with thirst heat wakings and at several turns with swoonings and cold sweats at this time being sent for I prescribed her Cardaic Remedies and such as moved the purgings of the Womb and also a Clyster to be given her at length the Flux of her Belly being provoked the Lochia also came down and the sick Woman being freed from the aforesaid symptoms and the more grievous Disease to wit the Remedies of the Nurses quickly grew well of her Feaver The more plentiful Flux of the Womb hapning to this Woman removed the Procatartic cause of a more grievous Disease wherefore when they had committed so many errors about the ordering her viz. first in stopping the Lochia then what might compensate their defect in hindring the Flux of her Belly yet the Feaver was only light and without any venomous taint impressed on the Blood the like to this I have known to happen frequently to wit when at first the purgings of the Womb have flown very plentifully afterwards when they have flown very sparingly and sometimes stopped the Women in Child-bed have escaped And by the way it is here to be noted that it is wholly dangerous to inhibit or at least divert and cross any motion of Nature incited tho irregular A Noble Gentlewoman about 20 years of Age indued with a smooth and full habit of Body miscarried twice in the space of a Year when she had again Conceived by the prescription of her Physician she provoked a Vomit once a month by drinking plentifully Posset Drink by which she was wont to cast forth much thick tough Phlegm also in the time of her being with Child he Let her Blood 5 times the time of her going being over she was brought to Bed of a Son with very hard Labour the Secundine came whole away and she purged notably on the second day whilst she was lifted upon her feet in Bed that the Sheets and the Blankets might be laid in better order she took Cold and by that means the bloody Lochia wholly stopped and only a little serous Water came away on the third day she began to complain of an acute pain in her right side to which the Women laid Bags of Camomil made hot with Bricks but the distemper grew worse with a bloody spittle on the fourth day of her being brought to Bed a most â—harp pain with a difficult breathing and very Laborious invaded her by the prescription of her Physician then coming to her from the neigbourhood six ounces of Blood was taken away out of the Basilic Vein and she felt sudden ease for 10 hours she was better in the middle of the night the pricking pain returned with its wonted fierceness at length other Physicians being called to Counsel they agreed that it was necessary to open a Vein again in the arm of the distempered side four ounces of Blood being taken away the pain remitted and the sick breathed better then by Diasphoretic Remedies she fell into a great sweat with a quiet sleep But the Pulse was made quicker and weaker also contractures of the tendons in her wrists appeared presently afterwards she talked idly and within 24 hours after she was last Let Blood she departed That this Lady fell into a Pleurisie with a Feaver upon the Lochia being suppressed the cause in some measure seemed to be the Letting of Blood so often in the time of her being with Child for by this means the Blood being accustomed to be eventilated at the arm afterwards growing hot leaving the Womb was carried violently towards the place of its letting forth where when it found not a passage it fixed in the neighbouring side as the next nest to the place of extravasation yea besides the usual manner of a Pleurisie there was no small malignity hapned to this Disease for the Blood being hindred from being let forth of the Vessels began presently to be corrupted in its disposition and in the third day of the Feaver was so much depraved that it could not be any longer fermented in the heart so as to Prorogue Life It was not so with the Wife of a certain Smith who was brought to Bed at what time her Children had the Small Pox in the same House and she her self as it seemed had taken the Contagion of the same Disease for on the second day after her Delivery they began to break forth with a feaverish heat and pain in her Loyns which indeed for three days whilst the Lochia moderately flowed arose rightly into little swellings altho the purging of the Womb was very copious at that time she had the Small Pox very thick all over her Body not only in the superficies of her skin but also they filled the cavity of her mouth and throat so that she could scarce speak or swallow The sixth day of her Lying in the Lochia flowed immoderately from whence presently fell upon the sick a frequent swooning with a flagging of the Small Pox Convulsions and other symptoms of an ill nature which threatned Death soon being sent for I prescribed half a dram of this Powder to be taken constantly every three hours in a spoonful of the following Julep viz. take of the Roots of Tormentil in Powder drams two of the best Bole Armonie dram one of the species of Hyacinth half a dram make a Powder Take of the Compound Water of Scordium of Dragons of Meadowsweet each three ounces of Therecal Vinegar one ounce of the Syrup of Corals two ounces of Harts-horn burnt half a dram make a Julep Besides I ordered to be boyled in her Broths and in every thing she drank the Roots of Tormentil by these Remedies the purging of her Womb was soon wholly stopped and the Small Pox by degrees being ripened came off without any grievous symptom Indeed this case was difficult and was cured with great danger viz. for either the Lochia or the Small Pox to have been restrained inwardly was very dangerous and yet the more full eruption of the one hindred the motion of the other so long as either moderately proceeded things being permitted to the conduct of Nature was moderately well but when one of them became ill the work of Art was required and it was requisite to bridle the Lochia but to provoke the Small Pox. CHAP. XVII Of Epidemical Feavers HAving meditated rather a Commentary than an intire Tract I had thought here to have concluded our Discourse of Feavers But forasmuch as certain Epidemical Feavers do often spread which observe no Laws nor can be brought to any certain rule of Doctrine but being irregular vary every year and for that reason as often as any of them increase or spread abroad presently it is called the new Disease therefore I thought it worth our while because general precepts concerning these Feavers are not to be delivered to subjoyn some particular Histories of some of this kind for out of the various provision of symptoms whereby they are wont to be noted the nature and the whole
the stony or an ulcerous distemper or both together planted beyond the emulgent Vessels It is an usual thing for some to void with their water gravel or small find of a red colour in great quantity some of these are obnoxious to the stone in the Reins and are frequently tormented with Nephritick fits I have also known others without pain or other grievous Symptom for a long time to make a sandy water All urines whatsoever if they stand for some time in a leaded or earthy glazed vessel affix this kind of red land to the sides and bottom of the Pot to wit the volatile Salt of the urine is coagulated with the fixed Salt of the Metal so when Sal Armoniac being mixed with the filings of Steel Sea-Salt or Vitriol is sublimated the elevated flours grow notably red wherefore it seems that these kind of little sands are begot in the Reins for that the Salt of the urine is coagulated with the Tartarous feculencies laid up about the windings of the Reins from whence the sandy matter is made which is presently washed away by the serous Juyce passing through Therefore the gravel that is so frequently made are no small parts or fragments of a greater stone as is commonly thought but extemporary products of the blood and Serum washing the winding passages of the Reins By what means little stones are produced in the Bladder or Reins is not to be fully discoursed in this place But without doubt it is done rather by Coagulation than Exsiccation or Excalefaction by drying or heating I have observed some sick of the Stone in the Bladder who after they have made water were wont to void with great striving and pain a thick and viscous Juyce which presently hardned into a scaly matter the smell of this was like Lye and of such a consistence as Lye evaporated to a thickness the liquor of which being made thick presently stiffens into a saline hardness Lesser stones sometimes pass through the urinary passages and are carried out the greater remain unmoved in their Cells The places wherein they are usually begotten are the narrow winding bosoms of the Reins from thence the smaller slide into the Bladder and if not excerned they grow into great stones I once saw many great stones shut up as it were in a Chest about the sides of the Bladder between its Membranes these without doubt being sent from the Reins while smaller remained in the passages of the Ureters creeping between the Coats of the Bladder and there by degrees did increase in bulk A Matron so distempered long before her death cast out of the urinary passage a Membrane thick and broad full of sandy matter which as appeared after her body was opened was part of the interior Tunick of the Bladder worn and broken by the stones there included It is ordinary for Nephritick people or such as are troubled with the Stone frequently to void blood or matter with their Urine for from a greater stone and endued with sharpness the flesh of the Reins is easily worn and the mouths of the Vessels opened whereby blood flowing out tinges the urine and when a solution of unity is caused in this manner in the Reins an Ulcer most commonly follows whereby matter and filthy stuff are poured out with the serous water and constitute a plentiful and stinking sediment in the urine then the sore being more inlarged by the Ulcer more large profusions of blood often follow and the flesh it self of the Reins being worn away and by degrees eaten off is voided with the urine I visited once an ancient Woman who daily voided with her urine for many months pure blood in great quantity besides as often as she made water she used to void in great quantity pieces of flesh great gobbets as it were the little Tubes of the Vessels eaten away that it was suspected one of her Kidneys was all thus cut away from her body yet afterwards by a vulnerary Decoction acidulated with Spirit of Vitriol that bloody water was staid and this Woman lives still well and in health I knew another Matron who used for a long time in making water to void at first blood with a purulent matter and Membranes then the bloody water ceasing for many years she made a waterish urine with a copious sediment and white like snot sinking down to the bottom of the Urinal Afterwards when she began to want that sediment a feaverish intemperance followed with pains wandring here and there with a languishing of strength and other dangerous Symptoms and when this sick Woman was brought into danger of her life a Tumor arising in her left side about her Reins and ripening into a Boil or Sore by reason of the large flowing out of the matter freed her but yet an hollow and sinuous Ulcer pouring out a thin matter remained in that place during her life and being sometimes healed up would presently break out again Scarce two years after this Noble Lady having endured the suppression of her urine for fourteen days became apoplectick and dyed Her body being opened her left Kidney was quite gone in the place of it a membranous substance growing to the Loyns infolding the extremities of the Vessels and Ureter was grown up some prints or marks of the Ureter remained but without any opening into the hollowness of the passage yea a certain ichor or serosity dropping out from the little mouths of the emulgent Artery was carried outwardly into that sinuous Ulcer The other Kidney was very full of sandy matter and small stones besides near the top of the Ureter a stone about the bigness of ones thumb was fixed whose extremity was so fitted and firmly impacted to the passage or cavity of the Ureter that it shut it up just like a Tap and quite hindered the passage of the serous Juyce The purulent matter comes into the urine not only from the Reins but sometimes out of the Bladder and urinary passage distempered with an Ulcer and sometimes also a corrupt seed or white flux or menstruous blood are poured into urines from the Vessels and genital parts and produce in them preternatural settlements 4. In the Urines of sick people are often seen abundance of white Contents composed of most small bodies which when they are setled fill up above half the liquor and make it white and duskish the rest remaining limpid and thin in the upper region of the Urinal this kind of sediment is called Mealy because it is like water imbued with meal Concerning this it is doubtful whether it proceeds from the whole mass of blood or only from the urinary Viscera It appears by observation that the same sort of urine is always made in the stone of the Bladder also sometimes by reason of the Kidney being oppressed with some great stone I never saw such a settlement in urines without a Nephritick distemper wherefore I have thought it almost indubitable to be always a sign of the Stone And
ʒ ii of Sugar Candy ℥ viii dissolved in what will suffice of the Antiepilepticall water of Langius Make a Confection of which take twice in a day the quantity of a Nutmeg These powders by adding to them the Salt of Amber and Harts-horn Pills with what will suffice of Balsome Capivi may be formed into a pillulary Mass of which may be taken iii. or iv pills in the morning and evening drinking after them a draught of some appropriat Liquor Or of those sorts may be prepared an Elixir of which may be taken viii drops to x. twice in a day in a spoonful of a proper Julup drinking a little of it after it Take of Hungarian Vitriol vi pints Elixir let them be distill'd with a glass retort in hot sand for 24. hours then let the same retort being defended or done over with Clay be put with a large receiver in a reverberating Furnace that the acid spirits may be forced with a most strong fire till they come forth The whole Liquor being distilled let it be drawn off in hot sand in a lesser glass retort and let there be poured into the Matrace of the roots of Male-Paeony cut into pieces and dryed ℥ iiii of the seed of the same ℥ i. of humane Skull prepared of Elks claws and Red Corall each ℥ ss Missletow of the Oak ʒ ii let it digest with a gentle heat for several days to the extraction of a tincture the Liquor being decantated let it be drawn off in a glasse Retort to a third part remaining being stilled forth keep it by it self to those Remains pour of the rectified Spirit of wine a little quantity impregnated with the Infusion of the same ingredients and let it digest for six days in horse-dung the dose of which is ℈ ss to ℈ i. The distilled Liquor may be given from half a spoonful to a whole spoonful for the same Intentions Or let there be prepared an oyl out of the Salt of Venus or Copper according to the description of Henry Van Heer 's and given as there prescribed Among the specifick Remedies Emperical Remedies which when the former shall not be profitable ought also to be tryed are the Livers of Frogs the Gall of a Bore dryed with Urine The powder of Bryony Root The powder of a Cuccow of Crows the runnet and lights of a Hare the Liver of a Wolf stones taken out of Swallows the Liver of a Kite the Eggs of Crows with many more to be dayly taken with food or Medicine a famous Catalogue of which is extant of Henry Van Brays a Physitian of Zutphen and from which prescripts for poor people may be taken easie to be prepared and without great cost Whilst these kinde of Remedies are to be taken inwardly according to the aforesaid method some outward administrations being applyed bring help and are deservedly admitted to part of the cures therefore allways Issues are made in this disease in one fit place or other and also more often Veficatories or Blisters Amulets hung about the neck or born at the pit of the Stomach Amulets are thought to be useful The fresh Roots of Paeony cut into little squares and being strung like bracelets and hung round about the neck and as soon as they are dry let new be put in their places and they being reduced to powder may be taken inwardly Take of the roots and seeds of Paeony each ʒ ii of an Elks claw and humane Skull prepared each ʒ i. of Missletow of the Oak ʒ ss let them be beaten into gross powder and sowed in a piece of red silk and like a little bag let it be hanged about the neck An Amulet of a stalk of the Elder found growing in the Willow-tree is greatly Commended Plasters It agrees with some to have their heads shaven and a plaster applied to the fore-part Take of the root and seeds of Paeony of Castor Missletow of the Oak of humane-skull most finely powder'd each ʒ i. of betonie plaster ℥ ii Caranna Tacamahacca each ʒ ii Balsum Capive what will suffice make a mass and let it be spread upon leather make a plaister for the suters of the Head Let the Temples and Nostrills be often anointed with Oyl of Amber by itself or mixed with oyl Capive Sternutories or sneezing powders Sneezing Powders and such as purge the head of Rhume are to be used dayly in the Mornings Take of white Helleboreʒ i. of Castor and Euphorbium each ʒ ss the leaves of sweet Marjorum and Rue each ʒ ii make a powder make a decoction of Sage or Hyssop with Mustard dissolved in it with which gargle the mouth and throat A Glister may be sometimes used as need shall require Sometimes the more solid Medicines are ro be moistned with liquids or they ought to be drunk after them for which end distilled waters should be at hand Julups Tinctures or Decoctions which are endued with a certain Specific Virtue against this Disease Distill'd Water Take of Hungarian Vitriol four pound of the powder of fresh humane-skull four ounces of the root of Paeony sliced six ounces let them be bruised together in a morter put to them either of Spanish wine or small white-wine or wine made of the juce of black-Cherries a quart being fermented in a vessell let it be distill'd in a glass retort in hot sand Take of the shavings of box-wood of Hungarian vitriol each two pound of the Missletow of the Oak or the Common-Missletow leaves three handfulls of Rue two handfulls being bruised together put to it of Spanish wine 4 pints Let them be distill'd in a glass Cucurbit with hot sand Iulaps Take of Common Vitriol six pound of the root of the male-paeony six ounces of the Missletow of the Oak one ounce of Green-walnuts viii ounces being cut and bruised let them be distilled in a glass-pot a glass alembick being placed upon it in hot sand Take of this Liquor one pint of black cherry water and of the water of the flowers of the toil or Line-tree each half a pint of white-Sugar ℥ iiii mix them and make a Julup the dose ℥ ii to iii. twice or thrice in a day Oxymel of squills also an hony-decoction with Hysop are much praised by the Ancients Or an Apozem of this kinde may be prepared of which may be taken ℥ iiii to vi or viii twice in a day Apozems Take of the roots of male-paeony Angellica Imperatoria Valerian each ʒ vi of the leaves of Betony Sage Lilly of the Valley Penny-Royall each one handfull of the seeds of Rue Nigella each ʒ iii. Paeony ℥ ss of Raysons ℥ iii. of Liquoris ℥ ss being cut and bruised let them be boyled in vi pints of Spring-water to the Consumption of the third part Towards the end add of black Cherry-wine half a pint or ten ounces strain and keep it in close Vessells The dose is from vi to viii ounces twice in a day after the
hysterical water what will suffice to make 16. pills Let 4. of them be taken every sixth or Seventh day Take of the Roots of Polypodia of the Oak of sharp pointed-docks prepared of chervill cach ʒ vi of the male Paeony ʒ iii. of the leaves of Betony germander Chamipits Vervine the male Betony each i. handfull of the seeds of Cardamums and burdock each ʒ iii. let them be boyled in 4. pints of Spring water till half be consumed Let it be strained into a matrace to which put of the leaves of the best Senna ℥ i. of Rhubarb ʒ vi of Turbith gummed ℥ ss of Epithimum of yellow-Sanders each ʒ ii of the Salt of wormwood and Scurvy-grass each ʒ i. the yellow rine of the Orangeʒ ii let them digest close shut in hot Sand for 12. hours let the straining be kept for use sweeten it if there be need with what will suffice of the Augustan Syrrop or of Succory with Rubarb The Dose ℥ vi once or twice in a week Every day in which purges are not taken Remedies strengthning the brain and also the animal Spirits for the taking away the heterogeneous Copula or for the hindring them from running into explosions Remedies for a more hot temperament are to be administred which indeed ought to be prescribed and chosen according to the Constitution and habit of the Body and temperament of the sick for too lean bodys and such as being indued with a more hot blood medicines less hot and which do not trouble the bloud above measure ought to be given On the Contrary for phlegmatick and fat people whose urine is thin and watery and whose Blood is Circulated more heavily and Viscera's stuffed more hot Remedies and notably apt to ferment the humours are designed In the former Case let it be prescribed after this manner Coroborating medicines and specificks Take of the Conserve of the Flowers of Betony Tamarisk the male-Paeonie each ℥ ii of the Species of Diamargerit frigidaʒ iss of the powder of the Root of Paeonie and of the seeds of the same each ʒ 1. of red-Corall prepared ʒ ii of vitriol of steel ℈ ii of the Salt of Wormwood ʒ ii with what will suffice of the juce of Oranges make an Electuary take of it twice or thrice in a day drinking after it a little draught of the Julap hereafter prescribed Powders Take of Corall Red with the juce of Oranges beaten together in a glass or marble mortar and dry'd ℥ ss of the powder of misletow of the oake of the root of the male Paeonieʒ ii of perled sugar ʒ iii. make a powder the dose from ℈ i. to ʒss twice or thrice in a day Take of the Species of Diamargarit frigidaʒ ii of the Salt of wormwood ʒ iii. of the root of Cocowpint powderd ʒ i. mix them make a powder let it be divided into xx parts take a dose in the morning and at four in the afternoon Distilled waters and Julaps Take of the Roots of Butterbur ℥ i. dose ʒss to ʒ i. twice in a day Take of the Leaves of Burdock and Cocowpint each vi handfulls let them be cut and mixed together and so distilled The dose ʒ ii to iii twice or thrice a day after a dose of Electuary or powder Take of this water distilled ii pints of our steel prepared ʒ ii mix them in a Vial let it be taken after the same manner Take of the Simple water of walnuts and of black-Cherries each half a pint of Snalesʒ iii. of the Syrrop of the flowers of the male Paeonie ℥ ii the dose ℥ iss to two after the same manner Take of the shavings of Ivory and harts-horn each iii. drams of the roots of Chervill burdock Valerian each half an ounce of the leaves of Betony Chamepits harts-tongue the tops of Tamarisk each one handfull of the barks of Tamarisk and of the woody nightshade each half an ounce let them be boyled in two quarts of spring water to the consumption of the third part add to it of white-wine eight ounces strain it into a pitcher to which put of the leaves of brook-lime and Cardamine each one handfull make an Infusion warm and close for four hours Let the colature be kept close in glasses The dose ℥ vi twice in a day after a dose of some solid Medicine sometimes such an Apozme may be mixed with ʒ ii of our steel and taken in the same manner In the Summer time the use of spaw-waters is convenient and for want of them our Artificial ones may be taken Remedies in a more cold temperament If that for the reasons above-recited more hot Medicines are to be prescribed you may proceed according to the following method Take of the Conserves of Rosemary of the yellow of Oranges and Lemmons each ℥ ii Electuaries of Lignum aloes of yellow-sanders of the roots of snake-weed Contrayerva Angelica Cocowpint each ʒ i. of the vitriol of steel or of steel prepared ℈ iiii of the salt of wormwood and Scurvy-grass each ʒ i. with what will suffice of candied Wallnutts make an Electuary Let it be taken twice in a day to the quantity of a nutmeg drinking after it a dose of appropriate Liquor Take of the Roots of male-Paeony Angellica and red Coral prepared each ʒ ii Tablets of Sugar dissolved in the water of Snales boyled to the consistency of Tablets ℥ vi of the oyle of Amber lightly rectified ʒ ss make a sufficient quantity of Lozenges each weighing about half a dram take one or two twice or thrice a day drinking after it a dose of proper Liquor Take of the Roots of Virginian Snake-weed Contrayerva Valerian each ʒ ii Pills of red Coral and prepared Pearl each ʒ i. of winteran Bark and of the root of Cretian Dittany each ʒ i. of the Vitriol of Steel and Salt of wormwood each ʒ iss of the extract of Centauryʒ ii of Ammoniacum dissolved in histerical water what will suffice to make a pillulary mass of which take four pills in the morning and at four in the afternoon Take of the Spirits of harts-horn or Sut or humane Blood or of Sal ammoniack Spirits what will suffice take of them from 10. to 12. drops morning and evening in a spoonfull of Julap drinking a little draught of the same after it Take of the Leaves of Betony Vervine Sage Lady-smocks Cocowpint Burdock Distill'd waters each two hand-fulls of green wallnuts number 20. the rinds of six Oranges and of 4. Lemons of Cardamums and Cubebbs each ℥ i. being cut and brused pour on them of whey made of Cider or white wine six pints let them be distilled according to Art The dose ℥ ii or iii. twice in a day after a dose of a solid medicine Add to i. quart of this liquor ii drams of our Steel Take of the Water of Snailes and of earth-worms each ℥ vi walnuts simple ℥ iiii of Radish Compound ℥ ii of
Glandulas on either side of the bottom of it which are called the testicles appeared very small and flaggy without any superfluous or virulent humour contained in them the body of the womb whereever it was dissected equal'd a thumbs breadth in thickness its inward Cavity was no bigger than what would hold a bean within this hollowness as use to be in the Caverns of other Inwards was included a mucous or dreggy matter in a very small quantity but in truth about the womb or its appendix there was nothing to which might be imputed as a morbific cause of the symptoms but now described from whence therefore it may be demonstratively concluded as I at first thought that the passions termed from the womb hysterical are most often excited from some other cause than the fault of the womb The Intestines being removed we found also the reins sound enough but one of them was of an unusual figure viz. It was cleft into many lobes like the Kidney of a Calf The Milt Pancreas and Caul without fault the ventricle was much blown up and its inward Coat was plain without folds or wrincles which certainly hapned by reason of its frequent Vomiting this Inward being almost continually troubled with Convulsions Besides for this reason the tone of the stomach being broken it did neither rightly desire or concoct the food or aliment The Liver very much differ'd from a sound constitution for it was tumid and somewhat hard of a pail colour like rotten wood wholly dry and without blood and this without doubt the frequent use of Cordiall and highly hot liquors had effected The Lungs were of a blewish colour and every where obstructed and stuff'd with a stinking and frothy matter Certainly this Inward and the Liver had been vitiated of a long time wherefore as the blood being degenerate and very much depraved of a long time from its right temper had yielded the first seeds of this sickness so also it afforded a constant cherishment of it But indeed we sought and that not in vain for the chief and as it were originall cause of the disease in the head therefore the skull being taken off the vessells of the Meningae and those creeping about the brain appeared full and distended with blood when in the rest of the body scarce any blood had flowed forth in the cutting of it the thicker meninge being removed thorow the other thin and pellucid one was discerned a clear water filling the enfoldings and crevices of the brain and as it were overflowing its whole substance In truth the serous heap of waters had filled full all the Cavities and inward places of the brain the enfoldings of the choroides or net-like membranes of the brain being a long while immersed in water and as it were boyled were become discolour'd and half rotten nigh to the beginning of the Splanchnick nerves or belonging to the Spleen the water insinuating it self very much had separated the pia mater from the trunk of the oblong marrow or pith for two fingers breadth without doubt the morbific matter descending from the head by the passage of these nerves into the enfolding of the mesentery was the cause of the pains and Convulsions Further the same matter also afflicting the heads of other nerves and paffing thorow their pipes produced afterwards these most cruel distempers in other parts to wit almost every where of the whole body As to the Cure or means of healing used in the passions commonly called Hysterical forasmuch as the symptoms of this disease are very much convulsive The Method of Curlng the hysterical distempers therefore it is fit that anti-spasmodic or anti-convulsive Remedies such as were before described should be chiefly indicated but when these distempers most often happen to the female sex in whom for the most part the menstrual flux and other accidents of the womb do challenge a part in the morbific cause therefore medicines respecting the various dispositions of the womb are to be added to the former and many ways to be compounded with them The Therapeutic or Curatory Indications are either Curatory to be administer'd in the fit or preservatory which are instituted out of the fit that take away the cause of the disease and prevent its comings or accessions 1. As to the first if the fit is wont to be light and without other perturbation of the spirits it may be permitted to pass away of it self Curatory but if it being more heavily troublesome there will be need to bring some help to nature much oppressed this only thing is to be done that the spirits being freed from the Embraces of an heterogeneous Copula they may remit their inordinations and explosions for this purpose it is grown into use to put to the nose stinking and ill smelling things the scents of which compell and repress the too fierce spirits ready to leap forth into their orders and also shake off from them the heterogeneous Copula and often drive it quite away Asafaetida Castor Galbanum being put into fine Linnen and applyed to the nostrills are convenient also burning of Partridg feathers old skins and sulphur Besides the spirits and oyl of sut or of Harts-horn do not seldome help yet I have known these kinde of fumigations being very troublesome to some women to increase the fit it is probable that the same sometimes may too much irritate the spirits and drive them into greater disorders and as stinking things put to the nose so the like poured into the mouth do often bring help wherefore we give often with good success to hysterical people Tinctures of Castor Solutions of Assafaetida and Galbanum spirits of Harts-horn and Sut with proper waters Take of the spirits of Harts-horn from 12. to 15. and 20. drops let them be taken in a little draught of the following Julap Take of the waters of penny Royall and mugwort each ℥ iii. of the water of Briony compound ℥ ii of Castor tyed in a knot and hung in the glass ʒ ss of the whitest sugar ℥ i. mix them Take of the Tincture of Castor ℈ i. to ʒ ss let it be taken ia a little draught of small beer Take of Assafaetida and Galbanumʒ ii let it be dissolved in spirit of wine to the extraction of a red tincture The dose ℈ i. in two or three spoonfulls of featherfew water Riverius very much crys up that of Solenander Take of musk and of dragons-blood each ℈ i. take more or less of it in water of Lillies of the Valley ℥ iii. or iiii John Anglicus commends parsnip-seeds or the seeds of Penny-royal in wine or other proper Liquor as a most certain Remedy If the fit persisting a long time should cause want of speech or motion the more sharp Clysters as of bryony-Roots and Carminatives boyled in water are to be administred and frictions of the thighs and feet are to be order'd and if they shall yet grow stronger Cupping-glasses are to be applied to
ways are thought of whereby the Menstruum of water is made sharper and is rendred fit for the dissolving of any Bodies whatsoever For by means of the Bodies which it ought to dissolve and of the parts which it ought to receive in it self it is armed as it were with some Weapons with which it is able to unlock any Subject and to possess now these now those Particles The Menstruum of water is sharpned with Spirit Salt or Sulphur to wit either with each of these or with more of them joyned together we will first speak of the watery Menstruum with the various sharpning of it and afterwards of the fiery dissolvent Common water most easily dissolves the more simple Bodies except Sulphur and hides their Particles in its pores and passages it readily receives Salts of every kind and easily imbibes Spirits it loosens the frame of Earth and cherishes its more tender little bodies in its embrace but it is hardly mixed with Fat and Oyly things and receives not their Particles but by the coming between of others but drives them forth to its Superficies as not miscible or thrusts them down to the bottom Water in some measure enters the more compounded Bodies whose frame is somwhat loose and then receives into its bosom some not simple Particles but resembling the nature of the whole mixture hence most Vegetables also parts of living creatures and some Minerals being put into common water do impregnate it with a certain virtue and from most Metals by a long maceration it takes away some strength though but small Some Bodies are dissolved by water which yet a Sulphureous or Spirituous Menstrua leave almost untouch'd as the Gums Tragacanth Arabic c. also Salts and Sugar The first and most common way of sharpning whereby simple water may more easily enter the Bodies to be dissolved is that it be furnished with fiery Particles or darts of adventitious heat for so it is driven more deeply with a certain force into Bodies and destroys some thrids as it were the smallest mites in their most inward recesses Wherefore we are wont to boyl for a long while the matter to be dissolved in water or at least to infuse it in warm water by which means the more tenuious and certain subtil Particles which resemble the nature of the Subject are easily drawn forth and impregnate the water with the virtue of the whole mixture So much for the simple or natural Menstruum of water to wit for as much as its activity is wont somtimes to be promoted by fire or ascititious heat But this cannot be so simple but that it contains in it self some Particles of another kind as may be gathered from its easie Putrefaction for oftentimes it is impregnated with Spirituous Sulphureous or Saline breathings contracted from the Air or Earth that for the drawing forth the tinctures of very many things somtimes it excels an Artificial Menstruum for that Acidulous or Spawish waters Mineral waters Rain water and May Dew are of frequent use among Chymicks for the remarkable faculty of dissolving with which they are strong Besides 't is a vulgar observation that some waters most easily dissolve Sope and being throughly mixed with the same causes in the liquor a great spume or froth such if they be rubbed between the fingers feel soft and gentle but other waters which being handled with the hands are more harsh refuse the mixture both of Sope and Oyl and so are accounted unprofitable for the washing of Cloaths these sort of waters if they should be evaporated in a Glass oftentimes affix a Crust to its bottom and sides because they are impregnated more than they ought with Saline Particles with which when the Saline parts residing in the Sope combine the Sulphureous are carried away and they being excluded the pores are thrust forth as not miscible to the top of the Liquor When Flesh is boyled in these waters it grows very red which tincture indeed being thence contracted is a sign that those waters are somwhat imbued with Vitriol or some other kind of Salt But we will pass to Artificial Menstruas in which the watry Liquor is furnished with Spirit Salt or Sulphur being gathered apart or many of them together The Spirituous Menstruum of water is made when from a Body swelling with Spirits a clear and limpid water is distilled as from Wine or strong Beer or other Bodies truly Fermented and brought to exaltation The kind of dissolvent is hardly to be had so sincere but it is mixed with the Particles of more pure Sulphur and somtimes of a volatile Salt The former kind of Liquor is called Spirit of Wine which being subtil and very penetrating easily enters the Bodies and parts of Vegetables and also of living Creatures but hardly Minerals or not at all it extracts from many things not any Particles or resembling the Nature of the whole mixture as common water but chiefly Spirituous and Sulphureous the rest being almost untouched wherefore it is wont to be used for the resinous magisteria of Vegetables which it draws forth almost sincere or without mixture under the form of Gum or Refine in the mean time it is not so fit as common water for the extracts of Plants which are not so indued with Sulphur from Sulphureous things as Benzoin Sulphur Olibanum Styrax Amber and the like it draws forth excellent Tinctures It dissolves the fixed Salts of Herbs also of Pearls and Coral before prepared with Vinegar by a long digestion and receives their Tinctures into it self it leaves Sugar and Gums being dissolvable in water almost untouch'd But there is another Spirituous Menstruum that is sharpned with a volatile Salt such is the Liquor which is distilled out of blood Harts-horn or Soot it is far stronger than the former and cuts most Bodies except Metals into parts and oftimes destroys the forms of the whole mixture yea it most excellently dissolves secondarily the most fixed Metal to wit Gold being first reduced into a Calx by its proper Menstruum and reduces it into a Tincture or potable Liquor They are accounted Sulphureous Menstrua which are brought forth of Sulphureous Bodies under the form of an Oyl these are prepared either by distillation such as are chiefly the Oyl of Turpentine Juniper and the like or by expression such as are wrung forth of Olives Almonds and other Fruits or Seeds of Vegetables Things distilled are of more efficacy than preparations by expression either of them draw forth some Particles from Vegetables or Animals by the vertues of which these Oyls being impregnated they are made fit for Medicinal use Yea they are conveniently enough made use of for the extracting of the Sulphureous Particles of Minerals which somtimes they draw forth sincere or unmixt But if Oyl of Turpentine or Lin-seed Oyl draws forth by dissolving the combustible part of common Sulphur in the mean time the remaining Saline parts and untouched by the Menstruum grow into Crystals
depends for the most part upon fire yet somtimes we perceive it to be produced in some subjects and that in a very high degree without its being actually inkindled A most known instance of which thing is quick Lime sprinkled with water which also Stygian waters shew being mingled with Iron the Butter of Antimony and with the Salts of the stagma of Vegetables The learned men Gunter Conringius Hogelandus and almost all that have touched on the Doctrine of Fermentation have delivered the effects of this Nature as especial examples of Fermentations wherefore it will be worth our labour to inquire somthing concerning each of them but on this condition which I also have observed in other disquisitions that I willingly let alone the opinion of others for a Traveller had rather drink at the Fountains themselves I will then as briefly and succinctly as I can dispatch the business Quick-Lime is made of the Lime Stone also of many others excepting only such which consist of a reddish and as it were sandy grain being Calcined in a close Furnace for many days with a reverberating fire by this means the frame of the mixture is loosned that it goes into a friable matter or that may be crumbled which by reason of the high astriction or binding Nature in which it excels serves most excellently for the making of Cements for Walls This Calx or Lime being taken from the Furnace reteins still the form of Stone and seems cold to the touch but water being poured thereon it swells up and grows wonderfully hot sending forth smoak that it burns all Bodies that are put into it besides it falls of it self into a white dust To which Particles this motion and heat ought to be ascribed viz. whether to those implanted in the Lime stone or to the others acquired by the fire doth not easily appear but that we may loose this knot if we can I have instituted this Analysis of quick Lime I put about half a pound of it into a large Cucurbit then water being poured thereon I fitted the little Head with a capacious Receiver by and by within five minutes of an hour the matter began to swell and to grow very hot then a smoak and a breath being raised all the Vessels became so hot that I could scarce touch them with my hands A clear water Distilled forth into the Receiver about six Ounces which was not sharp but of a Styptic or Astringent sweetish tast the remaining powder in the Cucurbit I boiled with common water and the Lye thereof made I endeavoured to boil away with a gentle Fire while it did evaporate there gathered together on the Superfices of the Liquor a white and crusty little skin also of a sweetish tast and the same being taken away presently a new one succeeded the humor being at last wholly exhaled there remained in the bottom nothing that was sharp or salt We may Collect from this that this heat doth not proceed from the implanted Principles of the Lime stone viz. either Saline or Sulphureous however moved within themselves for only a sweetish Salt was to be found in it which was also Volatile and it is a sign that there is not much Sulphur in the Limestone because by a long Calcination the form of the mixture is not quite destroyed nor its substance wholly broken wherefore it is very likely that whilst these stones are burnt in the Furnace some Particles of Fire do strictly cleave to the Saline and so reside in that mixture as it were strangers which whilst they lie a sleep and continue idle and being separated one from another by the coming between of Earth although they are very many do not raise up heat For all heat depends upon motion but when water is poured to it those fiery Particles being thrust out of their Cells flow together and fly aways by heaps from that Inn so breaking forth by Troops they cause a very intense heat and because diluted with water only a smoak and not an actual Fire It is a sign that little Bodies of fire or fiery Particles do stick a long while in matters Calcined because Iron Instruments according as those Particles are driven forth of their pores more or less leisurely or by heaps become soft or hard tough or brittle moreover it is observed that bricks or fresh Earthen Vessels being dipped in water cause a certain hissing also Tobacco Pipes if one end be put into water and the other brought near to the Ear yield a certain sharp noise and rumbling add to these that fixed Salts being Calcined or having suffered a Flux by the Fire become far sharper also Stygian waters by reason of those kind of little Bodies involved therein which afterwards leisurely evaporate perpetually send forth sharp fumes and when these are poured upon Saline Calxes not only an Ebullition is raised by reason of the disagreeing Particles of the Salts which strike one another mutually whereby they might be more strictly combined but besides heat and smoak succeed which for the most part arise from the fiery Particles being shuck out of their Dens But it is not easie to give a reason why quick Lime and no other Concretes retain so copiously those kind of fiery Particles and yield a strong heat water being poured on them T is plain enough that when the Sulphureous Effluviums of Fire forasmuch as they are most penetrating enter all Bodies whatsoever brought near affect them after divers manners those which are more lax and stuffed with active Principles are destroyed wholly by burning and because their substance decays the fiery Particles as Soldiers in a City spoiled by themselves do not continue long in the ruined place but go farther and move their Tents but where the Concretion of the Subject is very compact and that its Elements cannot be so pulled in pieces by the fire that they rather grow stiff as is seen in Metals Glass Bricks and other things made hard either by boiling or fusion the fiery Particles entered in being received in an incommodious Inn presently go forth again and therefore few are wont to stay in mixt things of this kind or in things fused or Calcined but if fire be so applyed to the more hard Concretes of which sort are most stones and shelly Concretes that the bond of the mixture be unlocked some parts viz. the Watery and Sulphureous are driven away and so some spaces are made hollow very fit for the receiving any stranger in the mean time that the frame of the matter be not wholly destroyed but that it may continue its compacted and stony form which flows not away together with its Particles and ever threatens its ruin in such a Subject chiefly the Particles of fire possessing the spaces of the parts flown away copiously remain and there cleaving close to the Saline little Bodies being detained one from another by the coming between of the earthy lie quiet which notwithstanding afterwards being violently driven from those
as often as he took going to sleep Diascordium or any other more temperate Cordial for the continuing his sweat tho in a very little quantity the night following he was without sleep and in great disquiet and then in the beginning of the morning a bleeding followed by which means indeed the Small Pox being full come forth the Life of the sick was in great danger by reason of this occasion happening once or twice wherefore when I had found by observation his blood apt to grow immoderately hot by so light a provocation I instituted this method as occasion served All Medicines being let alone he took for the quenching his thirst small beer and simple Almond Drink at his pleasure for his food because he vomited back all Oatmeal Grewel or Barly Broth he eat only apples roasted tender and drest with suggar and rose water often in a day Nature being contented with this slender ordering and being seen to be disturbed with any other thing performed happily its work that the sick person grew well without any grievous symptom afterwards the Small Pox from thence ripening and then of their own accord falling off In the middle of the Autumn of the former Year a Gentile Young Man being indued with a sharp Blood and obnoxious to a frequent bleeding at Nose fell sick of the Small Pox his Blood of its own accord grew immoderately hot that the whealks very quickly broke forth over all his Body Posset Drink with Marigold Flowers and other usual things boyled in it also Juleps or any Cordials tho temperate and gently provoking sweat most certainly stirr'd up a Flux of Blood in this Person wherefore I ordered the like manner of Dyet as in the sick Person before cited by which he found himself better however in the very state or standing of the Disease when the Small Pox being fully come forth by reason of a more difficult transpiration the Feaver is wont to be somewhat renewed in all this sick Man fell into a most plentiful bleeding that after a large profusion of Blood the Small Pox began to flagg or fall After that Remedies very many were tryed in vain for the staying of the Blood at length a little Bag being hung about his Neck in which was a Toad dryed in the Sun and bruised he first and immediately perceived ease tho the bleeding was by this means stayed and not any more returning whilst he constantly wore this peculiar Medicine in his Bosom our sick Man still using a most thin and cooling Dyet grew quite well that indeed from hence it may appear that altho the Blood in this Distemper is apt to be greatly coagulated yet so long as the Vital Spirits being strong and robust are able sufficiently to execute their government they indeavouring by their proper strength or forces do best of all separate and thrust forth the congealed portions of the Blood as it were by a certain skilful separation and this work is most of all hindred when the same spirits are too much irritated by Cordials or more hot food and agitated into confusion But in the Plague it happens otherwise because in this if any delay be granted the Spirits themselves are presently profligated by the venom wherefore here they must fight close and quick when in the Small Pox the Physician does his business better by delay Concerning letting of Blood at the instant breaking out of the Small Pox it is very dubious formerly among our Countrimen this was esteemed a wicked business neither were they wont to admit of Phlebotomy under any pretext of necessity but of late experience having taught us in some cases it is found that to let Blood hath been wholly profitable and necessary which evacuation however if it should be administred indifferently in every constitution or when this need should be it should be performed in too large a quantity by that means oftentimes very great damage arises Some years before I visited a young Gentlewoman of a storid countenance and more hot temperature growing into a Feaver after the fourth month of her being with Child she was troubled with a cruel vomiting a most cruel pain of the Loyns besides with most strong heat and thirst her pulse was swift with a strong and vehement vibration or beating altho the Small Pox had never been in that place yet these symptoms gave no light suspicion of this Disease however its great effervescency indicated that Blood should be taken away wherefore I took away about six ounces presently upon which the heat remitted somwhat yet the vomiting with a cruel pain in the Loyns remained still At the hour of sleep I gave her a Cordial Bolus with half a grain of our Laudanum by which means quiet sleep followed with a pleasant sweat and an allaying of all the symptoms the next morning the Small Pox came forth with which altho the sick Gentlewoman was greatly distempered yet she grew well without any dangerous sickness or fear of miscarrying and went out her full time The last Autumn a strong Man of an active and robust constitution of body yet of a pale countenance and more cold temper fell into a Feaver on the second day he was tormented with heat and thirst and a most cruel pain in his Loyns when I had prescribed Blood to be taken in a small quantity the unskilful Chirurgion who was sent for took from him almost half a pound a little after the sick man began to be all over in a cold sweat on a sudden to loose all strength to be troubled with a shivering a weak Pulse and unequal and frequent swooning At this time being sent for I gave him a temperate Cordial to be taken frequently His Spirits and Pulse being thereby restored the Feaver was renewed which afterwards for some days yea weeks exercised the sick man after a very irregular manner for he was wont for three or four days to grow very hot also to be infested with thirst watchings headach and other symptoms then to be troubled all over with a copious and critical sweat by which indeed for half a days space he found himself better But from thence the Feaver still growing worse heaped together again new matter till it was dispersed by another Crisis and then another After that he had been thus feaverish for at least twenty days irregularly at length the Small Pox began to come forth in several parts of his Body here and there and then the Feaver wholly remitted yet within few days by reason of some errors committed in his Dyet very many of the whealks began to fall down again few of them only being brought to maturity However instead of the subsiding Small Pocks a mighty Bubo grew up behind his right Ear from which being soon ripened and broke a great plenty of matter flowed forth for many days and so at length the corruptions of the Blood unable otherways to be dissipated were carried forth by degrees and the sick Person recovered perfect Health
head moreover a leaping up of the tendons in her wrists also she had sudden concussions of her wholy Body yet still her loosness held to her were administred by the prescripts of several Physicians Cordials and other Remedies and kinds of Administrations carefully but nothing profited her Pulse being more weak and her strength leisurely wasting she died on the ninth day after she was delivered This Feaver very much depended upon the vitious provision of the Body as the procatartic cause for I have often observed that it fares ill with Women Lying in who when Big bellied devoured fruit and any unwholsom trash and living without motion or exercise indulged themselves with ease and rest the Blood by reason of the previous Cachexie conceived a burning without any evident cause as it were of its own accord But growing hot laying inwardly still its recrements and impurities caused the Diarrhea neither yet was its mass made more pure by its almost continual excretion yea rather being still more depraved in its mixtion or crasis the Blood at length wholly departed from its proper disposition and became unable to be fermented in the heart whereby heat and breath might be every where dispersed The loosness excited by the motion of Nature was untowardly stopped especially by the use of astringent things for this I have often observed never to be done without paying for it because the Flux of the Belly has cured some that have been ill but in this Lady and in many others as has abundantly appeared to our experience altho it did not take away the Feaver yet it freed her from the more grievous distempers of the Brain and nervous stock from whence this sick person was wholly free from a Delirium nor was struck with Convulsive motions till reduced almost to extremity The Mother of a Family and a Gentlewoman about 36 years of Age or upwards being with Child of her seventeenth Child was troubled and very anxious lest she should die of that Child-bearing But God favouring she was delivered well enough of a Son and for three days after she was very cheerful on the fourth day when she had eaten more than she should do of a Chicken a little before night she fell into a feaverish Distemper with vomiting and a stopping of the Lochia all night she lay restless and without sleep the next morning she had four stools and seemed somewhat eased about Noon about which time I came to her she complained again of heat and thirst as also a palpitation of the heart and of the ascent of some substance in her throat her Pulse was quick and small her Urine red the Lochia scarce appeared I ordered her Juleps Cordials and things to purge the Womb besides a fomentation for the bottom of her Belly also her Legs and Feet to be rubbed often with warm Wollen Cloaths at going to sleep I gave her of Laudanum one grain with Saffron Pouder half a scruple in a spoonful of treacle-Treacle-water She slept well and the Lochia came down plentifully and by that means with a slender dyet and continuing to provoke moderately the Flux of the Womb for a few days she became very well The immoderate eating of flesh as an evident and almost only sufficient cause without any great provision or vitious predisposition induced the Feaver The Lochia restagnating into the Blood increased its intemperance and presently brought troubles upon the nervous kind but in the mean time the Blood altho growing hot did not undergo any great corruption but when the recrements heaped up by the Surfeit were sent forth by the loosness and the Blood the Lochia being restored began to be purged forth again after its wonted manner this Feaver wanting a further malignant ferment quickly vanished A noble Lady young and fair was brought to Bed of a second Child and for six days as to the Lochia and other accidents she was well and wholly free from the suspicion of any intemperature she ate flesh daily and rising from her Bed was brisk and chearful in her Chamber on the seventh day without any manifest cause a shivering came upon her with a Feaver and a lessning of the Lochia but not suppressed to the tenth day after her Delivery she was only moderately feaverish whilst the purgings of the Womb yet flowed she remained free from any grievous symptom but then although she was greatly feaverish she was more cheerful than ordinary and seemed more confident of her health at Night she slept little or nothing the morning following at which time I first visited her she clearly raved the Lochia were stopped also her whole Body was shaken with horror the tendons in her wrists were pulled together so that I could hardly distinguish her Pulse which in the mean time was weak unequal and very quick I said she would die quickly unless God should miraculously restore her by his Divine Power however six grains of Oriental Bezoar being given her in a spoonful of Cordial Julep brought upon her a plentiful sweat with a better Pulse then other Cordials being given wiâ—â— due intervals gave some little hopes tho I doubted they would not continue aâ—tâ—r four hours from the time that I came the sick Lady had of her own accord a great Stool and presently her strength wholly failed her and within half an hour she died When there hapned nothing of ill to this Lady as to her Delivery or Womb so pernicious a Feaver and so suddenly Mortal could not happen without a great and malignant procatarsis of the Blood and humors whether a more full Dyet or taking Cold or any other evident cause gave a beginning to this is uncertain because the Women and Nurses helping her knew of no manifest occasion of her sickness The Feaver being inkindled the infection of the Blood could not be wholly carried away by the purging of the Womb tho long continued tho for that reason the more cruel symptoms came not presently upon her yet the evil still lurked within and the Disease being very acute shewing it self with a swift motion on the fourth day when Nature should have indeavoured a Crisis the matter of the Feaver being moved but not overcome as it were in a moment overturned at once the Brain and nervous parts whence Death was to be expected and suddenly followed A Woman well known who had scarce passed the twentieth Year of her Age of a florid countenance and slender Body after her being brought to Bed when the Lochia flowed immoderately made use of some astringent Remedies by the counsel of those about her by which means they were wholly stopped but a Flux of her Belly succeeded which when it had increased for three days the Women gave her other things for the stopping her Loosness nor were they frustrated in the success in the mean time in the place of the former evil they had brought a most dangerous Feaver and distempers as it were hysterical for the unhappy Gentlewoman Lying in was troubled
to vomiting let a more plentiful evacuation be procured by a gentle Emetie in the time of the fit The opening of a Vein and Purging ought not to be administred unless between the fits for whilst the Blood grows mainly hot or is resolved into sweat Nature ought not to be called back from the Work begun nor her endeavours to be disturbed by the prescriptions of Physicians wherefore after the 〈◊〉 being past and the sweat throughly finished a Purging may be instituted by a gentle Cathartic and the same afterwards sometimes repeated on the like occasion for by this method not only the provision of the excrementitious matter is brought away from the first passages but chiefly the choler-bearing Vessels being emptied the choler is copiously drawn forth from the mass of Blood and by that means the Blood is restored to its natural Crasis or disposition The Letting of Blood if it be indicated should be performed presently after the beginning for so its Liquor being too turgent or swelling up is eventilated whereby both the nutritious juice is less perverted and the fit urging it burns forth with a less heat together with the morbifick matter but otherwise if a Vein be opened after a long sickness when the Blood being made poorer and more watry more of the morbific matter is heaped together and does not rightly concoct and sift it forth it detracts much from the strength of Nature and nothing from the power of the Disease In the interval of the fits when there is no place for opening a Vein nor Purging let the Belly be kept loose by the constant use of Clysters also digestive Remedies of acetous or saline Liquors and Powders are to be exhibited of which sort are Cream of Tartar fixed Salts of Herbs Tartar Vitriolate Harts-horn burnt Spirit of Vitriol and Salt c. for these restore the lost or sleepy ferments of the Viscera purifie the Blood by fusing it also separate the morbific matter and as it were precipitate it also at this time between if pertinations waking infest the sick and overthrow their strength it may be lawful to administer anodyne and gentle narcotic Remedies but never in the fit for then they greatly hinder the subduing and sifting forth of the feaverish matter and draw out in length the fit that would end sooner These things are to be done about the interstitia or intervals of the fits but whilst the fit is urgent altho the sick then chiefly send for and call upon Physiicans yet at this time their prescripts are limited to a narrower space If Vomiting notwithstanding an Emetic being given still infest it may be more freely provoked either by simple Posset Drink or with bitter Herbs boyled in it But let the chiefest means of help be in temperating the heat and thirst which most grievously torments the sick in this Feaver For whilst the Blood growing hot with the morbific matter and being inkindled in the Heart leaps forth into the Lungs stirs up there a cruel Inflamation which requires a profusion of a cold humor as it were for the extinguishing the Flame wherefore they greedily desire without any measure drink for want of which the sick are almost killed with too great heat and their Blood being almost wholly rarified into flame and fume the thrid of Circulation is hardly continued wherefore drink ought to be wholly granted to those in Feavers which however if it be taken in too large a quantity it at first more disturbs the estuating Blood and at length brings confusion to the feaverish matter begun to be separated that from thence the Work of subaction and secretion is longer protacted and the fit is made longer also besides large drinking causes troubles in the Ventricle and by disturbing it and often provoking Vomiting hinders the breathing forth and calls inward the sweat breaking forth or perhaps already broke forth wherefore at first the heat of the Feaver being inkindled altho the sick be very thirsty let them only sip a little and abstain from drink as much as they can afterwards when the matter being burnt and subdued begins to be dissipated by sweat they may be more freely indulged as to this for so the sweating is greatly helped and the fit is sooner finished as to the nature of the Drink let them take sometimes Posset Drink sometimes Small Beer or Barly Water and sometimes simple Water or sharpned with the juice of Lemons In this case the use of Sal Prunellae is deservedly praised to be given in every Liquor for this with its nitrosity wonderfully allays the raging Blood and potently moves sweats I have often observed in the midst of a fit the sick wont to fall into a swoon or syncopy to whom presently they give Cordials or hot Waters that much increase the violence of the Feaver and bring forth more troubles than usual that the fit is more difficultly finished But these faintings for the most part happen either from a bilous humor suffused in the Ventricle or by reason of the sweat suddenly breaking forth and against these I always found the most present Remedy that either a feather being put down the throat Vomiting may be provoked or that Liquor being plentifully drunk a sweat may be again raised up also in the whole course of this Feaver I am wont never to give any Cordials or alexiteriums The Dyet in this Feaver ought to be only slender and not nourishing all sorts of Flesh or any thing prepared of them are wholly to be avoided for as these abound with Sulphur they give a more plentiful food as Oyl poured on Flame to the hot or enkindled Blood besides nothing spiritous as strong Waters strong Beer or Wine is to be yielded to but Decoctions or Broths of Oat-meal or Barly altered with cooling Herbs are chiefly to be used also Posset Drink and small Beer or Whey is to be given them at their pleasure for by this means when a very slender and watry nourishing juice is conveyed to the mass of Blood the soluted Particles of Sulphur burn forth sooner and with the less tumult also the recrements of the adust matter are more easily carried from the bosom of the Blood but if on the contrary a more rich or plentiful nourishment be administred the effervency of the Blood is thereby very much augmented and the Blood is more infected by the confusion or pouring in of the adust matter After that the Blood being much burnt forth by frequent fits and the Feaver being in its declination remits of its fervor and fierceness you must take heed lest the sick at length growing well fall not into a Cachexie or Scorbutic Distemper for the disposition of the Viscera being hurt and the Blood very much depauperated the alible juice though not scorched so as at first is not however rightly concocted and ripened into perfect Blood but by reason of the want of transpiration the serous excrements being imbued with a fixed salt are greatly heaped together
pertinaciously will be deceived whilst they imagine the knowledg of every Disease and the prognostication of it cannot be found out but by inspecting the Vrine and esteem a Physician of little worth unless he undertakes to divine from the Vrinal as from a Magical Glass But indeed as to what belongs to the precepts and rules whereon the reason of Judgment by Vrine doth depend there are many collected by diligent observation that are extant and from thence establish'd with good reason and judgment yet for as much as the signification of Vrines is by some too largely extended to particular Cases very many uncertain things interwoven and some obnoxious to deceit and others plainly false therefore who shall confidently pronounce concerning the business of the Sick by the judgment only of the Water deserves rather the name of a jugling Quack than of a Physician But this Doctrine concerning Vrines abounds so ordinarily with errors that the observations which belong to its practice are either wrongfully made or not well reduced into method We may lawfully suspect that the observations are not rightly made because perhaps from one or two particular cases oftentimes a general Rule is established For Example sake because some Hydropical people render a thin and watry Vrine therefore it is affirmed such sort of Vrines necessarily denote a Dropsie when also in some other diseases such like Vrines are made and sometimes in the Dropsie the Vrine are thick and full of redness Also as it is most commonly received that Vrines on which a cream doth swim as on water that hath Tartar boyled in it doth denote a Consumption which is most uncertain because this sign is more proper and familiar to Hypochondriacks than to Consumptive people And how many dye of Consumptions without this Besides what is generally asserted to wit that in all diseases whatsoever Nature doth make known the Disease by the Vrine is altogether false because sometimes sick people make their Vrine like healthful people and sometimes those who are very well in health by reason of some accident perhaps from the meats eaten have suspected Vrine varying from the natural state or condition As to what belongs to the method or doctrine delivered by most concerning Vrines they seem to be altogether Empirical and nothing rational for the naked differences of Vrines are rehearsed and are wont to be distinguished according to their colour consistency and contents thence are opposed to the several species of these pathologick significations collected only from more rare observations when in the mean time the causes of the appearances nor of the preternatural alterations in the Vrines are not assigned as they ought to be nor is the signification of the Vrines applyed to the Causes of diseases but only to the Disease or Symptom and therefore it is most often deceitful and uncertain because the same morbifick Cause and signification of the same Vrine may in like manner mediately respect at once divers Diseases and Symptoms As for Example a thin and watry Vrine most often immediately denotes Indigestion or a defect of Concoction in the Viscera nevertheless by reason of that condition of Crudity the Green-sickness in Virgins sometimes the Dropsie or the white watery phlegmacy sometimes Head-aches and many other diseases arise But the task which you have required of me Worthy Sir to wit That the notions which in times past we have discoursed together and conceived concerning Vrines as it were collected notes and what have since fallen under my own knowledg by my proper study and observation concerning this thing should be fram'd into a little Treatise and that I should write a plain and new method of Vrinoscopie I confess the work greater than can well be performed by our own proper strength however I have resolved as much as I am able to obey you therein But that a doctrine or method concerning Vrines may be instituted beyond the vulgar and plainly Empirical manner of Philosophising there shall be these two heads of our Discourse To wit First that the Anatomy of Vrine may be delivered of what elements and parts it consists and also its genesis in our Body to wit by what Concoction this kind of Liquor is made and then by what secretion of some Particles from others Secondly That the inspection of urines in the Vrinal may be truly unfolded and what may be the Rules and the Certitude of Vromancie or divination of the Vrine OF URINES CHAP. I. Of the Elements and chief Accidents of Vrine WHEN the Liquor of the Urine being either fresh rendred from the body or putrified by a long digestion is exposed to a spagirick Analysis it is wont to be resolved into these parts or principles In the Distilling first ascends whatever of a vinous spirit is in it diluted with water but yet in fo very small quantity that it is not easily to be perceived by the taste it self To this follows a watry liquor large enough in proportion with which are mixed some more loose particles of Salt and Sulphur especially Thirdly There is stilled forth a very penetrative water which is commonly called the spirit of Urine but in truth almost without any vinous spirit and is chiefly phlegm highly sharpned with Salt and therefore it ascends last as in the distillation of Vinegar but forasmuch as the salt of Urine is volatile but that of Vinegar only in the Flux therefore the liquor stilled forth which is greatly impregnated with its particles is very acid That which is imbued with the saline Particles of the other is exceeding sharp and pricking It is a sign that this kind of Spirit of Urine as it is commonly known ows its sharpness chiefly to the Salt because though it be most subtil it will not take fire but being put to it extinguishes it After the humidity is wholly exhal'd another portion of Salt remains with the earth in the bottom of the cucurbit to which if a more hot fire be made that Salt will be sublimed into the Alembick and the earthy feces only remain This kind of Anatomy of Urine plainly shows that the Elements of which its liquor is composed are a great deal of Water and Salt and a little of Sulphur and Earth and a very little of Spirit The saltness in Urines is perceived by the taste and touch it comes nearest to a Nitrous salt in savour It is drawn indeed from saline particles of things eaten which being more plentifully exalted by the concoction in the Bowels and the circulation in the Vessels for the most part go into a volatile Salt That is truly Salt and Spirit by reason of the long accompanying of either together are gathered into a most strict bond and therefore it happens that the Salt it self otherways fixed is carryed up on high and rendred able for motion as it were by the wings of the other Urines contain in them more or less of Salt according to the disposition of our body and have it either more
and more impregnate with Salt and Sulphur and therefore like Lie it sustains some weights which otherwise would sink to the bottom Sometimes the Hypostasis is wholly wanting in sound people after long fasting immoderate labours or copious sweating the matter being wholly consumed into nutriment or evaporated by sweat in Feavours by reason of the very depraved condition of the Blood also in the Pica Cachexie and other Distempers of that kind by reason of the great Crudity Concerning the consistency of the Urine in sound people there is not much worthy consideration to be met with It is wont to be of that sort as midling Beer is being purified by a long Fermentation or Lye a little boyled viz. the watry liquor of the Urine ought to include in its Pores and passages a great many Particles of Salt and Sulphur most smally broken and dissolved and besides a little of earth divided very exceeding small and dispersed thorow the whole body of the Piss if the consistence be thinner than it ought as it is in clear or limpid Urines and watry it is a sign of indigestion and crudity that the Aliments are not fully overcome and Concocted but if the Urine be thicker and closer than it ought it is a sign that the body of the liquor is filled with preternatural Contents But of these elsewhere when we shall speak of the Urines of the Sick Thus far of Urine forasmuch as it is an Excrement and sign of Concoction in a sound body truly performed in the Viscera and in the Vessels the quantity or bulk of which is to be determined by the potulent matter the colour Citron from the dissolved Salt and Sulphur and boyled in the Serum the Hypostasis or Contents depend upon the Filaments elaboured in the Blood for the nourishment of the solid parts the consistency on the Salt and Sulphur together with the Particles of Earth filling the Pores and passages of the serous liquor It next remains that we treat of the Urines of sick people in which also the Quantity Colour Contents Consistence and some accidents besides offer themselves to consideration CHAP. IV. Of the Quantity and Colour in Urines of sick People IN a Morbous provision of Bodies or Sickly estate the quantity of the Urine does not exactly quadrate with the proportion of the liquid things taken for sometimes it wants of its due measure and sometimes exceeds it When the Urine is much less than the drinkable things taken the reason is because the watry Latex either stays somewhere in the Body or is diverted by some other way of Excretion than by Urine if it remains within First it is either heaped up about the Viscera and their Cavities and so is stay'd now in the Ventricle more than it ought to do and induces by the distention of it troubles with spitting but more often it is laid up in the hollowness of the Abdomen and sometimes of the Thorax and head and there is wont to cause Hydropic Diseases Or Secondly the Serum stagnates in the Vessels and so increases the bulk of the Blood and Nervous Liquor and notably perverts its motion whence Catarrhs Rheumatick distempers and often Palsies and Convulsions are caused Or thirdly this watry humour is fixed in the habit of the body and so creates a swelling up of the whole body or of some parts Or fourthly and lastly it is obstructed in the urinary passages by the Stone or thick matter as it were a dam opposing it and causes in those parts pains and Convulsions and a fulness of the Serum in the whole body When the serous water is other ways bestowed the Patients are for the most part prone to frequent and troublesom Sweats or almost to a continual Loosness The distempers therefore which the small quantity of the Urine is wont to indicate are sometimes the swelling up of some of the Viscera and a heaping up of water in them sometimes Catarrhal distempers sometimes evil dispositions of the nervous stock sometimes an Anasarca and watry Tumors and sometimes the stony disposition of the Reins and Bladder And sometimes also the diminution of the Vrine is the effect and sign of some other preternatural evacution viz. an immoderate excretion of Sweat Lask or some other thing To describe here exactly all the subsistences of the serous Latex either in the body or the causes of it other ways excreted and the manner of doing it were to transfer hither almost the whole matter of Pathology for many and divers are the occasions and circumstances whereupon this Serum is heaped up in this or that part and subsisting in the body diminishes the quantity of the Urine but for the most part the principal and most frequent cause of this consists not so much in the fault of the Liver Spleen or Reins as of the blood it self to wit a copious and free making of Urine as also its stay in the body and only made in little quantity depend chiefly on the temper of the blood and either on its kindling or fermentation in the heart for if the blood be strong in rightly exalted principles viz. Spirit Sulphur and Salt it grows very hot in the Vessels and so the frame of the liquor being loose enough it is duly kindled by the ferment of the heart and almost spiritualizes the whole passes through all parts with heat and a rapid motion without stopping and whatsoever is superfluous and volatile evaporates out of doors and whilst the blood is ratified and boiling with heat passes through the Reins what is serous is easily separated either by the strainer of the Reins only or which is most likely by a coagulation and is as it were precipitated from the remaining mass of the blood The same thing almost happens after this manner to the blood as we may observe in Milk viz. whilst it is warmed and grows hot it most easily goes into parts and its Serum is most easily separated by the least drop of Runnet or Coagulum put into it but if you pour much more strong and sour ferment into it when it is cold a precipitation will hardly follow so if the blood becomes through an evil constitution or ill manner of living more cool and watry that being less endued with active Elements it grows but dully hot and is but little kindled in the heart it is circulated very slowly and difficultly in the Vessels passing through the Pores and passages of the Viscera it cleaves a little to them and leaves something behind it whence are begotten every where Obstructions and Tumors also the blood by this means becoming viscous and cool and so unfit for precipitation or percolation lays aside less readily its excrements in the Reins but leaves them every where in the body because it hardly and not without the residence of a certain humor is circulated Wherefore in this state those things that move the blood very much as exercise and a more quick motion or also such as may
the same instinct of obeying the motion and also carry to the Tendons the troops of the inflowing Spirits received from the Nerve The Arteries and Veins inserted in the middle of every Muscle send forth little branches on all sides obliquely cutting the moving Fibres from which lesser branches dispersed between the Interstitia of the flesh water them all with a flux or reflux of the blood But the Nerve entring the fleshy belly of every one distributes some smaller circles only in the neighbouring parts as it were bearing only the Symbol or mark of the commanded action commands the execution of it to the Guard or inferiour Company of the fleshy Fibres and membranaceous Fibrils I had designed Figures almost of every kind of Muscles to be engraved according to the natural appearances but the Printer making haste I had not the opportunity to dissect an humane Body having only taken some few Muscles from the Leg of an Ox we have caused them to be delineated to the life which are to be seen at the end although the famous Steno hath already accurately performed this task Which Figures if any one think too much bending to Mathematical Rules he may with an easie labour behold the same Conformation of a Muscle as he hath described it in the flesh it self For if a simple regular Muscle be cut out of any Animal and so placed that the Tendons here and there be held on the sides the fleshy Fibres between them intercepted in oblique and equal Angles be pressed upon an Horizontal plain the flesh will be exactly like a Rhomboides or an oblique angular Parallelopipedum Then if the site of the same Muscle being changed and its Tendons placed above and below you shall cut long ways the inferiour Tendon and pull the parts one from another and divide by tearing the whole Muscle into two parts you shall presently see a most elegant spectacle all the fleshy Fibres disposed in one series yea and parallel between themselves and of the same longitude to proceed from one Tendon into another and to make both Angles always oblique and equal although we cannot cleave after this manner the compounded Muscles whose manifold bellies have a diverse plain yet it will easily appear to one curiously cutting them either raw or boiled two Tendons to be fitted to each Parallelogram of the flesh As to what respects the action of a Muscle we plainly saw in dissected living Creatures which only shew this that it is contracted yet not so as the old Opinion declared to wit that the Fibres being contracted from the end towards the beginning one extremity of the Muscle was carried towards the other but the fleshy Fibres only and their ends are seen to be contracted towards the middle the Tendons being still unchanged and altered neither as to their longitude or thickness which thing also the most Learned Steno did first of all observe long since This is clearly perceived in the Diaphragma and the Muscles dedicated for Respiration which are moved with a constant change for as often as the Muscle is contracted you may behold all the fleshy Fibres in either extremity to be pulled together at once and as if they would enter on either side one another to be carried nearer and so at once to become shorter and thicker then from that constriction to return loose to their wonted longitude and slenderness Whilst you behold this to be so done you will easily think that something to wit spirit or subtil matter doth flow from the Tendons into the flesh or fleshy Fibres which entring them on either side blows them up and at the same time draws them together nearer within themselves that presently all the Fibres are made shorter and intumified then when that matter recedes from the flesh or fleshy Fibres into the Tendons the Fibres being emptied and loosned from their corrugation or wrinkling are restored to their former longitude and so by turns whether this in truth be so done or no shall be discoursed anon In the mean time that we may proceed to other appearances of Musculary Motion if that the Membrane of the Muscle being drawn away you shall separate some fleshy Fibres from others by cutting the little fibrils whereby they are joyned and loosen them quite you will see them so singular and free to be wrinkled or drawn together in every motion like the others compacted together Further I advertise you that these Fibres so loosned and freed some cut off in one end and separated from the Tendon did yet contract themselves to the motion of the Muscle together with the other Fibres about the other whole end without that cut off in the mean time growing flaggy or loose After this I divided with a pair of Scissers a certain fleshy portion of the thinner Muscle in three or four pieces transverse the bigness of an inch which being done the portions cut off in either end only entred into for a short space some light and inordinate corrugations and presently became immoveable The other extreme portions of the Muscle so cut sticking to the Tendons continued to be much more lively and longer contracted but irregularly and convulsively to wit with a certain intortion of the Fibres Truly in the Fibres so cut off some small footsteps of contraction did remain for a little while partly by reason of the Instinct of Motion delivered through the membranaceous fibrils by which they did yet cohere with the whole flesh and partly because the animal Spirits implanted in the fleshy Fibres now divided from the rest and left without influence did exert or put forth their utmost contractive endeavours after the usual manner For this reason sometimes in the Heart taken out and in a piece of it cut off with a Sword as also in other Muscles after the Nerves and sanguiferous Vessels are cut off a contraction and relaxation continue for some time The other Fibres cut off only by reason of the access and recess of the Spirits from the Tendons were able still in some measure to be contracted and relaxed When in the Diaphragma I had freed many singular Fibres from the knittings of others I tryed what Ligatures put in several places of them might effect Some of them then being bound about the middle were contracted even as the whole fibres but with some little swelling about the Ligature When I had bound others about the ends where they cohere to the Tendons now one then another the motion was chiefly and almost only continued about the free end Further in the fibres bound at both ends at once the contraction wholly ceased Contraction and Relaxation are not only seen and indeed probable in the Heart but in the Diaphragma and other Muscles appointed for Respiration which use to be performed in all acting vicissively according to the Instincts of Nature and for the most part equally though there are not the like intervals of motions in all yea and the Muscles serving to the
Appendices are the less accurately discerned and investigated all which being reduced into an Epitomy are plainly represented more commodiously in the dissection of Beasts Wherefore when the form and composition of the Brain in a Dog Calf Sheep Hog and many other four-footed beasts were little different the magnitude only excepted from the figure of the same and the disposition of the parts in a man I was the more satisfied to compose a certain Anatomy of the Brain by the frequent dissection of all sorts of living Creatures And in this imployment for that I shall shew the communities and differences which the subjected parts obtain in various Animals compared among themselves and with Man certainly from such a compared Anatomy not only the faculties and uses of every Organ but the impressions influences and secret ways of working of the sensitive Soul it self will be discovered Concerning the Heads of living Creatures in the dissection of which it happened for us chiefly to be exercised it was observed as to the chief parts of the Head that there was a notable Analogy between Man and four-footed Beasts also between Birds and Fishes For when the first Inhabitants of the new-made World were produced as one day brought forth Fowl and Fishes at once another in like manner Man and four-footed Beasts so there is in either twin species a like form of the Brain but between that Child of the former and this of the following day there is found a great difference as to those parts For as much therefore as Men and four-footed Beasts have got more perfect Brains and more alike among themselves we have ordered our Observations from their Inspection Then afterwards we shall deliver the Anatomy of the Brain in Fowl and Fishes And here first concerning the Heads of Men and four-footed Beasts as we hinted but now we will propose a Method of Dissection it self or of Anatomical Administration and will at once recite all the parts one after another and as it were in a compendious Catalogue then we will by and by more largely draw out the Particles of the Brain and of its Appendix so shadowed in a short Table and will design their uses and actions for the exercise of every faculty When therefore we had in our hands the Head of a Man or Dog Calf or Sheep it s more outward coverings were taken off concerning which as they are well enough known we are not at all solicitous then the covering of the Skull being divided by a Saw or Instrument and taken away on every side the bones are broken off with a pair of Scissers or a Penknife to the Basis of the Skull that so the Contents might as much as may be be all made plain or open to the Spectators What therefore comes first in view is the hard Meninx including all the rest with a common covering This Membrane outwardly and above is knit to the Skull in divers places especially about the Sutures but indeed about the foot or Basis it most strictly cleaves to the bones so that it cannot easily be pulled away Inwardly or in its hollow superficies it is lax and loose enough unless that nigh all its bosoms by the insertions of the Veins and in the Basis of the Skull by the Arteries and the Nerves it is tyed to the Pia Mater This same Membrane between the Interstitia or division of the Brain and besides of the Cerebel it self insinuating it self deeply on one side and rising up again on the other leaves some duplicatures or infoldings in which being shut up above by the increase of the same Membrane Cavities which they commonly call Bosoms are formed to wit by this means almost the three first bosoms are constituted but the fourth is a smooth and longish and also hollow process of the same Membrane which is sent through the Interstitia of the Brain nigh the end of the callous body even to the pineal Glandula The Cavities of the greater Bosoms are severed in many places as it were into little Cells as it seems for that end that the blood passing so through the various turnings in those ends may be hindred from a more rapid motion Besides this Meninx or Film of the Brain admits two Arteries from either side one conjugation of which arises not far from the Carotick Arteries through the holes of the Cuniform bone but the other from the bone of the Forehead all which indeed being diffused through the exteriour superficies of the Membrane water it but are terminated partly in the Skull especially nigh the Sutures whither they convey the blood and partly in the bosoms where what is superfluous is laid up Moreover these Arteries perforate the hard Meninge in several places on the top of the Brain as Webser observes and impart some shoots to the Pia Mater Lastly the exteriour superficies of this Meninge is no where planted with so many shoots of Veins as Arteries but from its four Bosoms which are the veinous Receptacles of the blood many Veins go out through the interiour superficies of this Membrane which being inserted in the Pia Mater are presently dispersed through its whole compass and the same sliding down on every side from the bosoms meet every where the Arteries ascending from the Basis of the Head and being intermingled with them constitute the manifold infoldings of the Vessels That these may be the better beheld after the Arteries are sufficiently noted let the hard Meninx be cut round near the border of the broken Skull then let whatever of it serves for a covering and partition to the Brain and Cerebel be lifted up that the goings out of the Vessels viz. the Veins and their distributions into the Pia Mater may be considered which being afterwards broken asunder let the Membrane with its bosoms be wholly taken away but the reliques of this Membrane which stick to the bones at the bottom of the Skull should be separated so that the whole frame or substance of the Brain and its Appendix may be somewhat elevated and moved here and there be every where conspicuous and at length taken from the Skull But that these things may be performed you must begin from the anterior or fore part where the bone of the Forehead separates it Therefore if the prow of the Brain hid under this bone be a little lifted up the mammillary processes come presently in sight together with the smelling Nerves hanging to them which being dissected near the insertion there will appear an hollowness in either process These are large and round also full of clear water in Calves but in either smelling Nerve a manifest Cavity is found continued on either side to the anterior Ventricles of the Brain to which if a Pipe be put and blown into presently the whole substance of the Brain will swell Next the smelling Nerves about the Cocks comb two small Arteries are seen to arise from the Skull and to be carried towards the Interstitium of the Brain
kinde of remedy I often experienced with success in little Children For that by the means as it were another breathing place is opened to the mass of blood silently and covertly growing hot and obtruding its soot or smoak on the more noble parts and for that reason its impure efflorescencies or puttings forth are drawn away from the brain and lungs Therefore although this feavour of an ill Condition may be accounted as it were malignant yet forasmuch as the blood is not presently apt to be coagulated but to be too much poured forth and to bestow its serosities on the nobler parts to wit the brain and lungs therefore Phlebotomy so it be administred in the beginning of the disease is convenient allmost to all For the same reason Cathartick Medicines and chiefly vomitory are administred at the very beginning of the disease for these do not only evacuate the viscera of concoction and so draw away the chief fomenting of the disease and as it were its originall but besides they draw forth the serosities from the blood and so effect its cleansing rather in the stomach and Intestines then in the head and lungs Further by Emeticks for that the receiving Glandulaes of the Lympheducts are pulled with a great shaking the superfluities of the nervous juice least they should evilly affect the brain and its dependencies are expressed forth into the lower bowells also for this end the belly is to be kept continually loose by the use of Clysters But in the mean time whilst the blood being infected with the taint of this disease threatens the brain or praecordia with the evill it will not be safe to attempt any thing with Diaphoreticks or sweating medicines or Diureticks or such as evacuate by urine or also with Catharticks vomiting and purging medicines For these kinde of medicines forasmuch as they greatly pour out the blood and compell its serosities into more open issuings forth all the recrements being apt to fall away from the mass of the blood are easily obtruded on the brain or Lungs when they are of a more feeble constitution So in the youth above-mentioned a loss of speech came upon the raising of an untimely sweat Also I have known that Sudorificks no other then chaly beats in the morbid disposition of the lungs have brought on a waisting or Consumption Vomits and Purges are to be administred Phlebotomy therefore and if need be vomiting or purging either one or other or both being to be made use of at the very beginning of the disease the other Intentions shall be to draw away the morbific serosities of the blood apt to flow forth on the head or breast and to derive them gently by other ways of evacuation Blistering plaisters and to put them forth of doors To this end Vesicatories or blistering plaisters ought to be applyed to the nape of the neck or Parotida or jugular Arteries or to the Arm-pits or the Groin or about the thighs or calves of the legs sometimes in this part sometimes in that to wit that the little Ulcers being here and there excited and continually running might plentifully pour forth the serum imbued with the morbid and heterogeneous particles Diureticks But Remedies gently carrying the serum into the Reins and urinary passages are most often administred with success For this business diuretical Apozems and Julaps are to be ordained after the following forms A diuretick Apozem Take of the Roots of Scorzonera cherfoil grass and of Eryngoes candied each Ê’ vi 1. Apple cut of the leaves of pimpinell meadow-sweet each i. handfull of Raysons of the Sun â„¥ i ss of harts-horn burnt Ê’ ii being cut and bruised let them be boyled on a clear fire in four pints of spring water to the Consumption of the third part to the straining being cleared ii pints add of the Syrrop of green Cytorns or violets â„¥ ii of sal prunellaÊ’ i ss make an Apozem The dose â„¥ iiii to vi thrice in a day Or into that straining put 15 blanched sweet Almonds and of the four cold seeds An Emulsion each Ê’ i. being bruised make an Emulsion according to Art Take water of Dragons and of black-Cherries each â„¥ iiii of scordium compound Ê’ ii of Threacle water â„¥ i ss of syrrop of Clove-gilliflowers Julap â„¥ ii of the spirit of vitriol xii drops make a Julap Take oftentimes in a day in small beer or posset-drink half a dram A Power or ii scruples of sal-prunella Besides in this feavour medicines gently sweating of that sort chiefly which restores the animal spirits and defends them from any heterogeneous Copula Gentle Diaphoreticks are of very great use wherefore either the powder of pearls or the spirit of harts horn or of blood in a moderate dose are administred twice in a day viz. Morning and Evening Clysters are to be given almost every day and if it be thought fit Glisters a gently loosning purge may be taken once or twice in a week The dyet prescribed ought to be slender as in other feavours Dyet let them be wholly interdicted from flesh or broath made thereof only let the sick feed on Grewell or barly-broth and let their drink be small beer or posset-drink If that notwithstanding any preventive physick the morbific matter should lodge in the brain or Lungs or both together so that a dissolution or inordination of the animal function or also a violent cough should assalt them it must be consider'd what is to be done in either state of the disease carried forth after this manner into an evill condition but then the curative Indications ought to respect the stupor or madness or cough and lastly if in the declination of the disease these symptoms do remit proper Remedies are to be adhibited against the Atrophie as it were the last fortress of this Feavour 1st Therefore if the morbifick matter as it is often wont being brought to the brain should bring in an Insensibleness or a soporiferous or sleepy distemper The Curatory Method in the unsensibleness and madness remedies drawing it another way and deriving it some way from the head and besides such as stir up the animal spirits and take away the impure Copula ought carefully to be administred wherefore in this case the use of Epispasticks or such things that draw the water outwardly should be much increased and let the spirit of Harts-horn be exhibited allmost every sixth hour in a little bigger dose let blood be also taken by the sucking of Leeches more largely from the jugular veins the Salvatella or the sedal veins If the distemper remits not the head being shaven let Emollient fomentations be often applyed thereto Further let Cupping-Glasses Plaisters and Cataplasms be laid to the soals of the feet and other means of Administrations such as are commonly prescribed for the curing of the stupor or Insensibleness ought to be used In like manner if on the evill or no Crisis of this
another to stand upright and to jump which interval however lasted scarce a minute of an hour but that his members flagg'd and were affected with their wonted languor and trembling When this worthy Gentleman had been sick after this manner above 12. years and had consulted the most famous Physitians in all England and had tryed very many Remedies and almost of every kinde viz. Antiparalytick antiscorbutick drying Diets Sweating medicines purges Causticks baths Liniments yea and had twice tryed salivation could finde no cure by any method of healing wherefore all hope of cure being wholly layd aside for the latter seven years of his life he made use of only Remedies chiefly respecting some Symptoms viz. he took thrice in a week a solutive medicine of Senna and Rubarb with Correctives now in form of a Syrrop or of an extract another time every night he was wont to take a dose of an opiate out of conserves and temperate Species Besides as occasions serv'd he had ready a Julap to be taken when his Spirits fainted moreover he continually drunk Beer made of oaten mault altered with temperate and diuretical herbs By the use of these he pass'd over at least seven years without any great alteration for the worse at length old Age coming on him together with the disease more cruel fits of Convulsions not as at first after sleep but assoon as he was warm in his bed invaded him that he was forced to abstain altogether from his Bed and rarely put off his cloaths unless to shift his Linnen from hence transpiration being hindred the serous Recrements and others wont to be evaporated were fixed on the Lungs which at first brought in a frequenr or short breathing afterwards an Asthmatical Distemper and lastly a deadly Consumption or wasting If the Reasons of the aforesaid Symptoms be sought after it will be easie The reasons of the symptoms chiefly tormenting to deduce all these evills from a depraved Constitution of the Brain and nervous stock and more immediatly from the dyscrasie and fault of the juice watering those parts For when that Liquor in which the animal Spirits do abound was as to its temper highly sharp and Corrosive like Stygian water and as to its mixion was fluffed full of both narcotick and explosive particles it is no wonder because the Spirits being very much burthened and for that cause restrained from their due expansion that they should be forced every where into small explosions as it were Cracklings and that the containing bodies being loosed from their due extension and strength should be also continually irritated into painfull Corrugations or shrinkings up Those Convulsive Distempers did more sharply infest after sleep The growing worse presently after sleep whence it proceeded because the heat of the Bed did exuscitate or stir up the heterogeneous particles of the nervous juce and rarifying them as it were compell'd them into explosions then also because the nervous parts did imbibe its juce in sleep and a more plentifull provision of the morbifick matter brought together with it which being filled to a plentitude at the first instant of waking they immediatly endeavour to shake off what is troublesome For this Reason it is observed that the pains of Scorbutical people and the fits of Asthmatical are made worse by the heat of the bed and by sleep therefore as in these presently to leave the bed was wont to give ease so likewise it did in our sick man But that the trouble Why allayed by Motion excited by the continual leapings and painfull extentions of the muscles was somewhat allayed by the local motion or moving from one place to another of the body or members the reason is because the Animal Spirits whilst they are compelled to divers actions from without they remit whatsoever inordinations are excited from within for as in pain and itching which are lighter Convulsions it helps to press rub or scratch the affected part so the Convulsive motions of the muscles and tendons are somewhat pleased by the inordinate agitation of the whole body or the members As to the Ptyalismus or copious spitting with the stinking breath The spitting which was wont to return at uncertain intervalls we do suppose that might perchance proceed from Mercury sometime secretly given although I have seen many labouring both with Convulsive and also scorbutick distempers in whom this kinde of perpetual defluxion of spittle from the mouth was very troublesome without any suspition of Mercury also some as shall be told hereafter on whom a salivation coming the explosive matter being after this manner Critically evacuated help'd the disease moreover it is likely that this distemper was produced from the mere recrements of the nervous juice and that the salival passages when many and enough were open did receive and convey forth of doors the superfluities plentifully deposited in the glandula's from the nerves and also from the Arteries As to the lucid Intervalls whereby the sick man us'd to obtain some truces Why this sick man obtained some truce from pains though short the cruelties as it were of the disease being mitigated as when but now his sickness had bound him to his chair he was able on a sudden to leap up and walk about but yet this unlook'd-for strength being vanish'd by and by falling again into his wonted languishment I say these kinde of motions of labouring Nature prostrate under a great burthen are its utmost endeavours and some more strong inforcements to wit whereby for a moment of time she recollects her self and attempts as it were to shake off the yoak of the Disease but because she is not able to sustain long this strife she quickly relapses and lies down under her former burthen Truly it is a wonder how much above the strength of Nature Anger and fear and some other passions of the minde do stretch the nervous kinde and compell them to shew a force plainly stupendious But these prodigies of her attempts are only of a small duration The secret leading cause of the aforesaid distemper The Conjunct cause of the aforesaid disease being after this manner designed and the Reasons of the Symptoms chiefly tormenting being shown it remains yet for us to inquire into the secret leading cause to wit by what occasions the nervous juice being become so degenerate at first brings in the Palsie and then leapings or intestine Convulsions of all the muscles further we ought to explain wherefore the fruits of this Disease increasing by little and little came suddenly to maturity by the use of the Baths also wherefore this sickness yielding to no Remedies became uncurable As to the first it may be said that the sick person being sprung from parents who were obnoxious greatly to Cephallic Diseases had contracted originally an evill Constitution of the brain and nervous stock so that within the 6th lustre i.e. about the 36th year of his Age he began to be sick of a spurious Palsie
wonted tasks of Influence and so provoke them ready to be exploded in such disorders yea and as a flame put to them do somewhat inkindle them but on the contrary stinking things repress the spirits drive them back from excursions and exorbitances and compell them into order yea like sulphur mixt with aurum fulminans take away from them their explosive force What we have hitherto said of the passions called from the womb hysterical will yet more clearly appear if for the Confirmation of our Hypothesis we shall add arguments taken from anatomical observations I will therefore lay before you a notable Case by which the former reason and Causes of the convulsive distempers may be very much illustrated A very noble Lady of a most curious shape Observations and highly indued with a virtuous disposition of minde and manners of late lived near to this place who being for many years obnoxious to convulsive distempers for that she had originally or hereditarily contracted this sickly disposition and had experienc'd the fruits of this morbid seed almost every lustre of her age but chiefly as often as she was with child for she very frequently miscarried was wont to be tormented above measure with convulsive passions as it were hysterical because presently after the restraint of her monthly flowers the heterogeneous particles being translated to the brain and nervous stock caused fits of this most cruell distemper After she had newly conceived in the first months according to her old custom she was presently molested with convulsive distempers about the nineth week of her big belly from taking cold she fell into a dangerous feavour in which very acute pains tormenting her in her loyns and bottom of her belly for many days seem'd to threaten an abortion but these pains as the event shew'd rather to be termed Colical proceeded from a sharp humour falling down into those parts from the brain by the pipes of the nerves for towards the declining of the feavour this matter being somewhere else translated a great loosness or Diarrhaea pains of the feet and as it were an ulcerous disposition succeeded As soon as this Lady became well from her feavour and those pains the convulsive distempers returned for every morning wakeing from sleep she was wont to suffer Convulsions and cruel contractions about the parts of her face and mouth as also in her armes and thighs which symptoms without doubt did arise from a serous heap or gathering laid up in the head about the beginnings of the nerves and by them imbibed together with the nervous juice more deeply in sleep and when afterwards the same matter was carried by the pipe of the interior nerves into the foldings of the Mesentery and loyns most cruel pains of those parts and also fits as it were hysterical did most grievously infect her But these convulsive motions of her face and members after a little time ceased but yet she still remained weak and without strength with a pale countenance an infirm and trembling gate and desirous only of congruous food and hot Liquors about the end of the third month at which time she was wont continually to miscarry her menstrua broke forth which coming away for two or three days together with little pieces of broken membranes she expected to miscarry But that flux ceasing pains as it were of one in labour in her abdomen and loyns as before arose and for the space of a week tormented her day and night at length having used a bath of Emollient herbs and afterwards put to bed to sweat she brought forth the burthen of her womb the conception so coming away with mighty pain was about the bigness and like the figure of a Turkie egg the exterior coat of it was torn and broken the interior remaining whole contained about half a pint of clear water and nothing else besides there appeared no shape of a childe or any rudiments that it would ever be one Afterwards for 4. or 5. days her flowers flowed forth with some pieces of broken membrances in the mean time pains with their wonted fierceness tormented her and when the space of a week being elapsed they left not off of themselves remedies at length were sought to allay them To this end first Liniments Fomentations Baths and Clysters were often administred also medicines purging the filth of the womb on which the cause of all the evill was cast were taken inwardly Short intermissions of her tortures followed upon the use of the former but then the distemper returned with great trouble yea the disease much increasing in three weeks time got many other horrid symptoms for besides the pains in her belly and loyns which became more cruel every day also she was shortly after tormented in her back neck shoulders as also in her arms and thighs with most cruell pain and that more bitterly as soon as she was warm in her bed besides she was afflicted with a frequent giddiness vomiting and nauseousness and often in a day with most grievous convulsive fits viz. First a bulk was seen to ascend in the bottom of her belly and presently it lifted up her whole belly forceably by and by respiration being restrained an Insensibility with a dead countenance succeeded after that she had thus lain as one dead for three or four minuts of an hour she was wont suddenly to leap up that she could hardly be held down or kept by those standing by then follow'd cruell contractions and distortions in all the parts of the mouth and face as also in all the members of the body These symptoms were indeed judg'd to be hysterical because this noble Lady so lately had miscarried But weighing every one of these I was at last of this opinion that the cause of either fit viz. Both the dolorifick and the convulsive did depend wholly on the evill affection of the brain and nervous stock and that without any fault of the womb for that a sharp humour being heaped up within the head did from thence descend thorow the passages of the Nerves into parts at a great distance which lodging upon the membranes and fibres and fermenting with the humour flowing in from the bloody mass did irritate them very much and so stir'd up most cruel pains Then afterwards when the heterogeneous and explosive particles being admitted with what humour within the head and entring into the nervous passages did cleave to the spirits therefore the convulsive disposition then breaking forth into grievous fits was induced as shall be by and by more largely laid open Instituting Curatory Intentions according to this kinde of Aetiology I order'd to have blood taken from this sick Lady at what time she most grievously laboured out of the Saphena vein and within two days to be given her a gentle Cathartick and that to be reiterated once or twice in a week Also on other days Morning and Evening I gave her spirits of Harts-horn and at other hours twice or thrice in
the belly and groin yea also let them be often provoked to sneezing it is convenient to give some in the middle of the fit a draught of simple cold water or in which Champhir had been dissolved Preservatory 2. The preservatory Indication comprehends these three Intentions viz. In the first place to take away or to derive to some other place the impurities of the blood apt to be poured forth on the brain and nervous stock Secondly to fortifie the brain and so to strengthen the indwelling spirits that they may either not at all receive or may easily shake off the heterogeneous Copula Thirdly to amend whatsoever is enormous in the womb and contributes to the convulsive disposition 1. The first Intention is performed by purging and phlebotomy and other common ways of purifying and purging the blood and humours If there be opportunity for an emetic I judge it best allways to begin with it especially in Cacochymicks or bodies full of evill humors in the longing disease and Pica and in such whose great load of viscous phlegm stuffed within the folds and coats of the ventricle hinders the virtues of other medicines The next day after the Vomit unless any thing bids the contrary let blood be taken in women of a hotter temper presently from the Arm and afterwards if need be from the foot or from the sedal veins with Leeches but in bodies troubled with obstructions and less hot let blood be taken more sparingly and more rarely and only in places scituate below the womb After these Evacuations if they are to be ordered rightly performed once within six or seven days a purge is to be prescribed according to the following forms Take of pill-fetida major Ê’ i ss of the resine of Julap xii grains of Tartar Vitriolat and Castor each ℈ i. of ammoniac dissolved in hysterical water what will suffice to make xii pills for iii. doses Or take of the resine of Jalap gr xviii of CalomelausÊ’ i. of Castor ℈ i. make a powder let it be divided into iii. parts for iii. doses let it be given in the pap of a roasted apple or in Conserves of Borage so those induced with a more hot temperament a dose of extract or our solutive syrrop may conveniently be administred for the revulsion of the morbific matter from the head Issues made in the calf of the leg or thigh and sometimes vesicatories legatures and painfull rubbings are wont to be administred But not only a purging of the blood and a revulsion of its recrements from the head but an alteration of its Liquor and reduction of it to its due temperament have here a place Wherefore in some hysterical people steel Medicines help in others the use of Spaw-waters or whay in others the baths are wont to be signally profitable The second Intention to wit the rectification of the brain and animal spirits is performed with Cephalic and properly anti-convulsive medicines which indeed ate to be diligently exhibited almost every day when they do not purge or bleed since there are various species of such like Remedies and several manners of administrations we will here add some of the more choice forms Take of the Lees of bryony Assa fetida Castor each Ê’ i. of the Salt of Coral Amber Tin each Ê’ ss of Galbanum dissolved in hysterical water what will suffice to make a Mass dose half a scruple to ℈ i. morning and evening drinking after it a dose of proper liquors Or Take of the seeds of Wilde-parsnips of nettles each Ê’ ii of vitriol of SteelÊ’ i. of the extract of Gentium featherfew each Ê’ i ss with what will suffice of the syrrop of Mugwort make a mass let half a dram be taken after the same manner If the form of a powder pleases better Take of the Roots of Virginian snakeweed and Contrayerva each Ê’ i ss of Coral prepared of Pearls of white-Amber each Ê’ i. mingle them make a powder Dose ℈ i. to half a dram morning and evening with an appropriat Liquor Opiats are Composed after this manner Take of the Conserves of the flowers of the Lilly Convallis of the male-paeony of betony each â„¥ ii of the seeds of Paeony of red Coral prepared each Ê’ ii of the powder of Cretic DittanyÊ’ i ss of the salt of wormwoodÊ’ ii with what will suffice of the syrrop of the rinds of Citrons make an Electuary The dose morning and evening the quantity of a nutmeg After the same manner may be given to poor people Conserves of the Tree of Life or of the leaves of Rue twice in a day The Liquors appropriat against the hysterical affections and to be drunk after the aforesaid Medicines are either distilled waters which are to be taken by themselves or with other things in form of a Julap or decoctions or tinctures and Infusions Take of the water of Mugwort and of penny Royal each half a pint of histerical water â„¥ iiii of the Tincture of Castor â„¥ ss of the Syrrop of Coralls â„¥ i ss mix them The dose from â„¥ i to â„¥ i ss with any of the medicines afore described Take of the leaves of Penneroyall of Fetherfew of either Southernwood of Calaminth of Nep and of either Horehound each i handfull of the Roots of Bryonie â„¥ iiii of the seeds of Parsnips â„¥ ii cut and brused put them into white-wine or Cider six pints and so distill them according to art Take of the Root of the male Peony Angelica Valerian each â„¥ ss of the leaves of mugwort ground Pine Calaminth Peneroyal and Missletow of the Oak each i handfull of the Seeds of either wilde Parsneps eacâ—Ê’ iii of Raifins i. handfull let them be boyled in 4 pints of Spring-water to the half add to it of white-wine lib i ss strain it and keep it in close vessells The dose â„¥ iii or 4 twice in a day Take of the wild-Parsnep Seeds brused â„¥ ii of Castor â„¥ i let them be put into a Glass with i quart of white wine The dose â„¥ ii twice in a day 3. As to the third Intention which inhibiting the disorders of the womb doth promote the cure of the passion called hysterical I say first of all what in times past was believed concerning the Cause and scope of curing the disease that the womb did ascend therefore that it ought to be reduced into its right place is altogether fictitious as we have elsewhere shown The falling down of the womb or its coming forth oftentimes happens but rarely or never produces the hysterical Distempers Besides the dislocation of the womb in childbearing Women sometimes happens presently after their bringing forth to wit when the body of the womb being made Capacious and newly emptied doth not sink down or fall within the Tunnel in its right place but upwards inclines now to the right side now to the left and there being drawn together like a purse is folded into a great bulk which kinde of bulk remaining long nigh