REMARKS ON Mr. Richard. Bolton's PIECE, CONCERNING The Heat of the BLOOD.  An Mercurium Congelasti? An quid aliud vanitatis? nunc maxime à proposito longe es; semper rebus aliquid defuerit, dolis nihil. At si quoties te isia fefellerint, recogitas: Si de hác re vicinos interrogas, nisi tu vel ultro te fallis, facile deprehendes quorsum his praestigiis credendum sit. 
LONDON, Printed; and sold by John Shelmerdine, Bookseller, in Manchester, 1698.   

REMARKS, etc.  
I Have perused, Sir, your wonderful Discoveries about the Heat of the Blood, and find you think Fire is not actually hot in itself, but only as it affects the Sensory; and by this way of arguing, I may as well argue there is not one Scholar in the University of Oxford, and for the selfsame Reason you assign, to wit, because I see 'em not. And truly, Sir, were they all composed of such nitro-sulphureous elastic Particles as yourself, the Assertion would prove true. But I hope the old Element still retains its connate Quality, and the most famous University a genuine Offspring. By the wonderful Discoveries you have been able to make, you have made it a Demonstration à priori, that a Pig ●● not an Elephant, nor a Mouse a Cheesemonger, tho' she lives by him, nor yourself a Professor of the Chair, tho' you have the Effrontery to dictate like one. But, Sir, since your Genius leads you to such immature Discoveries, be pleased to solve these following Phoenomena. 'Tis observed that Irish Men are most of 'em Fools, and the Reason assigned, is, That the Pressure of the Circumambient Atmosphere makes their Brains fly out at their Nostri1s. Your Friend Gideon Harvey took a great deal of pains to show why a Dog loves to lick the Pudenda of a Salt Bitch; and if you can but solve this wonderful Phaenomenon, why a Bull upon the like Occasion purses up his Nostrils, it will entitle you to more Learning than yet you have manifested you are master of, and will oblige the World, and your Brother Pantagruel, who made such wonderful Discoveries in Rabelais' Memoirs. I have one thing more to remind you, and that is, That our Cook's dish up well Scotch Collops, and if you can but inform 'em how to lard the animal Spirits, which you assert are a sweet oily Mucilage, 'twill further demonstrate you have beyond Mankind a Crassa Minerva; or if you please, a fat Head, or an oily-nitro-salino-aereal-sulphureous Cockloft. But were they as you assert, how comes it to pass that a Nerve will not swell above the straitest Ligature, or any of this Mucilage distil from it upon section, or cannot by pressure be squeezed from it, it being of a clammy Consistence? If such a Mucilage did circulate through the Nerves, no doubt but some of these would happen. Your wonderful categorial Head, without the least show of Proof, has endeavoured to convince the World, that the Brain, that Metropolis in the Microcosm, by the influence of the animal Spirits, heats the Blood by the Glandules, those emunctories of the Body; and I may with as much reason affirm, that Whitehall, the noblest part in that vast City, to wit, London, was lately burned by the Effluvia of a Boghouse. Sir, there is not one Notion in your Book, barring the little Nova Atlanta of your own Head, but what is taken either from Dr. Gibson, Dr. Willis, Mr. boil, Dr. Mayow, Dr. Connor, Monsieur le Grand, or the Exercitationes quinque, lately printed at Oxford, and therefore I was amazed to see such an Imprimatur to so notorious a Plagiary, but presume the Cripple wanted a Pass to travel by. One great Mystery you have discovered, why Flame naturally ascends, to wit, because, as you allege, 'tis for the most part the nature of it to do so; which is as much as to say, Mr. Bolton for the most part naturally talks like a Child, because it is not in his nature to do otherwise. You have likewise explained how it may be said naturally to descend, to wit, when it cannot get upwards; which amounts to no more than if you had informed. the World, That had the Confederate Army only made use of Duck Shot, they had ne'er been masters of the Castle of Namur. And in that wonderful Discovery you have found out the Rationale, how an expert Schoolboy, with a good Ball and a hard Flag, can sometimes count to 300 Rebounds. Your next Advance, I suppose, will be about Cobnuts and Marbles. In one place you assert, Fire is not actually hot, but as it affects the Sensory; in another place you say, the motion of the vital Spirits cause not the Heat of the Blood, but produce a Sensation of Heat. Good Sir, be pleased to reconcile these Contradictions, and if you can, divide betwixt the North and North-West side of a Hair; for, any thing you have yet offered, Diemerbrook may be still in the right of it. Nor have you fully replied to Dr. Henshaw; for I think you are the first Man that ever discovered cold Chyle in the Body of a living Animal, which I suppose is the greatest Discovery in Anatomy you are able to pretend to. Sir, whether you Name be any of those you mention, to wit, Thomas, Robert, or William, it concerns not me, but I am pretty well satisfied all the Names in Europe cannot give you the constituent Parts of a Philosopher. You assert, the Heat of the Blood proceeds from a swift intestine motion of its Particles. Now I believe you will be as hard set to explain intestine Motion as a Quaker to explain what he means by the Spirit within him.  
You likewise assert Attrition to be the Cause of Fermentation, and Fermentation the Cause of Attrition, which is as much as to say, you are the Son of your Father, and your Father Son to you, but I rather fear an Author about the Growth of a Mushroom. Your metaphorical Glands are properly so called; for I am very well satisfied there are not any such things really in rerum Natura; the animal Spirits you assert to be in the form of a Mucilage, and you may as well affirm a Rose to be in the Surface of a Cow-Turd, and the one I believe as truly as the other. You likewise assert they are oily and sulphureous, because the Brain by being exposed to the Air will soon grow foetid. I doubt not, Sir, but you know what else will, but hope you will not ransack each Close-stool to demonstrate the Existence of animal Spirits. You have likewise told us of the way of grinding animal Spirits into smaller parts; so that in your next, I suppose we may be informed how Diego with his Spanish Geese went to the World of the Moon, or how a Spanish Jennet may be made pregnant by a Hurricane. P. 99 you say you have explained an Account of the Heat of the Blood, without any manner of Proof, and in that you say true. P. 105. Spirit of Wine and Oil of Turpentine will turn to an actual Flame by being mixed together. Here the Plagiary has mistaken the Mixture; for it ought to be Spirit of Nitre and Oil of Turpentine: see the late Exercitationes quinque, Printed at Oxford: But he that ventures at all things, and is master of few, is certain to be catched, and it had been much better for him to have sat still than rise up and fall. But let not this Absurdity be published from Oxford, or from the Precedents and Censors, those Representatives of the College, since 'tis certain a Mixture of these two, to wit, Spirit of Wine and Oil of Turpentine, neither grow hot nor turn to an actual Flame, but to a white Liquor not unlike Milk or Chyle, which may remind the Youth, before he writ again, to wipe his Mother's Milk off his Chin. But this Mistake might easily slip the Vicechancellor, his Talon I presume not leading him to Experimental Learning, besides his great. Affairs not permitting, and I would hope the Precedent and Censors never perused the Copy: And as for his Patron, Dr. Angel of Chester, they best know how matters were betwixt 'em. P. 117. your next Discovery to suppress Heat in Fevers, is either to take down the animal Spirits by withdrawing the Pabulum, or by Acids, or by cooling and fixing the predominant Spirits, and evacuating other accessary Causes; which amounts to no more than this, that if a Man have a Fever, we must use some means to recover him, but which to take I am afraid the Youth knows not, but perhaps knows as well how to fix the animal Spirits as the wise Men of Gotham did to hedge in the Cuckoo. P. 126. The sulphureous volatile parts of the animal Spirits are, I suppose, Sir, beyond your Apprehension: But, good Sir, how do you make out the Composition of the Spirits? No more for aught I can see than a Country Piper that plays all the Notes of Roger a Coverley, all the mechanical Blasts of the Aspera Arteria. P. 127. I would gladly know what you mean by Acidity joining with Acrimony, and how you will make out, that in Fevers the Blood is too much exalted with Sulphur, when in malignant Fevers 'tis evident the Pulse is most commonly depressed and languid, which doubtless would not be were the Blood too much exalted with Sulphur. P. 135. Where the Blood ferments, there the Fermentation is caused, but demonstrate the place, and do not assert all things and prove nothing. P. 139. He gives an Account of the Expansion of the Spirits, but that was before alleged by Dr. Morton; and in answer to that I refer him to the Exercitationes quinque, Printed at Oxford, where he may see in what manner they can be most properly said to expand 'emselves. Lastly, Sir, your repeated Word Grand demonstrates to the World you had a Windmill, not an Aristotle in your Head. P. 192. Air would hinder Circulation, and disturb the Blood, wherefore it mixeth not with it. What are the Bladders of the Lungs impleted with? And if so, how come some Airs to be Pestilential, others Scorbutic? 'Tis plain this would not be if the Particles of Air mixed not with the Blood. Yet this we see confirmed by daily Experience. But in what you have informed us concerning the use of the Lungs, if we peruse the Authors that have writ before, it is not so much as that of the satire, that with the same Breath could warm his Fingers and cool his Broth. Wherefore, good Sir, be pleased to stay till you are Master of Smiglecius, and then, if not for an Author, you may set up for a Nego Minorem.  
FINIS.