A LETTER In ANSWER to certain Queries and Objections made by a Learned GALENIST, against the Theory and Practice of Chemical Physic.  
Wherein the right Method of Curing of Diseases is Demonstrated: The possibility of an Universal Medicine evinced; AND CHEMICAL PHYSIC Vindicated.  
By GEORGE ACTON Doctor of Physic.  
Published for the benefit of such as languish under any grievous Distemper without Cure.  
LONDON, Printed by William Godbid for Walter Kettleby, at the Sign of the Bishop's Head in Ducklane. 1670.   

SIR,  
HAD you not power enough with me to persuade me for your satisfaction, to neglect my own, I should scarcely at this time have complied with your desires, in answering your several Queries and Objections against both the Theory and Practice of Chemical Physic; for I find almost all the Galenists that are either totally ignorant of Chemistry, or acquainted only with the Vulgar; such as is that of Crollius, Hartman, Beguin, and their like, so riged opposers of the more occult Philosophy of Hermes, Raymond, Lul, Basilius Valentinus, Paracelsus, Vanhelmont, etc. that they cannot but protest against all their Scholars and followers, as Heterodox, deserters of the Schools, and (to use your own expression) fanatics and Canters of such a Philosophy, that were Galen himself again living upon Earth, he would not be able to understand it; and although for your own part I have no reason to believe you of the number of those supercilious Opiners, that scorn to forsake an Error because vulgarly received; yet I doubt whether the Truth in so plain a dress as I shall expose it, may not startle you also. You are perhaps too tender of the Reputation of Galen, for you ought not to think it any discredit to him, that had never seen so much as common Distillation in his life, to be said not to understand the profound and hidden Mysteries of Natural Philosophy, plunged in an Abyss inaccessible and imperceivable by any possibility of Wit, without the help of Fire; He well saw that the tenuous and aethereal substance of things, was of greater efficacy than their grosser part, as he confesseth in his 11 Book De Simp. Med. Facul. Quae tenuium sunt partium, iis quae sunt crassarum plus habent efficaciae etiamsi parem sortita fuerint facultatem, nimirum quia melius penitrent; but he knew not how to separate the tennous parts from the implication of the gross, which we do by the help of Fire. Whence I conclude, that he (had he understood the Art of Chemistry, which in his time lay hid in obscure Hieroglyphics in the Shrines of Egypt, would have left us both his Physiology, Pathology, and especially his Method of Healing, quite different from what it is; for it cannot reasonably be imagined, that so curious a searcher into the hidden things of Nature, would have contented himself with a bare rational Analysis of Bodies existing only in the Understanding, had he been acquainted with the Encheiretick, resolving all bodies into Principles subject to Sense, and fit for the use and manual operation of a skilful Physician by the help of Fire. Your Ideal Analysis, by a progressive agitation of the Mind, by which you find contemplation to end where natural composition begins, leads you at last but into the dark Chaos of the Elements, and there begets but this unprofitable conclusion; That because all things are by a mental Resolution ultimately resolved into the four Elements, therefore these are the common Principles of all things. Now how much it may really improve any man's understanding in the Art of Physic, to tell him all things are compounded of the four Elements, more than in Ship-Carpentry, to tell him a Ship is made of Timber, Iron, Hemp, and Tarr, I leave you to judge. We therefore, (in regard the Elements are but remote Principles upon which only God and Nature can work) have by the Resolution of Fire found out nearer Principles subject (as I said) to Sense, and fit for the use of a Spagyrical Physician: these are Mercury, Sulphur, and Salt, which being first separated and cleansed from all heterogeneous feculency, then exalted (by the help of Fire) in power and virtue, we can either use them severally, or conjunctly, according to their virtues, and the curative intention of the Physician; And thus by the help of Fire, we make Medicines easily curing those obstinate Diseases you esteem incurable; By the help of Fire we understand the occult Hermetick and Helmontian Philosophy; and by the help of Fire, with much study, labour, and sweat (never by the bare reading of Books at your ease) may you also be satisfied of the reality, truth, and excellence of that Physic which you now profess (and I believe you) no more to understand, than the Canting of Gipsies. But now to your first Quaerie:  
Whether it be possible to cure a Disease without a Remedy contrary to the Disease, or at least to its Cause?  
I answer with the Adepti in the affirmative, and say, Nulla fit sanatio per contraria, quia Morbus proximè & primariò consistit in Arbéo at substantiae in esse (according to Aristotle) nihil est contrarium. It is not the corporeal substance of the Brain, Heart, Liver, Spleen, etc. that suffers primarily, & per se in their several distempers, though Idiopathical, but the Jusitous Spirit governing the part, and disposing it to perform all natural, Vital, and Animal Functions, which being hurt by the Error and depravation of the Jufluous Spirit and Topick Ferment, the part necessarily suffers by accident, Quia actio terminatur in corpus. Now the atonie of the Jufluous Spirit and deviation of Ferments happens by ill air, Contagion, Malignant Influence, poisonous Fumes or Odours inspired, or entering by the Pores, by Meat or Drink hurtful either in quality or quantity, by Poison or Virulency of ill Physic, by natural or accidental inequality of strength, by retention of Excrements of the several digestions, by transmission from one digestion to another, before a perfect Concoction in the former, etc. So then the right Method of curing Diseases, is primarily by pacation of the Enormontick Spirit, and extinction of Morbific Ideas, and but à posteriori, by expelling the peccant matter generated by the ataxy of the Spirit: But such a sedation of the Spirit cannot possibly be procured by contraries; does not Fire burn most vehemently, when constringed by an extreme cold of the ambient? and hot water soonet extinguish Fire than cold, because sooner penetrating its Pores? I could multiply arguments against the Method of curing Diseases by contrary Remedies; but my design is rather to recreate than tyre you with too long a Letter.  
To your next Quaerie, therefore, Whether we acknowledge four▪ Humours; and if so, Whether various Distempers flowing from the depravation or excess of various Humours, as Synochus simplex, of too much abundance of Blood; Quotidiana Intermittens, of Phlegm; Tertiana Intermittens, of Choler; Quartana Intermittens, of Melancholy; all putrifying in the first region of the Body; and both Quotidian, Tertian, and Quartan, continual from the same humours putrefying in the Vein, may be all cured by one Medicine?  
In answer to this; First, We deny your Humours, as most repugnant to reason, that under one act of Sanguification, and in the same Vessels, four different Humours should be produced, and that naturally in sound and healthful Bodies these Humours should be the efficient causes of future Diseases; For this were to suppose Nature always to err, etiam in suis finibus. Sense likewise assures us, that although there be a Liquor swimming upon Blood, emitted and cold, of a yellow colour, yet that it is not therefore yellow Bile; for that it is not bitter to the taste: And though the Yellow Jaundice staining the whole Body with a yellow colour, and the Urine with a deep tincture of Red, seem (prima faciè) to prove your Hypothesis of Humours; yet upon an exact Spagyrical examination, you shall find the contrary; for if this tincture of Urine were à flava bile, there must be found in it by Distillation at least some bitterness, either in the Liquor that comes over, or in the Hypostasis, or Caput mortuum; but there is found none, nor could a small quantity of yellow Liquor tinge a large quantity of Urine with a colour deeper than its own. So that we say, Nullus in natura Humor noster, nisi Cruor, Latex, & Secundarius. Now sometimes this Latex, sometimes the Chyle, from the Error and contagion of degenerated Ferments, and pre-disposition of the matter, receives various tinctures, and puts on the disguise of your supposed Humours. But granting you a Quaternary of Humours, yet we deny them to be truly the efficient causes of Diseases, for manente causa non tollitur Effectus; but very many Diseases we see daily cured by Annulets; Plasters, Laudanums, Anodynes, Magneticks, etc. without any evacuation of Humours at all; so than the truly Efficient and conjunct Cause is Spiritual, and such a Medicine as can quiet the Archaeus, and reduce it to its natural state, shall easily cure all these Distempers, without any regard had to the Purgation, or carrying away of Peccant Humours; for the Jusitous Spirit being strengthened, and the local Ferments restored to their proper Energy, your peccant Humours shall soon, by the power of these, be either subacted and compelled into their genuine perfection, or driven out by the ways most familiar and easy to Nature, truly acknowledged by Hypocrates to be Morborum Curatrix; and in my Opinion, the reason why mere Galenists seldom perform any considerable cure in obstinate Diseases, is for that they wholly prosecute evacuation, and by that means oftentimes disable Nature, (especially by Phlebotomy) from doing what she would be able oftentimes of her own strength to perform, never aiming primarily and directly (but thus only by accident) at the re-establishing of Nature; and no marvel, since this way of Healing is not performable without the help of such Arcana as are only known to Chemists, and of them, only to the Adepti, not every vulgar Professor of Chemistry. But you urge a necessity (in the right Method of Healing) of having respect not only to the expulsion of Peccant Humours, but also to the extinction of preternatural heat by cooling Medicines, and refocillation of cold, by heating ones; as for Example, in the cure of Anasarcha, which you say is from an immoderate refrigeration of the Liver and Veins; of a Fever, which is from a preternatural heat kindled first in the Heart, and thence diffusing itself through the whole Body; of Bradypepsia and Apepsia, from the coldness of the Stomach; of Boulimia, from an extraordinary heat of the Stomach suddenly precipitating digestion, and causing almost a continual want of aliment; and likewise in implicit and compounded Diseases that are contrary to each other, as a hot Liver, and cold Stomach; whatsoever Medicines should by their heating quality be proper in the Cure of Anasarcha, Bradypepsia, Apepsi, and cold Distemper of the Stomach must in respect of that heat, be quite contrary in a Fever, Boulimia, and hot Liver. I answer still with the Adepti; That Heat and Cold (as I said of Hmours) are not the efficient Causes of Diseases, but the Antecedent, and therefore though their consideration be Diagnostic yet not Curative, non calor & frigus (says Hypocrates) sed acidum, acre, amarum, ponticum, etc. sunt morborum causae. Heat and cold preternatural, are indeed an effect of the enraged vital Spirit, which being once quieted, the natural temper presently returns; and as for the hot Liver and cold Stomach, which so much puzzles you, that you know not which way to direct your curative intention, as appears by your Method: Impliciti compositique morbi si dissentiant, nec prorsus huic, nec illi, sed utrique mediocritate quâdam succurendum: which is in effect but a needless kind of despair of a Cure; whereas I am able to assure you, that if for the future you can find out such a Remedy as can re-invigorate the languishing tone of the Stomach and Liver, restore their deviated Ferments, and appease the Archaeus, which may be all done with one Medicine, without any regard had either to the cold of the one, or heat of the other, you shall quickly, safely, and pleasantly cure both; and by the like Method, all other Diseases vulgarly ascribed to Heat and Cold. You attribute Concoction to the Heat of the Stomach, and to the diminution of this Heat, want of Digeston, and all Diseases happening thence; but that Heat is not the efficient Cause of Digestion, seems manifest; For 1. Fishes digest without any actual Heat, and to say that potential sufficeth, is scarcely consonant to Reason, that a thing barely in potentia, should actu jam agere. 2. There aught to be as many Degrees of Heat specifically different, as there are specifical differences of Concoction, in the Stomaches of Animals of different species; for whatsoever is produced specifically different, ought likewise to have the efficient Cause of that difference specifically different, otherwise, Quidlibet generetur à quolibet indifferenter, which I think no man will affirm. Besides, What degree of Heat must we allow the Stomach of an Ostrich, easily digesting Leather, Cloth, and even Nails of Iron? what degree of heat in Boulimia for the Digestion of the coursest Food, in so large a quantity, and so fast, that the Stomach is scarcely ever to be satisfied? Riverius confesseth this cannot possibly be from a more intense Heat, since Meat boiled in a Pot with the strongest Heat that can be invented, and continued for many days, cannot by this means be resolved into a Chylous Liquor, much less Bones, as in the Stomach of a Dog in the space of an hour: I know you shift this off to a peculiar faculty, but a faculty cannot act without an Instrument, so that you are constrained to fly to the idiosyncrasy of the part, which you teach to be a certain proportion of first qualities; but of all the first qualities, Heat is the most active, which nevertheless, as has been already showed, cannot have the power of so sudden a liquation of Meats, so that after much struggling, you are at last but where you began. We therefore ascribe the difference of Digestions, not to Heat, but to formal proprieties, and the operation of the specifical Ferments.  
By what hath been said, your Objections borrowed out of Helvetius, against the possibility of an universal Medicine, seem sufficiently answered; Nevertheless, take this Argument: Health is but one simple Homogeneal integrity of Life, Nature but one, but one sole Spirit, the Governor and Moderator of Life, which alone labours under Diseases, and is alone (it by a powerful Medicine sufficiently strengthened) able to overcome all Diseases; why then may not one Medicine, such as the Liquor Alkahest of Paracelsus, his Tinctura Lili ab Electro Minerali, his Tinctura Lili Antimonialis, his Mercurius vitae, his Mercurius Diaphoreticus dulcis & fixus, his Ignis veneris, his Corallatus, his Elixir Proprietatis, or any other equal to these, be able to cure all Diseases? and although I am not as yet so happy myself, as to be Master of any one of these, yet in Confirmation of this Hetrodoxical Doctrine, I will undertake (provided the Patients you shall assign me for the trial, will faithfully comply in taking the Medicines, and carefully observe the order prescribed them) to cure all sorts of Fevers how malignant and complicated soever, with one Medicine; your distempers of a hot Liver and cold Stomach, with one Medicine, and for the most part, Sanguine, Bilious, Melancholy, and Phlegmatic Diseases, (as you esteem them) with one Medicine, which I hope will make you change you Opinion of the necessity of curing Diseases by their contrary Remedies. And as for those obstinate Diseases, whereof many are esteemed by you incurable, and the rest seldom or never cured by the vulgar Method, as the Dropsy, the Gout, Stone in the Reins and Bladder, Apoplexy, Co●●u, Falling Sickness, Madness, Furor uterinus, Scurvy, French Pox, Small Pox, Griping of the Guts, of which so many hundreds fell the last Autumn, Hysterica passio, with almost the whole Catalogue of Diseases, wheresoever the vital Spirit, and tone of the part affected, are not so weakened, that no Medicine can work its effects; to end the dispute between us, whether Chemical or Galenical Physic be the most powerful and successful, and which of them the most worthy of esteem by you, and all wise and unbiased persons; Let there be some of all, or the most of these Diseases put into my hand as soon as you please, and if you do not find me by the help of Chemical Physic, to cure even the hardest of them with less annoyance, less disturbance, less weakening the Spirits and force of the Patient, and incomparably more expedition, safety, and certainty, than your ordinary Physicians cure light and easy Distempers, let me be no longer held by you worthy of Credit, or have any place in your esteem; But if I do, (as by the Grace of God you will certainly find I shall) I doubt not, but for the future you will give the preference to Chemical Physic, and not think me in this guilty of vanity or ostentation, which I have made known unto you out of the sincerity of my heart, inerrable experience, my love of the truth, and (I hope) to the inestimable benefit of such as shall need and require my help.  
But you apprehend Chemical Medicines to be dangerous, as being many of them extracted out of poisonous Metals and Minerals, as Iron, Copper, Tinn, Led, Mercury, Antimony, etc. and corrosive Salts, as Vitrial, Nitre, Tarter, Bay Salt, etc. but you seem more especially to be affrighted at Antimony and Mercury; and truly if you mean their vulgar preparations, (which nevertheless you commonly make use of yourselves,) such as are the Vitrum, and Flores Antimonii, Crocus Metallorum, the ordinary Mercurius vita, Praecipitates and Sublimates, I so much abhor them myself, that I detest the use of them. But I have by me certain preparations out of ♁ and ☿ far more precious than Gold, with which I know how to cure almost all curable Diseases in the body of man, and so safe, that I give them commonly to little Children, without ever having found the least harm or inconvenience in them; some of them Purge not at all, but are Diaphoretick, Alexipharmacal, Balsamical, Restaurative, and Pacative: and those that do, never cause any superpurgation, though the Patient by mistake should take a double or treble Dose. Out of ☿ can I make many excellent Medicines, whereof one particularly and especially cures the POX, though ever so full of raging pains, Tophi, and Ulcerous exesions. Cut of Antimony, Basilius Valentinus says, he knew how to make above 300 several preparations, whereof he valued many as more precious and universal than potable Gold; Nevertheless, esteeming himself yet but a Learner and Searcher into the innumerable Virtues and Proprieties of Antimony. Quercitan says, there are in ♁ 600 Proprieties. Our most Learned Roger Bacon made an Oil out of Antimony, which he affirms to be little inferior not only in Medicine, but also in Transmutation of Metals, to the great Elixir of the Philosophers. Of Antimony Paracelsus made some of his most stupendious Arcana; as his Lili Antimoniale, his Mercurius vitae, with which he could cure all the Diseases in the Body of Man, and says of ♁, that as it separates from Gold all Heterogeneous admixture and impurity, so doth it from the Body of Man all Diseases. And of Mercury, both he and Van Helmont made their miraculous. Alkahest. ☿ is certainly the most precious Jewel in the whole treasure of the Mineral Kingdom of Nature, from which alone ☉ itself borrows its perfection. If I would now communicate to you but what is known to myself that am but a Scholar in the Schools of these two great Masters of Natural Philosophy of the Virtues and hidden Mysteries of these two Minerals, I must instead of a Letter, write a Volumn, which is at present far from my purpose and your expectation. Now as to Saturn, Mars, Venus, which you likewise apprehend to be dangerous; out of Saturn alone, Paracelsus professeth himself able to cure at least 200 several Diseases, out of ♀ he made his Ens Veneris, one of his greatest Arcana, and says of ♂, that he does, valida pugnacique manu morbor quemplurimos etiam contumacissimos domittare, hear your Riverius in the praise of ♂ in the cure of Hypochondriack Melancholy, Scurvy, most affectious of the Liver and Spleen, Ulcers of the Stomach, Green Sickness, and many others. At caeteris omnibus remediis palmam praeripit Sal Martis, quod obstructiones aperit viscera corroberat, earumque calidam intemperiem emendat, etc. A certain Physician you well knew, got more Fame and Riches than any of his time in this Town, by means of a secret operative preparation of Steel, with which he really performed many greater and more considerable Cures, than others equal to himself in all other considerations. But you fill me with admiration, that you should fear the corrosive quality of Vitriol, Tartre, Nitre, and Bay Salt, you may draw a Menstruum out of Bread or Honey, that will dissolve Flints, and Vlstadius out of Honey makes a dissolvant of Gold; would you therefore be afraid of the use of Bread or Honey? you know the juice of Lemons dissolves Pearl and Coral, and yet most grateful and friendly to the Stomach; and why should these Spirits tempered with the allay of other milder Liquors, ad gratam aciditatem, be more dangerous? Indeed common experience shows you the contrary; besides you ought to consider the difference between the hard Bodies of Stones and Metals, and the softer Membranes of the Stomach, irrigated continually with a Balsamic vital moisture: Aqua fortis that corrodes Stones and Metals, while not penetrate Wax. But to leave you no ground of suspicion, I can show you how to make them freed from their corrosive acidity, pleasant to Taste and Smell, and highly exalted in Virtue. But this I confess is a great secret, especially that of the Volatile Salt of Tarter, of which Paracelsus and Van Helmont affirm, that it penetrates into the most inward and remote parts, cleansing them from all impurity, instar saponis cuncta abstergens & omnem è venis amurcam detergens, etc. But though you have obliged me to make this just vindication of Chemical Physic, I would not have you think I either despise or neglect the excellent use of Herbs, which I acknowledge with Van Helmont, to be pentacula Divini amoris. Out of Animals and Vegetables I can make Medicines that cure the Gout and Dropsy, with that certainty, as scarcely to miss two in twenty. But indeed, as is our Method of Healing, so are our ways of preparation very different from yours; You in your Decoctions consume commonly a third part, sometimes half or more, in which consumption a great deal of the Spirit and Volatile Salt of the Ingredients, which contains their highest Virtues, is evaporated and lost; of the certainty of this loss, both your Smell and Taste will bear you witness: We, on the contrary, so make our Decoctions, that the whole virtue of the Crassis of the Plant is preserved without any diminution; I leave it now to yourself to judge whether you or we may reasonably hope for the better success in this particular; the like difference is between your Distillations and ours; you for the most part add water, or at least draw over but the Phlegmatic part of the Plant, with some very small part of its Sulphur, which gives it something of its natural smell and Taste, leaving nevertheless almost all its Sulphur, and totally all its Alkalious Salt behind; so that your distilled waters carry only the name, little of the virtue of the Plant from which they are drawn: We first stamp the Herb, and draw its water, then cohobe it so often upon the caput mortuum, till we have brought over its Sulphur, and lastly calcine the remaining feces, and with the waters extract its own Salt, and then Circulate them together; and thus are the Mercury, Sulphur, and Salt united, which completes the virtue of the whole Plant, and compared to yours, is worthy of the name of an Essence; this is indeed laborious and costly, but in its effects largely recompenseth both. There remains yet an Objection against Chemical Physic to be answered, which you offer not as your own, but as received by common Report.  
That Chemical Physic, though for the present it conquer many Diseases held incurable, yet that afterwards it shortens the lives of such as have been so cured.  
There is indeed such a senseless calumny current amongst Women, and the weaker sort of Men industriously disseminated amongst them, by some hoping perhaps by this art the better to keep up their own Esteem and Reputation, which otherwise by their abilities they find themselves not likely to maintain. But to avoid contention, let common Experience determine this difference between us. For my own particular, I can faithfully assure you, that by Chemical Physic I have cured myself of the Vertigo, and Gout, both in great extremity; it is now 4 years since, and I have not (I bless God) to this day relapsed again into either, nor have I found any harm, but on the contrary, many benefits to my health by such Medicines, tending in all probability to the prolongation of my life; and if I had not grounded my esteem of Chemical Physic upon good reason and sufficient experience, you might think me mad, to make desperate practices upon my own Life. My Lungs are naturally so tender and weak, that had it not been for Chemical Medicines, I cannot think I could have lived to see this day. But inform yourself further, and you shall find that those that have been long accustomed to Chemical Physic, have preserved their Lives and Health much longer, and more comfortably, than those acquainted only with your Drugs; for consider impartially, how few escape death in contumacious Diseases by means of Galenical Medicines, loathsome, tedious, and for the most part ineffectual; and those that do, how slowly do they recover their colour, appetite, and strength, remaining long in continual fear and danger of relapse? such large quantities of Physic as your slow Method requires, so depauperates the vital Spirit, and oppresses Nature, that it may be known many times a year after, from what Method they received their Cure: whereas we in the same Diseases perfect the Cure quickly, with little Physic, and in small Doses, such as can hardly be nauseous to the nicest and most delicate Stomaches; and in our whole scope, our Method directs us not to enervate (as you do) but to erect deficient Nature, not to extenuate, but reintegrate the languishing Spirit: and is it then likely that Chemical Medicines taken from the hands of a skilful Chemical Physician, appeasing and strengthening the Archaeus, restoring the Ferments, which alone in their entire vigour, are able to overcome all Diseases, as being the undoubted Authors of transmutation, friendly and comfortable to Nature, should nevertheless shorten Life? besides the evidence of Reason, I can testify out of my own diligent Observation and Experience (and that fido animo) the contrary. But I believe I need not take much pains to satisfy you in this particular, I know you are too sharp sighted to be miss-led by such an Ignis Fatuus; on the contrary, I rather believe you inclinable to acquaint yourself fully with the Theory, and manual operations of Chemistry, which though it cost you (as it hath done me) much Time, Sweat, and Money, yet if you prove equally successful, I dare promise it shall never give you cause to repent you: for (I speak it without boasting) I have by the help of this Art easily and quickly cured Diseases quite desperate in the hands of very able and experienced Galenical Physicians. Truly were not Chemical Physic incomparably more powerful and safe, than Galenical, I do not see how I could excuse myself in leaving at any time, the trodden, smooth, and easy paths of the vulgar or Galenical Method, in which I am graduated as well as you, to follow those of the Chemical, painful, costly, sublime, and so secret, that but a few have ever rightly understood: 
— pauci quos aequus amavit  
Jupiter, hoc potnêre—  At the worst can be said; surely he that understands both Physics, is likely to perform more than he that understands but one; but I must not transgress the limits of a Letter, let what has been said suffice for the present, till I Print my Synopsis Medico-Chymica, which is almost finished, and I shall be ready at our next meeting to give you further satisfaction in any thing: In the mean time I pray do me that right to believe, that what I have said in Vindication of Chemical Physic, hath been without the least animosity, or intention of prejudice to the Person or Practice of any man, purely in defence of the Truth, and that whatsoever I have undertaken to do myself in my own particular, the better to confirm you, I will by the Grace of God, whensoever you shall offer me the occasion, faithfully make good; and further, that I shall unalterably remain upon all Trials.  
Sir, Your faithful Friend and Servant G.A. Silver-street near Bloomesbury Market London. March 4. 1669.  
FINIS.