Physical Reflections UPON A LETTER WRITTEN By J. Denis Professor of PHILOSOPHY and the MATHEMATICS, TO Monsieur de Montmor Counsellor to the French King, and Master of Requests.  
Concerning a New way of Curing sundry Diseases BY TRANSFUSION of BLOOD.  
BY GEO. ACTON a Spagyricis Regiis in Ordinario.  
LONDON, Printed, by T. R. for J. Martin, at the Bell without Temple-Barr, 1668.   

TO THE KING.  
SIR,  
HAd not the subject of this following discourse, been the discovery of the most acute and curious Genius of this age, the Virtuosos of the Royal Societies of London and Paris, and the quality I bear, of your Majesty's servant, given me some title to your Majesty's Protection, I durst not have presumed to front such a bagatelle as this, with an Address to the mightiest Monarch in Europe; But a Cherry or Rose preventing the ordinary seasons of the maturity of the rest; by their rare singularity are rendered acceptable to Princes, not for their own real value (which is none) but novelty, which challenges their acceptance. And Sir, the Experiments of Healing by Transfusion of Blood, are both New and Curious, and I hope these Reflections may cast some Radiatiations of light upon the obscure and devious paces of Nature, such as may perhaps discover some of her more hidden recesses, especially in her regiment of Humane Bodies. I have (as far as was possible) avoided hard and obscure words, but having taken upon me to inquire into the reasons, and examine the admirable success of these late Experiments, by the Test of Hermetick Philosophy, it was not possible for me to avoid such Terms as this Art necessarily requires to render it intelligible; though (if I mistake not) this method gratifies the understanding with far more evident and apparent reason than that of the Peripatetics, commonly received in the Schools; I need not labour to persuade Your Majesty into a good opinion of the noble Science of Chemistry, which solely possesses all the keys of the three Kingdoms of Nature, the natural propensity of Your Royal Genius, strongly inclines You to the love of all Learning, but more particularly of this, the most worthy perhaps of all humane Sciences, such as that anciently amongst the Egyptians, Chaldeans, Arabians, etc. Many of their Kings have gloried more in the knowledge of this Art, than in the lustre of their Diadems, such were Hermes, Tresmegistus, Morienus, Calib, Alphonso King of Portugal, etc. and although the ignorance and Thrasonick boasting of Pseudochymists, have almost brought it into contempt in this Age, yet it is a most undoubted truth, That Paracelsus, Van Helmont, and many others, have been able to conquer all Diseases galenical Physicians now call incurable, and that with great facility; in effect, true Philosophers have not only had Universal Medicines for Humane, but Metallic bodies also, insomuch that the Chrysopaean Art is said so to have flourished in Egypt, about the year 294. that the mighty Emperor Dioclesian could never conquer that people by force, till he had by Stratagem in time of peace possessed himself of the Books, together with the Artificers, and by that means subjected them to his Empire. But Mr. Denis' Letter gives me only opportunity at present to expose some few Physical observations, tending to health and prolongation of life, both which, with excess of all humane felicity, may the King of Kings by the guidance of his inviolable providence, inseparably annex to your Majesty's Crown and Sacred Person.  
Your Majesty's most Loyal and most Obedient Subject and Servant. GEO. ACTON.   

Physical Reflections UPON A LETTER, etc.  
THat which I find most remarkable in Mr. Denis' Letter, is first, the Transfusion of the Blood of a Mangy Dog into a Sound one, to try whether the Mange would be communicated with the blood; the Mangy Dog is found cured; and the other who had received his blood, not become Mangy.  
The next is the Experiment upon a Youth, who had for the space of above two Months, been tormented with a contumacious and violent Fever, which (says the Narrative) obliged his Physicians to bleed him twenty times, in order to assuage the excessive heat. Before this Disease he was not observed to be of a lumpish dull Spirit, his Memory was happy enough, and he seemed cheerful and nimble enough of body: but since the violence of this Fever, his Wit seemed wholly sunk, his Memory perfectly lost, and his body so heavy and drowsy, that he was not fit for any thing: to trouble you no longer with every particular of the relation; They opened his vein, and took about three ounces of blood, so black and thick, it could hardly form itself into a thread to fall into the Porringer: At the same time they brought a Lamb, whose Carotis Artery was prepared, out of which, they emitted into the Young man's vein about three times as much of its Arterial blood, as he had emitted into the dish, and so stopped the Orifice of the vein as usually in other Phlebotomies; being asked how he found himself, he said during the operation, he felt a very great heat all along his Arm, but in brief, he presently became more cheerful and lively, eat his meat very well, and showed a clear and smiling Countenance; the next day slept better, and from that time got the victory over his drowsiness, he had no longer slowness of Spirit, nor heaviness of Body, grew fat visibly, and is (says Mr. Denis) a subject of amazement to all that know him.  
Though Mr. Denis hath sufficiently answered the weak objections against the Practice of this new Art, yet, how the sound infused blood of one Animal, mingling with the infected Mass of another (and especially, of a different Species,) induceth renovation and health into the diseased, without receiving infection from so desperate acommixtion, seems worthy of a further inquiry than has been yet made.  
As to the Experiment of the exchange of blood, between the Mangy Dog and the Sound one, by which the first receives his cure, the other remains uninfected, Mr. Denis inquires whether the blood of the Mangy Dog were putrefied, and corrupted in his veins or not: As if putrefaction of the blood, were necessarily the efficient cause of the Disease; but by the common experience of Anatomy, the blood is found not to putrefy within the vein many days after death; much less than it is to be suspected ordinarily of putrefaction in the living vein, where, by continual circulation, and the irrigation of the vital Balsam of its volatile salt, congelation, the beginning of putrefaction is most powerfully refitted. Besides, the Adepti know how to rectify the blood in all Fevers, the galenists call putrid, (citò tutò & jucundè) with the precipitate Diaphoretic of Paracelsus; But surely, if putrefaction be the repulsion of the Crasis of the thing putrefied, necessarily inducing a new form, the blood must either be granted not putrefied in the Vessels, or a regression from privation to habit, which is absurd.  
In the same Experiment, Mr. Denis supposing the blood of the Mangy Dog to be wholly corrupted in his veins, imagines it probable that the cooler blood of the sound Dog, allaying the extreme heat of the other, may work the cure; ascribing the Disease to the Transpiration of corrupted blood, and that, to an extraordinary heat. But the blood being supposed to be vit●●●● to prevent its difflation by cooling, were sooner to introduce death, than a remedy; besides, Transpiration is not the effect of heat effective, but excitative only; for the blood is properly volatized by the Vital spirit and its own Ferment, whose operation is more powerful than that of Fire; for Glass held for the last act of Fire, is really further reducible by the help of Ferment into water. So then the action of extreme heat (such as is supposed here) would rather have desiccated and and fixed the blood than have moved it to Transpiration; Be it then properly the act of the Vital spirit and Ferment, and not of heat, and consequently no need of cooling in our case.  
Now as to the Disease itself, I take it to be the excretion of an Acid salt from the blood, closing with Hypocrates Acidum, Acre, Amarum, Ponticum, etc. for Morbific causes. This hostil Acidity (as we see in Tartar of Wine, which is no other than a congelation of the Acetous part of the Wine into Salt,) beginning some degree of fixation of the volatile Salt of the blood, contrary to the scope and intention of Nature, which is, to have it totally volatile and transpirable without any feceses, is by the prepotency of the Vital spirit and Ferment, driven out together with the half fixed Salt into the skin, where for want of volatility, it sticks and turns to the Mange. Hence I suppose that if the sound Dog had been coupled up with the other for some time, he had been more likely to have received his contagion, than by the Transfusion of blood.  
The Experience upon the youth labouring of a violent fever and cured by immission of the Arterial blood of a Lamb into his vein, is more observable, as being more applicable to practice; now As to the fever; I take it for a Maxim, Quidquid in sanis edit actiones sanas, idipsum in morbis edit actiones vitiatas. But in health the vital Spirit naturally warms a man, the same Spirit therefore aestuates in a fever, vehemently striving to expel the occasional matter of the Disease, and this I take to be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, or Spiritus impetum faciens of Hippocrates Van Helmont proves this by the example of a thorn run into the finger, which though both actually and potentially cold, nevertheless quickly raises a burning, pain, and phlegmot in the part, inasmuch as the sensitive Spirit being hurt by the thorn, provokes the Archaeus to expulsion, in which endeavour, the Spirit is first accended and then the part: Hence expert Physicians direct their cure of fevers and other acute Diseases, to the pacation of the Archaeus, without purging or letting of blood; how contrary was the procedure of those Physicians who blooded this youth twenty times to assuage the heat of his fever; but to how little purpose these large profusions of blood are, may appear by the miserable death of Pr. Ferdinand Governer of Flanders, who in the year 41 fell sick of a fever, his Physicians (according to the method of these) with reiterated Phlebotomies so exhausted the stock of his blood, that being dead, and his Heart, Lungs, Liver, Veins, and Arteries dissected in the presence of Van Helmont, there was scarce found a spoonful of blood left in his body, and yet the day before his death, he had sustained as violent a fit of his fever as at first; I leave it then to the Judgement of the indifferent Reader that hath not Subjugated his reason to the Authority and vulgar practice of others to the contrary, to judge whether Bleeding be a proper Remedy for a fever, when the Exantlation of almost the whole Mass of blood, had not so much as made any Diminution of the Paroxysm. But to strengthen this my opinion a little further, which seems to be singular, easily to gain credit, take this familiar Instance: Let a vessel of new Wine before its clarification, be supposed to be agitated by a vehement Fermentation, which motion in the Wine (as in our case of the fever) is stirred up by the natural force and activity of its Spirit, striving to attain the virtue of its perfection, which cannot be but by the shaking off, and Separation of the Tartarous and other wild Heterogeneous and Immissible parts from the truly Vinous and Homogenial; the scope of Nature is the very same in the fit of a fever, viz. Separation, now let any man to stop this Fermentation draw off a part of the Wine, and he shall soon perceive that although he hath lessened the quantity of the Wine, he has by this means made no alteration in the quality, the Fermentative principles in the remaining part, keeping still their natural Energy in proportion to the whole: but if an untimely Fermentation happen, tending to the destruction of the Wine, let him but cast in a due proportion of milk, and he shall quickly find that furious orgasme of the Wine to cease; so that this turbulent motion in the Wine either ceases naturally, the Heterogeneous parts being separated by due Fermentation, or else by Sedation, as in the experiment by milk, the like method seems most rational in the cure of a fever, either by Medicines separative, of which I prefer Diaphoreticks, or sedative without phlebotomy, by which there always happens some irreparable loss; for though not only the blood, but influous Spirit too, be restorable by our daily food, yet the loss of the insitous or innate Spirit is never recoverable by art or Nature; if it were it would not be impossible by art to render men immortal. If then either the insuccesfulness of the practice, or reason may prevail; I advise the galenists to make use of powerful Diaphoreticks in rectifying the blood, or such sedative Medicines as can quiet the enormontick Spirit, rather than this needless custom of Bleeding. Especially since the Angina, Peripneumonia, and Pleurisy can more speedily and securely be cured without it. The Experimentor here seems to be well satisfied with his conceit of stagnation of the blood in the vessels, thinking his opinion sufficiently confirmed by the issuing forth of a blood blacker and thicker than ordinary upon the opening of the patient's vein. But the Aethiopians in their youthful and most vigorous estate of health, are said to have their blood very black, with little or no Serum. And upon inspection of the blood of near 200 several persons drawn in one day (it being a custom amongst the Boars in Flanders to be blooded upon a certain day) there were found all sorts of colours and consistencies the most dissimilar imaginable to be found in blood, and the several men from whom such variety was drawn, all of them in a perfect state of health. Van Helmont (well acquainted with the excellent Medicinal use of the blood) goes further, and making choice of the most different sorts, First, tries them by their analysis, then by their virtues, administering them prepared severally according to Art, and finds them (notwithstanding their diversity of colours) of equal force in medicine; so that this sort of divination by colour seems full of uncertainty. As Dyers out of the same vate, and same ting liquor, at the same time give several colours, according as the several pieces are variously praedisposed; so perhaps the univocal liquor of the Stomach in its progression to the liver, meeting by the way with several Ferments, receives several tinctures, without any Depravation at all of its Substance. For proof of this the foregoing experiments may suffice.  
Now as to the process; the Arterial blood of the Lamb, is immitted into the vein, of the man the Patient finds a great heat all a long his Arm but not any further. The reason perhaps why he finds a heat in his Arm and no further, may be the impetuosity of motion in the narrow channel of the Arm by the irruition of a quantity of fresh blood, which entering by the subclavia into the large ascendant trunk of the Cava, though quickening the motion there, yet having more room and being more immerged, the excessive heat ceases, for no more new blood enters this great channel than passed the lesser; besides, motion of impulse is so much the quicker, by how much it is nearer to the impellent. Nor shall I doubt to assign the cure both of his side and fever, principally to the nimbler circulation of the blood of the Patient, actuated as well by the extrinsic motion of the Arterial blood of the Lamb, as by its tenuity, for it may probably be supposed much thinner than the Venal blood of the Patient, since naturally the Arterial blood is thinner and moves faster than the Venal. Nature seems to teach us not only the use, but even necessity of a nimble circulation of the blood by stirring up quicker and stronger pulsations in the Heart and Artery during the crisis; here I must forsake Galen and not allow the principal use of the pulses to be Ad cordis refrigerium et fuliginum explosionem; for the Heart and Artery of a frog (without need of refrigeration or fuliginous explosion, because actually cold) being dissected alive, pulse as in other Animals whose blood is actually hit; and if you will say that potential suffices; It seems absurd to suppose a thing barely in Potentia, Actu jam agere; it is more likely then on the contrary, to be Ad caloris augmentum, and that for the most part; but always for the production of the vital Spirit, and participation of it, to the languishing mass; and this by traction of Air by the Arterial vein and venal Artery into the left ventricle of the heart; for Galen esteems Air as it were the food of the vital Spirit, and the learned Chemists (not every distilling Mountebank) know how by the help of Air, to volatize the most fixed Alkalious salts, that the force of the most vehement Calcination can produce: so than Nature seems rather to intend Volatization than Refrigeration, by the pulses; for as Bartholinus observes in acute fevers, and most violent Ebullitions of the blood, the pulse is often weak and low, which otherwise ought then to be strongest. This being granted, let us see in our case, what probability of quickening, the motion and volatization of our Patients diseased blood by this immission of the blood of a Lamb; and what other benefit may occur by this commixion tending to a cure.  
I have already showed how the motion of the Patient's blood, might be advanced by the Impulsion and Attenuation of the other; there is yet a more natural way, which is, by the induction of a new Ferment. This, Hypocrates calls Divine, and is the undoubted parent of natural motion, Cum tendentia (says the excellent Dr. Willis in his book the Fermentatione) ad perfectionem, vel propter mutationem in aliud. Now the motion required in our case, tending to the Melioration of the blood, and consequent cure of the fever, is, that it be throughly volatized, and disposed to an easy transpiration; Hence Paracelsus and Van Helmont (next to their great universal medicines conquering all diseases) commend the volatile salt of Rosemary, Sage, Rue, etc. for the cure of fevers, and the volatile salt of Tartar, for the cure of almost all diseases; we see how soon a little Spirit of Wine cheers and quickens the vital Spirit, by mingling itself presently with it by reason of their Analogy; but the Spirit of Wine is nothing but the solution of its volatile Salt; for it may by the spirit of Urine or Salt of Tartar, be corporified into a manifest and palpable saline concretion, and indeed it is in this instance by contact of the Vital Ferment presenty turned into a volatile saline nature, such as is the Vital spirit itself. Now that the Vital spirit is of a saline nature, seems evident by the testimony of Sense, for if a part happen to be torpid or benumbed, by any accidental prohibition for a while of the influx of the Animal spirit, which acquires no formal transmutation in the medulla oblongata, nor other difference from the Vital, sane gradu perfectivo, upon the return I say of this spirit to the succour of the part labouring, we find a kind of stinging and pricking, and infallible Index of its saltness; as is its total difflation in healthful bodies, of its volatility: I mean here the Influous spirit, which is continually restored, not to the Insitous, whose decay is naturally attended with irreparable weakness and its total extinction or efflation, with present death. Let us now see if we can find such active principles in the blood of the Lamb thus emitted without diminution of its vital energy, as may suffice for the actuating of the languishing Ferment of the blood of the Patient.  
It cannot be denied, but that the blood of Beasts as well as men, is full of Vital spirit, and volatile Salt. Fernelius (de spiritu viventium) defines the spirit of all living creatures to be Corpus aetherium, and Aristotle holds it to be of a Celestial Divine nature; answering to the Element of the Stars. There cannot probably then be so great a dissimilarity between the Vital spirit of the Lamb, and that of the Man, but that the first, (elaborated in its way to the patient's heart, by the Action of the Innate spirit implanted in every part, and afterwards by the force of the Vital Ferment in the left Ventricle, which Helmont calls (Maxim vitale & luminosum) may easily be transmuted, and assimilated into the latter; and the Archaeus of the Patient thus fortified might well overcome his disease, Nature being herself (if freed from impediment) Morborum Curatrix.  
Now as to the volatile Salt, it may be esteemed the Balsam of life, and preserver of the whole body from corruption, upon whose Oeconomy depends the just Circulation, and (as I said) the Difflation of the blood; and upon these, the preservation of the life of the Individual: This Salt resolves the Congelations of extravasated blood, opens Obstructions in the Veins, resists and conquers Acidity; Omnem Aciditatem quam attingit, perimit, says Helmont; but Acidity (according to him) out of the stomach is inimicous to the whole body, Exorbitans Pestilensve impressio est in cruore si acescat, hast si à venis spreta ejiciatur, Apostema parit ubicunque id locorum contigerit. Besides these more than sufficiently powerful Operations of the Vital spirit and Volatile Salt, there are yet in the blood innumerable secret medicinal Virtues. The blood of a sound man prepared according to Paracelsus, is allowed by the consent of the most learned and experienced Chemists, to cure Radically the Epilepsic Palsy, Apoplexy, exulcerated lungs, and pleurisy; and (if Faber deserve credit) may worthily be esteemed amongst the greatest Arcana. The blood of an Ass is said to cure a Quotidian Fever, and of an Ass' Colt the Yellow Jaundice. The blood of a male Goat rightly prepared (for as 'tis found in Apothecaries shops it fails) certainly cures the Pleurisy and Peripneumonia. The blood of an Ox is said to cure the dysentery. The blood of a Cat cures the Falling-sickness and Herpes. Of the blood of a male Deer is made a Balsam against the Gout. The blood of a Fox is an excellent remedy against the Stone in the Reins or Bladder. If then Blood extravasated be endued with so many admirable and powerful virtues, what may we expect from it communicated (as in this our Experiment) without any loss at all of its mumial virtues? surely such an addition of Vital treasure to the depauperated store, must needs enrich it with new strength, quicken all the Vital faculties, and might with very good reason overcome our Patient's Fever.  
There is yet a consideration which perhaps may not seem vain to such as are acquainted with Hermetick Philosophy, and 'tis this, a Lamb is esteemed to be the meekest and most peaceable Animal Nature has brought forth; why then might not his blood sigillated with conformable Ideas, by the imagination of the Archaeus, introduce such a pacation into the tumultuous blood of the Patient as was sufficient for his cure? For thus certain Arcana prepared by secret Art (unknown to all vulgar Chemists) by inducing only rest and in the Enormontick spirit, are esteemed by Paracelsus and Van Helmont (and some of them known to myself) for almost Universal Medicines.  
Since then the practice of this new method of Healing by Transfusion of Blood, seems to be warranted both by reason and experience, I advise the curious Experimentor, to make trial upon Animals of the longest life, such as are Staggs, Eagles, Crows, etc. for the prolongation of life; And in the cure of Diseases, to make choice of such Animals as by their specific proprieties are found to have curative virtues peculiar to several Diseases.  
And thus I have given a guess at the reason of this new and (till of late) unheard of way of curing, by Tranfusion of Blood, which if I have erred, let it serve for my excuse, that no man has gone before me to show the way.  
FINIS.