit that Bodies whether they are dark or clear sound or fluide bodies of one and the same kindâ— or those that are unlike Suppose them to be Stones Sulphurs Mettalls Hony wax Oils a Bone the Brain a Grisle Wood Barke Leaves lastly that all things and all particular things are wholly reduced into a water altogether without savour and so that they do consist and are contained in simple water onely For indeed most of those things are destroyed by fire and do straightway of their own accord give their part to the water which part although it after some sort resembles the nature of the composed body at length at least-wise the contagion of that composed Seed being taken away that water or Mercury of things returns into the simple and un-savoury water of rain So Oils and fats being seperated by the fire a little of the Alcali Salt being added to them do at length assume the nature of Soap and depart into Elementary water yea whatsoever things are inflamed by an open fire in the very entertainment of the Clouds are reduced voluntarily into water For such was the necessity of the cold of that place as I have already taught above that whatsoever things should rise up thither from the lower places should forget their seeds by the mortall cold in that place and their sub-division into a Gas of almost infinite Atomes For Salt Sulphur and Mercurie or Salt Liquor and Fat are in the most speciall particular kindes or Species not indeed as certain universall Bodies which are common to all particular kindes but they are similar or like parts in composed bodies being distinguished by a three-fold variety according to the requirance of the seeds Therefore if the seminall properties shall the more toughly remain in the three things now seperated then by things being admixed with them the impressions of those properties are taken away and estranged
From whence they do afterwards passe into the Element of water But some Bodies do refuse to be divided into the three things at length the Liquor Alkahest of Paracelsus being adjoyned they decay into a Salt and that Salt is destroyed by passing over into an un-savory water The Art of the fire being despised hath made these things to be unknown in the Schooles But I have not onely a War with those that are ignorant of nature the despisers of the searching mistress of Philosophy but also with Paracelsus the Standard-defender of the Chymists for whom when it was hard to have declined from the beaten Road he sometimes would have those three things to consist in the co-mingling of the Elements and sometimes he thought the Elements of the World themselves not to be bodies but the empty places or wombes of things But in another place he denieth all of whatsoever is corporeall to be Elementary but the Masse onely of the three first things And again in another place he hath taught that the very Elements yea the flame of the fire do reduce themselves by a Method into the four Elements And so they cease to be naked Elements in the place of three principles But the flame it selfe which is nothing but a kindled smoak being enclosed in a Glasse straightway in the very instant perisheth into nothing So that a Glasse made in a glassen Fornace with a bright burning fire and being shut could never contain any thing besides Air. He being unconstant to himself hath made himself ridiculous and all those particular things in fit places are to be refuted by me For the Chymists have hitherto believed that the Elements do lay hid in the three first things For they had seen Air and Fire in burning Wax to fly away together and thereupon they have thought that the water doth in part challenge to its self its air and fire But they have thought that the Earth flies away with the smoak Which thing they have likewise supposed concerning those things which do leave a Coal and ashes behinde them placing ashes in the room of earth But they have believed that the fruits of the Earth and Mineralls are indeed as it were the allied pledges of the water but they have believed them to be stirred up by the Wedlock of the other three Elements but I come to the hand Let there be Aqua vitae excellently well purified from its dregs which burns Oily bodies through its whole Homogeniety or sameliness of kinde for that Aqua vitae by Salt of Tartar which is near akin to it is presently changed as to its 16th part into Salt and all the rest becomes a simple Elementary water And one onely part is made a Salt although it be of the same kinde with the other and so is equally reducible into water because that in actions of bodies and spirits under their dissolving there are made divers coagulations of the dissolver In like manner also in the operation of the fire Salts which before were volatile or swift of flight may partly be co-melted into a fixed Alcali no otherwise than as Salt-peter and Arsenick being both volatile things may be fixed by co-melting Therefore the three first things are not onely seperated but are sharpened changed do vary the nature of the composed body and so are made by the fire a new creature not indeed being created anew but being brought forth by the fire So a sile is no more the earth of the Potter but now a Stone So ashes and smoak are no more Wood nor an Alcali nor Sand Glasse Because the force of the fire doth not produce seeds but by consuming doth transchange them and by seperating alters all particular bodies Moreover none dares to say that the Salt of Tartar in the case proposed doth produce an Element out of that which is not an Element as if a Salt were the Father of the Element of water but the Sulphur of the Wine the seed being taken away doth leave the matter of the Aqua vitae to be such as it is But the part which may be fixed in the Salt of Tartar which hath taken to it the condition of a Salt was fat it being before wholly capable of burning volatile and of the same condition with its fellowes Immediately therefore after the destruction of the seed of the Sulphur of the Wine it is nothing but an Elementary water So every Oil is materially simple water which a small quantity of seed translates into a combustible Masse and playes the maske of a Sulphur And every seed is according to a Chymicall computation scarce the 8200 part of its body which part if the fire shall change into families it shall not be hard for it also to return into water For the fire burning the fatness into Air it wholly flies up to the Clouds and there doth sometimes grow together through the cold of the place into water For Fishes do by the force or virtue of an inbred seed transchange simple water into fat bones and their own fleshes it s no wonder therefore that Fishes materially are nothing but water transchanged and that they return into water by art I will also shew by Handicraft-demonstration that all Vegetables and fleshes do consist onely of water but all things if not immediately at least-wise with an assistant they do again assume the nature of water Also every small Stone Rockie or great Stone and Clay doth passe into a fixed Alcali of its own accord or by things adjoyned for an Alcali is that which before was not a Salt yet its combustion being finished it is a residing Salt So ashes is by its own proper Alcali made a meer Salt But every Alcali the fatness being added is reduced into a watery Liquor which at length is made a meer and simple water as is to be seen in Soaps the Azure-stone c. as oft as by fixed adjuncts it layes aside the seed of fatness For otherwise it is not proper to the fire to make a water rather a flame but onely to seperate things of a different kinde Therefore if water may be made out of Sulphurs and not by the proper transmutation of fire it must needes be that Sulphurs are begotten of meer water For truly neither is water seperated from Oils but that is truly made of these because the water was not in it by a formall act but onely materially to wit the mask of the seeds being withdrawn Moreover every coal which is made of the co-melting of Sulphur and Salt working among themselves in time of burning although it be roasted even to its last day in a bright burning Furnace the Vessel being shut it is fired indeed but there is true fire in the Vessel no otherwise than in the coal not being shut up yet nothing of it is wasted it not being able to be consumed through the hindering of its eflux Therefore the live coal and generally whatsoever bodies do not immediately depart into
water nor yet are fixed do necessarily belch forth a wild spirit or breath Suppose thou that of 62 pounds of Oaken coal one pound of ashes is composed Therefore the 61 remaining pounds are the wild spirit which also being fired cannot depart the Vessel being shut I call this Spirit unknown hitherto by the new name of Gas which can neither be constrained by Vessels nor reduced into a visible body unless the seed being first extinguished But Bodies do contain this Spirit and do sometimes wholly depart into such a Spirit not indeed because it is actually in those very bodies for truly it could not be detained yea the whole composed body should flie away at once but it is a Spirit grown together coagulated after the manner of a body and is stirred up by an attained ferment as in Wine the juyce of unripe Grapes bread hydromel or water and Honey c. Or by a strange addition as I shall sometime shew concerning Sal Armoniack or at length by some alterative disposition such as is roasting in respect of an Apple For the Grape is kept and dried being unhurt but its skin being once burst and wounded it straightway conceiveth a ferment of boyling up and from hence the beginning of a transmutation Therefore the Wines of Grapes Apples berries Honey and likewise flowers and leaves being pounced a ferment being snatched to them they begin to boyl and be hot whence ariseth a Gas but from Raysins bruised and used for want of a ferment a Gas is not presently granted The Gas of Wines if it be constrained by much force within Hogs-heads makes Wines â—urious mute and hurtfull Wherefore also the Graâ—e being abundantly eaten hath many times brought forth a diseasie Gas For truly the spirit of the ferment is much disturbed and seeing it is disobedient to our digestion it associates it selfe to the vitall spirit by force yea if any thing be prepared to be expelled in manner of a Sweat that thing through the stubborn sharpness or soureness of the ferment waxeth clotty and brings forth notable troubles torments or wringings of the bowels Fluxes and the Bloudy-flux I being sometimes in my young beginnings deluded by the authority of ignorant writers have believed the Gas of Grapes to be the spirit of Wine in new Wine But vain tryalls have taught me that the Gas of Grapes and new Wine are in the way to Wine but not the spirit of Wine For the juyce of Grapes differs from Wine no otherwise than the pulse of water and meal do from Ale or Beer For a fermentall disposition coming between both disposeth the fore-going matter into the transmutation of it self that thereby another Being may be made For truly I will at sometims teach that every formall transmutation doth presuppose a corruptive ferment Other more refined Writers have thought that Gas is a winde or air inclosed in things which had flowen unto that generation for an Elementary co-mixture And so Paracelsus supposed that the air doth invisibly lurk under the three other Elements in every body but in time onely that the Air is visible but his own unconstancy reproveth himself because seeing that he sheweth in many places else-where that bodies are mixed of the three first things but that the Elements are not Bodies but the meer wombs ' of things But he observed not a two-fold Sulphur in Tin and therefore is it lighter than other Mettalls whereof one onely is co-agulable by reason of the strange or forreign property of its Salt whereby Jupiter or Tin maketh every Mettall frangible or capable of breaking and brickle it being but a little defiled with its odour onely but that the other Sulphur is Oily For Gun-powder doth the most neerly express the History of Gas For it consisteth of Salt-peter which they rashly think to be the Nitre of the Antients and the which is at this day plentifully brought to us being dried up from the inundation of Nilus of Sulphur and a Coal because they being joyned if they are enflamed there is not a Vessel in nature which being close shut up doth not burst by reason of the Gas For if the Coal be kindled the Vessel being shut nothing of it perisheth but Sulphur if the Glasse being shut it be sublimed wholly ascends from the bottom without the changing of its Species or kinde Salt-peter also being melted in a shut Vessel as to one part of it gives a sharp Liquor that is watery but as to the other part it is changed into a fixed Alcali Therefore fire sends forth an Air or rather a Gas out of all of them singly which else if the air were within it would â—end forth from the three things being connexed Therefore those things being applied together do mutually convert themselves into Gas through destruction But there is that un-sufferance of Sulphur and Salt-peter not indeed by the wedlock of cold with hot as of powerfull qualities as is believed but by reason of the un-cosufferable â—lowing of boyling Oil and Wine no lesse than of water or of Copper and Tin being melted with Wine For in so great heat when they co-touch each other throughout their least parts they are either turned into a Gas or do leap asunder For so Lead being roasted with Mercury and Sulphur departeth into a sudden flame a small lee or dreg being left almost of no weight yet enlarged to the extension of the Lead VVherefore if the Gas were air all the Gun-powder should be air and the Lead it self should be wholly air But it is not possible for the fire to produce out of the same Elementary fruit sometimes air sometimes water with an ultimate reducement unlesse the fire loose also its uniformity of working that was planted in it by the Creator In the next place it is already above sufficiently manifested that air and water can never be brought over into each other Therefore if Gun-powder or Salt-peter may observably be reduced into an Elementary water by fire or any other mean whatsoever a transmutation thereof into air is not possible to be But some thousands of pounds of Gun-powder being at some time enflamed at once have not yielded any thing but an inflamed Gas which hath growen together in the Clouds and at length returning into water Furthermore a Coal is reduced in some Fountains into a Rockie stone Likewise I have known the meanes whereby the whole of Salt-peter is turned into an Earth and the whole of Sulphur being once dissolved may be fixed into an Earthly Powder What if therefore these three Earths should contain three or four Elements at leastwise the Earth should occupie the greatest part nor that reducible into its former Gas neither is it consonant to Reason that a Body which wholly flies away into an aiery Gas should be converted into Air or into Earth as man listeth Next seeing the three aforesaid Powders are at length made water under the Artificer which afterwards cannot any more through humane cunning return into
use of the Pulses and another of breathing and â—â—â—ther for heat only For in the most sharp and hot diseases to wit as oft as there is the greatest breathing drawn and that like a sigh the Pulse is small and swift also the strength remaining Therefore the use of breathing and the Pulse do not answer especially because we are more refreshed by a great draught of cold water abundantly drunk than if the same quantity be drunk at many times I say we are more refreshed by one only sigh than by many small and more frequent breathings Even so as a pair of Bellows doth perform more by a great and continual blast than by those that are lesse exact although many whence it may be sufficiently manifested to a well considerate and judicious man that there is another use of the Pulses of greater moment to wit That which respecteth the ferment of digestions Whence I repeat a handicraft operation to wit That at length under the last digestion all our Arterial bloud doth perish and exhale neither that it leaves any dreg behind it Yet whatsoever doth exhale by heat alone all that as well in living as in inanimate things doth leave a dreg behind it the skilfull do call this The dead Head which dreg being at length thus roasted doth resemble a Coale For the action of heat is of it self every where Simple Univocal and Homogeneal differing in the effect by reason of the Matter Therefore if the vitall bloud ought to be wholly so disposed in us that it be at length wholly blown away without a dead head it was altogether necessary that that should happen by some other Mean than that of heat But the aire was alwayes and from the beginning every where the seperater of the waters from the waters This hath not been known in the Schools to wit that the whole Venal bloud that it may depart into a Gas it hath need of two wings to fly the aire and a ferment Wherefore observe thou That as oft as any thing of bloud becomes unfit or is not by degrees disposed of and undergoes its degrees in the outward part of the body that it may wholly throughout the whole be made volatile and capable to flye away or thorow the poâ—es at the same moment now Scirthus's Nodes or Knots and Apostems are conceived but if that thing happen in the more inward part thereof for the most part Fevers Apoplexies Falling evills Asthma's likewise pains and deaths do soon follow Let us see therefore what the aire or what a ferment may conduce hereunto First of all Every muscilage of the earth which else is easily turned into worms likewise Starch Fleshes Fishes c. being once frozen at that very moment do lose their muckinesse and return into water As the aire was once very well combined to the Ice as I have sometimes spoken concerning the weight of Ice and so it is the first degree whereby the aire doth resolve a tough body into water And then under the greatest colds and purest aire we are more hungry yet we sweat and less is discussed out of us with a small and more hard siege or excrement Therefore one that saileth in the Sea eats more by double if not by treble unlesse he be sick and le ts go less excrement than himself doth living at Land whence is the Proverb The water causeth a promoting of digestion As if indeed he that saileth should not float in the aire but in the water but floating doth renew the aire in us and from hence there is a stronger digestion Therefore if we do eat more strongly and do cast forth less excrements it necessarily follows that the more is discussed or doth vanish out of the Body which is to say That the more pure Northern and Sea-aire doth conduce to a transpiration or evaporation of the body or doth dispose the bloud unto an insensible perspiration or breathing out of it self Surely for that cause is breathing made not indeed that the air may depart into nourishment for the vitall spirit but that it may be connexed with it being sucked to it thorow the Arterial Vein and Venal Artery of the Lungs and that the air being for this cause transported into the heart it may receive a ferment which accompanying it they both may dispose the venal blood into a totall transpiration of it self After another manner many things are made fixt and do resist a breathing forth if they are provoked by heat otherwise they were in themselves volatile Wherefore an Alcali is not generated in ashes by the fire essentially although effectively it proceed from thence For the office of the fire is indeed to kindle consume and seperate yet not to produce any thing Seeing the fire is not rich in a seed it is the very destroyer of seeds But from seeds all Generation proceedeth When therefore an Alcali is fixed out of a Salt that was before volatile it is not a new production of a thing but only the Alteration of a thing For the Alcali was indeed materially in the composed body before burning and did flow together with its Mercury and Sulphur Notwithstanding while the fire takes away the Mercury and Sulphur the Salt indeed as being a principle more subsisting in the melting of the combustion doth snatch to it self the neighbouring part of the Sulphur or Fat and when it is not able sufficiently to defend it from the torture of the fire it partly also flyes away under the mask of a Gas and attains the odour of corrupted matter and is partly incorporated in the laid-hold-of co-melted Sulphur and is made a true Coal Wherefore the Sulphur being now fixed by the wedlock of the Salt it doth not speedily incline from a Coal into a smoaky vapour But by degrees and not unlesse in an open Vessel and so with the former Sulphur for from hence the Sulphur of a thing being for the most part sharp doth retain the savour of a volatile Salt and at length with the Coalie Sulphur the just weight of its volatile Salt flies away Which thing surely is no where more manifest than in the Coal of Honey For if this be urged or forced by a shut vessel it remains not changed in a bright burning fire but the vessel being open both do so depart that moreover no remainder of ashes doth ever survive Therefore the Alcali Salt doth fore-exist materially in the composed body before combustion Because all the Salt was formally volatile in the composed body and not in the form of a more fixed Alcali which thing is now especially manifest in the bloud which being wholly volatile exhaleth unsensibly through the Pores without any residence But if it be combusted or burnt it leaveth very much fixed Salt in its own ashes In the next place The wood of the Pine-Tree which affordeth little ashes and less Salt in the preparation of ashes barrelled is by calcining wholly turned into an Alcali For barrelled ashes are brought
Some of our Religious Country-men are almost for a whole year so cold from the Foot even to the Belly that they do not feel that they have feet wherefore they should likewise be longer lived than us yea and their Legs should be like young mens when as their whole Breast is crisped with old wrinckles if primogeneal moisture being consumed by heat should afford an unavoidable necessity of death And likewise as well Fishes as those Religious men ought to refuse the daily refreshments of nourishment because scarce any thing doth exspire thorow the pores or if heat should be of the essence of our life certainly the part languishing with continual cold should either die or at least should be changed into a Fish Whence it is plain that heat is onely an adjacent to our life and its concomitant token but not the primary foundation thereof Therefore the Schools may see how unfitly they have hitherto circumscribed the whole constitutive temperature of nature in heat For far be it hereafter so blockishly to phylosophize and not to know that the consuming of moisture by heat which is terminated with in-thickning is one thing and that which is wholly moved forward to transpiration by an extenuating Ferment is by far another For this leaveth no residence behinde it but that a Sandy Stone or Coal But if an increased heat doth sometimes rise up in us so that it is that which doth as it were burn the members gangrene them and like fire make an Eschar or now and then doth eat into the flesh like a Dormouse those indeed are the works of corrosive degenerating lawless Salts that are banished from the vital Common-wealth So also by laxative poysons and Fluxes the whole venal bloud is resolved into putrefaction and the venal bloud being resolve by other poysons into a liquor Sunovie or Gleary water poyson jaundous excrement c. doth flow sorth oft-times most sharp and oft-times raging without a Corrosive For such kind of errors do happen in the life for therefore in a dead carcasse they do cease as they by a proper Blas do put on the animosity of nature corrupted by the Life and the life doth enflame a sword whereby it doth manifoldly hurt it selfe even as sometimes concerning diseases At length whether there be any Animal spirit to be distinguished in the Species from the Vital or whether the disputation thereof be a true brawling about a name I have shewn what a thing is in it self whereunto a name adds nothing or can take away nothing The vital spirit doth climb through the chief Arteries into the head But in the heart or middle of the Brain there is one onely bosom which being beheld above seemeth double but its Vault being lifted upwards it sheweth a onenesse Moreover in this bosom the Arteries do end into a certain wrinckled vessel plainly of another weaving or texture than is the other compaction of Arteries Hereby indeed the vital spirit flowes abroad and exspireth into the bosom of the Brain for the service of the chief faculties to wit of the imagination judgement and memory Hereby also it proceeds to be distributed into the small mouths of the Sinews beginning from the Brain So that if it be to be called Animal as receiving or under-going in the Brain a limitation of the part it doth obtain the properties fit for an appointed function yet it doth not therefore seem diverse from the vital by its matter and efficient cause For truly in the largeness of its own vital light it is capable of all those Properties without the thorow changing of its native essence For that Spirit which is thrust forth unto the tongue doth exercise the tasting but that same doth not tast in the fingers but doth every where receive a particular Character of Organs or Instruments and puts on a particular property The which if thy mind carry thee to distinguish from the vital spirit there shall again be as many essential divisions of the spirit as there are offices and as many as there are services divided by the pluralities of offices In the mean time understand the thing and call it as thou listest For I am not contradictory to the Schools out of a stomackful passion for I being admonished by a superiour Authority ought only to have laid open their errours and to teach things unknown Let they themselves likewise disclose my errours or mistakes with an equal mind surely I shall rejoyce if so be that onely my neighbour do obtain the profit which I wish CHAP. XXVII Heat doth not digest efficiently but only excitatively or by way of stirring up 1. Heat is not the proper instrument of digestion 2. What hath deceived the Schools herein 3. The defences of the Schools 4. The rashness of Paracelsus 5. The anguishes of the Schools 6. They forgot their own Maxim concerning contraries 7. They have constrainedly made heat and the predicament of heat more powerful than fire 8. Digestion and Seething do differ 9. Ferments are angry because they are put after 10. What the univocal action of heat is 11. A fish digesteth without heat 12. There is no place for potential heat in things to be digested 13. An Argument of hunger 14. Another from the unity of specifical heat 15. The third from a Maxim 16. Another Argument 17. Why sowre belching after the savour of burntish ones is good 18. Why one sick of a Fever abhorreth fleshes 19. From the scope of healing 20. The admiring of Paracelsus 21. An error of the same man 22. The digestive sorce of Hens 23. The Authour being as yet a Boy learned the true cause of digestion 24. He knew resolving to be from sowrnesse 25. We grow old only through extream want of Ferments 26. The quality of a fermenting sowrnesse 27. Whence is the dislike of some meats 28. The forces of ferments 29. Mice accuse the Schools of errour 30. Why the Ferment of the stomack is divers from it self 31. A commendation of the Spleen 32. Degrees of heat and cold do vary 33. The errours of the Schools concerning the degrees of Elements 34. The degrees of Chymicall heat 35. The Authour hath made degrees of distinction 36. Moisture and drynesse are not to be considered as qualities 37. Why they do not admit of degrees 38. Hence trifles were introduced by the Antients into the doctrine of the Elements BEcause the whole foundation of nature is thought to hang on the hinge of heat and the Elements mixtures and temperaments are already banished far off therefore to establish the progeny of the Archeus and vital Spirits we must hence following speak of digestions The which because the Schools have enslaved to heat I will shew that heat is not the proper instrument of digestions Indeed the metaphor of digestion hath deceived the Schools to wit it being by a Poetical liberty borrowed from a rustical sense introduced they have made concoction of the same name with digestion And as they knew seething
themselves by the same right concoct for themselves and are thereby nourished For truly in this humour every part lives in its own Orbe and every part hath a singular Cook-room in it self for it self But besides even till a certain age and measure inbred in the Seeds of things the nourishment departs into increase Then it stayeth and is no more mixed with its first constituters And therefore this nourishment is opposed onely for the retarding of the dryness of old age even unto the closure of life This indeed is the distribution of the digestions and Regions of the Body among the Antients and modern Schooles which hath never seemed to me to be sufficient but full of ignorance because it is that which besides rude observations hath brought no light unto the art of healing CHAP. XXVIII A six-fold digestion of humane nourishment 1. The miserable boastings of the Galenists 2. Whence the first dissolution of the meat is 3. A sharpness being obtained is presently changed into a salt Salt 4. The use of the gut Duodenum neglected in the Schools 5. Sharpness or soureness out of the stomach doth hurt us 6. The variety and incompatibility or mutual unsufferableness of the Ferments 7. An example of that ready exchanging 8. Nothing like a Ferment doth meet us elsewhere 9. The volatileness of sharpness doth remain in a salt product 10. The latitude in Ferments 11. Whence it is known that the first Ferment is a forreigner to the Stomach 12. Why Sawces do stand in sharpness 13. Sharpness is not the Ferment it self but the Instrument of the same 14. Too much sharpness of the Stomach is from its vice 15. A receding from the Schools in the examination of the Gaul 16. That Choler is not made of meats 17. That the Gaul is not an excrement but a bowel 18. The membrane of the wombe is a bowel even as also that of the Stomach 19. Why the Gaul and Liver are connexed 20. What may be the stomach of the Liver 21. VVhy it goes before the Ferment of the Gaul and is the second digestion 22. VVhy the venal bloud in the Mesentery doth as yet want threds neither therefore doth it wax clotty 23. The wombe of the Vrine and the wombe of Duelech or the Stone in man are distinct 24. The stomach of the Gaul and its Region 25. The rotten opinion of the Schools concerning the rise of the Gaul and its use 26. Nature had been more careful for the Gaul its enemy than for Phlegme its friend 27. The separation of the Vrine differs from the separation of wheyiness out of milk 28. The second and third digestions are begun at once although the third be more slowly perfected 29. What the stomach of the Gaul is 30. The Gaul doth import more than to be chief over an excrement 31. Birds want a Kidney and Vrine but not a Gaul 32. Fishes also do prove greater necessities of a Gaul than of filths or excrements 33. That the Schools are deceived in the use of the Gaul 44. The Liquor of the Gaul with its membrane being a noble bowel doth now and then banish its superfluity into the gut Duodenum 35. How excrements do obtain the heat of the Gaul yet are not therefore choler or gaul 36. The proper savour of the dung doth exclude the gaul and fiction of choler 37. Gauls seem what they are not 38. Whence the vein hath it that even after the death of a man it doth preserve the venal bloud from coagulating 39. The extream rashness of the Schooles 40. The solving of an Objection 41. It is proved by many Arguments that the veins of the stomach do not attract any thing to themselves out of the Chyle 42. The Authour is dissented from the Schools in respect of the bounds of the first Region in the Body 43. The true shop of the bloud is not properly in the passage of the Liver 44. The action of a Ferment doth act onely by inbreathing neither doth it want a corporeal touching 45. The absurd consequences upon the positions of the Schools concerning touching and continual nourishing warmth 46. The Ferments of the Gaul and Liver do perform their offices by in-breathing 47. Why Flatus's or windy blasts do not pierce an Entrail 48. The Errour of Paracelsus about the pores of the Bladder 49. The first digestion doth not yet formally transchange meats 50. Where the absolute transmutation of meats is compleated 51. It is false that nourishment is not to be granted without an excrement 52. It is false that the stomach doth first boil for it self and secondarily for the whole Body 53. The Gaul hath the nature of a Balsam 54. A miserable objection 55. The Gaul taken for a Balsam in the holy Scriptures 56. Against the Gaul of the Jaundise 57. Two Idiotisms in Paracelsus 58. How the Salt of the Sea is separated from Salt-peter 59. Out of water there is Vinegar 60. The fourth digestion and Region of the Body 61. Why the heart is eared 62. The fifth digestion 63. That the vapour in the venal bloud is not yet a Skyie Spirit 64. The nourishing of the flesh and the bowels is distinguished 65. That the Animal Spirit doth not differ in the Species from the vital 66. The fourth and fifth digestions do want excrements 67. What the sixth digestion is 68. The Diseases in the sixth digestion are neglected by the Schools because not understood 69. In the designing of the Kitchin and Shop there are some errours of the Schools 70. Why an Artery doth for the most part accompany a vein 71. Paracelsus is noted 72. The errour of Fernelius concerning Butter 73. The rashness of Paracelsus concerning Milk 74. A censure or judgement of Milk 75. The best manner of drawing forth Goats bloud 76. An undoubted curing of the Pleurisie without cutting of a vein 77. Why Asses milk is to be preferred before other Milks 78. The education of a Child for a long and healthy life 79. Some things worthy to be noted concerning the Vrine 80. Why dropsical persons are more thirsty than those that have a hectick Fever 81. The proper place of the Ferment of the Dung is even as in a Wolf 82. The proper nest of Worms and the History of the same 83. The difference of Ascarides from VVorms 84. That a Clyster is injected in vain for nourishment sake I Have observed notable abuses committed throughout the whole description of Functions or of the use of parts Although Galen doth not more gloriously triumph in any place than in the Treatise of Pulses and in the use of parts the which notwithstanding the modern Anatomists do shew that he never thorowly considered wherefore it is altogether probable that without the knowledge and searching out of the truth these Treatises described by Galen from elsewhere and prostituted for his own are as yet to this day worshipped in the Schools Wherefore I have premised the digestions which Antiquity hath hitherto known and hath confirmed
womb taste effect and end All which the Schools are hitherto ignorant of because erring in the use of the Gaul For in the first digestion the stomack is the receptacle but the Spleen doth inspire from it self a sour ferment into the meats and a sour Cream is thereby made But in the other the slender entrails are the stomack but the ferment is inspired from the gaul for the corruption and seperation of the watery part and a sharp volatile salt is changed into a Salt volatile one But that this might be done by a speedy touch I shall at sometime shew by some Handicraft operations To wit that the Oyl of Vitriol is by the only touching of Mercury converted into a meer Alum Vinegar and Salt c. Also straightway after drink there is oft-times a watery pissing made yet Salt and the mark of the first digestion is scarce conceived but that a notable part of the drink slides forth under an errour of the Pylorus and by consequence there was not made a seperation of the Urine from the bloud in the Liver Because the venal bloud is not as yet made in the Liver if the Chyle it self be as yet made or concocted out of meats in the stomack To wit when drinkers do very often make water after meat Therefore also Urine is made of watery drink yea out of drink from whence venal bloud was not made and so the generating of Urine doth there go before Sanguification At length the very veins of the Mesentery are the stomack of the third digestion which way the Liver inspires a bloudy ferment and a very red or ruddy salt venal bloud is the effect thereof For the wounds of the Gaul are presently mortal but those of the Liver not so If the eâ—ore the Gaul were likewise Choler death would of necessity follow every effusion of the Gaul Nevertheless the yellow Jaundise is not mortal although the Gaul as the same Schooles do teach is not onely diffused over the entrails but throughout the whole Body equally longly largely deeply and throughout its least part Therefore either a wound of the Gaul doth import more than the effusion of Choler or the Jaundise is not effused Choler or both is necessary Wounds of the Bladder also being inflicted above the share as successful Wurtz is witness in my judgement the Standard-defender of the more modern Chyrurgioâ—s are cured although the Urine together with its Gaul as they will have it cannot but be powred forth at that very time or moment Therefore the Chest of the Gaul hath a necessity and Integrity fast tied to the life by reason of sudden death Neither is it the effusion of that gawly superfluity which doth necessitate that speedy death Again Birds do live prosperously without Kidneys or a Bladdâ—r yet not without a Gaul wherefore there is a more conjoyned necessity of the Gaul than of Kidneys Because that the Kidneys being rockie and putrified the life is safe And then Fishes according to the Doctrine of the Schools do abound with very much phlegme and are destitute of actual heat they are onely nourished with cold bloud and watery food At length their excrements easily glistering they had no need of a spur the Gaul Wherefore seeing the ends matter and efficient cause of the Gaul attributed by the Schools should fail in a Fish surely we shall believe that the Liver is vainly deceitfully and by the errour of nature yea and of the Creator wearied unless we had rather acknowledge perpetual errours in the Schools and to contemplate some greater moment of a necessary bowel to be in the Gaul From hence therefore I determine the Gaul to be a vital Bowel and its very Body to be a bitter Liquor prepared of the best venal bloud containing the Balsam of the Liver and Arterial bloud But whatsoever it by chance casts back of it self into the bowel Duodenum is the excrement of it self and a Liquor now despised of the Gaul But that these things have themselves after this manner I have at sometime shewen under the impostures of Choler by the example of a Calf whoâ—e motherly and sweet milk waxeth sour and is coagulated in the stomach and therefore affords Runnet for Cheeses For milk is made a watery Cream but little of coagulated milk But that Cream contains Urine and venal bloud but another coagulated Body which of pale begins to wax yellow is made dung But that baggage straightway falling into the Duodenum doth proceed unto the Ileos being coagulated and waxeth of a Citron colour the more by how much it hath departed farther from the stomach and at length it waxeth green yet there is not bitterness in the yellow but a nitrous taste But in the green the smell of Dung doth now plainly appear But the wheyie Cream is presently drawn and supped up with greediness by the meseraick veins for the use of sanguification Likewise Milk is stirred in Infants whence also those that are the more young ones do cackie all yellow not from the plenty of Choler neither by reason of the domination of the Chest of the Gaul but surely because the ferment of their Dung is feeble Therefore the ferment of the Gaul doth not change the sourness of the stomach into bitter but into Salt for the reasons explained concerning the Spirit of life Spare me ye more tender eares because I ought to treat of Dungs I will therefore shew that the savour of Dung excludes the Gaul that it befools the use of the Gaul invented by the Schools and convinceth Choler of a fiction A Boy of four years old had fowled in Bed but being much afraid of whipping he ate his own Dung yet â—e could not blot the sign out of the sheets wherefore being asked by threatnings he at length tells the chance But being asked of its savour he said it was of a stinking and somewhat sweet one For among other things he had eat Pease-pottage but he complained that the undigested husks or brans of the Pease were notably soure for there is not an equal vigilancy of the ferment of the Gaul over thick and undigested Dungs as there is over transparent things and those things which are to be prepared into the dignity of venal bloud I came by chance unlooked for the same day and I diligently enquired a price being also added whether those things which he had eaten were bitter He answered negatively and the same as before Likewise Nuns did Board noble Maids sufficiently sober at their Table but they continually preached that they who did eat dainty fare should have their parts with the rich Glutton but that they onely should be saved who by the every way denyal of mortification did eat any the most vile things Therefore a noble little Virgin being very desirous of her Salvation and much moved by the aforesaid perswasion eats her own Dung and was weak or sick But she was called home again by her Parents and at length told
the middle waters but it hath need of a fermenting odour of the side whereby it doth as it were putrifie Therefore coagulation is made on the sides of the Vessel to which it fastneth it self According to the common Chymical Maxim Every Spirit dissolving by the same action whereby it disselveth Bodies is it self coagulated Therefore the more sharp Wine dissolveth the Lee in its Bark because a sharp Salt of the sour dissolving Spirit is presently coagulated together with the dissolved Lee or Dreg and applyeth it self to be neighbour to the side or Concave of the Vessel And that least both to wit the thing dissolving and thing dissolved be hindered from coagulating but at least that it be not on the other side encompassed by Liquor Therefore Tartar the new off-spring of coagulation is affixed Understand thou also that before it be coagulated there is not yet a coagulation and therefore that somewhat sour Wine the Lee being now dissolved by it in an instant before it is coagulated snatcheth hold on the Vessel and doth affix and glew it self on there by the proper Solder of its Cream Else it should settle to the bottom This very thing is the Tartar of Wine of which we are speaking That these things are on this wise Vinegar it self proveth For Wine set in the Sun and the Vessel being heated by the Sun the Vinegar never hath Tartar in the Vessel yet it is the same matter differing onely in cold or heat There indeed with Tartar but here without it First of all a remarkable thing plainly appeareth from what hath been before deduced that the aforesaid Maxim of Chymistry erreth in that because it will have the dissolution of a Body to be made together with the coagulation of the Spirit by the same action in number For if divers moments of motions should not intercede the coagulated thing it self should not adhere toughly glewed to the Hogshead as if by that which is melted it should be there powred on it but if it should be coagulated in the very motion of dissolution it should fall down to the bottom in the shape of a coagulated matter but should not adhere to the sides But on the other hand in the Region of the Lee Tartar is not found Let there be another remarkable thing and of greater moment that the Tartar of Wine is altogether impertinently taken according to the likeness of coagulated things in us wherefore the name History manner and end of Tartar of Wine hath been impertinently introduced into the Causes which make Diseases And these things shall be made manifest when as I shall make the devise of Tartar in Meats and Drinks plainly to appear Likewise as to that which belongs to Tartar of Wine for that is not a strange forreigner to Wine produced by a forreign Mother matter against or besides the nature of Wines as neither to expiate the wickednesses committed by Wine by those things which are adjoyned for a curse And then neither is the Tartar of Wine ever coagulated by a Cream proper unto it although Paracelsus hath otherwise so supposed but the Tartar is coagulated after that the dissolutive sourness of the Wine is woren out and glutted by the Lee. That is the sourness being overcome by the dissolved content doth think of making a coagulation not indeed to make a true Stone but a feigned one because it is that which is again dissolved in hot water as it were a sharp Salt in Liquor which is therefore commonly called Cremor Tartari or the Cream of Tartar All which things surely do badly square or suit with our coagulations yet they all have by a like identity or sameliness of Tartar in all particular nourishments been intruded by a winy devise Lastly and that a violent one Because Tartar is not an excrement of Wine unless in respect of one part which is a solved Dreg which thing surely was not also hid from Paracelsus who now and then doth extol the Tartar of Wine far above the Wine as it were an heir of greater virtues Wherefore he doth badly accommodate or fit the Tartar of Wine by the identity of Being and framing with diseasie Tartarers which he calls an excrement yea a curse arising from the Thistles and Thorns or an ill endowed entertained Being in a pure Saphirical Being of things Therefore the Tartar of Wine although there should be any other being erected into the matter of Diseases in taking the Tartars of Diseases they should even according to the minde of Paracelsus badly agree together And so he hath also but impertinently referred the cause of Diseases unto Tartar Seeing they do not any way agree in the matter efficient manner cause of coagulations in the bound of a Cream in their object as neither in their principles For the Sand or Stone are not resolved by elixing or seething even as otherwise the Tartar of Wine is Therefore the whole metaphorical transumption of name and property is frivolous and a bold rashness of asserting by bespattering all created things with a curse so as wholly throughout they should be nothing but of Tartar and the boldness hath proceeded so far that they seign Tartar to be even in the Marrows yet not coagulable which neither hath Paracelsus ever seen but hath asserted onely by a boldness Now he maketh Tartar not to be Tartar nor coagulable And so that not onely every coagulable thing and that which hath solidness but that every liquory thing that is the whole Creature should be nothing but Tartar appointed for a punishment of sin Now when new Wine hath waxed cold hath lost its sweetness and hath assumed the qualities of Wine the whole Lee hath fallen to the bottom and then the transmutation of the more sour part of the Wine beginneth to act of the Lee For truly that which is more fruitful than the Spirit of Wine desiring by degrees the more inward parts doth forsake the Superficies of the Hogs-head but this beginning thereby to wax sour nor finding an object nigh to it self on which it may act but onely in the bottom it by degrees dissolves that object in the same place And thus indeed the sharpness thereof is by degrees the more confirmed But seeing every sour thing doth as it were boyl up in corroding hence it comes to passe that when the sourness which is about the bottom hath acted upon the dreg it ariseth from thence and is substituted or affixed in another place Therefore the generation of Tartar is slow And therefore cannot the Tartar be affixed in the bottom by reason of the disquietness of that continual boyling up wherefore generous Wines nor Wines easily forsaken by their fleeing Spirit do not readily wax sour and they do yield none or but a little Tartar But old Rhenish Wines do become weak indeed in the acceptableness of a winie tast as their sourness was drunk up in the Lee yet are they stomatical because that their Spirits are not wasted according to
the proportion of the dregs and sharpness But red French Wines unless they shall keep their Lee and the which they therefore say is the Mother or Nurse they dissolve their own Tincture and drink it up together with their own sourness and therefore those of two years old become discoloured unless they are exceeding generous For truly the tincture of Wines is a certain separable Body But generous red Wines because they do more slowly wax sour or sharp they are kept for many years But those bearing a little white unless they are severed from the Lee they presently grow weak For the Lee being taken away when their sourish part doth not finde an object which it may dissolve the Wine remains in its own former State Therefore Tartar is no longer Wine or Lee but a neither thing constituted of them both But that the thing is on this wise it plainly appeareth because more Tartar is dissolved in ten ounces of Rain-water than in two hundred ounces of Wine however it be stirred by boyling To wit by reason of the sharpness of the Wine whereby the Tartar was coagulated Lastly six ounces of Salt of Tartar do dissolve seven ounces of crude Tartar because the Lixivium or lye of that Salt doth drink up the sharpness of the Tartar But that Tartar doth consist of the Lee of Wine and not of Wine onely Printers do prove who do prepare the Lee of Wine or Tartar to be a suitable Ink for them And both of these in distilling do belch forth altogether the like Odour and the like Oyl But Tartar is not dissolved in cold water because the Lee of the Wine doth so compass the Salt in the Tartar that cold water cannot the more fully dissolve it by piercing Therefore seeing the Nativity of Tartar doth not elsewhere consist than in winy juyces actually consisting of Spirit of Wine and lightly waxing soure by reason of the flight of the Spirit inward Let the Schools of Paracelsus from hence know how badly the Speculation of Tartar doth suit even with those Diseases for whose sake it was invented For truly our Stone is by no meanes solved in boyling waters because Tartar is rather to be reckoned among the number of Salts or juyces coagulated with Salt than among Stones CHAP. XXXI The rash invention of Tartar in Diseases 1. No Disease doth arise from Tartar 2. Galen is unsavoury about the matter of the Disease of the Stone 3. Galen was often deceived herein 4. He thought the Stone to be hardened in us by the Element of fire in the middle of the Vrine 5. Some ignorances of the same man 6. A neutral Judge is called for 7. The drowsiness of the Humorists unexcusable 8. An explaining of the thing granted 9. Paracelsus came nearer unto the nature of Stones 10. But he also slid in stumbling 11. Paracelsus recanteth 12. His rashness brake forth from the ambition of a Monarchy 13. Blockishness is the Companion of ambition 14. The nodding unconstancie of Paracelsus 15. He was deceived by the Metaphor of a Microcosme or little World 16. His hidden boasting 17. The like boldness of Aristotle 18. That the Metaphor of a Microcosme differs from the truth 19. Paracelsus hath not sufficiently trusted to his invention of Tartar 20. Two ignorances of the same man are demonstrated 21. The Rise of hereditary Diseases 22. The Schools have erred in both extreams 23. The Phylosophy of Paracelsus concerning Tartar is rustical or rude 24. His errour is proved 25. The incongruities of Paracelsus 26. Paracelsus was ignorant of a formal transmutation of things 27. He blockishly proceeds SEEING that Tartar hath first entred into Medicine for the consideration of the Stone I have finished a Treatise touching the Disease of the Stone and I have shewen in print that Tartar is a stranger unto the nature of the Disease of the Stone Now at length I will make manifest that plainly no Disease doth arise from Tartar but that the meditation thereof in Diseases is vain Galen had known a man to be grieved with Stones and Sands in his Reins and Bladder but he knew not to what cause he might ascribe so great a hardness in us at length I found that not any thing can be condensed or co-thickned except one onely excrement which I call muck or snivel but he names it Phlegm or a waterishness And when he discerned the Stone to grow in the remote and so in the ultimate Coasts of utterance and did think that nothing had access thither besides his own humours he boldly affirmed that the same thing doth happen in the Urine and therefore that the Stone cannot otherwise be constituted than from a watery Phlegm VVhich thing because he marked with the Element of water and watery properties therefore that it ought to grow together at the water-pipes in us The Invention smiled on him especially because a Stone being brought into the Bladder there was a continual voyding of muck together with Urine Therefore he thought that our fire because he believed it to be one of the four Elements which do concur unto the constitution of us was necessary for the hardening of the matter of the Stone and that the Phlegm should dry up even in the middle of the waters seeing he knew no other operators in nature besides heat and cold For he knew not that all things did at sometime arise out of nothing now at length that from a necessitated continuation in nature all things afterwards should flow forth from a certain Genealogy of Seeds but not that from a casual conflux of Elements and by the virtue of supervening heat and cold they are so fitly adorned with vital powers Neither considered he that those first qualities at the most and utmost could not generate or contribute any thing unto a new Being but onely occasionally to promote or fore-flow the vital dispositions of seeds in their own simplicity but not as the Elements should be combined Surely it grieveth me for his pains and that all posterity of sick folks doth hitherto pay the punishment of its own credulity because he never deservedly measured or of himself once desired the Causes of the Disease of the Stone as otherwise he ought before he erected a method of healing So his Soul is made the Chamber-maid of his own desires and he feigneth plausible reasons to himself according to the appetite of disturbance which removed it from its place to a consent of himself Therefore a strange Judge is called unto the Reasons found out by us least being credulous we worship our own fictions and love them as it were Sons and pledge for the same against equity as Parents Therefore let the fire the sieve of Reasons be that Judge But the art of the fire was not yet known in Galens time but it was hidden among privy Counsellers under an Oath in the silence of Pythagoras For Galen never law even the distillation of Roses Therefore in so great a want of knowledge his
of name of the Philosopher despised the contradicters of his own and indeed false beginnings no otherwise than as Necromancers do require to be credited without demonstration Let eternal prayse and glory be to my Lord in all Benediction who hath formed us not after the Image of the most impure VVorld but after the figure of his own divine Image therefore hath he adopted us for the Sons of Election and co-heirs of his glory through grace Surely the condition of that similitude were to be grieved at and too much to be pitied which had hitherto subjected us under the Law of all calamities from our Creation even till now and that before sin we should onely be the engravement of so abjected a thing as if the VVorld had been framed for it self but not for us as the ultimate end but we for the VVorld whose Images indeed onely we should be to wit we ought to be made stony that we may represent Stones and Rocks And so we should all of right be altogether stony leprous c. For indeed seeing we are by Creation that which we are and a Stone should be made in us that we may represent Rocks Now death and a Disease were in us before that we departed out of the right way or fell Let Heresies depart For neither do we all suffer the falling evill neither do they who labour with it have it that sometimes we may represent Thunder or the Earth-quake or an unknown Lorinde of the Air its unconstancy But now if there were at least the least truth hereof verily he who suffers dammages according to Justice ought also to perceive the profits of the Microcosme even so that especially we ought to fly Seeing it is more rational for us sooner to shew our selves Birds than great Stones or storms of the Air or water Therefore let allegorical and moral senses depart out of nature Nature throughly handles Beings as they do in very deed and act subsist in a substantial entity and do flow forth from the root of a seed even unto the conclusion of the Tragedy neither doth it admit of any other interpretation than by being made and being in essence from ordained causes I observe also that Paracelsus Tartar being invented and introduced into Diseases hath not yet stood secure enough for truly he immingles Tartar also in the first Beginnings of our constitution and so neither doth he require the Seeds of things themselves out of Tartar but he will have Tartar to be radically intimately and most thorowly immirgled with the Seeds whereby he may finde out the Seminary of Hereditary Diseases Of which mixture he being at length forgetful calleth it ridiculous He saith that a VVoman having conceived by the Seed of man it doth separate snatch lay up Tartar into it self and that the Seed being as it were anatomized doth constitute it self the flattering Heir of that Tartar On the contrary that the Spirit of Wine is never so refined by possible circulations as that it doth not as yet contain its own Tartar in it As if Tartar were the chief Root of the Universe or an immediate Companion thereunto But I know if any forreign thing be materially in the Seed generation doth never follow Next that the Seed of Adam being materially prepared in Paradise had not generated a more perfect off-spring than that which afterwards after the fall was made in him Cain and Abel do especially prove that thing At length if Tartar should so intimately grow in Seeds that after many years from generation it should cause hereditary Diseases by materially separating it self from the whole surely that Tartar should not so soon be separable by the Magnet or attraction of a VVoman seeing if any thing be separated from the seed it is a Gas diametrically opposite unto Tartar For if the womb should separate any thing from the seed that should happen by drawing but such is the condition of drawing things that they draw for themselves and unto themselves and then cease but if the womb shall extract for separation sake there shall now be no fear of an hereditary evill because the womb hath a power of serving that which is hurtfull Lastly although Diseases shall come by degrees into the place of exercise yet they were never materially thorowly mixed with the Seed after the manner of Tartar that not Tartar not a gowty Chalk fore-existed in the Seed but that Diseases derived from the Parents do lay hid in manner of a Character in the middle life of the Archeus whose Seal doth at length under its own maturity of dayes break forth and frameth a Body fit for it self and so is made the Archeus of a Disease together with every requisite property of the Seeds For a Disease also is a natural constitution proceeding from the Seed consisting of an Archeus as the efficient cause It hath otherwise rustically been thought in the Schools that Diseasie Bodies do materially conflux unto the Generation of hereditary defects It also contains an Idiotism to exclude a Disease out of the number of natural Agents and corporal Beings seeing the matter also which they say is diseasifying is now and then obvious to the finger if it be thorowly viewed by the eyes If therefore a Disease be now reckoned among the Beings of Nature why should it not be established by a necessity of its own seed It is rude Phylosophy that Tartar had been from the beginning in the seed and that after thirty whole years it should begin the first principles of a Cream and should meditate of an Increase and as it were a particular Republique for it self and that wholly without the direction of the seed God made not death nor therefore hath he connexed Tartar unto seeds as the matter of Diseases For if so stupid errours should happen unto the seminal Archeus the Ruler of Nature hath already forsaken the Rains of the same and mankinde shall shortly go to ruine Also that saying of Paracelsus is absurd that not so much as the Spirit of Wine doth want its own Tartar For although it should be circulated for the space of an Age yet it shall never in very deed separate any Tartar For Paracelsus who never saw or found that Tartar of the Spirit of VVine will therefore be credited in his own good belief no otherwise than as elsewhere where he thinketh that water as oft as it hath ceased to be seen doth wholly depart into nothing and that something is created anew For it doth not follow a Salt is made out of the Spirit of vvine it receives a coagulation in the Salt of Tartar therefore the Spirit of vvine doth contain Tartar Because although every coagulated thing should be Tartar which it is not yet those Bodies do not contain those things which at length are made of them To wit Milk is made of Grasse of Milk Arterial Bloud and from hence the seed of man yet Grasse doth not contain a man in it self as neither
or downwards beset to wit when as that which I but now before spake concerning hoarsnesse is cast out of the breast by Coughs Therefore the Snivel of the nostrils dropping down from above even as also that which is â—â—it out by Coâ—â—bs doth take its rise from the Keeper the faculty an excrement indeed in it self profitable but through errour of the Keeper hurtful But I call these powers placed at both the solding doors of the gates of the air Keepers or Watchmen and oft-times erring or wandring ones while by reason of a frequent strife with forreign injuries the Keeper doth not rightly execute his Offices Yet the Keeper is not to be numbred under the Quaternion of faculties to wit the attractive digestive retentive and expulsive Because it doth not onely expell its own but also frameth its own and indeed onely excrements which are not made by digestion but by an abortive or miscarrying power Wherefore the Schools have altogether neglected both these Faculties prefixed before the doors of the Brain and Lungs and have dedicated both onely to the Brain and have accused onely the distemper hereof in those who are in the most perfect health As long the Keeper is in its right-strength as a Conqueress of the Cruelty of the Air it overcomes but when by reason of its much broken strength it cannot satisfie its first ordination according to its desire it at least frames much Snivel that it may wash off the conceived blemish in separating about which it was not at first bruised Therefore the Keeper differs from the digestive and family-administring property of the Brain And it happens that one is hurt the other remaining safe which truth sneezing medicines do discover unto us which do presently after the neighbour Snivel being dispatched stir up meer waterishnesses most speedily brought forth by the provoked Keeper So that at length if the sneezing medicine shall be the sharper fibers of venal blood do fall down with the thin muck and a salt water waxing pale is expunged from the red According to the Proverb he that expungeth too much doth at length draw forth blood For the red blood begâ—n to wax palish which through the troublesomnesse of sneezing was untimely drawn oâ— allured otherwiâ—e it had been snivel Therefore the Keeper doth first of all witnesse Divine Providence to have watched over both Bowels in so ready and frequent a necessity Also they do bewray the effects not indeed of the digestion of the Brain and Lungs but of their own proper power which neither brings forth diseasie effects unlesse it wander from its mark Therefore it is false to have said that a pose is healthy as being the expunger or wiper out of filths For the Offices of both the Keepers and their errours I have by the way already touched Now moreover for the confirmation of the granted Doctrine I will explain the exorbitances of the wandering or eâ—ring Keeper As the Keeper hath received its Lievtenantship chiefly by reason of the cruelties of the adverse Air so it also moderateth the same taking to it a matter obeying its functions to wit out of the masse of the whole to wit of the liquor Latex and venal blood Which Doctrine although it shew a novelty and for that cause may carry difficulties with it yet the ignorance of Ages is never able to prescribe to the truth For first of all a multiplicity of matter being drawn out under the errour of the Keeper sheweth the same not to be the excrement of the brain otherwise sound and strong Therefore the instinct of preparing speedy ready and diverse mucks is raised up from â—lswhere Indeed the Powers are for the washing of the filths off the atomes of the air therefore placed at the doors or entrance of the Bowels that are passable for Air Surely all things proceed well and orderly so long as the Keeper doth not exceed its own limits But seeing all humane things are exposed to ruines where as often as the Keeper wandreth from its aim presently Poses or Distillations Hoarsnesses Coughs c. do invade us after a miserable manner Concerning the Grief or Stuffing of a distilled Rheume or Pose I have already spoken sufficiently Now moreover I will speak of the Cough The Cough ariseth from a feeling of that which is hurtful troubling the wind-pipe from the beginning thereof even unto the bottome or depth of the Lungs to wit smoaks smoaky vapours sharp exhalations minerals and likewise moist vapours stinking ones c. At length cruel cold overcomes the force of its Inne as if tending to the extinguishing of the vital guest The Cough therefore is an effect of the act of Feeling for as soon as the spirit implanted in those parts is grieved with a trouble leaâ—ing on it from without the Keeper presently performs his own office For that unnamed Faculty doth readily call to it as much out of the mass of the juyce Latex as seemeth fit for it and transchangeth it into snivel which in manner of a dew it thrusts forth unto the wind-pipe whereby the injury of the Air may the lesse nakedly and immediately affect the solid pâ—â—â— it self but may break it self against the aforesaid coat of snivel But alas I when either the outward injury is greater than that which may â—â—ffer it self to be mitigated by touching or doth more deeply strike the very substance of the wind-pipe or Lungs now the Keeper stumbleth neither doth it withdraw its aid onely from the Lateâ— but doth alienate the very substance of the next nourishment and wander into a muckie glew indeed so much the nearer to the immediate nourishment of the Bowel by how much it shall come deeper unto a Colour of yellow looking ruddy and nearer to redness and having slidden from that Colour it returns into its former Colour while it shall approach from a ruddy Colour nearer to the yellowness of Chaffe and from thence at length unto the similitude of the white of an Egg. Hence on the other hand in hectick Fevers the snivel becomes bloudy and assumeth the Colour of the more dark ashes while the very substance of the nourishment it self being transchanged departs and doth there shew forth a failing integrity of life Then indeed the stinking smell of a dead Carcase beginning in the breath doth bewray the faintings or doataâ—â—s of the Archeus of the Lungs Therefore the snivel doth readily serve for a partition wall between the hurtful thing coming unto it and the forces or strength of the Inn wherefore it hath a saltness brought to it as the prick of its expulsion that it may provoke the feeling of the Wind-pipe And in the smallness of Salt snivel Coughs are dry But because old Age is likened to a defect and the Lungs are first deficient as above hence Coughs are natural to old Age as it were by property and they are scarce silent do scarce cease or are restrained woren-out nature not admitting a restauration These things of the
the faculty of concupiscence in the Stomach and Liver 15. Whither this speculation tends 16. They have also against their wills assented to the Paradox of the Authour 17. The seat of the mind is the same with that of the sensitive soul 18. The manner of existing in its seat 19. A piercing of Souls 20. What the sensitive soul is 21. A similitude of its existence 22. Heat is not the fountain of the light of life but the light of the Archeal life or product 23. What the mind is 24. By the comming of the sensitive soul death hath entred 25. A comparison of the dignity lost and obtained 26. The Spleen for the Duumvirate 27. The dignities of offices 28. All foolish madnesses do from hence take their beginning 29. A remarkable thing touching the examination of remedies a further progresse being denied 30. How immortality did stand 31. A change of the State 32. A Corollary of what hath been said 33. The errour of the Schools THE Sur-name of a Duumvirate or Sheriff-dome may astonish the Reader with the terrour of novelty wherefore I am first to render a reason of its Etymologie and afterwards I shall explain its government Before all things the seat of the mind is to be searched into For although the soul be every where where the life of it is yet as the Sun is not properly but in his own place in heaven although the light thereof be wheresoever he casts his aspect There is altogether the same judgment concerning the central place of the Soul But there is a strife about the center or place of exercise of the soul in the body And the Standard-defenders being as it were hung up in the air do encounter over this thing noâ— having a foundation where to fix their foot For Plato contends for the Heart for whom the Holy Scriptures seem to vote while they reach that out of the Heart proceed Murders Adulteries c. But Physitians do respect the Head as it were the Inn of discourse and understanding especially because the heart by such an unwearied motion of a stirred pulse cannot but make the soul to be troubled and unquiet Those that baptize do follow the opinion of Physitians Neither are there those wanting in the mean time who determine the immortal mind to be so every where and equally in the body that they will have it to abide in no certain seat no more than it can be tied or bound by the body And so they suppose the soul to be a wandring â—oving inhabitant of an uncertain cottage and to be every way dispersed where life is present But they do not regard that some parts are cut off the life remaining safe but that others being lightly smitten do presently bring death on the whole body Some one oftentimes by his mangled face and head as it were diminished testifies death to be present with him whose heart notwithstanding by its lukewarmth and pulse doth promise the soul to be as yet present And that thing is daily seen in those that do long play the Champion A certain Bride being willing to celebrate her marriage in Opdorp nigh Scalds because the Governour of the place was there is saluted by her retainers with the noyse of Guns But one of them dischargeth a Gun laden with a Ledden Bullet but it pierceth the Coach and the Temples of the Bride She presently falls down and is reckoned a dead Woman But Opdorp is seven Leagues distant from Vilvord whither when she was brought proceeding to Bruxels her Head was a dead Carcase cut in thin pieces and plainly cold yet nigh her heart I noted a luke-warmth and pulse Likewise a certain Image fell from a high place on the Crown of a Woman so as that the whole top of the Scull had depressed the Brain almost two fingers in breadth She was reckoned to have been dead yet there was a slender pulse in both Arms six houres after and it was noted by many A certain studious man being strong strikes another sitting at the Table with his fist about the orifice of the Stomach who presently fell down with a foaming mouth and being lifted up by us into his Seat he was forthwith deprived of Pulse and before Grace was read his whole Body was cold as Ice A Carter being thrust thorow about the mouth of the Stomach with a Dagger with a foaming mouth presently dieth he is also deprived of all Pulse and heat Therefore under a humble Censure of the Church I will declare another Paradox Although life be a token of the Soul and this life be every where yet as by the cutting of a finger or foot the Soul doth not fly away nor the life of the whole Body neither yet can the Soul or life be divided into parts that the Soul in its whole integral part may be any way dividable and that death seemes to be near through the hurting of a more noble member In the mean time it is certain that the life in the member cut off doth presently perish although a part of the Soul be not therefore taken away from the whole Body Therefore it is manifest from thence that the Soul doth not sit centrally in whatsoever part there is an operation and presence of life And it must needs be that the Seat of the Soul is in some place as it were its proper and central mansion For from thence it dismisseth its lightsom and vital Beames by the Archeus the Instrument of the vital light Because the Soul it self is a certain light and clear substance in the minde but in other Souls it is indeed a light yet not a substance As elsewhere concerning the Original of Forms The Creator to whom be all honour hath kept a certain progresse from a like thing who instructs us in the Seat-royal of the Soul that from the more grosse things we may consider things more abstracted For in a Tree an Argument is peculiarly drawn from a Tree by reason of the prerogative of the Tree of Life is seen a Root the vital beginning of it self For truly in the Root as it were in a Kitchin a forreign juyce of the Earth is cocted altered is alienated from its antient simplicity of water and undergoes the disposition of a vital Ferment there placed But being cocted it is distributed from thence that it may more and more be constrained and become like according to the necessity of every further Cook-room which hath established Lawes for the Spirit inhabiting So in the middle Trunck of the Body of man is the Stomach which is not onely the Sack or Scrip or the pot of the Food but in the Stomach especially in its Orifice or upper mouth as it were in a Central point and Root is the Principle of life of the digestion of meats and the disposing of the same unto life most evidently established For whatsoever natural Phylosophers have ever thorowly weighed concerning the heart that is of great moment they will
being despaired of by the Schools are dismissed unto old Women to the contempt of Galen namely one which should dry up and drink up the thin Sanies into it self in the next place another which should be a cleanser of the corrupt Pus But how seriously hath this man weaved his own Fables and how undefiled or fault lesse are these toyes kept as yet to this day For now indeed they do no longer remember a four-fold humour and a four-fold excrement resulting from thence from the corruption of those Indeed Galen will have the grosse matter to be venal bloud putrified neither is he mindful of himself while he teacheth that the bloud in corruption is turned wholly into Choler In the next place if purging Medicines do separate three humours apart out of the venal bloud at the will of the Physitian he ought to have remembred that that happen through the corruption of the bloud to wit while it departs asunder into its fore-going constitutives or whatsoever hath been devised concerning purging things and humors is false wherefore in an Ulcer that not two onely but four ought wholly to issue forth yea according to Galen an Ulcer without grosse matter to wit a Cancer a difficult or malignant Sore or acorroding one fluid with liquid Sanies onely shall be more easie to be cured than otherwise a grosse mattery Ulcer is Because it is that which shall have need of driers onely to wit Chaffe or burnt bones For how stupid and unsound a thing is it to have taught that an Ulcer is to be cured by the cleansing and sequestration of excrements fruits or products But not by a cutting off of the Root which they no where and never knew besides an intemperate heat seeing that every excrement shewes a necessary Relation unto the digestion and part in respect whereof it is an excrement So that a true excrement is a superfluous heap left by a digestion and by a part whereunto it is unprofitable and therefore sequestred from it Because the name of an excrement doth contain an expulsion of the impure from the pure And therefore liquid and grosse matter are not the excrements of an Ulcer or of the part as neither of a natural digestion but they are the products of the Seeds or Roots of Ulcers And therefore he for the most part and in the most things labours in vain who cleanseth an Ulcer according to the prescription of Galen especially in the more malignant ones And likewise it must needs be that those things which are not nourished do also want excrements For nature doth no where labour that it may nourish an Ulcer Seeing that in an Ulcer a proper corrupter doth inhabit which vitiateth the nourishable bloud before it be fit to be digested A lee also in speaking properly is not the superfluity of Wine but a meer residence because of Wine there is no nourishing and no digestion Therefore an Ulcer as such is not nourished neither doth nature intend to nourish that Therefore the liquid and thick corrupt matter are not the excrements of an Ulcer but the products of the corrupter and they are the tokens signs products effects or fruits of venal bloud depraved into hurtful matter For the bloud which is appointed daily for the nourishing of all particular parts is sent is distributed by distributive Justice nor otherwise to the part being ulcerous than if it were moreover in good health Whither when it is come down and cannot be there changed into the true substance of that which is to be nourished it undergoes the lot which the Ulcerous Ferment commands and the bloud doth therefore degenerate and is transchanged in the Root of the part wherein the corrupter is placed and resideth but not in the very hollowness or paunch of the Ulcer For else it should of necessity be that meer and harmless venal bloud should alwayes fall down into the very hollowness of the Ulcer and by corrupting in the same place to degenerate which thing the Eye and daily experience do affirm to be false Therefore if the Schools do wipe an Ulcer whether with a Towel or in the next place with a cleansing Medicine although they both do the same thing yet they take away nothing but the last product but do never reach unto the radical cause or Original But if a bloudy Clot or else a bloudy Muscilage do fall down into the Ulcer that comes to passe because the encompassing places to wit wherein the very Root of Ulcers is there is so great a storm of torture that some small vein that is the nigher being eaten thorow cannot contain its own bloud And so that the bloud which thus by chance falls down into the hollowness of the Ulcer is not seen to be changed into corrupt Pus from whence it manifestly appeares that the bloud doth not degenerate in the hollow of the Ulcer but in the brims or lips thereof wherefore also the vanity of Galens Doctrine is seen which placeth the healing of an Ulcer in the withdrawing of the product The Root therefore of every Ulcer is in its bottom and lips or brim that is it inhabits in the parts next to the hollowness wherein indeed is their own Cookroom in which the venal bloud is altered into a corrosive liquid grosse corrupt matter c. But the liquid matter it self is the product or positive effect of Ulcers But the very hollowness thereof which is commonly reckoned to be the Ulcer of Physitians is the privative and deficient product For as a burnt or destroyed Village is not war but is the effect accusing the defect privation desertion and destruction made So neither is an Ulcer the wasted hollowness of the flesh but this is the sign left by the Ulcer For in the Coasts of the Ulcer there doth an hostile corrupter and guest the poysonous Ferment on every side inhabite for which cause we see the lips or coasts and bottom to be diversly altered Let the Schools therefore take heed what they teach while they deliver the curing of an Ulcer to consist in the taking away of the latter product yea corrupt Pus doth not carry the disposition of an excrement neither doth it proceed as an excrement of nature from the Ulcer but it is a fruit of the Ulcer to wit of a forreign corrupter fermentally depraved with a malignity therefore it degenerates eats up gnawes and consumes And indeed the greater Ulcers do want grosse matter they weep out continual liquid or thin matter onely and now and then a tenfold greater quantity than otherwise a just distribution of bloud doth require and the transchanged Liquor flowes abroad into sharp and devouring waters which the Galenists do never dry up with their driers although they do moreover super-add all their cleansing Medicines and however the Catagenians and Catatopian do boastingly glorie of their own experiments For corrupt Pus is not procreated but in the flesh being closed and opened and those not yet altogether ill-affected
the Headach ariseth from over-eating or drinking 4. Paine ariseth from a contraction of the Coats of the Brain without a Vapour 15. A Position for the Duumvirate 16. The Conclusion THe Heathen Poet doth morally yet from a homely judgement call Sleep the Image of Frozen Death But I seeing that I know Sleep to be a natural power dismissed from the principality of the Stomack into the Brain and to be committed to the charge of the Power of Government that it might be put in execution being a Christian do believe that God alwaies to be sanctified When he intended to frame Woman of the rib he cast a Sleep upon Adam Not indeed as a privative Being but as an actual real faculty and meerly positive And therefore that the Power of Sleeping is vital necessary and consequently natural For I may not believe that God made Death in man or the image thereof Neither was it meet that the image of Death should go before sin and the occasion of Death The Schools indeed teach that Sleep is caused by vapours lifted up out of the Stomack into the Brain stopping or intercepting the passages of the Senses Motion Speech Judgement c. which things surely I being as yet a young man judged to be ridiculous For in very deed so a disease had been before sin because sleep should be a disease to wit there had been a flatulent and vapoury Palsie and Temporary madness both in a body then as yet not capable of suffering and in a life immortal It s a shamefull thing therefore that the blockishness of Paganisme should as yet be seriously taught in the Schools especially by Christians better instructed Yea the Schools do erre in their own position proposed For those that sleep do move and turn themselves up and down some do walls about do feel the stings of a gnat or flie so as that they do thereby awake others also do speak and oft-times aptly answer At length as the Schools do badly accord with themselves while they confound sleep and waking Catarrhs with the same root causes and manner of making so I after that the toyes of a Catarrhe were hissed our rejected also the assigned causes of sleep as vain fables Last of all the Schools also lay hands on themselves while they teach that from Opiates things as they say most cold and rather things powerfully restraining every evapouration at least wise they are feigned to restrain c. Vapours for Catarrhs more than Coriander from their own nature Sleep the Drowsie evil yea and death are most readily brought on a man and so much the more speedily by how much the Opiate shall be of a more gradual cold in quality and quantity And that by how much the more of sincere Opium shall be taken and the more inward cooling made by so much the more plentiful and more continued vapours should be brought from the stomack into the head also although the mouth of the stomack be shut But surely it is a stupid devise that sleep should be made by cold Neither is it to be understood how one onely grain of Opium can cause a sufficiency of cold in the Stomack and had actually driven a sufficient quantity of vapours into the Head How likewise it shall belong to cold to stir up vapours rather than to restrain them But these things we may suppose to be granted by the rule of falsehood And that Sleepifying vapours are derived upwards from the meats also that the Sinews the authours of the senses and motions are stopped by these vapours But I would they had first considered that the roots or first extremities of the Sinews are continual to the Brain and thornie marrow and that the other extremities or outmost ends of the Sinews do end into the more outward muscles or into the very Organs of the Senses and so that therefore sleepie vapours first ought materially to pierce and plainly to be imbibed into the substance of the brain and thornie marrow and to obstruct both before that they should according to the position of the Schools cause sleep And which way should these vapours incline from the Stomack and pierce thorow the whole Substance of the Brain by what meanes should they reach even unto the very innermost and altogether continued root of the Sinews it self which is unseperably connexed to the Brain In the next place how could he that is awakened at the will of the awakener be so speedily loosed and freed from those impediments Or what may detain those vapours there for so many hours without their co-binding or co-thickning into water for truly those vapours being once constrained a passage should lay open to the Spirits which should presently shake of the sleep Or what at length may hinder that new vapours should not continually make towards the same beginnings of the Sinews and being there Coagulated should not bring forth of necessity daily Catarrhes or rheums and undoubted palseys Surely if an Anatomist or a man in his right mind doth but once at least rudely contemplate of these things he ought of necessity to admire with amazement at these fables of heathens especially because they have no affinity or connexion with the principles of our constitution It also happens that some one is many times awakened in one only night that he ariseth and goes to sleep again and so almost at his pleasure there should be so many obstructions of the Sinews in one night yea in one hour I passe by in the mean time that sleep is stirred up an Opiate being as yet materially within the Stomack even as unvoluntary experience hath often taught Therefore either so small a quantity and onely the Odour of the Opium ought to fume up into the Brain or it self being there detained should send away sleepy Vapours its Vicars But not the first because before that the Opium could strike the sense of Tasting or Smelling the Opium should be continually percieved in the Tongue Palate Nostrills and Jawes and that before Sleep which is not done Moreover the Sulphur of Vitriol which is an exceeding Sleepifier seeing it is fixed cannot shake its Vapours into the Head as neither dismisse from it its Vicary partakers Truly I conjecture that the Greek Authors of Sleep or those that were riotous when they perceived that themselves being drunk were given to Sleep judged that they were to derive all Sleep from no other thing neither that Sleep could any longer creep on us not so much as late in the Morning and the Meats being now digested but only from Meat and Drink I find also in the Schools the material causes of Giddiness of the Head not a whit to differ from the causes of natural Sleep All which things I have elsewhere concerning Rheums proved to be meer ignorances and unsavoury consents having arisen from a sluggishness of diligent searching and a readiness of subscribing But I pray what is that which is so cold in Opium which causeth Sleep against my
product that is the Latex And so a Remedy cloakative and unto the latter or effect is applied In the next place the whole spring of this evil hath been banished into the guiltless head of man into Rheums raining down out of the head The cause whereof if they have erred from they ought also consequently to have strayed in the Remedies For I remember that a Pleurisie beginning hath presently failed or ceased through a plentiful Sweat the Sweat being allured by such a Diaphoretick as is that of the flowers of wild Poppy Colts or Nags dung he juyce Daysie and the assistance of the like Lastly I have also noted that there are notable Glandules or Kernels under the Arm-pit in the Groyn and behind the ears and likewise in the passage of the Urine nigh the Bladder and about the gut Duodenum and almost innumerable ones elswhere placed at the two-forking of every vein The one only use whereof the Schools will have to be to wit that the vessels may not be subject to tearing But surely there is a manifest errour in the use named For notable Glandules should be in vain behind the Ears where there is no fear of tearing as neither within moreover the fleshy membrane it self is not stretched out and so Glandules could not be there placed but in vain for a vanishing use and end That is the Arbitrator of nature hath erred in the use of the Glandules or the Schools do erre seeing that in none of the aforesaid places wherein the Glandules are seated the vessels can depart from each other And also a slender Ligament had better and more commodiously preserved the renting of a vessel than a tearable and tender Glandule I do every where take good notice of the perpetual carelessness of the Schools of narrowly searching into the Truth For they do not diligently mark that the aforesaid Glandules are not but for the emunging or attractive alluring of the Latex out of the veins that they may disperse Sweats into the habit of the body which thing in the Tongue is manifest to the fight where the Glandules do make or work the Spittle and therefore do they allure the Latex But under the Arm-pits and in the Groyn Sweats do proceed But they do not foresee a rending of the vessels The former indeed is a daily office but the other is not but an unownted rare and rather a ridiculous one For the overflowing Latex doth load the Veins by oppression and if they are free from the same the Archeus as it were breathing back again doth retake to him new strength unhoped for Therefore the ignorance of the Humor Latex hath invented and supported Cauteries or searing Remedies hath feigned Catarrhs and hath caused all disagreeing Remedies or Succours to be dreamed of For nothing of solidity against Diseases hath hitherto been weighed Because I shall shew in its place that the Beginnings of Diseases have as yet to this day layn hid unknown and therefore also that Remedies are vain tryals neither conteyning any thing of certainty unless they be naturally endowed with a specifical property for certain Diseases otherwise a conjectural uncertainty will prepare privy shifts for them and the credulity of the Sick hath fortified Physitians which same Remedy although it should be said to be appropriated to a Disease it doth not help any body yea neither do purging Medicines although they should undoubtly loosen the belly comfort the Sick by reason of the diversity of Complexions and of feigned stubborn Humors For they suppose to wit that such a Humor offendeth and they see it afterwards to be brought forth by loosening Medicines yet they see nothing of the fierceness of the Disease to be slackened Therefore when they ought to acknowledge their ignorance founded in Humors and purging things they reflect themselves on the variety of Complexions and the uncertain and unknown differences of distempers which things surely if they are beheld with an equal mind they shall not be terminated in any other end than into a full knowledge ignorance and overthrow of the principles of Healing hitherto Wherefore I exhort and humbly beseech Physitians that they do in time well learn the unheard of Beginnings Positions and unaccustomed Maxims of Medicine Wherefore I have judged it meet to digress a little in this place For as I have seen an Atrophia or Consumption for lack of nourishment to be occasionally supported by the Humor Latex So also I have seen Fatness or Grossness in one only two months time by a Urine-provoking drink instead of Ale or Beer to be wholly expelled But forreign potions of China Sarsaparilla Guaiacum c. which should pour forth the Latex by Sweats by a feigned and lying title have attained the name of dryers And indeed I have already before demonstrated that every visible body that which is believed to be composed by a mixture of the Elements is materially made only of the Element of water which originally hath it self in all constituted things in manner of a Latex and the which also here to have supposed is sufficient as being once sufficiently prooved And then the Maxim of Phylosophy hath it That Bodies are not changed into each other unless they are first reduced into their first and easie following or clammy Matter For although they would have that thing applyed to metallicâ— Transmutations yet it is to be drawn out of the noted sublunary Transmutations of any things Yet not that they will have bodies to be reduced into the first matter of Aristotle yea nor also into the first Separation of the Elements for neither do they think that the Food ought to return into its own Element that it may thereby be made bloud but they will have a body to be transchanged into its next matter or that the subject of the former life ought to return back before it hath fixed a hope of the bound of Transmutation to be attained To which end be it certain that meats and drinks do assume the nature of a Chyle or juyce in the stomach with a retaining of the qualities of the middle life of the meats Indeed that the ancient matter of the meats is destroyed and made to approach very neer to the matter next to the Latex or the Element of water to wit the specifical Ferment of the stomach being busily employed to this end no otherwise than as the Ferment of the Liver doth transchange the Chyle into venal bloud and whose companion and fellow the Latex is but not likewise a part thereof But so differing and singular gifts of Ferments do exist in nature that some living creatures do make venal bloud flesh c. for themselves yea and also an Oylie grease and water only for in the stomach of a Salmond Fisher-men say never any Food or edible thing was found There are moreover in Salt-waters some waterish little living creatures in whom scarce any thing is bred which do communicate a certain Seed of water
drunk by them from whence they do increase and sustain their own little body so that to other Fishes which eat these small living creatures a Seed is granted to be ingendred in the waters which is passed over into life and is derived into the middle participated life But small living creatures which do immediately make bloud to themselves and their whole substance of water alone have an example almost in every vegetable especially in stony and sandy Mountains which are far seperated from the dung of men wherein perhaps 60 particular kind of Rosinous trees are taken notice of are fully nourished only of rain water and of snow or the Leffas or planty juyce of a stony odour and do grow unto the greatest height being trees so fat that they would be choaked unless they pour forth the same on every side The ferment of the stomack in man doth more easily transchange the meats into chyle than their fatnesses because fatness is more remote from the Latex or the first matter than the meat is Which digestion of transmutation into watery juyces is brought hither to this end that it may be manifest that the Latex a forreign seed and ferment of the members being easily conceived in us is transchanged into a strange off spring And so that out of the Latex I have already shewn above there is next of all a transplanting into an excrementous Snivel where I remember that after drink being abundantly taken in Summer time a muscilaginous spittle which at the time of dry thirst failed was presently after spit out by reaching This is the new History of the humor Latex to be referred unto the treatise of Catarrhs or rheums because the ignorance of that Latex hath given a singular confirmation to conceived Catarrhs as also hath offered rashnesses for things to be conceived CHAP. L. A Cautery or Searing Remedy 1. A Cautery is nothing but a remaining Wound 2. No prerogative of a Cantery made by fire 3. The name of an Issue or little fountain is a Iuggle 4. What things God hath seen entirely good are praised by the Schools as rent or toren 5. The promises of a Cautery are childish 6. The denyal of a Catarrh denyeth the use of a Cautery 7. Ridiculous necessaries for defending Cauteries 8. The position of the Schools is shewn to be absurd and impossible 9. What may be purged by a Cautery 10. Nine conclusions against the appointments of Cauteries 11. Foolish desires or delights in a Cautery 12. Cauteries whom they hurt 13. The undstinction of the Schools 14. The scope or end of a Cautery ceaseth 15. They have circumvented the World by Cauteries 16. That there is no communion of a Cautery with the brain 17. Absurdities following upon the doctrine of Cauteries 18. The one only refuge of the Schools 19. Answers 20. Cauteries are driven against the Rocks 21. What the Schools may answer in the difficulties proposed 22. The multiplying and choosing of a Cautery by what boldness it hath arose 23. Some Stage-play trifles of the Schools 24. The Gowt of Physitians is a mockery 25. Cauteries are foolish 26. They are vain in their own desperate cases 27. It is not yet determined by the Schools in what cases Cauteries can help 28. A case wherein a Cautery profiteth 29. How the cruel and stinking remedy of a Cautery may be prevented 30. A Cautery is unworthy a Physitian CAtarrhs or Rheums have found out Cauteries those therefore being taken out of the way the treatise of these might seem to be in vain unless I should write these things for young beginners I distrusting that my studies will any thing profit the learned or skilful Wherefore I have determined to declare the ends and effect of a Cautery Cauteries therefore are first of all made of fire bright burning Iron a corrosive caustick Medicine yea with the rasour or penknife it self or scissers by cutting off something It is sufficient so the fleshy membrans are broken or pierced with a wound But others do prefer a wound prepared by fire or a caustick Medicine before that which was laid open by cutting Because they think that by actual heat and dryness a flux of humors is the better stopped As if at one only moment the fire should burn any thing besides the escharre it self or should dry up an other thing which they seign is afterwards to flow to the wound Indeed dreams are on both sides greatly esteemed by the Schools For an issue or small fountain for so they call a Cauterized wound that the vulgar may believe diseases to be drawn out as it were by a fountain profits nothing before the escharre be taken away and the footstep of heat and dryness be withdrawn Because the institution of a Cautery hath the avoyding of excrements or superfluities for its object which doth not begin before the decay of the escharre and because it is alway less able to exhale thorow the escharre than otherwise thorow the sound skin therefore successours have accounted it to be all one after what sort soever an issue shall be made so they shall divide that which holds together and keep it divided For that which God hath made whole and entire that it might be very good seems to the Schools that it should be better if it be kept wounded Therefore to be oftentimes wounded and to have kept the wounds open doth conduce to the health of the Schools Surely it s a wonder that they have not transferred to be wounded unto the precepts of defending health even as indeed Cauteriet or constant wounds have been referred thither But in the time of wounding or burning letting out or shedding of blood only doth interpose which ought to excel by that title in the Schools unless the deceit of Phlebotomy or cutting of a vein did manifest it self For they presume and decree that a Cautery is a new emunctory or exspunging place whereby Physitians are able to restrain nature according to their pleasure to unload her self whereby they seign that she doth not indeed otherwise flow down by Catarrhs and unload her self or on every side so doth but only by a hole made That is they cite rheums to appear personally in a place as the Physitian listeth Handsomely indeed if alike truly Notwithstanding these marvels have been so profitable that now Cauteries are also made in Children before the age of three yeers But I first of all have alwaies beheld an implicite blasphemy in a Cautery whereby they openly accuse the Creator of insufficiency in framing the emunctories For I have hidden above a thousand issues to be filled up with flesh whereof it hath not hitherto as I know of repented any In the next place I have considered a Childish presumption of Physitians because they seriously perswade themselves that nature will hearken to their own commands also that a defluxion and falling down of humors which they command being supposed is a most exceeding absurdity But let it be sufficient for
opening of a Vein the Blood already Co-agulated and the Aposteme conceived from thence and the ordained corrupt matter do hasten unto their bound or limit For hence from curing by cutting of a Vein there is a frequent Consumption or a Pleurisie returneth every Year which otherwise by the aforesaid Remedies are not beheld to come CHAP. LV. That the three first Principles of the Chymists nor the Essences of the same are not of or do not belong unto the Army of Diseases 1. Why the Schools leave the Market 2. Why Paracelsus hath sought other beginnings of Diseases 3. He hath theevishly transferred on himself the Invention of Basilius 4. An easie slip or fall of the Paracelsians 5. An Abuse discovered by degrees 6. Paracelsus was deceived by Chymical Rules badly understood 7. He aspired to the chiefdome of Healing 8. He failed under his Fardle or Burden 9. He was deceived also by Ulcers 10. Some Rashnesses of his 11. Robbery is covered by Sin 12. Some Rashnesses of his 13. The Doctrine of the Elements of his Archidoxis is taken notice of 14. He fleeth to the Stars least the curious should follow him running away 15. The Adeptical part of Healing 16. The Boasting of Paracelsus 17. The most perfect Distillation of Art 18. The wonderful Coal of Honey 19. Paracelsus thrown down from his pretended Monarchy 20. Fabulous meanes of Diseases 21. The Venal Blood is blown away without a Dead Head 22. What things Nature hath once refused she never retakes again 23. The Water although it be a thousand times Distilled it is not notwithstanding therefore made subbtile 24. Some Absurdities 25. The Fiction of a Microcosme in the manner of making Diseases 26. The Ambition of Paracelsus 27. Whence he had the boldnesse to invade the Monarchy 28. That the Three first Things are not in us 29. He was ignorant of the Bond of the Three first Things 30. He was ignorant of the Original of Salt 31. Some of his Rashnesses 32. His Error in the knowledge of Feavers 33. An Example that the whole venal blood doth melt by purgings 34. Diseases do not bewray the Three first Things 35. How the Three first Things are made 36. That Galen and Paracelsus were almost alike in Boldness and Error 37. The Three first Things are resisted 38. The Error of Paracelsus about the Essences of Diseases 39. That the Three first Things are not nor do operate in Diseases 40. Paracelsus came more nigh to the Truth than Galen 41. The Three first Things do not immediately support Life 42. Although the Three first Things are not Diseases yet they are Remedies 43. The manner of the Operation of Remedies is badly weighed in the Schools 44. A Quintessence or Fifth Essence is withstood 45. It hath been inconsiderately subscribed unto the foregoing Things because the Essence of Diseases hath remained unknown 46. That the Three first Things is a late Invention 47. That the Three first Things have not fore existed before their Separation but that they are bred anew 48. That Water passeth over into Oyle 49. For those Three Things to be changed into each other doth resist Principles 50. Proofs of Positions 51. Against Aristotle that there are onely two Beginnings of Bodies which are also their beginning or initiating Causes 52. The oversight or rashnesse of the Paracelsists 53. That those Three Things are not in any Bodies whatsoever 54. That the Three first Things are not in the Water as neither in Mercury 55. The Objections of some Writers of the Enterance into Chymistry 56. They proceed further 57. Paracelsus is brought on the Stage 58. An Answer 59. Whence the Immortality of Mercury is 60. The Principiative Maxims of Chymistry 61. The truth of Bacon 62. An Answer to a Paracelsian Objection 63. What the Three first Things in Bodies are 64. Other Instances in Sand a Flint c. 65. It is proved by Handycraft-operation that the Salt in Lime is not an extract of the thing contained 66. How a necessity of Offices hath invented the Three first Things 67. That the Three first Things were not natural or proper to a Body as it was a Body 68. It is proved by Handy-craft-operation that the Fire is the Workman of the Three first Things 69. The unstability of the Three first Things 70. That in the Digestion of Meats a Separation of the Three first things doth not happen 71. Why a Disease is not of the Three first things 72. That the Three first Things are not the Principles of Bodies 73. They are ultimate Things that is Principiated ones or those that are begun 74. The unconstancy of Paracelsus 75. He was ignorant from whence the Salt of the Urine is 76. An Essence is said to be after divers manners 77. A Chymical Essence 78. Some Homogeneal things do not send forth a Fifth Essence 79. A greater Virtue is in some Simples than in their extracted Essences 80. The Rashnesse of Paracelsus 81. Putrefaction also doth else-where generate a Fragrancy 82. What a Quint or Fifth Essence properly is 83. The Liquor which makes Plants fruitful 84. The Essential Oyle of Spice or Crasis of the same How the Elixir thereof may be made and that more strong by an hundred fold NOw after that I have demonstrated the Elements Complexions first Qualities and at length Tartar to have been rashly introduced into the Essential causes of Diseases by the Schools as well of the Ancients as of the Moderns I proceed to teach That the Three Beginnings of the Chymists and those of late brought into the Art of Medicine have been falsely intruded into the Essential causes of Diseases What therefore will the more refined Physitians do while as they do clearly enough behold not onely the miserable stuffe of their Remedies but also the unprosperous Helps of the howling Sick So that they have many times seriously and secretly confessed to me that nothing almost did any longer obey their indeavours and that all the curing aswel of sharp Diseases for of Chronical Diseases they have all every where long since despaired in their mind as of any of the least ones was in very deed nothing but a Cloakative cure and a meer juggling with the sick to wit whereunto unlesse as it were a certain resurrection of the Nature of the Sick doth voluntarily succeed the appointed and sure comfort of Remedies is in vain expected And moreover that hence it comes to passe that many an Old Woman is in many places far more successful in curing some defects than is the whole School of Medicine with all their discursive Speculations speculative Prescriptions Kitching Precepts of Diet confirmed by the long experience of the destruction of their Neighbours and a multiplicity of their Dispensatories When therefore the more ingenuous persons were long since wearied in the Correcting of Distempers in the vain expelling of Humours they now incline to another thing seeking a Haven from shipwrack and being easily seduced by Theophrastus Paracelsus they have
the assisting and co-operating Work-man of all Diseases an angry Parent and revenger For he saith that the unknown Star Zedo is the immediate and containing cause of the Dropsie So he affirmeth that to the Consumption Gout Apoplexie c. doth belong their own peculiar yet unnamed Star and unto every Epilepsie or falling Evil it s own proper constellation But in his Paramires he affirms the three first things to be the immediate causes of all Diseases that is all things confused Let him explain and excuse him that will for I have not dedicated my life to the interpreting of others dreams Therefore have I seriously searched into Nature and the particular kindes of Diseases and it hath happened unto me no otherwise than as to all others before me until that the Doctrines of all Authors being cast off I had seriously implored the Divine Grace For then I suddenly knew that unto every Disease hath happened its own matter which may nourish a Vulcan proper to it self within the which although he doth sometimes imitate the courses of the Stars yet that the enforcing cause thereof did not depend on the Stars For all Seeds do possess as it were their own Common-wealth especially their own vital light whereby of their own proper vertue they do shew forth a proportionable resemblance of the Stars Be it a ridiculous thing that the Consumption or Dropsie although they may be stirred up more severely and mildly under diverse starry positions are caused or made by the motion and light of the Stars the which do after another manner generate by a manifest occasion through so clear a collection of filths and the which being removed Health doth also follow without leave of the Stars The exposition of which Doctrine by me thou shalt read in the Book of the Plague and elsewhere But the matters of Diseases with their seminary Vulcans from the first even unto the last I have prosecuted with all their duplicity and interchangeable courses in respect of humane life The Almighty grant that so much as he hath bestowed on me I may nakedly refer unto his Honour and the profit of my Neighbour and that he may bestow another more able than my self on the world For Paracelsus hath framed divers Books concerning long life to have chosen death for himself that he would by a Divine priviledge have comforted his own old Age by his Elixiâ— of propriety but not by Remedies prescribed by him for long life who died in the 47th year of his Age. So great boasting therefore and unconstancy of this Man have hitherto made me a little careful In the mean time many difficulties have long since held me in doubt about the three first things until that I having obtained help from God knew that Woods and Herbs were to be distilled without any Dead head For I did long ago wonder that out of the coal of Honey no ashes and by consequence neither the salt of ashes could be had Which things afterwards I willingly through an universal resolving of a Body beheld For it was sufficient for Paracelsus to have forsaken all things involved under doubting who in a slender draught had drunk down anothers Invention and had not yet converted it into nourishment and making it his own of robbery hath he striving to flie unto a Monarchy slipped out of his Nest before he had sufficient feathers For he snatching unto himself the glory of the Invention hath well pleased himself in dispersingly repeating one and the same thing often although in the mean time he made little progress in things of his own For it is a ridiculous thing and like a Fable that Sulphur should be distilled sublimed reverberated calcined resolved in us and that from hence divers Diseases should be caused only indeed by the boldness of the Man without a Pledge or Surety of greater authority than himself For he knew not nor durst to draw Diseases into an open profession or publishment he being not yet sully committed hereunto by his Inventer It is also a childish dream that salt is distilled sublimed calcined circulated and doth undergo other torments in us or that Mercury doth sustain these strict examinations in us and for every interchangeable course of variations that it doth of it self alone bring forth other Diseases pains and defects and that others again be infolded with its other two fellow beginnings or masked with divers degrees and doses They are also trifles that Mercury by reason of the highest circulation of its subtilty might be the cause of all sudden death which we have known to be constituted by its causes to cure and prevent For first of all eight ounces of venal blood are daily blown away in nourishing without a Dead head pain and defect yea without feeling while they pass thorow and whereby they pass thorow But whatsoever hath once been dedicated unto expulsion in the shew of Water Mercury or Sweat or whatsoever hath been once reckoned unfit for nourishing or the offices of nourishment being now once performed is designed for scattering or blowing away that is never afterwards distilled sublimed calcined or circulated in us For the works of Nature are too serious because they do ultimately respect God For Nature doth not play at Ball that it should again receive excrements into favour being once rent from the commerce of Life It never returns into the same point because it proceeds and never keeps Holy-day In the next place if any watry liquor be a hundred times re-distilled it shall not therefore be the sharper or subtiler but rather by degrees the Seed of its middle life being worn out it passeth more and more unto the simplicity of an Element For rain water which now falleth down from above is not more subtile or fine than that which rained in the beginning of its Creation But if any watry thing should exhale by our luke-warmth and should obtain a sharpness through dreamed returns that should not be the fault of subtilizing of Mercury but of an adjunct Surely I wonder that so great a Chymist hath not known that the venal blood is not circulated nor that it doth bear the circles of subtilizings in us and that it doth not persevere in us above one only course of the Moon and the which tribute of feeble blood a Woman doth therefore pay Because she is she which ought to abound with very much blood as well for an increase of the Young as for the sucking of Milk But that Paracelsus might the better overshadow his own Fiction he supposeth that one of the three first things being separated doth presently assume from a Microcosmical Nature an actuality in that which is casual to any and one Being of those which are infinite a thousand Seeds whereof being collected into one it did contain and therefore that by reason of a monstrous and strange Nativity a hostile thing is for that very cause in us and is made the cause of Diseases And so that there are
tenfold more Diseases at least possible in us than there are particular kinds thereof in Animals Plants Minerals and Stars to wit as many as there are particular kinds of Salts Sulphurs and Mercuries and of those folded together in nature He moreover giving a caution by an Edict that any one do not rashly put forth himself to Medicine who hath not sealingly certainly properly and distinctly known all things most inwardly and most outwardly by their causes essences particular kinds or species properties proportions interchangeable courses and defects That every one may believe that Paracelsue himself who teacheth these things had also thus sealingly known all these things Furthermore he will have us bring back the Microcosme or little World unto the Rule and therefore that the three beginnings of our Body doth bring forth as many Diseases in us as there are particular kinds of created beings Fot he drives the knowledge of Medicine and young beginners head-long into a thousand confusions obscurities ignorances and impossibilities by reason of one only fault to wit that he may seem to be skilful in all things and that his dreams may be thought true He indeed easily knew that the Medicine of the Schools was supported by false foundations for neither therefore as he supposed might it be hard for him utterly to overthrow the Schools Wherefore he meditated for himself of the Name of Monarch in healing but when as he thought it an easie way for destruction or throwing down at least wise for the building up of so great a principality strength was wanting unto him in so great idiotism He therefore hath brought the three beginnings into Diseases It is thus Those three things are found indeed in many Bodies or as I may more distinctly speak the three things are at least separated out of many Bodies But he being bold a certain absurdity of that which was unconsidered hath deluded the man because he hath not considered the impossibility of the matter for Diseases Because those are never separated or to be separated whether in us or elsewhere but with a corrupting of the whole Body and that indeed by the fire Whose sequestred Family-administration notwithstanding he hath judged to bring forth Diseases in us Because the Essences of the first things are co-knit in us by the middle life of the same under the dominion whereof they notwithstanding are restrained and do alwayes remain that which they are For first of all Salt it self hath deceived him that he might become unsavory because it confirmed to Paracelsus his own conceit in the Urine sweat and tears he nothing heeding that that Salt is not of the three first things of our body but a meer excrement of transchanged meats and drinks From hence therefore he being raised up into a credulity by thinking was led aside into Errors For he had well marked that a Wound being badly healed doth pour out salt water the proper Latex of the body begotten with child by a strange Salt or that the blood it self doth degenerate throughout its whole as in an Ulcer Dropsie c. and hence he hath collected a plenteous Harvest of Ulcers Diseases for Salt which he being deceived thought to be one of the three things or beginnings and not the whole blood at once converted into a salt water without a separation of the Sulphur Mercury by erroneous transmutations He thought therefore that as much falt â—â—â—here was so many turns of Mercury and parts also of Sulphur there were and being confident that his Houshold-stuffe would be sufficient he had willingly designed the predicament of Diseases unto them But remaining unfit for the burden he dyed But he had discovered his own Error if he had not been deceived by a bold attempt of great matters For he ought without the hope of ambition and head-longness of preventions to have examined where the remaining Sulphur should stay if the salt in Ulcers in the Dropsie c. should by so plenteous a separation be plucked away from the whole and its other two companions He ought also to have been mindful of his own although erroneous Doctrine whereby he calls the Salt which is fluide out of us and present within us a meer expressure of the Salt-peter of an evil Star or Cagastral And so he endeavours to perswade that not only fleshes and blood but also that the whole Body is with the life of Salt-peter and that Cagastrical For the blood as the water yeelds all fruits is wholly similar or alike which being seasoned with a poysonous or strange ferment doth sometimes degenerate into divers off-springs of Salt but another time into divers off-springs of Dungs without any memory of a Posthume Mercury or Sulphur In the next place that Paracelsus may find out his own cause for Diseases he for example doth oft-times define a Feaver to be an Earth-quake of the Microâ—osm which trembling of the earth he sometimes defines to be our Falling-fickness But elsewhere he attributes the trembling of the earth to tremblings sprung from burnt or smoaking Mercury In another place again he defineth a Feaver to be a Disease of Sulphur and Nitre boasting that the Cause and also the Remedy are in that his essential definition For truly under an ulcerared Imposthume the whole Body being in it self fat is made as it were a Sceleton neither doth it expel any thing besides corruptions So through the force of loosening Medicines the whole habit of the Body doth oftentimes suddenly melt into putrefaction The which is brought to pass by the Art of Physitians but this other in a Flux through a defect But at leastwise the same poyson on both sides is only applyed and co-tempered after a different manner A Dropsical man indeed hath a girdle of eight foot but by an Emperick in one day that by a drink he is loosed from his Dropsie and the water weighed perhaps 40. pound but verily his belly even presently again swelled up into its antient bigness and after few hours ne dyed Indeed the remainder beats a resemblance before it of nothing but skin and bones because his flesh and blood had presently at once wandred into the salt water of the Dropsie And that wonder I saw in this Man That to day his belly had plainly asswaged and that the morrow it again returned unto its former pitch of swelling extension and hardness and then he dyed If therefore that brine of salt had been one of the three beginnings of necessity likewise 40. pound of Sulphur had remained beholdable An ulcerous Oak weeps continual salt water and waxeth lean with rottenness but if that salt were one of the three beginnings of the Oak surely the Oak should wax fat like the heart of the Pine Tree neither should it wax lean as being unjuicy rotten and almost divorced from the Kitchins Therefore diseasie destructions do not testifie to these beginnings but that the whole body is diversly affected doth melt and is made to putrifie according
Bodies For if every thing be by its Causes and be thereby principated or made to begin it is a vain thing after the manner of Aristotle to believe other Causes and other Principles of things They are therefore Principles which never slide into each other by any whirling of successive changes For the first is stable perpetual the real beginning and prop and Seminary of Bodies And it is the last thing whereinto the dead or ended Tragedies of things do return But not a certain feigned sluggish and impossible hyle or matter But the other is the Principle of the begining of motion with every property of things to be acted under their Tragedy Yea truly seeing particular kinds do exist into general kinds no where solitary or without companions and they are individuals only which are and do subsist by a real Act. Principles ought to have been real and individually existing So indeed that the universality of the matter be individually limited by the activity of the efficient Cause Wherefore a falshood being granted to wit That all Bodies might be reduced into those Three Things by the motion of a proper dissolution yet it doth not also from thence follow that these Three things are the beginnings of Bodies Because an immediate resolving of Bodies doth not prove Principles but a diversity of kind of the matter being ultimated or brought to its last state And the last resolving of the last matter is a Witness only of the Seeds of the concrete Body but not of Principles Neither in the next place is there any reason why the Three Things may be called the First Things if three do return or may be reduced into two and lastly into one only thing Yea although in the Beginning three bodys should be seen trans-changably passing over into each other neither were they therefore to be reckoned Three rather than Two if of Three they may be presently after be made two only Therefore where the three things are found they are not the material beginnings of Bodies but the Bride-beds of the Seeds The which being worn out all things do of their own accord return into their original Element of Water But that those Three Things are not contained in any Bodies whatsoever and so are not necessary Principles is manifest because the Mercury which is drawn out of a Mettal is so single homogeneal simple and undivideable that it is impossible for Salt or Sulphur to be drawn from thence by Art or Nature But Mercury is never in any respect to be divided To wit it hath grown together onely from an elementary Water and the virtue of a most simple Mercurial Seed into an undivideable unpenetrable and unseparable Body the which among generated things hath not its like Otherwise it is like unto Water which in it self being defiled with no Seed hath on every side a co-like simplicity and impossibility of separation But inasmuch as I have sometime attributed unto the Water its Three Things that was spoken Analogically or by way of suitable resemblance as besides abstracted Spirits nothing is so alike in Bodies that it is not understood to be diversly affected according to divers dispositions and and as those dispositions must of necessity respect some diversity of kind of being For it is sufficient in the same place also to have admonished that the Heterogeneal parts of Water are in the most simple Body of an Element undivideable and really impossible by Art Nature and all Ages they consisting of the utmost simplicity Therefore although I have there called them the Three first Things of the Water yet they are not the Three of composition as the more formerly Beginnings of the Water but the Three things of heterogeniety or diversity of kind Which Heterogeniety at least mentally to be divivided into diverse things although the Water doth by the Law whereby it contains a Body contain Yet seeing it is an impossible thing that they should be drawn asunder from each other there is onely place for conjecture that although those things are not true Sulphur Salt and Mercury at least wise that they do in some sort answer unto them Therefore there is an instance in the Water no lesse than in the Mercury whereby the Three first Things are denied to be from thence accounted to be separated I seem to hear whisperings that I shall offend very many Artificers who with full cheeks do boast of the Oyle Salt Vitriol and Water of Mercury and that I shall convince them of a Lye or juggle while they promise the aforesaid things I answer That an active Imposture or deceitful juggle doth bring forth its own Imposture unworthy of life and happiness But that a passive imposture is worthy of pity But they who do not as yet discern the fallacy whereby they are circumvented do Argue First Gold they say a Body which is the most exceeding constant among sublunary things is dissolved into parts of divers kinds therefore also Mercury by a more strong reason Indeed they strain from the less to the greater Again they urge Nature hath known of the first Elements to compose Mercury therefore she hath known also to destroy it But the way of composition is not to make Mercury immediately of the Element of water but by dispositions of the matter coming between which are unlike So also the way of corruption in Mercury shall proceed by the same dispositions with a retrograde pace and a diversity of kind of matter Where thirdly Paracelsus saith the matter of things which cannot be destroyed by Art is at least wise destroyed by Nature Because all sublunary things which are not subject to death are at least wise subject to a bound or end Unto the first I answer That Gold is indeed the most constant of Bodies in the fire but it borrows the constancy of its separation from the Mercury And so if the Sulphur thereof doth include a Heterogeneal duality that doth least of all touch at the Mercury For Mercury being pure and distinct from combustible Sulphur which is more or less in the common Mercury doth plainly refuse all twoness or duality That is to say the nature of Mercury includes a perfect Homogenity or sameliness of kind But to the other I say that Nature hath indeed proceeded from the purity of the Element of water unto the composition of Mercury Yet that it cannot the admitted Seed of Mercury being once enclosed in the innermost parts of the water return to the destruction of that composed Body Because that Seed is nor mortal nor frail nor subject unto sublunary Laws as Paracelsus saith in his vexation of Chymists But the reason of immortality in Mercury is because the Seed and Fruit thereof in the constitution of Mercury are now one and the same thing Mercury in Mercury Neither hath Nature known to invent a manner of destruction in a thing so Homogeneal where the Seed hath become the Fruit by a most perfect and undestroyable or undissolveable union Seeing
the giddiness of the head Doatages Asthmaes bastard Pleurisies the Convulsion Cramp the Disease of the standing of the Yard the Tympany furies of the Wombe yea and of the falling Sickness with some other affects divided in their particular kind do without controversie owe their beginnings unto windy blasts and vapours wherefore also they by an equal right enlarging the Catalogue brought down their searches unto the Book of Hippocrates Peri Phusiâ—n or concerning natural things That old man hath so altogether consecrated all Diseases to flatus's or windy blasts that he hath promiscuously confounded winds with the principles of life Therefore the more fruitful wits of the Schools began to search not so much into the nature and properties of windinesses as the suppositions of windy blasts being granted and yeelded to further to superstruct and build the nature and causes of almost all Diseases and to dedicate them to windy blasts vapours and exhalations climbing from beneath upwards or being thrust head-long downwards But when as they were not able wholly to deliver themselves out of straits nor that the edifice of so great a moment could stand firm because it was supported by no foundation of a more solide enquiry it was as it were the thred of an enterprise broken asunder by too much twisting Truly Hippocrates constrained a flatus into a predicament whether they should be partakers of life or death or at length of destruction and should contain the causes thereof or should be stirred up from Heaven by the Blas of the Stars and so should promise causal necessities of the heavenly circle or at length they should obey a sublunary or voluntary Law to wit he left it wholly undecided And so he left a broken method And that stood because there was not yet so great a necessity experience frequency and stubbornness of Diseases For it was not as yet known that the vital spirit had conceived the light of life which was that of the sensitive soul and that they were the immediate seats of the forms of soulified Creatures and so that they did contain the crasis or temperature of the whole Essence For none then had learned that the matter of that Gas the Water and so none had as yet dreamed that the vital spirit did differ from the wind of the World in the whole Element For truly the Schools had easily fallen down into this ditch of windy blasts and had stubbornly there remained but that they acknowledged the succours of purging Medicines and blood-letting in winds to be vain and foresaw that they should be in vain without the aid of both those succours Galen indeed had seen that Oyles and fatnesses did by degrees exhale through fire therefore he thought that winds also are awakened in us through a melted fatness or the inordinacy of the digestions because he was he who was not able to distinguish the Air or wind from an exhalation from a vapour and from a windy blast The Galenical School I say hath not hitherto known the difference between a windy Gas which is meerly Air that is a wind moved up and down by the Blas of the Stars a fat Gas a dry Gas which is called a sublimed one a fuliginous or smoaky or endemical Gas and a wild Gas or an unrestrainable one which cannot be compelled into a visible Body Wherefore the obscurity of the darkness of natural things hath remained unexcusable among those that are ignorant of the Art of the Fire The which doth instruct us in what degree watry Bodies or in what degree and order every fatness may flie away in the next place by what separation or by what Ferment Bodies may depart from each other may putrifie what all particular Bodies may carry with them by resolving in the next place by what means the Crases of Seeds and properties of a composed Body may shew themselves Lastly by what endeavour all of whatsoever is in us may be disposed into transpiration without a separation of parts They had heard indeed winds in the belly and then unhurtful rumblings and painful wringings they took notice of to be in the stomack and Colon but in Winter a plurality of winds wherefore they dreamed of an icy Phlegme in the bowels and hot Remedies to be applyed to cold Diseases Wherein the Schools do at first infold or ensnare themselves while they deliver the original of vapours and windinesses and do intend to cure and put these to flight by contrary Remedies as they call them For they contradict themselves in their principles or beginnings mean and manner For if windinesses in us are vapours or exhalations in us Surely there will follow upon the administring of hot Remedies against winds a greater exciting of pains and flatus's and stretching out of parts because vapours must needs be increased and torments be multiplyed as well by reason of stretchings out as the sharpness of the winds And that thing the Art of distilling doth prove throughout the whole Paracelsus although a Potentate of the Art of the Fire was not free from the storm of winds Because he was he which was ignorant of the nature of winds and of the Air that the matter of vapours of flatus's is a watry Gas that their efficient causes manners means as also matter is water got with child by a Seed Because he was he who plainly despised the authorities of Philosophy and endeavoured to bind nature under his own idiotism he was also forsaken God so permitting it by the light of nature who maketh such endeavours every where void Also no man ever attaineth unto Wisdom who hath thought to have come thereunto by himself For Paracelsus doth every where constantly perswade that we ought to feel the Diseases and defects of all things because we are hitherto every way an extract of the whole universe That we ought to express the universe as it were the Parent of a Son For so he will have us to contain winds and their varieties our wringings of the bowels also to answer unto the tempests of the Air. But I will not depart even a nails breadth from the famous Image of God that we do resemble the Macrocosme or great World rather than God in his Image For I believe that I am not a man that I might undergo Diseases and so resemble Pirke Olam or Holam Hapiroud but rather I know that I do undergo Diseases that I might shew a depraved and mortal nature but that I am a man for no other end than that according to the good pleasure of God I may represent his lively Image That man therefore divides the wringings of the bowels into four parts according unto the four accustomed hinges of the winds Whereof the Northern one he first of all placeth in the loyns whose wind in its colick should blow against the Navil But in the Navil he placeth the Southern one which in its colick should blow Diametrically on the back So also he hath disposed the Eastern one in the
is boyled and afterwards formally resolved into a cream seeing the cream liquor or water could never take away the flatus's within or beneath it self it should of necessity presently exhale by belching But that a flatus out of the cream of meats doth remain in the blood or after sanguification is finished if that be rightly sifted it contradicteth the position of the Schools whereby they suppose that a natural or livery spirit is bred in the blood not indeed an external one stirred up and retained from things but being made anew by an ordinary power of the Liver For that flatus in the venal blood should be a forreign windiness to wit of the Parsnip Pease c. rebellious and stubborn against the formal transchanging of the food into blood Or if it be by the strength of the Liver supposed to be transchanged into natural spirit which they suppose to be the spirit of the venal blood first of all it shall be the spirit of the Liver acting not of the matter of the venal blood Seeing the flatus also which else every where is not produced but by the error of the digestive faculty in this place shall be priviledged and be made by the force or vigour of the digestive faculty And so it shall belong to the strong Liver to be able to stir up very much windinesse out of the cream Surely I think it a sign of notorious weakness not to be able to reduce the transchangeable lump into a single and equable substance but that a strange and heterogeneal windiness should be left by the Liver to be overcome The Schools therefore contend that the strength of Venus or carnal lust doth beg it self for a forreign flatus Shall therefore a windinesse arising from strange nourishments be fit for a species and specifical propagation or from an imaginative spirit of the Liver bred in the blood being as yet unripe shall it by the assuming of an external flatus be fit for natural spirit or in the Seed for humane generation I will not believe that the Schools were so mad as if the first mover of the seed and stones can be the supposed Air of the venal blood And much less the more crude flatus of nourishments Lastly neither do the Schools satisfie themselves herein For if a flatus of meats had remained in the cream and should afterwards as yet be surviving in the making of the blood for we must not think that a flatus can continue materially in act for the aforesaid reasons therefore at least wise they will that an aptness or disposition of the matter unto flatulency should remain But this very thing they seriously withstand being unwilling that the same accident should be in the thing bred or begotten which was before in the thing corrupted But all these devices of the Schools do sleep eftsoon after that it was plainly shewn that there is no spirit of the Liver in the venal blood and much less the retained flatus's of Pease Parsnip Eringo or the Seed of Ash For I have sufficienly shewn that the Gas which wanders to and fro in the vital blood is not a windy one nor that it doth relate unto the flatus's or smell of meats but that it is a lightsom but that it is a formal Being the seat of the Soul But that the matter bowel property interchangeble courses defects of Venus hath not yet been made known to the Schools I will teach in its place concerning the Spleen Here it sufficeth to have separated the matter or power of Venus from flatus's A weak digestion therefore brings forth many windinesses which a stronger digestion doth not find even by examining every thing more curiously and transchanging them more strongly For a wandring ferment draws out of a thing that which is not in it materially but only potentially That is a flatus ariseth from an error of the ferment being estranged in digesting For truly flatus's are not drawn out of the matter as though concreted and co-agulated ones had fore-existed in it not from the digestion it self as a cause by it self even as heat doth ordinarily allure vapours out of water but as there ariseth a certain diminished disposition under the digestion of the ferment from whence the digestive spirit sucketh a Flatus as it were a guest inconvenient for it and as though the Archeus would correct the Error of the ferment wherefore a begun indisposition of the matter was born to change into a wild Gas the which apprehend thou by an Example For Sal Armoniac and Aqua Fortis are those things which may be distilled and suffer heat by themselves apart but if they are joyned and become lukewarme they cannot but be presently transchanged into a wild Gas or an unrestrainable Flatus So that if the Vessel be most exactly shut and although most strong and large yet it bursts asunder even in the cold Salt-peter likewise melteth with a bright burning fire is cold and a remedy of Squinancies yet a coal being adjoyned unto it both are presently consumed and do flie away into a flamie Gas For neither are an Asse and a Horse turned into a Mule But the Seminal beginnings of both from their conjunction do produce the mule For so very many things which were not before materially within are made a new by adjuncts ferments digestions errors and interchangable courses And those things which under their first ferments were not materially flatulent yet because they were not fully digested and thereupon far removed they as excrements when as they undergo another following ferment do pass over into inordinate Flatus's So also a Flatus doth not fore-exist in the meats and much less in the Cream But there is a certain new and monstrous generation from the thorow mixed seeds of things or from the matter unduely transchanged being placed under the action of another ferment which thing concerning digestions shall be more clearly manifest For so a weaker stomack doth cause the food to putrifie before or in the chyle and brings forth frequent belchings also burntish ones even as in Feavers where out of an empty stomack a frequent belching leaps forth unaccustomed to healthy persons For so putrifying doth in distilling bring forth the colour of Roses together with the sweet smell and water thereof which otherwise is not lifted up by the same heat Likewise there is in the Bowels their own estranging of ferments and of that which is putrified it s own estranging and degrees under which Flatus's are generated and do break forth For as long as a Grape is on every side enclosed in its skin it is sooner dried putrifies by continuance or is changed into a raysin than that it sends forth a flatus but if the skin of the grape be never so little hurt presently after the wound the ferment the foregoer of any kind of putrifaction decayeth from whence neither doth a wild Gas afterwards ceale to belch forth as long as the heat of the boyling ferment
and pory skin resist the water which was able to pierce the scull But when as it should be collected under the hairs then it should either there swell into a descending flood or indeed should flow down with a slender thred of small drops If it being little should be dis-cussed in manner of sweat or if it should make a collection in the temples of the Head it should presently bewray it self to the finger What if it flow down from thence at least wise it could not but in the term or bound to which of motion stir up a tumour of sweet distilled water But at least wise that water could never fall down into the muscles or be the sooner collected among the muscles because they are they which are every one cloathed with their own membrane And moreover neither is there room nor passage for flowing down between the skin and the Periostion of the scull unto the Muscles between the ribs that the distilled water may cause a Pleurisie For that which was without pain under the skin and hairs should presently with so great a fury of pains stir up a Pleurisie and only with its descending by its naked weight rent the Pleura from the ribs it being implanted in and joyned unto them by fibers Certainly a huge cruelty should happen by defluxing At length neither can a Rheume fall down unto the teeth and the sinews or nerves thereof Because the sinews which on both sides enter from the bottom of the brain unto the cheek or jaw do without and within so fitly or exactly fill up the hole that they make a sheath so just and so equal that there is not room for the entring water to run down and so much the less because the water doth not undergo a small hole shut beneath And much less shall it flow down to one only wonted and only rotten tooth which it may afflict And furthermore a Catarrhe being gathered together under the hairs should run down into the cheeks but shall not fall down under the gums thorow the fleshes of these and without being thorowly mixt with venal blood according to the guidance of the sinews under the flesh nigh the jaw bone perhaps unto some one tooth And which more is if the water should rush downwards from above and it be granted for a cause of pain of the upper jaw Yet in no wise nor ever water not alive could molest the lower jaw What if a Rheume can decline unto the eyes or ears surely its troublesome matter should first proceed from the plain and feigned basis of the brain into its bosom it had first called a counsel yea had sooner brought forth death than an ophthalmy or inflamation of the eye Moreover I remember that a Pleurisie is not between the skin or the external fleshy membrane and the Muscles between the ribs whither notwithstanding it should flow down from the skin of the scull rather with a straight line and not inwards but either in the very oblique Muscles between the ribs or between these and the Pleura compassing the ribs whence it hath found its name Which way therefore shall a Catarrhe fall down hither from the Head I grant indeed by way of supposition that snivel doth fall down through the palate even in Children and healthy folks into the stomack Yet this doth not pertain unto a Catarrhe or Rheume Neither doth the snivel arise from that so much reported vapour of the stomack but it is an unprofitable excrement begotten by the wandring keeper As in its own place I further grant that in the joynt sickness and elsewhere a salt excrementitious liquour is oft-times sustained but the humour latex alone is the Vulcan Morter or Parget and fewel of these but not an ascent of vapours out of the stomack into the brain not many humours nor the feigned distillation of Phlegme conjoyned with choler For the very Schools themselves being smitten with shame that the Head being on every side filled with the brain should be the Colledge of Catarrhs and that from thence almost all Diseases should rain down have accused the stomack Alas smoaking with and supplying matter for continual vapours But when as they found the stomack in healthy persons to be guiltless but for the joynt sickness do suddenly accuse defluxions in healthy persons through the shadow of an over-spread bashfulness they whisper neither dare they to speak cleerly as from knowledge for they borrow sharp choler and salt phlegme from the venal blood and leave the controversie before the Judge whether those humours are to be fetched from the Liver and are separated in the veins from the blood that they may be expelled unto the joynts or indeed water or a certain snivel or a certain un-named thing be brought down thither out of the Head between the skin For they are as yet uncertain and so much the more confused because they are ignorant who that separater or who that deriver of humours should be which alone might bring these sincere humours not defiled by the venal blood unto the joynts and should make choice sometimes of this and sometimes of that part but should forsake the more weak and more sluggish part and should daily enslave a new one unto himself yea and invade the knotty part and that which is subject to stoppage Whatsoever therefore the Schools do prattle concerning vapours lifted up out of the stomack for the matter of a Rheume let it be old Wives Fables For the stomack is never more cold than is meet it is the more diminished indeed in its digestive ferment whereunto the coctive faculty ought to be attributed but not to heat as I have elsewhere taught at full The Liver also doth never from its own proper temperature offend in heat seeing there is no heat in us but what is by reason of life and therefore every dead Carcass when the life is extinguished is suddenly cold But the troublesome heat of the Liver is alwayes by accident For example Let a cold thorn be fastened in the finger an example moreover elsewhere minded concerning Fevers there is presently a pulse and heat and swelling from the pain For this is not because the thorn is hot nor because the neighbour blood was hot before the thorn but the heat by reason of the thorn cometh by accident So think thou of the Liver for if it be hot it hath its own thorn which doth not shew a cooling of it but a taking of it away For cooling refreshment makes not only a cloakative Cure but draws the evil it self into desperation And that thing the Schools may seriously take notice of and the vain device of the heat of the Liver and the manifold errors of curing sprung from thence Likewise let them seriously note that the Medicines Alas those appointed or applyed to the Head Stomack and Liver for Catarrhs have been vain and void A Catarrhe or Rheume therefore hath not matter place passage custom admission of piercing into the
those very Diseases but the causes manner means passages end or appointments of a Rheume I deny I deny those causes and I diligently search into those in the removal whereof health consisteth I acknowledge indeed that a corrupt mattery Imposthume of the Lungs being broken any one doth presently dye yet I deny that the mattery Imposthume is a Rheume or that death is to be imputed to a Catarrhe And much more vehemently do I deny that the corrupt mattery Imposthume is bred of a vapour of the stomack So I name a Consumption not a defluxion into the Lungs but I know it arose from an inward error of the Lungs I grant that the Gout is fore-felt as it were a hot defluxing drop yet I do not admit of a Catarrhe in its matter manner means and bound of making Even as in its own Chapter more cleerly The latex also being dedicated to the sweeping or cleansing of the Kitchins is in it self indeed guiltless but it in the way admitting of a coupling of dissolved salts doth constitute divers Colonies of Imposthumes Ulcers and itchings I deny therefore that vapours are carried into the Head which may pierce through the brain and coats Neither in the next place do I endure that the breath is carried from the breast unto the stomack and the bowels in a direct passage as it hath otherwise pleased Paracelsus but that a very small quantity thereof doth breath thorow the pores of the Diaphragma For neither when the breath is pressed together doth any thing worthy of note go forth under the Midriffe neither doth the breath smell of the places which are under the Diaphragma In like manner neither are vapours carried from the stomack into the Head but by the Arteries if men are made drunk But whatsoever causeth the giddiness of the Head faintings and other distempers of like sort is the retainer of another Common-wealth than that of vapours So neither from the womb are vapours derived into the Head however bruitish symptomes of the Head may thereby be said to be bred for that is not the obligation of transpiration which is the single duel of another Monarchy and that whereby the throat ariseth unto the height of the chin is not to be called the action of vapours indeed it is an action unknown to the Schools which I shall some times explain to be that of government whereunto all parts in the Body do owe a Clientship For there is no other command of the womb over the whole Body than that whereby the stones do distinguish a Cock from a Capon a Bull from an Oxe and a Man from an Eunuch in figure blood flesh hide and courage But because in supposed Rheumie affects the liquor latex being defiled doth obtain its own dominion of water hence as many Diseases as are ascribed unto Catarrhes are for the most part exasperated in the night time indeed the Blas of the Moon doth work the operations of successive changes in us The which do most especially boast themselves over the weak or defective brain and likewise over the sinews and membranes and these operations do oft-times fore-feel and fore-divine future tempests and therefore I also call them the torture of the Night And I wish this knowledge of presaging were not sold to us at so dear a rate that they ought to be thorowly paid by pains and anguishes For a short-winded Gouty person yea he that carrieth a callous matter or corn under his foot being often awaked out of his sleep in the bed or chimny doth fore-feel the future storms of times or seasons a black cloud to be by degrees spread over the Heaven and the hinges of winds to be shortly changed But Paracelsus would have Mercury to be President or chief over the liquour of nourishment throughout the whole Body and therefore he elsewhere concerning Minerall Diseases confounds that in name and thing with an earthly Moon Yet I know that the humour follows the commands of the seminal or seedy part whereunto it is most neerly resembled for therefore neither do liquid Bodies as yet rejoyce in the conferences of the Stars as long as they are not radically implanted in the Spirit of Life For from hence it is manifest that the marrow is a homogeneal or simple part of the Body but not the liquor thereof Because it manifestly answers to the Moon and brain whereunto the bones are obedient For so whatsoever things do tyrannize under the name of defluxions and likewise the foul Disease Convulsion wringings of the bowels do return under the torture of the Night because they hearken to the latex through the Dominion of our Moon they being offensive affects which hearken unto the motion of the Stars CHAP. LVIII A Reason or Consideration of Food or Diet. 1. They prescribe a Diet for Diseases who are ignorant of Diseases 2. The dietary part of Medicine is suspected 3. Some errors about the rules of Food or Diet. 4. Curing is not subject to the dietary part of Medicine 5. The Authors opinion 6. The object of the dietary part 7. A proof from a common event 8. Crooked ends 9. From a numbring up of parts 10. A diet doth privily accuse of the ignorance of a Remedy 11. A just complaint of the poor 12. Observances of the Author 13. The mockeries of the dietary part 14. Bread is not so much a meat as a universal victual 15. Why bread is mixt with meats 16. The chief hinge of the dietary part 17. A certain rule 18. Why the commands of the dietary part of Medicine are not to be trusted to 19. Ten Positions of the Author 20. How far the force of a sparing Diet may extend it self 21. The necessity of chewing 22. Whence the varieties of things digested are 23. An examining of Barley water or Cream 24. Some preventions or fore-cautions accustomed to the Author 25. A Question concerning the Ferment of the Stomack 26. The digestions do prescribe the Rules of Diet. AFter that I had finished the Treatise of Digestions I had willingly brought Diseases on the Stage but the action of Government being too scanty in the Schools was left behind as yet maimed and the Majesty of the Duumvirate it self and plainly the spiritual radiation or beaming influence of spirit according to its whole Wherefore I interweaved the Treatise of the Soul as it yeelds up its full right to the Duumvirate But I could not as yet moreover depart out of the Stomack but I presently added upon the Duumvirate some examinations of my opinion concerning Diet. Truly I have promised to demonstrate that the Schooles have passed by those things the profession whereof they chiefly boast of to wit that they have not as yet known a Disease in the general kind or have diligently searched into it by its particular kindes or species or to have handled it by its causes or by meet remedies And therefore it consequently followes that if through the aide of Physitians by conjectures there hath
putrifie together with its gripings if it be joyned with Gumme-dragon The Corrections therefore in Dispensatories are burdens and blockish addittaments which do not cause the moderatings of poysonous qualities but wastings of their faculties For even as Poysons have a fermental readinesse of acting so we were to have laboured that we might reserve the strength and aptness of Medicines but withal that we might direct them through the in-graftings of Art unto the necessities of Chronical and far scituated Diseases This one onely thing remains in this business that we do infringe and tame the chief or greatest violence of the thing with the propagation of its ferment Wherefore as I do in general pity the Compositions and Corrections of the Shops so I do as yet more detest the precipitatings glassifyings and preparations of Mercury Antimony Tuttie Sulphur c. And likewise the adulterations of Spirits out of Spices hot Seeds Vitriol Sulphur c. For they are prepared for gain by our fugitive servants and purchased by the Shops rather to the disgrace of the Art of the Fire than for the defect of the sick I likewise bewail the shameful simplicity of those who give men leaf-gold and bruised or poudered precious stones to drink with great hope selling their ignorance if not deceit at a great rate As if the stomack may expect even the least succour thereby And therefore the more subtile error of those is more to be bewailed who corrode Gold Silver Corals Pearls and the like by sharp liquors and seem to dissolve them and think that by this means they are to be admitted within the veins and truly to communicate their properties with us For they know not alas they know not that that which is souâ— is an enemy to the veins and therefore that the forreign sharpness of the dissolving liquors being conquered and transchanged those Mettals and Stones are a pouder as before The which into howsoever the finest pouder it may be reduced yet nothing of it is digested by the stomack or bestows on us its virtues Which thing that thou mayest see before thine eyes For pour thou the salt of Tartar on things that are dissolved in some brackish corrosive liquor and presently that which was dissolved will fall to the bottom in form of a pouder For if strong waters or aquae fortes's do not change mettals in their substance although those are made transparent which were before thick or dark but that Silver is thence safely recovered with what blindness therefore do they give Stones and Pearls to drink as if through the corrosives they should lead the antient essence of Stones or a Mettal behind For it was the invention of a subtile deceiver that he might have his Medicines in great esteem with the sick Because ignorant deceivers think that if the thing dissolving be not distinguished by the sight from the thing dissolved that the very thing also dissolved is truly transchanged in its substance In the next place Oyles and fatnesses are not of value for Balsams Oyntments and Emplaisters unless perhaps as they may give a consistence to the Medicine For first a great part of men do not suffer Oyntments in their skin because they stir up itchings and wheales with swelling And then because the aforesaid Oyles are for the most part prepared out of Herbes the virtue whereof lurketh in a muscilaginous and gummy juice but that juice is drawn by boylings into the broaths or is pressed forth with a press the which is not truly married to Oyles but being fixed doth at length wax hard But I do more rightly constrain or gather the Balsams of flowers in Honey Yet I more admit of the simplicities of simple Oyles than of compound ones Therefore I do most especially expel the disconsonant and deaf compositions of the Oyntments and Emplaisters of the Shops because nothing is more blockish than for the Pouder of Vegetables in fixing to be scorched and so made unfit under various fatnesses and those ignorantly co-mixed The which if it shall be Mineral it doth not admix it self with fat but rather is so covered and imprisoned within the Oyntments that it becomes of none effect and is for weight only For nothing is to be mixed with Oyles Oyntments or Emplaisters which cannot be Homogeneally resolved in them throughout their whole Body It is also worthy of loud laughter that Loaf or the whitest Sugar is commended not because it is more sweet and more worthy in its virtue but because it is dearer and hath often boyled with the Lixivium of Calx vive Whereas the name of purity hath caused a juggle Flowers Herbes c. being bruised and Loaf-sugar admixed therewith do fall asleep those which are mixt with the more sweet Sugar do snatch up a ferment and in waxing hot do unfold the virtues of a simple But presently after through a close digestion of heat the ferment is restrained and they become far more powerful But the diversity of the Ferment depends on the Lixivium wherewith one of the Sugars doth abound but the other wanteth that Lixivium I am wont also to apply Unguents outwardly with choice or judgement To wit in affects wherein the Cure is abroad or far from the Center as in a wound bruise burn c. I perswade them to be applyed luke-warm But where an inward affect requires an outward succour as the Bloody-flux Collick Convulsions in the Stone of the Reins a Schirrhus c. I bid that the Oyntments be cherished from without with a heated stone or hot sand And that thing I learned by beholding Chaff walking upwards and downwards in a kettle of luke-warm water as it were from heat under-kindled and therefore first I conjectured that through a potent heat Oyntments being applyed are quickened and do joyn their Spirit to our venal blood and then I certainly found that thus the evil or Malady is drawn or allured forth and that symptomatical on-sets are stayed And that whatsoever things Baths do perform in the whole Body this same thing heated and kept-warm Oyntments do finish in a part thereof without the decay of the whole body For a cherishing Tile or Brick doth drive the odour of the Emplaister inwards and doth attract outward those things which being the more slow do else stick fast and likewise the spirit making the assaults is attracted together with the blood is dispersed by the heat and another succeedeth in its place draweth the force of the Medicine and as it were boyling up within is driven back Concerning the gathering of Simples also men are not every where sufficiently grounded They determine that roots are to be gathered in time of Autumn But for the most part many things do afford the more effectual roots in the Spring-time Polipodium flourisheth chiefly at Spring but in Autumn it affordeth a grey and black root indeed barren and oldish I judge that all things are to be gathered immediately before their state of maturity for a full ripeness
past dissolved Gold yet I less profited by its potable juyce than by the decoction of any Simple But afterwards I could dissolve Gold and mock it with the face of Butter Rosin and Vitriol But I no where found the virtues attributed to Gold because it was also so reluctant to our ferments I perceived therefore that Gold without its own proper corrosive is dead dead I say unless it be radically pierced by its own corrosive Not indeed that it doth then resemble the Nature of the Sun and doth add any thing unto its vital faculties but onely that its whole body doth by purging unsensibly cleanse in a unisone tone or harmony Yea also the pretious Pearles called Vnions are by that corrosive changed into a Spermatical Milk which is sociable with the first constitutives of us and in this respect are they a Remedy of the Consumption Palsie c. At length I perceived That the liquor Alkahest did cleanse Nature by the virtue of its own Fire For as the Fire destroyeth all Insects so the Alkahest consumeth Diseases In the next place I perceived That Mercurius vitae reckoned by Paracelsus among his four secrets besides the fiery force of the fire of Hell doth clarifie the Organs no otherwise than as Stibium doth purify Gold from things admixt with it which same thing I judge concerning the tincture of Lile a Sunonymal Nature in the mean time desireth as it were by a new spring to rise again under these Medicines Yet we are without hope of restoring into our former state seeing an infusion of new faculties arguing immortality is wanting unto us For it is appointed for every living Creature once to die Because there is nothing in Nature which can have an equal prevalency with the Temple of the Image of God Therefore I perceived That all renewing Medicines do operate by refining and in this respect by exhilarating otherwise there is not a true renewing of Youth And then I perceived That Secrets which do cure by resolving and expelling do nothing but awaken the faculties placed in us the which impediments being removed do as it were bud again under a new spring Lastly I perceived That there were Simples wherein a proper issuing of the forme doth not operate but the command of a strang form and character doth happen unto them that they might cause a contagion between Symbolizing or co-resembling things and from thence are Sorceries and Inchantments For whatsoever things are prepared by a voluntary Blas are for the most part propagated to the functions of local motion they are directed I say unto the Sinewes being most apt for the stirring up of pains and sicknesses or griefs For neither have they poysons or ferments unless an evil spirit do add them or couple them by functions vanquished by himself for then they do excell other poysons being a-kin to the poyson of the Plague Yea I perceived That even all poysons besides corrosives did act by reason of a specifical property emulous of or imitating the imaginative faculty placed in the seed formally inbred and having the powers of a ferment equivocally acting I perceived moreover That every thing doth variously diffuse its activities according to the manner of the thing receiving and of application For bread operates otherwise within in us and otherwise in all bruit beasts and otherwise in the Stomack Liver and in the other Kitchins by reason of the diversities of ferments So I perceived that flesh applied to the outward parts doth presently putrifie which within is resolved by the ferments and at length assimulated unto our parts To wit I have perceived Polenta or Barley floure dried by the fire and fried after soaking in water to besmear and soften the outward parts which within nourisheth heateth bindes the belly and moves flatus's For every Simple being outwardly applyed doth under the sixth digestion display its virtues with us the which within is almost in its first progresses for the most part subdued A live man being long detained in the water would putrifie but dead flesh being alwayes well rinced in a new stream doth put on the nature of Balsame So the Stomack although it be perpetually moist yet it doth not thereby putrifie For the operations of Nature Galen was ignorant of because he smelt not out the properties of ferments But Paracelsus hath caused the incongruities of an Idiotisme in affirming that Oyles and Emplaisters are digested and transchanged into new flesh in a Wound even as meats are in the Stomack But he is ignorant that there is no passage into the sixth digestion but gradually by precedent digestions For this cause there is no venal blood made in the Stomack as neither is any nourishment made by a Clyster detained in the Colon or confines of the Ileon however the Schooles may whisper to the contrary For Brothes do presently putrifie in the Bowels neither is there a making of Cream but far be it that blood should be made if it shall not be first a Cream neither is the Liver the shop of the Cream much less is there an incarnating in the Stomack But least of all that of an Emplaister flesh or blood should be made For the skin being opened putrifaction is presently introduced into it no otherwise than as the shell or peel of an Egg being bruised there is corruption For hence is there a weeping Liquor Sanies Pus sandy-Sandy-water Latex Wormes c. for preventing whereof the whole care of the Chyrurgion diligently endeavoureth and the which being separated the flesh doth voluntarily grow but not by applyed Remedies I have also perceived that Salts which are domestical unto us are fitter for seasoning of meats also for dissolving and exterging or clean wiping away of filths than that they are promoted into nourishment But that Oyles are scarce proper for sanguification but least of all those which ascend by the fire But that distilled waters have small conditions of medicine Because Nature doth every where rejoyce in nourishment caused of Bodies existing in their composition And therefore artificial Salts do pierce deeper than Oyles the which do resist sanguification neither are they thoroughly mixed And therefore the Salts of Spices or sweet smelling things which are made of their Oyles do supply the room of their first Being Magisteries are to be had in great esteem because the substance of these is entire digestible and obedient to the ferments And therefore Nature refuseth meats which are hidden in their Essences by reason of their difficulties of fermentation For all things that are too much graduated do draw after them the middle Life of the Blood but they are not easily subdued by the ferments In brief Those things which do the more stubbornly keep their middle Life are not easily vanquished by our Archeus neither are they onely stubborn in digesting but they are obstinate in perseverance and do act on us so far as they are not subdued But Verdigrease Crocusaeris Cerusse Precipiate Sublimate c.
have ascended into a poysonsomnesse by addittaments But these seeing they are not admitted within the root of the Mercury do operate onely without about the Sulphur and are there variously disposed according to the manner of the receiver At length I perceived That there was a sixfold difference of Digestions in us and that the three former of them were busied about the disposing of the matter appointed for to nourish the which although they do truly transmute yet they are sent before rather for a preparatory disposing than for a vital espousing thereof For truly in the Fourth Digestion a vital power is communicated to the venal blood and so the Controversie is decided whether the arterial blood be quickned For the venal blood is not truly enlivened until it be made arterial blood The which is drawn through the partition of the Heart into the Arterie Aorta for no other end but that in that Buttery it may be endowed with Life and informed with a mind But we are nourished by both bloods even as we have our original of the seed of a twofold Sex For perhaps the Mysterie of the Lyturgie is hence known why a little Water is mixed with much Wine That the Water may pass into venal blood and the Wine into arterial blood I perceived therefore That the Fifth Digestion was plainly occupied about the participative communion of Life But Lastly That the sixth did operate by a dispositive quality but did rejoyce in an assimilating ferment and that inducing humanity Therefore external aides are stirred up and do operate by another quality than internal ones Fat or gross persons are taken with Paines or Crampes or Convulsions of the Tendons the which notwithstanding the grease of man being outwardly over-smeared doth alay For the Sixth Digestion is wholly assimilative therefore it indeavours to change the grease brought on it into its own vital aire But the internal grease of fat things being now subdued by an assimilating ferment is kept without action But the Sixth Digestion enters into the middle Life of the external anointed grease the which our Archeus doth therefore appropriate to himself which Life and its properties are hidden in the last Life of the internal grease Moreover I perceived after what manner a Cantharides doth embladder in living People but not in a dead carcase as neither doth it raise up a burnt Escharre in the dead carcase although it dissolves the dead carcase no otherwise than as Calx vive poudered doth resolve Cheese For the Cantharides as long as it remains dry doth not act but is moistened by an unsensible eflux of our dew then first it begins to itch whence the Archeus under the Epidermis or outward skin is furiously inflamed not much otherwise than as under an Erisipelas the burning Coal or burning Fever and so the Cantharides begins in the Epidermis and an Escharotick in the skin the same which a Gangreen doth at length finish in the habit of the Body For Causticks do at first crisp the skin the which afterwards they resolve into a muscilage after they have fully moistened For then they do not onely sharpen our heat but also they assume the strength of a proper corroding Then I say they do not onely make an Escharrhe which ariseth from an inflaming of the Archeus but do melt the whole Lastly I perceived also that Amulets or preservative Pomanders things bound about the Head and hung about the Body do act by the virtue of influence and that directive without the evaporation of those things which indeed do reside in the more fixed Bodies Although there are other things hung on the Body which are by little and little diminished of their Virtues because they dismiss a Vapour out of them But things tied to the Head or Body are Bony Horney Animals and Plants but others are Mettallick Stony Salts Transparent things or Thick or Dark things But Mettals are seldome Amulets unless they are as yet opened or exalted by an external adjunct Because they have a dividable Sulphur in them But in Stones there is great virtue but of Stones some are transparent Looking-glasses but some are thick or dark ones As Corral Coraline the Turcois the Jasper But in clear Stones the Evestrum or Ghost of Life being well or ill affected doth reverberate To wit the life rejoyceth to be reflexed in a clear glass whereby it is then made like to the Understanding which in its own light is altered after the manner of a Chamelion at the assimilation of Objects Neither also have I in vain perceived Gemms to be as it were thick Glasses well polished Because the native and natural Endowment that is in them from the nature of the Glasse doth more powerfully reflect the vital beam communicated unto it For something is continually and necessarily discussed or blown out of us which is not yet plainly destitute of the participation of Life That very thing doth keep the activity of its own sphear about us the which while it findeth in the polished Glass it easily reflecteth on the whole Body from whence it issued for thereby sympathetical Remedies or Things were first made known But afterwards when it was known that things tied about the Body were applied in operating by virtue of a Glasse there were thereupon boughtie or convex concavous c. figures of Looking-glasses presently bethought of whereunto Gentilisme joyned Hieroglyphicks that by a figure they might denote the sign of a hidden virtue Superstition in posterity thereby encreased who anointed Gamahen Talismanicks and devilish Scurrilities of that sort Thinking that Figures had not indeed the virtues of a Sign but of a Cause But transparent Glasses do receive an Evestral or Ghostlike faculty the which although they do not reflect as otherwise dark ones do yet they approach nearer unto the nature of life or the shining glasse Finally I perceived that the diversity of Effects the end and appropriation of Medidines did not proceed from the fourfold fiction of Complexions but from the very powers of Simples themselves whose Election dose and preparation have therefore stood neglected because they have not been hitherto searched into in their root and manner After the perceivances of all these things at length another Spirit took from me the bottle which the other had given me And with great grief I then perceived all the necessities of Death in me unfit to be declared Whereby I presently returned unto my self neither could I receive comfort but when I truly knew that all things were acted onely by a Dream and because that if I ought to rehearse the virtues of things I could not better performe it than if I had as it were felt all those things within This one thing at least I did moreover remember that Chymical things did rather act by the force of Art than by the native power of Nature because their beginnings were brought forth and changed by the Fire To wit Chymistry separates fixed things from things not fixed
which is the first and easiest sequestration of Heterogeneal things There are not a few things also which it fixeth before they were volatile or on the contrary And then among some volatile things it separates odoriferous things from things not odoriferous which distinction is falsly reckoned of the pure from the impure For truly the action of the fire is to burn and therefore it burns as well the pure as the impure And then a third separation is made by digestions and proper ferments as the parts which do stick fast with a stubborn continuity do depart from each other through a discord of the ferment For so Bodies do in the fulness of their last life voluntatily decay and entertained faculties do come to light Moreover by boyling and melting the parts formerly ruled by one rein do now act on each other under which degree they attain other virtues Therefore Chymistry produceth those things which else should never be made or had in Nature and that not onely in separated volatiles but also in things residing and the which residues are therefore calcined But if by a co-mingling and co-fermenting of the composed Body new faculties do arise that very thing is more beholdable in Alchymical things not only because Art doth wholly imitate Nature in all her operations but also in a peculiar efficacy of a moist influx and melting which do perform various operations under the fire and change the Nature For so the spirit of Salt-peter doth elevate a moist Sulphur and embrination or sharp waterishness of Vitriol from whence are poysonous waters the Spirits of both which notwithstanding being separated were fit for Healing and grateful to the Stomack In the last place Chymistry doth bring up some more milde things unto a degree as poysons may be made of Honey Manna c. most things how violent soever they are do also wax milde under the Fire So that fixed Alcalies is they are made volatile do equalize the powers of great Medicines Because by the virtue of Incision Resolving and Cleansing they being brought even unto the entry of the Fourth Digestion do fundamentally take away the toughnesse of things coagulated in the Vessels For Chymistry doth so resolve the most hard and compacted things that they being not onely forgetful of their former curdling and constancy against the Fire do retire into a tameable juyce and being occult are made manifest but moreover they become social unto us Yea it doth not onely so prepare things themselves but it also effecteth means whereby Bodies may be opened For so coagulated things do depart into the Family of resolved things fixed things are changed into volatile and on the contrary crude things are ripened and things Heterogeneal or of diversity of kind are divided into their Classes's or Ranks In the next place drowsie or sleepie things do attain degrees of Virtues and many new things spring up which have remained unknown in the Schooles of the Gentiles Finally and finally Chymistry as for its perfection doth prepare an universal Solver whereby all things do return into their first Being and do afford their native endowments the original blemishes of Bodies are cleansed and that their inhumane cruelty being forsaken there is opportunity for them to obtain great and undeclarable Virtues But how much purity the Understanding may attain under this Work the Adeptist hath onely known Ah I wish the Bottle once possessed by me had not been taken away But God hath known why he hath given to the Goat so short a Taile Let his Name be exalted throughout Ages and let the alone sanctifying Will of him onely be done CHAP. LXI The Preface 1. The Authors intention 2. The Authors excuse 3. The event is suspected from Divine Ordination 4. A wish of the Author 5. A reason of doubting of the fallacy of the Devil 6. How the Author knew that he was not deceived 7. A Reason teaching that this Talent is of God 8. The judgement of quick-sighted men 9. The whole light of Healing hath appeared in one only moment 10. What the Author hath conjectured from thence 11. Why the Author hath written sharply against the Chaires 12. The event is intellectually foreseen 13. Fevers are frequently stirred up the occasional cause being absent 14. A Relation of terms seeing it is not a Being it doth not cause a Being in act To what end the dissection of a man of sixty years old was re-minded in his sleep I Have deliberated in the good pleasure of God to make manifest that before the world and especially in the Schools the causes of Diseases the knowledge of their essences and their Remedy have been hitherto hidden To wit that the essence of Diseases have not yet been pierced by so many Ages and Judgements of men Truly I have earnestly and notably grieved that this Ignorance of Ages past and of the present Age is true and so that it ought to be discovered by me an unprofitable old Man It hath seriously grieven me that they have been careless as well for their own life as for the life of their Neighbours and that Physitians should seem to have studied only for gain but that such was the ordination of God that as long as the Schools did adhere to Paganim Doctrines they should also persevere in the aforesaid darkness until at length in the fulness of times there should be one who should open the essence and thingliness of Diseases unto his Neighbours and that indeed before the very Chaires of Medicine to wit that as it were in a Fountain the errors of Heathenism being driven away the Truth may hereafter shine and as many as had not shut their eyes through obstinacy may repent Truly I propose to the whole World and to our Posterity a matter new and plainly to be admired And ah I wish that I alone who do first make manifest these things may therefore contract on my self and sustain the reproaches nor that the life and health of my Neighbour may suffer For I had willingly been silent neither had I divulged my Talent but that I knew this one only Talent to have been given me for the life of my Neighbour And while I do as yet contemplate with my self of the greatness of the thing in the succession of so many Ages and their fatal ignorance and the continued sluggishness of Body or negligence in a thing I say of so great moment as is the life of Man I cannot but many times for amazement look back repose my quill and doubt of my own fallacy of rashness To wit that in the Universities themselves wherein fresh the more fervent wits and those not yet defiled with gain are exercised a Disease is as yet altogether unknown to wit the adequate or suitable object of the Medicinal faculty the object I say of so many readings established by Princes Surely I had wholly doubted of my own rashness unless he who giveth such a Talent were the dispenser of the same within and
so a small vein being burst had caused a difficult breathing and did also dissemble a Dropsie But when as the rupture of the vein being more rent had poured forth its Blood it choaked the man A certain Dropsical Man and but one onely being seen by me shewed a black and stinking Bubble in the hollow of his Liver Barth-Cabrollius an Anatomist of Mount-Pellier Saith that he cured very many Dropsical Persons by Incision made in the very Navill it self standing out and that in both sexes But surely if the errour had been in the Liver it could not have issued forth with the water through the Navil or that the Liver being mortally defiled should admit of a restoring Which thing the Schooles will not admit of Wherefore I remember that I have restored above two thousand Dropsical Persons also whose Urine did now wax-blackish with Bloodinesse and who had scarce made a spoon-ful of water in one night whose Liver if it had had but even a mean and not a mortal fault I consess I had not Cured them I have seen also that they whose Liver hath been notably wounded have escaped who although they thenceforth fore-perceived the Storms of the Aire yet not the Dropsie I have seen moreover those whose last day a slow Fever had closed in whose Liver small Stones had grown yet they had not shewn a Dropsie It is a familiar thing for the Liver of Oxen to abound with small Stones although they are continually fed with grasse Whence at leastwise I have learned that Grass-roots do never remove the obstructions of the Liver The Schooles will say to these things the Dropsie indeed is not made from a visible corrupting or obstruction of the Liver as neither from the Salt of the feigned Jamenous-alume as otherwise hath seemed to Paracelsus but from a meer cold and moist Distemperature thereof for so a large Flux of Blood because it brings the aforesaid distemperature it causeth the Dropsie But this is wholly prattle old Wives Fables and vain sounds For first of all I have sufficiently demonstrated the nullities of mixtures and temperatures not any more to be repeated 2. I have seen many all the venal Blood of whom a Consumption had exhausted so as that scarce two ounces had remained when their Heart Lungs and Liver were plucked out but their Liver was of a yellowish Colour because it was without Blood yet there was no cold and moist distemper in these Livers as neither a Dropsie the Supposed son of its feigned Mother 3. If much Flux of Blood should generate cold and moist distemperatures surely the Schooles do not affirm that thing to be done but by the reason of a withdrawing of the vital Spirit which alone is the cause of our heat But the defect whereof seeing it includes a privation it cannot induce a positive Being such as a cold and moist distemperature and Dropsie should be 4. And likewise seeing they will have contraries to be contained under the same general kinde our vital heat which they will have to answer to the Element of the Stars cannot have an Elementary cold contrary unto it 5. A notable Flux of Blood doth of necessity cause cold And therefore if a cold distemperature arisen from a Flux of Blood should be of necessity the mother of the Dropsie at every notable flux of blood the Dropsie should of necessity be present But the consequent is false Therefore also the Antecedent 6. And moreover seeing cold from a flux of blood becomes universal there is no reason why the Abdomen should be rather loaden with water than the Breast whither to wit the Aire being continually breathed in doth increase the cold 7. If the Dropsie be the son of that distemperature in the Liver Whence therefore is there an uncessant thirst 8. If the Expulsion of water into the Abdomen be an action of a distempered Liver Why doth not the Liver use the same its own expulsive action while the Veines do swell with Urine they being intercepted by a destructive Stone 9. Likewise the Blood of Dropsical Persons even as also the Urine should be exceeding watery if the Dropsie should be from a cold distemperature of the Liver But the Urine should not be so reddish and Bloody 10. In the next place between a Dropsie and cold distemperature arisen from a flux of blood a positive cause being a third from a cold should of necessity interpose Which the Schooles do hitherto name because of a non-being there is no search made 11. Neither also do such distemperatures produce thirst together with a Salt Water in the Abdomen seeing they do not thirst who do plentifully detain a salt Urine throughout all their veins in the Stone which stops up the Reines on both sides 12. If the Dropsie be from a cold distemper Then a Dropsie should never be expected after a Fever or wringing of the Bowels if there be not a branded confusion of causes And in vain do they flee unto a cold distemperature for a Dropsie the which should equally proceed even from opposite causes 13. Every old and decrepite Person should now nourish the necessity of a Dropsie 14. A cold distemper seeing in its root it is like to Death extinguishment old Age and privation every Dropsie should contain a necessary despaire of health even as such a distemperature denies a restauration 15. If the Liver be the Liver and not the Lungs by reason of its Elementary co-tempering as the Schooles say and so from one only Seed all the Elements do proceed and wander hither and thither confused that they may be the constitutives of appointed Organs therefore the Liver receding from its natural temperature shall cease to be the Liver and shall be the Kidney Lungs or Milt 16. At leastwise a Member struck with a Palsey should not be wasted but should be after some sort swollen with a Dropsie 17. At length if the Venal Blood be resolved into four or again into three Humours from whence it is either naturally composed or they are in it being applyed unto or co-mixed in the subject of the Blood The Blood shall never be able to be changed into a Dropsical water Seeing this is not any Humour of the constitutives of the Blood Yet I have seen a country-man out of whom all the water was taken by a Borer in twelve hours space for he being become my Opposite Scoffed at me But the morrow morning being swollen with the former Lumpe of his Belly he died For the Dropsie increased not by degrees even as it had increased from its beginning but it presently hastened and proceeded unto an extream extension For I observed that his Flesh and Blood being melted into Water had made their retreat to the neather part of his Belly For in that one only day he had descended into extream Leannesse Therefore his Flesh and Blood shall now wander into an Hydropical or fifth Humour through the cold distemperature of his Liver I could perhaps pardon
that the Liver being cooled doth afterwards generate the more cold Blood for all Blood being deprived of vital spirit naturally waxeth cold because it is a dead carcase But that a more cold Liver doth melt fleshes into a Dropsical water that can be founded upon no reason 18. The Schooles cannot deny but that a Dropsie is sometimes solved by the Kidneys But there is no reason why the Reines do stubornly close themselves even untill Death because the Liver was more cold than was meet Let these arguments onely as yet suffice the Humourists which are distempered with cold that the Liver may be from a mortal offence Now I will over-add somethings concerning the occasional Cause I will therefore resume the fact of our Treasurer who shewed nothing memorable in this dissection beside Blood out-hunted and hardned in his Kidney to be the occasional Cause of his Dropsie and Death yet while the Stone plentifully stopping the Kidney doth not produce a Dropsie yea although the whole Kidney shall wax brawnie or hard with little Stones and shall reserve nothing of its substance besides skin Therefore the obstruction of the Kidney as such is not the occasional cause of Dropsie But the out-chased venal Blood For so the Woman of Sixty years old having dashed her self against a corner of the Table contracted a Dropsie So those that are wounded in their Abdomen and badly Cured do become Hydropical So out-chased venal Blood lighting and laying on the Menynx or Coate of the Brain doth presently render the countenance swollen with a Dropsie So at length great gripings of the Guts do pour forth Blood out of the Veins into the space bordering on the hollow bending Bowel So those that have the Bloodie-flux And so Drinkers do enter into a Dropsie as something of blood is co-heaped in the hollow Bought of the Bowel But this thing I learned in a Fracture of the Scull and in a Dropsie of the Lungs For there the Blood making oftimes a stop blows up the whole Head and Face as it were with a Dropsie But here I have observed the Blood to have consisted or remained about the conduit of the arterial Vein for neither doth the venal blood degenerate in the form of corrupt Pus unless it be cocted in the hollowness of the Flesh but without the Flesh in a free place the Blood presently waxeth clottie and straight way after it being made more dry is hardened and presently conceives a Poysonous ferment Whence the Archeus stirs up a Dropsie Indeed our Treasurer hath taught me that the blood being hunted out and become clotty causeth a Dropsie of the Belly and besides that the Kidney is an Adequate or suitabl Aertificer Causer Executer and Judge or Arbitratour of a true Dropsie That thing hath confirmed it to me because at the time of a Dropsie the Kidney scarce makes Urine and on the other hand because the Kidney being excited to restore the Urine himself doth empty the whole Dropsie out of the Belly Wherefore also that the water is brought back into the Abdomen by the arbitration of the Kidney Vain therefore is the devise of Paracelsus that the Star Zedo is the one only and singular Architector of the Dropsie For the cause is in our innermost parts and in the very Beginnings of Life but not to be so far fetched and Cured For the Dropsie is not the workmanship of the Stars neither is there such an ordination of the Stars neither is that of concernment although Mercurie being seperated dead from its Vein doth truly and perfectly cure the threefold Dropsie For Mercurie is an Analogical and feigned Name neither doth it denote a Star but a running Mettal For what doth a Name that is Metaphorically feigned belong unto the feigned Star of Zedo For metallick Mercury is neither a Star nor kills a Star nor hinders its operation nor dis-joynes the conjunction of a Star with us if there were any For the Stars are the occasions of Meteors but of Diseases occasions onely by accident For primarily they are the Causes of times or seasons and of the Blas of a Meteor but secondarily and by accident they disturbe our Bodies proyoke Diseases or ripen the occasional matter But Causes by accident do not respect Cures but fore-cautions especially where Causes per se or by themselves do operate with or in us by a proper motion and appointment of their own seeds For indeed the left Kidney of the Treasurer is stuffed or condensed with the more dry Blood the left part of his Abdomen is extended and presently waxeth hard the right part being safe His Leg also presently swels and afterwards his Thigh on his left side and therefore the extension of his Belly is extended not by reason of the quantity of water onely but his Membranes are extended from the Disease it self no otherwise than as the Artery under a hard pulse But the Membranes are extended and contracted also before a plenty of water by the same workman which begets the Dropsie Indeed it contracts all the pores of the Membrane that they cannot transmit or send the Wind or Liquor thorow them when as otherwise in those that are alive that is healthy the whole Body is perspirable and conspirable or inspirable The Treasurer therefore first of all makes a little water the Dropsie straightway invades him by degrees and begins on his left Side And therefore presently after its Beginning his left Leg is besieged by an Oedema and afterwards his whole Body becomes swollen But why doth not his right Kidney draw the Urine nor transmit it the which otherwise happens when but one Kidney is besieged by the Disease of the Stone For therefore there is a double Kidney by Nature and a single Spleen or Milt that one may relieve another in their troubles and banishments of an Excrement Yea and from hence it is sufficiently manifest that the Spleen is not a sink nor emunctory Therefore in the Blood being chased out of the Veins deteined and condensed there is an exciting ferment such as is wanting to the Stone I will therefore declare the whole order of the matter so far as my Observation hath taught me For the Liquor Latex unknown to the Schooles as long as it is carried with the Blood in the Veins or to the Glandules it enjoyes a common life neither doth it obey the rules of water-drawing Organs But it knowes not upwards and downwards because it hath it not But it being once rejected out of the fellowship of Life now it undergoes the nature of an Excrement and hastens downwards as being burthened with its own weight Therefore the Latex is of a vile esteem And therefore as oft as every Bowel is ill affected it presently neglects the Latex and excludes it from the company of its Venal Blood and findes business enough for it self at home for its own defence The Latex therefore being once divorced elsewhere and spoiled of the society of Life doth presently receive
the disposition of an Excrement Because it s own and that which is native to it 1. This is the cause of an Anasarca or in speaking precisely the Water is not the Dropsie as the Anasarca it self neither is the Wind the Tympany it self but the Water in the Abdomen and the Latex in the Anasarca are the Products of the Dropsie As the Wind is in the Tympany Surely the Dropsie is a Guest received with a more inward society of familiarity and is more intimate unto us the which doth attempt the vital principles and faculties of Life before the Water be bred and so every Disease doth by occasional Causes immediately talk with the vital Beginnings wherein at length it findes its matter and efficient Cause 2. And then I have noted that seeing the Urine of all Dropsical persons in general is little and of a ful colour the Latex was the matter as of the Urine so also of the Dropsie For neither is it formally Urine but the matter hereof before Urine was made thereof by a co-mixture of other things and the receiving of a Urinal ferment 3. But I understand in the Dropsie a threefold matter To wit the first occasional such I have said out-chased venal blood to be And then a second which is the Water it self and the very Latex in the Abdomen which is a certain product And lastly the third matter hath its internal efficient arisen in the internal vital principles of the Archeus of the Reines 4. Like as also drink failing the Reines do notwithstanding as yet allure forth the Urine of Blood although sparingly 5. So also in the Dropsie the Urine is of the Blood not of the Drink not of the Latex The Reines do actually conceive frame and contein the Dropsie But the Abdomen or neather part of the Belly through the action of government of the Reines doth afford an Inne and the Kidney sends the Latex thither as the product of the Tragedy For it is not as the Latex is theevishly snatched away by another Bowel but the Kidney alone doth banish the Latex unto places subjected unto it 6. But the Latex being lesse chief in the accustomednesse of Life in an Oedema and Anasarca than in an Ascites it is also again supped into the Veines and slides unto the Reines that it may undergo the last determination of Life 7. An Ascites is regularly cured if the Kidney shall make much and abundanâ— of Vrine of its own accord or by a Remedy But it committeth a relapse if the Disease be not wholly taken away out of the Kidney 8. The Water between the skin or Anasarca by a retrograde motion draws the Latex into the mouthes of the Veines from thence through the Veines it is sucked into the Kidneys and expurged in manner of Urine The least quantity whereof onely doth exhale by transpiration And therefore they abusively teach that the Latex is Phlegm in an Oedema and that it is recocted into lawful Blood 9. Therefore the Command and Action of Government of the Reins doth extend it self not only into the Kidneys Ureters and Urine Vessells But besides into the hollowness of the Belly between the Peritoneum or wrapping Skin thereof and Muscles of the Abdomen and likewise into the several Divisions of the hollow Vein beneath its self even also into the Feet and Legs 10. The Reins therefore do not suffer the Latex to fall down through its own weight but do truely send it no otherwise than as they do truly again draw the same thorow all the blood of the Veines to wit until the Dropsie be cured by pissings 11. And which is more the Kidney doth alwayes co-operate and principally operate in the framing of a Dropsie It is therefore of necessity primarily affected Because it wanders from the ends of its acting 12. And seeing the Kidney is the chief effecter of the Dropsie although another member may now and then contain the occasional Cause 13. Therefore a Cure which is instituted by a removal of the Water is alwayes subject to a relapse and is for the most part attempted in vain Because a worthy or meet Cure is never instituted from the ultimate or last Agent 14. Therefore the Dropsie Ascites is alwaies an immediate effect of the Reins and so the Cure of the same doth expulsively require a restauration of the Kidneys whether the defect be occasionally stirred up or in the next place consisteth in the Kidney it self 15. Wherefore I do far retire from the Doctrine of the Schooles which the Reins being paspassed by and neglected doth continually behold the Liver and direct its desires of curing thither 16. But the Dropsie is not a wandring abuse or exorbitancy of the Archeus in the Kidney a stopping up thereof by a stone or muckishnesse But a certain sleepy or stupifying poysonous faculty in the venal blood which is expelled or in a like manner entertained through importunity whereof the Kidney doth first of all forget its office casts away the Rains of separating the Latex and straightway after also doth snatch up a fury while through an inordinate motion it banisheth the Latex into the Abdomen 17. Even just as I said before that a Kidney was exclusively shut against the simple Urine even until death 18. Indeed I meditate of a co-like devious or wandering quality of out-chased venal blood in the Dropsie through the occasional Cause whereof the Kidney is made forgetful of its duty and the seasonable removal of which poyson doth free the Kidney from its bond and so the Abdomen from the Water For when the Kidney seeth that an Error was committed by it and being well admonished by a right Medicine it earnestly repents and again suppeth up the Latex being dismissed unto it and drives it forth 19. Therefore the true Dropsie Ascites is in the Reins or to lose the stubborn bolt of the Reins is to lose the Dropsie even as to solue the congealed Blood is to solue the occasional cause thereof That is the immediate cause as well the material as efficient of a true Dropsie is the Archeus of the Reins erring to wit so far as he becomes Exorbitant and is as it were driven into a furie by the occasional Cause he begets an Idea or shape the which the implanted Archeus of the Reins himself being stubborn doth foster and nourish Whereby indeed he doth not or scarce separates the Urine or imploys himself in the care of his Office or of his appointment Yea neither doth he only pass by and neglect his own Offices but also being as it were in a rage dismisseth the Latex unto the Abdomen that he may as it were procure his own Destruction Therefore we must dissolve the vice of stubbornness in the Archeus so that pissing may follow if health be to be expected Paracelsus feigneth that in the Dropsie the venal Blood is by the star of Zedo turned into a muscilage but from hence into water But that its cure doth
all the Fibers of roots do at length end into the Trunk it self which is called the Root But what are the Channels whereby the Liver conveyeth the Matter or Water of the Dropsie as it were by the hand unto the space of the Abdomen If those are the sober veins whereby that Membrane of the Abdomen or Peritoneum is nourished Why at least-wise hath the Liver rather designed these veins and doth aflict these places when as it might far more commodiously expel such superfluous Water by the fundament veins before the Liver be burdened with its importunity and weight Because they are those which seem to be dedicated unto the easing of burdens In the mean time it is certain that the Latex or matter of the Dropsie doth swim in the veins which are beneath the Liver seeing it is not then rightly separated by the Urine At least-wise however it be taken the Liver is not able to super-adde even on the only drop more unto the Abdomen being now extended into a huge heap and hardness by reason of an heap of water but that the mouths of those veins being open as it were by a Floudgate broken open the Dropsical watter should retire and regorge out of the whole Abdomen into the Liver For first of all the mouths of the veins ending into the Membrane or Filme of the Abdomen or neather part of the Belly have not all of them folding doors applyed unto them like Bag-pipes restraining the in-snuffed Wind and Latex within And then if they should have such folding doors at least-wise the Liver wanteth an expulsive faculty of so great force but rather the Liver it self and the channels of the veins should sooner chap and crack than they can super-add the contained water to the hydropical Abdomen being extended into an immense hardness In the next ylace if any such veins do end at the Prison of the Dropsie for its nourishment at least-wise they are the Daughters of the vena cava or hollow vein And so all the water should be in the Liver and the hollow vein before it is in the Abdomen and those Bowels should be swollen into an huge hardness Yea all the Dropsical Blood should be nothing but meer water which is false And the Schooles will grant me of their own accord that the water of the Dropsie should be emunged by the Reins before it should come unto the Abdomen unless the vice and offence should be rather of the Reins than of the Liver For sanguification belongs to the Liver but the sepatation of the Latex from the venal Blood is before and belongs to another Workman than the Liver For the Latex is in the meats and drinks from the beginning and is essentially separated by the Gall until it assumes the nature of a certain Salt and changeth its sharpness into saltness and remaineth locally well mixed with the venal Blood until it having obtained the last supply of Urine being attracted by the Reins is expelled The Reins or Kidneys therefore are governours of the Latex as the Liver is of the venal blood And then the water of the Dropsie is the Latex not likewise as yet Urine whose ferment seeing it is dungy and is imprinted by the Reins that Latex is not yet Urine The expulsion therefore of the Latex into the Abdomen is rather the Office of the Reins than of the Liver And therefore the Kidneys as it were repenting them with an after return have oftentimes also fetched back the water laid aside in the Abdomen and have voluntarily restored health from the Dropsie Then also sanguification or Blood-making is not hurt or hindred in the Dropsie neither do Hydropical Persons wax dry through a penury of Blood for as much as they are choaked with an abundance of the Latex But if in a Dropsie Blood doth not abound yet that comes not to pass because the Liver denyeth the framing of venal Blood but because the Blood is even diminished by a forreign thief yea neither doth the Liver vitiate the Blood being made by it self seeing they are opposites and unco-sufferable actions to wit Sanguification and Destruction of Blood For the Kidney hath received the dominion of the water so that the drink failing it vitiates the Blood and transchangeth it into Urine which things being unknown medicines for a distempered Liver have proved unsuccessful For what more blockish thing hath been ever declared than because the Liver is the shop of venal blood therefore it is also the shop of water and of wind for a Tympany The water is colder than the blood Therefore the Liver in the Dropsie laboureth with a cold distemper For the water is not so much generated in a Dropsie as it is reserved in as much as it is not expelled But whence in the whole systeme of Diseases is there so slothful a blindness of the Schooles Whence so wan experiences about the Sick do they not find themselves forsaken by the truth of God because they have delivered themselves over unto Heathenish Doctrines with a stubborn sloath Indeed I sometimes sticking in the manner of making a Dropsie did in times past believe that the water was made in the Abdomen it self but not to be derived thither seeing that it should else regorge thorow the same channels through which it was conveyed by reason of too much extension but I knew that the water or wind was breathed into the Abdomen more strongly than by any Bellows if by Pipes it were led thither especially because those passages ought successively and frequently to open and gape to wit as oft as the water should droppingly depart unto the extended Abdomen But after that I saw the Dropsie to be perfectly cured of its own accord by Urine and the whole water by a remedy to be expelled through the Kidneys I also undoubtedly beleived that the water was brought into the Abdomen through the same passages by which it being fetched back doth proceed unto the Reins in the curing of a Dropsie Therefore I was bound to acknowledge other wayes and to desert my former opinion Especially because I found sparing Urins in a Thirsty and Drunken Dropsie Indeed the water is loosed through the same passages whereby it was conveyed into the Abdomen These things I have known and believed because I have seen them But I could not come unto the knowledge of those passages as neither of that violence which might extend the Abdomen more strongly than Bellows and nevertheless by a continual drop might as yet increase it Those passages are hitherto unknown to Anatomists and the manner whereby the tumour ariseth unto so great an extension is touched by none or lightly searched out The great things of God in nature I humbly reverence and greatly admire For I am astonished at the furies of the Archeus and the every where excentrical varieties of these whereby he sometimes encloseth water at another time wind in the Prison of the Abdomen even until the
of the Stomack But as a defect of Blood is restored by the more meer or pure meats and drinks So the defect of the Latex is recompenced by watery things it being that which experience teacheth Thirst therefore proceedeth from the governour of the Latex and not from the Bowel of sanguification for there is as much necessity of the Latex as there hath been hitherto dulness in the passing it by Some Authors do commend live Toads being fast bound to both Kidneys to lose the Dropsie by the Urine At leastwise I have seen a Country-man that had a Dropsie cured by an Adder tyed about his Belly and Reins For an Idea of fear is brought on the Reins whereby they loose their indignation Indeed by the same title thirst doth stir up an Idea of sorrow or of a denyed appetite whence the Kidney forgets its wroth From what therefore hath been said before the ignorance of Causes in the Dropsie is sufficient manifest and next with what great obscurity they have laboured about the distemperature of the Liver and emptying of waters how vainly they have thought of provokers of Urine of Vesicatories and of solutive Medicines and it is to be observed in this place that purgative Cholagogals or movers of Cholar have been wickedly given to drink to Dropsical People because they are such things which trans-change the Flesh and venal Blood into a stinking and yellow ballast without the help of a Dropsie But with the destruction of the a Hydropsical person But a hydragogal or mover of water differs from a Cholagogal because that being drunk down the Belly asswageth neither doth it expurge stinking things or excrements unless the force of a Cholagogal be adjoyned to an Hydragogall Therefore Mercury precipitated according to the prescription of Paracelsus cures every Dropsie not as it purgeth but forasmuch as it material passing through the Bowels dissolues the out-hunted Blood But if it together with that do provoke Vomit or Stool that is to the Dropsie by accident Take notice therefore of this that white Briony or white Vine being scraped or filed and laid on a bruise wherein the blood looketh black under the skin doth in few hours resolve that blood into water the which it likewise fetcheth through the skin Wherefore take notice that there is the profitable virtue of an Hydragogal or mover of water in Briony if thou shalt take away the solutive poyson from the same But surely I have observed if Antimony be turned into a liquor and afterwards into a pouder which purgeth only by sweat a remedy is procured which modestly takes away every Dropsie whithout fear of a relaps for truly it removeth as well the occasional Cause as the distemper of the raging Archeus it self For such remedies as are carried through the intestines their natural endowment remaining and being secure and the which are therefore apt to resolve the occasional Cause do free Nature of her impediments whence the Archeus of the Kidney percieving the proper madness of his fore-past fury doth open the veines suck to him and strain the water through according to his due and wonted manner and recompenceth with diligence the stubbornness of his fore-past fury by an excentrical and opposite motion of the Latex grieving that through disorder he intended his own destruction whence it is plain to be seen that the government of the Kidney over the Abdomen and Veins hath hitherto been unknown The Dropsie therefore is a Disease occasionally arisen from a bloody depraved matter as it were from a fermental Beginning at whose incitements the Archeus of the Reins formeth an Idea of indignation through the power whereof he shuts up the Urine-pipes and Veins corrupts and diverts the abounding Latex and transmits this Latex into the compass of the Abdomen or nether part of the Belly in the mean time he so straitens the pores of these Membranes of the Abdomen that they can let nothing of all thorow them even until Death But the Tympany doth very much differ from the Dropsie For there is unto it a different occasional Cause a different manner of making in the next place a different matter and also a different efficient Cause Therefore a different Disposition and a different Product For Water is not generated but Wind And then neither is a Tympany made through the Arbitration of the Kidney but onely by a poysonsom ferment of the spermatick or seedie nourishment sticking and defiled in the crooked bought of the Intestine sitting as President Neither also hath Anatomy hitherto viewed the veines to be swollen with wind neither ought the Liver to suffer punishment by reason of the wringings of the Bowels although aswel the Dropsie as Tympany may follow wringings or gripings Also if the Flatus's of the Intestine should be made by the Liver a Remedy is to be applied to the Liver but not a carminative Medicine to the Intestine or the Schooles make themselves guilty through a different manner of curing For if they were mindfull of their own Theorem that of the same faculty there is a found and infirm Action they had known that Belching and Flatus's are generated by the Bowels and Stomack And so that the crooked bought of the Intestine is no lesse apt for generating of Flatus's than the concave or hollowness thereof A Tympany molesteth from Liquors which were to be assimilated but are become degenerate For a Windinesse or Flatus is made in the Intestine from a certain indisposition of the Archeus of the place who then doth forthwith change meats which are nothing flatulent into a flatus Seeing therefore in the Tympany it is in the out-side or in the crooked bought of the Intestine the same flatulent indisposition is to be considered to be with-out-side as is within in the Intestine To wit it is made from a similar nourishment degenerating whereby a dungy ferment happening the very Archeus of the place being wroth and ill affected doth turn not indeed the aforesaid occasional Cause but the proper nourishment of the Membranes into Flatus's But for this purpose a part of the dungy-ferment doth passe from the inward cavity unto the outward bought of the Intestine And therefore that is not the unsavoury or four flatus of Belchings as neither doth it smel of dung because it is not of a dungy-matter but of a degenerated and cadaverous or mortified nourishment A certain man by the perswasion of Physitians sustaining an Incision on the side of his Navel who was judged to have the Dropsie and that they might draw out the water I being a Young Man and looking on the Chyrurgions Lancet or Fleam being drawn out his Abdomen presently pitched and he by and by died But a Flatus which hugely stank uttered it self and his dead Carcass smelt It is manifest therefore that the occasional matter and next the true matter and inward effecter with all the knowledge which credits a Physitian have remained unknown The vanity also of Remedies appeareth and
are from within drawn out of the Body the which I will enclose in one only or two Examples The Wife of a Taylor of Mecheline saw before her Door a Souldier to loose his Hand in a Combate she being presently smitten with horrour brought forth a Daughter with one Hand but dead through an unfortunate and bloody Arm because the Hand thereof was not found and a flux of Blood did kill the Infant The Wife of Marcus of Vogelar a Merchant of Antwerp in the year 1602 seeing a Souldier begging whose right Arm an Iron Bullet had taken away in the Siege of Ostend and who as yet carried that Arm about with him bloody by and by after she brought forth a Daughter deprived of an Arm and that indeed her right one the Shoulder whereof being as yet bloody ought to be made whole by the Chyrurgion she married a Merchant of Amsterdam whose name was Hoocheamer she also surviving in the year 1638 But her right Arm was no where to be found nor its Bones neither appeared there any putrifying Disease for which the Arm had withered away in a small hours space Yet while the Souldier was not as yet beheld the Young had two Arms Neither could the Arm that was rent off be annihilated Therefore the Arm was taken away the Womb being shut but who plucked it off naturally and which way it was taken away surely trivial reasons do not square in so great a Wonder or Paradox I am not he that will shew these things only these things I will say that the Arm was not taken away as neither rent off by Satan And then that it was a thing of less labour for the Arm being rent off to be derived else where than it was to have plucked off the Arm from the whole Body without Death A Merchants Wife known to us assoon as she heard that 13 were to beheaded in one morning it happened at Antwerp in the time of Duke Alban or D'â—lue and Women great with Child are led by inordinate Appeties she determined to behold the beheadings Therefore she went up into the Chamber of a Widow her familiar acquaintance dwelling in the Market place and the spectacl being seen a travaile pain presently surprized her and she brought forth a mature Infant with a bloody Neck whose Head no where appeared At leastwise I do not find that mans Nature doth abominate the piercing of dimensions seeing it is most frequent to the Seeds of things Thou shalt bring forth Children in Sorrow is the punishment of Sin Before Sin therefore she had naturally brought forth tall Young without pain at least-wise of that bigness with which we are now born But not that a Woman had been unsensible before Sin but because it had gone forth the Womb being shut Therefore it was a proper or familiar thing to humane Nature from his Creation for dimensions to pierce each other because he was made that he might live in the Flesh according to the Spirit But Nature being corrupted that authority of his Spirit over his Body perished and therefore Woman doth thence-forward bring forth after the manner of Bruits Yea Writers do make mention that Ulcers or Imposthumes are made thorow the Bones that all things are carried upwards and downwards without the guidance or commerce of the Vessels Indeed that primitive efficacy of piercing Bodies doth as yet consist in the seeds of things but is not subjected by humane force art or will or judgment For there are many Bodies much more ponderous than the Matter from whence they are composed It must needs be I say that more than fifteen parts of Water do co-pitch into one that one only part of Gold may be thereby made for weight is not made of nothing but doth prove a matter weighing in an equal tenour Therefore Water doth naturally as often pierce its own Body as Gold doth exceed Water in weight Therefore a home-bred and dayly progress of Seeds in generations requireth a Body to penetrate it self by a co-thickning the which is altogether impossible for an Artificer to do Let us grant pores to be in the Water yet these cannot contain fourteen times as much of its entire quantity It is therefore an ordinary thing in Nature that some parts of the Water do pierce themselves into one only place And the Seeds do act this by virtue of a certain Spirit the Archeus For although the Archeus himself as well in the aforesaid Seeds as in us be corporeal yet while he acts by an action of government and sups up the matter into himself he utters many effects not unlike unto enchantments because in speaking properly the Archeus doth not imitate enchantments but enchantments do follow the rule prescribed by the Archeus to wit as he doth operate far otherwise than Bodies do on each other As in affects of the Womb the Sinewes are voluntarily extended the Tendons do burst forth out of their place and do again leap back the Bones likewise are displaced by no visible mover the Neck riseth swollen unto the height of the Chin the Lungs are stopped up from air unthought of Poysons are engengred and the venal Blood masks it self with the unwonted countenances of Filths But as to what doth belong unto the penetrations of Bodies our Archeus sups up Bodies into himself that they may be made as it were Spirits For example Aqua-Fortis doth by its Spirit make Brass Iron or Silver remaining in their own Nature thick or dark so transparent that they cannot be seen and doth transport a mettal thorow merchant Paper the which otherwise doth not transmit the finest Powder thorow it it as yet essentially remaining in the shape of a mettal but not that the similitude of the piercing of dimensions doth uniformly square with the Example of a Mettal proposed Because as I have said reasons do not suite with so great a Paradox where I do willingly acknowledge the manner to be undemonstrable from a former Cause Even as no Man can know after what sort an Idea imprinted on Seeds may figure direct and dispose of its own constituted Bodies And therefore we will search after the same from the effect First of all let it be supposed that the Devil hath no authority or command over us against our will unless by the peculiar permission of God For know ye not that we are the Temple of God and that the very Kingdom of God dwelleth in us which thing is to be re-furrowed from its original First therefore it is of Faith that we are the sanctuary of the holy Spirit that the holy sacred Trinity doth make its mansion with the Just That the delights of God are with the Sons of Men unto whom he hath given Power to become the Sons of God but Children being Baptized are innocent just of them is the Kingdom of God the fitted Temple of God Yet Children are killed by enchantments sooner than others Therefore it must needs be that that thing happens from some
ferment of the Stomack for many do not desire do not bear do not concoct very many things however good it shall be in it self it degenerates into Reliques and brings forth oftentimes no mean troubles of it self and sealeth them in the parts and they are the faults of some things as when Minium or Red-lead is cast into the Body being too hard stinking or rebellious But those are rebellious things whose middle Life cannot be subdued and taken away by the Ferment of the Stomack which things every one doth against his will experience and acknowledge And then I have said that there is a twofold Ferment in the Stomack One indeed for the first Digestion which flows unto it out of the Spleen But the other is proper for the sixth Digestion which is natural or homebred unto it from the implanted Spirit and proper to its own Cook-room But both of them are diminished altered and estranged through Diseases Griefs Age c. For the ferment infused by the Spleen is peculiarly silent and altered in Fevers for instead of a sharpness a burntishness is substituted whereby Eggs Fleshes Fishes and Broaths become averse and do sooner putrifie within than they are truly concocted into Chyle And these Hippocrates calls Impure-Bodies the which by how stronger a refreshment or nourishment thou shalt endeavour to refresh them by so much the more thou shalt hurt them For heat doth then more strongly burn in the Stomack but the Ferment is withdrawn from the Stomack Therefore things cast into the Stomack are not digested but putrified So under a dog-like hunger the Ferment of the Spleen is doubled In the next place if not the Ferment it self but a strange sharpness doth increase there are sharp pains in the Stomack co-pressings of the Breast irregular Appetites Head-aches Diseases called Cholers c. In like manner the Ferment of the Gaul being exorbitant failing or otherwise vitiated by a forreign Poysonsomness Products agreeable unto those Roots do soon bewray themselves For from hence are Giddinesses of the Head Swoonings Apoplexies Fluxes Cholers and likewise bitter or bloody Vomitings Atrophia's c. I again admonish that although I leave the antient names of Diseases yet I understand the Idea's the causers of these by abstracted names Therefore in the first second third or sixth Digestion I understand vitious transmutations to be made by diseasie Idea's there bred and transchanged But those kinde of Reliques or things transchanged are voided out by a washing of being made by Sweat or Urin or are voided by the Paunch and an unsensible transpiration Indeed the Reliques of the first Digestion are expelled through the accustomed Emunctories or exspunging Places But those of the second and third are regularly driven out with the Urin. But because inordinacies do happen in most Digestions therefore there is place for things transchanged and transmitted But things transchanged are the produced Excrements of primary Diseases or the Fruits of things assumed The which because they were once domestical therefore they are bred by the vice of the transchanging Archeus But indeed the Retents of the second Digestion are made either by reason of a weakness of the Ferment or a riotous exorbitancy of the same Hence a sharpness of the first Digestion remaining and not sufficiently corrected proceeds unto the Bowels for Wringings or Gripes Moreover it passing thorow into the Veins doth stir up diverse Fevers a contracture of the Abdomen Dropsies Obstructions of the Meseraick Veins likewise Palseys of the Joynts and Stranguries or Pissings by Drops But if the Ferment of the second Digestion shall too much increase or be joyned with a vitiated quality From hence are Jaundises bitter Vomitings Faintings Giddinesses of the Head c. But if that of the third Digestion which is digested be too much delayed under the third Digestion for although the venal Blood shall in it self nothing offend yet a doubled Ferment of the Shop increaseth and in this respect it is estranged through inordinacy For truly nothing keeps Holiday within all things do proceed unto the scopes appointed for them no otherwise than as the water of a defluxing Brook The venal Blood therefore although it be the treasure of mans life being detained beyond its just term degenerates into Menstrues Hemorrhoids c. And whatsoever things the Schools do generally attribute unto black Choler they are nothing but the Retents of the third Digestion retained in the third Digestion But seeing the Members are not nourished but under a certain proportion unknown to Mortals to wit of the Blood of the Veins unto the Arterial Blood it must needs be that in the sixth Digestion an inordinacy doth spring up which the Schools attribute to the heat of the Liver and do falsly bend themselves to cure by cooling things For the Liver in it self is a dead Carcass and cold unless it be nourished by the Spirit of life And therefore all heat being a stranger to the Liver is forreign For it hath it self just even as a finger which is rightly tempered in it self whereinto if a thorn be infixed although it be in act and power cold yet the finger presently swells beats waxeth hot and is enflamed c. So also the Liver is never hot unless it shall conceive a troublesome thorn within it Wherefore also we must diligently employ our selves in plucking out of the thorn but not in cooling Therefore the Liver hath a double thorn to wit one from a hurtfull Retent but the other from a troublesome Retent to wit the Blood burdening it For so the Liver hath oftentimes from a hurtful Retent darted forth Impostumes and Vices of the Skin the which by reason of that which is transmitted do manifoldly degenerate in the way and do so co-defile the Skin that whatsoever at length of Blood is distributed unto it for nourishment is corrupted in the same through a Title of contagion Of which sort are Ulcers the which if they are healed up they sorely threaten a greater dammage within Therefore in Retents of the third Digestion Cauteries have oft-times performed help unknown in the Schooles from a foundation who endeavour with the uncertain conjecture and hope of Events For they are rare Defects which are from a plurality of good Blood not vitiated even as in the Book of Fevers and the scantiness of abstinence of two dayes doth easily reduce the venal Blood suspected of abounding into a due proportion Therefore the Blood offends if it hath a thorn its Companion and then if it stay within beyond its due time as I have said And thirdly if the venal Blood be disproportioned with the Arterial Blood Gluttony is for the most part the Mother of these three Whence it is wont to be said The Throat smites more than the Sword Also for the most part a plurality of venal Blood is bred not because more venal Blood is begotten than is meet but because less is consumed than is meet by reason of want of exercise an idle
Life abundance of Fat c. For the Gout and those Diseases which are thought to be the bastard births of Catarrhs do withdraw themselves from this order Because that they have a Seed of their own and therefore also do oft-times rage under the penury of venal Blood But in this case an unequal strength flourisheth seeing that the more weak Organs are quickly filled loaded nor do desire to be abundantly nourished according as the more stronger Organs do For from hence the Archeus of the more weak Organs is sadned doth through delay and impatience wax wroth and stamps on himself diverse Diseases Wherein while Issues weep a plentiful Pus and Liquor the Ancles do swell in the evening a more plentiful Snivel is dashed out of the Head and unthought of Phlegms out of the Lungs under a consent of the wandring Keeper To wit a total deluge of the Archeus and prone Excrements do grow or spring up according to the weaknesse of every part For the term of the Moon as a Law doth prescribe to the quantity of the Blood that it may be wasted in both Sexes nor may make a longer delay For from hence it is that because there is little transpiration under cold there are the more frequent Spittings Also under cold more of meat is Injected yet there is not therefore more of Blood composed In brief in Diseases of strength a Vice of the Distributive Faculty is alwayes present At least-wise it is manifest from what had been said before that the force of Appetite is not to be measured from sanguification as neither from a consuming of the Blood But things of the sixth Digestion that are transchanged have been neglected by the Schooles and dedicated to their own Humours and Catarrhs As if all Diseases should arise from the Vice of the Liver and a defluxing Phlegm of the Head They have moreover neglected the primary Offences of the Members containing which are to be attributed unto the inordinate enforcements of the Archeus but not unto things retained For I have seen the Liver in a temperate Duke of Catafractum to have weighed 16 Brabant Pounds For he complained of the swelling of his Belly he had drunk of sharpish Fountains and at length of Wine steelified who when he was variously disturbed or handled by his Physitians as for an Hydropical Man and but the day before had walked thorow the Streets suddenly died I have seen a Woman who lived a single Life alwayes thirsty and pressed with a diseasie thirst for she was thought to be Hydropical and being tormented with many solutive Medicines died But when after Death her broached Belly did not afford Water she being unbowelled appeared sound within but that her Liver harmless to the sight did weigh 21 pounds and a little more I have seen a Man who after a long torment of his Belly voided many Membranes the which being dryed and affixed to a Board with Nailes did dissemble Parchment We have seen a little Pouch grown to the Stomack of a certain Governour filled with small Stones Likewise a new Sack to have grown to the Abdomen of a Woman wherein were fourteen Pounds or Pints of Water and more So very often another of the Kidneys being stopped up with Stones to have monstrously voyded them forth Which primary Diseases are to be attributed unto the local Spirit of the parts containing I sometimes believed that growth ceasing the growing Power was extinguished because all things did stop from increasing But after that I saw many things to increase through Errour which were of the first Constitution I thought that the growing Faculty was detained from its progress only through the disobedience of the bony Matter But Pores are bred in Broken-bones and the Ribs do become longer through an enlarging of the Breast long after the cessation of growth A swollen burstness of the Veins is bred anew and becomes by degrees like a Sinew A Lobe growing every year unto the Liver of an Wolf bewrayes his age Wherefore I refer the Excrescences of Flesh of a remarkable bigness troublesome through Pain and endowed with a beating Motion among the Diseases of the patrs containing which have been neglected by the Schooles As also new Fibers having arisen on the Muscles I have observed to have brought the Palsey and those being taken away this to have been Cured For in the Grease not only fatness alone is bred but also Fibers or the Honey-combs thereof which are of the condition of solid things So there are notable Super-crescences of the Gristles and Ligaments which are subject to the Chyrurgion not as the occasional Causes of Diseases but as erroneous Products which are to be taken away they being sometimes annexed unto their primary Diseases For from an injured Bone a nourishable Liquor doth oftentimes distil which dissembles the hardness of a Bone Yet with rottenness as being a partaker of a bony curd Therefore if I shall reckon up the Diseases of the part containing among Retents think thou that that is done because they are nourished by a Root of their own nor are taken away but by Mortification Unto these Diseases voluntary Excrescences Bunchinesses Strainings and Disjoyntings have also regard The which because they follow an inbred unequality of Strength they for the most part shew a receit from the seed of the Parents or from the Defects of Nurses For from hence whole Families are inclined unto an Hectick Fever Asthma Gout affect of the Stone Jaundise Dropsie and Madnesses For if they are not drawn from the Parents they are drawn from Nurses For the Young doth easily drink some Defects with the Milk and derives them into the similar Parts For seeing our Powers do uncessantly operate hence Retents cannot make a long stay in their former state and place but that the term of their motion being finished they do revolt from their fomer Disposition and being estranged do decline into a worse For so things retained do degenerate into things transmitted as well because they offend through an inordinacy of their own vitiated matter as through an exorbitancy of distribution caused from the Archeus being provoked For among things transmitted the Carrier Latex first offers it self which by floating up and down doth manifoldly erre For seeing that is ordained to wash off the filths of the parts it first offends by a strange Vice which it hath contracted on it self From whence are some Vices of the Skin which at length a Ferment being called to it do frequently persevere But if the attractive Faculty labours Oedema's are made and the Latex overflowes into the Liver and Veins Whence are Disuries or Difficulties of Pissing Pissing-evils and a various houshold-stuff of Diseases As also in Squinances the Toothach and elsewhere is oftentimes easie to be seen especially if by a singular adulterous Allurement the Latex be derived 〈…〉 certain part So also Poses Cataracts and Pins and Webs in the Eyes Defects 〈…〉 Eares and Teeth do arise if the Latex finds
Woman doth seminally conceive by Man besides the first intent of Creation Wherefore if Man were created that at least-wise from a foreknowledge of the consequence he might supply the Place of the Evil Spirits in Heaven he ought either to be created in a great Number at once from the Beginning or Successively If therefore They which are to be saved cannot be born by the will of Man of Flesh or of Blood and there was one only Man created therefore all Posterity ought by a successive Continuation to be born in Paradise of Women alone to wit the Birth-place of the Woman and of necessity to be Conceived from God and to be Born of a Woman a Virgin unto whom he afterwards Gave Power to be called the Sons of God and to be made with an exclusion of the Will of Blood Flesh and Man which Chastity alwayes pleased God doth please him at this Day and will please him alwayes And whatsoever hath thus once pleased the fountain of Chastity can never again displease him And so that Onely those that are of a clean Heart shall see God and shall be called his Sons wherefore the Prophet singeth Create in me a clean Heart Oh God! such as Adam had before the Fall And renew a right Spirit of the chaste and antient Innocency by the regeneration of the Spirit and Water in my Bowels Because my Bowels being now impure have contracted a Spirit of Concupiscence of the Flesh of Sin For indeed Man as long as he was Immortal and Pure Saw thy Face oh Lord and thou talkedst with him which Face afterwards Man shall not see and live But after that Man defiled his Bowels through Concupiscence thou casteth him from thy Face out of Paradise I pray thee therefore that thou cast me not from thy Face and that thou take not thy holy Spirit of Chastity from me Restore unto me the Gladness of the Regeneration of thy Salvation and with thy principal Spirit the Comforter do thou confirm me against the inbred Impurity of the Flesh For truly I shall teach the Unrighteous thy wayes of thy Regeneration the which among the hidden things of thy Wisdom thou hast manifested unto me and the Wicked shall be converted unto thee At leastwise free me from Bloods from the Concupiscence of the Sexes Thou who art the God of Chastity the God of Salvation as of new Regeneration and my Tongue shall exalt thy Righteousness and thy just Judgment whereby thou hast condemned Man who was born of Bloods and by the will of Man in the Concupiscente and of the Flesh of Sin as he hath made himself uncapable of thine Inheritance For loe in Iniquities aforesaid I was conceived and in Sins hath my Mother conceived me although under a lawful Marriage Bed Therefore I confess that besides the primitive scope of the Creator an Adamical Generation hath arisen into natural Death and is devolved into original Sin The Woman therefore as she hath conceived after a bruital manner she also began to bring forth in Pain The Male also in the Law was only circumcised as for a mystery of the deflowring of Eve Yet both Sexes ought to expiate the Offence committed in their privy Parts to wit whereby they had offended which thing although it be chastly insinuated in the Text Yet that was covered before Israel who were otherwise most ready for all Perfidiousness to wit that Godmight not seem a contemner of Matrimony instituted after the Fall The Woman therefore was not circumcised and yet she was saved but not the Pain of Child-birth or the Obedience of her Husband had expiated Original Sin in her For both a single young Virgin dying was saved as also a barren Wife Therefore from hence is manifested the mystery to wit that Eve so much as she could resisted the Insolencies of Adam and was by force deflowred in Paradise So that also our first Parents were Murderers of all their Posterity through Concupiscenc So also the eldest Son was a Brother-Killer For the fore-skin being taken away did of necessity cause a Brawniness of the Nut of the Yard whereby indeed he might be made a Partaker of the less Pleasure Concupiscence and Tickling whosoever should desire to be ascribed or registred among the Catalogue of the beloved People of God The Rabbins also confess That Circumcision was instituted by reason of unclean Virtues walking in a circuit The which I interpret that the diabolical and primitive Enticements of Concupiscence unto Mortality were not hid to the Hebrews and that at leastwise in an obscure sense the Sin arisen from thence was insinuated Also illegitimate Persons were in times past driven from the Temple and Heaven and those who should be born of an adulterous Conception because they did wholly shew forth an Adamical Generation but those who were born of a lawfull 〈…〉 Bed were as yet Impure until that the fore-skin being taken away they might seem to renounce the Concupiscence of the Flesh And in this respect they represented in a shadow also those that were to be renewed from far by the Spirit of God and the laver of Regeneration Moreover the very Word of Truth doth profesly confirm the Position 1 John 3. Except any one be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God B. Except any one be born again of Water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God C. That which is born of the Flesh is Flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit D. The Spirit breatheth where it listeth Thou hearest the Voice thereof but knowest not from whence it may come or whither it may go E. So is every Man who is born of the Spirit F. If I shall speak unto you of Earthly Things and ye believe not how shall ye believe if I tell you of Heavenly things G. None hath ascended into Heaven but he who descended from Heaven H. And as Moyses exalted the Serpent in the Wilderness So it behoves the Son of Man to be exaltâ—d Christ Jesus descending from Heaven took not on him the Flesh of Sin by Adamical Generation or by the will of Man but he receiving the form of a Servant was made into the Likeness of the Sons of Adam being found in Habit as a Man Yet being Adamical was a true Man such as Adam was being newly created But he being made into the similitude of an Adamical Man emptied or humbled himself taking on him the form of a Servant But he was not made a Servant or Impure But in this glad tydings he denieth the Vision of God or the sight of the Kingdom of God and in b. an entrance into the Kingdom of God For not that the Glory which makes blessed may be seen without entring into Heaven or the same thing is twice spoken in vain or that a. doth require another new birth than b. but a. contains a denyal of participating of the Heavens for the Souls of the Dead before the Resurrection
changed for those only shall rise again changed who shall rise again glorified in the Virgin-Body of Regeneration which change the Apostle understood because that He who is not born again cannot enter into the Kingdom of God And therefore He that shall rise again being not born again by consequence also shall not be changed from his antient Being if he shall rise again from Death neither therefore also shall he have entrance unto Gods Kingdom because by the new Birth the whole Man is made Spirit And therefore he which shall rise again from the new Birth shall rise again in a spiritual Nature Otherwise He that is born of the Flesh and not born again of the Spirit shall hear indeed the Voice of him that is born of the Spirit but shall not know from whence it may come or whither it may go This indeed is the changing of Bodies into Spirit and the change of Bodies in the Resurrection or it is the Glorification of those that are to be saved after the Resurrection But other Sins were expiated indeed through Repentance with the victory and triumph of the Lamb but the loss of that Virginity and primitive Purity doth without Regeneration reserve an Eternal Spot of Impurity and Uncapacity No otherwise than as a virginal conservation and Integrity of the re-born Faithful gives unto Virgins that are born again a Golden or Laurel Crown equalized unto Martyrdom Christ therefore as he is the Father of this Virginity so also the Father of the Age to come But those that are to be saved are his own new Creature and new Regeneratition Who to wit hath given them Power to become the Sons of God unto these who believe in his Name who are born not of Bloods nor of the Will of the Flesh nor by the Will of Man but of God after a most chast manner of the holy Spirit by whom before the brutal Concupiscence of the Flesh arose it was decreed that altogether every Man ought to be born of his Mother being a Virgin Therefore Christ being the Top and Lover of Chastity doth distinguish Men as well in this Age or Life by Chastity as in Heaven and will grace them with an unimitable and eternal Priviledge For a great Company followed the Lamb whithersoever he should go and Sang the Song which no other was able to Sing But these are they who are not defiled with Women For there are Virgins of both Sexes Because there shall not be there Jew or Greek But they are all one in Christ For the Almighty hath chosen his Gelded Ones who have Gelded themselves for the Kingdom of God its sake of whom is the Kingdom of Heaven Therefore married Persons are reckoned to be defiled with Women and Mothers to have conceived their off-springs in Sin and in this thing are far inferiour to Virgins For indeed because the Gospel promiseth unto Mortals not only that the Son of God was Incarnate and suffered for their Salvation But that moreover these two Mysteries least else they should be frustrate are to be applyed unto individual Persons I indeed contemplate thus of this Application that as man through the Sin of lust brake no less the Intent of God than his Admonishment and the humane Nature was therefore afterwards radically Corrupted and that thereupon another and almost brutal Generation thereof followed Therefore the joyful Message hath included as well an Abolishment of Original Sin as of other Sins consecutively issuing from thence Who by dying destroyed our Death not his own because he had none The which is not understood of temporal Death for the righteous Man as yet to this day dyeth just even as before the Passion of the Lord but of Eternal Death Therefore seeing man since the Fall ought to be Born Increase and Multiply no longer from God but from the Bloods of the Sexes by the Will of the Flesh and of Man nor from thence could ever be able to rise again of himself and to re-assume his lost and antient purity nor cease that he might again begin to be otherwise and better therefore the joyful message hath brought an assurance unto us that Baptisme should be unto us for the remission of sins through a new birth of Water and of the holy Spirit That our mind as it were through a new Nativity of its Inne by Regeneration might be partakers of the unspotted Virginity and humanity of our Lord. Which New-birth doth indeed repose the Soul into its former state to wit by taking away the sin or debt and the stinks or noisomenesses thereof but by reason of the continuance of Adamical flesh in which the Immortal Mind liveth the antient possession or inclination unto sin is not taken away nor is there a translation of the corruption drawn from the impure original of the blood of Adam But that this is really so we are perswaded to believe For God doth manifestly daily grant a testimony of that actual Grace and attained Purity to be derived into the Body of those that are Baptized through a true and substantiall Regeneration as well in Body as in Soul For truly for this end and in this respect alone Mahometans are Baptized for a proper reproach because Baptisme from the fact or deed done however unlawfully it be administred and received takes away from them for the future the noisomness inbred in them otherwise to endure for their Life time such as in all the Hebrews or Jewes in many places up and down we do daily observe to be with loathing and weariness The true effect therefore of Regeneration and its co-promised character doth much shine in Baptisme even outwardly also in a defectuous Body And the enemies of the Christian Name do serve us for unvoluntary witnesses unto this thing Yea the perpetuity of the same Effect confirms the unobliterable Character or Impression of Baptisme and the wickedness of it being repeated But the New-birth by Baptisme doth not yet for that Cause take away a necessity of Death For Baptisme forsaketh its own with the fardle of a defiled and Adamical body begotten by the Will of Man And for that Cause also the Soul as subject unto the Vices of the corrupted Body and of a Will long agoe corrupted Wherefore by reason of the frailty of Impure Nature also an easie inclination and frequency of Sinning Baptisme hath been scarce sufficient for those of ripe years otherwise for the more younger sort it is abundantly sufficient Therefore the Sacrament of the Altar is Wine which buddeth forth Virgins Which is as much as to say the end and scope of the Lords Incarnation or of the instituted Sacrament of the Eucharist should bud forth Virgins as demonstrating that the intent of the Creator from the beginning esteemed of and reckoned upon Virginity alone and of how great abhorrency Numb 25. Luxury is in the sight of the Lord. For although Bigamy or a Plurality of Wives and likewise a dismissing of ones Wife and much loosing of
Matrimony were in times past dissembled Yet Phinehas being neither a Judge nor a Prince from his very own zeal slew the Fornicator Zimri and the Harlot Cosby and by that famous act not onely diverted the wrath of the Lord from the whole People of Israel But also although he were a Man-slayer and Man-slayers were repulsed from Sacrifices Yet by reason of that simple Death the Priesthood was given unto him persevering in his off-spring In the next place the Potters field Akeldama called Acheldamah or The field of blood as long as it retained the name of a Field confirms the Position because indeed by a supernatural Miracle it so consumeth a dead Carcass inhumed in it in one onely day that besides a Sceleton of Bones nothing remaineth surviving which effect that it was supernatural I prove For otherwise if it should naturally happen that thing without doubt should be done by a corrosive force of the Earth and the which therefore should be wholly a corrosive Salt or at least-wise a certain Mineral vein co-mixed with very much Salt 1. But first of all That corrosion of the flesh happened not onely at Jerusalem as long as it was a Field where there might be a suspition of some Mineral growing but also its Earth being brought from thence the same thing happened in the burying-place at Rome for that cause called The holy Field to wit wherein that Earth scarce equalizeth the depth of one Foot 2. But whether we may suppose a corrosive Salt or next the Earth it self to be Salt yet seeing it is the property of Salt and a thing unseparable from Salt to melt through Water being poured on it Therefore long ago before so many Ages that substance of the corrosive Salt being melted by Raines Snowes and Hailes had wandred even unto the bottom of the sand and the rather at Rome where it found not its native place Wherefore also that faculty of corroding should cease nor should it continue safe until now 3. And so much the rather because the corrosion of Salts is by little and little satisfied and desisteth in gnawing 4. Lastly Such a corrosive of Earth is not any where found in the Earth whether thou shalt respect a Vein of Arsenick Orpiment or any other For all the activity of such Corrosives presently after a good while waxeth mild and is satisfied Therefore the property of that Field remaining after so many Ages doth clearly shew withal against the will of Atheisme that the Field being purchased with the price of the Life Blood and Death of the Saviour presently consumes the flesh of Adamical generation Because that for the consuming and renewing whereof by the body of Christ which was sold for thirty silver pieces paid for the price of that field the coming of the most glorious incarnation is believed to be directed from God as its onely scope The unsufferableness therefore of that Earth with the flesh of sin continually persevering now so many Ages however the Bowels of the Atheists may burst convinceth of an honour to be due to the Saviour or Son of God for ever In the next place a humane dead Carcass was alwayes buried for honour and desert yet in the Law it caused an impurity for a time Because neither did it pollute the Soul but the Body onely for the meritorious fact And that impurity did indifferently affect any one not as the dead Carcass was deputed to the Wormes for the Wormes by their co-touching are not read to have caused an impurity but because Adamical flesh is horrid in the sight of the Lord who indeed promiseth that he will raise them up at the last day as many as shall reverently receive the Eucharist For all indeed shall rise again by the finger of God to wit by a supernatural Virtue Therefore whosoever in rising again shall be changed are reckoned onely to be raised up again by the Lord Jesus to wit in as much as in a Body which they have attained by the Wine which buds forth Virgins they shall rise again partakers of the unspotted Virginity of Jesus I will raise them up again at the last Day What other thing I pray you doth that Promise denote but that the Elect shall rise again changed and raised up by the Lord not indeed in the flesh of sin but in the flesh of the Lord which they have partaked of by Baptisme and the Eucharist Therefore the horrid and damned flesh of sin doth besprinckle its touchers with no undeserved spot of impurity There is therefore a distinct diversity of Virginal purity The First comes to hand before the Fall of Adam and the which therefore did contain a certain Immortality from the suffrage or consent of the Tree of Life But the Second is of them Who were sanctified in their Mothers Womb the which in it self is also twofold For such a sanctification although it dismissed Original Sin and did restore the integrity of withdrawn purity yet because they were conceived by the Will of Man and by Bloods or of the flesh of Sin they were also Mortal But the most holy Virgin Mother presently after the seminal mixture of her Parents was preserved from the knitting and blemish of Original Sin before hec-ceity or the coming of her Soul But Jeremy and John obtained the same but after quickening In these two indeed there was a Remission of sin admitted but in the God-bearing-Virgin there was a prevention before sin could touch her Soul and therefore she was taken up with her body into Heaven but not John or Jeremy Next a Third Purity is in being born again of Water and of the holy Spirit which also happens two manner of wayes To wit Unto Little Children and Unto those of Ripe Years For in these Regeneration doth not onely remit Original Sin but also every grievous Sin But in little ones it remitteth onely Original Sin because it as yet finds no other But on both sides it leaveâ—â— Death and Flesh hastening into a dead Carcass because stirred up by 〈…〉 copulation Fourthly The purity of those is regarded Who have made themselves Eunuchs for the Kingdom of God its sake and that as yet in a two-way-journey For they have either from a Child devoted their Virginity to the Lamb and have observed it and therefore also they follow the same whithersoever he may go do sing the Hymn c. but all that after Death For otherwise they are of the flesh of sin and therefore are of necessity also guilty of Death and corruption But they who have lost their Purity through a proper Error and afterwards rising up again have vowed or observed chastity These although they are chaste yet are they not to be reckoned among Virgins But moreover after that a Matrimonial generation was constituted by the Lord Regeneration by the holy Spirit and Water doth not fore-require Virginity Fifthly The top of all Purity and Chastity is the Lord Jesus himself who was not conceived by a
after also entred into a conceived Generation in which respect the same day also they were driven out of Paradise Therefore Original Sin was effectively bred from the Concupiscence of the Flesh but occasionally onely in the Apple being eaten and the Admonition being despised But the Poyson of the Concupiscence was placed in the Admonished or rather disswaded Tree and that Property was radically inserted and implanted in it But when Satan besides his Hope and the Deflowring of the Virgin nothing hindred it saw that man was not taken out of the Way according to the forewarning for he knew not that the Son of God had constituted himself a Surety before the Father for man he indeed looking into the Corrupted and Degenerated Nature of Man and so that a Power was withdrawn from him of Uniting himself to the God of infinite Majesty he most greatly rejoyced but he grieved after that he knew that Matrimony was now granted To wit that the divine Goodness did as yet incline towards man and that Satans own Fallacies Deceits and Thoughts were thus Deceived And so that also from hence he conjecturing that the Son of God was to restore every Defect of Contagion and therefore perhaps to be Incarnate He ruminated or searched whether he should defile the Stock that was to be raised up by Matrymony with a mortal Soul that he might render every Conception of God Vain Therefore he stirred up not only his Fratricides and notoriously wicked Persons that there might be much Evil at all times but he procured that Atheism might arise and that together with Heathenism it might increase and wax strong dayly whereby indeed if he could not hinder the Co-knitting of the Immortal Mind with the sensitive Soul he might at least by destroying the Law of Nature bring man with himself under infernal Punishment But especially he meditated after what sort he might by Degrees expunge the immortal Mind out of the Stock of Posterity Therefore he stirred up detestable Copulations in this Atheistical Libertines But he saw that from thence nothing but brutish or savage Monsters Proceeded to be abhorred by the Parents themselves and that the Copulation with Women was far more Plausible unto Men and that by this Method the Generation of Men should equally and constantly continue For neither was it sufficient for the infernal Enemy to have rendered man uncapable of Heaven but moreover he endeavoured to prevent that there should never be a hope of restoring a Remnant that is to hinder the Incarnation of the Son of God therefore he attempted whether he could by an Application of active things frame the Seed of Man according to his own cursed Desire The which when he had found to be in vain and impossible for him to do he tryed again whether an Impe a Witch might not be fructifyed by Sodomy And when as neither thus did the event every way answer his Intention and that he saw elsewhere that of an Asse and a Horse a Mule was bred which was nearer akin to his Mother than to his Father Likewise that of a Coney and a Dormouse being the Father a true Coney was bred being disstinct from his Mother only in his Taile like a Dormouse he declined his Crafts And indeed through a remembrance of these Things the old Law also very much abhorring such co-mixtures of Species to be horrid unto God although at this day they are among Christians so admitted that the Primates or chief Men of the Church do Ride on Monsters horrid in Gods sight Therefore Satan instituted a Connexion of the Seed of Man being first for some while nourished with Warmth with the Seed and in the Womb of a Juniour Witch or Sorceress that he might exclude the Dispositions unto an immortal Mind which God Matrimony being by him appointed promised that he would create in the Word be ye Multiplyed from such a new polished Conception And afterwards came forth an adulterous Generation of Faunes Satyrs Sylphs Gnomes Nymphs Driades Nerides and other Monsters according to the Various Disposition which the Seed of Man did undergo And seeing the Faunes and Nymphs of the Woods were preferred before the other in Beauty they afterwards generated their off-springs among themselves and the Posterities again contracted their Copulations among themselves and at length began Wedlocks with men feigning that thus they did obtain an immortal Soul as credulous Paracelsus witnesseth for themselves and their off-springs which should be born by that Conjuction But they feigned that thing through the Perswasion of the Devil that men as doing a pious Work might admit those Monsters unto carnal Copulation Which thing the Ignorant also were easily perswaded of as if the Creation of the immortal Soul and the knitting thereof unto the mortal Soul did depend on the free Will and Seed of Man the which I will beneath teach to be false as well from the holy Scriptures as from the Relation of D. Antonius in the Life of Paul the first of Anchorets described by Jerome And therefore those Nymps were antiently named Sccnbae Although Satan afterwards that he might commit a worse Wickedness frequently transchangeth himself by dissembling the Persons of the Incubus and Succubus in both Sexes But they conceived not a true Young by the Males except the Nymphs alone the which indeed seeing the Sons of God that is Men had now without distinction and in many places taken to be their Wives God was constrained to blot out the whole race begotten by these detestable Marriages through a deluge of Waters that the intent of the Evil Spirit might be Frustrated A Merchant of Aegina our Country-man an Honest-man Sayling divers times unto the Canaries or Fortunate Ilands was buisily asked by me his Serious Judgment about certain Creatures which Boys did there bring home from the Mountains as oft as they would and named them Tudesquils or little Germans for they were dryed dead Carcases almost three-footed which any Boy did easily carry in one of the Palms of his Hand and they were of an humane Shape But that whole dead Carcase was clearly like unto Parchment and their Bones were Flexible as it were Gristles Against the Sun also their Bowels and Intestines were seen Which things when as afterwards I by Spaniards there born knew to be true I considered that at this day the destroyed Race of the Pygmies was there For the Almighty would render the expectations of the evil Spirit supported by Mankind vain and void For he hath therefore manifoldly saved us from the Craft of the encompassing Lyon unto whom Eternal Punishment is due in his extream and perpetual Confusion unto the everlasting sanctifying of the divine Name But now I will propose some doubts against our Position First therefore that nothing withstands it that the most due or worthy Work of Married-folkes is the very Copulation of the Flesh Because from thence it doth not follow that matrymony was lawful from the Beginning of Creation Yea neither is
not subject unto the respects of the Superiority or Inferiority of Places nor in the next place obeying the Laws of drawing Water For because they are lively they keep their vital Property no less than the Center it self unhurt Yet assoon as they run down from thence they presently die no otherwise than as out-hunted Blood or a Hand that is cut off for then they are at first constrained to obey the Laws of the more weighty Bodies the importunate Positions of Places and Scituations To wit that they may not cease thenceforth to rush through steep Places into the Sea requiring as it were the Inn of their Antient rest In the fourth place it is to be noted That even as this Soyle being exposed in the Air in the superficies of the Earth doth express its natural Properties no less than that which lays hid some hundred of Ells from thence beneath the Horizon of the Earth So also thou shalt remember that the same Sand doth ascend unto the greatest heigth of Mountains and now and then unto their very top through the Seams and broad intervening Passages of rockie Stones and from thence do thrust forth daylie Fountains not any thing diminished by summer Heats For in Man as long as the Blood doth flloat in the Veins there is a like respect of Scituations as well in the Forehead as in the Feet and it is ignorant as well of Above as Beneath But beeing chased out of the Veins it puts on the Condition of weighty Bodies So also in the Macrocosm or great World as long as the Water doth enjoy a common Life in the former Inn it hastens upwards and downwards without labour because it knows it not But being once shaken from its vital Inn it ceaseth not to hasten until in its Iliad or Night it recovereth its blessed Retirances or Receptacles of rest Therefore the Spirit nourisheth the Waters within also the swelling of the vast Sea as the mind being diffused through the Joynts doth stir the whole Lump But from hence the Sea hath not yet sufficiently been made known which watereth the Fountains and vomiteth out Rivers and whither the Scriptures saith the same do at length unweariedly hasten For that which the Scripture calleth the Sea is a Collection of all Waters into their Antient and continual Cup-board Of which Collection this beholdable and external navigable Sea is nothing but the Fruit disposed into its Sconce Wherefore the Receptacle congregating Root and Collection altogether of all Waters containeth that boyling Sand which verily being a thousand times more wealthy and bigger doth also therefore contain as much more Water by a thousand times as the Ocean Because it is that which fills up almost the whole Diameter of the Earth for whose outmost Lip only the External Sea doth fill up the depth of one or two Leagues at most For the Arch-type or first Framer separated the Waters from the Waters Not indeed the Sea from the Rivers or the Sea should not be the Collection of all Waters or both these from the Clouds but the true and Internal Sea from this External Navigable Sea he disjoyned on the first dayes This Internal I say Invisible hitherto an Abyss and great Sea are those waters whereby the Prophet Sang the The Foundations of the World were supported and the which although they have hitherto stood neglected are called in Genesis The Sea by the Creator of Things From thence indeed also Ecclesiastes hath likewise fetched Fountains and Rivers which were to return thither They run down therefore out of this Soyle and for fear of a Vacuum the External Sea doth again pierce the same Sand as it were by straining and presently almost in its first Paces sequesters or layes aside its Saltness But because Fountains and Rivers have by a leasurely Decursion or Race dispensed the seeds and matter of all Minerals which before they kept in their Bosom and the commerces whereof the Life of Man can scarce want therefore they swiftly hasten unto the External Sea whereby they may again require fruitful Entertainments at the internal Sea the Night of Orpheus the Darkness of Pluto according to Hippocrates the Oromasis of the Persians the Iliad of Paracelsus where Reasons and Gifts the Seeds of Minerals I say being not as yet joyned unto Bodies do lay for the Water which is again to be gotten with Child by the Seeds Therefore there is not an idle sliding down of Waters into the Ocean For they are governed by Intelligence and as if they were strong in understanding cease not to utter their Offices the Testimonies of an infinite goodness and providence Surely as many as shall behold the Cabalastical Science shall admire at this in the fore-front yet most true Because those that are ignorant of most things must needs admire at most things But the Ocean doth dayly hand forth some convenient thing to our sight by a double ebbing and flowing To wit the Navil or Boss of the Water ascending contrary to the Art of drawing Water and the Waves swelling according to the Conjunction of the Moon For the Sea liveth almost by a certain right of its own to wit the Wind being silent it stirring up voluntary Ragings curiously observing a proportionable Scituation of the Moon and being swollen with Waves it going to meet the same lastly with a various successive change of Seasons Light and Motions and a continued heap of Waters lifting up its overflowings on high sometimes here sometimes elsewhere at set Intervals Therefore whosoever thou art although thou seest dayly Wonders of Nature in the Ocean the vital and fountainous Disturbances of the more inward true and lively Sea and of the far more straight or narrow Abysse which are dedicated unto humane uses cease thou to wonder CHAP. XCV Another Paradox 1. No Fountaines are from Air thickened 2. Elements are not changed or perish 3. Whatsoever is generated is generated by a Seed and whatsoever is made in Nature is made from the necessity of a Seed 4. There are onely two primitive Elements and two secondary ones 5. A Paradoxal Explication 6. A proof by handicraft operation 7. The Heaven and the Earth shall perish not the Water and the Air. 8. The Art of Distilling unfolds Natural Phylosophy 9. What a Vapour is 10. A proof against Aristotle 11. A second Mechanical Proof 12. What and of what sort the Magnal or Sheath of the Air is 13. Why small drops do not fall down in a Vapour and Snows and when they do fall 14. A proof against Aristotle 15. A proof 16 17. A handicraft operation VVE have treated concerning the Spring concerning the immediate original and nativity of Fountaines more briefly than a Paradox and more tediously I confess than the Doctrine of those of the Spaw did require for it is a most difficult thing to have kept a mean in all things to wit as the Waters do proceed from a most rich Inn of Waters unto their appointments Although in
the mean time they do now and then assoon as may be reach the Air but sometimes they run head-long down by long journeys and Pipes of Earth and rockie Stones before they yeild themselves to the Light yet there was the same reason necessity and end of their Institution on both sides to wit the will of him who created all things for our uses But it remains to crave leave that Aristotelical spirits may indulge my liberty if I shall judge it a dream impossible to Nature that Fountaines should be bred from a co-thickning of Air For indeed that also is chiefly true That Air was never nor is it to be in any Age Water even as neither was Water to assume the Form of Air. For they are first-born Elements and the constant Wombs of things stable from the Creation of the World and so remaining unto the end thereof But whatsoever hath through the ranks of Generations subscribed it self unto successive change whether it may seem to be Earthly Stony or Liquory it derives all that from the mass of three Principles dedicated unto the Tragedy of Generation but not from the first Elements which rejoyce not but in a stable continuance and the which do again lay up their deserved Youngs into their antient â—â—ceptacles until the seeds are ripe for the Generation of a new Off-spring which Seeds the same Principles of Bodies being in the mean time thorowly changed by Digestions do again cloath and re-assume For from an invisible and incorporeal seed entertained in the Wombs of the Elements and putting on the Principles of Bodies all Generation in the Universe which is called voluntary is made Others have called that thing a Flux from a Non-being unto a Being which things that they may become more perspicuous it is to be noted that unto the production of every thing two onely Sexes if not one promiscuous one at least have concurred Therefore also by the same Law of a worldly harmony there are Originally two onely Elements in the Universe to wit the Air and the Water which are sufficiently insinuated from the sacred Text by the Spirit swimming upon the Abysse or great Deep of Waters in the first beginnings of the World The Earth therefore and the Fire or Heaven if they are Elements they are called secondary ones proceeding from the former For whatsoever of Earths rocky Stones Gemms Sands c. doth exist or flowes forth into a stinking Vapour or is at first changed into Ashes a Calx or Lime or at leastwise through the Society of some Addittament into a Salt the off-spring of Waters presently afterwards they all the volatile Summe exceeding or over comming the fixed Summe are made aiery and vapoury Efluxes rushing-into water with a hastened Violence And so that whatsoever is earthy hard solid and compacted seeing all that is reducible unto a more simple thin pure and former remaining substance pardon the Novelty most resplendent Prince it must needs be that it hath no Efficacy of an Element at all but that they are more latter things than Air and Water In like manner we say of the Heaven that the Heavens shall be changed shall wax Old and Perish and so that the Heaven and the Earth shall at length Perish the like message of which Destruction thou shalt not find concerning the Air and Water In the next place the Water or Air could never in any Age be reduced into any other former Body by Art or Nature This therefore is the Face this the Ordination this in the next place is the Office Combination Fate and End of the Elements to wit that the unchanged Essence of two most simple Bodies and their unmixed substance may afford a vital Womb or Prop unto Seeds and Fruits until at length the number of things to be generated being accomplished the heap of Principles together with the Seeds do constitute strange Families and Colonies their Bride-bed being separated in a more blessed Seat For the very many Dreams wherewith the World hath suffered it self to be hitherto circumvented the handicraft Operation of the Fire doth deride with loud Laughter Who indeed will deny but that the Water is easily changed into a Vapour But that Vapour or Exhaltation is so far from being Air that the Powder of Marble or a Flint may sooner be Water as we have shewn For a Vapour is in very deed materially and formally nothing else but a heap of the Atoms of Water lifted up on high The which our School shews forth more clearly than the Light at Noon The Air therefore whether it be received in hot or cold Glasses and pressed together therein shall never afford Water but according to how much of a Vapour that is of an extenuated Water it shall contain within it But the Water is seperated into very small conspicuous Drops against the Sun thorow the Glass at the Beginning of Distillation as long as the sides are cold to wit while through the vigour of Heat it flies away extenuated into a Vapour And that thing indeed happens no otherwise than by a proper Magnal which in things mixt and so also in the Water it self is the Skie thinner than the Air and dis-joynable from the same and sustaining its compression and enlargment contending for a middle thing or Nature between a Body and not a Body receiving the Impressions of the External Stars of its native Soyle being altogether intimate in all things by reason of which alone and not of Air we draw our Breath a proper Magnal I say and a spiritual Being in the Water doth indeed lift the Water on high it being lightned by Heat procuring a divulsion or renting asunder of the Magnal which same rent Magnal detains a quantity of Water proportioned unto it self which is rent upwards as well in the Glasses as in the Clouds and doth preserve them from falling until through the compression perhaps of succeeding Atoms as it comes to pass in distillation the former do grow together into drops and do enclose the former Magnal or vital Being within themselves Or the same Magnal of the Water being rarified through Heat and being straightway after condensed through help of External Cold doth constrain and restrain those same its own Atoms of small Drops within the Limits of its command I return unto thee Stagyrian Aristotle If Air be co-thickned into Water seeing thou teachest Air more to excell in Moisture than Water I pray thee why shall Cold which is natural to the Air change the Nature of the Air into a matter which is too moist of its own Nature In the next place now Cold and no longer Heat shall possess the vital Principle of Generation Wherefore although a Vapour be Air generated of Water formally transchanged and of the same again alike water doth grow together Now thou differest from thy own self who admittest of so frequent and easie a return from a privation unto a habit At length take thou also this handicraft Experiment Air may
Ingredients of the Fountains of the Spaw What the Vitriol of Mars may be 4. Coagulation is never made without Dissolution nor this without that 5. Bodies do not act into each other 6. Between an Action there is the Odour of a dissolving Spirit 7. The dissolving Spirit is Coagulated 8. Why a vein of Iron is Invisible in the Waters 9. Why Waters do smell of Sulphur 10. Why Sharpnesse perisheth in the Waters and when 11. That which is manifest becomes hidden and that which is hidden is made manifest 12. Why not the Iron but the Vein may be said to be in Being 13. The Salt of Fountains doth not grow in the vein of Iron 14. Why one Fountain is stronger than another 15. The difference of Things contained in Fountains 16. Why the Fountain Savenirius is not translated elsewhere 17. Why the Water of Savenirius is the Lighter 18. The Spirit of Salt doth for some time operate upon a Vein VVRiters do with one accord affirm Water to be the continent of the Fountains of the Spaw But we differ from them only in their Original because it is that which brings no small moment unto the Nobility of the same But in respect of the thing contained in the Waters they far disagree from us For indeed they affirm that Vitriol is in the Water of the Spaw and that Calchitis or red Vitriol Mysy Sory Melantera or Blacking Salt Nitre that Nitre I say hath been found to be in them by the examination of Distilling which elsewhere they never saw because they testifie it is that which since the Age of Hippocrates had failed from thence Bitumen or a liquid Amber the pit Coal Alume Bole Oker Red-lead the Mother of Iron the Vein of Iron Iron Aerugo or Verdigrease burnt Chalcanthum Burnt Alume also the Flour of Brass and Sulphur have therein discovered themselves These things I say we read to be attributed by Authors unto the Fountain of the Spaw under their Mistris Uncertainty and so they doubting unto what Captain they may commit so great an Army do conclude that there are some Fountains in which thou mayest most difficulty discern an eminent Subterraneous Matter Elsewhere in the Fountains of the Spaw that a Heat of Vitriol is tempered with the Cold of Red-lead and Brass In another place that the Fountains of the Spaw are actually cold and moist but in Power or Virtue which one Physitians do examine to be hot and dry and therefore especially because they extinguish Thirst At length they say that there is the Faculty of Iron Sulphur Vitriol and of other mineral Things in these Fountains yet an uncertain Proportion of the first Qualities remaining whether thou dost consider the Variety of subterraneous Things or the various Disposition of the Drinkers And I also read that that is to be noted That the Fountain Savonirius puts on it rather the Virtues of mineral Things than their Substance that is Faculties above without or not substantial ones For elsewhere they say that Fountains wax sharp by Vitriol alone and that Vitriol is of a most sharp Savour but in another place with Diascorides they find in Vitriol more of an ungrateful and earthy astriction than of a sharpness Lastly even as nought but the extream torture of the Fires doth allure forth a most sharpe Oyl out of Vitriol to wit a hungry and sulphurous Salt elevating the brassy Spirits So from hence they suppose Fountains to wax sharp and not otherwise to wit that such an Heat in the Earth doth stir up the sharp Spirits of Vitriol unto the Superficies of the Earth which being there constrained by Cold and changed into a sharp Matter are co-mixed with the neighbouring Fountain Which Position many Anguishes do accompany First Because there is no such voluntary Distillation in the Universe And then because at least the inward parts of the Earth according to Hippocrates are Cold in Summer to wit when the Water of the Spaw is at best Thirdly Because the Spirit of Vitriol cannot but gnaw the Earth or Rockie-stones which it toucheth and therefore put of all sharpness which is vainly dedicated to Fountains Fourthly Because in Summer the coldness of the Earth is not in its Superficies only because it is more in condensing the Spirits than the more inward Parts from whence they imagine the Spirits to be chased through the force of heat Fifthly Because the Spirits of Vitriol being immingled with the Water although negligently locked up do neither lay aside their sharpness nor are they tinged with a ruddie colour the which notwithstanding is altogether social unto Fountainous Waters Hitherto the Opinion of others hath led me aside I will confess my Blindness I at sometime seriously distilled Savenirius and Pouhontius and indeed I found not so great a Catalogue of Minerals yea not any thing in them besides Fountain-water and the Vitriol of Iron by other Writers before me neglected But the Vitriol of Mars consisteth of the hungry Salt of embryonated Sulphur and of the Vein of Iron not of Iron which Vein the hungry Salt being as yet volatile hath by licking corroded In which Act of corroding there is made a certain kind of Dissolution of the Vein it self and a coagulation or fixation of the volatile Salt The Salt I say as long as it is volatile that is apt by being pressed by the Fire to fly away is reckoned among Spirits But Bodies do not corrode Bodies as such neither do fixed things act on or into each other but only as one of them is volatile that is a Spirit whether it be grown together or liquid In the next place in all solution as may be seen in the activity of Aqua Fortis distilled Vinegar c. Some Exhalations are stirred up being before at quiet which as they are wild ones they do not again obey coagulation therefore the Waters do of necessity fly away or being restrained do burst the Vessels But besides that also is afterwards to be noted that how much of the Spirits hath compleated the solution of the Body so much also it hath assumed a corporality in the solved Body From hence therefore a reason plainly appeareth why the Waters of the Spaw in so great a clearness or perspicuity do hide in them the dark Body of the Vein of Iron Next why in the activity of an hungry Salt they do cast a smell of Sulphur notwithstanding the corporal Sulphur be absent At length it is also easie to be seen why the Waters about the end of their activity for that speediness of solution doth continue a longer or shorter time in diverse Fountains do loose their Sharpness and why the Vein being before transparent doth then appear ruddy To wit the Spirits being now partly chased away or the same being weakened and coagulated at the end of Activity the imbibed Vein settles and is manifested which before had remained hidden the Waters in the meantime recovering their natural or proper Simplicity Furthermore it is not
that labour with the astonished Disease Convulsion and Palsie and Leprous Persons to be Cured Fie fie Miracles are manifested by an Unimitable finger Besides it behooveth rightly to distinguish effects by Accident from those which are due unto their Causes by themselves As if a Virgin through the failing of her Menstrues doth labour with a strangling Epilepsie or affect of the Palsie but her Courses bewraying themselves upon the drinking of the Water of the Spaw she be freed from the annexed disposition there is not cause that therefore we should commend the true Apoplexie Asthma falling Evil or Palsie to have been Cured by the Fountains of the Spaw For Diseases which proceed from the Womb are Uniuersally the Client of another Monarchy and do consist of another Root than those which break forth from the Condition of the Microcosme as well in the one as in the other Sex The which indeed if any one shall not distinguish of he procures loud laughter to himself from the more discreet Person But besides it hath already been spoken how much a hungry Salt may profit in Fountains but hereafter we must shew what the Coâ—roded and dissolved Mine of Iron may act That therefore first of all doth manifestly binde and therefore it strengthens the Stomach and any of its neighbouring parts In loose therefore and dissolute Diseases the Waters of the Spaw do agree or are serviceable to wit in those of the Lientery Flux Caeliacke Passion and Dysentery or bloody Flux c. Whereunto I exspect that it will be objected that whatsoever Irony matter is offered it provokes the mouth Issues and alwayes the breaches or enfeeblements of the Liver and Slpeen and so that from hence it is agreeable to truth that the Waters of the Spaw are rather opening than Astringent By reason of which difficulties some perhaps doubting do rather flie for refuge unto the unlike parts in Mars I answer from the Adeptists That there doth oft-times wander up and down in us a certain resolved Salt and Mineral one plainly Excrementitious a resolved Tartar I say existing either in the first or in the last matter whereof whether the Womb Liver Slpeen Kidney the Mesentery or Stomach be the Mine we now reckon it all one So that it be manifest that it brings forth remarkable troubles unto that labour with it Stomoma therefore that is Steel or Iron Administred in Powder being drunk down assoon as may be that hurtful Salt which hearkens not to the commands of purging things runs headlong unto the Iron and adheres unto it that it may dissolve that and display its own Faculty and so is Coagulated nigh that and together with the Iron goes forth But if the Iron or Steel be drunk being dissolved in a sharp Liquour yet not hostile unto us to wit the Spaw waters Nature the same liquours being wasted and more inwardly admitted within presently separates the Iron because it is unapt for nourishment from that which was co-mixed with it and sends it forth thorow the Bowels As may be seen in the blackness of the dungs of the Fountains of the Spaw In which Sequestration of the Iron there is straightway made a Con-flux of Mineral Salts no otherwise than as Silver dissolved in Chrysulca or Aqua Fortis doth flie unto applyed Brasse and dissolved Brasse unto Iron The received Iron therefore freeth from obstruction and openeth by accident to wit the vanquished obstructing matter being taken away with it yet not that it therefore ceaseth by it self to be constrictive It opens I say by a specifical and appropriated power but it constrains or binds by a second quality Now moreover seeing the drinking of the water hath increased a courage and hope in the miserable sick especially in those that have the Stone I will declare my judgement It is certain that the Waters of the Spaw do wash or rince the region of the Urine both because they do easily pass thorow and also because they being many and abundantly drunk and Mineral their hungry Salt hinders whereby the Spirit of the Urin the onely Architect of Stones in us may by a property inbred in it the less Stonifie any thing Because another more potent Salt doth now derive the same Spirit being as it were bound into its own Jurisdiction But because that is onely a Cloakative or dissembled Cure although the made Stones and Sands are expelled as it were by the cleansing of the sliding water yea as long as the waters shall be drunk they hinder new Collections of the Stone Yet because they do soon after grow again we judge them to be unfaithful or untrusty Remedies for those that have the Stone For by so much the more readily indeed the Stone hastens to grow by how much that womb the other parent of the Stone shall be the cleaner For shall not the Urine more easily glew a Stone unto a clean Urinal or Chamber-pot than unto one that is besmeared with Oyl For from hence perhaps the Kidneys of Bruit Beasts do abound with very much grease We therefore know a perfect Cure of the Stone and the desired rest to be a far different thing wherein the lesser Stones being sweetly expelled which is the least thing the greater indeed may return into their former Juice by a Retrograde resolving of their Concretion or Composure But neither shall that be sufficient unless the Stonifying inclination be taken away by restorers to wit by the Collected harvest of a few remedies nor is any one able to hope for an entire and wished for health from the Stone no less than from a Fever concerning which we have written in other places and afforded Remedies For the Virtue of healing stands right under every weight that is all Diseases are with it of one value or esteem and it can be diminished by no Disease The more noble powers of remedies onely are desired which cry unto Heaven to the Creator that they have come as it were in vain neither that there is any one almost who can loosen their bands We must timely abstain from complaints in an Ulcerous or corrupt age Therefore as to what belongs unto the first qualities of the Fountains of the Spaw although we are very little careful of those because they are Momentary and those which have not a Vital Anatomy as often as they are not infamous in a very incensed degree yet we Decree that their hungry Salt is in the first Degree of heat and dryth but that the dissolved Vein of Iron hath reached to the second Degree of Cold and Dryth But it hath been shewn with an indulgence of Aristotle and by the above-said Inferences that the water it self is moist in the highest degree but remisly Cold. But because those qualities as well of the water as of the Minerals are Relosteous ones or those which have not a Seminal Being in them they have not any thing of a Cure in them but they Preposterously or over-thwartly happen unto constituted things like
Quick-sighted and provident Nature comes to meet or prevent this same Dryness with a more large Nourishment of Marrow and She would have it to be Fat and less discussable or dispersable by Heates that it may vindicate the Old Age of the Bones from Dryness by its Unctuous Moisture For therefore there is a greater plenty or Marrow in four-footed Beasts that are Aged than in the little Young Ones because there is a greater necessity thereof I therefore do no longer highly esteem of the irrepairable radical Moisture for the Foundation of Life as neither being astonished at Dryness in as much as it is such neither also am I wont to measure out the Life according to the Pleasure of the first Qualities Because I knew that the Life did not wax dry as neither was it to be drawn from the Bosom of the Elements after that I beheld the interchangeable Courses of a long and short Life to be in the Center of Life CHAP. CV The Vital Air. THe Schools have not performed enough in teaching that Nourishments are transchanged first into Chyle and then from hence into the Digested Juice of Venal Blood and so that in the Liver a natural Spirit is made which by a repeated Digestion in the Heart is formed into vital Spirit and at length that in the Brain it is made animal So as that the natural Spirit should be fit for using the Parts but the Vital for quickning and conserving the same as also lastly that the Animal Spirit should be appointed for the Functions of Sense Motion and of the Mind But moreover in my Judgment it had behoved them more largely to discover the Thingliness and History of the Deed in so long a race of Studies and Repetition of Writers Indeed they know that there is a certain Spirit that Maker of the Assault according to Hippocrates which holds the Stern of Life in its Hand It was to be sought for and pronounced in what Organs or Instruments that Spirit should be made or what it should act and also they ought to have explained every Disposition the Substance thereof and the Properties of its Substance and also the manner of its making I therefore will declare what I may meet with in this respect That therefore we may be led into the Knowledge of the Vital Spirit the Blas of Man should first of all be repeated in this place but least I be tedious I will here omit it and refer the Reader elsewhere unto the Volume of the rise of Medicine I have elsewhere also delivered a Mean or Manner whereby through instilled Ferments an Aqua Vitae may be made of every Plant and Fruit whatsoever Which manner the vulgar Sort hath known and doth exercise while it frameth an Aqua Vitae or Liquor of Life out of Grains Fruits Ale or Beer Hydromel or honied Water no less than out of Juice of the Vine But an Aqua Vitae is a volatile Liquor Oylie indeed as it is wholly enflamed and likewise wholly Salt for as much as being an Air it biteth yea and being but a little while detained in the Mouth it burns and embladders the upper skin of the Gums I in this place taking notice by the way that two Beginnings of Chymistry are one only and an undivideable Simple thing I have shewn also elsewhere after what manner one Pound of Aqua Vitae being combibed in the dryed Salt of Tartar scarce half an Ounce of Salt can be made but that the whole Body may be made an Elementary Water as it was before And so that from hence it is easie to be seen that Water is by Nature a more formerly and simple Body that the Chymical Beginnings themselves While as the Water which at first was not in act in the most expurging or refined Aqua Vitae is nevertheless by its reducement thereby made its first Element of Water The which handicraft Operation moreover by transferring unto the Speculation of Life I find that the Wine in its winy Parts containeth the Aqua Vitae the Water of Life and therefore that is easily quickly and without the digested Maturities of the Liver and Gaul snatched through the Arteries of the Stomack unto the Heart or to be called unto it immediately for the supply and defect of the vital Spirit and in this respect to delude the Opinion of the Schools which presupposeth that the Spirit of the Liver ought to precede For if there be more of the Spirit of Wine in the Stomack than is meet Drunkenness follows to wit as the Spirit of Wine is more largely attracted than can in a fit Interval be changed into Vital Spirit Which thing surely proveth first of all a changing of and also the Operations of a Digestion and Ferment In the next place that also is remarkable To wit that there is a certain more mild Spirit in the Wine a Partaker of another and more noble Quality than that Spirit which is immediately drawn out by Distillation and is called refined or expurged Aqua Vitae The which is easily beheld by the Sight in the simple Oyl of Olives because Oyl being Distilled without the Additaments of Bricks or Tiles and the which therefore is called Oleum Philosophorum differs much from its Oyliness which is extracted the simple Oyl being first reduced into unlike Parts only by the Digestion and Application of the circulated Salt of Paracelsus For truly the circulated Salt is separated the same in weight and antient Qualities from the Oyl after that the Oyl of Olives is disposed into its diverse kinds of Parts For then by this means a sweet Oyl is separated from the Oyl of Olives even as also a most sweet Spirit of Wine from the Wine and that far distinct from the tartness of Aqua Vitae But in us although the meat together with the Drink do after some sort putrifie for that Purefaction is a manner and mean of transchanging a thing into a thing yet in our Digestions the Spirit of Aqua Vitae is not by such a Putrefaction and action of the Ferment of the Spleen drawn out of Potherbs Pulses Bread-Corns or Apples For truly it is not the Intention of our Nature to procreate an Aqua Vitae for it self but there is a far different Ferment in us whereby things are resolved into Chyle And a far different one whereby things do putrifie and are separated into an Aqua Vitae For this Ferment is introduced by many Mediums but that is not attained but by a specifical fermental Property of any Species For while Herbs through a long steeping in Water are made to putrifie by their Ferment or Vicar for the extracting of an Aqua Vitae the stalke branches and entire Leaves remaine in their Figure and Hardness the which notwithstanding being chewed swallowed and well concocted within do in a few hours depart into Chyle and loose the first Nature of Herbs Wherefore I have also elsewhere pressed to wit that there are as many specifical digestive
of the Life that was to be governed to slide on the neck of the sensitive Soul CHAP. CXI Life Eternal THe Gospel promiseth to mortal Men not only that the Son of God was Incarnate and suffered for the Salvation of Man but that these two Misteries are to be applyed unto Individuals which else should be as it were in vain But I have considered of that Application after this manner For indeed by Sin Man brake no less the Intent than the Decree of God from whence humane Nature was corrupted in its Root because there followed another almost beast-like Generation thereupon which of it self is uncapable of life Eternal Wherefore the Gospel ought to include the abolishment of Original Sin and of all other things issuing from the Corruption of Nature Therefore seeing Man thenceforeward ought to be born no longer of God but naturally only of the Bloods of the Sexes of the will of the Flesh and of the will of Man neither yet could his Body rise again through any Power of his own into its antient Dignity and much less cease to be that it might again and otherwise begin to be Therefore the joyful Message was brought unto us that one Baptisme should be given for the Remission of Sins whereby Man should be so renewed by Water and the Holy Spirit that his Soul should be born again as it were by a new Nativity and be made partaker of the unspotted Humanity of Christ the Saviour being framed by the holy Spirit Which new Birth also reposeth the Soul into its antient State of Innocency taking away Sin and we believe that thing altogether really thus to be but not as if we should embrace Allegories or Metaphors for truth but these things do so really and actually happen in Baptized Persons that God doth grant a Testimony of that actual Grace which is conferred by Baptisme to be sensibly derived into the Body In which respect indeed Mahometans receive Baptism as it takes away from them an inbred Stink otherwise durable for Life and the which we observe to be otherwise in all Jews at this day And so the more inward effect of Baptisme doth even outwardly shine forth Yea and that thing confirmes that there is a perpetual and unobliterable effect of one only Baptisme But that new Birth doth not take away Death but leaves Christians with the Fardle of a corrupt Body generated by the Will of Man and in this respect nevertheless leaves the Soul subject to the Vices of a corrupted Body Wherefore unto those that are of ripe Age Baptisme was not sufficient although unto those of younger Years as long as they are innocent it is abundantly sufficient There is therefore another Priviledge promulged whereby Persons of ripe Years may have eternal Life that he who shall not eat unworthily the Lords Body Christ shall raise him up unto Life in the last Day but if he shall not eat he is to have no Life in him For this Mistery was given unto us for the Life of the World For the Life of the World is Adamical Frail or Mortal and well nigh Brutal For the transchanging whereof a Pledge is given unto us and likewise an actual and real Participation of Life eternal Therefore the Merits of the Lords Passion are comunicated unto us through a participation of the unspotted Virginity of Christ the Lord for the Communion of his most pure and chast Body unites us to himself and doth actually regenerate us in himself and so gives us a Life conformable unto himself The Body of the Lord is given for the Life of the World And although the Body of Man which was conceived of Bloods doth not presently perish Yet in that very Moment wherein we are united with the Lords Body and his Humanity it makes us partakers of his incomprehensible Incarnation and restores us into the antient Integrity of humane Nature as we do partakingly attain the most pure Virginity of Christ wherein we ought to be saved And so by reason of his amorous Union a participation of the Merits of his Passion is attributed unto us Therefore the most principal effect of the holy sacred Eucharist is a Participation of the Purity and Virgin-uncorrupted Nature of the Lord Jesus And so for this Cause it is declared by a proper Circumlocution to be Wine budding forth Virgins Furthermore that this Mistery of the unutterable Love of God doth operate the aforesaid real effects of regeneration in the Nature of Man The Apostle teacheth We shall all indeed rise again but we shall not all be changed As if he should say All Mortals shall at sometime rise again from Death The Damned indeed shall rise again being not any thing changed but in their former Adamical Body being ponderous not piercing c. to wit only the wished for necessity of Death being taken away from them But Children being regenerated by the Laver of Baptisme shall rise again in a Body after some sort Glorified but by so much the less perfect by how much they were remote from so great an happiness But they who were united in the communion of the Lords Body shall rise again plainly glorious throughout their whole Nature because they were most perfectly regenerated in their life-time of which Regeneration although visible Signs appeared not yet they were in very deed within for neither are they made anew in the Resurrection unless they had first fore-existed in the Life-time by an every-way regeneration Our Faith is not of things not in Being but of true things not Visible because he will have us to profit by Faith Wherefore although this Mark of resemblance of Love and Union with God be altogether unsearchable even as also its Effects are only invisible Yet the aforesaid mystical and real New-birth is as yet reckoned earthly by Nicodemus and from that Title I have transferred it hither I therefore contemplate of the New-birth or renewing of those that are to be saved to be made in a sublunary and earthly Nature just even as in the Projection of the Stone which maketh Gold For truly I have divers times seen it and handled it with my hands but it was of colour such as is in Saffron in its Powder yet weighty and shining like unto powdered Glass There was once given unto me one fourth part of one Grain But I call a Grain the six hundredth part of one Ounce This quarter of one Grain therefore being rouled up in Paper I projected upon eight Ounces of Quick-silver made hot in a Crucible and straightway all the Quick-silver with a certain degree of Noise stood still from flowing and being congealed setled like unto a yellow Lump but after pouring it out the Bellows blowing there were found eight Ounces and a little less than eleven Grains of the purest Gold Therefore one only Grain of that Powder had transchanged 19186 Parts of Quick-silver equal to it self into the best Gold The aforesaid Powder therefore among earthly things is found
to be after some sort like them the which transchangeth almost an infinite quantity of impure Mettal into the best Gold and by uniting it to it self doth defend it from cankering rust rottenness and Death and makes it to be as it were Immortal against all the torture of the Fire and Art and translates it into the virgin-Purity of Gold only it requires Heat The Soul therefore and Body are thus regenerated by Baptisme and the communion of the unspotted Body of the Lord so that a just heat of Devotion of the Faithful shall be present Let the Divine pardon me if I as being beyond my Last have spoken of Life eternal by way of a Parenthesis For I willingly confess that a regenerated Body is not belonging to my Employment I treat only of prolonging the Life of the World This only I have said that Baptisme doth bring with it a real Effect of Purity perceivable by Sense and that the holy-sacred Communion of the Eucharist hath something like it in earthly things whereby we may the more easily believe Regeneration CHAP. CXI The Occasions of Death I Have compared the Fire and Light unto Life because it bears something before it which seemeth to be vital For vital Forms are either the Lives or Lights of things Therefore there shall likewise be as many occasions of Death as there are withdrawings of Light First therefore the Light is blown out and likewise the Flame perisheth by pressing together which they call through defect of Air. But I have demonstrated that that happens through want of a new Magnal but not that the Fire is nourished by Air So also by the constriction of a strange Smoak So indeed in Vaults and Burrows Lamps are extinguished but the Light is blown out by the Wind or another Flame For oftentimes Candles are extinguished by a filthy or deformed Flame being stirred up by the Powder of Rosin or Gun-powder Lastly Fires die through want of Nourishment Death in like manner doth many wayes rush on us For either a live Body is suddenly dashed together or sore shaken by weight Also a speedy pouring forth of Blood from a large Wound pours forth the Life and blows out the Light of Life So an inordinate Prodigality of corrupt Matter Water or Wind being abundantly made likewise Baths Hunger loosening Medicines introduce an untimely Death Also by the pressing together of the Breath in Burrows of the Asthma of a Cord of drowning of Smoak and by the Symptoms of the Womb likewise by the Resolutions and Palseys of the Sinews subjected to breathing In like manner by Burnings Destructions Coalifyings Gangrenes and Congelations of Cold. Also by Poysons Alculies gnawing Things Escharrers Putrifiers or Things that trample upon us by a fermental Contagion Likewise by retained Excrements Obstructions and the denied Commerces of Parts Likewise through Defect of some certain Digestion an Atrophia and Consumptions of a Part or of the whole Body Also by over-pourings of the Blood within the Skull Breast bottom of the Belly by corrupt mattery Impostumes Pleurisies affects of the Lungs c. Likewise by displacings of the turning Joynts Contractures of the Parts apppointed for expurging of Filths At length by reason of a Feeble Decrepit and woren-out Death of the Seeds and Powers And also by reason of the more grievous Passions of the Mind and Enchantments Death therefore doth so many manner of wayes steal away Mortals whose Life notwithstanding is alwayes simple and single For therefore there is a diverse and differing Consideration of Life and Death for a Sword takes away Life Yet there is far different Speculation of preserving Life than of healing of Diseases by the removals and hinderances of the Cause For truly Causes are partly external as a Wound the Plague Scorching c. the healing whereof therefore doth not depend on the removal of their Causes For neither therefore is the Fire which had burned any one to be extinguished from the Hearth that he may be cured even as neither is the Sword to be broken that the Wound may be healed up But for the preservation of Long Life the contemplations and removals of external Causes do no less occur or come to hand than those of a vital Fewel For indeed although no Infirmities should molest yet Death should not for that Cause cease dayly to strew a way for its entrance For although health hath respect to Life as its Foundation yet Life doth not include health For a Blind Lame Gowty Person c. doth no less live than a Healthy or Sound Person What if Life ends through a Disease that is forreign and by accident unto the Life as a Sword contains Death but not but by Application Otherwise Death doth by it self respect Life but diseasifying Causes become Mortal only by accident or by their Application unto the Spirit of Life For from hence it is that the Impediments of Long Life are seriously to be heeded and diverted if we expect length of Life From the Beginning therefore the meditation of Life consisteth not without but in the Life it self To wit after what manner Life may be preserved in the Body For the sensitive Soul now forthwith after Sin as I have said drew the whole property of Life unto it self and became the bond of Life with the Body But seeing that very Soul is in it self Mortal it must needs be first of all that all the vital Powers co-aeval or of a like Age with the Life should be slideable and mortal From hence at length Death For a long continuance of Life therefore first a curing of Diseases is required as well of those which touch at the Life of the whole Body as those which have regard unto the Dammages or preservation of a Part and Functions and which in this respect do lay in wait for the Life For truly seeing there is a single conspiracy of the Members certain principal Powers cannot chuse but at length go to decay also the subordinate ones being only diminished Wherein I disagree from Paracelsus because he thought that every Disease was of necessity to be taken away by a Medicine for long Life Because that good Man was no less ignorant of a Medicine for Long Life and the use thereof than of the very Essence and Properties of Long Life And therefore his Arcanums do very much conduce into a healthy or sound Life or unto a removal of Impurities yet they do not any thing directly and primarily tend to long Life as unto their ultimate end Because that as the Life So the Tree of Life chiefly concerns the preservation and renewing or making young again of the vital Faculties implanted in the Arts. In this therefore the Arcanums or Secrets which are for the taking away of Superfluities differ from the Tree of Life That those indeed do cure Diseases even those which our parent Nature doth by her self never Cure To wit the Leprosie Stone Palsy Consumption of the Lungs Dropsie c. but
also conceived it within and doth not that Knowledge presuppose a Phantasie proper to its kinde for so some Simples induce an Alienation of the Mind but some others a Madness or maddish Fury not indeed through a Destruction of the Brain or a dispersing of its Spirits for then at least the Strength and most strong Faculties of the mad or furious Person would not remain but by a strange kind of and furious Phantasie of those Simples being introduced which being victress subdues ours and keeps the same a Servant it self for a time as in Doatage the Phrensie c. Sometimes also perpetually as in lunatick and mad or Bedlam-persons Doth not the Madness of Dogs thus pass over into Man For the maddish Phantasie of Fury is transplanted into the Spittle of their Tongue which as victress soon triumphs over the Blood of that Animal which the Skin being opened it shall never so slenderly touch Then indeed the antient Phantasie of the whole Blood gives place and will it nill it assumes an hydrophobial Phantasie or an estranged Imagination of the fear of Water From whence at length comes a Binsical Death that is from the sole Sickness of the Mind to wit the magical Virtue of the Dog being exalted and excited or stirred up above the non-excited but drowsie Imagination of the Animals Plainly after the same manner is the Phantasie of the Tarantula imprinted by a slender stroak of his Sâ—ing and the Wounded or Stung Persons being presently alienated in their Mind fall a dancing and leap hugely yet the Venom of the Tarantula differs from that of a mad Dog in this that this acts by a Magical Power being stirred up and so by the Magick of a true name But the other by a drowsie Magical Faculty even as the same difference is manifest in Wolâ—s-bane and other destructive Plants which kill with a very small quantity because no living Creature Secures or defends himself against a mad Dog because there is in him a binding magical Power against which Teeth or Horns do not prevaile which cannot be said of the Poyson of the Tarantula In the External Man therefore even as in his fellow Animals the magical Power is as it were laid asleep neither can it be stir'd up only in Man although indeed much more easily in him but in some living Creatures his Consorts Yea neither is it sufficient that Spirits do observe this Law of Concord and single Duel with Spirits but moreover there lurks a certain Spirit in the whole Universe which we call the great Magnal or Sheath which being the Pander of Sympathy or Fellow Feeling and Dyspathy or difficulty of suffering doth exist as a Communicater and Promoter of Actions and by reason whereof Magnetism or Attraction is by a Vehicle or Instrument of conveyance extended to an Object at a distance That thing is proved to our sight For if thou shalt place a slender Straw upon the Cord or String of a Lute hanging with a doubtful extremity or with an equal weight in the Air like a Ballance and shalt strike the like string of another Lute that is aloof off when the Tunes do co-agree in the eighth Note thou shalt see the Chaff to tremble but when the Tunes or Notes agree in a Unisone then otherwise the string of the quiet Lute being impatient of delay quavets or hops a little skips for joy and shakes off the hated Straw by its jumping Shall here also Satan be the Fidler in their esteem Which Straw doth not happen to leap although all the Strings of the other Lutâ— be unanimously strongly and near at hand struck upon Nor also doth the naked Tune constrain the other and quiet string to leap a little for then every Note would effect that but it is only the Spirit which is the common Pander inhabiting in the middle of the Universe which being the faithful executer and assistant of natural Actions derives promotes and also causeth the Sympathy Why are we so sore afraid of the name of Magick Seeing that the whole action is Magical neither hath a thing any Power of Acting which is not produced from the Phantasie of its Form and that indeed Magically But because this Phantasie is of a limited Identity or Sameliness in Bodies devoid of choice therefore the Effect hath ignorantly and indeed rustically stood ascribed not to the Phantasie of that thing but to a natural Property they indeed through an Ignorance of Causes substituting the Effect in the room of the Cause When as after another manner every Agent acts on its proper Object to wit by a fore-feeling of that Object whereby it disperseth its Activity not rashly but on that Object only to wit the Phantasie being stirred after a sense of the Object by dispersing of an ideal Entity and coupling it with the Ray of the passive Entity This indeed hath been the magical Action of natural things yet the Magick and Phantasie that is properly so named is in Creatures enlarged or ennobled with a Power of choice I will go thorow them according to their ranks The formal Properties therefore which issue from the Forms of the three Principles Salt Sulphur and Mercury or Salt Fat and Liquor from whence every Body is composed and again resolved into the same and the Mercury or Liquor is so often diverse as there are Species or particular kinds of things let the same Judgment be of the Salt and Sulphur Those Properties I say flow from the Phantasies of these Forms the which because they are exceeding corporeal and do as yet stick in the Bosom of the Elements therefore they are called formal and occult Properties by reason of the Ignorance of the Forms which otherwise are magical Effects propagated from the Phantasie of the said Forms but they are ignoble and very corporeal ones yet abundantly satisfying the ends which they have respect unto Of this kind are the subductive or loosening Property of the Belly the sleepifying Property c. in things There are also besides these other more noble Properties arising from the Phantasie of the Forms of the mixt Body and those of this sort are in the whole composed Body by reason of its Form as the Magnetism of the Load-stone the Virtue of Tinctures Likewise all specifical and appropriated Things or Medicines which happen by reason of the whole homogeneal Mixture or of the Form of any one entire part but not of some one principle alone such as those are which are seated in the Flesh or Trunck Root Leaves and Fruit and not in any one of the three Principles being separated there-from Likewise Antimony as long as it remaines in its Form obtaineth most excellent Properties the which it never attaineth in its Principles and these are also from a corporeal Bosom and therefore the spiritual Magick is also hidden in these and is thought to be due only to Nature by unfitly distinguishing this in opposition to Magick So the Leaf of the Rose hath another kinde of
and Herbs are far less Arcanums than those aforesaid Lastly the volatile Salts of Herbs and Stones do shew forth a precise particularity neither do they reach unto the efficacy of Universal Medicines But his Corollate the which one alone is purgative by Stool cures the Ulcers of the Lungs Bladder Wind-pipe Kidneys by purging so that it also utterly roots out the Gowt Indeed it is the Mercury of the Vulgar from which the Liquor Alkahest hath been once distilled and it resides in the bottom coagulated and powderable being not any thing inâ—reased or diminished in its weight From which Powder the Water of the Whites of Eggs is to be cohobated until it hath attained the colour of â—oral I praise the Lord of things in an Abject or lowly Spirit because he reveals his Secrets unto the little Ones of this World and doth alwayes govern the Stern least these his benefits should fall into the hands of the unworthy I have therefore discerned that the Secrets of Paracelsus do take away Diseases but that they reach not unto the Root of long Life I have also discerned that Mineral Remedies unto whatsoever the highest degree they are brought yet that they are unfit for yielding Nourishment unto the first constitutive Parts because they reserve the middle Life of the concrete Bodies from whence they were extracted For for that cause they never wholly lay aside a mineral Disposition Yea and therefore they depart from the tenour of long Life Yea neither shall I ever be easily induced to believe that the Phylosophers Stone can vitally be united with us by reason of its exceeding immutable substance which is incredibly fixed against the tortures of the Fire being undissolvably homogeneal or simple in kind that is by reason of its every way impossibility of separation destruction and digestion so far is it from conducing to long Life Histories subscribe unto me that none who obtained that Stone enjoyed a long Life but that a short Life hath befalleâ— many by reason of the dangers undergone in labouring But moreover neither let Hucksters hope that Meats which do mightily nourish will perform long Life For although they may afford strength unto those that are upon recovery yet they afterwards weaken them being nourished The which Caesar also testifies For the more tender Meats are easily consumed breed tender Flesh and suffumigate or smoakiâ—e the vital Powers through their more greatly adust savour But the Studies of Physitians are buisied about the delights of the Kitchâ—â— which they name the Dietary Part for they have been misled into errour by thinking that if Food of good Juice and tender being administred in a due dose doth profit those upon recovery they have thought also that the more strong Persons being manifoldly nourished with the same Food shall be raised up into the highest increase of strength For there is not a process made in seeding as in Arithmetick where ten Pounds lift up nine and by donsequence a hundred Pounds ninety But he that eats very much and drinks abundantly shall not therefore become stronger than he that shall live more moderately For truly Nature keeps noâ— so much the proportions of Numbers as the proportions of the Powers of things alterable according to the Power of their own Blas However it is at least-wise it succeeds with Physitians according to their desire Because plenty of venal Blood breeds Excrements Physitians are called for and so they command the rules of Food at least-wise to profit themselves and they shorten the Life in those that live medicinally and miserably CHAP. CXVI The Mountain of the Lord. VVHo shall ascend into the Mountain of the Lord Or who shall stand in his holy Place He that is innocent in his Hands and of a clean Heart who hath not betaken his Soul to Vanity nor hath sworn in deceit to his Neighbour this Man shall receive the blessing from the Lord and mercy from God his Saviour The Words sound Eternal blessedness It is so Notwithstanding nothing hinders but that that figural and typical Speech may also unfold its Truth according to the Letter seeing it must needs be that the Type doth co-answer to the thing signified by the Type Truly I have alwayes observed that almost all the Mysteries of God were celebrated in mountains For Abraham was commanded to ascend a Mountain and there to sacrifice his only begotten Son for a Figure of the Sacrifice that was to be offered in Mount Calvary God commanded Moses to ascend up into a Mountain that he might talk with him and he gave him the Law And Moses talked with him face to face for the space of forty dayes and nights In Mount Horeb the Lord was transfigured c. All which things might have been done in the Desart and the God of Armies could have encompassed Moses with Lightning and Fire as well in a Plain as in a Mountain that no Mortal might have approached thereunto but a Mountain was alwayes chosen from a priviledge And the blessing from the Lord is promised in ascending unto the Mountain of the Lord For the Lord could have signified his Precepts unto Moses in a shorter space neither was there need of forty continual Dayes and Nights but that also delay might by its weight for delay in natural things is required for a just or due Efficacy of the maturities of things denote some hidden Mystery For naturally I understand that in Mountaines wanting an endemical malignity there is not only a most pure Air far remote from Dreg and Corruption commonly seperated from Errours and Defects and by reason of Colds most refined from all defilement but also that there is the Place from whence through the continuation of its Magnal there is a most dispatched in-beaming of the heavenly Bodies or Influences because a drinking in of a most pure Skie For I remembred that one Morning I being fasting felt in the Alpes the sweetness of an inbreathed Air the which I never before nor after felt in all my Life For it is certain that the Almighty hath not framed so great a Bunch in Nature in vain And it is certain that all the Riches of the World are issued out of Mountains And then the best Fountains and most famous Rivers are conversant with us out of Mountains by reason of their steepness In the next place all Nations which are the inhabitants of Mountains are of an hardier Body and of a more vigorous or flourishing Life than those who inhabit pleasant Fields Which Effects do manifest their Causes because a more sweet and purer Air is there in-breathed and every Gas being deprived of its Filths returns into the pure matter of Water But that God lifts up so great an Earth or the very face of the Earth into an heap or hath built so many great or rocky Stones upon the same or hath conjoyned it into one rocky Stone nor yet hath enriched it with any Mineral in which respect he might seem to have collected so
enlargements every one being distinct in a particular degree in an understanding supernaturally arising Which I thus prove Every good Gift descendeth from the Father of Lights The obtainment of Healing is a good Gift Therefore it descendeth from the Father of Lights The major Proposition is of Faith But the minor is manifest as a Physitian as such is created by the Father of Lights They reply by a certain similitude and nothing to the Syllogism after this manner The Knowledge of God is more difficult than that of Medicine But the Heathens have naturally found by the Operations of their understanding the existence of the God-head Therefore they far more easily obtained the natural Science of Healing I answer by granting the whole if they shall not bring in four Terms Therefore even as by Nature none can draw the Light of Faith but only a certain shadowie knowledge So also in the Gift of Medicine I grant that a certain knowledge of healing is naturally attained by observations of what is helpful and hurtful but surely that knowledge is so shadowie and blind that it plainly resisteth the Text which should say in vain That God created the Physitian as such and him to be honoured unless there did shine forth some Light in this created Physitian above the vulgar ordinary and natural intellectual Power of the Soul At length that neither Atheists nor Heathens as neither Jews ever received that Gift of healing it is not elsewhere nor farther to be drawn than that De facto or from the deed done a Disease Remedies and every appropriation hereof are as yet to this day unknown to Mortals For it is an invincible argument The obtainment of Medicine hath been hitherto unknown Therefore God hath not given that gift unto Paganism in fore-past Agâ—â— at neither to the Schools they following 〈◊〉 Leaders The correlative whereof is That whosoever assents unto the Doctrins of the Paganish Schooles is secluded from the true Principles of Healing For I will demonstrate the Assumption God favouring me in an ample Volume To wit that the Principles of knowing the Causes and Roots in Diseases Remedies and Appropriations have remained unknown The Consequence is by it self clear unless they shall shew that every good gift is derived elsewhere than from God For it ought to be sufficient for the establishment of the Gift of Medicine that although the obtainment of Healing be so near the Nature of the Understanding that by reason of the nearnesse of natural Objects and their necessities it is accustomed to three natural Sciences apprehended by a simple Intellect yet as at least it includeth the Gifts of Prudence Counsel c. which are the free Gifts of the holy-Spirit truly the Gift of Medicine ought to be brought and expected from such a Beginning which is plainly carried above the path of Nature For oftentimes some one being sunk into the middle of his Dreams forthwith conceives a Knowledge which being awake he had never attained For Night unto Night sheweth Knowledge So oftentimes some one reads a place that was many times read without Fruit from whence at length he begins a more reformed Life For do not those things desâ—end from the Father of Lights Therefore such Knowledges are indeed infused although not â—â— the more excellent order They are I say Talents upon which the Understanding being weâ—â— formed doth afterwards build profitable Dostrins For the Learned as such shall shine before the unlearned in the Kingdom of Heaven if for the sake of learning their Soules have fitted themselves for the greater free Gifts For the Almighty hath pleased himself in the diversity of Mansions Quires Clearness and Understanding of Angels and of Men accompanying these At least-wise in favour of the obtainment of Healing he causeth that among the seven Spirits that are next to the Throne of God the name of one is the Medicine of God For he is above Principalities Thrones Powers and Dominions Nevertheless the heavenly Wights are not sick nor stand they in need of Medicine Neither is that Medicine of God to be taken metaphorically which well knew the Properties even in the Gawl of a Fish But in this place I have undertook the Birth or Original of the Disease of the Stone which I promised as the Stone contains a Metamorphosis or Transformation which in no wise can draw its beginning from Humours but from the meer excrement of the Urin. And therefore this Treatise might easily want a Treatise concerning the fiction of Humours and Complexions AN EXPLICATION OF SOME Words of Art 1. THe Liquor Alkahest of Paracelsus it resolves every visible Body into its first matter the power of the Seeds being reserved Concerning this Liquor Chymists do say The common People do burn by Fire we by Water 2. The Archeus of Paracelsus it is the vital Air of Seeds and the directress of Life and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Hippocrates that is the Spirit that maketh the assault 3. Blas for want of an Etimology I call it the power of Motion as well alterative as local 4. Bur it is the juyce of Minerals or Mettals 5. The Duelech of Paracelsus it is the proper name of the Stone of man For Calculus or a pebble stone is a Metaphor 6. Gas is a Spirit not coagulable such as is from fermenting Wine and also that red one which through the operation of Aqua Fortis is belched forth c. 7. The Magnal is the Sheath in the Air being a middle Creature between a Body and not a Body 8. Magnum Oportet it is the Thistle and Thorn of the Earth in the middle Life of man whereof in a particular Treatise 9. The Leffas of Paracelsus is the juyce of the Earth newly drawn into the Root as it were the Kitchin of a Vegetable 10. The Zenexton of Paracelsus is an Amulet or Preservative Pomander against the Plague 11. The Powder of Vigo it is known to Barbers 12. The Element of the Fire of Venus is the Oyl of the Sulphur of Copper 13. Aqua Chrysulca and Regis it is Aqua Fortis and this same being married or joyned with somewhat less than a fourfold quantity of Sal Armoniack 14. Horizontal Gold it is Gold in its Weight but not yet sufficiently Yellow 15. Diaceltatesson of Paracelsus it is the Quicksilver of the Vulgar being coagulated in the Alkahest and tinged with the water of Eggs And it is made the Coralline Secret of the Essence and condition of Aureity or goldiness because it is also Horizontal 16. The Relolleum of Paracelsus is a Quality not having in it a seminal Being even as are the Elementary Qualities likewise the Colour and Signature of Simple things But the other Words less usual are either Medicinal ones or at least described and cleared up in the present Text of the Author and so are obvious to or easie to be understood by the Reader An unheard of DOCTRINE Concerning the manner of making the Contents Roots and dissolving
by heat alone becomes a stone as they will themselves For because a stone melts not by fire even as otherwise mettals do therefore they conjecturing of Nature from a Negative have supposed they have untyed every knot And this grosse wit ought to have been suspected by every one long since if they all did not sleep a diseased drowsie sleep For what will they say of Sulphur which flowes or melts with the fire Hath frozen water or earth given a beginning to Sulphur because it melts Or what will they say of the condensing or co-thickning of Glass which is again dissolved by the same heat whereby it is made And what lastly concerning Salt which by one degree of heat is coagulated and waxeth dry and by another degree thereof is melted and a gain is dissolved by moist things Surely it is a shame to stay any longer in Aristotelical trifles and the Fables of Elementary qualities while we must diligently search into the causes and original of things Wherefore Paracelsus first taught our Ancestors that all Minerals which he believed to be materially made of the conjunction of the four Elements and elsewhere onely of the three Beginnings consisted chiefly of water and so that they are the fruits of the Element of water no otherwise than as Vegetables are the fruits of the earth But it hath not been alway unknown to me that all Bodies which are believed to be mixt are materially onely of water none excepted But that their Body is constrained or coagulated by the necessity of a certain proper and specifical seed for Ends known onely to the Creator from their cause which proposition I have proved to the full in the beginning of Natural Philosophy It hath also been hitherto neglected after what manner these seeds of things may come to light may cover themselves with the wrapperies of Bodies and dispose the same and how those very seeds may at length of necessity hearken to the importunities of Bodies Wherefore neither shall it be unacceptable in this place briefly to repeat the progress and flux of Seeds to their form and their maturities in Minerals out of the Doctrine by me elsewhere more largely delivered For indeed if a Stone be not made of a Stone it must needs be that stonifying includes the Generation of some certain new Being but every Generation presupposeth some kind of seed which may dispose the matter to a Being in potentia or possibility seeing nothing which is not vital is able to promote it self to perfection And therefore it would be a foolish and accidental perfection which should proceed from a Body without an internal Guide and an end appointed unto it Therefore if a Body be dispositively distinguished from the internal Efficient and doth issue in its production unto ends proposed unto it in Nature then also the Etymologie of a seed doth of right belong unto it because it proceedeth wholly from an incorporeal Beginning But this Beginning shall easily be granted by me to issue forth in vital things from the Image or according to the Idea framed by the Conception or cogitation of the Generater which therefore is called the imaginative power or faculty But that inanimate things have seminal Gifts implanted in their first Beings which after the manner of the Receiver do also proportionably after some sort answer to the Imagination the Sympathy and Antipathy of inanimate things do teach For a non-sensitive Body namely the Loadstone must needs after some sort feel the Scituation of the Pole or North star if it direct it self of its own accord unto it but is not drawn by the Pole even as in the Book of the Plague I teach by manifest Arguments Likewise that it feels or perceives Iron if neglecting the Pole it by a Choice inclines it self to the Iron which particulars least they should be here after a tedious manner repeated by me it is sufficient thus to have supposed them by the way Moreover This very Idea and perfect act of a new Being to wit the seminal efficient cause doth even in unsensitive things perform its office no otherwise than if it were strong in Life and Sense which Idea or imaginous likenesse cloathes it selfe with the Ayr of its own Archeus and by meanes thereof doth afterwards perfect the dispositions and Organs of the Body and at length compleateth those things which in the delineation of its own seminal Image are designed it for Ends known to God alone And in this respect also every Creature depends originally on God For this God hath freely put into living Creatures and plants a seminal faculty of framing such an Idea that is a fruitfulnesse of multiplying and raising up Of-spring by vertue of the Word Encrease and multiply to endure for Ages The which under the correction of the Church I thus borrow from the Scriptures In the Beginning the Earth was empty and voyd For surely it was beset with a double emptinesse or vacuity The which notwithstanding is not so said of the Element of water For the earth had not as yet minerals in its Bosom if it were void Indeed the earth was a meer and pure Sand not yet distinguished by a numerous variety and ranks of minerals But the Spirit of the Lord was carried upon the Great Deep of the Waters Not indeed that that carrying was not an empty idleness wanting a mysterie or a voluptuous ease of swimming but it contained the mysterie of a Blessing whereby the water might replenish the vacuity of the earth in one of its emptinesses with Fruits But on the other hand might satisfie the vacuity of the earth and fill up its emptinesse by Vegetables and living Creatures Therefore before the Light sprang up all mettals and minerals began at once in the floating of the divine Spirit Of which thing first of all the hidden lights of mettals imitating the Stars and the foregoing Testimonies which are wont to shine by Night in Mine-making Mountains do perswade me At leastwise the Spirit of the Lord which filled the whole earth being now earnestly desirous of Creating sealed by its Word the fruitfull Idea of its desire in the Spondill or Marrow of the Abysse of the Waters which in an instant brought forth the whole wealthy diversity of Stones Minerals and Mettals whereby it replenished the emptinesse of the earth with much usury which vaculty indeed living Creatures and plants were not able sufficiently as neither suitable to fulfill But the Pavement or Pantafle of the earth which this most rich of-Spring of waters was entrusted with for the filling up of its vacuity is called by Paracelsus the Trival-line the Womb that was great with Child with the seeds of minerals wherein the Lord implanted Reasons or Respects Endowments and seeds that were to be sufficient for Ages For so indeed the wealthy seed of Rocky stones and minerals is implanted in the Water that it may receive its determination and Ferment in the womb of the Earth But what the Virgin
the stonifying seed from whence Herbs Birds a nest Leather c. do become a rocky stone is of a greater efficacy than otherwise the seeds of Vegetables are which do fore-require a matter disposed by the Generater Therefore every Land doth not bring forth all things But a rocky seed snatcheth to it any bodies even those that are far estranged from it self And then the other seeds require that the matter subjected unto them be reduced unto a tough or slimy Liquor and such as is for receiving of the seed which Liquor they have called the first matter of Generation and they require that every figure and comelinesse of the foregoing composed Body be also destroyed But a stonifying seed doth with a Reservation of the humane figure stonifie the man wholly throughout the whole to wit as well his bones as his skin without an intermediating putrefaction or dissolution of the matter 5. That a stonifying seed consists in a stony odour alone which is an incorporeal and invisible Ferment 6. That the matter of a Tooth is not meerly bony but a middle or neutral matter between a Bone and a Rocky stone And therefore also a Tooth doth by its co-touching at length stonifie whatsoever shall the more stubbornly adhere unto it whether that pulse shall be of that which is made of Bread Flesh Potherbs Fish Apple or Pease c. That is although in it self nor of it self it hath not any disposition unto the making of a rocky stone This seed I say hath notably deceived Paracelsus and his followers with the name of Tartar For the stone of a Tooth is not dissolved in boyling water like Tartar Neither is the Generation thereof of most near akinne unto the Tartar of Wine but it is a neutral Animal stonification made indeed from a stone-like odour and seed which the pulse adhering to the Tooth drawes to it by touching 7. Hitherto hath the speculation of Hornes regard For the horne of a Cow as also the pantafles or hoofes of Herds and of the flock of lesser Cattel are by a proper and simple name of an horny matter But the horne of a Stag is partly of a bony matter and partly of a wooden matter and so that also therefore it intimates Thornes and Branches and falls off yearly by reason of a retained property of leaves and of a wooden part Ivory also hath a great part of bone and another of a stone or of a Tooth-like form 8. That although many Bodies do become rocky stones in Fountains yet that comes not to passe without a remarkable stonifying odour For therefore as many things as are stonified are transchanged by the odour of the place But not that the rocky stone sends forth from it self a seed like a Generater 9. And that therefore the original seed of the rocky stone was immediately sown by the Creator and constituted in places being sufficient for a sufficiency unto the end of the World 10. That if stonifying stands not in need of the device of Tartar much lesse surely doth the Generations of Diseases 11. That some Insects especially the Toade although they are bred in rocky stones themselves yet they do not become a rocky stone even as otherwise almost all other things do For that they have received a viral Archeus by way of a separation from the stones themselves no otherwise than as the Fire-stone or mettal is separated from the stony veines wherein they are bred and do keep their unspotted matter dissolveable Therefore that separated Archeus remaines unconquerable by a rocky seed 12. That it is a false Maxime that there is not made an introducing of any form unlesse from a fore-existing disposition of the matter For truly a rocky stone is immediately made of subjects even diuers in kind without a co-melting of the matter For indeed the Magitians of Pharaoh when they had seen the Gnats to proceed immediately from the dust of the earth which they had known to be the immediate Ofsprings of the water they cryed out Here is the finger of God because they could not imitate this effect For since there is a most difficult return of earth into water they knew that it was a far more famous thing for Gnats to be made of the dust of the earth than for a Serpent to be made of the Rod and this of that or for Frogs and Blood to be made of water Which difficulty Satan well knowing said not Say or command thou that bread be made a stone for this happens in Nature immediately but that those stones be made bread From whence indeed he had divined of the Omnipotency of Christ. For as through a stonifying seed having arisen from an hoary putrifaction of the bottome shell-fishes are fenced with a stony crust whose seed is not so much propagated by a sexual wedlock as by the very fermental putrefaction it self of the bottome and therefore a posterity growes to their shells from without So also there are other Insects whose Archeus could not be incrusted nor vanquished by a stony seed From a like cause as the Toad drives away from him all troublesome stonification from without Yet such kind of wormes are not sufficient for curing of the Stone Because the last Life of these under which a resistance against the rocky seed layes hid hath vanished away before it be received into the use of Medicine Also a hoary putrified stony odour if it shall light on the vegetal juyce of the earth which Paracelsus calls Leffas stony Pavements arise under the earth A man also being shut up in a fermental putrified place is first choaked with a stony odour which odour afterwards passing through his Arteries and solid parts transchangeth the dead Carkase before it can putrifie into a rocky stone For so the earth pierceth the vegetal juyce with a rocky odour and a stony plant ariseth as it were out of a transplanted vegetable seed As is manifest in Coral and the mosse thereof But from whence had the Young according to Pareus drawn the odour of a stony seed but that happened not at first by vertue of a rocky seed but there was made a transplantation through the force of the teeming Mother who the more attentively admited a stony Engravement otherwise the Young being framed and transchanged into a rocky stone a stony odour afterwards issued from thence whereby it came to passe that almost the whole womb of the Mother together with that Young became stonified For as smoak pierceth and tingeth fleshes that are moist and compacted with Salt from their Circumference even to their Center so also doth a stony Odour Flesh To wit that of a dead Carkase there may be made a true mineral Rock having nothing common with the stone of man and the which therefore I will hereafter with Paracelsus name Duelech by reason of its singular nature and properties from all other rocky stones But fume or smoak although it may tinge fleshes yet it transchangeth them not
that which was for coagulating of Aqua vitae 2. That in coagulating it had separated the sluggish and watery part which swum upon the aforesaid white lump perhaps no otherwise than as in coagulation of Duelech from the rest of the body of the urine and so that it perfected its coagulation in the middle of the waters 3. That the curdy Runnet or spirit of Urine had undissolveably knit it self to the spirit of Wine 4. That it is not a perpetual truth the which notwithstanding the Schooles hand forth instead of a Chymicall Maxime that every sharp coagulating Body did by the same endeavour dissolve its own Compeere 5. That the spirit of Urine had not coagulated it self in the Glass according to the powder of a beaten Duelech but onely that it had mingled and coagulated it self together with another thing namely with the spirit of Wine 6. That if therefore it had met with an earthly spirit it had also contracted wedlock with the same so as that of both spirits it had made a stony Body 7. I likewise learned after what manner the spirit of urine might coagulate another spirit within the urine 8. That such an association is not a certain naked co-mixture of parts but an undissolvable wedlock of unity a certain substantial transmutation a production of a new Being by an Agent and a Patient into a neither Body This experiment gave me an entrance for a diligent search into the Disease of the Stone Yet I as yet remained wandring about For after giving of thanks I transferr'd my self into a meditation how many ways a thing might be condensed or coagulated in the Universe For Ice first presently offered it self unto me wherein the water incrusts it self for fear of cold and from a primitive action but is not actively congealed by cold Even as elsewhere concerning the Elements But other Bodies which are believed to be mixt as they bewray themselves to be the true Fruits of water by the same Zeal and Tenour are they congealed by cold occasionally For so Bones and a Sword are more easily broken in time of cold Seasons than in time of heat or Summer 2. Any kind of Salts according to their Species and inbred property while their brine being not sufficientts dryed up is left in the cold are separated from their water and become corny 3. If Salts shall subdue any thing by gnawing it they pass over from their native condition into a neither Body and are coagulated For so the Tartar of Wine Sope Borace c. are coagulated 4. And then Muscilages being thickned by the wedlock of their seeds and resolved from their own Body become Glews Gums Solder c. 5. But if a muscilage or slimy juyce carries a co-mixed fat with it it is coagulated in both respects So are Aloes a Chibal Pitch Rosin Gum Ammoniacum Frankinsence Myrrh Mastich the Gum Opopanax Sarcocolla Assa Elemi c. 6. Earth converting into a salt or muscilage if it be dryed is condensed and waxeth hard 7. A mineral Salt that was bred in the earth by burning stonifies into stones shells or sheards and earthen Pots 8. The which if they are urged by a stronger degree of heat they at length vitrifie or become Glass 9. The watery Leffas or planty juyce of the Earth by vertue of the seeds is hatdened into Woods Herbs c. 10. So Water by vertue of a seed is made a rocky stone 11. A muscilage being joyned to a powder or dust makes sand-stones but with dust and lime it now dissembles divers Marbles 12. Whatsoever lime dissolved comprehends or encloseth in it self that thing coagulates with it Because there are in Lime two salts the one a lixivial Alcali salt and the other an acide or sharp one which two salts while they demolish each other are coagulated together 13. Mettals Fire-stones Sulphurs etc. do by vertue of their seeds obtain their own and proper coagulations 14. Also most things through an inbred Glew do voluntarily grow together which afterwards by drying do harden As Blood Cheese the white of an Egg Varnish c. 15. Glass is an earthen stone consisting of an Alcali salt The which while being fired it is dissolved makes the sand or powder of stone that is not calcinable nor otherwise capable of powring abroad to melt by corroding and so they are both together turned into a transparent lump Therefore the Lime-stone or rocky stone by reason of its sharp salt is unfit for Glass because the lime thereof destroyes the Glassifying Alcali and there is made a certain neutral thick or dark Body Lime therefore against the will of Galen very much differs from ashes To wit because this separates the Lixivium or lye from it self but the other containes a sharpnesse that is not separable from the whole Whereby it being at length burnt by too much fire is Glassified throughout its Lixivial part being unfit for Building According to Geber Because all fixed Bodies are at length Glassified with Glassifying things Cheese also as it is curdled by moderate sharpnesse so it is resolved with an eminent sharpness For the pating of Cheese dissolves with dry Calx vive or quick-Lime but not with the Alcali or Lixivial salt of Ashes From all the aforesaid particulars I have collected that the coagulation of Duelech is singular and irregular Lime also doth by degrees stonifie in the middle of the waters as its aforesaid salts do coagulate each other But the body of Man as it doth not coagulate a rocky stone so neither doth it endure a Calx or Lime-stone in the Bladder For indeed that admirable Coagulum or Runnet alwayes stuck before mine eyes whereby more swiftly than in the twinkling of an Eye the spirit of urine had condensed the spirit of Wine into a lump Therefore I discerned that all other Coagulations had nothing common with Duelech Wherefore I determined to examine Spirits Therefore first I distilled Horse-pisse But surely the spirit thereof wanted that Runnet Wherefore I noted with the highest admiration the singularity of mans Urine Afterwards I observed that the spirit of Sulphurs or of Salts being sharp would with an Alcalized body be made earthly For so with Iron is made drosse rust a cankered rust Ceruss c. And these Paracelsus rashly judgeth to be Tartars or the separated impurities of things over-covered with their own and that an inward Runnet when as otherwise they are nothing else but the astonishment of two mutual Agents to wit when both their strengths are spent Afterwards I long examined Salts throughout every of their Analysis or Re-solution and I discerned that the spirits of all salts were sharp except Alcalized ones and those of essential Sulphurs in Vegetables Whose saltish tartnesses indeed are fat and sulphurous neither readily reducible into a salt unlesse by a tedious inversion or turning in and out of the principles which salts being then as it were elixirated do represent the true and highest Crasis or constitutive
with Salt-peter much more speedily Moreover Stones Gemmes Sands Marbles Flints c. through an Alcali being joyned unto them are glassified but if they are boyled with the more Alcali they are indeed resolved into moisture and being resolved they by an easie labour of their acide spirits are separated from the Alcali in the weight of their former powder of stones But these never come to the urine as neither are they profitable for breaking of the stone But Rocky or Chalky stones which have an inflamed Sulphur in them are calcined indeed but are not easily made Glass for that the residing and sharp salt of the Sulphur consumes the Glassifying Alcali Mettals also by reason of the every way and unconquered simplicity of their Mercury and unpossible penetration either as being unchanged they delude the work of the fire or wholly flye away yet so as that although they flye away in manner of a smoak yet that fume may be reduced into the nature of its antient Mettal Wherefore Mettals never yielded any Alcali and much less do they reach unto the Innes of the urine But Fire-stones though they have a burnable sulphur which is a devourer of Alcalies yet their mercuries do resist whereby they the lesse come down unto the Innes of the urine The blood also although it hath an admirable salt for healing as well fugitive as fixed yet I have observed it not to be profitable in the Disease of the Stone But moreover the shells of Snailes of Animals of the Earth or of shell-fishes of the water as to that part wherein they carry an acide and Limy-salt they profit indeed persons having the stone that want cleansing but they contain a resistance in respect of their Lixivium to wit as they never reach to the urine The burnt bones of living Creatures retain no fixed salt in them but onely a residing Earth without sauour It is therefore a part of notable Blockishnesse for Ivory and Harts-horn to be calcined for succours against Diseases because they bid the powder thereof being deprived of its vertues to be sold and so also they deceive the Purse and hope of the sick they passe by the occasion of well-doing and make themselves ridiculous But Quiners do freely promise for me For truly their Prooving-pots which they call Capâ—lls ought to consist of ashes deprived of all salt Wherefore those are the best that are made of the ashes of Bones and do far excel those that consist of Ivory and Harts-horn For indeed in my first yeares the Traditions of the Schooles were as so many Oracles in my account But I being perfectly instructed by the fire all the Speculations of the Schooles were blotted out with the fire They had perswaded me amongst other things that the salt of the Sea was hurtfull for those that were diseased with the Stone as well in regard that it afforded matter for the salt of urine as that it hurryed down a muckie phlegme for Duelech The examination of salt by the fire taught me otherwise First of all I preserved a man of sixty yeares old belonging to my Distillations sixteen yeares free from the stone of the Kidneys whereunto otherwise he had been subject through a large use of Sea-salt The which afterwards I confirmed in many For the Schooles when they saw that in the sharp brine of salt being cooled every salt was coagulated after its own manner and that that brine was not made pure without mixture but by an exhalation of the watery part they presently thought that the stone was coagulated from a salt and drying heat and so they supposed that indeed neither were salts corned in the said brine but by the heat of the inbred salt the which therefore is not able to unfold it self into effect as long as there is very much water present with it Therefore when they tasted their own snivel to be salt and that indeed with the savour of a Sea-salt but not with the saltnesse of Urine and they would connex the efficient cause in the matter they supposed that in the same snivel there was a slimy and tough matter joyned to the salt and that the salt also was of it self salt at length they establishd by a perpetual Decree that the stone was generated from a salt phlegme and therefore also being actually hot and by consequence that salt things were hurtfull for those that were troubled with the stone Yea and that phlegme remaining such its qualities and proper passions being changed did passe over into a stone through heat and a slimy dryth just even as Glew and solder their watery part by degrees departing do induce a thick toughnesse of themselves Good God how unsavoury are the Schooles and how unsavoury do they bid us to be as if thou that dost every where bear a care over Mortals and art provident for salts hadst invented by thy study that they might become stony How great is their sluggishnesse that they have never attempted to sprinkle one only pugill or small handfull of salt upon the Urinal of those that have the stone that they might try whether Sea-salt would coagulate the future sands which otherwise would stick fast to the urinals Whether I say there be so great a saltnesse of the urine that it cannot dissolve any more of salt in it For the Urine if it be for the dissolving of salt now that salt shall not be the cause of Corning In the next place they had easily found that Sea-salt being cast into the urine doth hinder its coagulation but not likewise cause it That Sea-salt Isay doth resolve the prepared matter of the Coagulum or Runnet and doth not it self receive a curdling But whatsoever meditates on the destruction of that Runnet shall of necessity also disturbe the coagulation proceeding from thence For as the Schooles do deride our Coagulum's in things so likewise I deride their unsavoury Follies that they think the pebble-stone or flint to grow together or wax dry in the bottom of the water through heat For Fountaines and Rivers do contend for a stony curdling whose bottome hisseth out heat and the Rules of dryth In the next place for the curdling of Liquors our flesh and likewise the blood milk and snivel promiseth For if it were supposed that phlegme be the matter whereof of the stone and that the recocted brine of salt shaved off and with it self dissolved the mucky filths of salted fleshes and at length by boyling up rejected them being thickned into a froth verily they had known that the use of Salt is in no wise to be avoided or forbidden But so great a sluggishnesse of searching hath beset the Schooles that they being content with a little infamous Gain have neglected all things where they might profit their Neighbour if not also themselves For if the stone were dissolved in the urine although being boyled therein or that urine were not for dissolving of salt cast into it they might indeed at the sight of
although I knew mans urine to be onely in our species and that the spirit of mans urine alone was in the possession of man Yet I examined Horse-pisse in the name of the bigger Cattel as being carefull whether perhaps there might not be another like coagulating spirit which by reason of Impediments co-bred with it could not every where obtain the command of coagulating But however I laboured I found not that spirit the Coagulater in Horse-pisse As neither the spirit of a ferment or of Aqua vitae Therefore I found a potential Aqua vitae intimate with mans urine and that a pliable one between that spirit the Coagulater and the putrified spirit the Receiver of the aforesaid Runnet or Coagulum And it is chiefly to be noted that the spirit of urine doth not coagulate but by the Wedlock of Aqua vitae the which I have often approved by distilling There are therefore three things in the urine of man which must of necessity concur and by so much the more powerfully by how much every person troubled with the stone doth now bear no light or small principle of corruption in his urine as presently in its place from whence indeed a ferment is swiftly stirred up in the urine for the aforesaid Aqua vitae that is capable of Coagulation For neither doth it withstand these things that as well the spirit of Life as the Aqua vitae it self are exceeding swift of flight and so scarce fit for the stubbornnesse of Duelech for it is certain that the spirit of Vitriol doth most swiftly flye from its volatile Companion yea and that it is presently fixed by the swift Sal Armoniack So that it undergoes a fusion or liquidnesse of substance whereby our followers being perfectly instructed do presently cease to wonder which things otherwise affect the ignorant with amazement CHAP. IV. A processe of Duelech 1. The manner of making Duelech 2. It is a singular Being nor having its like 3. A mechanick or handicraft Operation of the Fountaines of the Spaw 4. Oker in the Fountaines of the Spaw might have scared Paracelsus from his device of Tartar 5. A dissection in the actions of Spirits 6. The Fire-water that hath not an homogeneal Being like unto its self 7. The difference of the aforesaid dissolving liquor with all others of the whole Universe 8. Some Oyl of Gold is of a Pomegranate or light-red colour 10. What the generation of Duelech may bespeak 11. The action of Bodyes on Bodyes of what sort it is 12. The Doctrine concerning the action of Bodyes and Spirits 13. The participations of faculties out of mettals without a metalick matter 14. The delusion of the Alchymist 15. Diseases are appointed for a punishment and Reward 16. Some exercises beginning from salts 17. The spirit of salt is made earthly 18. A trivial Question 19. The device of frosty Tartar 20. From whence the Strangury of old people is 21. Four remarkable things issuing from thence 22. A second Question 23. A third 24. A fourth 25. Catarrhs or defluxions of the Bladder are ridiculous 26. A fifth Question 27. A sixth 28. Astrologers are taken notice of 29. Paracelsus is noted like as also Galen 30. The solving of a question proposed 31. The heedlessnesse or rashnesse of Galen THe spirit of the Urine laying hold of the volatile earth that was procreated by a seed and a hoary and putrifying ferment stirs up the spirit of Wine the inhabitant of the Urine as yet laying hid in Potentia or possibility by the which as it were by two Sexes concurring the certain aforesaid earthly spirit drinks in the one onely aforesaid Coagulater by reason of which reciprocation or mutual return a most thorow connexion of them both ariseth in acting because they conjoyn in manner of spirits throughout their very least parts And so the Coagulater doth at one instant coagulate the spirit of Wine that was potentially stirred up in the putrifying ferment whereunto when the hoary or fermental putrified Masse hath applyed its matter they are condensed or co-thickned together into a true Duelech surely a Monster this new something coagulated in the middle of the urine Nor therefore capable of being again resolved into water For it is a rocky Animal Being like unto no other and the which therefore Paracelsus names Duelech And that Being will the more easily enter into the mind by a daily example which the Fountaines of the Spaw present unto us For they have a sulphureous spirit manifestly tart from whence they are called the sharp Fountaines and also a vein of Iron For both being of an imperfect and immature shape are contained as dissolved in the simple water Therefore they both begin mutually to joyn their reciprocal forces against each other And at length when as their strength being tyred they have desisted from their action they are condensed into a stony body which affixeth it self to bottles in the form of Oker and so the water returns into its antient Element as uncloathed of every strange quality Which Sharpish Fountaines if Paracelsus had sufficiently contemplated of or he had neglected the history of the Tartar of Wine borrowed from Basilius Valentine for he had known that there is not the like birth of Oker and of Tartar of Wine At leastwise he might have been with the more difficulty convinced Because Tartar is resolved into water but Oker is not as neither is the stone For neither have I ever attempted to deny that solid bodyes are constituted of Liquors But I refuse tartarous liquors they being forcibly brought into the Causes of Diseases as in the Treatise concerning Tartars but on the contrary I have reverently admired the activities of spirits on spirits Truly since Oker growes out of the waters of the Spaw or since a stony crust is spread over bottles throughout their whole hollownesse let it first of all be wickednesse to give the water of the Spaw to drink if we believe that Tartars are made just as Oker is in the Spaw-water That is if we believe that there is Tartar in the water of the Spaw which is presently to be coagulated in the Drinker he commits wickednesse who gives the Spaw-water to drink For while the acide or tart salt of Wine corroded the Lee that salt indeed which before was tart and not coagulated remaines tart and is coagulated Neither doth it change the essence of Salt although that salt which before was fluide be constrained or bound fast together In like manner also although the Lee hath supt up the acide spirits and coagulated them into it self yet a solid body remaineth while the spirit of the acide salt is coagulated into the solid body of Tartar of Wine Yea before that it be fully coagulated it affixeth it self to the Vessel For in the Generation of Tartar of Wine the spirit acteth on a body and there is altogether a far different action while two spirits act on each other For in this action even
as in the water of the Spaw in Duelech c. a new and neutral Being is constituted such as is Oker of the spirit of Sulphur and the volatile vein of Iron But in the Tartar of Wine onely the tart spirit or sour liquor of the Wine is changed into a Salt and the Lee remaineth such as it was before And therefore the matter constituted thereby is again dissolvable For a metal stone or solid Body is not unbodyed changed or volatilized by reason of the corroding of spirits That is manifest For Silver Pearls Corâ—als Spongy-stones Crabstones Snails-stones c. although by Aqua fortis and other sharp Liquors they vanish out of our fight yet they are stones as before even as concerning Fevers indeed the spirit did what it could but it operated as it wore in vain upon the body while in corroding that body it coagulated it self For indeed there is in the whole nature of the Universe one onely fire the burning Vulcan So also there is none but one onely Liquor which dissolveth all solid bodyes into their first matter without any changing or diminishment of their faculties which thing Adeptists have known and will testifie but in all other faculties of Liquors a body can never radically co-mingle it self with the solving Liquor And therefore it is corroded indeed but is not intimately solved or loosened even as otherwise is required for a formal transmutation For every sharp gnawing spirit in gnawing of another body is coagulated and well nigh fixed and passeth over into the form of a thickned salt yet the body that hath suffered the wil of the gnawing spirit to be done upon it doth not act any thing on that spirit which in gnawing by its own proper action coagulated it self the which indeed comes to passe while two active spirits run together on each other For then there is a double action whereby both of them do mutually act on both For therefore such an action of theirs is made with a thorow radical mixture and there is constituted of them both an of-spring of unseparable mixture and this transchanged body is a neutral product from them both But if Paracelsus bad timely of fitly contemplated instead of his Tartar of Wine he had taken the Oker of the water of the Spaw and had spoken something more probable than that there were Liquors in all things which were coagulated after the manner of Tartar in Wine and that they were the common mother and matter of any Diseases whatsoever Oker indeed the daughter of the Spaw is not again resolved like as Tartar of Wine is and yet it differs from Duelech as much as a Mineral stonifying doth from the stone in man For in this the Spirit the Coagulater existing in the urine operates by vertue of its own and of a different salt upon a hoary and putrifying spirit of earth without the boyling up or belching forth of a wild Gas and so it finisheth its operation and coagulates it self with the spirit of Wine that is proper to the urine in a moment even as I have above declared in the handicraft Operation of the spirit of urine and Wine or of a burning water But the acide spirit of the water of the Spaw having sprung up from an Embryonated or non-shaped Sulphur do operate first in a long Tract do stir up bubbles and a wild Gas and at length affix themselves to the Vessel For otherwise if that Gas cannot be belched forth the waters of the Spaw remain safe being fit for healing For if the Gas be hindered from going forth it hinders whereby the subsequent effect cannot follow and the spirits are rendred feeble and barren in acting But the lee of Wine seeing it hath its own coagulation and that which is proper to it self it hath no need to attain it from elsewhere But since the sharpish spirit of Wine hath gnawn the lee there is no reason that it should give that in gnawing which it self hath not in it self Therefore in the generation of the Tartar of Wine that sharpish saltish spirit shall be coagulated indeed by reason of the earth of dreg but it shall remain in the shape of a dissolvable salt and not in the form of a rocky stone By reason of that Rule that a transmutation of the essence presupposeth a transmutation of the matter Therefore the earthy body whether it be dissolved by a Corrosive or not keeps its own antient Being Because that Dissolver doth not pierce the matter dissolved in the radical bond of connexion The which notwithstanding in things that are essentially to be transchanged is exceeding necessary to be done Therefore let the young beginners in Chymistry learn that bodies are not resolved by the calcinations of Corrosives although they are also often repeated unlesse a fermental impression through putrifaction whichgoes before every radical dissolution doth interpose Camphor indeed in Aqua fortis assumeth the nature of a swimming Oyl but that Corrosive being washed away by common water the Camphor is presently what it was before whether that be once done or lastly a thousand times For in my young beginnings I rejoyced that by a Retort at the seventh Repetition I had dispatched Gold into the shape of a Pomegranate-coloured Oyle As being mindfull that he who knew how to destroy Gold hath known likewise how to make or build it up But the Corrosive its Companion being taken away the Gold returned into its self and my vain joy ceased He labouring in vain to extract that which is not in it They also labour in vain who do not operate by due meanes The generation of Duelech therefore is not the imaginary stonifying of a cocted muscilage or of a feigned phlegme dryed by the heat of the place or confirmed or hardened by drying for so a Bole or clod onely should be resolvable but not Duelech but there is a passing over of three spirits at once into Duelech by a true essential transmutation Truly Bodyes do not act on Bodyes by a natural action of Composition but whatsoever Bodyes do perform on each other that is done by reason of weight greatnesse or magnitude hardnesse figures and motions And truly those are serviceable for Science Mathematical but scarce for Science Natural But if corporeal salts do operate it comes to pass either because they after some sort contain a volatile spirit or do find that spirit in a Body Let young Beginners at least remember that Bodyes after whatsoever manner they shall be once intermingled by co-melting do notwithstanding remain in their antient essence unlesse they are transchanged by the fire or a ferment Lastly that Bodies do operate nothing on Spirits but do onely limit these by suffering Which operation of Bodyes therefore is not a true re-acting but father a meet effect of spirits resulting from the proper activity of the same For therefore Spirits when their faculties are woren out and exhausted do voluntarily decay in the end of their motion And
off the adhering sand not indeed through the water washing it off but from a conspired convulsion and frizling of the parts For they perswade by the Marsh-mallow Mallow Oyl of Almonds and the like to asswage paines to moisten enlarge and besmear the passages and so in this as also in all other things every where the Schooles are either intent onely on the effect or propose that which is ridiculous while as they ought by a cleansing faculty to brush off the sands and lump from the whole Womb they totally employ themselves in loosening the passages and in moistening the membranes which are alwayes most moist in themselves For truly although the sand be expelled yet the womb thereof is not therefore safe but at leastwise the sides of the veines remain defiled with the Bolus or lump for a future punishment of the stone whither the Schooles hitherto have had no regard For I sometimes wondred that he that a good while before had the stone in his Reines after he hath dismissed that stone into his bladder doth the more seldom stir up new stones in his Kidney as long as the other molests his Bladder yet that he that hath the stone in his Reines if together also therewith he be gouty doth notwithstanding admit of the Gout as a Companion with the fit of the Nephritical affect or stone in the Reines For from thence I have learned that as pain in a Wound stirs up a sandy or gleary water so also that it can change the urine it self which may hinder stoniâ—ying in the antient womb of the Loynes Wherefore also there is a troubled urine and that without sand seen in persons that have the stone For the pain is the Trumpet which occasionally cals to it the Latex from on every side which inflames yea and disturbs the urine with a strange Guest being admixed with it But in so great a confusion of Offices nothing is thought of the confusion itself For the pain hath oftentimes set before mine eyes the Image of feruent heat For water after the boyling up of heat is for the most part troubled and confused For so because there is a Bolus made of the volatile earth of the urine that is not yet sufficiently seasoned with a salt by reason of the want of an Urinary Ferment stablish'd in the Reines therefore also that Bolus or lump melts with the fiery heat neither is it constrained into the more hard and great sands as long as it doth not experience the force of the Ferment of the Kidneys But the Bolus is sufficiently tinged not indeed from the dross the more lately coming thereon which tingeth the Sands for that red lump is beyond the yellownesse of the dross but from the washy venal blood which is erroneously translated in the veines the womb of the Bolus for uses being the ends of Turbulency And for this cause in the signification of urine the Bolus testifies of the Liver and venal Blood but the sand nothing of these It is manifest therefore that the urine is by it self salt although a man be not fed with salt and thou shalt find the cause thereof concerning Digestions A certain Curate in our City being beside himself passed over 17 whole dayes without any meat and drink before his death but he never wholly wanted a daily urine although a more sparing one and by degrees a more red one departed from him From whence I conjecture that there is in the Kidney an exchangeative faculty of the blood into urine and the which faculty I elswhere in the Treatise of the Dropsie do studiously prosecute no otherwise than as a Wound doth of the blood prepate a speedy and plentifull Sunovie or gleary water Therefore the urine for the last limitation of it self requires and borrowes a virtue from the Ferment which the Kidneys do inspire into the womb of the urine No otherwise than as the Liver inspires the faculty of blood-making into the veines of the Porta and knittings of the Mesentery Wherefore the whole Chyle of the stomach doth in the same place presently dissemble blood in its colour But the plainly Lord-like power of the Kidneys over the veines I elsewhere prosecute concerning the Dropsie But although the Ferment of the Kidney serving for the ministery of the whole entire urine be as it were the digestion of a certain Bowel yet it is not reckoned amongst the number of digestions because it concerns the concoction of a superfluity but not of a nourishment For since every transmutation which proceedeth by digestions hath its own Medium's or proper Ferments which are fit for a new Generation also the Kidney begins to imprint its own Ferment on the Creame presently assoon as it is stayed at the ports of the Liver Through the vigour of which Ferment the urine sequesters it self from the venal blood in its native properties And although that blood be not yet coagulable yet the liquid from the liquid do there separate themselves The Mysterie of Sanguification or Blood-making is indeed homogeneal simple and altogether single and so included in Sanguisication alone yet a separable unlikeness ought to be bred in the Cream presently in its entrance of the Port-veine For else the blood while it attained a vital condition in the Liver would undecently be defiled with the blast of the Ferment of the Kidneys But that the urine is naturally salt and from whence that saltnesse is unto it thou shalt find elsewhere concerning Digestions But here let it be sufficient to have given notice that as much of an acide salt as is bred in the Chyle under the first digestion so much passeth over into a salt salt by a substantial Transmutation in the second I have now pointed out the womb of the Urine and Stone beginning I have also declared the wonderfull property of the Spirit of Urine in coagulating and stonifying From thence also it now is sufficiently manifest that if the spirit of urine happens to flow by a Retrograde motion through the Liver into the Port-veine and from thence to be expelled as an unaccustomed stranger through the Mesentery into the Bowels that it shall there also easily coagulate unwonted stones and the which Paracelsus calls congeoled but not coagulated ones because they ascend not unto the hardnesse of the Duelech of Urines the which are confirmed from their mother-matter a muscilage But if indeed the spirit of urine be carried upwards or downwards through the hollow veine it by a faculty proper unto it self estrangeth the spermatick and muscilaginous nourishment of the similar parts into a more hard compaction from whence at length Scirrhus's quartane Agues and also divers obstructions do arise the which surely they do vainly endeavour to brush away by Jeleps or Apozemes Lastly the Gaul is nourished by the venal blood its Neighbour whereinto if the spirit of urine shall wander out of its own womb stones are presently bred also in the Gaul For whatsoever enters into anothers harvest becomes
its drying something that is not fixed doth of necessity puff out Moreover let the Retorts be senced with a crust or parger which may neither cleave asunder nor contract chaps or fall down of its own accord or be too much glassified Let also the neck of the Retort which hangs out be most exactly connexed unto the large receiving vessel that not so much as the least thing may expire But let the Receiver be placed in moist sand likewise let the boughty part thereof be covered in a Sack being filled half full with moist sand Which Sack let it be divers times renewed being tinged in the coldest water But let half of the Retort be filled with poudered Vitriol But distill it by degrees and at length let it be urged with coal as much as is possible for the furnace of wind which is blown by its own iron grate But when the furnace of wind shall cease to dismiss the spirit into the receiving vessel let the porch be opened on the side by which way the Reverbery of the flame of the wood may pierce under the Retort and let it so continue for five or six nights with the highest fire possible to nature The Retort perhaps in so great a storm of the fire will seem to thee to melt but nevertheless it will endure constant throughout because the outward coat of male or fence of earth with-holds and sucks the glass and so it is englassened as much as shall be sufficient for the work At length remember thou to sequester the receiving vessel from the neck of the Retort the fire being as yet most ardent otherwise thou shalt see in a more cold station the spirits to return into the Lee or Dreg which spewed them our Then lastly take the Colcotar or Lee remaining of the distillation which thou hast reserved from true Cyprus Hungarian or at leastwise Goslarian Vitriol Let that residing dreg being co-mixed with Sulphur be again burnt unto the every way confuming of the Sulphur But afterwards thou shalt bedew and moisten this feces with the aforesaid spirit For that spirit as it is presently imbibed in the glassen dish or gourd so being fetcht again from thence it returns nothing but a watery and unprofitable phlegm the spirit having remained imbibed in the Colcotar And repeatingly renew thou that operation six or seven times until at length the spirit that is poured thereon wax red which will swim upon the Colcotar which is a sign that we must cease from the plenteousness of imbibing And so let this rich Colcotar being well dryed be put into a Retort and let this rich Colcotar be distilled even unto its utmost spirits now waxing yellow and casting the smelling odour of grateful honey Yet remember thou to draw away the receiving vessel from the Retort being as yet of a bright burning heat and that this spirit must be kept by the mouth of a more strong bottle being close stopped with wax Whereinto lastly if thou shalt cast water the vessel it self presently breaks asunder Therefore by the only spirit of the former distillation this second spirit is bridled or restrained whereof scarce one pound is poured over from bottle into bottle but there is made a loss of one ounce at least And likewise unless the Receiver be seasonably taken away from the Retort as I have said thou shalt see the Furnance being cooled that most potent spirit to have returned into Colcotas from whence it was struck out by fire Moreover the Lee of Colcotar which is left of the second distillation is as yet wholly Coppery and waxeth green after many fashions From whence 1. That is manifest which I taught before Namely that the fire of Venus is not to be drawn out and had but by an every way destruction and separation of the mettal 2. That this therefore must be done by a far more hidden way 3. That the Vitriol which is rich in Copper is less fit for distillation than otherwise the common Vitriol is 4. That the Vitriol of Copper poures forth the spirit of the Vinegar of a mineral salt but not the volatile Liquor of Copper 5. And therefore that the sulphur of Copper is rightly called the sulphur of the Philosophers being fit for long life Being sweet I say in tast but not tart or sharp 6. That the spirit of Vitriol which is above perfectly taught cures some Chronical Diseases 7. And that therefore the spirits of Vitriol hitherto sold and in use are nothing but a mineral Vinegar being also adulterated in it self 8. That the residing Colcotar is most rich in a Medicinal Virtue 9. That the preparation of Vitriol prescribed by Isaac Holland and other Moderns hath not sent the Arrows unto the true mark 10. That our spirit above described and thus rectified as it is volatile and salt proceedes even into the fourth Digestion and reolves diseasie Excrements that are met withall in its journey And by consequence also takes away the occasional cause of many Chronical or lingring Diseases I have therefore already delivered the like Form or manner of distilling the spirit of Sea-salt of Salt-peter and the like Yet thou shalt remember that Vitriol hath in it self the earth of Colcotar wherefore the other salts do desire dryed Potters earth and that being exactly admixed with them But besides I have already delivered the manner of preserving from the Disease of the Stone by Aroph and likewise by Ale boyled with the seed of Daucus or the yellow wild Carrot I might therefore desist and repose my Quill and leave the matter to others more successefull than my self by wishing that every one may henceforward add what things he shall find out to be farre better For since Duelech besiegeth onely mankind and is produced from Excrements themselves after an irregular manner but doth not arise after the manner accustomed to other infirmities Therefore it seems to be singularly bred for a revenge of sin even before other Diseases and to be permitted by God in Children being as yet Innocent for the averting of a greater evil For although some Bruits do generate small stones in themselves yet those stones are not bred in them from the Causes of Duelech nor appointed for a punishment or tribulations unto them but rather produced for the profit of man But if therefore Duelech doth relate to the fault of sin but since sin hath drawn its rise from a Wood or Tree it hath seemed also to me that preservation of health in the disease of the stone is not onely to be expected from the seed of Daucus and some such like Herb but from some certain Wood Wherefore it is indeed true that a Wood against the stone of the Kidneys hath been of late brought unto us out of the Indies but I have not ever therefore perswaded my self that divine Goodnesse had so long denyed unto the Europeans that it might succour even the poor man that had the stone untill that through many expences a Remedy
necessaries of its own Constitution from excrements Yea it should rather follow that seeing the Leprosie is such an abundant productress of salt in the excrements the venal Bloud also shall not want its own salt Even as while there flowes a continual Sunovie or gleary water and that plainly a salt one out of ulcers the remaining bloud doth not therefore want its salt or sense is not diminished in the flesh but rather encreaseth the pain and sharpness So also in the Dropsie a salt water doth sometimes forthwith extend the Abdomen or neather Belly yet do not dropsical persons want the sence of Touching For Paracelsus elsewhere defineth the venal Bloud to be the meer Mercury of man from which those excrements are sequestred in the shew of a putrified sulphur and likewise of a Whey-ie unprofitable and superfluous salt Elsewhere again as being unmindfull of himself he defines the Bloud to be the salt of the Rubie As though salt were the Tincture of the Rubie or that the Tincture of the Bloud were from a salt For he makes his three first things mutable at pleasure no otherwise than as the Humourists do accuse their Humours and Heats at pleasure and which more is do say that the same are the causes of Diseases and Death and also the Authors of sensation and motion Fye must we thus sport at pleasure with Nature Diseases the Bloud and Death of our Neighbour For Medicine is plainly a serious thing and man shall at sometime render skin for skin For salt doth not appear in the Bloud flesh solid parts c. except in the last and Artificial separation of those Beginnings after Death and that indeed by the fire To wit after that the sense of Touching hath been a good while extinct Those Dreams of the principles do not serve for the Speculation of motion and sense A mark imprinted by the Devil on Witches is wont to bewray these because the place of the Brand is voyd of feeling for their whole life and that mark being once impressed hath its own natural Causes of unsensiblenesse after the manner of the Leprosie yet enrouled in a certain and slender Center For the Witch her eyes being covered if a Pin be in that place of the Brand thrust in even to the head that prick is made without feeling At leastwise that place should by a wonderful priviledge be preserved all her life time without salt and putrefaction seeing that otherwise the life according to Paracelsus is a Mummy with a comixture of the Liquor of Salts Far more sound therefore is the doctrine of Hippocrates which decreeth the Spirit or aiery and animal flatus or blast to be the immediate instrument of Sense Pain Motion Pleasures Agreement Co-resemblance Attraction Repulsing Convulsions or Contractures Releasement also of any successive alterations whatsoever so that it appropriates to self sensible Objects and from thence frameth unto it self Sensations themselves For it happens that if by chance that Spirit be busied by reason of profound speculations or madness that the body doth not perceive Pains Hunger Cold Thirst c. For I remember that a Robber deluded the torture of torment by a draught of Aqua vitae and a piece of Garlick the which he at length wanting confessed his crimes But the astonishment and unsensibleness of the Leprosie is in the habit of the flesh and sinewes subjectively or as in their Subject but not in the compass of imagination but effectively and occasionally in a certain poyson But that bloody Anodynous or stupefactive ice and well nigh mortifying poyson is communicable and effluxive through a horrid and stinking Contagion whence the holy Scriptures command the Leprousie to be severed from the company of men But this icie poyson begins from without and therefore they feel inward pains and likewise external cold and heat yet not wounds or a stroak The Mange and Scab is manifold and the Pox or soul Disease infamous through a defiling poyson But they differ in kind as well through the nature of the poyson as the diversity of Subjects For indeed the Scab infects only the skin so as that the skin cannot turn the nourishment designed for it self into a proper nourishment but it translates the most part thereof into a salt and contagious liquor to wit the which is of the property of an itchive and nettlie or hot stinging salt c. Therefore scabbedness doth not require internal remedies but only local ones which are for killing of that itchive salt But the Pox doth chiefly affect the venal blood with a biting mattery and putrifying poyson But the Leprosie doth chiefly infect the inflowing spirit with an Anodinous icie poyson Indulge me Reader that through the scanty furniture of words I am constrained to use an illusion unto names Because as the essences of things are unknown to us from a former cause and therefore proper names do fail those essences we are constrained to boâ—â—ow and describe the conditions of poysons in diseases from the similitude of their properties that if not by reason whereof it is yet at least because it is the definition may proceed from Cousin-Germane Adjuncts or Properties So I say that the Poyson of the Falling Evil is a be-drunkenning sleepifying and also a swooning one together with an astringency neither therefore is it contagious because intrinsecal and not fermental so the Leprosie hath an anodynous or stupefactive Poyson not indeed a sleepifying one but an icie or freezing poyson well nigh mortifying together with an infection of the sensitive spirit and therefore mightily contagious especially in a hot and sudoriferous or sweaty Region For even as cold takes away the sense of touching by congealing and driving the faculties inward so also the Leprosie hath chosen to it self and prepared an anodynous or benumming poyson not a coolifying and sleepifying but by another title a Freezing one no otherwise than as Kibes or Chilblanes are bored with Ulcers as if they were scorched with fire the which notwithstanding do oftentimes happen unto those before or after winter who all the winter in the Chimneys felt no cold The poyson of the Leprosie therefore doth in this respect co-agree with cold effectually although not in the first Elementary quality thereof neither therefore doth it also totally mortifie after the manner of a Gangreen but only the part which it sealeth with the Ulcer Yea neither also doth it straightway extend it self far from thence because it is from a conâ—stringent icie poyson the Author of unsensibleness But it is of a difficult curing by reason of its freezing and almost mortifying Contagion and that an oppressive one of the sensitive spirit because as it is intimately co-fermented with the sensitive spirit while it hath issued forth unto the utmost parts therefore it is difficultly taken away unless by remedies which have access unto the first closets or privy Chambers of us to wit that so they may confirm the spirit of life whereby it may overcome
manner of a stroak The place therefore of the nativity of an Apoplexy is in the Midriffs and therefore it hath also the foreshewing signs of giddiness of the head of benummedness nauseousness c. The place therefore of an Apoplexy is in the Archâ—us of the Midriffs but in every of the parts for a particular astonishment because through the errour of Digestion the Liquor that is immediately to be affimilated by reason of the defect of the Archeus degenerates into an Anodynous poyson and is made the occasional matter of so great a malady an excrement I say being sealed by an Idea of the abhorring Archeus is sealed on the dreg who is to shew forth an equally aged memory of his own hostility But that it doth not depart from thence nor obey Remedies known by the Apothecary the very Quartan-ague teacheth the which hitherto repeates its Tragedy at pleasure to the disgrace of Physitians If a Quartan-ague be uncurable by the Schooles much more an Apoplexy For the stupefactive poyson of an Apoplexy is milder indeed in it self than that of the Falling-sickness but it far more cruelly molesteth with its invasion For besides astonishment it strikes the mind begets a deep drowsinesse and a Catochus or unsensible detainment But if besides it also attaines a sharpnesse it produceth malignant Ulcers according to the mortifying of the Anodynous poyson But because that poyson is brackish therefore it threatens Atrophia's or Consumptions for lack of nourishment For I have observed a Chymist who had been a good while occupied about Râ—gis's to have fallen into terrible beatings of the Heart at length into paines of his armes and his mouth was pulled on the right side he suffered also restless nights and deep paines of his armes the which notwithstanding were not exasperated by touching He had also consumed with a notable leanness by reason of the conceived brackishnesses of the waters in the mean time any the more external Remedies were attempted in vain for neither did I spare costs or service for him but he being fully restored by a Laudanum onely for thirteen dayes administred soon after recovered the habit of his body and former strength For because the harsh brackishness of the Liquors had defiled the sensitive Spirit the product whereof pierced the Archeus his mouth being pulled together unto one side and his fingers being wâ—ithed side-wayes resembled a certain Apoplectical Being But because it ascended not from the Governour of the Midriffs but only the Odours of the waters had immingled themselves with the inflowing sensitive Spirit there was not a perfect Apoplexy of that man although otherwise one giddie enough But because I call that a brackish Anodynal or stupefactive which in Opium is a bitter one but not in Henbane or Mandrake and a very sweet one in Vitriol and Sulphur This first of all discovers the Errours of the Schooles while as from commonly known Savours they divine of the faculties of Simples But indeed I know that the interchanges of things or the maturities of days are not yet digested nor likewise That Truth instead of falshood will please every one therefore I will subjoyn some Anguishes which the Apoplectical Rules of the Schooles have brought forth unto me For while I insisted more than was meet in the examination of Minerals I felt from the Fume of some of them an Apoplexy to be at hand with a defect of my left side and so that I had fallen headlong down if I had as yet but one onely turn breathed in the ayr of that place Wherefore I learned first of all that the Palsie is not more latter that an Apoplexy in duration Then again that there is no stoppage in the bosomes of the Brain For I was already almost prostrated and unlesse I had turned away my head from whence the stinking cruel blast breathed I as Apoplectical had rushed down and I was ready to fall And then my arm did already decay and my leg being stupified failed of sense and motion But the Schooles will never answer to these particulars if nothing of phâ—egme had ever fallen into the fourth bosome of the Brain how was the effect in me before its Cause But if any thing thereof had fallen down which had at least stopt up the half of its Bosome which way retired that phlegme so speedily Or why is not every Apoplexy likewise by the same endeavour voluntarily cured the phlegme which is the Effectresse thereof vanishing but if they had rather privily to escape that my Apoplexy came from the mischievous vapour and not that to be from phlegme At leastwise why was that cruel Fume brought sooner unto the fourth Bosome than unto the former ones and those nearer and more obedient unto the Nostrils unlesse perhaps the former were Leprous and sluggish and without Sense Yea all the sinews which are deputed unto the Senses alone receive their sensitive spirits from the former Bosomes But in the former Ventricles of the Brain there was no sign of the hurting of Sense yet there is no coming from without unto the fourth Bosom but through all the foremost ones Sense likewise except that it was the more dull on one side and motion remained and also a Judgement perswading a departure Therefore had the phlegme waited now for some years at the coast of the fourth Bosome that the Odour of that Fume being once repeated it the signe as it were of a Trumpet being given might rush headlong into the pit Why therefore fell not the phlegme down in me a leaping Run-away For in the Falling-sicknesse the chief powers of the Soul and Senses on both sides go to ruine motion onely surviving when as notwithstanding every sinew even that which is dedicated to motion feeleth Therefore the Brain and all its Bosoms ought to be affected on both sides where the more internal senses together with the more external ones are laid asleep as if they were extinguished How therefore doth motion alone remain After what manner in the Falling-Evil Apoplexy and Palsie are the senses laid asleep when as in the Apoplexy and Palsie the Organ of motion onely is besieged for one half They will say that in the Epilepsie the foremost parts of the Brain do suffer but the hinder ones remain safe First of all Why therefore are the joynts contracted if the Organs of motion are free The memory is especially hurt in the Falling-sickness shall therefore that also â—e onely in the forepart of the Head But that which is required being granted why therefore hath every sinew designed for motion leaping through the Thorny marrow from the hinder part of the Brain lost Sense but not Motion Therefore the Brain in the Falling-Evil is sore smitten as well behind as before by Midriff-Causes Foâ— oft-times some one that is about to dye doth as yet feel or perceive speak and hear motion in his lower parts being taken away a good while before by the displayed sinewes of the Thorny marrow The Brain being
able to proceed and whether they hope that bloud being at sometime after what manner soever once putrified in the veines there is aforded in Nature a going back or return To wit from such a privation For let them shew that it is not a contradiction that it is proper to a Fever to defile the bloud it self and for this property to be taken away by the effect to wit by a removal of that which is putrified For if the more impure bloud be at first drawn out of the vein and they repeatingly open a vein in the mean time they prostrate and disturb the Faculties hence also they take away the hope of a Crisis what if then the more red bloud shall flow forth Surely they cry out as if the whole Troop of the Malady were taken away at the first turn and as if the Seat of Fevers had been extended onely from the Heart unto the Elbow but that the good bloud resided about the Liver But I have alwayes discerned evacuations of the last excrements to be fearfull in the Dropsie and therefore much more in a naked snatching away of the bloud which withdrawes in a direct passage the vital spirits from the Heart through the Wound whether that bloud be accounted bad or good or neutral First of all I have proved that as well those things offend in begging of the principle which are supposed concerning a putrified continual and burning Fever as those which are supposed concerning the emissions of putrified bloud Wherefore in speaking according to Numbers I have alwayes found Succours that are made for the snatching away of the strength to be full of deceit as that for a very little ease the Faculties the Porters of Diseases are weakened For even so as drink at the beginning of Fevers seemeth to comfort Thirst for a little space but who is so mad that he would then drink if he knew that the drink would filch away his necessary powers Therefore the ayd of cooling by cutting of a vein is unfaithfull deceitfull and momentany At length concerning neutral bloud which in respect of cutting of a vein is neither good nor evil it is not worth ones labour to speak any thing seeing that which is denyed under a disjoyning may also be denyed copulatively For whether that be neutral bloud which consisteth of a co-mixture of the good with that which is depraved by supposing that to be depraved which is not or that wherein a neutral alteration is introduced for both events the particulars aforesaid do satisfie Lastly That I may cut off the hope that is in Revulsion and so equally take away all co-indications as the wretched privy shifts of obstinacy It is a mad ayd to have cut a vein for this end they for the most part require a plenteous one whether in Fevers or next in the Menstrues for Revulsion because a Feverish matter swims not in the bloud or floats in the veins as a Fish doth in the water but it adheres or sticks fast within to the vessel even as in its own place concerning the occasionall matter I will declare But for the Menstrues in like manner because a separation thereof is made from the whole and that not but by a separating hand of the Archeus But Bloud-letting separates nothing of the separable things because it acts without a foreknowledge of the end and so without choyce But presently after the vessel is opened the more nigh and harmless bloud alway flowes forth the which because other afterwards followes by a continual thred for fear of a vacuum therefore the Menstrues otherwise by the endeavour of Nature collected about the Womb are by cutting of a vein drawn away from thence and go back into the whole Body But if Phlebotomy shall sometimes well succeed in a Woman that is plethorick and full of juyce yet surely in many others it hath given a miserable overthrow For if the Menstrues should offend onely in its quantity while as it is now collected and separated in the veins about the Womb I shall willingly admit of an individual betokening of Phlebotomy and onely in the Case supposed But the Menstrues if it shall flow in a well-constituted Womb it abundantly satisfies its own ends and in this respect Revulsion is in vain although the Supposition supposeth it to be even an impossible thing For Bloud-letting is nothing but a meer and undistinct emptying out of the bloud But the veins being emptyed they out of hand recall unto themselves any kind of bloud whatsoever from on every side Because as they are the greedy sheaths of bloud so also are they impatient of Vacuity or emptiness And therefore the veins that are emptyed do allure the Menstrues designed for utterance That is being in this respect once enrouled by Nature in the Catalogue of Excrements But Derivation because it is a sparing effusion of bloud so it be made out of veines convenient it hath often profited in many locall Diseases and so in Fevers it is impertinent But they urge that the cutting of a vein is so necessary in a Pleurisie that it is enjoyned under a Capital punishment For truly they say that unlesse the bloud flowing together unto the Ribs be pulleâ— back by the effusion of much bloud there is danger least the Pleurisie do soon kill the man by choaking of him Surely I let out the bloud of no person that hath a Pleurisie and such a cure is safe certain profitable and sound None of them perisheth whereas in the mean time under Phlebotomy many do at length perish with a long or lingring Consumption and experience a Relapse every Year For according to Galen Whosoever they be that are not perfectly cured on the fortieth day become Consumptious But I perfectly cure them within few dayes neither do they feel a Relapse Neither indeed have I alone my secrets for this purpose But moreover I have seen a Country man curing all Pleuritical persons at the third draught For he used the dung of an Horse for a man and of a Nag for a woman which he dissolved in Ale and gave the expressed strayning to drink Such indeed is the ignorance of Physitians and so great the obstinacy of the Schooles That God gives knowledge to Rusticks and Little ones which he denyes to those that are blown up with Heathenish Learning We must now see if there be any use of Revulsion in Fevers For indeed since the work of Revulsion is not primarily any other thing than the cutting of a vein whereunto the succeeding bloud is by accident hoped to come and that by the benefit of that thing it should not flow unto the place affected Upon this Position it followes That by such an Euacuation the offensive Feverish bloud so I connivingly speak shall be drawn as dispersed into the veines which otherwise lurking in its own Nest far from the Heart could not so cruelly communicate the Ferment of its own hurt unto the Heart which is to say that it should
full of disgrace that himself being once a Doctour or Teacher ought as yet to learn of others A nourishing clyster therefore is an old wives invention For I have seen broaths in the more strong persons to have been rejected as horride through the stink of a dead carcase but in the more tender persons to have provoked swoonings when as in the mean time clysters of Mallow and Brans cherished a lesse discomodity Vain therefore are the common helps taught by Physitians for the intentions or betokenings of Fevers Because they take not away subdue or reach to any thing of the roote of Fevers CHAP. VIII The usual Remedies are weighed 1. A censure of distilled waters 2. Of what condition essential waters may be 3. A censure of decoctions 4. The comforting remedies of Gold and pretious stones are examined 5. A mechanical demonstration of abuses 6. Gems are not any thing dissolved in us hewever they are pawdred 7. Pearles that are beaten and dissolved in a sharp spirit are examined by the way 8. The Authour testifies his own bashfullnesse 9. The Pearles which are dissolved in the shops are not Pearles 10. Pearles or Coralls being disssolved in some sharp liquour remaine what they were before 11. Five remarkeable things taken from thence 12. The help of an old Cock an old wives invention 13. Alkermes is examined 14. Comforting remedies are in vain when as the enemy within tramples even on the strongest sick THe internall remedies used by Physitians in Fevers if they are look't into will be found to be of the same leaven with the other of their succours For except that they are brought into one heat as it were the scope and hinge of the matter they are as yet of no worth in themselves neither do they any way answer unto a putrified matter For first of all distilled waters as well those which are called cooling ones such as are those of Succhory Lettice Purslane and Plantaine as those which are of the order of the greater alterers such as are those of Grasse Dodder Maidenhair Carduus-Benedictus Scorcionera c. Or those also which are fetcht from cordial plants are in very deed nothing but the sweates of herbs but not their blood and I wish they were not adulterated for the perswasion of gain For they are the rain waters of green and fresh herbs but not the essential liquors of the herbs which shew forth the whole Crasis or constitutive temperature and savour of the thing Therefore they cover an imposture in their name and in the mean time the occasion of well doing slips away Moreover the decoctions of plants since they conteine the gums and muscilages of simples they provide pain or cumbrance for a feverish stomach loathings overthrows and other troubles therefore also they joyn themselves with the excrements and are sequestred after that they have procured all those perplexities nor at least wise is any thing of them carried inwards unto the places affected and vitall soiles Physitians also are wont to brag of their exhilarating Cordials and restoring remedies prepared of Gold and gems or pretious stones surely from a like stupidity with the rest For although they are broken into a fine powder they undergo nothing from the fire and much lesse do they suffer by the digestive virtue For they are first made into a light powder in a brassen morter and the gems shave of a part of the brasse with them because they are harder than any file And that thing I have at some time demonstrated to the shops while as I steeped that powder of gems in aqua fortis For a green colour presently bewrayed it self and the Apothecary confessed that his fortyfying remedies acted most especially by communicating verdigrease or the rust of brasse unto the sick And then if gems are afterwards the more curiously beaten in a grindstone or marble which is far more soft than themselves they increase in weight and become comforting marbles and stones beyond the original gems For at length gems that are made into a light powder do no more profit than if flints or glasse powdered are taken And that thing as many as have ever been diligent in examining the resolution of bodies will subscribe to with me and with me will pity the empty blockishnesses of Physitians and the unhappy clientships of the sick Yea they administer Pearles and Corrals being beaten to dust or dissolved in distilled vinegar orthe juice of limons and again dryed and solvable in any potable liquour But Pearles are not of the same hardnesse with Christalline gems but of the Animal kingdome and they conreine most pretious natural endowments they cannot but bestow a famous help For Pearles are of their own accord resolved indeed in the stomack of a Pigeon but in ours they do not undergo any thing whether they are drunk being beaten into a powder or being dissolved as before For first of all it is to be noted that I before my repentance had learned by some pounds of Pearles being so prepared that it was only vaine boasting whatsoever Physitians promise concerning them And then that a true Pearle hath not within it a mealy powder and that of a different likenesse from its own bark but that the whole body of the Pearle even unto its center is meere little skins laying on each other as it were the rhines of onyons spread under each other which thing they know with me as many as have known how to reduce Pearles of an egg-like figure unto a circular Pearle But the aforesaid barks of Pearles are in no wise dissolved by the aforesaid sharp things therefore they shall dissolve only the meale of false Pearles Yea although the aforesaid barks were dissolved which they are not the Pearles should as yet be the same powder which they were before To wit wherewith the salt of the sharp dissolver is now combined and so it happens that that salt of the dissolvent being dissolved the powder of Pearles or Corrals which that salt drinkes up is also solved together with it Which powder however it may be reckoned to be dissolved by the judgment of the eyes and the substance of the Pearle thought to be changed yet it is nothing but a meer deciet and delusion of the sight For Pearles or Corrals do as yet remaine no otherwise in their own former nature than otherwise Silver remaines safe being dissolved in Chrysulca or aqua fortis it been plainly unchanged in all its former qualities For otherwise the same silver could not be fetch 't again from thence seeing there is not granted a return from a privation to an habit They therefore that drink Pearles thus solved so far is it that they enjoy the milky substance of Pearles that they drink unto themselves nothing but the dssolved salt of the vinegar The which I thus prove by handicraft operation If thou shalt poure some drops of the salt of Tartar on dissolved Pearles or Corrals the hidden pouder of the Pearles presently falls
to the bottome which is a demonstration of the deed First therefore the pearles of the shops are not true ones but a certain abortion of those sowed within through the middle substance of the Pearle Secondly the powder of Pearles or Corrals dissolved although it may delude the eyes yet it is not truly solved it remayning the powder which it was before Thirdly instead of comforting remedies they substitute nothing but the acide salt of the things dissolving Fourthly that powder being thus solved cannot be made bloud and therefore neither can it enter into the veines Fifthly what if it had entred unto the Liver hollow veine and so by the power of digestion that sharp salt adhering thereunto had at length been wasted into a transmutation What other thing should such Comfortatives performe besides to besmeare the veines within with a forreign powder And at length to load an un-obliterable malady with aâ— forreign guest This is the harvest that is to be exspected from Gems It is an alike doating monstrous thing which they promise concerning the broath of an old Cock being joyned with herbs For first of all there is more of life and strength in the more young birds than in decrepite ones Let the judgment be brought unto Hens And also medicinal broaths are ungratefull and troublesome to the stomack and so they are easily dismissed unto excrements Therefore after this manner under a changed maske they again dissemble their Apozemes under the broath of an old Cock Last of all there is the Antidote Alkermes which although as it consisteth of the Syrupe of the grain that dieth Scarlet I wish it were not adulterated by roses it be laudable neverthelesse inasmuch as it being scorched and roasted is impregnated with the more crude silk untill that it can be powdered the whole power of the dying grain is vitiated which silk being thus roasted is nothing else but the wool of silke wormes depraved or vitiated by burning For the invention of some covetous old man brought up that thing as thinking that nature is exhilarated or rejoyced with things that delight the eyes Far be it for neither Gold gems not pretious stones as such shall refresh the vital spirits and much lesse crude silk roasted and that if it were tinged with a Purple Colour unlesse the vitall spirits shall well perceive restaurations to themselves by the additions of strength But moreover vaine are comforting and cordiall things which are wished for the fewel of Fevers remayning and the blood and strength being diminished For if a Fever prostrateth a strong person and one that is in good health how shall it suffer him to be strengthened being now dejected Especially by things which are forreigners in the whole general kinde nor agreeing with the spirits in the union of co-resemblance How shall a Citizen fortifie himself who hath received an houshold enemy stronger than himself into his possession The wan therefore and vain promises of Physitians concerning fortifiers and strengtheners are full of deceite For he that exhausteth the strength or faculties together with the blood and withdrawes them by evacuating medicines but forbids wine and things that do immediately restore the strength also who continually prosecures after cooling things as enemies to the vitall heat how shall he procure strength by such electuaries CHAP. IX The true cause of Rigour or the shaking fit in Fevers 1. Rigour or extreame cold and trembling is from the spirit making the assault but not efficiently from the diseasifying cause 2. Why he intends Rigours 3. Why he stirs up cold and heat 4. Why he begins with cold 5. The Authour runs not back unto the lawes of the microcosme 6. There are intermittences almost in all agents 7. The manner of making cold 8. The manner and cause of rigour 9. A marke of ignorance in Galen concerning the tossing of a member 10. The burning cause of a Fever 11. That every motion as well an healthy as a sick one is made efficiently by the Archeus 12. How the Authour learned that thing 13. The turbulency of the Archeus disturbs the urine 14. The ordinary office of the Gaule is troubled and makes the Chyle bitter 15. VVherefore also the bitter vomitings thereof diminisheth nothing of a Fever 16. VVhence is burning heat and sweat in a Fever 17. VVhat sweat may betoken 18. Sharpnesse increaseth cold the which an Erisipelas proveth 19. A Gangrene how it may undoubtedly be stopped 20. VVhy the beginning of a continval Fever is from horrour 21. Paracelsus is noted 22. The errours of Galen especially concerning the putrefaction of the blood and spirit 23. The true seat of a diary and hectick Fever 24. The fabulous similitude of Galen for the parching heat of an hectick Fever 25. VVhy lime is enflamed by water 26. A mechanical proof 27. The blockish cause of gaping 28. The true cause and the organ of the same 29. Sleep the drowsie evil giddinesse of the head Apoplexy c. are from the mouth of the stomach 30. Gaping is not in the muscles of the cheekes or jaw HIppocrates first put a name on the Spirit of life to wit that it is that which maketh the assault and the guider of all things which happen in us which prerogative surely none hath at length called into question In the mean time the Schooles that succeeded being as it were giddy with the vice of whirling about have wrested aside the causes of trembling into old wives fictions The Spirit therefore being the Prince of the world in us hath alone obtained a motive beginning in us as well local as alterative to wit conteyning the cause of Rigour or extremity of cold as well in respect of locall motion as of the alterations of cold and succeeding heat For the Archeus intends by trembling rigours to shake of the excrement adhering to the similar part Even so as a spider also shakes her cobwebs and joggs them with rigour that she may shake of a forreigne thing which lighteth into them But the Aroheus taking notice that he can little profit by rigours or shaking extremityes stirs up an alterative Blas All which I have elsewhere taught to consist naturally in Winter and Summer cold I say and heat To wit through the successive interchange whereof all sublunary things do decay in the coursary number of dayes From Winter therefore in the very universe it self the beginning of the year proceedeth through a spring and Summer into Autumne wherein the fruites are at length ripened For whatsoever things are made by nature undergo this beginning increase state and declining So the Archeus himself as all seeds and vital things do imitate the nature of general ones stirs up feverish rigours colds and heats But not the offensive matter of the Fever even as hath already been sufficiently and over-proved at the beginning For so also in disjoynting of the bones the teeth presently shake and rigours spring up And likewise while a woman with child untimely expels the not
are desirous to learn I will willingly reach forth my hand For Paracelsus as the first so laughed at humours after an Helvetian manner that he mocked the Galenical also the Arabian Physitians with the surname of Humourists Notwithstanding he himself being oftimes unconstant slides unto humours and complexions as not being as yet sufficiently grounded in his own positions In the mean time the Galenical Schools would now and then have the four granted qualities of Elements to be opposed as solitary distempers and for the most part again they have feigned distempers to be banished with the abundance of the like humours And whenas they gloried that they held the Hare by the ears they being deluded with the easiness of the fiction first became a laughing stock because they defiled the faculty of healing with absurdities Being first of all unmindfull of their own discipline that there is not granted an immediate return from the privation of a Forme unto an habite yet have they through a rash perswasion affirmed that flesh is constituted of four humours and that this flesh is again to be resolved into the same four For they decree that the Chyle is framed of the meats being indeed homogeneal or simple in kind in the stomach the which notwithstanding the excrements of the belly being seperated should alwayes be made four humours besides the urine by the one only action of sanguification but never one only two three five or more And that thing they have thus determined of as being rashly misled by a quaternary of Elements From whence at least wise it followes that this fourfould re-dividing of one Chyle doth not derive it self from the diverse varieties of meats but that it altogether essentially dependeth on the very proper perfect act of sanguification Which thing wants not its own absurdity To wit that of one natural act there should be a fourfold scope essentially differing But the Quaternion of Elements being already elsewhere cast out with the combating concourse of the same that fourfoldnesse of Humours hath indeed been supposed and subscribed unto but not yet proved hitherto For for the furnishing of so great and so pernicious fables the Schools have been snatcht away by two swelling arguments the which if thou shalt but a little presse they will pour forth a stinking vapour but not the juice of truth The first whereof is fetcht from four Elements that they may constraine the blood against its will under a quaternary or fourfold number of Humours unto the obedience of three only Elements existing although the blood it self be materially made of one of them only As if every one of them which they believe to arise from the wedlock of the Elements ought therefore of necessity to have four Heterogeneal or different kind of parts agreeable to as many their own Elements Surely I have elsewhere every way shewn that some bodies have nothing of a diversity not so much as in salt Sulphur and Mercury but that others do at length produce only two diversities of kinds for neither is there a stronger reason why a flint may be reduced into one only and at at least a similar salt than the blood can of necessity be seperated into four Humours For from hence it is made manifest that the reason of a feigned Quaternary of Elements is from a former cause in respect of a Quaternery of Humours in the blood and no where else But the second and chief argument of the Schools for a Quaternary of Humours is not a certain formall reasoning but a naked and miserable inference established by a similitude or like thing For they say In Milk there is found Whey Cheese and Butter That is three distinct things Therefore of necessity in the blood there shall be alwayes and constitutively four because they observe four diverse things or parts in the venal blood of some persons the which indeed the soul the Chambermaide of the desires hath by much labour and the helpes of fiction divided into four diversities For they oft-times take notice of the water swimming upon the blood and because it is yellow and somewhat pale they therefore name it yellow choler or gaul although it be not bitter and wanteth the essential property of the gaul But the sediment thereof about the bottom being sometimes the more weighty and black they cal black choler but in the midle space they note red blood wherein while they observe white fibers or threds the Mothers of a gellyie coagulation they have called those Phlegm For the vein of the ham of maides being cut those fibers appear in lukewarm water like unto spiders webs which they have called Phlegm But first it had behoved them to have discerned that the unfit similitude of Milk and blood doth teach or urge nothing Because the water swimming one the blood is not the fatnesse of Cream swimming on the Milk wherefore either the agent or matter is unlike or both And therefore in so great an unlikeness of both that a necessity of Humours in the blood is not rightly founded For the carelesse Schools do not take notice that a diversity of kind is bred in the blood after that it hath disposed it self unto corruption that is soon to come thereunto Therefore that Hetrogeneity accuseth indeed an unlikenesse of contents made in death but in no wise therefore a necessary connexion of lively Humours For what will they say of that blood which wholly wants all whey Or the which being uniformly coagulated throughout its whole is red Which is a frequent thing after many sweats and abstinence from drink Shall therefore the Whey swimming upon the blood the urine and sweat left in the blood be Sunonymals with choler and gaule And something that is one with the very essence of the blood I indeed have hitherto seen in herbs on only clarified juice as likewise I acknowledge one onely blood the constitutive Humour of us To wit I professe a simple sanguification and one only action of one Liver and a single Chyme or concocted juice to be made of an undistinct Creame or Chyle and by one onely ferment of the stomach which sanguification or making of blood I know to be a meer formal transchanging of nourishments but in no wise only an applying together of Heterogeneal parts alone For neither although part of the chyle be turned into urine is an unlikenesse of the agent the Liver to be blamed but only the uncapacity of the receiver For neither therefore have they dared to embrace the urine for a fifth Humour For although a part of the urine materially remaineth in the blood yet it is not of the nature of the blood even as Whey in Milk is after another manner an essential part of the Milk The water therefore swimming above which they confesse to be sweat Whey and a remainder of the urine and so believe it to be wholly excrementous they shamefully compare sometimes to the Buttery part and that which swims on the Milk
being suited to the Element of fire and at another time to the Whey of the Milk And far more shamefully do they undistinctly liken both of these to the Gaul Therefore four Humours shall equally be made of any meat under one act and the same shop of sanguification because they are immediatly principally and simply and always intended by the Liver or they are made in unlike places and moments Not indeed in unlike ones because so there should not be constitutive parts of one and the same blood But if in like places and moments Why while urine and choler are made at once is not one individually mixed with the other even as also gaul with the urine Why in the next place is the urine never bitter if gaul be always comixed with it whereby it is tinged as they say Why when the gaul is broken in a fish can none however the more exact washing take away that bitternesse And after another manner one onely smal drop of gaul should defile a whole bucker of urine with bitternesse Who in the next place is that so exact Seperater which was able to seperate the watery Choler from the urine but could not materially seperate all the urine from the blood Wherefore at length is not that Choler or gaul of the blood snatcht together with the urine to the kidneys which a total absence of its bitternesse proveth if Choler be believed to be throwly mixed with the blood above the Liver Let us therefore consider how choler being made by the Liver in the Liver shall come down unto the little bag of the gaul In what place sanguification is wrought Whether about the Port-vein and hollow of the Liver Or indeed in the very body of the Liver Or lastly in the very hollow vein above the Liver But in whichsoever of these places that choler is made at leastwise there is not from thence a vein of return for choler unto the little blader of the Gaul For it ought to proceed from the Liver unto the Gaul by a retrograde motion and uncertaine passages of conveighance Why at least wise have both those choler 's remayning in the masse of the blood their own excrements and seperated Innes But phlegme and the blood want excrments For if both of them are made beneath the Liver what seperater therefore seperates them And which why Since they being generated at once in the same place are perfectly mixed with the urine But if the Gawl and also black choler be made together with the act of sanguification in a most swift passage thorow the smal and slender little branches of the veines extended into the Liver I pray let young beginners be mindfull of the flendernesse of those little branches or veines which is scarce sufficient for the transmitting of the vrine and so that they should require a momentary transmutation of the urine blood and the other three humours to be made by the Creame This matter I have elsewhere profesly explained in a full treatise concerning a sixfold digestion And in the 16. brief head in particular That Choler is not made of meates And in the 17. That the Gawl is a bowel in forme of a liquour and the necessary balsame of life but in no wise an excrement In the 25. The curious opinion of the Schooles concerning the Gaul is unfolded In the 26. That nature had been more carefull for the Gaul than for phlegme In the 27. That the seperation of the urine and of the wheyinesse of blood differs in the whole essence from the seperation of the wheyinesse out of Milâ— In the 30. How much Gaul imports beyond every disposition of an excrement In the 31. Why birds might want urine and a kidney but not a Gaul In the 35. That the excrements of the kidneys and belly have indeed the colour of Gaul but not that they are therefore tinged with the Gaul and much lesse with choler In the 36. After what manner the dung excludes a comixture of the Gaul In the 37. That excrements may seem Gauly which are no way Gauly and therefore that these things have been rashly passed by by the Schooles Also that a leeky liquour is not of the Gaul the history of a Cock proveth and some following experiments in the Chap. of the Pylorus Sec. 24. The which that I may not here with a tediousnesse repeate the curious Reader shall enquire and he shall finde them in the places cited For if the Liver generateth both Cholers and Phlegm together with the blood why doth it despise and lay aside a great part of them for an excrement but reserve the rest in the blood when as otherwise of simple and homogeneal blood there either ought to be no duality of any of its particular parts or there should be the same necessary duality no less of Phlegm and Blood than of both the cholers Neither doth reason otherwise suffer that the same singular Cream of the meats should be daily and alwayes and equally divided into six parts to wit into blood both Choler 's retained in the blood and again into both the excrementitious Cholers and those shut up within their own entertaining places at length into phlegm especially when as the gaul differs from the liquor swimming on the blood let out of the veins in its whole property Unto which six humours if thou shalt add the Urine now seven humours shall ordinarily be framed of one only Cream and the supposed device of a quaternary of Elements and the necessity of that fiction perisheth Therefore if these are made by one only act of one liver in a direct and ordinary course of Ordination at once why doth it generate those things as necessary out of the homogeneal liquor of the Cream whereof there is no way a need for a Being as neither for a Well-Being But if they are for nourishing why doth it rather sequester both Cholers into their own sheaths and the chief Mansions of Constitution than Phlegm to wit the which they blush not to confess to be a defectuous liquor cold and so a partaker of death errour and a vital want But they will have Phlegm to be laid up in the vein and to be re-cocted into blood Therefore it is not as yet This Something being as yet crude undigested and uncocted not yet a true particular Humour and not yet a constitutive one of the bloud seeing it is as yet deficient no otherwise then as the juyce of unripe Grapes cannot be called Wine For if Phlegm answer to water even as they also liken the blood unto air one ought to be as perfect in it self as the other and as equally necessary if there are four Elementary Humours equally necessary for the composition and successive Alteration of us Surely that thing contains a Mockery that a Humour failing of its appointment should be ordinarily changed into another Humour As if the Water had not its own Perfection Ordination Order and Constitution but were naturally brought into
in separating And so seeing both Cholers accuse of a necessary access in a just temperament as they call it these could never be made fit for nourishment Since moreover we are daily nourished by the same things whereof we consist to wit of a temperate and lively seed refusing both Cholers And there shall be the like reason for both Cholers which there is of Phlegm That if this be perfected into the blood within the veins Choler shall no less be made blood in the Arteries For if Phlegm be changed into blood out of a natural proper and requisite shop much more shall yellow Choller be fit that in the heart it may degenerate into the more yellow blood of the Artery and into the spirit of life and the heart shall be the restorative shop of a gawly excrement But alas how miserable an Argument is it while as the blood let out of the veins disposeth it self to corruption sometimes two three or more liquors are seen therefore there are as many constitutive Humours of us For blood is wholly changed into milk and then after its corruption it hath only three subordinate parts to wit Whey Cheese and Butter nor ever more For sometimes it is totally coagulated in the Dug into a hard swelling in the form of Cheese now and then it wholly passeth over into a white yellow somewhat green c. corrupt Pus Sometimes into a pricking gnawing watery liquor as in the Disease called Choler Ulcers c. Elsewhere also it totally departs into a salt Wheyish liquor as in the Dropsie and many Hydragogal or water-extracting Medicines Oft-times also it waxeth wholly black like pitch as in blood that is chased out of the veins in a Gangreen c. but frequently into an ashie and stinking clay of slime as in Fluxes At another time also it wholly passing over into a yellow poyson shews or spreads forth the Jaundise in which manner also it boasts it self in those that are bitten with a Serpent Elsewhere also the blood is without the separation of an Heterogeneal matter wholly changed into sores issuing forth matter like honey called Melicerides into swellings of the Neck or Arm-holes conteining a matter in them like Pulse c. And in the Pâ—ssing-Evil the blood is totally changed into a milky liquor Even as under a Tabes or Consumption of the Lungs it wholly passeth into a yellowish spittle Are therefore perhaps as many Humours to be constituted in the blood as there are beheld degenerations thereof And shall there be as many Liquors in rain-Rain-water as there are things growing out of the Earth For the blood is in us like unto water neither had it need of divers seeds in the Liver that it may be one only equally nourishable Humour But in the last Kitchins it attaineth its own requisite diversities whereby it performeth the office of nourishing And so it should in its beginning in vain exceed in divers seeds and diversities of kind the which at length ought totally to be Homogeneally reduced into one only glewie white and transparent nourishable Sperm or Seed for the support of the similar parts or to remain red for the flesh of the Muscles and substance of the bowels Wherefore I stedfastly deny That the blood as long as it liveth or is detained in the veins although after the death of a man is coagulated and by consequence that it bath integral unlike parts with any Heterogeniety of it self But that all diversity in the blood is made only by the death or destruction of the same Therefore the diversity of Humours is the daughter only of death but not of life Neither is that of concernment that Excrements do now and then occur in the body which dissemble the countenance of blood To wit from whence they are made by degeneration For Urine is no longer wine even as neither are corrupt Pus or Snivel or spittles as yet parts of the blood Because Excrements are no longer that which they were before their corruption Because every thing assumes its Essence and name from the bound of transmutation For what doth it prove if blood by Phlebotomy separates water or other soils in time of its corruption if the same water be thereupon neither Gaul nor Choler nor bitter and wants the properties of Gaul Or what a rash belief is that Water swims on dead blood Therefore it it is gauly Choler which under a false taste dissembles the bitterness of Choler For that Water swimming on the blood is not an entire part thereof nor of its Essence or Contents or more near akin to the Blood than a Chariot in respect of a man sitting therein It is therefore to be grieved at that for so many ages none hath ever tasted down that water but that they all have engraven their names on the trifles of their Ancestors that I say under a shew of healing the Schools have delivered the destructions of the sick under false Principles For truly Humours are destructive Ignorances sluggishnesses and shamefulnesses introduced by the Father of lies and celebrated by the loose credulity of his followers For although the bottom of the blood doth sometimes look the less red it shall not therefore be black Choler Even as neither is the sediment of the Urine Phlegm But while the life of the blood departed it s no wonder if all particular things which were kept in the unity of life do re-take the material conditions whereto they are obliged For the variety of soils in liquid bodies depends on a preheminency of weights Because they have a latitude in weight which after death become Heterogeneal or of a different hind and by degrees do hasten into a disorder of confusion For will a man that is of a sound judgement believe that Wine Ale and the juyces of herbs do lay aside their own black Choler at the bottom together with their sediment For what hath black Choler common with the heterogeneal substance of a sediment But as to the Colour every Aethiopian hath his Blood almost black but for the most part without whey yet none of them is Melancholy but all wrathful For the blood which by the encompassing air is presently cooled in the Basin waxeth more red than that which being sunk unto the bottom hath the longer continued lukewarm For this also is ordinary that any blood being chased out of the veins presently waxeth black in the body For whatsoever things do readily putrifie do easily admit of the companions of putrefaction and that part of blood doth sooner putrifie which hath the longer continued warm after its death Therefore neither is it a wonder that the part of the lower ground thereof becomes more intensly black But that black blood is not a separation of weight in the Blood and much less black Choler I have separated nine ounces of fresh Blood and that as yet liquide into Porâ—ingers One whereof I exposed to swim in cold water but the other part being equal to the former
I longer detained in a gentle lukewarmth And this shewed very much of black blood but the other not any thing A diversity of kind therefore in a dead liquour presently putrifying and putrifiable is a suitable sign of corruption And the which therefore neither hath a vital or seminal Beginning a sign as neither an Argument of its primitive composition For we are Originally composed of a vital seed and are resolued into a putrified and cadaverous watery Liquor The which also oft-times happens in part in living bodies What if the Blood of pale becomes red shall that therefore be ascribed to Phlegm Shall red Apples be more sanguine than pale ones Blackish plumms be more melancholy than whitish ones For Colours do not denote feigned Humours or Elements But they imitate the properties of the middle life and appointments of the seeds Thus is it Colours and Thicknesses in the matter are works of the seminal Archeus But not the confused testimonies of Humours being put or applyed together Have thou recourse unto the Book of the Vnheard-of Doctrine of Fevers That I have lookt into the Bloods of two-hundred Countrey healthy persons in one only morning which were remarkable in the aspect of colours and diversities of grounds For some of them resembled a blackish and constrained jelly being oft-times also throughly mixed with a greenish liquor and sometimes only lightly besprinkled therewith Also another Blood was watery throughout its whole Another was snivelly another was red in the bottom another rather in the top-part thereof a water swimmed upon another being cleer pale somewhat yellow the which elsewhere lay hid as shut up in the middle of the Blood Another Blood was poyntingly speckled and another of red became pale throughout its whole another was inclinable into a Pomegranate and another into a black Colour Even as lastly another was somewhat green throughout it pavements I take pity on the deceiveable inspection of Blood issuing out of the body and the accustomed Judgements from blood let out of the veins the fictions of Humours and the readie credulities of the sick For a divining beholder of the blood is presently busie to fore-tell from the conjecture of an Humour the name and properties of the peccant and super-abounding Humour and also the manners complexion inclination of the man the particular kind greatness and event of the lurking disease and moreover the kind of death yea and the dependency of fortunes But whichsoever of the Humours shall offend in the Table of the inspection of Blood flowing forth that is presently banished with a diminishment of the head and unless it shall forthwith after obey it is to be put to flight by an an infamous stool Because the Physitian hath the peculiar Guardians of their own Humours ready at hand which may bring them forth all severally bound and putrified For thus they mock the ignorant and in the mean time thus also the frequency of Visits is confirmed Because they have known from a fore-judging of what sort the white of an egg will be which by receiving of their solutive Medicine shall return putrified For even the most phlegmatick person amongst them if he hath used Rhubarb will void a yellow excrement and less tinged if he shall take Scammoneated Medicines but not a slimie or snivelly liquor such as is voided from the receiving of the Magistrals of Coloquintida for all the compositions of the shops are supported with Scammony or Coloquintida or both as it were with two Pillars Oft-times also whom this man judgeth to be Cholery another calls Sanguine but if they shall see one whom they esteem to be Phlegmatick to be once angry others also will presently contend that he is in a raging heat through Choler And Scammony being drunk one derides another if they be called apart because he hath drawn Choler so plentifully from a sanguine man and he secretly insinuates by that very thing that the greater reward is due unto him as being skilful in his art For in the truth of the matter fraud fruit connexed with deceit do flourish as oft as vain complexions and Humours being neglected and the betokening and aspect of the blood let out being disregarded it is fore-known from the poysonous property of the solutive Medicine received what kind of dreg every one is to cast forth Indeed a solutive Medicine with them is an asistant to the function of the Liver Because it frames the Humours which they will have it to do and shews them in a bravery brought forth at pleasure and that according to the fore-knowledge of an Imposture And they boast as it were from a three-legged stool that they have fore-told to the sick the colours and properties of the offending Humours to be brought forth and that those sick having gone to stool have answered in the divination unto their foreknown Sooth-saings Surely a wretched Doctrine it is and ignorance to be expiated by punishment because that person is most miserable who having taken a consumptive medicine hath suffered his blood to be exhausted under the mask of putrefaction But at leastwise it is a wonder that the Schools have passed by the excrementitious filths of the Ears For they are those which being yellow and bitter might afford a fresher remembrance and firmer belief of yellow and bitter Choler than the water which swimmes on the venal Blood There is now therefore in the Brain a little bag of Choler But these filths appear not for the nourishment of the brain but when the blood is consumed but the Gaul cannot remain in its former Being or Essence when the Blood is spent whereof it had been an entire part An aid therefore for Choler was fetcht from an excrement formally transchanged especially because it alone exhales through the ears in the shape of a smoaky vapour For by how much the deeper an Ear-picker is sent into the ear the less of those filths is shaved of They are therefore ridiculous and weak arguments as many as beget an hope for Humours The colours also of an excrement cast forth are the effects of a purgative medicine being drunk but not testimonies of the abounding or conformity of an elected and rejected humour These things are described at large concerning the Doctrine of Fevers in the Chapter of Solutives Sufficient for me is the testimony from the mouth of the Schools that among all loosening medicines Aloes is only unhurtful They are not innocent therefore who profess this and in the mean time cease not daily to make use of other hurtful Medicines not because they find those things which they teach to be hurtful to be healthful to the sick but because they find them to be profitable to themselves What do we and shall we do will some say for unless we now and then open a vein and provoke the Belly we stay at home and are made the scorn of the vulgar and the Fable of Stages For a little Book is fore-read in the Schools concerning
he teacheth that blood being putrified is wholly turned into Choler For from thence he will be constrained to grant that part of the blood is daily putrified in its constitution Yea and that Hony in Cholerick persons wholly putrifies within few hours but not in sanguine ones And that as well a Cholerick complexion as the Choler thereof are meer corruptions At leastwise as much of Choler as is daily made in sanguification So much according to that precept of Galen putrifies And by consequence Choler is not a constitutive Humour of sound and healthy blood but a vitious adjacent thereof For while the blood being putrified as Galen witnesseth is turned into Choler that Choler is understood to be true Choler but not a putrified Being seeing otherwise putrified Choler is no more to be accounted Choler than a putrified man a man But after that I seeingly knew that no Being existing in its perfection testifies to the unlike parts of its own seminal root if any should remaine but that the seed disposeth of its own matter that thereof this some one thing may be made and not by an apposition or adjoyning but by a true formal transmutation I afterwards perfectly knew also that the diversity which sometimes shines forth in the corruption of the blood can never attest and much lesse shew forth the constitutive parts of the matter whereof no more then a strangled Calf although it be changed into Bees is therefore composed of Bees or hony if together with May dew it shall suffer a full moon in the grasse by night is changed into Eeles but with Rie bread if it passeth over into Ants But a womans Shift being shut up with wheat departs into Mice within few days Yet hony doth not therefore draw its matter from Eeles or Ants a calf his from Bees or Mice their matter from flax and menstruous blood And the Eele Ant c. shall be so composed of hony as again the Eele being dead doth the second time exclude hony out of his body Therefore Paracelsus errs who saith that a roasted Stork departs into a Serpent and Ducks into Frogs in fifteen daies space because those birds were wont to be fed with those meates and therefore that they ought feminally to conteine those beasts in them But that thing is altogether repugnant to the experience of the deed and unto Phylosophy Truly the original of things is not from those things whereinto things being resolved are changed Because that in natural generation the constitutive parts ought so to be made some one thing that they may be fully actuated by the one only form of the thing generated And therefore whatsoever under the relation of generation is not changed from its former essence that remains plainly excluded and unoccupied For all natural things are constituted almost after a single manner and by a simple seed so that although entire parts are composed such as are bones and finewes yet those being bound together not only in the method of connexion but in the vital bond of a specificall union do passe over into another family and are a Being it self from whence to fetch back the parts of the former seed is altogether unpossible to nature The venal blood therefore is not a part co-weaved of four Humours differing in an elementary species and much lesse is the blood resolveable into those Humours from whence it is believed to have arisen But by consequence whatsoever is produced out of the blood or through the paunch by corrupting that it is not one of those four feigned Humours but a putrified excrement of the blood Much lesse is there a ground of founding an argument for a possible existence of Humours Therefore it is cleerly manifest that the Schools have not understood the blood as a natural single and composed Being of nature but for an artificial Being patcht together and connexed of many Beings Under which ignorance it is certain that properties requisites health diseases and remedies also have as one remained hitherto unknown and that by conjecture only they have healed from false principles of healing But go to yet one only faculty of the Liver in sanguification shall regularly directly and ordinarily produce four Humours at once and the variety of these from the example of hony mentioned by Galen depends on a fourefold variety of one efficient Therefore it must needs be that in one only Liver a fourfold expresse complexional distemper is regularly and daily prevalent to wit every one whereof against the will of its companion is fit to frame its own Humour And since he writes that more of Phlegm is ordinarily generated and therefore also he determineth of a more aboundding cause of a Quotidian ague It followes that the Phlegmatick complexion even of the most intemperate Cholerick person shall as yet be the more prevalent one But seeing the fiction of Elements do long since cease and have been suppressed from whence the reflexion of a Quaternary of qualities and Humours was to be hoped for Now no reason shall henceforth remain why it should rather incline to four Humours than to three or unto ten of whatsoever disposition that matter shall at length remain the heir Because the fundamentall stem being taken away to wit that there are not nor ever were four Elements in the universe nor that our body is in any wise materially or efficiently constituted of the same A fourfold generation of Humours in the Liver doth also totally fall to the ground together with it Because it is that which hath alwayes had respect unto the Elements and the supposed and feigned qualities and connexed strifes of these In the next place how inconsiderate is this device of the Schools that they will have the Spleen to be the sink of black and the worst of Choler yet the Spleen to yield its asistance to the Liver as indeed the Spleen doth administer the vicar-ship as the Liver doth in making of blood to wit while the Liver is ill affected As if in us from a right of substitution the vital faculty of the Liver should glister or grow in some other part and especially on a sordid sheath which they say is that of the worst calamities Good and most Holy Jesus wilt thou as yet long admit of confusions of so great moment in healing Have respect unto thy people groaning under so grosse falsities and remember thy natural bounty For the Schools see in artificial things a chest that was compacted of diverse pieces to be again dissolved into its parts and they from a childish stupidity have thought that the same thing hath happened in nature through thy humanity namely that Choler is fetcht out of the blood yea and out of the flesh also and that Choler hath therefore always persisted under transchanged formal Beginnings and that therefore out of Choler the blood doth again materially arise and re-arise But another hath seen salt to be resolved into water nor to be then any longer seen and
Anthonies fire c although the mouth might sometimes be bitter yet the liquour issuing from an Erisipelas is not bitter but plainly of sharp is become salt That Humour I say of whose burning heat the Schools complain in an Erisipelas is called a most sharp one when as in the mean time it bears neither any sharpnesse nor bitternesse before it And they are unconstant in this when as notwithstanding the sharpness of Humours ought to differ as much from their bitterness as Pepper doth from Coloquintida or from wild Cucumber And so the Schools have treated thus carelessely and unconstantly concerning the properties of their own Choler Because in Law a varying witness is unworthy of any credit he is accounted for an unsavoury or foolish or false witnesse and he is constrained to restitution by how much hurt he hath brought unto another by his testimony But come on then let us suppose but not believe that the liquour swimming on the blood is Gauly Choler and of the natural composition thereof At leastwise that blood on which that Choler now swims should be no longer blood if one of its four constitutive parts hath failed it and there be made a seperation of the Marriage bed to wit a real seperation of things composing for Cheese from which the Wheyinesse is withdrawn is no longer Milk For neither do I deny that the whole entire body subsisteth from an union of Heterogeneal parts but the integrity of the former composed body ceaseth assoon as one of its constitutive parts hath retired The Schools indeed suppose a permanency and co-knitting of four Humours for the constitution of the blood Yea besides this simple and vain supposition nothing hath been hitherto proved by the Schools which may not be more worthy of pity than credit Therefore I deny their blockish supposition not proved to proceed unto the false derivations of Choler and embassages of these into the diverse parts and passions of the body If they shall not first make it manifest concerning the question whether there be any Choler requisite for the constitution of the blood Therefore Choler hath not place in the constitution of the blood although a uriny wheyishnesse swim upon blood let out of the veines For that whyishnesse is unto the blood by accident which thing the blood of those who have drunk little and laboured and sweat much doth sufficiently prove For oft-times the blood of such being taken away by Phlebotomy wholly wants all Wheyishnesse And by consequence it should be deprived of Choler And likewise neither doth that blood cease to be blood the which doth not admit of Wheyishnesse but by accident The which I have in the Chap. of the Liquour Latex hitherto unknown to the Schools concerning the rise of medicine elsewhere demonstrated For the Latex is left in the blood for its own ends the ignorance whereof therefore hath hitherto secluded Physitians from the signification of the urine and the knowledge of many diseases I will therefore re-sume by supposing That yellow Choler is naturally a watery liquor swimming on the blood Let the Schooles therefore at least reach if Choler be an Humour most fiery representing fire and conteining it in substance and properties how fire can glister in a meer salt water How is it that it is not stifled in that water After what manner do fire and water co-suffer with each other under the famlinesse of unity as also the air immediately under Phlegm What have they any where found in nature which may constraine fire to conjoyn in salt water They will finde at length that they are driven to believe these trifles by reason of a Quaternary of Elements and a necessity of mixed bodies Both which after they have been oppressed by demonstrations propter quid or for what cause the world will Sue for my writings The very Schools themselves and all posterity will laugh at the blockishnesses of Ancestours which have hitherto been so stubornly defended they being so pernicious in healing and false in instructing Because will they nill they they ought to swallow two Maxims of mine elsewhere demonstrated One whereof is That there is no Element of fire and that kitchin or artificial fire is not a substance And consequently that if more things than one should concurre unto the composition of the blood at least wise that four Elements could not flow together thereunto And therefore that the fiction of four Humours doth badly square for our blood for mixture tempering strife and likewise for the truth existence actuality diversity and healing of diseases and cures But the other of my Maxims is elsewhere sufficiently proved That every sublunary visible Body is not materially composed of four as neither of three co-mixed Elements They must therefore seriously repent Because the fire is neither an Element as neither a substance neither is a salt watery liquour to be called into the composition of us for the feigned comparison of a Microcosme or little world that it may represent the form of fire Again I by way of connivance suppose That nature scarce makes enough blood of all the food dayly even as in the book of the unheard of doctrine of Fevers At least wise nature approves of that since she hath hitherto appoynted no place of entertainment for superabounding blood Yet she alwayes prepares out of all food both Cholers abundantly and super-fluously which the Schools prove by the tincture of the urine and filths of the belly therefore at least wise the nature of the Liver daily erreth and is founded in errour and offends also in abstinent persons fishes and Nations that are satisfied with the drinking of water only Because indeed it generates the least of a super-abounding fiery and earthy humour and yet more than it hath need of for its own nourishments Why therefore doth not nature offend rather in quality even as she daily without distinction offends in quantity Why also in the place of blood to wit the fourth ordinary Humour doth she not likewise in offending produce a certain abortive excrementitious blood to be sent away into banishment as she daily actually banisheth the two excessive Cholers out of the composition of the blood and fellowship of life Why also doth she daily bring forth more of malignant humours and those to be expelled out of good and much juicy meats moderately taken than out of the best blood Since as Galen is witnesse in hot natures hony which otherwise in temperate and therefore in Sanguine persons is totally turned into blood is wholly turned into yellow Choler To wit it s other three companional Humours being excluded Whence it followes That the framing of Humours proceeds not from the complexion of the food but altogether from the condition of the Liver From whence consequently if more of both Cholers than is meet be daily made that all that is to be attributed unto the offence and vice of nature And therefore that every naturall complexion of the Liver is vitious
obtained a sprout Because there will be those who knowing no better shall see themselves as it were excluded from medicine and through indignation will shut the doores against truth knocking Others who have grown old in sluggishnesse being unapt to learn better things will despise others before themselves I will go against them For indeed when Physitians had seen the blood of the veins to be thickned into clots they considered that there was a certain red liquour and running and also another which in the beginning indeed flowed with the red liquour but that it soon setled and clotted into a jelly of its own accord For such was the primitive inspection and Anatomy of the blood It hath also been believed hitherto that the blood is at least that red and fluid liquour And it hath been unknown that although in the Meseraick veins fibers and the beginnings and rudiments of sperm or seedinesse were not yet obtained yet that true obtained not yet fibrous was in the same place because they might see the blood in the veins under the Liver not to differ by way of colour from the blood of the hollow vein above the Liver As soon therefore as the ham of a virgin being let down into water they let blood from her they with joy observed that the blood immediately tinged the water and moreover certain threddy fibers resembling as it were the liknesse of a cobweb whence the Schools without delay pronounced that phlegm was now manifestly to be seen And also our doctrine might be judged a brawling about a name if a fiber did not appear after the death of the blood onely For in a dead carcase also long after the colds of death the blood notwithstanding remaines un-coagulated in the veins and therefore so long is alive For milk hath not this phlegm because in the seperation of its heterogeneal parts it hath Cheese and clots wherewith it is constrained For I speak of milk and blood even as they are Beings existing entire in act they being not seperated through corruption But the Schools behold the blood while it is now a dead carcase being coagulated neither properly while it is that any longer the Etymology whereof it hath as long as it floweth No more then a dead man is a man with an estranging particular They also presently added a third Humour to the blood which should be the Gaul nor that as yet different from the Wheyie urine and sweat and the Water accidentally swimming on the blood neither have they heeded whether it were bitter and whether from a deserved title it possessed the properties of the Gaul or not It hath been sufficient and pleasing to them that it should be a watery liquour or barely of a clayie colour For the law of founding the Gaul was in the pleasure of the Prince of Physitians but not any longer of nature He fell into the meditation of four Elements yet a fourth Humour was wanting wherefore that their number might answer to the Elements which were thought to be four and to flow together well nigh unto every constitution of a body a fourth Humour was seasonably devised being therefore like unto earth and black the which while they long in vain enquired into they at length by a proper and rash boldnesse commanded it to proceed from a re-cocted fiery and Gauly liquour so as that Choler the name being retained was commanded to degenerate from yellow into black and from an invented fiery liquour an earthy one proceeded And its bitternesse for in live bodies they have commanded it to be presently scorched roasted and fried at pleasure with an equal importunity being roasted into an adust Gaul they have willed to assume a sharpness under the Lukewarmth of life and so of a fiery matter a cold and earthy product to be immediatly made by an act of the fire and lukewarmth The modern Schools in the mean time kick against it at unawares while as they accuse any distilled things of an heat borrowed from corruption of matter For as the former feigned black Choler which might fill up the number of Elements they at length prosecuted it with all conjectures although ridiculous ones For so they introduced yellow Choler by the jaundise and bitter vomitings for a foundation of nature and art Truly the liquour swimming on the blood let out of the veins since it shewed forth no bitternesse at all young beginners might even from thence have doubted of the nature of Gaul if they had but once only lightly tasted a finger dipped therein Wherefore when the Schools observed that by vomit yellow and also bitter excrements were frequently cast out yea that now and then they dissembled the juice of a Leek of disolved Verdigrease or the infusion of an Azure stone they determined of Choler more certainly than certainty it self Neither was it any longer to be disputed concerning it as neither against him that denied such principles but of the Choler of the Urine I will by and by speak under the inspection of urine and afterwards they boldly also affirmed that Choler to be in the urine in any dungs whatsoever and also in the filths of the ears and eyes But the jaundise hath more fully confirmed this doctrine because it is that which overspreads the mouth and spittle with bitternesse and stirs up the itching of a Citron-coloured skin Therefore it hath easily been believed that all these same effects are borrowed from the Gaul Yea they have affirmed that all such diseases of the skin are from adust Gaul and offending as wel in quantity as in quality and from the vice of the Liver in bringing forth more Gaul than is meet To wit by which circumstances they have supposed that they have sufficiently and over proved the existence and necessary association of Choler From hence afterwards arose a dream which conjoyned those four Humours together they remayning in their essence and that from a co-heaping thereof one only blood did from thence proceed and that every humour did again rebound from the connexion and composure of the blood as oft as it should please an Elementary strife to wit a distemper or at the pleasures of Laxative medicines I will now willingly declare openly mine own and those daily observations For first of all if the more plentifull hard and scarce sufficiently chewed meat be taken at supper on the morning following yellow vomiting and bitter in the shew of yolk of eggs or otherwise like Oyl pressed out of the seed of Rape roots frequently succeedeth From thence therefore first I conjectured that that was through an errour of the digestion of the Stomach but not from a vice of the Liver from a defect of Sanguification or the making of an abundance of Choler For truly oftimes meats badly digested and chewed being partly turned into an yellow balast are beheld to be cast up together with the same vomit And then I conjectured that the rules of Sanguification standing those yellow and bitter excrements were
ice but is only carried forth unto objects that are to be eaten from whence nature hopes for nourishment to her self But it is not carried promiscuously towards any objects So neither doth nature desire that which she had once cast out as reprobate As knowing that any thing cannot be made out of every thing neither therefore doth she hope for or look for nourishment from an excrement The which she therefore neither desires nor allures to her self And I wish the Schools had considered that thing before their rash doctrine of Choler I grant indeed that through inordinacies inordinate and confused obediences do now and then follow But I shall not therefore admit that a sixfold quantity is drawn out of the little bag of the Gaul for vomit as neither that any thing is rashly drawn to the stomach Seeing the very Gaul it self is a Nobie and vital Bowel even as elsewhere Wherefore I now and then in the more curiously searching have lookt into the chest of the Gaul and yet I have found no passage to lay open a-top out of the Liver unto the Gaul and that I suppose in right for the deed done Wherefore I have also judged the Gaul not to be made by the Liver but to be prepared materially of the pure blood of the Liver and efficiently by the proper Archeus of the Gaul in its own case or Chest At leastwise if there were any unpercievable pore which there is not that might inspire Choler from the Liver unto the chest of the Gaul why therefore doth the mouth at the utterance of the Gaul lay open fifty times more at least for the ejecting than for the entring of Gaul For truly no entrance could as yet be discerningly viewed by the eye for so many ages Is there not also from hence an easy confirmation that the orifice of the Gaul tends into the empty gut only for an in-breathing of its own vital and necessary ferment For the Gaul in a Tertian should never be sufficient for tinging of the urine the drosses of the paunch also for tinging of the daily nourishment and the which they require for the substance of the blood Moreover as neither for the abundance which even sober persons vomit up every other day about the beginnings of their fits For had it not behoved them from hence to have learned that whatsoever they call Choler is a meer excrement procreated from a diseasie constitution and that what is so engendred cannot repaire the essence of the blood Choler or Gaul Because it is that which hath no right of judging of the necessities of a quaternary for the integrity of the blood and an apposition instead of a composition For as soon as sour belchings are made in the stomach the presence of that unhappy and bitter excrement made in the stomach of the Chyle being defiled ceaseth And therefore from that time burntish stinking belches depart It is therefore feigned Choler in the stomach whereby the Schools contend originaly to stablish the Choler of the Liver alike feigned it ariseth from the inordinacy of the stomach but not from the intention of nature for the constitution of the blood It is therefore wholly an excrement and badly squares with another Choler feigned to be in the composition of the blood Because it is that which will never be proved to be within the bounds of nature since no necessity of its presence presseth the same For the Gaul is a vital bowel and exceeding necessary Wherefore neither is it rashly to be reckoned sunonymal or of the same name with an Humour or an excrement as neither to be accounted for a part of the blood For they say that the Elements do repeatingly destroy and devour each other But they have hitherto failed in the proof But they alleadge onely artificial fire which they think doth convert water and air into each other as oft as those are no longer beheld But they fail in their own position For they teach that fire converteth water into it self and not into air And it should be a foolish action of the fire which should labour not for it self but for the air Yea although water quencheth fire yet it was never seen that on the other hand fire was made water For they have thought it sufficient to have stated and not to have proved their own positions But among Humours that which they will have to be made like unto fire they shew a water not sharp biting as neither salt-bitter but modestly salt and the which they elsewhere call the Whey of the blood its Etymologie being drawn from the watery part of Milk They call I say Choler an Humour answering to fire For they command that that the Elements ought to obey their dreams For the Schools being seriously asked say that Choler is an Humour meerly fiery and Gauly because it is actually composed of fire predominating But I being silent as to these trifles am amazed while as I behold a waterish whey swimming on the blood They add also that true fire is suppressed in Choler as being masked and bridled by the form of the mixt body But let them believe that will that the form of Choler being received from the meer dominion of fire that it might produce the effects of that Element in us should so restrain its own product wherein it should actually lay hid that it should be altogether Cold in act and be a wheyie and meerly a watery Being I therefore suppose and know that if but a very smal quantity of actual fire were in a mixt body that it would presently perish as being suppressed by adjuncts a Yea if fire should neverthelesse persist safe by an irregular power at leastwise it should not any thing worship the form or body of that mixture but should according to its own disposition wholly burn and consume it without reflection or connivance Therefore either the fire should cease or the mixt body of necessity perish neither could the form of Choler hinder either of the two For it hath not hitherto been seen that an artificer who prepares glass earthen pots tiles or bricks Aurichalcum or Latten c. by the fire can in any place or at any time couple fire unto earth water and air that he may from thence constitute any mixt body and much lesse that he can allure fire to flow down from Heaven and shall connex it with air water and earth It s a wonder therefore that the whole faculty of medicine doth hitherto establish its Basis in an impossibility And so much the more wonderful that the whole world hath as it were snorted in a deep sleep at these deaf dreams and hath befooled all with a credulity And so much the more to be admired that they have believed the fire to be suppressed under other Elements in mixtures and neverthelesse as yet to remain safe when as notwithstanding they have sufficiently known and taken notice that all fire presently as soon as it ceaseth from burning
of the Schools 9. VVhat the yellownesse of the urine may betoken 10. That nothing of Choler or Gaul is in the urine 11. A threefold errour in this thing 12. A begging of the principle 13. That Choler is not snatched out of the urine unto the brain 14. Some accompanying absurdities 15. From Anatomy 16. From the Jaundise 17. VVhat watery urines suddenly after tinged ones in Fevers may fundamentally denote 18. That the prognostications of the urine have been meer dreames hitherto 19. A channel is wanting 20. Under the division of motions 21. The little cloud of the urine whether it denoteth phlegm 22. All things are cocted in us for one only end to wit that they may nourish 23. VVhy the spleen hath a double ferment 24. VVhat that may be which the spleen doth sometimes belch forth into the stomach 25. That any effect is not taken away the cause being removed 26. VVhat a confused or troubled urine may be speak 27. VVhence erudity in the urine is 28. VVhy the strangury is scarce cured in old folks 29. Whence the lumpy sediment or ground is 30. Errours about contents as well those proper as forreign elsewhere concerning Duelech 31. As yet a new method of judging of the urine by the weight thereof ANd moreover the Schools for the divination of urine presuppose a washy of watery matter on the opposite part to this a thick one and then a moderate one And likewise confused turbulent dark even as also cleer and perspicuous urines But some of confused ones do by heating return into their former transparency others remain troubled Lastly some urines being made cleer are presently again disturbed but others with difficulty Secondly they consider almost all colour from the watery white milky and dull and also from the cleer watery even unto the blackish colour Thirdly its proper and forreign contents are viewed Forreign ones indeed I call slimy bloody shavings sands and stones And those either soon affixed to the urinals or freely setling But proper contents are those which are almost ordinarily thrust down out of confused urines or which swim in cleer ones in their superficies a little under it in the middle about the bottom or laying on the bottom it self and those either cleaving together or rent asunder Fourthly they consider the froath and bubbles Fifthly they at length consider of the circle But Paracelsus moreover distinguisheth the body of the urine into the urine of the drink and mixt of both He cals it that of the blood if he that makes water in the morning hath not as yet drunk the day before in the evening and in the night But the urine of the drink is that which is collected from much and little waterish drink Also he calls that a mixt urine which is that of sober or temperate persons Furthermore what he feigneth concerning an Alcooled and tartarous urine shall be manifested in the treatise of Tartars First of all I protest that I do not any where strive to reckon up those things that have been well written by Ancestours and much lesse to chastize them nor to handle the precepts of the judgments of urine nor to explain the inventions of others as neither to make an Apology for them But I only desire to discover the Antient errours of the Schools that have arisen from feigned humours that juniours may not hereafter be led aside according to rash beliefs of dreams First therefore I will reckon up the errours concerning the circle of the urine and then those committed in its colour thirdly those which happen in the little cloud or swim thereof and fourthly I will make manifest those which have happened in the judgments of its coagulations or contents From whence any one may easily understand that the judgments and prognostications of the urine have hitherto stood without judgment and a foundation To wit that the wonderfull impostures of Gordon have been set to sale unto ignorant poor people under the false title of a Diviner First of all therefore they have stumbled in the circle of the urine since it hath hitherto been unknown why the circle is oftentimes of another colour than the rest of the body of the urine Indeed it hath been supposed that the circle is separated from the rest of the body of the urine as the fat from the watery part or as it were the cream from the Milk whereon it swims In the mean time although the urine be stirred yet the same circle which was before forthwith appeareth and not any thing hath been further searched diligently into concerning the circle out of its supposed bounds They see indeed the circle to be oft-times more red and more full than the colour in the remayning body of the urine yea that a more ruddy and more deep yellowness doth for the most part want a circle distinct from the colour of the urine Yet have they not diligently enquired from whence there should be that variety of the the circle and urine Notwithstanding neither therefore is the circle a certain colour falsly appearing and deluding the eyes with a false shew of it self For neither otherwise could a somewhat yellow urine yield a more red and heightned colour by a naked reflexion of it self but should rather paint out a more pale colour than a yellowish one if the colour of the circle were only appearing from a reflexion Therefore the reason of the altered colour in the circle of the urine dependeth in very deed on the very body of the urine it self And so the circle alone shewes the whole consistence colour and transparency of the urine because it conteineth them which thing the wood Nephritical or for the stone of the kidneys teacheth by a notable example For this wood being steeped in rain water if thou shalt afterwards behold its infusion sideways it is wholly red in its body but that decocted or infused steepage hath an Azure or Sky-coloured circle however disturbingly thou shalt shake it at thy pleasure For so the colour of the blood being beheld thorow a vein appears of an Azure colour So also the sky-colour in the circle of the decoction of the Nephritical wood is indeed Azury but being multiplied it lookes more black and of an obscure colour tends more to white than a red one being diametrically seen thorow a glasse or vein After the same manner in the body of the urine a red colour appears simply such as it doth in the circle which being re-bounded or weakned from a crosse the urine is not of so citron a colour in the circle The circle therefore is a true token of colour in transparent urines but in dark or thick and troubled ones a circle doth not apear But as to what pertains unto the colour of urine the Schools say that a watery thin pale urine is a sign of digestion being deficient even as that which is tinged with a manifest yellownesse is a token of good digestion It is a saying of Galen
Ferment of the Plague 11 22 There are double Ferments in nature 112 8 Ferments the causes of transmutation 207 8 The Ferment of the Stomach not from it self ibid. Ferment of thâ— Spleen turns the Spirit of wine wholly into a Salt 733 Fishes made of water proved 115 29 Fishes helpful to Chastity 667 38 Fishes why long lived 684 93 Fishes bring forth without pain 685 95 Fire no Element 48 9 50 1 134 24 138 35 It receives not its nourishment from the Air. 84 16 134 24 It generates nothing 109 34 VVhat its appointed ends are 129 26 Its divers Inclinations taught by Positions 136 31 Its being no substantial Body proved by demonstration 137 33 It is the Vulcan of Arts. 138 38 Actual fire cannot subsist in a mixt Body without consuming it 1049 18 What a Flatus is and its kind 421 34. c. Two irregular ones in us 424. 50 Whence they arise 425 61 Where made 428. 78 A Flint capable of retaining the solar light 147 95 155 35 The Bloody Flux how cured 475 29 The quality of food doth not hurt except where medicines are wanting 702 What a Fog is 68 24 VVhat a Form is and whence 130 2â—3 c. The distinction 'twixt an Essential and substantial form 130 7 133 22 143 67 A four-fold form 143 67 Fox lungs censured 260 38 Of the original of Fountains 6â—â— Fountains dispense the seeds of Minerals and Metals 690 19 Fountains not thickned by the air 691 From whence the best fountains do arise 694 Of the Keeper of Fountains ibid VVhy they are called sharp ibid VVhat the sharpness of Fountains proceeds from 695 22 Of the fountains of the Spaw 696 1 VVhat they contain 697 5 VVhy a vein of Iron is invisible in fountains 698 8. VVhy fountains are different in strength 698 14 Of the virtues of the hungry salt of the Fountains and how far they act 699. VVhom they do not hâ—lp ibid How they profit in the stone 700 12 The qualities of fountains are Relolleous and Cherionial â—01 19 Advice to those that drink of Spaw waters 702 How the waters may pass to the midriff quickly ibid How much he ought to drink and what he is to take with it 703 10 A Frog how reducible to its first matter 141 56 G. GAs what it is 69 29 71 10 106 14 VVhat it retains 109 34 Galen ignorant of the causes of Ulcers 321 25 Galen no Anatomist 423 43 303 3â— Galen never knew Rose-water Aqua vitae nor Quick-silver 10â—â— Galens errors about Ulcers 319 14 1â— Galen ignorant of the Latax 378 33 VVhat the Gaâ—l's use is in the body 427 74 The Gaul a vital Bowel 211 34 1061 It performs its digestion by a fermental Blas 214 46 The Gaul hath the nature of a Balsam 216 53 It is taken so in Scripture ibid. 1041 24 From what the Gaul receives a ferment 1048 14 The Generation of Fauns Satyrs Nymphs c. 681 81 Generation of Troâ—ts 684 91 Generation of man described 736 737 738. Ginger produceth sweat 250 â— Glas turns into water under the earth c. 116 33 151 15 The Globe is Oval 35 â—2 The best manner of drawing forth Goats blood 210 75 Its wonderful virtue ibid God made not Death 337 572 157 58 649 How it came to be 649 â— 650 651 The Essential Image of God is in the mind 718 Gold distilled over the Helm 64 6 Its ponderosity is from its seminality compressing the water 67 18 Though reduced into the form of Butter Râ—zin or vitriol yet useless 478 42 VVhat it is rendred efficacious by ibid Gold and precious stones examined 970 Purging medicines hurtful in the Goâ—errhea Of the original of the Gout 291 9 842 292 The Gout sometimes driven away by fear 293 15 Gout not from a defluxing Catarrh nor helped by Cauteries 385 23 386 1 Gout distinguished not by heat or cold but by a seminal Essence â—87 8 The original of the Gout and its progress 388 13 The Seat of the Gout 389 Of the curt with an Epitomâ— of the Gout 390 25 Caâ—teries and drying drinks â—ain in the Gout 391 32 35 The action of Government unknown produceth many errours 333 36 Grapes immediately eaten hurtful 107 16 Grass roots cannot cool the Liver 319 1 Of Gunpowder 107 21 H. HAres fat puls out a â—horn 521. 1160 Being dryed cures the bloody flux 4â—3 To what end the motion of the heart is 179 24 Herbs and â—â—rbarists why disesteemed 1â— 10 The Schoolmen's way of judging of the elementary degrees of herbs erroneous 69. 28 459 1â— Their sloath and errour in the search of their virtues 15â— 3. c. Why their preparation requirs much wariness 458. 11 1â— c. Their properties distinguishable by their specifick savour 460. 17 472 12 Their time of gathering when 460. 17 468 19 142 60 The Heaven gives neither life nor form 129 1 132 14 108â— It doth not cause diseases 1084 1086 1087 1091 What is required for healing 17â— 44 Heat not the first 〈◊〉 of life 196. 26 Heat not the proper 〈◊〉 of digesâ—ion 199. â—â—2 Heat consumes not radic at moisture â—17 Heat is not the life 718 Heat fails not for want of moisture 744 Hâ—â—â—rhoids 943 Their cure 944 From whence the pain in the head may arise 339. 1â— What ought to be minded in applying remedies to the head 276. 20 Of the effect of Remedies applied to the head 292. 12 Hellebor commended for the heal 368. 63 Also for madnesse 302. 26 The defects that manifest themselves in the head cured by stomack Remedies 302. 26 Memory placed in the head 304. 3â— A History of a woman infected with the pox 34 40 Of Count Destaires being opened 509 Of Cardinal Ferdinand 951 Of a Hydropical man 406. 33 510 520 Of a boy troubled with the Iliack passion 422 38 Of a Gas stird up by Sal Armoniack and Aqua â—ortis 426 62. Of a bursten man 428. 75 Of a noble woman strangled by affects of the womb 428. 76 Of a Sonatours wife in child birth 443. Of a merchant's ascending the high mountain of the Canaries 73. â—â— Of an earth-quake at Faâ—â—agusts 79. 13 Of thunder 91. 20 Of an earth-quakâ— 93. 3 Of predictions deciphered in the Stars 122. 27 Of the Authors Chamber-fellows walking by night 141. 53 Of Butler 563 Of several wonderful things 597 Of the Author 958 Of a man with a Quart an Ague 91â— History of Crabs 886 Of a preacher in England 846 Of a Duke being diffected 627 Of a woman whose Liver weighed 21. pounds Ibid. Of a boy that aâ—e this own dung 211. 36â— Of a Printer of Bruâ—els that lived 23. days of his own dung 212 Of a Chymist that made viâ—â—gar yearly by the odour of the vessel 217 Several Histories of the distasted 〈◊〉 228 28 History of Paracelâ—us his Birth and life 230 28 History of Groynland fishing 232 History of a speaking Satyr 683. 685 88 Of the bignesse and
all things soon putrifie under the Equinoctial 141 54 What preserves against putrefaction 152 16 19 What solely promotes it 152 192 Pyrotechny commended 45. 11 What the Pylorus is 222 Of his Government 223 Of his Blas ibid. Of the diseases he stirs up 224 10 Of his shuâ—ting and opening 225 16 A sense of appetite in the Pylorus demonstrated 226 20 His rage and restauration ibid. The use of the Pylorus 228 With observations thereon ibid. The vice of the Pylorus cured 227 22 The four hot seeds usually pacifie the Pylorus 301 21 Q QVartans cured by odorous oyntments 114 17 By an Emplaister 988 1011 Seat of a Quartane 778 Examination of a Quartane 963 Quartane not cured by Physitians 307 57 812 Quick-silver truly prepared cures the Pox. 1094 What the Quellem is And where 94 5689 6 Its greatness 690 14 A Question propounded to all the learned 167,32 No such thing as a Quint-Essence 407 44. 414 79 R. WHat rain is 71 10 73 21 79 12 Of the Rain-bow 87 1. c. Of the radical moisture of the Schools 726 Radical moisture explained 729 Reason condemned 15. c. It is in bruit beasts 20 34 It makes a man unstable 21 40 VVhen reason faileth 715 Reason not â—t he Image of God 268 30 79 The Relâ—llum of Paracelsus 75 36 What it is 66 25 Powerful remedies are not of a foody substance 582 Remedies against Inchantments 605 The Reins do not stir up lust 305 42 How the Reins change the colour of the stone 248 28 Of the Revelation of several persons 1092 The Reins do not cause fatness 308 59 The errours of Physitians as touching rheums 432 15 Rie meal makes durable morter 247 Roses preserve their fragrant putrefaction 414 79 S. SAlt of Tartar volatilized perfects dissolutions 1002 1011 It abstergâ—th 1032 From whence is the first beginning of Salts 694 The vital Being is Salt 193 19 The various properties of Salts 473 22 Salt of venal blood cures the Falling Sickness 195 16 What the chiefest of all is 473 24 How Salt ariseth in Urine 842 The operations of Simple Salts 476 31. 480 The Gas of Salts is nothing but water 109 37 Volatile Salts their vertues 991 Hermaphroditical Salt of Metals 694 Sand not transmutable save only by the artificial hellish fire 52 14 The Sea less than the boyling Sand 690 14 What the true Sea is ibid It hath its motion in it self ibid. Saphire its power in the Plague 765 34 Why Church-men wear Saphirs 766 36 Why Saturns kingdoms are wished for 303 32 The Mercury of Saturn c. 478 40 Its distillation ibid. Against the Contemners of Science 989 The Schools ignorant of the diseases that arise in the sixth digestion 219 The Schools condemned of ignorance and sloath 474 28 c. Of blasphemy 145 78 The errour of the Schools about the first Mover 176 Scorpions produced from Bazil 13 113 Scurvy unknown to the Antients 109 When it first appeared 1092 How seeds issue from the invisible world 935 Seminal beginnings are from an Idea 436 Seeds act as appointed 164 16 No seminal disposition in the soul of man bâ—fore the fall 662 11 The four lesser hot seeds commended 427 75 The proportion of seed in a body is the 8200. th part 106 12 1125 How seeds are made 13 12 The difference betwixt a seed and ferment ibid. Hot seeds are of an easie conception 143 66 Seeds in their Original void of savour and colour 693. 2 Of Sense and Sensation 895 The Sensitive soul not generated by the mind 662 10 It differs from the mind 334 The knitting of the sensitive soul with the mind 251 The seat of the sensitive soul 283 284 285 It remains always in the vital Archeus of the stomack 286 18. 288 32 The sensitive soul is a vital light ibid. 20 Of the power of the sensitive soul when impregnated with the mind 354 13 14 In simples there is a perfect cure of all diseases 467 5 The natural power of some simples 307 54 The quality of the first sin 654 8 Sin hath nâ—â— immediately caused death 655 Â 656 Whence the continuation of original sin ibid. 28 Of the difference between actual and original sin 658 47 Why sleep was sent in before sin 563 Sleep not from a defect 337 1 When sleep is made 339 12 Snow on the mountains melts not 73 15 Soul of man not generated from his parent 662 12 Soul created by God 663 Its retreat in our first parents 664 A Treatise of the soul 342 Of the immortality of the soul 346 The seat of the soul not in the heart 292 13 Some defects of the stomack cured by sweat 1113 The ferment of the stomack to be regarded 453 22 c. Why though still moist yet putrifies not 479 Â 48 Twelve properties of the stomack 560 Some diseases inhabit in the life of the stomack 561 The stomack hath not its ferment in it self 267 11 Sharpness not the vital Ferment of the stostomack 208 131 What it is 210 29 The stomach doth not coct first for it self 216 52 The stomach first sensible of any defect 285 13 14 287 26 The stomach of the liver 20â— 20 The stomach of the gaul ibid Sobriety commended 452 16 Seat of diseases in the sensitive soul confirmed 559 The seat of the sensitive soul 555 Of specifical savours 473 25 Two savours one of the tongue the other of the stomach 474 27 Spleen the maker of seed 305 42 The scituation of the Spleen 540 It is the fountain of Idea's 606 Against black choler in the spleen 964 1056 The defect of the spleen is the cause of the Strangury in old people 1061 A double ferment in the spleen 1055 The spleen inspires a digestive ferment into the stomack 298 The spleen most enriched with Arteries ibid. Of the stomack of the spleen 299 13 Of the external spleen of an Infant 306 49 How the soul thinks intellectualy 23 48 It is substantial 144 70 Its power when freed from corporeal contagion 144 75 What the sensitive soul is 145 82 Soul acts in the body per nutum 780 97 784 The soul generates Entities 785 131 Soul sits in the Duumvirate 301 22 Sharpness is the specifical mean in the stomack 115 34 It dâ—ffers from all other sharpnesses 193 10 Stones and Rocks reducible into their equal weight of Salt 411 65 Whence the Strangury in old people is 855 624 What the Stars shew forth c. 122 21 How they operate 121 14 How they necessitate 123 30 The difference betwixt the Planets and the fixed Stars 125 40 How a wise man rules over them 126 46 The Stone in man not made by the intention of nature 250 5 Of the causes of the stone according to the Antients 705 1 Of their Intentions to cure and by what ibid. Their despair ibid. Why they have erred in the cure 706 12 708 Heat of the reins not the cause of the stone 707 An example
ibid How the Antients remedies may profit though not cure the stone 708 Why an expulsion of the stone is not to be intended 709 The quality of a remedy resolving the stone 710 56 Why stones are sometimes white 248 28 Whence a three-fold stone is made 249 3 Of the Stone 828 The flux of seeds for a stone 829 706 20 After what manner a man is made a stone 833 Of the Coagulum and Runnet of the stone by handicraft operation 840 Salt profitable in the stone 843 Of the occasion of the stone 857 Of the womb of the stone 866 Its Scituation 867 The pain of the stone from a contracture 86 Of the intention to cure the stone 701 15 874 Its cure 878 879 With testimonies thereof ibid. Of the manner of ministring a remedy for the stone 883 Of the stone that maketh gold its projection 674 58 751 807 The stone that maketh gold hath not the blessings of the tree of life 807 Sulphur only resists a fermental poyson 1158 In Sulphur is the life and death of bodies 66 14 Sulphur boiled in Linseed oyl 427 70 In oyl of Turpentine 515 The whole band of diseases hearken to some Sulphurs 577 260 39 The Sulphur of Copper hot stupefactive yet sweeter then honey 304 39 How floures of Sulphur profit those that have a Cough 309 94 Sulphur commended against the Plague 1154 Of the Gas of Sulphur 1155 The Sun scorcheth without pain 72 14 Is hot 74 23 139 41 794 The gifts of the Almighty are placed in the Sun 796 Sugar hurtful in most diseases 462 30 Loaf-Sugar not so good as the common 467 57 Swooning from the Stomack 302 303 27 What that Sweat is that accompanies death and Swoonings 42 What the Synovia is 842 389 20 Of Sympathetical Mediums 616 The cause of Sympathy 775 68 Of the Sympathy and Antipathy of things 1114 T. TAst in the midriff 909 Tartar its distillation 412 68 427 68 183 39 Why salt of Tartar dissolves crude Tartar 234 19 How Tartar is made 233 No disease ariseth from Tartar 235 1 Tartar not in foods 241 8 Tartar afâ—â—â— digestion in the stomach ceaseth to be a Tartar 242 243 Tartar not in drinks 250 7 Of the Tartar of the blood 1103 Of the original of the Tarantual 1509 The poyson of the Tarantula 787 148 What thirst is and whence 471 8 Thorn in the flesh how cured 521 Of thunder 90 17 A preservation against its effects on Beer c. 91 21 The seat of the Timpany and by what it is made 520 Why Tin is lighter than other Metals 107 20 The Toad commended against the Plague 1149 How prepared for that use 1150 How it kils the Ferment of the Plague 1151 How quickly he dies with fear Ibid. The Toad given by God as a Remedy for the poor against the Plague 1152 The bone of a Toad cures the tooth ach Tooth-ach whence caused 438. 30 247 Of the original of the tooth-stone 246 Of the flourishing and decaying of teeth 247 25 How the Transmutation of bodies is effected 115. 23 The tree of good and evil why forbidden 656 664 665 666 680 Of the tree of life 745 753 754 755 Tree of life what qualities it ought to have 808 The Cedar tree doth signifie the tree of life in this world 810 Of the preparation of the Cedar tree 811 V. VAlerian good against Inchantments 605 All Vegetables not woody contain a winie spirit 413. 73 Their Archeus hath no anatomical affinity with man 458 5 Their whole property from their seed and not from the heaven Ibid. 7 Their degrees whence different 146 88 Why vegetables unprofitable to the sick 578 Vervain commended 605 Venal blood wholly turned into nourishment 257 13 Venal blood never putrifies in its place 941 The natural endowment of the veins 942 An example Ibid. Vesicatories more hurtful then Phlebotomy 968 Vital spirit is salt 195. 19 733 734 Made of Arterial blood 196 24 732 By the ferment of the heart 733 Actuated by a vital light 734 The virgin earth 689 The Author instructed by visions 22 42 His vision of the soul 726 A vision of a Layick concerning the Lues venerea 1904 The spirit of vitriol reduced into an Alum by its dissolution of Mercury 473. 21 The dignity of the sulphur of venus and the nativity of vitriol 889 The best vitriol where to be had 891. 695 15 How vitriol may be made Ibid. The preparation of the Sulphur of vitriol 339. 9 Unguents how applicable 47 58 Ulcers their principal vice where seated 〈◊〉 18 21 23 Of the Difference of Ulcers 321. 29 The cure of Ulcers 322. 31 323 35 Volatile things fixed by fixed things  Volatiolation caused by ferments 117. 33 To provoke Urine in lingring fevers 465. 46 VVhat true provokers are 473. 19 476 31 Urinary salt made by the kidnyes 473. 19 Observations on distilled urine 847 Of the various actions of the spirit of urine 864 Urine-vessels not enlarged by drink but by the stone 708. 41 42 Urine not an excrement of the Kidneys 257 11 Of the division of vrines 1051. 1 Of the errours in the circle of urine 1052. 4 What the circle in the urine is demonstrated 1052. 5 What the yellownesse in urine may signifie 1053. 9 Watery urines after yellow ones signifie dotages 1054 VVhat a troubled urine signifies 1056. 26 VVhat the litle cloud in the urine may signifie 1054. 20 Of the several sediments of urine 1056 Examinations of urine by weight Ibid W. WArts how cured 141 55 154 VVater the material cause of things 32. 31 105 3. Proved so by an experiment 48. 11 109 30 Likened to the internal Mercury of Metals 65. 8 Never radically conjoyned with the earth 10 c. The parts of the water 71 8 410 54 What its unrestable appointment is 74. 28 Easily putrefiable under the Equinoctial 116 30 All bodies thereinto reducible 116. 33 The great use of that which comes from the Quellem 117 33 Water doth not always fal in a circular Figure 684. 50 When waters loose their life 689. 9 Waters the womb of seeds 693. 1 Why some waters hurt those that have the stone 251 Wheat changed into mice c. 113. 9 Winds whence generated 730 18 80 14 771 59 What the wind is 78 4 The vanity of the Schools defining it 85. 23 Violent ones how allayed 79. 13 Remedies for windinesse 4â—0 28 What causeth it 422. 41 Only in defective persons 424. 54 Some wind in the Ilcon c. Natural and necessary c. 428. 76 Spirit of Wine how reducible into water 69 27 105 9 106 11 VVines hurt by keeping in their Gas 107. 16 Wines profitable to our natures 966 Spirit of wine passeth into the Arteries without digestion 194. 12 731 Cold preserveth wines 232 VVhy wines wax soure 234 15 21 How wines become troubled 773 62 The labor of wisdome 184. 45 Of witches and witchcraft 568 The Devil how concerned therein 569. 1
Soul God spake unto himself as the first Chapter of Genesis witnesseth And God created Man according to his own Image which Image is God the Son After the Image of God created he him Male and Female created he them And God blessed them and said Increase and multiply Which command was enjoyned to Adam in respect of his Spirit and Humanity but not as to his Soul for this is Eternal and Immutable So also all his Parts are like unto him whereof I also possess the whole Now even as man was made of the Mud or Clay of the Ground so also it behoves him to increase as other terrestrial living Creatures by a growing and uniting and eating of living Creatures which Foods are required to die in the Stomack and to be changed from their Substance if they ought to be converted from a more vile Substance into a more excellent one or to be promoted by the Spirit of Man unto a united Life from which co-nourishing and increasing my Vessel or Body and Substance I hold as Adam did because I proceeded from him after that he was made into a living Soul as it is found in the second Chapter of Genesis but for Adam there was not found an helper like unto him Therefore the Lord God sent a deep Sleep into Adam and when he had slept he took one of his Ribs and filled up the Flesh in the room of it And the Lord God framed the Rib which he had taken from Adam into a Woman and he brought her unto Adam And Adam said This now is Bone of my Bones and Flesh of my Flesh this shall be called Virago or Wo-man because she was taken from Man Wherefore a Man shall leave his Father and his Mother and shall adhere to his Wife and they twain shall be in one Flesh Wise Men Thou hast explained unto us what thou hast been wholly in Adam according to thy Spirit and Soul and in Eve according to thy Body likewise that the Vessel hath received the Spirit and the Spirit the Soul Now we could desire to hear in what respect Eve was produced by God out of Adam and what the sleep sent by God into Adam before he framed her doth denote Mercurius Adam from the Beginning was perfect in his Essence as being the first Man created by God so his Spirit did shine thorow his Flesh and Vessel and did illustrate it even as now the Light did illuminate his Darkness and was able to subdue it so it ought to excel and overcome the Darkness because it was Internal Stable Eternal and good in its own Essence the which Spirit existing Adam could not of his own accord produce his Like without Sleep sent into him for he persisting in his Essence was without sleep and because he had divided himself from himself all his Parts had remained proper unto him and again had returned unto the whole into one assoon as he had listed because by his Spirit predominating he had divided the Body subjected unto it self which Parts were inwardly and outwardly enlightned from his own Light which gave an Essence unto all his Members But some may ask how in the next place had it gone with Adam if he had not eaten the Poyson from Eve It is answered there had alwayes been in him a combating with his Spirit or Light against his Darkness the which on the first Day God divided of which two also Man was composed even as the said Chapter sheweth which is further explained at the end of the same Chapter on the sixth Day in these Words And replenish ye the Earth and subdue it And when they had fought to the utmost they had filled the Earth and the Darkness with their Spirit or with their Light and had so subdued it that the former Darkness had been supped up and co-nourished which was his proper and one only Work alwayes to be done and perfected But some one may further query seeing in Adam the said Light being separated from the Darkness had overcome the Darkness as it was shewed to be by the very same Light whether or no according to a spiritual returned or restored United Body he had been entire and eternal in all his particular Parts and Members This being so by that reason he might have been divided into Innumerable Eternal and Infinite men without the aforesaid sleep preceding I answer it is certain that this Deified man would have been entire in all his Infinite Parts likewise that all those Parts would again as one have constituted one Entire Body He having himself in such a manner had been likewise to be one Deified Man he being reduced hitherto by his necessary strife would by Grace in his Life have enjoyed or rejoyced in the same with Christ our Saviour after his Resurrection Whereby many such men might now have been begotten or brought forth and whereby all also of them might have enjoyed that very same Grace for which Adam was procreated and whereby they might have attained it by that very same strife It pleased the Lord God to send the aforesaid sleep into Adam to shew that he soundly sleeping had not contributed any thing to the structure of Eve but she was now founded in this sleep by God Moreover the curious might busily enquire why Eve was framed of the Rib of Adam but not of his Flesh I return an answer the former Man was Adam the second Eve made for his help and conjoyned Procreation Now Propagation consisteth partly in Man as in other living Creatures by conjunction or nourishing as was said and it is further to be observed in all increase of created things in this World before they are able to grow because they consist of two things that the one ought first to die to wit the Body and Form which consist of Water and Earth and do arise from the Light of the Moon and Stars as of the Lights of the Night every thing according to their different Nature none excepted and that this might be perfected in Adam the Lord God took a Rib out of Adam which is a Bone according to its being made in Adam a Progeny of Veins the which with the Dutch sounds also a Progeny of Vipers which Bone is governed by the Moon as shall be found that when the Moon increaseth the Marrow likewise of the Bones doth increase like the Waters and together with it doth decrease It will further be found that when Flesh is burnt in the Fire it looseth that form A Bone not so yea that is so stable that the Examiners of the goodness of Coyn do make their Crucibles thereof wherein they melt and search Gold and Silver So that a Bone or Rib is and doth retain nothing besides the humane Earth as it is a second Production in Man like that of the Earth out of the Waters so far it differs from the first and one thing Wherefore Eve as she was procreated from hence she is likewise of a second and
lesser thing according to her Body not likewise according to her Spirit and Soul For these she holds from Adam which are Eternal and Permanent and a Part whereof Eve Possesseth and all that even as all their Parts are Eternal even as was said Now in a further consideration or avouching of the Premises thou shalt find that Women do therefore suffer monthly Issues or Menstrues serving for Propagation because they ought to beget a man as to the Body in that respect as was said Wise Men We acquiesce and moreover through occasion of two Words which thou from the Dutch Idiome hast considerately produced thou recallest two places of Scripture unto our remembrance one rehearsed by the Evangelist Mathew in the twelfth Chapter where Christ saith to the Pharisies He that is not with me is against me and he that gathereth not with me scattereth Therefore I say unto you Every Sin and Blasphemy shall be forgiven unto Men Flesh but the Blasphemy of the Spirit shall not be forgiven And whosoever shall speak a Word against the Son of Man it shall be forgiven him but he that shall speak against the holy Spirit it shall not be forgiven him neither in this Age nor in that to come Either make ye the Tree good and its Fruit good or make ye the Tree Evil and its Fruit Evil for truly the Tree is known by the Fruit. Ye Generation of Vipers how can ye speak good things seeing ye are Evil For from the abundance of the Heart the Mouth speaketh The other is mentioned by Luke in the third Chapter after the citing of a place of the Prophet Jsaiah who saith And all Flesh shall see the Salvation of God Therefore be to wit John the Baptist said unto the Multitude which went out to be Baptized of him Ye Generations of Vipers who hath shewn you to flee from the wrath to come do ye therefore Fruits meet for repentance and ye shall not begin to say We have Abraham for our Father For I say unto you because God is able of those Stones to raise up Sons unto Abraham Which two Words are also repeated in these two Texts not badly agreeing with the signification of the Dutch Word and thou shewing unto us by all thy demonstration that the Serpent so called which seduced Eve and her Spirit was certainly her own Flesh and Blood which desired the Fruits of the forbidden Tree and spake to her Spirit for that end so that the name of Serpent is not only accounted the Serpent but as well the Serpent a living Creature as a Man according to the Flesh the which is also moreover seen in the Infancy or Old Age of a Man or when the Spirit is weakened that he is and doth become a Serpent Wherefore after God had committed unto man the dominion over the living Creatures over all the Earth and over every creeping Animal which is moved in the Earth this last Dominion is the greatest whereby he ought to work his own blessedness that which thou shalt more cleerly make manifest from the Text assoon as leasure shall permit for now we hasten because half of the second day of those prefixed hath soon passed away therefore proceed thou and hasten and declare unto us the difference between thee and Adam when he was to strive against his Darkness whereby he as well as thou might have subdued it Mercurius In no other thing besides that Darkness was increased in man by the touching of the Fruits and eating of the forbidden Tree in so much that Darkness holds the prize against the Light and doth now possess it even as in Adam the Light in Adam did possess his Darkness and did illuminate it before his Fall Wise Men How comes this to pass Mercurius This hath come to pass through a Fermenting or Leavening Contagious Darksom and Deadly or Destructive eating Wise Men What wilt thou insinuate thereby explain thy self by Similitudes Mercurius As Darkness was in the face of the deep before that the Spirit of God was carried upon the Waters in like manner thou shalt find a certain Vessel or place which being shut up or hoary and filthy doth even in a very little time render all that which is cast into it alike stinking or rank and surther to infect it neither doth any thing of the first more principal Ferment and Filthiness depart Moreover that it may be demonstrated that this filthy place is also darksom is well learned by those that pertain to Wine-cellars who being desirous to know and experience whether a Hogs-head be hoary or filthy or no do open its mouth and by an End do let in a burning Candle and when the Vessel shall be clean and infected with no Muck or Filth the Candle being let down athwart it will remain burning until its own begetting Vapour doth choak it self but if the Hogs-head be filthy the Flame or Light cannot pierce through the Orifice of the Hogs-head unto the thickness of the Wood. Therefore it manifestly appears that the darkness doth also uncloath or discover it self and make other things darksom just even as the Light doth operate and that when the darkness doth overcome the Light or the Light overcome the Darkness These and the like Darknesses must needs be before all Light and by how much the more stable they are by so much the more stable also is the Body arisen from thence Now it is further to be noted that as a temporal Light doth illustrate out of it self one thing more largely than another according to their stability magnitude or increasing in the like proportion and manner the darkness powers forth its Beams out of it self as was shewn also as a burning and consuming Fire can by its Light enflame burn and stir up many Seeds into a growth or increase according to the rate of their more stable Nature that which I take notice of thou shalt evidently perceive by this Experiment it is seen and felt that by how much the nearer a Fire is kindled by so much the more it shines or enlightens and heats now this heat and brightness is one and the same thing as long as it is in the Fire as by a collection of those hot beams through the help of a certain burning glass may be proved whereby the hot beams are again collected and are made like unto those which exist in the Fire to wit hot and burning ones now when we permit a temporal dispersed and decaying Fire freely to burn we shall discern by the Light which shines forth through the Fire that other created Bodies are burnt at diverse distances from hence to wit in the nearest Body the more stable and combustible one and as the beams are diffused so far also the heat is diminished and will enflame the less stable created bodies The reason is because that which is soon made must needs also have that which soon perisheth wherefore cold and moist Regions do bring forth larger Fruits than hot and
principiating material cause from a formal effect So I have sufficiently and over-proved that neither of them is true For it hath hitherto been unknown that all Bodies are materially of water onely Indeed Paracelsus had seen Mettals and Wood to stonifie and to be immediately reduced into a Salt yet he knew not that the hardness of things as also their solidity compactedness and weight is not from the nature of his thorowly taught principles because they are those things which are demonstrated to be non-beings in the nature of principiating as neither from a material virtue elementarily but onely from the appointment of the Seeds Therefore I collect two things one is that Paracelsus is unconstant to himself touching the Coagulum or curd of Bodies and concerning Tartars But the other is that the Maxim of Aristotle falls to the ground That for which every thing is such that thing it self is more such For although hardness do proceed from the Seed and its appointments the Seeds ought not therefore to be harder than the things constituted For the Archeus which disposeth the bones to their hardness is not therefore harder than the bones yea neither are the means directed to the end more hard solid or compacted than the things constituted For Aristotle being readily inclined unto Maxims brought over his experiences from artificial things into nature therefore hath he every where slid in nature because he being wholly ignorant of nature doth miserably quarrel CHAP. XXXIII Tartar is not in drink 1. Some suppositions proved before 2. That Tartarers are not in things constituted 3. Three Monarchies of things whence a threefold stone 4. It far differs from the Tartar of Wine 5. The Stone in man is made from errour but not from the intention of Nature 6. An Argument from the like is not of value 7. Some Arguments taking away Tartar out of drink 8. An opposite Argument 9. The rashness or heedlesness of the Schools 10. Two Histories 11. The boastings of Paracelsus 12. The swellings in the neck or Kings-Evill are not from Tartar 13. Wine is innocent of humane Tartar 14. Whether stony or Rockie waters do contain Tartar 15. Whence there are Strumaes or swellings in mans neck and not in that of Bruits 16. A Remedy against those swellings 17. A Remedy against Scirrus's and swelling pimples in the face 18. A preoccupation or prevention 19. A distinction by a Maxim VVHatsoever Arguments do take away Tartar out of Meats are like premises in this place But seeing waters do immediately wax stony the proposition is to be confirmed by a stronger Engine In the first place I have taught that every Stone is immediately the Son of water but not of Tartar And then that the concretion or growing together of every Body is from the Seed but not from the Law of Tartar Thirdly that the concretion appointed by the Seed is from the integrity of nature and so from the gift of Creation but not from Tartar which according to Paracelsus is nothing but the excrement of a thing But a natural product is of its Mother matter but not of a step-mother and moreover of a seminal or efficient beginning in which all the figures Idea's and knowledges of things to be done are At length the Types or figures of Tartars are not in things by Creation framed for our destruction as neither a Medicine of destruction in the Earth what therefore doth it make to the introducing of the nature of Tartat into Diseases that a stone is the fruit of water if the condition of Tartar be not in a stone Or that Tartar is the fruit of Wine if there be no such thing in other things For what doth it prejudice nature if the phantasie deluding a Stone external or the Stone internal with a name shall call it Tartar And he weakly enough and without proof affirmeth that Stones and every solid Body do mutually agree with Tartar of Wine in every property For truly that his own assertion is free without truth and probability For the Stone in us is generated by another seed mean and progress than Tartar out of Wine or a Stone out of water are To wit there are three Monarchies of Bodies in the Universe the Animal Vegetable and Mineral therefore there is a threefold Stone and that distinct in the whole Monarchy For a Mineral Stone differs from the Case of the Kernel of Medlers Peachies c. and both these again from the Stone of Crabs Bezoar Snall-shels Fish-stones the Stone of Man c. Again those three Stones do also far differ from the Tartar of Wine which is not to be reckoned among Stones seeing it is the concreted Liquor of a Salt For a Mineral is either a Rockie Stone which may be turned into Lime or a small Stone which is not calcined as Gems Marbles Flints But both are now concluded in one onely name of Petra or a Rock But a Vegetable Stone seeing it is burnable as the Jeat or Agath otherwise also Mineral Sulphurous Stones it is rather a knotty Wood than a Rockie Stone But an Animal Stone is rather a stony bone because it is partly burnt than a Rockie Stone Also for distinction of the stone of man from other stones that is by Paracelsus called Duelech Because rockie stones as well the mineral as vegetable ones are fruits natural necessary and of the first intention in creating But Duelech is onely a Disease and like to a monster But in other enliâ—ened Creatures the stone hath obtained a profitable appointment Whence it is made manifest that although waters do beget a Rockie stone yet that they do not therefore follow the essence seed and manner of generation out of the Tartar of Wine For Duelech after sin doth from a diseasie excrement but not from the intention of nature nor from a Rockie or tartarous matter but by accident to wit through the errour of the faculty breed a diseasie seed through the necessity of a connexed agent wherefore I do not admit of Tartar rather in drink than in meat but if it be potentially in Wine that comes to passe by the necessity of a connexed agent and by accident neither can it have place of exercising forces or actuating in us to wit that by a power a potential Tartar may be actuated in us and therefore I do not admit of a tartarous generation in drink appointed by God for our destruction for what if bones are found in the flesh and the seeds of a Mineral Rock are stablished in the waters shall therefore the seed and immediate matter of bones be in Fountains or the seed of a Mineral Rock and its immediate matter be in the flesh or venal bloud If not in the venal bloud then neither therefore in drink and meat For death is not the handy-work of God And God saw that whatsoever things he had made they were good as well in his own intention of goodness as in the essence of the Creature Therefore there is
no matter in the waters which was created to stir up the Tragedy of Tartar or a Duelech in us Moreover if there be any evil now or that may come to passe among the digestions surely that is not from the Creation appointment property efficient of matter and the finall intention of the Creator but doth issue wholly from our errour and the corruption of nature Indeed such things do happen through a received importunity of forreign seeds a defectuous transmutation of nourishable things or a not sufficient severe expulsion of hurtful things Tartar fore-existing and being solved in the drink if it were so verily it should by its appointment presently wax corrupt in us before digestions putrefactions and resolutions neither should it expect the counsels of coagulating into the last passage of the Urine And the same should rather stonifie equally in all Notwithstanding seeing the stone doth not grow up in the drink but onely in the excrements by the admission of the Salt of the Urine and the assistance of other co-workers even as abundantly in my Book of the Disease of the stone it is presumed that Duelech doth not consist of a fore-existing Tartar of the drink which is made plain by a Handicraft resolving thereof in the fire For Duelech being distilled the Glasse-vessels also being shut doth produce a stinking Oyl lastly the Spirit and Chrystals of the salt of the Urine being such kinde of things as are allured out of mans Urine by distilling For it is certain that the stomach bowels veins Liver and kidneys do not generate Duelech or the stone in man of their own nature much lesse do they continue the same and as yet much lesse of a prepared and fore-existing Tartar in drinks For else all likewise which do generate mans Urine and in any man without exception no otherwise than as little stones do grow in Crabs without exception should procreate Duelech But Duelech doth wax stony from a seed being at length generated in the Urine by a transmutation of a matter That seed is so prevalent that although one subject to the stone drink nothing but distilled water he should not therefore cease to generate Duelech But they say red Wines do generate very much sand in those subject to the stone therefore they do contain a sandy Tartar therefore not onely in those subject to the stone but in all altogether they should bewray a Sand but seeing that thing happens onely in defectuous persons hence it is made manifest that the sand is not made by way of matter but some other way For truly the stomach of those that are defectuous should separate the sands before they should come down to the kidneys The ignorance of the Schools hath arisen from hence that they know not or do not thorowly weigh that many things are made by transmutation which were no way materially within For truly none but a ridiculous man will say that bones are in grasse This dispute will cease when I shall shew that Duelech is formed of things far estranged from coagulation for neither doth it follow some Wines do contain more of the spirit of Urine or of a volatile Earth therefore they contain the stone Tartar or therefore the Tartar of Wine doth materially generate the stone of man by its separation of it self Ginger brings forth much sweat therefore Ginger containeth very much sweat materially For the Schools do give their judgement after a rustical manner concerning the things of Nature not knowing that many things are brought to passe by the endeavour of the Efficient of transmutation I say by the seed of the thing coagulating and at the time of the Operater's transchanging which works are never due to matter nor to their heats and feigned combates of the Elements For I have seen two that were Twins educated also by the same Nurse and meats the elder whereof was subject to the stone the younger not so for the milk did contain no more of Tarâ—â—r the one than for the other Likewise the Childe of a certain Governour or chief Ruler being born of two healthy Parents had three healthy Brothers and Sisters before him but being nourished onely three moneths by a Nurse that had the stone he underwent Lithotomy or cutting for the stone once at seven years and then again at ten and thirdly two years after and the last time he gave up the Ghost under the knife these two Histories at least happened not from the coming of a forreign Tartar Seeing therefore there is not matter existence truth knowledge necessity or consequence in things taken which may square themselves unto Tartar Paracelsus hath to braggingly boasted that he first found out every cause of Diseases that he was the chief Monarch of Secrets and Medicine and that by this his own invention he hath accused others of ignorance But moreover also that he did discern by the Tartars of Countries to what Diseases the Inhabitants were subject For if there never were Tartar either by creation or from the curse which may be the original of Diseases surely its a frivolous thing that he hath searched into the same by distilling and hath found that which never was Indeed he had seen great stones to be generated in the bottom of waters Also that in Stiria Subaudia Valesia horrible Strumaes or swellings in the neck did with a miserable spectacle deform the shape of man And he being deceived hence he concluded that from the Tartar of waters there were stones Strumaes and consequently every stopping thing For he was badly ignorant and that for the destruction of his followers that all things do arise from seminal Agents and that it is granted to them to bring over the matters subjected unto them according to the appointments and ends of the seeds For indeed although some drink be more hurtful to those that have the stone yet that is neither Tartar nor doth it from hence contain it neither is any thing of the form of Tartar co-thickned into Duelech as I have taught in its place but it is the work of that which operates whatsoever is in the waters by an actual seed unto a Rockie Stone or Bole. But if there be any thing in Wine it shall be as to the Lee by it self but as to Tartar by accident but not as to Duelech For thou shalt ask in vain whether waters in distilling are potentially made a Rockie stone For Rivers and Springs do teach that without labour and expences But of Wine a Rockie stone or Tartar is never made much lesse Duelech neither shall also the plurality of Lees or dregs accuse Tartar as neither the stone Because Duelech is of another Family than Tartar Hence by how much the richer vvines are in Tartar they ought to be so much the more healthful against Duelech if Tartar otherwise be given to drink for the cleansing of filths I agree indeed that Rockie waters are of a wild disposition of a mineral condition and the causers of
and inclination of the material beginning And that is thus ordained by the profession or study of Nature that by reason of the watrie Principle being as yet not fully changed a growth out of its element and a co-placing with its mother may by an agreeing resemblance be the more fitly granted Therefore I do not admit of the Three first Things to be the constitutives of Bodies as niether universal things Which thing indeed is proper to my austereness who am not wont to frame universal Maxims from any particular thing But let him do that that will I had rather be distinct that I may the more distinctly understand For I have found for the most part that those Three Things do not proceed from Bodies out of which they are thought to be drawn unless a third trans-mutative thing being adjoyned or by composition which is rather to be attributed to the happening or supervening seed and to the trans-mutation thereby bred but not unto the first things existing within as the necessary immediate and universal Principles of Nature out of which and into which Bodies may be again resolved For they cannot give us sure credit that they are in a Body before their separation even as they are pressed out by the fire and much lesse that they fore-existed before a Body whose parts they seem to have been It is also manifest that many things are changed by Distilling neither that they are so and as much in their composed diversity of kind even as while they are made by the Fire Which thing is manifestly the one onely Example of Tartar For truly in destilling sixteen ounces of the best Tartar scarce one onely ounce of Water is drawn forth but of Salt at the most two ounces and a half the rest is wholly Oyle that is of sixteen there are almost thirteen oylie parts Yet Tartar is not crude neither doth it act as an oylie Being neither doth it burn as the bark of the Birch-tree but hath the nature of a sharp Salt wherefore by distillation the nature of a sharp Salt is changed into Oyle And then again if the Salt of Tartar be of its own accord made a Lixivium and Oyl be joyned to it indeed a Wash-ball will be thereby made which being distilled shall be accounted for the most part Water and shall cease to be the former Oyle and shall be changed into another thing For what is more clear than this handy-craft operation whereby it plainly appears that the Fire is the maker of the first Things and so that they neither are in themselves the first Things neither that they do fore-exist such is the composed Body as they are separated from thence by the Fire For truly there is not a naked separation of unlike things but a transchanging of the concrete Body by the Fire according to the activity which the Heterogeneal parts do finish among themselves But surely if those Three Things should be in all particular Bodies so that no Body could be void of them yea if all of those Three should keep their ancient disposition the Salt I say should never be made Mercury neither this likewise be made Sulphur c. Then indeed Paracelsus had apparently thought that every Body is originally composed of Salt Sulphur and Mercury But seeing there is an undoubted successive change of things through things and the least parts of Things even as also through the passages of a threefold Life those successive changes cannot denote a same linesse of the three nor of constant things whose very race it self is altogether unconstant and the perseverance thereof unstable For forthwith after Paracelsus every one almost hath subscribed to his Invention and none durst to pierce into the condition of those three things they were astonished at the sight of Heterogeneal things which are often extracted by the fire whence they being as it were fed with Lotus or a feigned Tree they suffered themselves to be misled whither Paracelsus called them But let Paracelsus learn that while Venal blood is made of Food there doth happen indeed a separation of the pure from the impure but none of the three things For as oft as a Being passeth through the last Life into a new Life the lump indeed is changed into a juyce with a dividing of the Heterogeneal parts by an extinguishment of the form and properties of the middle Life yet not into or unto the three first things but there is a proceeding unto a radical destruction with an ultimate or utmost annihilating of the former Life under which at length they draw a new Seed for a new generation For that is the way of the recourse or going back of the Night of Hippocrates unto the Day of Orpheus At leastwise it is perpetually true that those three things are never separated without the Fire and so before the art of the Fire flourished abroad those things were unknown to the Ancients And seeing that Fire and a degree thereof is wanting which is the Separator in us and whatsoever through a degree of our heat is blown away out of us doth tend unto a Dead Head or Caput Mortuum unless it be prevented by a Blas and Ferment even as I have taught above concerning the Blas of man surely the original of Diseases cannot any way be imputed unto any one or more of those Three Things I deny in the next place that Salt Sulphur and Mercury are the universal Principles of Bodies Because they neither existed before the composition of Bodies nor flowed together to the making of a mixture neither lastly by a natural resolving of Bodies into the Term of their last Life have they ever appeared in Nature but onely are brought by the Art of the fire and that onely out of some Bodies as the Seeds of things are cloathed with a material Principle of Water and are strengthened by the efficacy of their own Efficient they assume the properties partly of Salt and partly of Oyle but the Mercury of Bodies is nothing but a part of the Water being not yet great with Child by a sufficient ripeness of the Efficient Seed Therefore they do no where exist by themselves do no where obtain the Virtues of principiating Because they have not their own Natures Conditions Properties from an interchangable course whereby they might fore-exist but partly from a disposition of the Seeds flowing down into the properties of the concrete Body and partly from the digestion of the Fire and burning obtained in time of their separation For truly it is manifest that they are made reciprocally of each other by a mutual transmutation They are therefore the Last things but not the First however they may be taken For all Vegetables as long as they are not wooddy do contain a spirit of Wine as a spirit of Wine is drawn out of them they being opened by their Ferment But out of the same matter now made Wood an Aqua Vitae or Water of Life is no longer extracted
It is made I say in Vegetables through the art of the Spirit of Wine which before was not in them from a disposition of the matter of a putrifiable juyce and agreeing resemblance of a winie Ferment For therefore the Spirit of Wine shall not be the Principle of Vegetables as all Vegetables divers in themselves do agree in this Spirit and might be drawn out of every one of them but the Spirit of Wine bears the reason of an Effect and Product In like manner therefore those three things are principated but not principles For shall the Blood want a Salt in distilling because it hath severed the Urine which Paracelsus calls The Salt of the Blood And If Salt be one of the Principles surely the venal Blood shall in supposition be Eternal if it wants a beginning or something shall be able to subsist of Mercury and Sulphur without the Principle of Salt which thing hath not seemed strange to Paracellus striving with his own Doctrine of the Three first Things when as he teacheth That the venal blood and flesh of Leprous persons is deprived of all Salt And from hence again his own History of Ulcers falls to the ground if the Ulcers of Leprous persons being without Salt are voluntary and not to be despised For he hath badly distinguished the Salt of the drink from the Salt of the Venal blood Neither hath he known the difference of the Salt in the external humour Latex from the Salt which is wiped out of the venal blood by distillation in the torture of the fire He being wholly ignorant from whence there was Salt in the Urine Salt being not frequently eaten Because the rank of digestions being unknown natural knowledge in Paracelsus was overshadowed with darkness and through the ignorance of Physitians the dayes of Mortals are cut short and burying places do become bossie Concerning a Quintessence or Fifth Essence also it hath been soberly enquired into hitherto as if it were a glorious thing through sluggishnesse to have subscribed unto others devises and to have stuck in fabulous Principles An Essence therefore is called by divers names For it is most principally understood of the most Great and Excellent God who is the True Immediate and the most Very Essence it self of all things from which the Being of things doth issue and depend unseparably in nature But an Essence for the actual being of things in the Abstract is the Life in living Creatures or in the Soul Otherwise it is a Form by reason whereof every thing is that which it is But the Life or Form is not by Chymists taken into the Essence because the thing being dead it doth return into nothing therefore have they considered of a certain most famous substance wherein the whole Crasis or constitutive temperature or mixture and perfection of a thing doth inhere as in Spices there is somewhat like Oyle which being withdrawn the body of the Spice remaineth as it were ungrateful to wit Cynamon its Oyle being withdrawn favours of the Bark of an Oak in its astriction or binding quality But in things tinged the Essence is a coloured liquor extracted from things which substances as they are more active so they have themselves by way of a Life or Form as to the residue of the Lump So that the name of Essence is plainly Metaphorical Wherefore very many things have not an Essence even as I have demonstrated concerning Mercury Chrystal great Stones and things Homogeneal or of one and the same kind Then in the next place a greater power and efficacy is oft-times in a thing being entire than in its separated Essence As is manifest in the Load-stone Carabe or Amber c. For very many Simples do loose their specifical property by preparing and more by separating and the fire In the Elkes Hoofe and Bezoardical things there is a certain thing which had rather be proper unto crude Simples But the Forms or Essences of Herbs will not be subject to the Artificer For many things do alike prevaile whether their Vegetative power they call it a Soul shall die or as yet exist in them But after that they have plainly withered or been dried up some Herbs do produce their Essence but many Herbs especially Water-Pepper do loose the same However therefore an Essence be taken it is an improper Name and a Fifth Essence is an unsavoury Epithite For truly what Essence they do promise either it is not equally in all neither doth it obey the Artificer or it is not drawn from any place whatsoever But under other things in the crudity of things it laughs at painful or diligent Labours Neither doth every sweet smelling thing sit in the middle but in the last Life For the Flowers of Jasmine of the Lilly of the Valleys c. by putrifying do loose their grateful Odour and Medicinal Virtues they wax sharp neither do they ever re-take their former Fragrancy But elsewhere the sweet smell sits under the middle Life which Odours indeed do keep their sweet smell in time of putrifying the which they send forth in Distilling as Roses This thing hath deceived Paracelsus and hath made him to think that the Essences of things do thus putrify and so he was ignorant that in Dung and dunged-Fields he dictated safe Mansions for ever Not knowing that the Offices of Seeds being loosed and dead all things do yield themselves to rest and at length do require their first Inne of Water or at least wise obeying a stronger seed coming over them they againe suffer themselves to be led into new Colonies and themselves to be brought into new Tragedies Yea there are many Simples which do find a fragrancy in the bosome of putrifactions which before they had not in their own Species Such as are Mosch Ziver Amber certain Dungs of bruit Beasts and putrifying Woods For a various putrifying by continuance ariseth in them whence their Seeds do draw a fragrancy to themselves and do transplant them into a new generation Therefore the Spicinesse if it be fast tied to the Balsame of the middle life is not overcome in putrifaction by a separation of parts and is the more fitly sequestred from corrupt things A Chymical Essence therefore is not properly a Fifth Essence seeing there are not Four others in a concrete Body neither is it extracted out of the Three things but is the Seminal part of the Sulphur of the composed Body Of the Sulphur I say Because the Sulphur is the off-spring of the efficient Cause and so more formal For Cynamon while it is without a spiciness is indeed as yet Cynamon even as the young or a foolish person are men I therefore name the best part of a thing the Crasis thereof whether the Spice or sweet smel do sent or not But in Herbs which are not fragrant I call the seminal or seedy Liquor their Crasis To wit I know that from every plant or seed and likewise from the trunk or stemme of some Plants
choyce form But because thou hast done thy will which alone is good I therefore ascribe unto thee all the Glory who hast in this Age disclosed this knowledge by the basest and little Ones of this World For that is according to thy accustomed manner and that for the greater Glory of thy Name For I knew that the one onely sluggishnesse of those who being deceived by the sweetnesse of the Odour of Gain have despised to distill a matter so stinking and base hath hindred both the Antient and Modern Physitians For Wisdom despiseth those who have refused perfectly to learn the matter whereof Dispositions Contents Properties Progress and Significations of the Urine by the Fire For neither have they lesse stumbled in the matter Content and Judgements of Urines than hitherto they have done in the stonifying of the same wherefore both the diagnostical or discernable Knowledge and also the judicial fore-knowledge of urines hath remained hidden even as we have from a Foundiation demonstrated in our Vronoscopia or Inspection of the Vrine the which I heartily wish that the more fervent Judgements would hereafter practise For truly I prepare my self for my Grave under hope that my Labours will not be unprofitable for humane miseries I will now proceed to reckon up my blockishnesses and the wearinesses of experiences For first of all from Duelech being dissected and distilled all alone by himself and also from the shavings of the Urinal Thirdly also from the urine being distilled unto the thicknesse of an Ecligma or Lohoch altogether the same Oyl and the same Crystals of liquid dung do arise For from Duelech there is left an earthy Lee being black brickle and burnt no longer rocky and scarce reserving any thing of the more fixed salt of urine Because the volatile Spirit is wholly throughout its whole changed into Duelech and at length into an earth with other parts of the composition being adjoyned unto it Verily for a sure signe that the fixed salt of Urine hath not the faculty of an active Runnet but is onely coagulated passively Furthermore That earth that was left of the distilled Duelech never lately descended unto the Bladder in the shew of a Pouder or Clay but it was a Liquor while it was in the urine which there afterwards thus hardened by the spirit of the urine For I long meditated that an Earth or Pouder however most Artificially it should be connexed to the spirit of Urine yet it would never grow together into Duelech and by consequence that the invention of Tartar for Duelech was also vaine For truly I had already beheld in the Glass that Duelech was made of the same spirits to wit distilled and clear Liquors matter and efficient cause whereof it ariseth in us Therefore I concluded from my proofes now mechanically made That if the urine together with its spirit of salt hath in it the spirit of a volatile Earth Duelech shall of necessity be generated from those two unlesse by the Dross which in the Book of Fevers I call the liquid Dung the salt of the urine be filled or glutted and for that cause be disturbed from coagulating For I have often observed that any one that had the stone being afterwards afflicted with the Jaundice hath beene free from the stone as long as the Jaundice bare sway And so Neither hath it been undeservedly asserted by me in the Treatise of Fevers that the aforesaid Dross being a stranger to Urines is mixed with them as it were a profitable Excrement But the Sands are corned or grainified as well in us as in Urinals at the very moment of Corning and being once Corned they also obtain the ultimate hardnesse of themselves but not that they are more and more hardened by degrees Therefore it is fabulous whatsoever the Schooles do devise concerning the stone being confirmed and not yet confirmed for the excuses of their confirmed ignorance and sloath For the sand that is newly voided from us or wiped off from Urinals is as hard as it will be for ten yeares after Let the same Judgement be also of Duelech I have also said above that unlesse the sand which is affixed to the Urinal or Chamberpot were coagulated in an instant it had wholly fallen headlong to the bottome neither would it be fastened to the sides and so proportionably distinct An heretical Preacher nigh Barclay in England being safe and sound in health in the Year 1629. striving after Dinner to draw a Book unto him from a high place was sorely smitten with a great weight and pain in the bottome of his belly and four dayes after he by certaine signes knew that he was burthened with the stone And eight dayes after that he dyed at London under the Knife of the Stone-Cutter But that stone weighed an English pound and two drammes beside Neither do I remember that ever I saw the like stone But an hundred pounds at Antwerp weigh at London 104. But Paracelsus admiring this appearance of the stone least a fiction should be wanting to his Microcosm calls it the stone of Thunder and thinks that it grew together in falling But that errour of his is manifold 1. For there is no place granted for its falling For truly the Bladder containes urine or no urine if no urine it is folded together like a wet Towel But if it be extended by urine seeing this is beneath Duelech cannot be formed out of the urine or without urine that it should be made without matter and fall downwards into the urine that it may be made in falling 2. He erres believing that the stone which is cast down in Thunder is generated by ordinary and wonted Causes but not by monstrous ones Otherwise if the matter that is natural to Thunder should be naturally coagulated in an instant such stones ought to be accustomed to all particular Thunders Neither should there be a Cause why a small stone of about three pound weight should pierce into the earth unto the depth of nine foot by its onely and naked fall unless it were thrust down with a stronger force even as concerning an irregular Meteor elsewhere 3. In the next place Duelech bewraying it self by a sudden Tyrannie proves that its generation is in a moment For nothing hinders but that he adhered to the Bladder with his foot and that being broken off through the steepnesse of his passage he fell down into the widenesse of the Bladder 4. Whatsoever is at any time condensed into a true Duelech whether it be a Central Kernel descending from the Kidney or in the next place growing in manner of a Bark every Generation thereof is alwayes made in an instant For indeed I have learned by my Mechanical Operations that Duelech and what quantity there is in him is wholly constituted of meer volatile Beings yet not that of a urine of three or four ounces of which quantity that of him that made water might be a Duelech of one pound could be generated Moreover
it self being cold And therefore let the vessel be of a short neck and sharp pointed that it may measure the urine almost in a poynt Another shall add and meditate of more things And it is a far more easy method than that which is reduced into Aphorisms by weighing of the whole man I have always breathed about the essences remedies and applications or for the curing of a disease and who am one that have hated the common applause I have hated also the prognostication prediction and fore knowledge which was familiar to divinations I have rather rejoyced to heal the sick party than by speaking doubtfully to have foretold many things CHAP. V. That the Jaundise is not from yellow Choler 1. The supposition of the Schools in this case 2. A fit answer 3. An ordinary and ridiculous privy shift 4. Another evasion 5. The cause of the Jaundise is taught by Anatomy 6. The Schools intangle themselves 7. From an impertinency 8. A double vice in the jaundise 9. The forgetfulnesse of the Schools 10. Absurdities upon the causes of the Jaundise of the Humourists 11. Four absurdities 12. That the bitternesse of the mouth doth not argue Choler 13. That the Jaundise is not from the Gaul being stopped 14. There is always some poyson in the Jaundise 15. That colours if they are inordinate in an excrement are not made from causes ordained in nature 16. It is proved by proper remedies 17. That curative betokenings are not drawn from things helpful and hurtful 18. The adequate or suitable cause of the Jaundise 19. That the Jaundise is not bred but from single causes 20. That the Jaundise is not cured by yellow remedies as such 21. A History in the strangury of an old man 22. The Oxe scoffs at the causes of the Jaundise delivered by the Humourists and at the use of grasse-roots 23. That Choler is not dismissed for tinging of the excrements of the belly 24. The pale dung of the bowels doth not so much accuse of the absence of the Gaul as of the errour of its transchanging 25. Against the possibility of the Gaul being obstructed in the Iaundise by reason of the essential thinglinesse of the disease being unknown 26. Another argument 27. A third 28. From an impertinency 29. From the impossibility of tincture 30. From bitternesse 31. From the disproportion of the thing tinging and of the thing tinged 32. The generating of an unnamed poyson in the Iaundise 33. Some absurdities are proposed to be seriously considered by the Humourists 34. A conclusion from the premises 35. The nest of the Iaundise 36. An errour of Physitians about the passing of Choler into a fish THe standard-defending argument whereby the Humourists believe that from a full necessity they have confirmed the existence and generation of yellow Choler and that which supplyeth the room of an Anchour is the Jaundise In favour whereof they contend that the Chest of the Gaul is stopped up in its passage towards the empty gut Therefore that the Choler daily generated is presently also after its birth regorged and dispersed into the whole body wherefore as they supose an ordinary and necesary generation of Choler or gaul so also a daily banishment and seperation thereof But they prove the Lower passage of the Gaul to be stopped because the excrements of the belly are destitute of Gaul therefore also of an ashy colour and not yellow Wherefore the urine offers it self twenty-times more tinged than is meet and daily more meerly or purely so Therefore as well the excrements of the bladder as paunch draw their tincture from the Gaul First They have not yet proved any upper entrance of the Gaul unto the little bag as neither hath it hitherto by exact Anatomy been found Therefore the excrementous Gaul should either daily enter through the lower passage or unsensibly not in this manner where there should be so great abundance of gaul daily nor also after the former manner Seeing it should vainly enter that way through which it ought presently to go forth And also if it should enter that way it ought to enter through the bowel upward neither thus should the gauly tincture of the dungs ever fail although the lower passage were shut up The Humourists therefore stick in the entrance in proving of the question whether the thing be And then they fail in the passage and seperation of Gaul from the Liver Thirdly At leastwise from the disproportion they might easily collect that they were decieved For if one that hath the jaundise shall drink eight pints in one day he is to make well nigh as much of most yellow urine whereof four pints at least should be of meer Gaul and by how much the weaker the sick shall be and nearer to death by so much the deeper their urin shall be also in yellownesse yet not any thing bitter It was therefore to be measured how much of yellow Choler may be daily expelled by urine and through the skin in those that have the jaundise to wit whether there be daily as much of Gaul expelled through the paunch in healthy persons especially in whom there is a seldom going to stool But if not therefore it is not Gaul not Choler or of the natural Humours which is made in the jaundise but plainly an excrementitious poyson And by consequence the jaundise doth not prove it self to arise from Gaul At length the argument of the Humourists being granted by way of supposition at leastwise for that very cause they confesse that no Choler in nature not so much as that which is believed to float together with the blood in the veins is made from the intent of nature or for nourishment but that alwayes however it may be taken it is excrementitious and a certain product which as well in its quantity as quality is besides nature and the scope of sanguification By consequence also that Choler is neither of the composition of the blood as neither of the intention of nature which it hath in generating of the blood That is that Choler is not a constitutive Humour of us or an entire part of the blood But if they shall answer that Choler in the jaundise is indeed a diseasy Humour and therefore also excrementitious but not therefore also ordinary Choler But that I might believe them it had behoved them first to prove a radical difference of both Cholers When as otherwise only the obstruction of the Gaul is the cause of the jaundise in the Schools which cannot change the species of Choler since obstuction it self hath respect unto passage but not unto Choler or Gaul Again if the cause of the jaundise be a diseasy excrement and a far different thing from the constitutive Choler of the blood and not otherwise ordinary and natural Choler Therefore at least it is an impertinent argument of the Schools to be willing by a feigned and excrementous Humour to intrude the necessity of a natural Humour and to confirm
a necessary Choler Even as a gleary or gravelly water also doth not prove the nourishment of a bone or the making of a bone in the callous matter growing in fractures As neither doth corrupt pus prove a generating of flesh What if they say that the Gaul is not troublesom in quality in the jaundise but only in quantity I pray let them look back Because even on the first day and before a manifest jaundise those that are jaundous are ill at ease In the next place the quantity alone doth then not only molest and hinder but also the quality it self doth far more strictly hurt For jaundous persons are straightned and short-winded from the first day they complain of anguish in the orifice of their stomach of an appetite as much as may be dejected they are sad or pensive being as it were shaken with a perpetual smal Ague or Fever and truly diseasy with an hard and unequal pulse whereby a hurtful quality rather than quantity is denoted Truly I remember that two jaundous dead carcases were dissected I being present Yet neither orifice of their Gaul was stopped for I curiously throughly viewed the whole but the veins of the Mesentery to wit beneath the Liver and far remote from the Gaul abounded with a yellow and dungy blood For Gaul was thought to be present before it could be made by the Liver And the excrements of the belly might thereby have been abundantly tinged if the liquid and yellow dung which ought to have descended beneath had not by an inverted order been detained in the mesentery and if another poyson had not been bred above from forreign causes For that liquid dung is the off-spring of the second digestion and is frequently snatcht upwards and although the mouth of those that have the jaundise be now and then bitter yet their urine is not bitter But it hath already been sufficiently declared concerning the dissembled vomiting of Choler that there is a strange efficient which generates a strange poyson originally in the stomach with much perplexity and not Gaul fetch back from the Liver neither is there I say any bitternesse in the yellow and liquid dung Since that neither doth the urine which is from thence yellow acknowledge bittternesse Sorrow hath oftentimes given a beginning to the jaundise But the Humourists dedicate sorrow to the Spleen Sorrow therefore shall not be the foregoing immediate and conteining cause of the stoppage of the Gaul The liquid dung also multiplies the jaundise not only through the errour of the digestive faculty but also through the vice of the dispensative faculty it is snatcht into the veins by a retrograde motion and that which ought to be purged downwards is called or sent up wards Moreover on the the other hand the very efficient of the jaundise produceth a poyson by a homebred vice no otherwise than as I have demonstrated that through the digestion of the stomach being decayed a poyson is bred which is expelled by vomite For in the jaundise the excrements of the fundament do frequently look pale and are almost white and then on the morrow they again look yellow and again soon after they are pale as ashes as on the day before which thing succeeding thus by course least of all belongs to the obstructions of the Gaul For those being once loosed and opened there is not a re-stoppage or closure so easie or imminent and renewed afresh Two things therefore concur together in the jaundise One is an estranging of the second digestion whereby the Chyle is perverted as well that which should be regularly good and to be changed into blood as that which otherwise naturally departs into liquid dung within the intestines But the other is an alienation of the distributive and digestive faculty of the stomach For oft-times after gluttony there is a plentifull yellow vomiting even as such a dejection by stool from a solutive potion For it hath been already shewn in the Chapter above that digestion erring such a bitter exerement is bred in the stomack and likewise also in the bowels of children calfes c. For the stomach and intestine have their proper yellownesse which sometimes also waxeth bitter from the digestive faculty erring But when as with the errour of the digestive faculty a vice of the distributive is present now the jaundise concurs because that which is bred besides nature is besides nature dispersed into the veins and body which otherwise ought neither to be bred nor carried that way but to be forced through its own emunctory places which distributive faculty hath been hitherto neglected by the Schools Through the errour whereof notwithstanding diverse diseases are made to wit sumptomatical Fluxes Apostemes witherdnesses of the parts Oedema's c. especially the jaundise in the limits of the body For the liquid dung which otherwise is naturally generated after a seperation of the more pure chyle about the end of the Ileon last of all also before the meer dung in the gut Colon doth now fore-timely begin from the empty gut and is besides nature turned into that yellow excrement yet not bitter such as is bred in the stomach whence a right is ingendred in it of climbing into the veins of the mesentety Therefore the excrements of the belly are of an ashy colour they being deprived of the liquid dung and tinging yellownesse naturall unto them 1. For the Schools understand the Gaul and Choler to be Sunonymass 2. That the chest of the Gaul is shut in the jaundise where it inclines unto the gut Duodenum 3. Therefore that the filths of the belly being deprived of a due portion of Gaul do wax pale 4. Therefore that the Gaul which ought to depart through the fundament is over-proportionably and immoderately co-mixed with the urine through the errour of its passage alone which blockishnesses of credulity have caused the fundamentals of healing to be turned aside and have brought great destruction on mortal men no lesse than they have manifested inconsiderate rashnesses For first of all it is manifest the which I have elsewhere proved concerning digestions that the dung of man although it be little or much yellow yet it is not therefore bitter as neither is a jaundisy urine For dogs eate the yellow dung of Infants as if it did as yet represent unto them the favour of milk yet if but some small drops of any Gaul be co-mixed with this yellow dung not any thing thereof is licked by a dog Therefore the Schools confesse Choler which is ordinary and necessary to be a natural excrement of the blood The generation whereof notwithstanding is not intended by nature but is diseasy beside the instincts of a vital nature and by accident What if the mouth of him that hath the jaundise tasteth bitter doth it therefore argue Choler In the jaundise a most yellow urine tasteth not bitter therefore it is deprived of Gaul and Choler The mouth in fear waxeth presently bitter with a saltnesse