LICENCED,  
Sept. 2. 1664.   

MEDELA MEDICINAE.  
A PLEA For the Free Profession, and a Renovation of the Art of PHYSIC, Out of the Noblest and most Authentic Writers.  
Showing 

The Public Advantage of its Liberty.  
The Disadvantage that comes to the Public by any sort of Physicians, imposing upon the Studies and Practice of others.  
The Alteration of Diseases from their old State and Condition.  
The Causes of that Alteration.  
The Insufficiency and Uselessness of mere Scholastic Methods and Medicines, with a necessity of new.    
Tending to the Rescue of Mankind from the Tyranny of Diseases; and of Physicians themselves, from the Pedantism of old Authors and present Dictators.  
The Author, M. N. Med. Londinens.  
Medice, Cura Teipsum.  
LONDON, Printed for Richard Lownds at the White-Lion in S. Paul's Churchyard, near the Little North-door. 1665.   

To the Right Noble Lord MY LORD Marquis of Dorchester.  
My Lord,  
YOUR Lordship being looked on as a Prince among Philosophers and Physicians, therefore it is, that though the Author of this Treatise hath no Interest in you, he conceives himself to have Relation enough to you by his Profession, to venture a fixing of his eye upon you, and to present himself in this Book before you, as a most proper Judge to determine whither he aught to be protected, or no, in this bold Attempt, to open the eyes of our little World touching the State of Physic. It is not my Opinion only, That there is a necessity of settling it upon better Doctrines, Methods, and Medicines; nor have I ventured to writ any thing to that purpose, merely upon account of my own Reason (for, should an Angel from Heaven speak to some People upon his own word, he would hardly be believed); but others have in their Writings dropped, here and there many passages to the purpose; and the Reasons which I have offered, I suppose your Lordship will found here to be sufficiently seconded by the most Learned men in the World, I having said little but what is expressed in their Language, which cost me a great deal of pains to collect; And I was the more willing so to manage the Discourse, because I had a mind to get countenance to my Design, from the Opinions and Determinations of others more able than myself. Which being said, truly (my Lord) I am somewhat confident I have done the business that I aimed at; and there wants nothing to complete this Confidence, but the passing of your Lordship's Judgement; which living Testimony if I obtain, after the many other, both dead and living ones, which I have cited in this Book, I shall take the greater pleasure in the Achievement: However, I shall have content, in regard I have a Thousand Testimonies, a Conscience well discharged in the Work, and a Courage for that Cause able to bear the brunt of ten Thousand Calumnies and Reproaches, if they come, instead of Reason, from such Physicians as are contrary-minded. But, in recompense of such a Reward from some, I know I shall have grateful Acknowledgements from others of true Learning and Ingenuity, when they come hereafter to know my Name, which at present I forbear to prefix at length; not that I am ashamed of the Treatise, but to the end that when it is exposed to public Censure, men may pass the clearer Judgement, without passion or partiality; seeing when Authors are known, some out of respect to the People, others out of envy, are apt to approve, or to condemn.  
Your Lordship will therefore, I hope, excuse this Anonymous Address; and if you meet with any acute Reflections upon the Galenick way, I presume they are no other than necessary for the awakning of such as silently rest in an Opinion of its sufficiency; for certainly, after a subduing of it by strength of Reason, and so many good Authorities, it is but just to act a little triumph over such People, who continually calumniate men that are not of their way, and are so confident, as to attempt an Autarchie in Physic, and long for an opportunity to oppress and trample upon the nobler sort of Philosophers and Physicians, and, if it were in their power, utterly to extinguish them; when as (to use a vulgar Anglicism) they are not worthy to be named the same day with them, for true knowledge in the Art  
I shall (my Lord) say little more from myself, but end with the words of a worthy Member of the College of Physicians (by name Dr Bennet) not long since deceased, in his Epistle to the Reader before his Theatri Tabidorum Vestibulum; Let noon spurn at me because what I offer is of a new Production; for, I have by certitude of Observations, faithfully and succinctly laid open the fallacy of some Opinions anciently received, and not taken Precepts upon trust, only from Authors, for understanding the Constitution of Nature. Moreover, I have not learned to go according to Vulgar Institution, but have made bold to step aside out of the Common Road, being inclined to contemplate and reverence Nature, rather than her Apes. And his Book concludes, as I do this Epistle to your Lordship, thus: I would to God that Physicians would think of refining, correcting, and altering the Method of Physic, that it might be more accurately and efficaciously fitted to the scopes of Curation; in order whereunto, a liberty of thinking and speaking freely being first obtained, notwithstanding the obstinacy of crabbed and morose old Fellows, I shall undertake, relying upon Experience, and being instructed by her, to publish and positively assert divers things, somewhat copiously and boldly, according to the nature of my Design.  
But I should not have been so bold here to talk at this rate before you, had not the words been put into my mouth by one whose Writing speaks him to have been one of the freest and most ingenuous of the Doctors. And as to what concerns me, seeing I am at present concealed from your Lordship, let me given you this brief account of myself; That the Treatise is presented to you by one that from his Youth hath been conversant in the Studies of Physic, and come young to the practice of it in this great City, above twenty years ago; and after some years of forbearance, though nev●r from the Study, returned again to Practise; and how he hath since spent his time, in endeavouring to meliorate Medicine, will best appear by what follows; which I humbly submit to your Lordship, as to one that is raised aloft by your own Noble Conceptions, Observations, and Knowledge in Experimental Philosophy, above the Pedantry of this Profession; and being an able Judge, you will (I dare say) be just in passing Sentence, without affection to the one or the other Party.  
London, Novemb. 26. 1664.   

THE CONTENTS OF THE TREATISE.  

CHAP. I THat it is for the good of Mankind there should be a Liberty allowed in the Practice of Physic. pag. 1.  
That Hypocrates, and Galen, and the Ancients successively, used a liberty in Judgement and Censure towards other Physicians, p. 2, 3. Old Authors not to be upheld against liberty of Judgement, p. 4, 5, 6, 7. The Persecution against Chemical Physicians, when they first began to flourish, p. 8, 9 Lord Bacon's Judgement, and others, p. 8, 9, 10, 11. Persecution against the Improvers of Science, p. 12, 13. Regius his opinion for the Reforming of Physic, p. 14. Helmont's Character by Zwelfer, p. 16. Fernelius his opinion of Anatomy, p. 17. The ill usage and malice of the College of Paris, with their Sentences of Condemnation against the famous Quercetan, and Sir Theodore de Mayern, p. 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26. The Inference thereupon, p. 27, 28.   

CHAP. II That there is a great Alteration in the Diseases of this present Time, from what they were in the former. pag. 29  
Agues much altered, p. 29, 30, 31. Worms eating through the Bowels. Fevers in new forms, p. 32. Woman's Diseases grown more severe, p. 33. French Pox much altered from time to time, p. 34, 35, 36. It's influence in the alteration of other Diseases, p. 37. The like of the Scurvy, p. 38, 39, 40, 41, 42. The alteration of divers Diseases manifested from the weekly and yearly Bills of Mortality; as the Scurvy, p. 43. the Ricketss, p. 44, 45, 46. Consumption, p. 46, 47. Stopping of the Stomach, p. 48. Rising of the Lights, both vulgar names, p. 48, 49. Mother, p. 49, 50, 51. Convulsion, p. 51, 52. Small Pox and Measles, p. 52, 53. The Running Gout, and Rheumatism, p. 54, 55, etc.   

CHAP. III An Inquiry into the Causes of the Alteration of Diseases from their ancient State and Condition. pag. 56.  
The French Pox and the Scurvy main Causes of the Alteration, p. 56, to 61. The spreading of the Venereous and Scorbutic Ferments occasioned five several ways, p. 62. The Causes why People not seeming to themselves infected, do yet infect others, p. 65. and why it is so various in People, as to lurk in some, and rage in others, p. 66, 67, 68, 69, 70. No Caution will serve to preserve the libidinous, p. 71, 72, 73. The like notions touching the Scurvy, p. 74, 75. Ill courses of curing the Pox noted, p. 76, 77, 78, 79. The ill Consequents of bad Cures, p. 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84. Blood-letting bad in Scorbutic cases, p. 85, 86, 87. Some other proceed in the like Cases noted; as common Diet-drinks, ordinary Purgers, mistake of the Pox and Scurvy, because of the likeness of their Symptoms, etc. p. 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95. Contagion described, p. 97, 98, 99 The Pox, Scurvy, and all contagious Diseases, able to infect People at a distance, p. 100, 101, 102. Reasons why they may lurk many years, p. 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112. What care aught to be used in making second Marriages, p. 108, 109. The manner how the Venereous and Scorbutic Contagion spreads insensibly; attested by Sennertus, Dr. Willis, Kircherus, Sinibaldi, Zacchias, Sir Kenelm Digby, Vallesius, Dr. Flood, Greg. Horstius, Fernelius, and Aurelius Minadous, from p. 110. to p. 132. The grosser ways of Contagion noted, p. 132, 133, 134, 135, 136. How those Contagious Ferments are propagated by Inheritance, p. 136. to p. 143. How by Suckling Children, p. 144, 145. Caution about Nurses, from p. 145. to p. 153.   

CHAP. IV.  
A further Proof of this great Alteration, by enquiring into the manner of the complication of the Pox and Scurvy, with other Diseases. pag. 153.  
The Opinion of Fracastorius and others That the French Lues is communicable at distance, p. 154, 155. The Opinions of Helmont and Grembs, p. 156, 157, 158, 159. All Diseases complicable with the French, 160, 161. The Complication of Malignant Fevers therewith, p. 162, 163, 164. And of the Hectic, p. 165. It's Complication with Wounds and Ulcers, p. 166, 167. and with other Maladies, p. 168. The like Complications of the Scurvy, p. 169, 170, 171. of the Tinctures and Ferments of the Pox and Scurvy, p. 172, 173. hard to be cured, p. 174.   

CHAP. V An Inquiry into the Alteration of the nature of Diseases, in reference to Vermination, or breeding of Worms. p. 175. Worms a great cause of Fevers, p. 176.  
Wormatick matter dangerous, though not animated, p. 177. Kircherus his Opinion about Worms, p. 178, 179. The flight of contagious Atoms, p. 180, 181. That they are sometimes animated, p. 182, 183, 184. Those animated Atoms made visible by the Microscope, p. 185. The cause of Animals out of Putrefaction, p. 186, 187, 188, 189, 190. Experiments showing the Rise of them, from p. 191. to p. 197. Invisible Worms in the Blood, Humours, and Vessels of the Body, p. 198, 199, 200. Examination of the Blood by the Microscope, and further discourse of this, from p. 200. to the end of the Chapter.   

CHAP. VI The Insufficiency andVselesness of the old way of Physic, in respect of Method and Medicines, with a necessity of new. pag. 203.  
Men to be encouraged in the new Improvements of Physic, p. 204. The Precepts of Physic not perpetual, p. 205, 206, 207. Old Methods, why useless, p. 208, 209. Practitioners not to be despised, though no Scholars, p. 211, 212. The old Philosophy prejudicial to Physic, p. 212, 213, 214. Little progress made in the Art till of late, p. 215, 216. Pride of Physicians one cause of it, p. 217, 218, 219. The Physic of Brutes not different from that of Men, p. 220, 221. Those Physicians that are in scorn termed Empirics, not to be despised, p. 225, 226, 227, 228, 229. New Remedies to be invented, p. 230, 231. The vanity of a Set-method, p. 232.   

CHAP. VII. A particular Inquiry into the main Philosophical Principles of the Profession of Physic. pag. 233.  
The four Elements cashiered by Heurnius, p. 234. Sensible Experiment the best guide to Philosophy and Physic, p. 235. The Examples of Des Cartes, p. 235, 236. Physic aught to have a new foundation, and be rebuilt from the very ground, p. 237, 238. The excellency of Helmont, p. 239. Galen the great corrupter; his Character, p. 240, 241, 242. The four Principles called Elements rejected, and five other substituted, p. 243, 244. The Doctrine of Qualities examined and rejected, p. 245, 246, 247, 248. Pyrotechnie necessary to make a Physician, p. 250. The Galenists, without it, but Physicians in name, p. 251, 252. The common Book-knowledg of little use to Physic, p. 253 The taking Degrees in Physic to be rectified, p. 254. M. Boil's opinion of the Galenick Principles, p. 256. The cashiering of the Doctrine of Temperaments, and of the Four Humours, p. 257. to 265. The Five Principles owned by Chemical Physicians, p. 265. to p. 269. more coducible to Physic than the old Principles, p. 269. to 275. The nature and use of the five Chemical Principles, p. 270. to 274. The Galenick Rule of Contraries pernicious, p. 276▪ to the end.   

CHAP. VIII. An Offer of divers other Particulars considerable, in order to the Practice of P●y●●ck. p. 279.  
Why Physicians so often fail, p. 280, 281. The 〈◊〉 stated betwixt the Gale●●●● 〈◊〉 and others, p. 282, 283. The six Digestions, p. 284, 285, 286. Of the Ferments of the Parts, p. 287. to 293. The mistake of the Schools about Diseases in general, p. 294, 295. Of that vital Spirit called the Archaeus, p. 297. to 302. Somewhat of malignancy in all the Diseases of this Age, p. 304, 305.   

CHAP. IX.. An Examination of divers old Doctrines, which more immediately relate to the Practice of Physic. pag. 306.  
The childish Doctrine of Critical days, p. 306. to 311. The mischief that comes by waiting for a Crisis, p. 312. The little Agreement that is touching the Causes of Critical days, p. 313. to 318. They are rejected by Celsus, p. 319, 320. Reason for rejecting them, p. 321, 322, 323. The Opinion of Regius, p. 324. and of Helmont, p. 325, 326. The Doctrine of Pulses examined, p. 327. reduced to Ten Primary Differences, p. 328. the rest rejected as fantastic, p. 329, 330, 331. A rectifying of the Doctrines concerning Urines, p. 331, 332. Dr Willis his way most rational, in examining them, according to the 5 Chemical Principles, p. 333, 334, 335, 336. A Censure of Hypocrates, from p. 337. to 366. Of his Aphorisms, p. 339. to 353 Of his Prognostics, p. 352. to 362. Mr Boyl 's Opinion of them, p. 362, 363, 364. They puzzle rather than direct a Physician, 364, 365. A Censure of Galen, p. 366, 367, 368, 369, 370, 371, 372. The examination of Phlebotomy, or Blooding; proving it of little use in these North parts of the world, p. 373. Five Preliminary Points insisted on, in order to the discussion of the main Point, p. 374, 375, 376, 377, 378, 379, 380, 381, 382. The main Point argued, from p. 383. to p. 429 The Judgement of Zacutus Lus. of the different State of the Blood betwixt Northern and Southern people, p. 384, 385. Bleeding ill for Scorbutic Bodies, p. 385, 386, 387, 388. Why Bleeding is used rather than Purgation, in the finer Climates, p. 389, 390, 391, 392. Why our Fevers and Agues prove worse upon Bleeding, p. 393, 394, 395, 396, 397, 398, 399, 400. What persons receive most damage by Bleeding, p. 402, 403, 404, 405, 406. Of Coagulations and Congelations of Blood in Malign Fevers, Small Pox, Measles, and the danger of Bleeding argued thereupon, p. 408, 409, 410, 411, 412. Evacuation of Blood in Malign Fevers reaches not the Seat, or Matter of the Disease, p. 415, 416, 417, 418, 419. The reason of the different Effects of Bleeding in the Northern, and in the finer Climates, p. 422, 423, 425. Ignorance of proper Remedies first occasioned the practice of Blooding, p. 427, 428. An examination of the State of Medicine, in reference to the old Compositions, from p. 429. to the End. Why to be laid aside, p. 429. A Plea for the Interest of Apothecaries, in a rectification of their manner of Pharmacy, p. 430, 431, 432, 433, 434. Advice to them from Mr Le Febure, his Majesty's Apothecary, 435, 436. No way for the Apothecaries to preserve their Trade, but by accommodating themselves to the Chemical Physicians, p. 437, 438, 439. Diseases being New and Occult, require new and extraord. Remedies, p. 440, 441, 442, 443, 444. The different garb of Chemic and Galenick Physicians, 446, 447. Galenick Medicaments not rationally grounded, p. 448, 449, 450, 451, 452. Ill contrived in the Composition, p. 452, 453, 454, 455, 456, 457, 458. Diverse Countries aught to have different Medicaments, p. 459, 460, 461, 462, 463, 464. An Answer to the Calumnies of the Galenists against Chemical Medicaments, p. 466. to 471. Why Galenists prospero not with using Chemic Remedies, p. 472, 473. Why Galenists are not safe in difficult Cases, p. 473, 474, 475. They and the meaner sort of Practisers compared, p. 476. to 479. A Censure of the old Method, p. 480 to 485. The Chemical Preparations in the common dispensatories very imperfect, p. 487, 488. Foul Play of the Galenists, p. 490. to 496. Chemic Remedies not so insisted on, as to exclude the use of Simples, and Single Specificks, p. 496, 497, 498. Other Chemic Remedies to be invented, as well as the more elaborate Preparations, p. 500, 501. Vegetables used by Chemists are as much as Minerals, p. 502. Chemical operations usesul to illustrate the Doctrine of Diseases, p. 503. to 514.    

The Reader is entreated to amend this Fault of the Press, and excuse the rest.  
Page 298. read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉   

Medela Medicinae; OR, A Plea for the whole Profession and Professors OF PHYSIC.  

CHAP. I That it is for the good of Mankind there should be a Liberty allowed in the Profession of Physic.  
THat the Diseases of this present Age are of another nature than they were in former times, is (I suppose) a matter out of question; but jest any should question, I will prove it; and if that be once proved, then it cannot be denied, that we must proceed by other definitions of their Nature, and indagations of their Causes, and invent other Remedies, and Reasons and Rules of Curation, than what have been delivered by the Ancients; and not confine ourselves to their Conceptions, Aphorisms, and Inventions, more than they did themselves to the Dictates of those Physicians that were elder than they. It was a liberty which Hypocrates himself took, by strength of Reason, to judge and condemn the Opinions and Practices of such as went before him, and frame a Body of Physic of his own: He may be called the Father of the Four Elements, and of the Four Phantsies called Humours, which our Hypocrates (as some call him) Dr Harvey 
* De gen. Anim. exercit. 52.  aproves not, and allows but one. The like freedom was used by his great Commentator Galen, who made it his business not only to trample and triumph over all other Sects at Rome (having the Emperor Antoninus, and his Son Commodus to Friend) but took a liberty to censure also the Oracle Hypocrates, and the succeeding Physicians, and, when he pleased, to cashier them. In the 6. De Morb. vulg. Comm. 2. he saith, All things are to be examined by Reason and Experience, and calls those Physician's Slaves which are sworn to Authors. And in his second Book De Meth. Medendi, he calls their Learning tyrannical, which is imposed by Masters and Dictators. And in that Book of his, which he wrote on purpose to leave us a Catalogue of his own quarrelsome Works, he reprehends such Physicians as pin themselves on the sleeve of any one or more Doctors, saying, I am of Praxagoras; or, I am of Hypocrates: but being of a free temper, he explained, amended, altered, and added many things, and spoilt most, sparing neither Hypocrates, nor Plato, nor Chrysippus, nor Aristotle, nor any that were before him: Wherhfore it was but reason, that the learned Sanctorius, after he had shown how foul this man fell upon Hippocrates' Aphorisms, should take the same licence to set down his Errors, (as Auicenna, Averro, and many others, have done likewise in a plentiful manner): And now, that after so many Errors of him and Hypocrates have been detected, and that it hath been made appear by Vesalius, and others, that they erred, not only in their Administrations and Descriptions of the Fabric of human Bodies, but in the very principles of that Philosophy, which they settled, and others most pedantically have insisted on ever since, and do insist on, as the foundation of Physic, and of whole Colleges of the profession in Europe; I cannot but with a kind of indignation break out into the language of Langius, present Public Professor in the University of Lipsick, who in his Preface before the Book of that learned Jesuit Kircherus, lately published, De Peste, declares, How exceedingly it hath troubled him to see his Brethrens of the Faculty devil only upon Commentaries (so most of them have spent their time since the days of Galen) and through a proneness to subscribe to the dictates of the Ancients, have been so sluggish as to acquiesce in them, and according to their rude dogmatical Positions, to make enquiry after the Causes and Essences of Things Natural, and of Diseases, and Medicines, and deliver them over as sacred to their Disciples. What is this (saith he) but to strangle Truth, and extinguish the vigour of men's Wits with mere Authorities; which should rather be fitted for great Things, and led on to more eminent searches into the Secrets of Nature? Let me tell them, as long as they are carried with this vain opinion of Authority, and so earnestly yield up themselves and their Followers Vassals to Authors, doubtless they do a great injury even to the Ancients themselves, seeing it never entered into the minds of Hypocrates, Galen, Aristotle, or the other old Sages of Natural Science, to consecrated their Works to Posterity, with such an intent as to count it necessary that men should presently be content with them only, and rest wholly therein; but rather, that they should remember to employ their Endeavours to search and proceed further, and produce somewhat of their own: For, as our Ancestors did abundantly labour to add to their own Inventions, with as great exactness as might be, to the Inventions of such as went before them, and performed their utmost, by learned Observations, to illustrate such things as to them seemed difficult and obscure; so it is our duty so to reverence the fair Monuments and Inventions of good Authors, and so apply ourselves to the Inventors, as an Inheritance belonging to many; and acquit ourselves in such a manner as good Fathers of Families use to do, who study how to enlarge and increase what they have received, and transmit that Inheritance from themselves to their Posterity, much augmented, that so, I say, we may look on those who are go before us with so many illustrious examples of their Industry, not as our Lords and Masters, but Leaders, reckoning with Seneca, That there yet remains much work to be done; and that very much is like to remain always; and that after a thousand Ages more, men will not want occasion to make new Discoveries and Additions.  
Man's not being persuaded of this, is the great occasion of the little progress that hath been made in all other Sciences, as well as that of Physic; and the incomparable Lord Bacon, among the several Causes of the non-advancement of all manner of Sciences, reckons this for one, An extreme Affection to Antiquity. 
Advance of Learn. lively 1. cap. 5.  Truly (as he saith) Antiquity deserves that men should make a stay a while, and stand thereupon, and look about to discover which is the best way; but when the discovery is well taken, then not to rest there, but cheerfully to make progression. Indeed, to speak truly, Antiquitas Seculi, Juventus Mundi; Antiquity of Time is the Youth of the World. Certainly, our Times are the ancient Times, when the World is now ancient; and not those which we count ancient, ordine retrogrado, by a computation backward from our own Times; and yet so much credit (as he saith) hath been given to old Authors, as to invest them with the power of Dictators, that their words should stand, rather than admit them as Consuls to given Advice. And this kept Physic, till of late years, as well as other Sciences, low, at a stay, and very heartless, without any notable Growth or Advancement; and upon this account (as the same Lord saith) the Liberal Sciences have fared far worse than the Arts Mechanical, which always have been, and are continually much improved; whereas in this of Physic and Philosophy, men have formerly thought it wisdom not to budge an inch from the footing of the first Masters; insomuch that when Chemistry first come in play, the Professors and Operators were thought to be Madmen; but afterwards (when they gained some ground and entertainment in the World) the Aristotelians and Galenists, seeing that reproach and contempt would not do the work, began to raise a fierce persecution, by stirring up Princes and Magistrates against them, as a pack of Magicians, Mountebanks, Rogues, Cheats, Vagabonds, and I know not what; and procured Laws and Statutes to be made against them as such, till the excellency of the Art itself, and its grand Achievements, opened the eyes of Governors, and stopped the mouths of gainsayers; and even the common people come to see, that it was the Interest of the Collegiate Corporations of Physicians, who lived in ease and splendour, practising with old Maxims and Medicines, not to permit a new laborious Sect of Philosophers, working Knowledge out of the Fire, by their Industry and Successes, to bring a reproach upon them for their Idleness, and superstitious devotion to their old heathenish Authors; of whom the same most excellent Lord and Philosopher saith thus in his Preface, I dare confidently avouch, that the Wisdom we have extracted chief from the Grecians, seems to be a Childhood of Knowledge, and to participate that which is proper to Children, namely, That it is apt for Talk, but impotent and immature for Propagation; for, it is of Controversies rank and fertile, but of Works barren and fruitless; the truth of which never so signally appears, as when two or three of the dogmatical Admirers of that Learning, and of the usual Medicines, come at any time to meet in a Consultation; after which, if no good be done by them, it frequently comes to pass, when all is desperate, that some noble Medicine (lying without the Road of their Method, and a Pharmacopeia) which they may please to call Emperical, through the goodness of God performs a Cure; and yet he that administered it, be he otherwise never so Learned and Rational, if he be not a Drone of the old Methodical Hive, is sure to be calumniated, and marked with a black Coal, though themselves only have deserved it.  
Now this were a thing to be admired at, but that we found it hath always fared thus with the Beaux Esprits, those brave Spirits in all Ages, who have advanced Learning beyond the brains of Titular Doctors and Philosophers, and above those antiquated Notions which are the Idols of such as are too proud and idle to go to School again to learn new; though I must tell them, 'Tis no shame for any to be a Learner in the School of Nature, whose Mysteries are sublime, her Treasures inexhaustible; and he who will study, could he live (as Seneca saith) a thousand Ages, would even then found matter and occasion for new Inquiry and Discovery: But the misery is, that other ways have been taken by too many, though of late years they have been shamed out of it by the Industry of their Juniors.  
I remember Dr Hackwel, in the Preface to his Apology, gives an account at large, what ill entertainment new Inventors and Inventions have always found among the present Masters of several Professions. Should I tell how ill Paracelsus was received, some would say, 'Twas but what he deserved, because he hath an ill Name among those that either do not or will not take pains to understand him, and have not good nature enough to pass by his Extravagances; yet one that was Physician to the Emperor, and other Princes of Germany, styles him, Verè celsus Paracelsus, Most sublime Paracelsus. And the truth is, he had the honour to open the eyes of mankind in the most excellent part of Physic; and (setting aside some whimsies) it may be truly said, He did much, and gave such hints of more, that all the World hath been beholden to him ever since; And others in aftertimes, taking example by him, have not only brought rare Medicines to light, but shown the vanity of that Logic and Philosophy which hath been delivered to us by Heathens, and which 'tis a shame the Schools of Christendom should yet retain, as if they contained Principles conducible to the Attainment of Physic, when as that great Chancellor of the Commonwealth 
L. Bacon.  of Learning (as a learned Frenchman calls him) and the profound Helmont, and the most ingenious Des Cartes, have abundantly made manifest the insufficiency of both; and they are fallen now so low, that the most excellent Sr Kenelm Digby, and that noble Philosopher Mr Boil, and others not so tall as they, do not only look over but far beyond them; for, to say no more at present, the Lord 
* In his Nou. Org.  Bacon hath shown of how little use that Logic is, and that the Physics were corrupted by their being accommodated thereto; which makes that searching Wit and learned Head Dr Henry More of 
Tantundem scivisse Cartesium statuere oportet, in investigandis Naturae Causis quantum ignoravit Aristoteles.  Cambridge, the Ornament of that University, in a Latin Epistolary Discourse of his very newly published, concerning the Cartesian Philosophy, vouchsafe Aristotle no greater title than this, Argutus ille Graeculus, in comparison of the Philosophers of latter Times; yet he road a long while upon the shoulders of the blind World, while others have walked a foot (and well they could do so too) or have been laid by the heels, or been glad to be take themselves to their heels from the places where they resided; Persecution having been practised in all Times on the account of Philosophy and Physic.  
The Noble Descent of Tycho Brahe might be a protection to him when he first broached that Position, which pulled the Spheres out of Heaven, and reduced their supposed solid Bodies to be fluid as Air; but Galilaeus fared worse, being sent to Gaol for seeing more than others could, by the help of his Optic Tube, losing (as Dr More saith) his own Liberty in a Prison, for giving the Earth liberty to fetch a Round about the Sun. And as for Des Cartes, Peter Boreel, one of the King of France's Physicians, at the end of his Centuries of Observations, gives this Account, That when that sublime Philosopher lived at Utrecht in Holland, the Aristotelian Professors of that University become so inflamed with envy at him, that their Scholars raised the Rabble of the City, at the sound of a Bell, to drive him out of Town, who was and ever will be thought worthy the admiration of the greatest Princes and Scholars. But to see the fate of things, it hath been this man's luck to triumph even in that University where so much contempt was poured upon him; for, Henricus Regius, who now lives there with the honour (which he highly deserves) of being Public Professor of Physic, in a short time after did him right, by publishing a Book of Natural Philosophy, agreeable to the Principles and Design of Des Cartes; and not only so, but in pursuance thereof he hath declared, That if a new Philosophy be introduced, more suitable to the Phoenomena and Operations of Nature, there aught also to be laid new Foundations of Physic, free from the intanglement of those Disputes and mere Opinions, which serve only to perplex and amaze men, rather than afford any solid Instruction: This had been attempted by many men before him, men of excellent good parts; but by their leave (saith he) 
In his Epistle Dedicatory to the Magistrates of Utrecht.  they were able to effect little, because of their reasoning in the old obscure way of Philosophy; but now that it hath pleased God to illuminate the World with a greater light of Philosophy, in this happy Age of ours, by clear and easy Principles, every where obvious to the Understanding, and more accurately fitted for use, I have reduced the whole Art of Physic to these two Points, viz. the Knowledge and the Curation of Diseases, which are the only duties of a Physician; and 
* This Helmont did also before him.  cashiered the common Doctrine of Elements, Temperaments, Parts, Spirits, Humours, Faculties, and Function, which have no Being but in the brains of the vulgar, that so I might tender all the Mysteries of our Profession, even the most abstruse and difficult, plain and easy. Thus far he of himself; and this he hath (to say truth) well performed, by improving the Cartesian Principles, in such a manner as hath put to silence that peevish Spirit of Contradiction which was so high before.  
I might tell you what hard Quarter was given likewise to Van Helmont at his first appearance, being reviled as an Enthusiast and a Madman, though I must tell you, the Hypotheses by him set down to found out the essences of Diseases, and proper means to cure them, show him to be one of great reason and insight into things natural; and I, who have taken pains (as pains must be taken) to understand him, though his Medicines cannot be understood, can say (by experience) his Doctrine is such as by frequent recourse to it will enable a man to design aright the Cure of Diseases, more than all that hath been said in the World to that purpose before; and therefore being lately turned all into English, it had been better if Dr Charlton, who translated some parts of him, had taken pains about the whole, that others might have be taken themselves to the study of an Author, which some, that would be no little men of Learning, are frighted from reading, because of his novelty and difficulty; when as others of high State, and who have given the Age high proof of their Learning, do admire him; witness the character given him by Zwelfer, Physician to the present Emperor, in his most learned elaborate Notes on the 
* Pag. 409.  Pharmacopeia Augustana, where he entitles him Acutissimum illum Philosophum Helmontium; That most acute Philosopher Helmont. And Oswald Grembs, a very learned Physician belonging to the Duke of Saxony, who hath endeavoured to given us an Abridgement of the large Works of that Author, and joins together both the Galenick and Helmontian way of curing Diseases, doth notwithstanding in fine given his vote for Helmont, telling us in plain terms, 
* Lib. 2. c. 1. sect. 4. De Morbis Lienls.  His main intent is no other than to persuade Physicians, that the Foundations laid by Galen do not correspond with the practice of Physic, but that it may be better accommodated by the Foundations of Helmont. Yet this was the man cried out on by many wise men in the beginning, and now by noon but such as are Otherwise.  
The same fate befell also our incomparable Dr Harvey, when he first laid open the Blood's Circulation; and he himself, in that Treatise De motu Cordis, makes sad complaint what ill usage he had, because in that business he departed from the sense of all Anatomists that went before him: but what would those men have said, had they lived to see what later Anatomists have done? not only departing from the Ancients, but jangling and jarring with each other, touching the use of every part and particle of Man's Body, as may be seen by the Write of Bartholinus, Walaeus, the new Schenkius, Rolfinckius, Hornius, Silvius de le Boe, and divers others, too m●ny to reckon up, besides others of our own Nation; the latter of which, have taken pains to reckon up the differing Opinions, the consideration whereof hath, through their endless variety, given me, and some other touchy Heads like my, occasion to pry into one point beyond them, viz. Whither in the practice of Physic there need be the hundredth part of this ado about Anatomy; especially seeing that when the Body is out of order by Diseases, the Blood and Humours have other vagaries than in the usual Channels; and 
* Plantius in the life of Fernelius, tells his mind more at large.  Fernelius himself spoke but lightly of Anatomy, and was of opinion, our Brethrens might better spend their time in making Observations on the Sick; to which given me leave to add an exhortation to labour with their own hands in amending, refining, inventing, and compounding of Medicines, that we may be delivered from the bondage and terror of those many fulsome Compositions, borrowed from the Greeks and Arabians, who were People in their Time to be applauded, and of such ingenuity, that were they now living to see what improvement the Art hath received of late in a few years, would doubtless admire the dotage of those men who live lazing upon the little Knowledge that comes by Tradition, and the Name they have acquired by Time, and timely courting of Women and Nurses; and be the first in throwing most of their own old Medicines out of the Dispensatory and the Shops.  
I could enlarge on this subject by innumerable Instances, to show how here, and in other Nations, those worthy People who have made it their business to advance the Profession of Physic by new Inventions, and Principles, have from time to time been unhandsomly treated, till Time and Experience taught others to approve and admire them. But you will say, To what end is all this Discourse about these things? 'Tis only to pled for a freedom for such as labour in the secrets of Nature, and that no discouragement be given to such laborious and ingenious Inquirers, who have too long suffered under the imperious Censures of such as partly by their Rules, partly by their course of Practice, would tie men to the old heavy Compounds, and by virtue of Seniority impose upon others, and dictate in all Meetings called Consultations about the Sick; and, like the Chineses, keep all others at a distance that are not of their own number or extraction; and sometimes, like the Ottoman Emperors, strangle all their Brethrens, or those that are too active to live under their Empire and Jurisdiction. The truth whereof, and the great Inconveniences thence likely to ensue, will the better appear, if I set before you two (omitting many other) very remarkable Instances, which I shall here given, because the persons concerned in the Relation were men beyond all exception, and renowned for Physic in the Kingdoms of England and France, and (like Augustus) did not only conquer all their Opposites, but outlive them, and all their slanders: The People were, Sir Theodore de Mayern; and his Friend, the famous Quercetan: this latter known now by his Learned Works to all the World, and followed; the other not so known in print, because his numerous Write, Memorials, and Consultations (which have been sufficiently talked of by such as seen them) have not yet been published; but he was otherwise known to purpose in both Nations, for his many performances of Cure among the greatest Princes and People; yet these two Men, when they first began to show themselves at Paris, and went out of the ordinary Dog-road of Physic, felt a grievous storm fall upon them from the then mere Galenick Dons of the College of Paris, they having employed one of their own number to writ a Book in Latin, the Title whereof in English is, 
* Printed at Paris, An. 1603.  An Apology for the Physic of Hypocrates and Galen, against Quercetan, etc. in whose defence Mayern writing also an Apology, they to this Book subjoined an Answer to the Libellous Apology (as they termed it) of Turquetus, (so they thought fit to term him, instead of Mayern); for though he never was ashamed of his name Turquet, yet because (in French) it signifies a little dog, the witty Champion of the College chose rather to mention him by that Name, as a subject that would better serve (as he thought) for matter of quibble and reflection, though his Father was known to be a Gentleman of good Descent and Scholarship, and the Title de Mayern denoted a Lordship within the Territory of Geneva, which gave name to the Family. That Book was set forth by the College, Anno 1603. but they rested not here, but went a step further to no end, summoning all the Peers of the Faculty to a Solemn Assembly, where their Doctorships (in perpetuum rei scandalum) passed Sentence of Damnation upon them both, within the space of four Months, as may be seen by the Censures themselves, which I have here set down, and translated them word for word as they printed them.  


Scholae Parisiensis Judicium, de Alchymia Quercetani.  
COllegium Medicorum in Academiâ Parisiensi legitimè congregatum, audita renunciatione Censorum, quibus demandata erat provincia examinandi librum Josephi Quercetani, de materia, & praestantia veteris Medicinae; non tantum Quercetani libros spagyricos damnat unanimi consensu, sed etiam Artem ipsam spagyricam: Omnesque Medicos qui ubiquè gentium & locorum Medicinam exercent hortatur, ut ex Hippocratis & Galeni doctrinâ faciant Medicinam. Quinetiam prohibet, nequis ex hoc Medicorum Parisiensium ordine, cum Quercetano, aliisve spagyrieis, aut à facultate non probatis consilia Medica ineat: qui secus fecerit, Scholae emolumentis, & Academiae privilegiis privabitur, & ex Medicorum regentium albo expungetur. Datum Lutetiae, in Scholis superioribus, die 9 Septembris, Anno Salutis, 1603.  
G. Heron, Decanus.   

THe College of Physicians in the University of Paris being lawfully congregated, having heard the Report made by the Censors, to whom the business of examining the Book of Joseph Quercetan, De Materia & praestantia veteris Medicinae, was committed, do with unanimous consent condemn, not only the Chemical Books of Quercetan, but also the Art of Chemistry itself; and do exhort all Physicians which profess Physic in any Nations or Places whatsoever, that they will continued to practise Physic according to the Doctrine of Hypocrates and Galen. Moreover, they forbidden all men that are of this Society of the Physicians of Paris, that they do not admit of a Consultation with Quercetan, or any other Chemists, or any People not approved by Licence. Whosoever shall presume to do contrary, shall be deprived of all Advantages of the College, and Privileges of the University, and be blotted out of the Register of Regent Physicians. Given at Paris, in the Upper Schools, the ninth day of September, Anno Salutis, 1603.  
G. Heron, Dean of the College.    


Concerning Mayern.  
COllegium Medicorum in Academiâ Parisiensi legitimè congregatum, audita renuntiatione Censorum, quibus demandata erat provincia examinandi Apologiam, sub nomine Mayernii Turqueti editam, ipsam unanimi consensu damnat, tanquam famosum libellum, mendacibus convitiis & impudentibus calumniis refertum, quae non nisi ab homine imperito, impudente, temulento, & furioso profieisci potuerunt. Ipsum Turquetum indignum judicat qui usquam Medicinam faciat, propter temeritatem, impudentiam, & verae Medicinae ignorationem. Omnes verò Medicos, qui ubique gentium & locorum Medicinam exercent hortatur, ut ipsum Turquetum, similiaque hominum & opinionum portenta, à se suisque finibus arceant, & in Hippocratis & Galeni doctrina constanter permaneant. Sed & prohibet ne quis ex hoc Medicorum Parisiensium ordine cum Turqueto ejusque similibus Medica consilia ineat. Qui secus fecerit, Scholae ornamentis, honoribus, emolumentis, & Academiae privilegiis privabitur, & de Medicorum Regentium numero expungetur. Datum Lutetiae, in Scholis Superioribus, die quinta Decemb. Anno Salutis, 1603.  
G. Heron, Decanus.   

THe College of Physicians in the University of Paris being lawfully congregated, having heard the Report made by the Censors, to whom the business of examining the Apology, published under the name of Turquet de Mayern, was committed; do with unanimous consent condemn the same, as an infamous Libel, stuffed with lying Reproaches, and impudent Calumnies, which could not have proceeded from any but an unlearned, impudent, drunken, mad Fellow: And do judge the said Turquet unworthy to practise Physic in any place, because of his rashness, impudence, and ignorance of true Physic: But do exhort all Physicians, which practise Physic in any Nations or places whatsoever, That they will drive the said Turquet, and such like Monsters of Men and Opinions, out of their company, and Coasts; and that they will constantly continued in the Doctrine of Hypocrates and Galen. Moreover they forbidden all men that are of the Society of the Physicians of Paris, That they do not admit a Consultation with Turquet, or such like persons. Whoever shall presume to act contrary, shall be degraded and deprived of all honours, emoluments, and privileges of the University, and be expunged out of the Register of Regent Physicians. Given at Paris: in the Upper Schools, the fifth day of December, Anno Salutis, 1603.  
G. Heron, Dean of the College.    
It would be to little purpose for me to animadvert upon these dreadful Bulls, thundered out against two persons of so great worth; let it serve for their justification, That, for all this, the former become famous in France, the King's Physician, and lived to see the College repent of their folly, and their Successors become Admirers of those Chemical Books and Remedies which had been so rashly damned. The other become Physician to two Kings of France, and two of England, and left a Name of great honour and wealth behind him. Only this is published, that it may serve for a warning to great persons, and others, that they dote not in any Nation too much upon the Names Doctor and College, when Public Good is at stake, seeing they may be deceived, and be apt to deceive others, if the like idle Spirit of Pride, Interest, and Envy, should at any time possess them, to cry down People and Things, which once in seven years themselves may think fit to follow underhand, and by stealth practise; but not be seen to do it, for fear of losing their Credit. It may serve likewise to evince, That seeing men of greatest Learning and Abilities in the Profession, have judged the old Philosophy and Physic insufficient, and thereupon receded from it. And whereas in this prying, laborious Age, wherein new discoveries of Medicine are every day wrought out of the Fire, and other ways, and more like to be discovered, for the benefit of mankind, afflicted more than ever with monstrous Diseases (such as the ordinary Remedies of the Shops will not reach); and seeing, if any Society of men be armed with power to regulate, censure, or suppress whom and what they please, the most ingenious Labourers must be left to the mercy of others lesle laborious, and be discouraged, or condemned, as others have been before them, if it please the Infallible Masters: Therefore doubtless any rational man will be of opinion, That it is the concernment of Nations to admit a greater latitude in the Profession and Practice of Philosophy and Physic, than the Interest (and many times the ignorance) of some men of the same Profession would be willing to allow: Which was the thing I had a mind to show.  
Now let me, in the next place, proceed to manifest how great a difference there is betwixt the old state of Diseases, and the new; and this as briefly as I can.   

CHAP. II That there is a great alteration in the Diseases of this present Time, from what they were in the former.  
BEcause I cannot stand to run over every particular Disease, let it suffice to instance only in some, and leave you to observe and reason out the rest in others.  
First, 'tis observable, That Agues, which of all other Diseases given the greatest baffle to Physicians, are exceedingly altered. Look upon the definitions and descriptions of the Ancients concerning the Quotidian, Tertian, Quartan, etc. and see how little they suit with the Types and Formalities of Agues appearing in this Age, being distempers of quite another nature; insomuch that the old Rules and Remedies of curing them are quite out of doors, seldom doing any good, but generally hurt; as for instance, Blood-letting, which should we in these days administer in all putrid Fevers (as 
b 11 Meth. 15.  Galen directs, and too many follow) we should make mad work with our Patients; especially, if we should admit that to be Gospel which another Prince of the Profession, by name 
c Lib. 4. Fen. 1. Tr. 2. cap. 39  Avicen, gives order for, viz. That if the Patient's Urine be thick and read, then be sure to draw Blood; whereas I have observed generally in former years, (and particularly this Spring), That Bodies either ill-habited, or Scorbutically inclined, being phlebotomised for Agues, have grown very much worse upon it, and either totally lost the habit of Body, or been precipitated into another sort of Ague, of a worse nature and condition; as for instance, from an Ague-Tertian to a Quotidian, or to a tedious Quartan; and yet such Bodies generally have their Urines intensely thick and read. The truth is, where one Ague falls out now upon the old simple account, at lest forty to one do start abroad, which must be put upon a new: 
d Pract. lively 3. part. 5. sect. 2.  Sennertus is plain in the point, Plurimae febres quae hîc aegros infestant, omnes not as Febrium à Graecis & Arabibus descriptas non obtinent; Most Agues which infested men in this Age, do not agreed with the descriptions of Agues made by the Greeks and Arabians: Nay, a man may truly say, They are mightily altered in the course of these thirty years' last past; for I remember when I was first a Student in this Faculty, they were generally more slight, and easily curable by old common Remedies; whereas now the most of them appear with different and more dangerous Symptoms, which every where confute and defy the whole Herd of vulgar Methodists, and their Medicines; yea, more than this, 'tis to be observed, That sometimes a current of three or four years, sometimes every year, produceth a new sort of Ague, in the fashion of a Tertian, Quotidian, or a Quartan, the like whereof was never seen before; and Continual Fevers also, wholly new in all their Symptoms and Circumstances: In the year 1662. a new sort of Quartan reigned about London, and other parts, which had in it all the tokens of Malignity; and from most that I myself had in cure, I brought away abundance of Worms, and then they presently mended. The like course I took with that Continual Fever, which raged in the Country, 1661. and procured plentiful excretions of Worms out of the Bodies of young and old, from Children to persons of seventy years of Age; yea, and what I could hardly believe, when I first read the Observations of Schenkius, and others, I that year found very true in a young man and old woman, that Worms will make their own way into the World, through the Bowels and Sides of the persons that breed them, and this without damage, nothing being used but a little fresh Butter to the Orifice, to make all whole again. He is but a dull Practiser that doth not yearly see Agues and Fevers appearing in new forms; and you may particularly remember what the state of those Diseases was in the Autumnal Quarter of the year 1657. and both the Spring and Fall of the year 1658. and how wonderfully the Agues and Fevers varied in that short revolution of time; the ground of which marvellous change in the World, both in respect of Agues, and other Diseases, I may given you a full account of before the conclusion of this Treatise, and thereupon let you see cause to apprehended the usefulness of what I now publish to the World, to discover those two secret Enemies which now run in a blood (more or lesle) through all the generations of Mankind, and have transformed the whole Scene of Diseases.  
I might next insist on several Diseases of the Female Sex, grown more severe than they were in the days of their great Grandames, who, could they now rise out of their Graves again, would wonder to see the miserable state of poor Women, and the tyranny of those distempers which were in their time lesle frequent, and more calm and curable, (for, the same Remedies now will do little good towards a Cure); but I forbear particulars, seeing, for Modesty's sake, they are not to be exposed to every Reader.  
That the Disease called the French Pox is extraordinarily varied, appears by the account given of it at its first appearance in the World, compared with what we see at this day. If you consult Fracastorius and Benivenius, you will found, It, in the beginning broke forth in odious Pustles of several kinds upon the Privities, the Head, the Face, the Neck, the Breast, the Arms, and generally the whole Body. Some also it disfigured after the rate of a Leprosy; others had a kind of scurf, which scaling of, discovered the skin underneath to be black or blue: Upon some, filthy ichorous sores were continually running. And besides all this, they had in the inward parts great tormenting Exulcerations, as in the Mouth, the Throat, the Nostrils, the urinary and spermatick Passages, which did eat of the Yard, the Palate, the Lips, the Nose, in despite of all Medicines; so that men being affected with the Disease, their Friends were frighted from looking upon them, and shunned them as if they had been visited with the Pestilence: These things being considered, with the horrid pains that racked them, it was rightly termed by a certain Author, Miserabile Scortatorum Flagellum; The miserable Scourge of Whoremasters. But though it was thus with the Disease then, yet Fernelius, who was born almost twenty years before it was discovered in Europe, and lived to seventy two years of Age, seen it very much changed in the space of thirty or forty years, insomuch that he tells us, in his time it was much altered, 
* De Lue Ven. cap. 2.  not defacing the Bodies of men with Pustles, Scurffs, and virulent Ulcers, but tormenting them more with intolerable pains; which though they might be increased by the ignorant and preposterous ways of curing then used, yet the Disease itself also changed continually, and seemed to decline and grow old; Adeò ut Lues quae nunc grassatur, vix illius generis esse putetur; Insomuch (saith he) that the Pox which now reigns, hardly seems to be of the same kind with the former: And certainly this was but a short tract of time wherein it received so great an alteration; but yet Fracastorius tells us, it was altered much within twenty years, a lesser time; and that after this, another mutation was made within six years' time, the Disease not raging, as before, in the external parts; from whence he also was in hope, that it would in time wear itself out of the World, as many other new and monstrous Diseases have done, after they had reigned for a season; but he is mightily deceived; for it yet continues, not in that open hostility it exercised before, but more treacherously and slily insinuates itself into the internal and fundamental parts of the Body, sporting itself under several disguises to afflict the Sons of Men.  
Another change likewise hath been made of this Disease, in that where one person gets this Disease by the beastliness of Venery, many hundreds have it by Traduction: For, it is most true which Sennertus saith, The French Disease is nom become Hereditary, being derived from Parents 
* Pract. lively 6. part. 4. cap. 5.  to their Posterity by Generation, and communicated from infected persons to others by kissing, by sucking, by clotheses, and the like. Now all the venereal distempers either of these ways contracted, do extremely differ from that which is usually gotten by unlawful Contact; for, they usually appear in the form of other Maladies; as is evident not only by report of all the best Authors, but I found it in my daily Practice; forasmuch as abundance of people grow sickly, and languish under the appearance (it may be) of a Consumption, a Gout, a Dropsy, and Ague, a slow Fever, and sometimes an acute one, Sore-eyes, Greensickness, and indeed of all manner of Diseases, which (when the other ordinary means have been long used in vain) have at length been relieved by an orderly use of such Anti-venereous Remedies as I have on purpose invented, the nature whereof is, to fight against Humours both great and small, in old or young, which have been any way touched with the Venereal Tincture, either through their own default, or by sigillation of those seminal Principles, which contribute towards the Being of Mankind in the Act of Generation; which whosoever takes not into consideration, in curing the Diseases of this Age (now that the Families of Mankind are tinctured all, more or lesle) will miss of his aim; and 'tis the main reason why so few are throughly cured, because few Physicians proceed upon an improvement of this Notion, or the inventing of such Remedies as are of a large reach, and properly conducing thereunto. But of this Subject I shall have occasion to discourse more copiously ere long.  
In the mean while, let me have leave to insist upon another sore Evil under the Sun, called the Scurvy, which, like the former, is very much altered also from what it was in former days, and become every jot as Universal. I found it is a Disease of no very long standing, much about the Age of its Cousin-german the Pox; for I have read, that when Dr Martin Dorp, a Divine of Louvain, (one much esteemed by Erasmus, and Sir Thomas More) was afflicted with it, the Physicians of that University were amazed at it, as a new and unknown Disease; and not knowing what to do towards a Cure, he died under their hands: So that whatever others talk, and would feign reduce it to the old Stomacace and Sceletyrbe, i e. the Sore Mouth and Sore Legs of Pliny, yet questionless 'tis but of a late standing in the World; and of late years 'tis grown so much another thing, that 'tis in a manner wholly new. The Authors which writ of it given this account, That at its first appearance it broke forth in Sores and stinking Ulcers in the Mouth and Legs, looseness and falling out of Teeth, rotting of the Gums, debility of Legs and all the Limbs, Spots of all Colours upon the Skin, acting very much of the same kind of Tyranny with Scabs, Scurffs, and Ulcers of a malignant nature, as the French Pox did, which were not to be cured by old usual Remedies, but only by Specificks of a new invention. And as the Pox is said to have been discovered at first among the French (which yet Rondeletius 
Rondeletius, De Morbo Italico.  and other French Writers deny, and would cast the original upon the Italians) so this is fathered upon the Nations which lie Northerly, upon the Sea-coast of Denmark, Norway, Holland, and other parts of the Low-countrieses, where it fell foul upon Seafaring people, who carried it thence, together with Commodities of Trade, to other places, till it crept up into the Continent, especially among such as lived upon ill Diet, like that of Seamen, as salt Meats, salt Fish, etc. and in places watery and fenny and of a foggy Air. In this form it raged at first, in such places, and varied but little till it got more ground in the World. It was long ere it got into the warmer Climates of France, Spain, and Italy, in which Countries 'tis 
* See River. ●. Cent. Obs. 85.  rare to be seen at this day, as may be observed in Forestus, Fonseca, Piso, Riverius, and others; yet among them it is increasing, though it is never like to arrive at such a height there, as it is with us, the Germane, the Flemings, and others nearer the Pole, because their Blood is not so abounding with that Serosa Colluvies, which contributes so much towards the production of this Disease among us, and other Northerly people; but that which is most observable in every Country is, That now it but rarely discovers itself in its first garb of Symptoms external, but having gotten dominion inwardly, plays most of its pranks in the more noble parts of the Body; the reason whereof is doubtless this, because now it arises not only from ill Diet, bad Air, contagion by Contact, and the like Causes of corruption, as it did at first, but walks pari passu as the Pox did, stealing upon Mankind by way of seminal traduction from Father to Son, and is become hereditary; so that being as it were individually radicated in the very Principles of men's Bodies, it hath conspired with the Seminalities of the Pox, and both have joined their Malignant Forces, to bring a strange Metamorphosis upon the whole Frame of Nature in Mankind, and all the diseases thereto belonging: But of this I shall say more anon; In the interim, let it suffice to know, that it rambles about also in the habit of other distempers; so that if an odd-humored disease hap, it concerns the Physician, if he will be dextrous in curing, to exercise his skill first in discovering, whither such a disease have in it a Tincture of the Pox, or the Scurvy, or both; and then secondly, to invent such Remedies to have in readiness, as may hit either of these; but certainly such Remedies are best as have a power to strike at both, because (as Eugalenus in his Epistle to the Prince of Orange well observes) the Symptoms 
* Cum morbo Gallico paribus Passibus certare videtur, & Symptomaetum udrictate & similitudine.  of both have so neare a resemblance, that few Physicians are able to distinguish betwixt them. And as touching the great alteration of this Disease from its first Nature and Condition, because I would not be tedious, I shall given you only one Testimony, and but one Instance, the matter being obvious enough of itself. Hochstetterus, an Eminent Physician of Augsburg in Germany, in an Epistle of his to the Famous Horstius, shows how the Scurvy altered, as it got footing and time; for, it was so much another thing in High Germany from what it had been in the Lower, and other Parts more North, that in his days it was hardly so much as a 
* Vix umbram bahere nostrum Scorbutum cum Septentrionalium, intelligo.  shadow of what it had been among those Northern Men, according to the Description of Eugalenus, Wierus, Ronseus, Forestus; yea, and of Platerus, who did but transcribe out of them what he writes of this Particular, though he deliver it as his own. The Instance is but short, and 'tis taken out of the Bills of Mortality, which show both the increase of the Scurvy, and the Malignity of it; for, if you look back on former days about 30 years ago, the number reckoned to die of that Disease was but small, and year after year ever since it hath increased gradually. In the year 1630. the number was but 5. In 1631. 7.— 1632. 9— 1636. 25.— Afterwards, in the year 1647. the Account come up to 32.— In the year 1652. to 43.— In 1655. to 44.— In 1656. to 103.— And in the years ever since, they are numbered sometimes above 70, sometimes above 80, sometimes above 90, which signifieth, that the Disease is very much altered, being grown to a higher pitch of Malignity and Mortality than in former time. But you are to conceive withal, that the numbers so set down were only of such as died with manifest Tokens of the Scurvy, whereas many hundreds have died, and do die every year of Maladies, which radically and in the main are Scorbutic; yet because they are not discernible by vulgar Physicians, and others, have their lot to be registered under the Names of other Diseases; as will be further made evident before I end this Chapter.  
My next Observation shall be of the Ricketss, which is a Disease of a very late Original; for, Mr John Graunt, an ingenious Citizen of London, who lately wrote an excellent short Treatise of Observations upon the Weekly Bills of Mortality, hath observed, that we found in them no Mention of Ricketss till the year 1634: which agrees much with the time of its Original, set down by the Learned 
* De Rachitide.  Dr Glisson, who saith, it was discovered first in the West-parts of England, viz. in the Counties of Dorset, and Somerset, about 30 years ago, from whence it soon found the way to London, from whence it is now spread through all parts of England. About 20 or 25 years ago, though it were a grievous disease, yet not what it is now; It manifested itself by an over-growing of the Liver and Spleen, with a crookedness of the Legs, a bending in of the Hams, knotting of the Joints, overgrowth of the Head, a sinking of the Backbone, a narrowness of the Chest, and a general failing of the strength of all the Limbs: but in these days the Case is altered; sometimes some of these Symptoms appear, but not so frequent as formerly, and these cannot be reputed the only Pathognomical Signs of the disease, because it also, as well as the Pox and Scurvy, marcheth under the Colours of most other diseases; as the Hydrocephalus intra Cranium, i e. the Water in the Head, difficulty of Teething; the Asthma, or difficulty of Breathing; the Convulsion, Falling Sickness, Consumption, Hectic Fever, Malignant Fever, Slow Fever, Ague, Dropsy, King's Evil, and many more at present, and more like to be hereafter, when it shall by Tract of time arrive to be hereditary, (as it gins to be already) and join force with those Enemies which are the Seminal Products of Venereous and Scorbutic Agents. However, the Disease is even so much changed both in Symptoms and the effects of them, that it doth more and more mischief, by making greater destruction of Infants one year after an other: For, Mr Graunt hath shown out of the yearly Bills, that the Ricketss were never more numerous than now, and they are like to increase; for, in the year 1630. there died but 12 of it. In the year 1649. there died 190, the next year 260, next after that 329, and so forwards, with some little starting backward in some years, until the year 1660, which produced the greatest number of all, viz. 521. which is a great Advance in so few years from Number 12. But it is not to be attributed only to this, that the Disease is more spread abroad, but that it is also very much altered in its own Nature, to a more destructive condition: And being entered into a complication already with the Pox & the Scurvy, (as 
* Do Rachitide, cap. 20.  Dr Glisson acknowledgeth) it is in vain to attempt the curing of it with such Remedies and Rules as were used thirty or twenty years ago; because by experience we found they will not reach the Disease now, which points out to us, that men's brains aught to be working out new Notions and Medicines, as the only means (with God's blessing) to lessen the number of those little Innocents' which are yearly snatched away by an untimely death.  
Next, let us note the Consumption: which in the Bills of Mortality appears to be exceedingly increased, far beyond the proportion of the numbers of Inhabitants which have been added to this great City, the truth whereof will be clear to any that will take pains to compare the Bills since the year 1629. So that the extraordinary increase of this Malady must be attribured also to some other Cause than the increase of People; and what can that be, but the change of the Disease itself to be of another nature than heretofore? For it (for the most part) contemns all those large Pectoral Swills, long Syrups, and Electuaries, which were supposed to work wonders heretofore; the Phthisis is another kind of Phthisis; the Atrophy another kind of Atrophy; and the Hectic another manner of Hectic, than was in former days; and these three Species of a Consumption spring generally in this Age from one Root, which is in plain Terms no other but the Pox and Scurvy, either Hereditary or Adventitious; and those waste of the Body to a Skeleton, are wally the Effects and Monuments of their Treachery and Tyranny; so that he who will now a days cure a Consumption must strike at the Root, as well as regard the Circumstances, wherein little good is to be done likewise by the ordinary Anti-venereal Means and Courses, forasmuch as the usual Decoctions, Sweat, etc. do rather exasperated the Disease than militate against it.  
From the same Root likewise most commonly springs that Disease, which the Vulgar calls a Stopping of the Stomach, and it advanceth to a height in the same manner, both as to the severity wherewith it handles men and women, and the number which it kills: for, whereas it seems to be somewhat that is new, because we hear no News of it in our Bills till the year 1636. (as Mr Graunt reckons) and then but of 6. for that year, it in the year 1655. come to be 145.; and Anno 1657. it was raised to 277. In 1660. to 314. Which Proportions (saith he) exceed the difference of proportion generally arising from the increase of Inhabitants, and from the resort of Advenae to the City.  
There is another Disease which the people term the Rising of the Lights, and I am of his Opinion, that it is the same with that they call Hysterica Passio or the Mother, because it seizeth upon women (though men too sometimes have somewhat like it;) and it is evident enough, since 
* De Hysterica passion●.  Dr Highmore (a very industrious Learned Man) hath sufficiently shown, that the Lungs are the Part principally affected with that which hitherto hath been called a Fit of the Mother. But (saith Graunt) be these Rise what they will, they have much increased beyond the general proportion; for in the year 1629. there died but 44. and in the year, 1660, 249. viz. almost six times as many; and whereas the Ricketss, the Stops, and Rising (so called) have all increased together, and in some kind of correspondent Proportions, it seems to me (saith he) that they depend upon one another. And I say, any man in reason will conclude as much; and that they are all three but Pullulations of the Scurvy, and its most Scurvy Companion, if we consider that all Authors de Scorbuto reckon a difficulty of breathing and straightening of the breast, to be one of its most constant Symptoms: And me thinks, what Sennertus hath 
* Pract. l. 3. part. 5. Sect. 2. c. 4.  written doth very much illustrate this; for vicious and malignant vapours being raised in the lower Belly, especially about the Spleen, in the Stomach, and about the Midriff, and in the Cavity of the Omentum, must needs, while they continued there, hinder that free motion of the Midriff which is necessary for Respiration: In like manner also, vicious humours distending the Spleen and the Parts adjoining, may compress the Midriff, just as persons hydropic, and women with child, or others that are from any cause tun-bellied, are brought to a straitness and a difficulty of breathing, while in the mean time the Patients complain not at all of the Breast, but point out the place affected under the Midriff about the region of the Stomach, as is evident by the Report of Eugalenus, and by every days experience; which is enough to evince, from whence that Malady which they term a stopping of the Stomach, hath its original viz. either from the Scorbutic humours, or vapours.— But Sennertus goes on, and gives us some light to derive the other, called a Rising of the Lights, from the like playing of Scorbutic malignant vapours up through the Veins and Arteries to the Lungs, and by communication thence to the Heart, and this upon the lest commotion or unusual motion of the mind or body: which being the cause also of that Distemper which hath been hitherto supposed to be seated in the Mother, it is evident enough, that the increase of the Scurvy hath made a change also of these Distempers, as it hath done by divers other, and consequently that the old Remedies respecting the Lungs, the Stomach, and the Mother, will do little good in these Cases; and that is the reason why so many Physicians are mistaken in what they prescribe, and so their Patients loose both their Cost and their Labour.  
The Convulsion also is a Disease now of another nature than formerly; In former years, it slew its half hundreds of children, now its many Hundreds in a year; for the Bills tell you that Anno 1629. there died but 52. which in 1636. grew to 709. keeping about that stay till 1659. though sometimes rising to about 1000, as the Estimate is made by the same ingenious Observator: to which I may add, that in the year 1662. they risen to 1053. and in the year 1663. they fell back, and were only 1011. which great increases cannot be attributed to the increase of children (who are the parties most afflicted with it) because the numbers of New Comers into the world are not advanced in any considerable proportion to answer so great an Increase of the Mortality; but it must be ascribed rather to the great Alteration of the Disease itself, which requires other Notions to proceed by, and other things than old Methods and Means to cure this so general a Destroyer.  
The Small Pox and Measles must not be judged by the Bills, as the rest are, because in some years they become epidemical, and then the slaughter they make falls out (more or lesle) according to the malignity of the particular seasons: but the observation to be made of them is when they are sporadical, here and there sprinkled up and down among the people, in those years which have not any such general Malignity above other years; and then consider, that as they seize but upon a few people, so of those few there die many more, and those of them that escape do much more hardly escape, than in former times, both those Diseases being attended with more dreadful and more dangerous Symptoms: which being obvious to every Nurse, it is needless to insist further thereupon than to let you know, that most of those which miscarry, die partly for want of some more generous Remedies than the Shops yield; and partly through the inadvertency of Physicians, who do not calculate their Prescriptions to meet with that Serosa Colluvies of Saline, and acid humours, with which the blood of Mankind (especially in these North-parts of the world) is both by propagation and by intemperance of Diet and Luxury exceedingly tainted: the extraordinary active Fermentation and Ebullition whereof, when corrupted, is the Cause why Agues, Fevers, Smallpox, Measles, and all that hath any thing of Fever in it, proves so difficult, or so deadly. In the days of Hypocrates and Galen, the Smallpox and Measles were either altogether unknown, or else so light and easy, that they were never reckoned as particular diseases among the Grecians, but looked on as Accidents only, and Critical Eruptions supervening putrid and Malignant Fevers: And in aftertime we hear no such News of them, till the Arabians began to describe the Small Pox as a Disease distinct from others; but then they were very gentle, and thus continued till about 40. years ago, and lesle. Just so, Riverius tells us, it was in the West-indieses till the Spaniards arrived there, and then it happened that a Black Slave sickening of the Small Pox with Pestilential Symptoms, the malign and venomous quality thereof being communicated by contagion to others, the Distemper began to rage at such a height, that a great part of the Indian's were destroyed by it, though so mild before, that it was not reputed worth the Trouble of Physic or Physicians.  
I might swell a Discourse up to a Volume, should I insist upon every Disease; as the Arthritis Vaga Scorbutica, which being sprung up of late years, a Consequent of the Scurvy, is called by the people the Running Gout, and grows ●●orse and worse continually: I might touch upon its elder Brother the Gout, which though not so frequently knotty a formerly, hath made an exchange 〈◊〉 other Symptoms, and seizeth a greater part of Men than heretofore, not sparing young Men more than old: Also the Rheumatism, which is a quite different thing from that which is described by Galen; so likewise are most of our Palsies; to say nothing of our common Coughs, Catarrhs, Toothache, and many other Diseases, which are very much altered to the worse, so that the vulgar Remedies avail little against them. But I am willing to make an end of this Subject here, that which I had a mind to prove being manifest enough, viz. That all manner of Diseases are altered from their old State, and become almost wholly new; forasmuch as I shall in the next Chapter convey more light into the Truth of this Position.   

CHAP. III An Inquiry into the Causes of the Alteration of Diseases from their ancient State and Condition.  
THis Subject not having been handled to purpose by any that I know of, and there being but a short hint given in the former Chapter, that the French Pox and the Scurvy, by their Invasions made upon the Universality of Mankind, have been the two Main Causes of the Alteration; it will be worth the while to make a Scrutiny into the certainty of the thing. It is a matter that I suppose may, at first, sounded harsh in the Ears of some people, because of the good opinion they have of Themselves, their Families and Progenitors; and therefore they will be loathe to admit it probable, that any Tincture of such a nature should be gotten into their Blood; but, by that time I have done this Chapter, I believe I shall given them ground to apprehended all this may come about, and yet with a Salvo to their honesty. The only person before me in Print that touched this double Cause of the Alteration of Diseases, was one 
* The Title of the Treatise, is, Lues Venerea, published. Anno 1659.  Doctor John Wynel, whose design in writing was not so much to particularise the manner how so great an Alteration is come about, but he aims only at the description of the Pox, a new way of Cure for it, and lastly how many secret ways it may be communicated or spread abroad; which last part of his Discourse tends to illustrate the truth of what I purpose to make out, viz. the new Specification or change of nature, which it hath bestowed upon all other Diseases: Only in his Preface he hath a few Hints concerning this, but very short, the Body of his Discourse bending to another End; but he saith withal, that the consideration of this general mischief wrought by the Pox, was one reason which induced him to writ of the nature of it, etc. I shall here transcribe the words of his Preface, because they make much to my purpose. One occasion of my Writing (saith he) was my observing the stupendious growth and spreading of two depopulating Diseases, the Venereous and the Scurvy; and enquiring thereupon into their effects, in the yearly Bills of Mortality, I found them so benign, that it gave me occasion to admire the mystery of concealment: I observed the Consumption to have slain its Thousand, and the Venereous Disease scarce its Hundreds: I concluded thereupon, that Dolus latet in generalibus, Consumptions Back is broad enough to bear such Mocks: I perceived also, that the Scurvy had scarce a constant name in the kill Catalogue, though it destroy more than any Ten of its Fellows; but the Dropsy, Fevers of many kinds, etc. have great numbers dead at their Feet. I concluded thence, Filiae devorârunt Matrem. I observed also the Mortality and pining of Families, their Generations gasping, and soon run out, one treading on the heels of another, which made me to inquire what should be the occasion; I accused their pampering diet, effeminate education, premature marriage, and indiscreet covetousness in taking a weak, crooked, or rickety Woman (for her Portion) to be Mater-familias. But my thoughts reasoning against the sufficiency of this enumeration, as not of sufficient consideration, they carried me with greatest reason to contemplate their Diseases; and finding the Venereous Disease among them, I was strong in my conjecture, that this Malady, traduced in the Seed of Parents, and Milk of Nurses, hindering Nature from accomplishing her intent of perfection, hath brought this calamity upon Families, Haeret Semini lethalis Arundo.  
I observed further, that hereby one principal end of Marriage, to propagate a strong, healthy, and numerous posterity, sit to traduce the being, name, and memory of Parents, to such an eternity as their mortal condition is capable of, was much made voided: For, in this wanton, painting, patching, perfuming, Issuing Age, a man knows not whom or what he takes to himself or his Son in Marriage, a Blessing, or a Curse, whereby not only our own Bodies are endangered and damnified, but Posterity primarily, fundamentally corrupted, extirpated, hearts of yoak-fellows alienated, Jealousy let in, and indeed an uncomfortable life together, because they cannot get asunder, like two Dogs in a Chain ever snarling, and all because the abuseful deceit in Marriage manet altâ ment repostum.  
I observed also, that all Pretenders to Physic gave out a more than ordinary Skill in the Venereous Cure; yet scarce one Patient of Ten went of from them sounded, as by relapses it too ordinarily appears. I was therefore led to believe, that either the ignorance of the Disease, or shamefacedness to discover it, made them carry it about them too long; or else the ignorance of such as they applied themselves to, or the impatience of the Patients to bear a Cure, gave the Disease this advantage: For, though by Palliation the dolorous Symptoms were baffled, yet the virulent Cause was left behind in the dark, deep in their Spirits and Bones, to make future work for the Physician. Hereby their Patients are deceived, who not being able to judge, think better of their Discovery than is meet and safe, and found by sad experience, that (the next evoking Season) the Disease having gotten strength by lying in Trenches, breaks forth more dangerous than it was at its first Onset. My Scope therefore in publishing this Treatise, is, to present a good office to the world, by entering the Lists with this Champion. And since this Enemy plays small Game also, and is come down so low as the Spinster, I have therefore made him speak plain English, (not without due respect to Modesty and better Understandings) that ordinary Capacities may be able to judge of their own Condition by their own light, and in season look out for relief, before captivity, and the further Enervation of their own Bodies. For, though people of both Sexes may be privy to their own personal integrity, yet what lurks in their humours from Parent's Seed, or Nurse's Milk, they are ignorant of: And, however no present Symptoms thereof discover it to themselves, much lesle to others; yet the Foams of it often and long lying obscure, doth traduce a present defilement in Generation to Posterity.  
I have read many Authors on this Subject, and found satisfaction in noon. I perceive, that on this, as on other Subjects, they too much tread in the steps of their Ancestors, and rest in their Dictates without further Inquiry, swelling their Volumes with Transcriptions into their own Methods, which serve to fill man's Libraries with much paper, and but few Books. Thus far He concerning the Pox; whereby it appears, I am not single in my conceptions touching the Alteration that it hath made in other Diseases. He there tells us also, that he had the same thoughts touching the Scurvy, and promised to writ the like Treatise concerning It, which I perceive he hath not yet performed, though doubtless very much might have been said to purpose by so learned and ingenious a Pen. It shall be my part therefore to enlarge upon that Hint which he gave in his Preface, touching the Influence which the Seminalities of the Pox have by intermixture with other Maladies; and likewise to supply what he hath yet forborn to writ, touching the like ●nfluence of the Scurvy. In order whereunto, I shall reduce my Discourse to several Heads, and show, that both the Venereal and Scorbutic Miasma have gained ground in the world five several Ways, viz. 1. By Carnal Contact, 2. By ill Cures, 3. By accidental Contagion, 4. by Hereditary Propagation, 5. By Lactation.  
1. By Carnal Contact. This being a matter evident by every day's observation, that the Mutual Attrition of Bodies in that Bestial Act, is the ready common Road of communicating the Pox from one to another, I suppose it were time lost to insist upon it, and it may with more purpose be spent to manifest a Truth of much importance to be laid open for the security of Mankind, which it concerns all men to take notice of; and it is this: That after the committing of that Folly with an unwholesome Person, though there appear no Sign nor Symptom of a Disease for the present, yet it may be latent and lurkking within the Body, many years, before it make any discovery of itself either in its own nature, or in the disguise of other Diseases. This may be proved many ways; for, it is frequently observed, that Common Women who have long lived in that wicked course of Prostitution, have many years continued without any manifest effect of the Malignity of that Disease upon their own Bodies, and yet the Disease lurking within hath enabled them to infect (it may be) some Hundreds of others. And the like hath been observed of men infecting women, yet those men not privy to the sense or knowledge of any Infection actually resident within themselves, though otherwise they know they have sufficiently deserved it: which one would think should be sad News to all the Strikers of both Sexes, to hear that even in this world there can be no security from the punishment of this Sin; 'tis commonly but Touch and Take; and if any offend, though but once, they may be surprised by the venom; and if they should perhaps scape free from the Taint, yet 'tis rare; and here lies the misery, they are not sure that they are so. But that you may not wonder how this can come about, that some are made sad examples of the Infection, and others not; and that some that practise wickedness most of their days seem sounded even to old Age, while upon others, after but one Coition, the Disease breaks out with violence; or why some Sinners seeming sounded oh themselves, are yet infectious to their Copesmates; I tell you in the language of Dr Wynel, it may be ascribed to many Causes.  
1. To the various Dispositions of Bodies; for, some are more prove to this, or that Disease, and therefore take it sooner, because Nature makes lesle resistance: which also is the reason that they who have any part of their bodies weaker than other, do receive a Disease sooner in that part: For example, let a man that hath the Gout be venereously infected, and he shall found it more to prevail and afflict him in his Feet. So on him that hath weak eyes, if this Pocky Disease supervene, his eyes are sooner and more afflicted than other parts: And the Truth is, the more infirm any person is in the Spermatick Vessels and Members of Generation, the more easily the Infection makes its way to the Blood, Humours, Spirits, and Parts of the Body, and the whole Body suffers under its Tyranny; but if the Body be strong, then the Venom is kept under in a lurking state, till the vigour of nature decaying either by intemperance, or either by Time, or by the invasion of some other Diseases, it takes thereupon an opportunity to break lose, and show itself in its own Colours, or the disguise of some other Malady that joins Issue with it.  
2. Carelessness, Sordidness in neglecting their own Bodies, is another Cause; 
For Modesty's sake these passages are put in Latin  Qui enim post Coitum, ab Inquinamentis & Sordibus, rationabiliter & more debito seipsos mundificant, vel sciunt hoc ritè peragere, rariùs hoc morbo capiuntur; quum alii, se negligentes, vel modum hujus operis ignorantes, dum Illuviem adhaerere permitttunt, citiùs & immaniùs correpti poenas luunt: Indeed, though an internal Taint (more or lesle) be scarce ever avoided by any, yet cleanliness ex post facto is a great means to prevent the virulent eruptions of a Gonorrhaea, Exulcerations, and other sad effects in and about the Genitalss.  
3. In congressu carnali di● ac multùm immorari, ad virulentam Infectionem & violentam plurimùm conducit; qui enim impuris corporibus immersi detinentur, & post S●tietatem, proprer libidinis E●stasin multùm instammantur, unicâ saliem Coitionis vice peract● contagium suscipiunt; qui verò statim abscedunt, minùs inflammati, haud ità facilè coinquinantur.  
4. Quo flagrantiùs libidine exardescunt, &, equorum instar, igneo Spermate stimulati remferociùs affectant, eo citiùs homines labem contrahunt, & crudelitas morbi per Signa manifestior evadit; atque inde est, quòd tot è Juniorum censu tam subitò infecti redeant; quoniam ob victum nimis liberalem & Spermaticum turgentiores facti, juventutis Ardoribus ac Libidinis unà coeuntibus, magna flamma accenditur, adeò ut de majori & magis Vrente parùm solliciti, minimè timeant. Atque idem dictum sit de ijs etiam, qui Veneris palaestrâ minùs exercitati fuerint, qui siquando rem obtineant, impetu vehementiore properantes celeriùs inquinantur, eò quod Spiritibus fervidioribus ad genitalia copiosè confluentibus, ardore eorum ac violentiâ Ductus Spermatici plurim●m dilatentur, ut patentior fiat via veneno.  
5. In a word; This Disease takes and breaks forth with some more than others, either because it finds weak Bodies full of corrupt humours, bodies passively disposed, and hereby it hath opportunity to domineer most; or else the Disease is a Relapse, and finds Nature yielding, and renewed and ingeminated Diseases ever appear worst: Or sometimes other Diseases fallen in are joined with it, one Disease drawing on another congenerous; and Diseases the more complicate, so much the worse they are. Besides, the new Disease falls in when Nature is weak, low, and languishing, so that its expulsive Faculty cannot keep out, nor drive of the Diseases new or old. This Disease falls sometimes but gently on the Hair, sometimes on the Nerves, and causes all manner of Palsies, Cramps, Convulsions, Toothache, Pains in the Limbs, Gouts of all sorts, Lamenesses, general Debility, etc. Sometimes on the Bones, sometimes on the fleshy parts, whence come Leprosies, Scurfs, Scabs, Ulcers, knotty Swell, and the like: Sometimes on the Brain, whence come Sore Eyes, Rheums, Catarrhs, Epilepsies, etc. Sometimes on the Lungs, whence come Asthmaes, Coughs, Phthisical Consumptions, etc. and so, many other Diseases, too long to describe; And all this variety, because the several Parts respectively are more disposed and propense to receive the impression of the Disease, or because they do lesle repel it.— Thus that which Physicians say of the Fever, that sometimes it falls on the Humours, sometimes on the Spirits, and sometimes on the Solid Parts, as they are more disposed to Inflammation, or do lesle resist that Flame, may as truly be said of this Disease.  
6. You may observe, that Men of Drier, Harder, and Colder Bodies, are lesle subject to this Disease, as labouring men, poor men, and old men. I have read it observed, that the Venom doth not often discover itself upon the Turks; and the reason suggested is, for that their Bodies are more Hard and Dry, and consequently their Genitalss.  
7. There is Cause arising likewise from particular Constitutions, why this Disease is so various; and (to speak in the Galenick phrase, because that passeth best to common Capacities) I observe the Choleric are soon touched; the Melancholic most afflicted; the Sanguine make best resistance to Infection, and are best cured; and the Phlegmatic have it lurking longest in their humours: which suits exactly with the Saying of 
* De Lue Ven. l. 32. Obs. 3.  Forestus, who tells us, The Disease is one thing when 'tis in a Sanguine person; another, when 'tis in a Choleric; another thing when 'tis in a Melancholic; and so men are more speedily or more rarely made Examples of its cruelty: which is no more than what was said also by 
* De Morb Contag. l. 2. c. 14.  Fernelius before him, as you may read at large. And as this is true in reference to Constitutions in general, so 'tis observed, that people who are neare of a Constitution, infect one another the more quickly and dangerously. This also Fernelius shows in the same Chapter, Veluti si Biliosus cum Biliosâ concubuerit: And as 
* Pract. l. 6. part. 3. cap. 3.  Sennertus is large upon this Point, so he gives a Reason of it; for, saith he, You are to consider the Body infecting and infected, and there is required in all Contagion, a likeness betwixt the Contagious Body and that which receives the Contagion; and he intimates, that where such a likeness is not, there the Body that is in hazard operates Antipathetically by its natural vigour against the other that would infect it; but in what thing either this Antipathy, or this Likeness doth consist, no man (saith he) can declare in a satisfactory manner; because those occult qualities of Bodies, and the essential Forms from which they flow, are not discoverable by ●● in this dark state of Mankind, nor any way to be discerned but by their effects. Now that the Effect is really so betwixt Sinners of a Complexion, will easily be observed by those Many that have opportunity to observe things, in their lose way of Conversation and Licentious Living. Zacutus Lusitanus, that Learned Jew, hath said as much as any to the same purpose; but goes further than others, and undertakes to show ways whereby Infection may be prevented. [
* Z●cut. Prax. Hist. l. 2. c. 1. p. 6●.  Sed si hoc negotium attentius expendatur, inveniemus p●●res Cautiones, & Auxilia; quorum benesicio quispiam post concubitum, à Gallico veneno immunis evadat. Primò ergo, oportet ut post Venerem, in quâ non multùm immoretur, abluat totum pudendum aquâ calidâ, denudato praeputio, & hoc per octavam horae partem saciendum, idque manè & serò, bidui spatio. Hoc praesidio superstites à tantâ labe persaepe e●adunt Mulieres, panniculos ex gosrypio in calida aqua abundè madidos immittentes. Quòd si haec praestò non sint, protinus genitalia urina lavabis. Balneum toti corpori adhibitum summopere prodest, maximè si cum infecto vel necessitate coactus, vel inscius quis cubaverit. Vinum etiam calidum in hunc usum mirificè confert. Verùm Aqua aliis liquoribus est praestantior; resolvit enim, ardorem temperat, mitigat dolorem, & non exsiccat.] The English of which is to be locked up from the eyes of common Readers, partly for modesty's sake, and partly because such Cautions may prove an encouragement to wickedness; though I believe them (for the most part) ineffectual; and he himself doth as good as acknowledge it in the same Page: for 
* Veluti Impossibile est, posse inveniri remedium quod Contagii vim ex toto resringat, etc.  (saith he), In the Venereal Congress, the heat being excited by Motion, a great ebullition of Spirits and Humours following thereupon, and the Passages of the Body being made more open, it is in a manner impossible, that any means should be found out, that may totally break and repress the force of the Contagion, so as to hinder its being communicated to the neighbouring vessels, or its passing on to the other Parts: So that if his Directions and Cautions should at any time prevail, to prevent present Inconveniences usually befalling the Genitalss, and the Spermatick and Urinary Vessels, yet the Venom may steal on insensibly, and seat itself in the most hidden and substantial parts, to act its part, by way of Sally and Surprise, in the form of some other Diseases in the future. And the same Author hardly grants any possibility of Women-strikers escaping, because they are the Receivers of Impurity; and though their Menstrual Purgations may carry of part of the peccant Humours, and so relieve them in part, yet their Bodies being more feeble, and liable to more Diseases than Men, miserable Consequents are frequently seen to afflict them; and that is the reason why those other Diseases that are peculiar to the Sex, which were commonly curable heretofore, do now defy all the old Courses and Remedies of Physic, so that the non-consideration of the Causes of this great Change, and the not fitting of Medicines agreeable thereto, is the main Cause why they are become the Shame of our Profession. I might be much more copious; but this is enough to show, how slily this Infection many times steals into the Body, and how silently it may lodge there, without any manifestation of its Venom in the person, and yet that person may by Carnal Coition impart it to another, who may be otherwise affected, and have visible Symptoms breaking out; and to say truth, these are more happy, because they are alarmed to look out for a Cure, while the other through security neglect it, and so the Disease becomes naturalised in them, working itself into the whole habit of the Body; and then what Diseases soever the Body is most inclinable to, in the form of those Diseases it usually appears: And so, since the time that the universality of Men have been infected, Diseases generally are altered, and are rarely cured without Remedies that will meet with them in the Point of their Origination, and reach the root of the Matter.  
Now, as it fares thus with Mankind by the Pox, so in every respect also by the Scurvy, which is a Disease every jot as much propagated by carnal Contact, as the other, though it be a matter lesle taken notice of: For, all 
* Horstius, Sennertus. Re●j●erus, Forestus, and the rest.  Authors that writ of it, reckon it in the number of Infectious Diseases: They all agreed likewise, that it may be, and is, transmitted hereditarily from Fathers to Children, or by clotheses, or by kissing, or other ordinary ways of Conversation; and if it may pass by such slight means, then the Argument holds à fortiori, that its Infection may pass much sooner and more fully by Venereal Intermixture. in the clearing of which Assertion, I shall be more punctual by and by. In the mean while, it is evident enough, that this Disease passeth by the mutual Act of Male and Female, even from this one Observation, that wherever either of the Mates is scorbutically tainted, the other never escapes, but catches the Taint more or lesle, and so, like the Pox, discovers itself more or lesle according to the variety of the Tempers and Distempers of the Bodies on which it seizeth; or else not at all, till through decay of nature, or by some other Accident, it hath opportunity to show itself in its own Colours, or in the garb of other Diseases. If any think he hath reason to gainsay this, let him first observe the Course of things, before he oppose it.  
II The Venereous and Scorbutic Taint hath gotten much ground in the world, through ill management of Cures, or insufficient ways of Curation: As for the Pox, the Custom hath been to run to any Pretender for a Cure of it; and those Physicians that do meddle with it, do (most of them) handle it as ill as the rest, because they make use of the common Scope and Remedies in curing, so that they both mistake the way, and have not means wherewith to carry the Patient safe to his Journeys end, forasmuch as the pretended Cure very often proves worse than the Disease, destroys the Constitution, and creates or exasperates some other Disease, either which was not in being there before, or which was but beginning, if it had a being.  
Some of the common ways are mentioned by the foresaid Dr to be these:  
1. The cheap-poor-whore-Cure, by Fontanelles or Issues, taken up from the practice of the poorer Spaniards, among whom it is in common use, whereby nature finds some ease, disburthening part of the purulent matter, but the Foams is left within, to tender their condition the more deplorable; And here one thing is to be observed, that Issues prevailed not much in the practice of Physic, until this Disease broke into Europe.  
2. By Mercurial Unguent, which may serve for Carriers, and Porters, and other robustious Bodies; and yet, even in them the Consequents tender it perilous, if not pernicious. I know, some are so ignorant and audacious, that they make it their ordinary Champion, setting upon every Venereous Patient with this dreadful Remedy, as if no cure could be dispatched without it; the effects of whose boldness many have mournfully carried to their graves. What this Unguent is, I need not express; its Composition is better known than trusted to, or delighted in, by Artists: for, this Unguent rubbed on the Palms of the Hands and the Plants of the Feet, etc. is speedily carried to the Head, as appears by the Floods of Salivation, with other dreadful Symptoms, that follow the use of it.  
3. By Mercurial Cinabar-Fume, which is yet more formidable, and to such as have pectoral Diseases, short Breath, ill-affected Lungs, Distillations, weak Bowels, Colic Pains, and Dysenteries, it is pernicious; for, use what care you c●n, the Mercurial Air will get into the Chest. And though great Pretenders may promise' security in its use, yet it is no wisdom to adventure your person, upon every one's bold rash and ignorant confidence: Fierce Accidents will fall in; bold Undertakers will promise' much, and perform little, and adventure upon what they cannot govern, therefore must needs abuse themselves and their Patients. I say not this to decry the right use of Mercury; for, take away Mercury, Antimony, and Vitriol, and you leave the Armoury of Physic reproachfully weak.  
4. By Salivation procured by Medicines inwardly taken, which, though it be the best of all the ordinary ways, yet as it is managed by most Chirurgeons, and others, generally it is attended with Symptoms almost as ill as any of the other; and all for want of such Medicines as will do the work of Salivation, without those tedious and intolerable afflictions of swollen Head, lose Teeth, sore and swollen Mouth, Tongue, and Throat, etc. and the Malign Impressions thereby left when the work is over, which very few claw of all their Days after.  
The committing of persons to be cured of this Disease by common and ignorant persons, is that which Dr 
* De Vulgi Erroribus, l. 1. cap. 16.  Primrose cries out upon, among the Vulgar Errors, Credit being given to any that will brag, and promise to make a Cure within 10. or 12. days, and yet allow men their liberty; which draws men in, especially such as have Business to follow; and when all is done, instead of a through-Cure, they gain no more but a Palliation of their Pains and other ill Symptoms, for a season, when as the Minera of the Disease remains still within, the more deeply rooted, and in time brings forth the bitter Fruits of sorrow, repentance, the old Disease, and new One's to attended it. Therefore that the common sort of Receipt-mongers should undertake the Management of this Cure, and that the wealthier sort of men should so readily venture their Bodies into their Hands, shows the blind Boldness of the one, and the marvellous Indiscretion of the other. I will grant, 'tis possible an ordinary man may, by Tradition from his Master or a Friend, be acquainted with a Method very good and sufficient in general against this Disease, and he may do some Cures with it, as we see is done sometimes in Hospitals, where they have one Customary way of Cure for all Comers (which it concerns the Overseers of those places to rectify) but that such a man should think himself fit, with such a Traditional Method, and the Credit of having cured some by it, to undertake the Cure in all Cases, is terrible to consider, since every rational Practiser knows, there is so great a variety in the Pox itself, respecting the nature of the Venom, and other Qualifications of the Body in which 'tis seated, that in a Thousand Bodies infected you shall not found two that are alike Circumstantiated, or that yield Concurrents so alike, as that there will arise thence the like Indication for Cure in the one, as in the other; or that the same Method and Medicines may be used to one as to another, without prejudice and damage; which frequently happens to be so great, that instead of curing the Pox, they exasperated it, and often precipitate Man's Bodies in this delicate Age, into other destoying Diseases, be it pocky Consumption, or what other name you please to given unto a lingering wasting Malady; the truth of which is evident by every day's observation upon nice and weakly Bodies, when they come under these Traditional Curers and Cures; whereas the ill Consequence of a Cure not rightly Calculated to the particular condition of a Patient, is not so often manifested, where the Patient is of a robust Body and strong Constitution; for such a one cannot easily be undone by an Error, but makes a shift to run all hazards through the hard Chapter of any ordinary means, and carry away somewhat like a Cure. I might be copious in Instances to confirm this from my own Observation; but that not being fit to be done, you may s●e enough in the Observations of Horstius, Zacutus, Riverius, and others, in whom you will found (as we say in our English Proverb) What is one mens' Meat, may be another Man's Poison what cured one of the Pox was destructive to another; those w●● Men ever varying the way and means of curing, according to the nature of the Person and Disease that they were to deal with: The want of which Knowledge and Prudence is a Cause why the Pox, instead of being cured, hath been only palliated, and under disguise gained such footing in the world, that it paseth every where with the name of other Diseases.  
Nor do that Common Sort of Undertakers err only in their pretended way of curing the Pox, when 'tis inveterate and confirmed, but they stumble and do as much mischief in the very beginning, when 'tis but a Clap (as they call it) a virulent running of the Reinss, etc. For, at first taking, the Disease lodgeth in the outparts, viz. the Urinary and Spermatick Vessels, and doubtless aught to be sent back the same way that it come in, as is evident by the immediate cure that some, as soon as they have been clap't, have procured to Themselves, by repeated Coitions with sounded Women; and some I have known to glory in this Villainy of debauching that Sex in order to a Cure; and therefore doubtless such Medicines are most proper as work in Analogy hereto, cleansing the Uriters and Vessels destined to Generation, rather than those iterated Purgations which emptying the more internal parts, make room for the Venom, and so relieve the ways of Urine and Sperm, by drawing it thence up into the Body, to take its walk through the Blood and Bowels; and this being the common way of proceeding, then when Men reckon they are relieved from the Clap, the Disease is but translated to other Places, where it in time improves the possession it so gets, and at length seizeth the most abstruse and solid parts, vitiating the whole habit of the Body, and putting on the Visor of such other Diseases as the person is most inclinable to; yea, and very mysteriously running in a Blood afterwards from Generation to Generation: So that it appears, the Common Undertakers do more mischief in their pretended curing of Claps, than they can do in attempting the Disease when 'tis become inveterate, and deserves the name of Pox. Let me conclude this therefore with the Sense of 
* Vbi supra.  Dr Primrose, who observes the Error of the People, to think, that Physicians are not so proper Artists for the Cure of this Disease, and upon supposal of this, they commit themselves to the ignorance and odd Medicines of common men, that will promise' them cure in a few days without hindrance of business or pleasure, as if this Subtle Enemy were a Disease so sleight, that it might be cured without observation of rule in Eating, Drinking, Exercise, or Recreation; whereas there are no Remedies in Nature that will worm out this Disease without regular abstinence and observance; for otherwise, the force of Medicines will be broken. Moreover, we are here, as in other Ails, to have a respect to the variety of Man's Bodies, and of the Age and Nature of the Venom, in proportion whereto a choice aught to be made of Remedies, or else 'tis no wonder, if so many Patients are undone instead of being cured; this Serpentine Evil in the mean time insinuating itself into the Blood, Liquors, Spirits, Ferments, and most abstruse parts of the Body, where it becomes quasi Altera Natura, as it were Another Nature, altering All, and bestowing a kind of new Specification upon every thing within the little world of Man; so that 'tis no wonder, if Diseases and all things else become new. I might be larger in showing how much the ill Cures that are in use have contributed toward the Universal spreading of the Pox in its various Seminalities and Disguises; but a word to the wise is enough.  
I have a word also touching the ill Cures of the Scurvy in common use.  
1. Against Phlebotomy. This Disease also walks abroad in so concealed a manner, that it is not discernible by any but a judicious eye, and letting of Blood is grown so common, that too many by this French Mode of Blooding make it like the Prologue to the Tragedy, the necessary Praeludium of Cure in most Cases that come under their Hands; and so, seeing there are but few Cases wherein there is not somewhat of Scorbuticism mixed, I could willingly writ a Trea●ise touching the mischiefs done by bleeding in most Diseases, in these North-parts of the world, as well as Agues and Fevers; in the mean time, I say, the frequent opening of Veins is the Bane of our own Nation, and that it aught not to be admitted, unless it be in some few Cases of Urgency, but not in every Case of Turgencie; which is too frequently done, and is too wide a Subject here to enlarge upon, otherwise you should have Reasons enough for my Assertion. At present, take this hint only, that if it be true, (since the Liver is turned out of the office of Sanguification) that Sanguis Sanguificat, Blood makes Blood of the Chyle, and doth it▪ ad modum Tincturae, then if the Blood be so degenerous, flat and weak, as it is in some Scorbutic Bodies, or extreme Acid, or Salty, as it is in other Scorbuticks, that it cannot given a true generous impregnating Tincture to the Chyle, so as to tender it good Blood, it follows then that every addition of new Chyle, receives a vicious Tincture, and doth, instead of Blood, furnish the Veins with Humours, either Vapid, Acid, or Saline; and so if by opening a Vein, that Crimson liquor, which gives the sanguifying qualification and Tincture, be diminished, the consequence must needs be most pernicious in such Bodies as the aforesaid, because in them the Crimson liquor is but little, and the other exotic humours are abundant, and though much of these may be let out by Blood-letting, yet that will not compensate the loss of a very little of the other, because the other is that which hath in itself the vital power of sanguifying the Chyle, as it passeth along the Vessels, and seeing upon it the work depends, it must needs be, that when any part of the little is drawn forth, that which remains behind is more apt to be diluted with the peccant Humours which accompany it, than able to transmute the Chyle, which through want of being made good Blood, degenerates, and so every day adds more to the heap of those Scorbutic Humours, because they being most abundant and prevalent, turn all into their own acid, vapid, or salty Nature; even as a Vessel of Vinegar makes Vinegar of the best Wine, or a Vessel of dead Wine makes bad the best Wine that can be added to it; and thus the whole Habit of the Body comes to be mortified, rather than nourished and invigorated, which is so much the more to be lamented, since the inconvenience and damage done by Blooding such People seems irreparable, and yet nothing more commonly practised than Bleeding, by virtue of the old Doctrines and Directions; which are almost quite out of doors in this new State of Mankind.  
2. Nor doth the Scorbutic Adversary gain ground only by Bleeding but as much also by improper means of Purgation, among which may be reckoned the Pills, Electuaries, Powders, and Infusions, reputed Classical and Authentic, which work by offensive irritation of Nature, rather than an amicable Close with her, as may be seen by Aristotle's Description of the manner of Purgative Operation; for, as in his days, they had no other Purgers, so the great Masters of the Faculty which have been ever since, have very little mended the Matter as may be seen by the several Pharmacopeia's Authorised in the world, out of all which I do profess I cannot pick one Composition proper to purge Scorbutical Humours in so gentle and effectual a manner as they aught to be, but instead of being evacuated, they are the more exasperated thereby, and contract the greater acrimony—. Nor is it thus only with the Shop-purgers, but even by the ordinary Diet-Drinks used in Families Spring and Fall, much mischief is done, because people rest upon them, and instead of clearing the body of Scorbutic Humours, they drain the best Juices down through the common Sinkhole, not being of power enough to enter into the secret Closets of the remote and solid Parts, thence to solicit away the offending Foams of the Malady by Stool, and given part of it (which aught to be done at the same time also) a transpiration or Breathing through the Skin; but 'tis not any of the common Medicines that will act both these Intentions—. The like error also is committed by man's running to the Wells: not that I condemn the use of the Wells absolutely in Scorbutic Cases, especially such as have a Mine of Iron to feed them, whose water (as that of Tunbridge) hath in such Cases done much good; but I blame the customary recourse to the other which have not so good a Mine, which in many Constitutions I have known exceedingly to fret and exasperated the salty and acid parts of the blood and humours of men so constituted, and so they return thence with more work for a Physician, whose advice they had better have taken before they went to those places. The truth is, though Purgation be necessary to be used in this Cure, yet it must be gentle, and performed by Specificks, which are but few good One's in use; and the main of the Cure must be managed by such Alteratives as will dulcifie the Blood; and they must respect likewise the Seminals of the Pox as well as the Scurvy, else little good will be done, these two being inseparably combined in their Principles, as hath been signified already in the foregoing part of this Book.  
3. The Scurvy many times appears so exceeding like the Pox in all its Symptoms, that they are hard to be distinguished: Hereupon, the common sort of Physicians and others, presuming it is so, and Patients being perhaps guilty enough to deserve it, make confession, and both by comparing Notes agreed upon a Cure; which is usually managed by Diet-Drinks, ill prepared Pills, and other Ceremonies of the Rack due to Sinners; which are want to mount the Scorbutic Dominion to such a height, that for the future there is no escaping the Tyranny, it being confirmed by this means in the Body, and entailed upon them and their Heirs for ever: which one consideration might be enough to deter men, from adventuring their Carcases into the hand of any Tormenter, that may mistake the one for the other. For, there must be one way to cure the Scurvy when 'tis simple and single; and another to cure it, when 'tis in complication with a Pocky Ferment; and that which cures it, when it proceeds from a vicious Habit of Body, will not cure it in a Body that hath been vitiated by Contagion through Inheritance, or any other way of adventitious Communication from another.  
4. Much mischief is often done by the use of such Medicines as in the Common Opinion have a Passport every where to be employed against the Scurvy, as Scurvigrass, Water-Cress, and the like; which, where the Disease is lodged in a Blood and Humours full of Acidity or Acrimony, & abounding with a vicious volatile Salt, are eminently destructive, and tender the salient Particles of all sorts, the more capering, turgid, and unruly within the Veins, and sand them a gadding thence about the habit of the Body; by which means a Foundation is laid for Agues of all sorts, Fevers, Vertigoes, running Pains, Stitches, Headaches, Cramps, Convulsions, Gripe of the Guts, Short Breathe, straitness of the Chest, Whites, Fluxes of all sorts, Gouts of all sorts, Hypochondriack, and Hysterical Passsions, Inflammations, Pleurisies, and all the Diseases of the Lungs. Some one or other of these mischiefs usually follows the common Scurvy-Diet-Drinks and Barrels made Spring and Fall, unless the People using them have healthy Bodies (for they will bear out any thing) but the weaker and sickly do assuredly suffer, unless their Bodies be so constituted, that such kind of Drinks do by chance fit them, and hit the Distemper; but that is only by chance, and who then will adventure without good Advice? for, I say again, that in Bodies which abound with Acidity, Acrimony, or a vicious volatile Salt (which in this Age is very frequent) or which have a Blood and Humours apt to ferment and frisk, there Scurvy-Grass, Water-Cress, Common Wormwood, Water-mint, Hors-radish, and the rest of that sort, do a world of mischief, whereas they are very proper in Bodies whose Maladies lie in a fixed Salt that needs a Resolvent volatilising power to remove it; or that abound with dull, insipid, flat, dead Humours, like decayed depauperated wines, which will never be restored to any tolerable State, unless you seek to cure them by adding such Ingredients as will make them ferment anew within the vessel. To such persons as these they may be of advantage, provided always there be no other Circumstance to contra-indicate the use of them: which must be left to the Judgement of some Physician, that is so indeed rather than Title.  
5. The Scorbutic Ferment makes its way in the world with lesle control, in regard Physicians do not distinguish, or will not understand a difference, betwixt that Scurvy which comes by ones own default, through ill Diet, Courses, etc. and that which comes by inheritance from Parents, or by Contagion from others, and so proportion not their Cures accordingly. The Scurvy of the first kind requires a Cure peculiar to itself; so doth the Scorbutic Tangle or Tincture of the Blood by Contagion; which is the lesle curable, because it stealing insensibly into the Body, is usually confirmed, before people either take notice of it, or look abroad for a Cure: But that which comes by Generation is incurable, because inseparable from the Principles of the Body, being ingrained in the very Blood, coessentiated with all that is within us, and connatural to us, so that it mingles itself with all that is ours, yea, with our very Diseases, and under their names it passeth, and so necessitates a laying aside the old Notions and Maxims, and the introducing of new Hypotheses and Speculations, and a laying of new Foundations (other than that of a narrow College, and old Piles of Books) whereon to raise a Body of Physic fit for our Age and Climate; and yet 'tis a shame to consider how little hath been done that is new by any Man but our worthy Dr Willis, & some others that have lighted their Tapers at the Torch of Helmont. Now here given me leave to note what I forgot before in proper place, That as the Scurvy passeth these 3. ways, so also the Pox, and the not making distinction proportionably in cure of it, is one of the Causes why it also hath go on to make so great Triumph over Human Nature: And though the Hereditary Species of both these Diseases be not to be extinguished, yet the Evils thence arising may be qualified, and the Diseases with which they are clothed be the better dealt with, if Physicians will take pains, to form right Notions and Conceptions there-anent, for rectifying and regulating the way of practice, and invent such Medicines as have a reach & power agreeable thereunto: For, in a word, the World is grown to such a pass, there's scarce a Malady which is not mystically complicated with one or both those Master-Maladies; which, like Original Corruption, run universally through the loins of the Sons and Daughters of Adam, and are as it were Elements in the mixed Frame or Composition of other Distempers.  
III The Venereous and Scorbutic Taint hath made great progress by Accidental Contagion; which being the most curious and mysterious way of communication, is not so readily assented to by common Readers; but the thing is no new Doctrine, both these Diseases having been always reckoned among the Contagious. Nor let people be so found as to think themselves free, because they know themselves and their Parents honest; that will not secure them from Contagion, which is a thing of a Spirituous Nature, carried through the Air to make impression upon such Bodies as come in its way. Fracastorius, a grave Author, makes a threefold Contagion; 1. By Contact; 2. The Second, by that which he calls Foams Morbi; 3. The Third, at distance, which by 
* Pract. l. 6. Part. 3. c. 3.  Sennertus is abridged to two sorts, viz. Contagion Mediate, or Immediate: Contagion Immediate is that which is communicated by the gross Contact of a Diseased Body, as when one lies with a Leprous, a Scabby, or a Venereous Person; this every one grants may be done: Contagion Mediate, is, when one is infected by the mediation of some certain Body, though he touch not the Body of any Infectious Person; which mediating Body most commonly is the Air, it being the vehicle that conveys those Effluviums, Corpuscles, or Invisible Atoms, as it were small shot, to do Execution upon persons at a distance. This fine way of Communication suits not with the Conceit of a Brain, that measures every thing by the gross Philosophy which Aristotle ties men to in the Schools: Wherhfore 'tis a wonder to me, why so Learned a Man as Fernelius, Sennertus, & others, who in express Terms allow the Pestilence to seize Men thus at a distance, by the mediation of contagious Effluxes or Atoms; and do grant this a Truth, not only in the case of that most dreadful Disease, but also in lesser Diseases as the Chine-Coughs, Common-Coughs, Catarrhs, Fluxes, the Phthisis or Consumption, the Lippitudo or sore Eyes, Measles, and other Distempers, which do many times run through whole Families, yea, Towns and Villages, as the Consequents of mere Conversation, or cohabitation within the same Air and House. But Fracastorius is clear of opinion, that it ranges abroad from Person to Person, after the rate of other contagious Diseases, without any Contact or Commerce corporal (such as Men commonly count Corporal:) The Truth is, the ordinary gross Conceit of the world concerning Corporiety, tying it up for the main to visible and tractable substances, is that which rendereth Doctrine of this kind very difficult to apprehended; but he who reads the finer Philosophy of this wiser Age, and doth not take measure of it by the Beards of our Ancestors, but hath digested the delicates of the Magnetic or Sympathetick Doctrine of our Noble Digby, and others treating of that Subject (too large for me here to dilate upon) of the Truth of which daily experiments are a sufficient Testimony, will soon agreed upon the probability (yea the certainty) of people being seizable at a distance, by virtue of the continual Effluxes of Atomical Corpuscles, (which one may call Bodikins instead of Bodies) whereby the grosser Substances, usually termed Bodies, are tangible by each other, and hold communication with each other at remote distances, and so do operate upon each other by Infection or Qualification, as well as if they did touch after the gross manner of Tangibility, as when visible Bodies do touch one another in such sort that we behold it with our Eyes. Agreeably to this, the same 
* De Morbo Gal. l. 7.  Fracastorius and Nicolaus Leonicenus, two learned Italians, do both contend, that the French Pox rambles after the manner of contagious Diseases, which are Epidemical, seizing folk that never had any carnal mixture with unclean persons; only, here is the difference betwixt it and the Disease caught by carnal Commerce, that this is usually more visible in its dire effects upon the Body, by Gonorrhaea's, Buboes, Ulcers, etc. the other which comes by Contagion at distance, is of a finer Nature, and dives not so deep presently into the Blood and Humours, as it insinuates into the Spirits and Ferments of the Body, and acts by time and by strategem, lying still till it hath an Opportunity: Not but that the other many times lurks some years also; but this more curious way of Contagion (for the most part) after it hath made entry, proceeds leisurely and gradually to debauch the whole Habit of the Body, and seldom plays the Tyrant till it hath made a full and final Usurpation, which it seldom accomplisheth without a Revolution of many years; and then perhaps it appears not like itself, but it may be in the shape of some other one, or more Diseases. Now here, because 'tis very necessary, this Point should be a little cleared, given me leave to enlarge: This Contagion (saith 
* De Lue Ven. cap. 4.  Sennertus) when it is received into the Body, doth not stand still, but after the manner of other Venoms, creeps into the inmost and most hidden parts of the Body, and sometimes it quickly shows itself; at other times it lurks long. And Fernelius writes positively, 
* De Abdit. rer. Caus. l. 2. Cap. 14.  That it will lurk thirty years together before it discovers itself; and thus, many (both Men and Women) that think themselves free from all Infection, and never had Sense of the evil upon their own Bodies, counting themselves absolutely sounded, do nevertheless infect others that lie with them, and beget Children infected with that Disease. And this holds true, whither it be taken by fleshly Coition, or by Contagion, only it more frequently discovers itself after Coition. Our Wynel, 
* Pathologic. Exercit. p. 177.  Charlton, Helmont, do report, after Fernelius, Forestus, Horstius, Sennertus, and others, all in the Sense of Hypocrates, that Venom may lurk in the Body, without showing itself, and 'tis instanced particularly in the Venom proceeding from the Bite of a Mad Dog; yet neither Hypocrates, nor these, nor any other of his Followers to this day, can given any reason why it should lurk some months or years without any sign discovering it: So this Disease the Pox may lurk, but the manner how, with the reason why, we can only guests at, and that is when it comes by Coition. Than (saith Wynel) the Proluvies of it being viscous, tenaciously adheres to the Bowels, and is mingled with the Humours and Spirits; but because evidence of its presence cannot clearly, and by manifest effects be showed but on solid Bodies; therefore while this venereous Illuvies doth found Bowels so strongly Spirited, as they make great resistance and refuse it, and obtrude it into the By-Cavities of the Body, (where it lies fermenting) the Disease resideth especially in this Venereous Illuvies, and is not communicated to the outward Parts: So that when, how, and where this Disease gins, acts, and creeps on, is not perceived. There are Workings, and Alterations, and Morbific Sensations in the Body, which are not at all in strong Constitutions perceived by their proper Causes, and are oftentimes attributed to other than their own; so that if you put together the time wherein the Bowels resist the Venereous Poison, and the time wherein it worketh insensibly, together with the time of the Bodies State Neutral, it may amount to many years before the Effects, Symptoms, and Evidences, do discover the Disease undoubtedly present; and yet that 'tis privately settled in the Body, often appears by such a person's infecting another: Thus you have in Avicen a Story of a young woman nourished up by degrees with a poisonous Diet, who was never poisoned herself, yet poisoned all that had carnal use of her. I remember also, 
* De Morbo Gal. cap. 22.  Fallopius hath a Story of twelve Scholars that had to do with one woman, yet only three appeared to be infected, the rest seeming sounded; which is to be looked on only as a Reprieve from present Execution. Indeed, I the lesle wonder at the cessation of this Venereal Poison in the Body, when I hear it avowed by such as have Commerce with the East-indieses, that they have such kind of Poisons there as do neither kill, nor so much as operate presently: but after the time of a week, a month, a half-year, or a year or two, as it pleases the Artist to order the Matter; and thus divers of our English have there unawares received Poison at departure, which never wrought with them till their return into Europe: But we need not go so far as the Indieses for Instances of that Nature; the Artists of Spain, and the Virtuosos of Italy, are dextrous enough in contriving the like Doses, whose Malignant Force shall lurk in the body, and at length, though slowly, yet surely do the Business. It is written by Piso (as Mr Boil cites him, Experimen. Philos. pag. 267.) who learned of the Brasilians divers of their detestable Secrets, That some of them are so skilful in the cursed Art of tempering and allaying their Poisons, that they will often hinder them from disclosing their deleterious Nature for so long a time, that the subtle Murderers do, as unexpectedly, as fatally, execute their malice and revenge. Nor can it be at all difficult to any man to apprehended the possibility of a Pocky or Scorbutic Ferments lurking long in the body, seeing the same thing is granted touching the Measles and the Small Pox, whose seminal Principles and Causes are said to be brought along with us out of our Mother's Wombs into the world, and yet so to lurk within us as not to discover their venomous and contagious effects till after years; in some sooner, in some later, after 20. 30. 40. years, etc. no man doth so much as scruple at, nor that the Seminalities of other Diseases, as the Gout, the Stone, the Consumption, etc. should associate with us from the very loins of our Parents, and not appear till 20. 30. 40. or 60. years are past. We see also, that for many years, divers Diseases break out in men Spring and Fall, which in the Intervals are quiet; yet all the while their Seminals are in being, never showing themselves in Act but at those various Turns of the year. I would feign therefore see some reason alleged, why 'tis not as possible for the Seminals of the Pocky Lues to be lurking, as well as the Taints and Ferments of other Diseases. 
* l. 4. de Morbis insimi Ventris, Obs. 43.  Gregorius Horstius, as grave a Writer as any, had a Case propounded to him concerning one of the Emperor's Counsellors that had an Ulcer in the Reinss, which had baffled all the Physicians for many Months together, who dreamt not of that which was indeed the Cause, because the Patient being a grave Statesman, was passed the suspicion of wenching, and so they proceeded to cure it as a Malady arising ab acri & adustâ Materiâ from sharp and adust Matter: But Horstius advised them to look further, telling them in plain Terms, That the stubbornness of the Disease did presuppose some Malignant Relics of the Pocky Lues, deeply impressed without Sense or Pain at first upon the whole Mass of Blood, where it lay invisible for many years; and that they might apply what Medicines they pleased, all would be to no purpose, till the Patient be prescribed a Course of such Remedies as are proper for the said Pocky Lues, to correct the whole habit of the Body; which being neglected, it is no wonder, if that Malignant Disease, having by its noxious qualities tainted the Blood, did after many years lurking, take its opportunity to seize upon so weak, a part as the Reinss and Bladder, and sand ill Humours that way, and elude all those Medicaments applied for the Cure; therefore he advised them rather to go to work with Sweeting Decoctions, Bezoard. Min., Liquor Mercurii, and such like as are used in Cure of the Pox: For, saith he, I had the like Case about six years ago in an old man, a Citizen of this Commonwealth, who had an ill-conditioned Ulcer in the whole Leg of long continuance, it having afflicted him many years, and grew the worse for all the Applications that had been made to it. As soon as I come to him, I suspected it an effect of some Touch gotten in his Youth, which had been then but superficially cured; Wherhfore after inquiry made into many Circumstances of his younger days, I found cause to deal with him with Minerals proper for that Lues, and well prepared; which being done, that Ulcer which had hitherto resisted all Remedies, and was looked on as desperate, did consolidate of its self, after which the old man married a Wife, and never complained more: Quod autem in hoc, & in sexcentis aliis observatur: And this (he saith) is no more than what hath been observed in six hundred other Patients, viz. That the lurking Lues breaks out, etc. And he refers you to many Histories more of his own, showing the Pranks of the Pocky Ferment, in Internal as well as External Maladies; for, it will appear in the shape of the one as well as the other. And in the same place, this Author saith as much also for the Scurvy, which will lurk as long, and show itself in various sorts of Ulcers, etc. In the Cure of which he always found the common Remedies to be vain, unless the Scurvy were first plucked up by the roots by other Medicines, and the Scorbutic Ferment driven out of the Body.  
And in his 7th Book de Morbis Contag. Observe. 9 He tells a Story of a Smith by him cured, that had the Lues lurking in him divers years, and at length it put on the Disguise of a Headache, in which Form it continued, till at last plain Symptoms of the Pocky Lues appeared, and then he turned him into the public Hospital to be cured. And because this Disease may lurk in this manner, Zacutus Lusitanus 
* Prax. Hist. l. 2. cap. 1.  gives ground for exceeding Caution to be used by people about their Marriages, especially with such as are in the state of Widowhood: He bids men take heed of such Widows as have the Disease called Fluor Albus, it being many times part of the Dowry left them by their former Husbands; and though they appear never so sounded, yet there's no security, if their Husbands formerly were Cocks of the Game; toward the resolution of which doubtful Point, he saith the Counsel of a Physician is very requisite. The like Caution (say I) aught Women to use in marrying such men as have themselves been Gamesters, or that have had Gamesters to their former Wives: For, this Author fully demonstrates the strange lurking nature of this Pocky Contagion; for, if it so hap (saith he) that there be no visible Token of it in the Body yet the venom is not idle, nor doth it rest, but works by little and little, till it change the solid parts of the Body, and overthrew their Natural Temper. Thus when the constitution of any part is altered throughly, then Nature being irritated drives the venom thence to some more noble part; and so, grievous Symptoms begin to arise. But herein no certain time can be fixed; for, some persons fall sooner, some later, and some very late, into this Distemper, who before seemed to be sounded and to have no Taint within them; the cause of which, as he supposeth, doth depend upon the stronger or weaker Faculty of the Agent, and the Disposition of the Patient, without which Aristotle saith, nothing can act under the cope of heaven. All which, Zacutus saith, is consentaneous to the Doctrines of Hypocrates, and Galen, as appears by his Comments upon Hypocrates, viz. 3. Epid. Sect. 3. Com. 75. Prorhet. l. 1. Sect. 2. Com. 17. and 1. de Diff. Feb. cap. 6. Now therefore, after so many other Evidences, let me close this matter with the words of Fernelius; 
* De Abd. rer. Caus. cap. 14.  The Force and Efficacy of this venom lurks for a time, and in time discovers its self by manifest Signs and Tokens, even as the Poison which comes by the Bite of a mad Dog, or the sting of a Scorpion, lurks a while, and creeps by little and little through the Body; which when it hath seized, then it tyranniseth after the manner of other Contagious Diseases.  
And yet it would not sink into the head of this Author, that it hath power of seizing by Contagion at a Distance; which seems strange to me, that men should allow it to be Contagious, and all other Privileges belonging to Contagious Diseases, and deny it this one, of infecting at Rovers. But that this Point, being of so great Concern to be proved, may not pass without due evidence; if I make it appear, that this Lues is armed with all those Arrows which are said to be in the Quiver of other Contagious Maladies, then I doubt not but it will be past Dispute, that this can shoot, strike, and seize men at a distance, as well as the rest of its Fellows. For the better understanding of my Design, know that all the notional Discourses about Contagion may be reduced to these two Heads; either that which ariseth from the mutual Contact of two or more gross bodies, or that which comes by the efflux of finer or more subtle Bodies, striking or darting themselves into grosser Bodies by assistance of the Intermedial Air; and thus all Bodies in the world are liable to an intercourse with each other, and Diseased living Bodies especially to operate upon sounded Bodies ad modum Fermentationis i e. after the manner of Fermentation; for the mor subtle Effluviums, Particles, or fine little invisible Bodikins (call them what you please) carrying somewhat of the nature of the corrupted gross Bodies from whence they flow, and so insinuating themselves into the Pores and other imperceptible passages of such other gross Bodies as they meet with in their way, do there fasten and settle somewhat of their own Nature, Tincture, or Leven, which leveneth these Bodies, and induceth such an alteration in them, as by degrees disposeth them to be unsound or qualified with the same corruptive qualities which were in those diseased Bodies, from whence at first they come; which that it holds true betwixt contagiously diseased of the same Species or Kind, I suppose noon will deny, that seethe Pestilential Diseases also among Men, and Murrens among Cattles, and other Diseases also among both, to fly at a distance from one to another, within the compass of their respective kinds: and all by the efflux of those little Fermentative Particles which make the impression. But that I may not seem to speak without Authority, this is no more than what is said by the grave Author 
* De Febr. l. 4: cap. 2.  Sennertus, who declared all Contagion at a distance flowing from diseased Bodies to sounded ones, to be wrought by a kind of Fermentation: For, that the virtue of a Ferment or Leven is very great, appears by the little that fermenteth or leveneth a great loaf of Bread, and a little yeast that causeth the working of Beer; and 'tis remarkable, in how short a space of time, a very small portion of these Ferments doth change the Fermentescible Bodies into a Nature like their own: And that he ties not this Transmutative effect of Fermentation only to the actual mixture and contact of gross Bodies with each other, is apparent by what he says presently after, when he tells us, that the 
* Habet se Contagium antea dictum Fermenti instar, etc.  foresaid Contagion acts after the manner of a Ferment, which being received in a Body of the same Nature, induceth to it the like Disposition. It, being a small portion or particle of Contagious Matter sent forth of a diseased Body, lights upon a sounded Body, where being received, it acts upon it by a certain hidden power, and à totâ substantiâ as they call it. And in page 689: he saith, that in these sickly Effluviums or flying Particles which are communicated thus to sounded Bodies, the Contagious Cause is so powerful, that it needs not a mutual contact of Bodies, but sends forth from itself somewhat of a 
* Subtle Spiritale aliq●id de se emittit.  Subtle and Spiritual Nature, by which the Bodies that entertain it are infected, and contract the like Labes or Tincture.  
And the same Author more largely explains these things in his 
* Pract. l. 6. Part. 3. c. 3.  Practice. He shows, that according to the common Rule, Accidens non migrare de Subjecto in Subjectum, if that which the common Logicians call an Accident cannot shifted from Subject to Subject, then that which passeth from a diseased Person to another person by way of Contagion, cannot be an Accident, but it must be a Substance; now Substance is divided into Spirit and Body: A Spiritual Substance it cannot be, according to the sense of common Philosophers; therefore it is a Body, of a fine invisible Nature, flowing out from the diseased Person, after the manner of * Atoms; which Atoms (saith he) a Modern Writer 
Proculdubiò Atomorum more, è corpore infecto effluens.  calls Corpuscula little Bodies, and Contagion is multiplied by these little Bodies, which like Seed, comprehend within themselves the whole Essence of the Disease. From which Discourse of this most learned Author, it is evident, that though the gross Bodies of Venereous People do not touch another, yet the finer little Bodies which fly like Atoms from this or that Person may touch and seize another, & so much the sooner make a Seizure by that invisible Touch, by how much the more fine and subtle the said Atoms or Bodikins are, and consequently more apt to make an entrance; and then when they are lodged, though they be but as it were little Nothings in respect of quantity, yet in quality they have a mighty force, and as a little Ferment altereth and leveneth the whole Lump, so these being a kind of Ferment, (or as the Greeks call it, a Miasma, and the Latins Seminium, Inquinamentum, Seminarium) the said Ferment being received into the Body, changeth it wholly, and alters it by qualification like to itself. And no wonder, seeing (as our learned Dr 
* De Febr. cap. 12.  Willis saith) the force of a venomous Miasma is so great, and the contaminating particles of it so agile and expeditious in motion, that they will very quickly make way through the Mass of any Body, like beams of light through glass, or any Diaphanous Body. And jest any should think this improbable, because many persons who converse with the venereously infected, feel no Inconvenience, given me leave to apply what he saith there of Malign Fevers, to these venomous Maladies, the French Pox and Scurvy; for, saith he, as often as the Blood receives a Taint from any thing that is venomous, whose venom is slow and of little activity, it doth not discover itself presently, nor break forth into direful Symptoms, until it be ripened by long time, and a Fermentation, that the whole Mass of blood be tainted throughout, as is to be seen in some Venoms which are communicated at a distance, yet have not their effect till after some months, or years. And as to the manner of Contagious Operation, his Description is much the same with that of Sennertus, it is managed by those Effluviums which are sent out continually from an infected Body, which being entertained by other Bodies, do presently, like Venom, ferment with the Blood, and work upon whatsoever they found Homogeneous, or easily convertible into their own nature, till they dispose it into the Idea of the same Disease; and the Miasma is communicated not only by Contact, but at a distance. Thus He: But that I may not want Evidence of all sorts, let me introduce also the Learned Jesuit Kircherus, to confirm this Doctrine of Contagious Operation at distance by means of those little Particles floating in the Air, which Philosophers call Atoms, Effluviums, Corpuscles, i e. Bodikins, etc. In his seventh Chapter De Peste, he saith thus, Every Natural Mixed Body sends forth certain Effluviums or Effluxes of its own Power, which are not to be taken for mere qualities, or Accidents propagated from a Subject through a Medium, but they are truly and properly very little Bodies, not to be discerned by the power of Sight, but 
Sunt aut●m hujusmodi Corpuscula nil aliud nisi Spirabiles quaedam mixti Portiunculae, ejusdem cum Toto Proprietatis & Naturae, Ibid.  are the vehicles of Accidents and Properties proceeding from a Subject, of the same Nature with the whole Subject from whence they flow; and so those which flow out of a Virulent Body, being of a foul and depraved Disposition, do by a kind of contrariety to nature, overthrew the inward Economy or Constitution of the Body. I value the words of this Jesuit the more, because his Book is so highly commended by two of the most Eminent Physicians of Italy now living in Rome, known to all the world, viz. Sinibaldus, Author of that Learned Piece, Entitled, Geneanthropia, and Paulus Zacchias, whose Quaestiones Medico-Legales are a Monument of his profound and various Learning. And this Communication of Contagion at distance, Kircherus saith is wrought after a Magnetic manner, even as the Loadstone works at a distance; which leads me to our Famous Countryman Sir Kenelm Digby, who in his Discourse at Montpelier, hath sufficiently set forth the Doctrine of Operations at a distance, which whoever denies, must first deny his own Senses; and they are performed, he saith, by those small Bodies called Atoms, 
* Pag. 34, 35.  and that which we call our Air, is no other than a mixture or confusion of such Atoms, wherein the Aërial parts do predominate; which he Learnedly proves by several sensible Instances; one is very familiar, and 'tis this; 
* Pag. 50.  I would entertain you (saith he) with the strange subtlety of little Bodies which issue forth from living Bodies, by means whereof our Dogs in England, will pursue the scent of a Man's steps, or of a Beast, many miles. To this I may add what I have seen, that Dog called a Bloodhound, will in a Forest led a Keeper to found out a Deer-stealer, without laying his Nose to the ground to scent the steps, but only by holding up his Nose in the Air, snuffing up and taking in those Effluviums which flow from the person that is under pursuit. But leaving that which is obvious to every Huntsman and Falconer, Sir Kenelm goes on, and saith, That when any Hot Body (much more a living Body, 
Page 6●.  say ●) attracts the Air, and that which ●● within the Air, if it happens that within ●hat Air there be found some dispersed Ato●● of the same nature with the Body which draws them, the attraction of such Atoms is made more powerfully than if they were Bodies of a different nature, and these Atoms do stay, stick, and mingle with more willingness, with the Body which draws them: the reason hereof is the resemblance and Sympathy which they have with each other. Within a living Body, such as is Man's, the intern Spirits do contribute much facility to the Spirits that are without. And page 116. he saith, The Source of those Spirits, or of the Bodies which attract them, draw likewise after them that which accompanies them, as also that which is united unto them. Seeing then, that Human Bodies have this power of communicating to and from each other, because of their likeness, let no Man be so sottish as to deny the communication of Diseases contagious at a distance. We allow it in those Diseases, the Consumption, sore Eyes, Coughs, Catarrhs, Fluxes, Pleurisies, and many other which have little of Venom in them, and yet we are shy of granting it in the Pox and Scurvy, whose Miasmata, Seminaries, and Ferments, include a far greater Venenosity. We see what is done at a distance by the Sympathetick Powder, and the Weapon-Salve by sounds upon the Ear, by Odours upon the Nose many miles, by Onions upon the Eyes, by the Loadstone upon Iron, by Amber upon Straw, by a Torpedo upon the Touch, by a Remora upon a Ship, by Thunder upon Ale, by the Alteration of Air and Seasons of the years upon divers Fermentative Liquors, the wondrous penetration of Quicksilver, the mighty force of Gunpowder, the Cures by Sympathy, the destructions by Antipathy, and all at a distance; sometimes by forced darting of these Corpuscula or Atoms from one Body to another, and sometimes by one Bodies attracting them from another, as things may hap to fall out; and if Men did not perceive these effects by their Senses, they would be as hard to believe them possible, because 'tis hard to show the manner how they are done, as some may be to allow of the Assertion which I endeavour to make good, and which the Experience of future Ages and Men shall make good, let the present say what they please, out of prejudice or humour. There is in Diseases that which Hypocrates calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, quid divinum, which I translate somewhat of a more occult nature, of a more sublime, Spirituous, subtle, finer consideration, than what comes from Discourse upon Tempers and distempers arising from First and Second Qualities, and from Man's grosser Conceits touching the Affects and Communications of Human Bodies; the Evidence whereof is to be sought by Observation of Experience, in the Sympathy and Antipathy of things, rather than by Reason. Methinks the Learned Vallesius speaks very pertinently to our purpose, 
* Controvers. Med. & Philosoph. lib. 5. cap. 6.  There are many Sympathies, besides those which Galen taught, which seem not to be effected by the transmission or privation of any thing, but rather by some occult Cause or Property, or whatever else you please to call it. And a little after he saith, We are to reckon, that there are in things some occult powers, and certain Incorporeal Qualities, that penetrate through Bodies, which because we are ignorant of, we are apt to err in resolving difficult Points and Problems, and every Man dotes about every thing. We must pardon this Gentleman for not speaking out, because he lived in an Age that doted upon Aristotelian Philosophy; wherein though he seen more than his Fellows, yet he wanted apt Terms whereby to express himself, and so calls those things, Incorporeal Qualities, which our later Philosophers more fitly term Effluvia, Corpuscula, Atoms, or little indivisible invisible particles of Bodies, which flow from place to place, after an inexpressible quick and secret manner.  
But much more is said to the purpose by our Learned Countryman Dr Robert Flood in his Mosaic Philosophy, a Man of a notable Brain; and though he had many Phantsies, yet you have with them mingled many most excellent Notions, of which this is one: 
* Mos. Phil. l. 3. sec. 2. cap. 3.  As it is certain (saith he) that like doth naturally affect his like, (for, Nature doth rejoice at the presence of its Nature, and Nature doth correct and corroborated its Nature, if it be sounded, and full of vivifying wholesome Spirits) so also Nature, if it be infected by a Poisonous and Venomous Nature, will, by uniting itself unto a sound and wholesome Nature, quickly inquinate and corrupt it, and so by such a kind of abortive and depraved union, Antipathy is placed instead of Sympathy. Now how this is possible in Nature, I will in few words relate to you. As Nature doth magnetically affect and allure unto herself her like; so if that like, which it sucketh unto itself, be inquinated or tainted with Corruption, the said attracting Spirit, be it never so sounded, will quickly taste of the Bitter with the Sweet, namely, of the Venom, and so will also be corrupt, equally with that Spirit which is Homogeneous, or of kin to it, in which the Infection dwells, being forced to entertain Strife, Dissension, and Antipathy into his Tabernacle unawares; even as we see a sounded Spirit in the Animal, which thirsting after his like Spiritual celestial Food, which hovereth occultly in the Air, to be refreshed by it, doth unawares draw in an Enemy with it, namely, a pestilent and corrupt Fume, whereby it is oppressed and inflamed with a Putredinous Fire; so that it was not the appetite or desire of the sounded Spirit to draw in that Poison unto it, but the Spirit like itself that was poisoned. And again, each Spirit which is encumbered with any unnatural and Antipathetical Accident, desireth to shake of contentious Antipathy, and to reassume that peaceful Sympathy which it enjoyed before, but finding itself unable, it is apt to cleave and adhere unto good and sounded Spirits for its relief, and if more sounded Spirits of his like were joined unto it, then might it the more easily conquer and expel his Antipathetical Adversary; so also we see, that one Blear-eyed person, by darting his infectious Beams for relief at a reasonable distance, becometh a Flame, which setteth on fire the sounded Spirit unto which it applieth; for, spiritual Poisons are like secret Flames of Malignant Fire. Wherhfore as Spirits are by union joined together and multiplied, like Oil added to Oil, so doth the infectious Flame increase, and feed equally upon them both: For, as the sounded Spirit desireth the society of his like to comfort it, and the corrupted Spirit so desired, doth also covet the sounded Spirit to assist it against his Enemy; so Corruption is sucked in by them both, and Antipathy is forced to roost among them, and forsaketh them not, till it hath penetrated and gnawed even into their bowels, and poisoned their very Entrails. And thus you see, those Sympathetick and Antipathetick Operations at a distance, which Vallesius saith are transacted by Incorporeal Qualities, and our late Writers, by the Efflux of little Particles of Bodies, Dr Flood assigneth to the Action and reaction of Contagious Spirits, or Infectious Beams radiating from one Body to another, yet they all mean but one and the same thing; viz. that there are wondered, secret, subtle Communications from Contagious Bodies, which imprint their own Nature upon sounded Bodies, and tender them like themselves, by an invisible Contact, through the mediation of finer Bodies flowing from the grosser, as effectually as if those grosser Bodies were united by visible and immediate Contact.  
Nay 
* Instit. Med. Disp. Quaest. 15.  Horstius seems to be plain enough to this sense concerning the French Disease; It cannot be denied, (saith he) that sometimes the Venereous Lues is communicated by venomous vapour, as well as by impure Contact; and that it and the Leprosy, and the like distempers, are contagious by venomous expirations; and, he concludes the Question with declaring this difference in Contagions betwixt the French Pest and the grand one, only that the Venom of this doth not sand abroad its infection at so great a distance as the grand Pestilence doth.  
And Fernelius, though his wit, in many other things divine, fly so low a pitch concerning the Contagiousness of this Disease, as to place it only in humour and dull Contact, yet in one 
* De Morb. Contag. cap. 14.  place he speaks out to our Sense, and saith, Truly very many Men are deceived by a captious and vain way of reasoning about this and the other Venomous Diseases, because while they see all the Symptoms of it to insult with a corruption of some Humour, do think of nothing but Humour, conceive no greater matter in their Mind, and make not further enquiry with the acuter part of their Understanding; whither any other thing prevail in the Humour, wherein the chief Cause of the Distemper doth consist; which doubtless, if we discern not by Sense, we aught certainly to comprehend by Reason and Intelligence, or else to be wrapped in an ignorance of the greatest Concerns. Therefore that power of the Venom, being very fine, and almost incorporeal, and beyond the reach of our Senses, is inherent either in a Humour, or in some other Body, which Subject is as it were the Vehiculum only of that malignant venomous faculty which affects us. For, how is it possible, that a mere incorporeal power should execute force upon our Bodies? So that this acute man (you see) was puzzled by adhering to the gross Conceits of old Philosophy; yet feign would he shake them of, and come up to our sense concerning the Nature of Venereous Contagion, and doth in effect say, that it, as well as other Contagions is conveyable to sounded persons, by the efflux of those delicate little Particles or invisible Corpuscles, which pass from other persons that are diseased, and are as it were vehicles of the Infection.  

* De Virulentia Venerea.  Aurelius Minadous likewise saith the Venereous Lues aught not to be defined by Quality, but by name of a Bodily Substance, and that it so passeth from Body to Body by Contact, Tangere enim, & tangi, nisi Corpus, nulla potestres ;but what kind of Contact he means, is evident by what he saith afterwards in his 30th Chapter, as he is cited by 
* Pract. l. 6. Part. 4. Cap. 3. de Lue Ven.  Sennertus, where the Bodily Substance wherein this Disease is contained, is by him called a fine Vapour or Spirit, or Spirituous Substance, endued with an occult pernicious quality and power, able to infect and corrupt all the parts of the Body, and turn them to its own l●keness, which may be done by a slight kiss, or putting on another man's garment: But he needed not have instanced the Passage of a Kiss, for, though it be but a slight Contact, yet 'tis a gross one of two gross Bodies, and what need of so much as that toward an Infection? when as the same Author saith, the Vehicle of the Venereous Lues may be a Spirit or Spirituous Substance, a thing of so subtle and penetrating a nature, that it can make its own way upon and through Bodies, without the help of immediate Contact: And this, Sennertus, in the same Chapter justifies him in, saying, that it may be resolved into Vapours and smallest Corpuscles containing the whole Essence of the Disease with power of diffusing it to others, destructive to the Natural Spirits by the impression of its Venom, which is of an inexpressible occult nature and condition. And yet after all this, Sennertus, in other places of his Book, is so gross as to deny its being communicable at a distance, as other Contagions are, by the efflux of those virulent particles which flow from diseased Bodies, but ties up the Infection to immediate Contact, either by Coition, Clotheses, Sweeting, Kissing, or the like; which is readily granted, but all I contend for is, that the men of his opinion, who grant that fine way of Intercourse betwixt Bodies which I have been thus long delineating, and the notable Operations and Effects thence ensuing, would produce some tolerable reason why they deny it in reference to the Pocky Contagion. All the reason I ever yet met with in him and other Authors is, because the Disease (they say) is lodged in a slow, dull, viscous matter, which though in most Cases it be false (for, I have known many infected with so active a Venom, as hath set them all in a Flame, and almost blown them up in three days) yet admit it were always lodged in so dull a matter, nevertheless he and they all agreed, that from the dullest and grossest Bodies there arise fine vapours and spirituous Substances, which in other places of their works are better termed Particles, Bodikins, Atoms, Ferments, and I know what little invisible Matters, containing Virulencies and Infections, which have power to altar into their own likeness, what Bodies soever they meet with that are capable of the impression: which having been confessed also in other parts of their Works, and being consentaneous to the sense of our best Modern Philosophers, it matters not what their private Fancy be in one place touching a particular Disease, when in so many other Places, they concur with the public sense of other the best Authors concerning the general nature of Contagion, and the spiritual delicate manner of its conveyance from one Body to another: For, thus they touch one another; though not visibly, after the manner of common Contact, yet every jot as effectually, by the intercourse of those Corpuscles which pass to and from betwixt rhem. And thus, I suppose, it is clear enough how the Pocky Lues may be propagated by accidental Contagion, even to innocent persons: But you will say, if this be so, who then can be safe? I answer, there is no Assurance for any one; only I determine, according to the sense of all Authors, that some persons being naturally of more weak Entrails, Constitution, and Spirits, and more luxurious or lose in Conversation than others, because lesle able to resist the influence of Contagious Corpuscles and Ferments, which are continually floating up and down in the Ambient Air, ready to assail all persons that come in their way.  
Now all that hath been manifested in the past Discourse in reference to the Pox, is, by the same force of Reason, applicable also to the Scurvy, which is reckoned by all Writers among Contagious Diseases, and so must needs have its Rambles and Rencounters at the same rate, and may take up its residence at pleasure, and become Joint-Tenant with the other in any Earthly Tabernacle. Therefore taking it for a grantable Point, I will not be tedious to confirm it; let it suffice that 
* De Scorb. c. 3.  Sennertus is very positive, and saith, the Scurvy may be contracted not only by ill Diet, bad Air, by Contact, by Conversation, by drinking in the same Cup, by breathe of the infected, by sweeting, by kissing, by lying with a Scorbutic Woman, or with one that hath the Disease called Fluor Albus. But how to make out the reason of the communicability of this Disease by Contagion, he cannot tell; only he saith, there seems to be the 
* Videtur eadem esse ratio quae in Lue Venerea.  same reason in this as in the French Pox: For, as that Contagion may be admitted by divers Parts of the body, and being once admitted, doth by little and little penetrate into the whole, and not only taints the spirits and humours, but imprints the like Disposition upon the solid Parts; so also the Scorbutic Contagion, which way soever it be admitted into the Body, infects and taints the Blood, and imprints the like Disposition upon the Bowels ordained to Nutrition, and weakens them so, that they are not able in the future to generate good blood, but that which is vicious and Scorbutic. The learned Horstius likewise declares it a Contagious Disease, 
* De Morb. Contag. P. 373.  and that the Contagion may be propagated by infecting the Spirits, which are the Authors of all Action.  
Thus having shown in part, that both the Pox and Scurvy are unavoidably propagated from one to others by the finer and more mysterious way of Contagion, its to be conceived, that if this be so, then it holds a fortiori, to oblige our belief, that these infectious Diseases may be propagated by the more visible and gross ways of Contagion. Horstius, in the place before-cited, inveighs so against the common Compliment of kissing among us Northern people, that 'tis no wonder if the wiser Nations have excluded it. In Holland (he saith) 'tis no marvel that the Scurvy gets ground so among them, where they have as many kisses as salutations of Women, which not only the younger sort expect, but those that are old and wrinkled, if they be not complemented with a kiss, do take it as a Contempt and Injury done them. He shows also, how in Saxony it is increased by tippling in the same Cup. In the Centuries of 
* Cent. 2. Obs.  Fabricius Hildanus I read of one infected with the French Disease only by the garment of another. Molenbroccius, a late Germane Writer, in his Book de Arthrit. Scorbuticâ, p. 15. saith the Scurvy is contagious as well as the French Lues, which is the reason that divers who never used an ill Diet that might incline them to the Scurvy, yet being infected by a Scorbutic person, they suffer the same Symptoms. The reason of this we may pick out of our renowned 
* Exercit. de Motu Cordis, p. 61.  Dr Harvey, who saith, that Contagion being impressed upon any particle, is carried along with the Blood as it returns to the heart, and thereupon it afterwards taints either the whole Body, or corrupts some particular parts which are most liable to receive the Venom.  
Zacutus Lusitanus in his 
* l. 2. Obs. 134.  Praxis Admiranda, saith thus; after I had published my First Book de Med. Princ. Hist. where, in the 73. History I have proved, that the French Pox is contagious at a distance; by chance I met with a very rare example of a Disease in the eyes called Opthalmia Gallica, that is to say, Inflammation and Soreness of the eyes proceeding from a Venereous Cause: The Servant which attended the Patient, and only brought him Clotheses to wipe himself after Sweeting, and victuals to eat, was taken with the very same Disease, and could not be cured by any other means than Mercury; let noon doubt therefore (saith he) but the Contagion of the French Pox will work at a distance. He that doubts, let him read Minadous de Lue Ven. cap. 5. This example of his some perhaps may believe, but what is this to those that never come neare the Chambers and beds of infected persons? I answer, this Infection is not limited to such a Circumstance only, though he instance it, but walks abroad in the open Air also, which is likewise the sense of Zacutus in his 73. Hist. beforementioned; where, having proved against Mercurialis, this Disease to be contagious at a distance, he concludes the Natural Spirits may carry Contagion through the Air from one to another. He saith it is so even in Cutaneous Diseases, and 
* 3. 4. Tract. 3. cap. 1.  Avicen acknowledgeth it in leprous Cases, for that people were kept from coming neare the Air where such persons were. Therefore Paulus, l. 4. c. 1. adviseth to sand them far remote from Towns and Cities, to the very utmost bounds of the Country, jest they infect others. Thus among Zacutus his Countrymen the Jews, they were shut up without the Camp from the rest of the Congregation: whereupon he determineth, that if in Cutaneous Cases of Leprosies, Scabs, Scurfs, Itches, etc. and if in other Distempers, as sore Eyes, Catarrhs, etc. Contagion do fly at a distance through the Air, it must needs be so likewise in Pocky Communications, seeing (saith he) they have all the Conditions requisite unto Contagion, as 
* l. 1. De Contag. ult.  Fracastorius shows out of Aristotle, 7. Problem. 7. And for this cause he adviseth people to be very wary what persons they converse with. What need I then, if this be so, insist further upon the grosser ways of Infection? which, after all this evidence, will doubtless the more easily be allowed. I might run over the whole Bead-row of Stories told by Authors, as how 
* De Lue Ven. Scholia in Obs. 2.  Forestus tells of a young Girl that was pockily infected by one that gave her only a kiss as she was dancing. And Horstius tells of another 
b De Morb. Contag. Observe 3.  Girl that was infected by being Bedfellow to the Concubine of a certain Gentleman; but they generally agreed it may be done by Kissing, by the same Bed, the same Close-stool, by Meats and Drinks, by Sweat, by Breathing, by the same Hothouse, by Linen, by Clotheses, by the same Cup, by putting on another's Glove or Stockin, and indeed by all the ways of Conversation. And what in these respects is said of the Pox, is observed likewise, and avowed of the Scurvy.  
IV. The fourth way of Contagion is that which runs by Hereditary Propagation, and by this Course also both these Diseases gain footing in the world. Hereditary Diseases (saith 
* Dissert. De Anatom. Vit. & Mort.  Horstius) do pass as it were by Transplantation, because the Seeds of them are propagated from Parents to Children, from whence it follows that they have Tinctures very strong and constant. Hence it appears what kind of Diseases especially are Hereditary, to wit, Tartareous Diseases, which have roots deeply fixed, and hard to be eradicated, as are the Stone, the Gout, the Leprosy, (to which let me add the French Pox and Scurvy) whereas on the contrary, other Diseases, which they call Sulphureous and Mercurial, to wit, Fevers, Inflammations, Catarrhs, and the like, are not easily propagated to Children, because the roots of them are more movable, fluxile, and sooner tend to a Resolution. Therefore seeing Experience sheweth, that there are no Affects more rootedly fixed than the Pox and its Comrade, when they have once seized themselves of the Body; it is no marvel, if they so constantly run in a Generation. 
* De Lue Ven. cap. 4.  Sennertus tells the manner how the Pox becomes an Hereditary Disease, and saith, it is done by being transferred with the Seed and Menstrual Blood from Parents into the young one: For, when the Blood, out of which the Seed is generated, is infected and vicious, then the Seed becomes like it, and diseased; also the Mother's Blood being impure, with which the Child in her womb is nourished, infects it, which Infection, after Children are born, breaks forth upon them sooner or later, according to the greater or lesser force of Virulency: Which Discourse of his is the general Sense of all Men, and confirmed by frequent Experience in the practice of Physic, as may be seen by the Histories of such as have left their Observations upon Record; and truly, that Physician hath known little in this great City, who hath not seen what miserable Spectacles are frequently brought forth into the world upon this Account, many of which have passed out of the world again as if they had been afflicted with other Diseases; and others that lived have languished miserably as incurable, till some wiser than some, have had recourse to Antivenereal Remedies. 
* Prax Hist. Cap. 1. De Morb. Gal. p. 268.  Zacutus treating of the Hereditariness of this Disease, saith, That there is a depraved and diseased excretion in the Seed, or a certain occult quality infecting the Seed and inherent in it, which impresseth the like Tincture upon the Offspring; For, the diseased defects of Parents are derived by force of the Seed of Generation, yea, and many secret Marks and Characters; yea, and Children for the most part resemble their behaviour, their gate, and countenance. The truth hereof is evident, because that Children, not only after they are born, become Heirs of the French Pox, but likewise bring it along with them out of the womb.  
Mercatus, the Learned Spaniard, hath among his Works, a little Treatise of Hereditary Diseases, wherein he signifies the same thing to the full; but because some are apt to object, that if it pass thus Hereditarily, then it would always be so; whereas others by Experience have found, that some Children of the same Generation are infected, and some not, and sometimes all a Man's Children scape free, yet it falls foul upon his Grandchilds. This latter is avowed by Mercatus, and 
* Ubi supra.  Zacutus hath form it into a Question, and resolved it, Vtrum Morbus Gallicus, illaesis filiis, transeat in Nepotes? that is to say, Whither the French Pox may, without touching a Man's Children, seize upon his Grandchilds, and so passing from the Grandfather, as it were skip a Generation? It seems hard (saith he) to conceive in this Case, how the Children should seem free themselves, yet beget others infected; for, a corrupted Seed derived from a corrupted Body, seems to import a necessity of corrupting the young one begotten, and that this Corruption aught to be propagated to the Second and Third Generation, seeing these Generations draw their Original from one Beginning only. The Cause of this Event (saith he), is because the vis Formatrix, the Formative Power, though it hath the Ideas of all belonging to the Father, yet it is not equally excited by them all unto operation, but by some more, by others lesle, or not at all. From which it comes to pass, that sometimes it is not excited to form a Member diseased, and by consequence the Son will become sounded in that part; but sometimes it may beget a distemper of the Father in the like Member of the Son, and produce a Son diseased, and like to the Father; which the Formative Power may effect in the Grandchilds in a contrary manner. But methinks yet, there is more may be said to the Business, and what is to be said of this Disease relates also to the Scurvy; for, in the foregoing part of this Treatise I have made it appear, that Venomous and Contagious Diseases are of a strange lurking Nature, and though the Grandfather be infected, yet his Son may seem free, yet not really be so, because the infection may be as it were in some By-Cavity or Dormitory in the Body, taking a nap, by the influence which through some Accidental Advantages befalling his Body, the vigorous Constitution thereof may have over it, so as to quell and command it, and make it lie still and quiet, that it given no disturbance to him; Nevertheless the Seminality or Ferment of the Disease, being lodged in the Seed, and con-naturalized therewith, may insensibly pass from him with entire force, to do execution upon the Grandchilds, because perhaps, they may be of Spirits lesle strong, of life lesle temperate, and of Constitution of Body lesle able to resist the Power of the Venom, and keep it under, after it is transferred unto them. Besides, it is observable, that there is a great difference which may arise from the Constitution of Mothers; for, the Grand-Father's Wife may be of so excellent a Constitution, as that what she contributes in mixture, may serve sometimes to correct the ill Ferment gotten into his Seed; but the contrary may fall out in the Son's Wife, and so the ill Ferment in the Son's Seed comes to prevail over the Grandchilds; which mystery is thus described by the Learned Horstius in his Medical Institutions, De Causis Morborum Internis, Quaest. 1. And in his Dissertation, De Anatomiâ Vitali & Mortuâ, he saith, the Stone will thus run from Grandsire to Grandchild, and skip the Son, the reason whereof he assigneth to the different Constitution of the wombs of the Mothers, which (saith he) I have more fully handled in my Tract concerning the Scurvy, and other places. And in his 12th Paragraph of the first Section of that Tract touching the Scurvy, among other Causes which hinder the appearance of an Hereditary Disease, he reckoneth this, That sometimes by the power of the Natural Balsam of the womb, the strange Rudiments or Ferments of Diseases are subdued and overcome. And in the Second Section and first Paragraph, he speaks more fully, That sometimes the Grandsire infected with the Scurvy, propagates this Disease, not upon his Son, but upon the Grandchild, the Son in the mean while being free; because it may so fall out, that he may have a Sigillation or Character impressed upon him from the Grandfather, the active power whereof is obliterated by the excellency of the Mother's Seed and Blood; which nevertheless breaks forth again in the Grandchild, in case he hath a Mother of Constitution weaker than was the Grand-Moiher. The illustration of which Truth, he saith, is more amply set forth in Mercatus. By the like proportion of Reason it may come to pass also, that Brothers and Sisters of the same Father and Mother, may hap to have some more some lesle Tokens of these Contagious Diseases upon them, and some noon at all, because the Bodies of their Parents may at sometimes, be in better temper, their Seeds more vigorous and flourishing, and consequently, have lesle of the Contagious Ferment impressed on them, than at other times, according as their Bodies come to be more or lesle altered by the accidental Emergencies and Extravagancies of Life.— But enough of this; let it suffice, that the great Increase of the Pox and Scurvy, and of other Diseases also not so Contagious, by Hereditary Propagation, is a Matter that the world is very well convinced of, therefore I shorten this Discourse.  
V The last way of Propagation to be insisted on, is that of Lactation, or by suckling of Infants. It would make one's heart bleed, to see what a world of these Innocents' die every year in this great City; some under the form of the Ricketss, Teeth, Consumption, Convulsion, Gripping of the Guts, and others of other nameless wasting Diseases, and not one Physician of a hundred that considers the Seminals and Ferments of the French Disease, and the Scurvy, which so many bring into the world with them that are begotten by the honestest of Parents, and others contract them afterwards by sucking their Nurses, perhaps as honest as the Parents; and if they chance to consider aright the root of the Disease, 'tis a thousand to one, whither they have a fine little Remedy fit to strike at it in so tender Bodies, and which are so touchy and peevish, or weak, that they will hardly take any thing; for, the Medicines, used in the common Trade-way of practice, will not reach it.  

* Cap. 3. De Scorb.  Sennertus saith of the Scurvy, à nutrice cum lacte instillari, that it is instilled into Infants with the Milk from their Nurses. The like of the French Disease, That it is 
* De Lue Ven. cap.  communicated to Infants with their nourishment and Milk from corrupt Nurses: which (saith he) is the most powerful manner of Infection, seeing that when the Milk they suck is changed into Blood, and this Blood becomes the Nutriment of the whole Body, the Venom is by this means dispersed throughout the whole, and most deeply insinuates itself thereinto, and therefore those that are this way infected, are rarely and very difficultly cured.  

* De Lue Ven. Scholar in Obs. 2.  Forestus also saith, That Children by the Milk which they suck, contract the Venereous Contagion with their Mouths; and that Nurses themselves also by giving suck to Infected Children, contract this Disease from them by their Nipples, the first Sign whereof is when they have Ulcers breaking forth upon their breasts; which is a thing (saith he) that I have often seen. But in the same Second Observation, he gives us also the Story in particulars, saying; A certain Man in the Hague married a fair young Woman, whom he infected, yet she conceiving by him, brought forth a Child, which Child being infected from the womb, and put out to an honest poor Woman to Nurse, the Nurse also become infected; and the Contagion was so active, that it seized two more of the poor Nurse's little ones, and a girl of hers also that was six years of Age. These were all under his Hand together for Cure. The like Case almost is related by Amatus in his Centuries, Cent. 1. Curate. 49. And that Nurses may thus suffer from Children, Sennertus affirms in his forecited Chapter, and gives this Reason of it, because by the Infants sucking, the Nipples are heated, and so the Pores of them are the more opened, whereupon they the more easily take in the virulency. The like is affirmed likewise by 
* Prax. Hist. l. 2. cap. 1. De Morbo Gall.  Zacutus, that when the Children take it of the Nurses, it discovers itself usually about the Mouth or Headfirst: But if the Nurses take the virulency from the Children, then their Breasts and Nipples are affected; and the virulent humour creeping thence more deeply into the Body, the whole is afterwards contaminated by the Contagion. These things hold true alike, both of the foul Disease and the Scurvy, as you may see in 
* De Arthrit. Vagâ Scorbuticâ, p. 29. 3 1 See Oswald Grembs, l. 1. cap. 8. de usu part, Sect. 3. p. 77.  Molenbroccius, who likewise declares, That the Infection may come from the Milk of the Mother, or of the Nurse. But in so plain a Case as this, the Reason whereof is so obvious, the Experience so common, and which (I think) no Body will deny, I list not to be tedious; I shall turn my Discourse therefore into Advice, that such Mothers as are to be suspected of either of these Infirmities, be persuaded to transplant their Children into the Arms and care of other Women sounder than themselves, and that they have a special regard to the finding out of such, and not to take for a Nurse the Wife of any Man, (be she never so honest, or seem she outwardly never so sounded) that is either an idle Husband, or Luxurious Company-keeper; for, they seldom bring any good home; and though they perhaps do not stray in Venery, yet they converse too often with such as do; Besides, their intemperate drinking, & extravagancies fill them with such ill Humours as serve sufficiently to given ill Tinctures to their own Bodies, and consequently to their Wives, by that close Communion of Bodies, and thereby a grand intercourse and communication of Spirits, which they have with each other; so that a marvellous Alteration is wrought in the Milk, by the lest ill Ferment injected into the Womb of the Nurses; which is easily apprehended by such as understand the quick Intercourses and Sympathies that pass betwixt the Womb and the Paps, by the mediation of particular Vessels, and otherwise. Have a special care therefore, what Woman you choose for a Nurse; for, I have seen many a Child undone in its Constitution, by putting it abroad to Nurse; for though the Woman may be careful, yet all may not be right with her; and on the other side, where Prudence hath been used, I have seen many a weakly Child, wholly altered for the better in its Constition; and the Seminal ill Impressions derived from the Parent have been so far subdued and altered, that the Child hath gained as it were a new Nature, and put on the good Constitution of its Nurse.  
The most acute noble Helmont (whose Doctrine, so much of it, as I have laboured to understand, I cannot but admire) in his brief Discourse de Nutritione Infantum of the Nursing of Infants, penetrates into the bottom of the business, and stretches the Advice yet further; and is for nursing of children up by Hand, rather than by Suckling; for, after he hath told how many ways the Milk comes to do mischief, as first upon the soul of the Child, the Seeds of ill Morals and Natures (which 
* 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  Plutarch also shows) streaming along with the Milk, do implant within it all the Vices, Imperfections, and lewd or ungenerous Dispositions of the Nurse: so also upon the Body; for, the best Milk too often causeth cruel Distempers, by souring and curdling in the Stomach, through a vicious Ferment there lodged which corrupts it, and from thence come so many Vomit, Worms, Gripe, Fevers, Fluxes, Epileptic and Convulsive Fits, with many other unthought of occasions of death. Sometimes likewise the Milk is of a Cadaverous Nature, as when the Nurse either proves with child again, or grows Feverish, or is under grief; or some occult Disease, or cause, lurks within, whereby various Impressions are fixed upon the Milk. But this is not all; he shows, there are strange defaults by Milk transplanted into children, after the manner of hereditary Diseases, as the Leprosy, and other Pests of that Nature, Hectic Fevers, the French Pox, and other Contagious Maladies, which by that way as effectually seize them in the Cradle, as by Seminal Tincture in the Mother's Womb.  
But you will say then, what would you have us do to bring up our Children? Is not Milk the Food ordained for them by God in the Course of Nature? and can any thing be more proper than what is most natural? I answer, that nothing is more natural and proper, provided that the Milk do not stream from a Corrupt Fountain; but since that in this Venereous and Scorbutic Age, the Frame of Nature for the most part appears corrupted, and that even in Country-Cottages, which lie remote from the Contagion and Converse of the greater Towns and Cities, and partake not of the excesses of Lust and Diet, it it is a hard matter to found out a Woman in puris naturalibus a Nurse untainted, and requires a curious head and eye to discern her: and seeing when all is done, there can be no certainty, because either her Husband may be some way Tainted, or her Parents that begat her; and the Seminals of that Taint traduced from them or one of them, to her by generation, may be latent in the blood, and she sounded only in sense as to herself, and but in outward appearance to others; therefore She that useth good judgement in choosing a Nurse for her Child doth well, and may continued it there two or three Months for necessities sake, till the Child come to some strength; but She doth better that removes it from the breast as soon a She can, and be takes herself wholly to the breeding of it up by hand; for so, a harmless Sustenance may be prepared, not so easily corruptible in the Stomach as Milk is, and secure from those ill Impressions and Tinctures which may come along with the Milk from the Nurse, notwithstanding all the care and discretion that hath been used in choosing her. I am the more large in discoursing this, because 'tis grievous to see how many thousands of healthy children do suffer by Nursing with Woman's Milk; when as very few who are bred up by hand do miscarry, or suffer such strange distempers and afflictions as everywhere befall the other; Nay, in the same Family, it hath been often observed, that when the children nursed by such Milk have two or three in number successively been miserable sickly; the rest born afterwards being bred up by hand, have merely by this alteration of the manner of Nursing, proved sounded and lively. If it were needful to instance in a matter, that, by observing, you may see with your own eyes, I might enlarge; only I tell you, Helmont hath a Story of an Earl, whose Fourth Son he so ordered in breeding up by hand, that he become more sounded, strong, tall, ingenious, and valiant, than the rest of his Brothers.  
And thus, having run through those Five ways, whereby the Contagious Seminals of the French Pox and the Scurvy have been propagated in the world, I suppose there are no persons breathing, but have cause enough to suspect the possibility of their own being tainted one way or other, and to believe, that this Taint, like Original Sin, hath overspred the whole Face of Mankind, and by tract of time, one way or other, introduced an universal Alteration and Depravation of Nature, and consequently an Alteration of the Nature of all Diseases from their ancient State and Condition, it being now quasi Altera Natura, become as it were another Nature unto us.   

CHAP. IV. A further Proof of this great Alteration, by enquiring into the manner of the complication of the Pox and Scurvy with other Diseases.  
COncerning the French Lues, Forestus saith, sensim in universum orbem est disseminaat, it spread itself by little and little over the wholeworld: Eustachius Rudius, as Sennertus cites him, saith, Maxima pars mortalium eo infecta, the greatest part of men were infected with it; which in the very same words is affirmed by 
* De Morb. Gal. c. 7.  Fracastorius, and that it was become general throughout Spain, Italy, France, Germany, and almost all Seythia. Wherhfore, if so many years ago as the days of those Authors, this Disease was become so universal, what a footing then may we imagine it hath gotten, in the revolutiof so many more years as have passed since their time? It is now from the first beginning of it in Europe about 170. years, as all Authors agreed, it not being known here till the year of Christ 1493. so that it hath had a fair time to take possession of the little world of man; And though 
* Si unus esset Mundi Princeps, etc. lib. 5. de Morb. occult. c. 11.  Rudius, in his time was of of opinion it might have been utterly extirpated by help of Physic, had some one Prince had the government of the great world that would have used his Authority to regulate men, and had there been an unanimous Consent of many to conspire against this Disease; yet (by the leave of so grave an Author) I look upon this Conceit of his as but a mere Fancy, and utterly impractible, not only in respect of the impossibility of getting men to be of a mind about it, but even in regard of the Nature of the thing itself, it being a Disease rooted in Contagion, and by all the ways of Contagion, secretly and unavoidably growing upon Mankind; and that it did so, appears by this, that both 
* l. 2. de Contag.  Fracastorius, and Leonicenus, and Minadous, perceiving how exceedingly it had spread in a short time, and so many suffering by it that were honest people, and that it was impossible it should spread at that vast rate by one only way of Coition or Lechery, though all the people in the world had turned Whores and Whoremasters, concluded, That it was a Disease, not only Endemial among the Indian's, but really Epidemical in the Nations of Europe, and did make its own way among them, flying from place to place, after the mysterious manner of the Pestilence and other Epidemical Contagious Diseases: For, as it is noted by Fracastorius, it broke forth upon many of itself, without the concurrence of common corporal Infection, which is recorded also by the laborious 
* De Med. Pri●. l. ●. Hist ●▪  Zacutus; and it serves to confirm (what I have sufficiently proved in the former Chapter) not only that it ever was contagious at a distance, but that by the continued Succession, Multiplication, and Concentration of so many Million of Contagious Ferments, as have since been floating and flying up and down, it must needs be co-essentially tinctured and combined with the very Blood, Humours, Spirits, and, by consequence, universally complicated, more or lesle, in all men, with all manner of Diseases. And what is said of this, relates also to its Compeer the Scurvy.  
Most pat and pertinent to our purpose are those Passages of the profound Helmont, which I shall here insert, to manifest how much Diseases are altered by the said Complication. They are grown more mystical and spiritual, than in former Ages, consisting lesle in matter, and more in Ferment, which Ferment is as it were the finer, the more subtle, sublimated, and exalted part of Morbific Matter, of a volatile, penetrative, communicative, and diffusive Nature, stealing abroad insensibly, by flight from one to another, and so lays hold on and seats itself in any Bodies, whose Natural Spirits and Faculties are weak, and therefore unable to make good their station against it. 
* Lib. 2. cap. 1 de Morbis in genere. pag. 162.  Oswald Grembs, that learned Helmontian, saith, this Ferment is the very same with Hypocrates his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, quid divinum, somewhat of a spiritual Nature in Diseases, and passeth inconceivably after the manner of a Spirit. Therefore, Helmont himself, in one of his little 
* Ign●tus Hospes Morbus, p. 405.  Tracts, affirms, That Diseases led out their Armies against us, and act their Forces upon us per ignorata seminaria, & initia invisibilia, by unknown Seminaries, and invisible Beginnings. And in the next page, he saith, we have of later times had new Diseases started up in the world, and the old ones do little svit with the names and descriptions given them by the Ancients, because they have put on other strange Symptoms and Properties, 
* Quihus larvati incedunt.  with which they walk disguised, and deceive such Physicians as think to cure Diseases by following the Directions and Precepts of the Ancients. Their Age is rather to be envied than imitated; the happiness was so great in their days, that as Diseases were but few, so they were more simple, calm and gentle, were more easily tractable and curable, having noon of those odd Mixtures, Complications, and Disguises, which latter Ages have seen, and yet we are so sottish and pedaneous, as to tread only in their steps, and confine ourselves to such Definitions, Notions, and Medicines, as they have left us. 
* Tumulus Pestis, p. 844, 845.  In those days (saith he) the natures of men were more strong to resist Diseases; but now I found the Seeds (or Ferments) of Diseases gather strength every day, fall on more fierce, and become more hot and active, and that our Nature, the farther it goes, and the more disordered it grows, the lesle it is obedient to remedies. Our Plagues increase daily, because our Impieties are multiplied. Indeed, Diseases are changed, disguised, increased, and do degenerate, by reason of somewhat that is complicated with them; I am of opinion, that the French Pox having changed other diseases, and brought them under its own Command, will have an Influence likewise upon the Pestilence; yea, it is Tinctued by it already; Nor do old Diseases answer any more to the Desciptions of old Authors, nor yield obedience to their Remedies. And page 847. he saith, It hath infected every Corner of the world, and by its effect plainly shows, that it is creeping to a further scope, as yet unknown to the vulgar. It is not a Disease consisting of Matter, but is only a Venomous Ferment, affixed, like a subtle Scent or Odour, either to the solid, or liquid parts of our Bodies, and so (in a way peculiar to itself) it incorporates not only with the Substantial Parts, but with the Excrements also, or Matters of other Diseases, which it toucheth, because it affects them, and is mingled with them. Hence it comes to pass, that what persons soever are either manifestly weak, or occultly inclined to Diseases, they are easily seized by this Disease, and so it by Association transforms itself into the various shapes of those Diseases. Wherhfore Diseases being thus degenerated since the time that the French Pox broke forth in the world, they do for the most part appear to have in them somewhat of a Venomous Nature; and no Man hath as yet sufficiently investigated the Causes of them, (as now constituted) so that by this means most Diseases are become Contagious, more cruel, more frequent, and more slowly and difficultly to be expelled, than in former times. Thus plainly He: I wish his Language had been as plain in all other Particulars  
Moreover, Zacutus putting the Question, 
* Prax. Histor. c. 1. De Morbo Gal. p. ●66.  Whither the French Disease may be complicated with all other Diseases? resolves it in the Affirmative : For (saith he) if it be an Universal Evil, we cannot deny, but it may be joined with All, and it may hap many ways; for, Distempers do unite with this Lues, either through likeness of the Matter, or in some other particular, as the Gout called Arthritis, pains of the limbs and outward parts, moist and cold Livers, Distempers of the Stomach and Spleen, from whence come Pains, Obstructions, and very grievous Diseases, as the Dropsy, Falling-Sickness, Stupor, Palsies, and others as tedious. Oftentimes also, this dreadful Lues is complicated with Acute Diseases, as Fevers, Internal Inflammations, and the like.— To the same sense he speaks also in his other 
* Med. Princ. Hist. lib. 1. Quaest. 35. p. 126.  Volume, That divers other Diseases may be complicated with the French, is, besides daily and long experience, affirmed by John de Vigo in his Treatise of it, and after him by that Learned Spaniard Ludovicus Mercatus, l. 2. De Morb. Gall. who have both of them very elegantly taught, that all sorts of Diseases, as well Acute as Chronical, may be complicated with the French, of which some have died quickly, others, in a lingering manner, according to the Nature of this cruel Disease. Many also have exchanged Life for Death, by violent Fevers, and Internal Inflammations, contracted only upon this Account, and other very Acute Distempers, springing from this Root, as from their first Original. To which given me leave to add, what I by Experience know, that as this is the condition of most of the Fevers in this Age, by the Intermixture of the Pocky Ferment, or the Scurvy, or both united; so if a Physician hath not in his Head a right Notion of the knack of the Distemper in its complication, and admit he should have a Judgement or right understanding of it, yet if he be not provided of neat Remedies fit for such a Case, or knows not how to invent, there's an End of the Patient; for, the Fever shall not budge one foot, for all the Juleps and Cordials, till you hit him in the Root upon which he grows. So that I think, in our Discourse concerning the variety of Complications, it may may do well if we led the Van with Testimonies touching Fevers. 
* De Lue Ven. cap. 7.  Sennertus saith, that if a Fever be complicate therewith, the Cure becomes difficult. Also, Helmont, in the place before cited, speaks home to this Point, showing how the French Ferment is complicated with that grand Fever the Pestilence, and attributes the frequency of the Pestilence to the frequency of the other. Without doubt (saith he) the Pestilence is now more frequent than in former Ages; it seizeth us upon the lest occasion, cruelly persueth, and more easily spreads itself, because of its being associated with this new Venom or Poison.  
Yea, he refers to this the Original of the many strange Malignant Fevers of this latter Age, so different from those that were of old, which have arisen not only in Towns, but Field-Armies, and Sieges. For, of old great Armies were led up and down in Europe, Asia, and Africa, without any notable Contagion, and their Musters were commonly not much diminished; but now, not sooner is a Siege begun, but immediately the Besieged die within, and the Besiegers also without, by some strange popular Pest; and when the Siege is over, hardly a Company, or Troop, marches forth, but there follow Wagons laden with sick men. Not long since, a Camp-Fever broke forth in an Army of ours, of a profound Contagion, kill men without Thirst or Heat, which some would have attributed to the Impurities and Nastinesses of Camps, Marish grounds, Houses, together with the necessities of the Soldiers, as the Causes of such unusual sicknesses; and so upon this supposal, Physicians manage the whole business of Curing; as if Camps had been more cleanlily kept of old, when such strange Pests and unusual Fevers were not seen among them. But I know, that as often as any Fever of the old stock doth befall a Body, that is actually under infection of the French Disease, or that formerly hath had it, but was ill cured; immediately the Fever associates itself with the Venomous Relics (or lurking Ferments) of that French Lues, and from it borroweth Poisons, which produce that Fever called the Malignant and Camp-Fever; after which, the Contagion propagates itself, even upon such persons as are free from the said French Lues; and having the Fever as it were for its Father, and the Lues for its Mother, the newborn Monster being a Mongrel begotten of two distinct Diseases, starts up a Third Thing different from both its Parents. Hence it comes to pass, that as well Fevers as Pestilences, march disguised and unknown; for, the Lues being locked within the feverish Chaos, goes on to spread itself along with it, and becomes Epidemical, to wit, this unlucky Monster of the Lues, being unlike both its Parents, and a treacherous Venom, becomes like a Pest, and renders the Pestilence itself, by adding a new putredinous Ferment, more cruel than it was want to be.  
Certainly, never was more substantial Truth delivered by an Author in so few words; for, though this Nation (through God's blessing) hath not been of late years punished with the Pestilence, as formerly; yet the Armies that have been marching throughout the late Wars, have sufficiently felt the Fury of Malignant Fevers, of so different a Nature, that Fevers arising in some years have always varied in Symptoms from those that fell out in other years: Nor was it thus of late only in our Armies, but in our Towns, Cities, and Villages, and hath been ever since; yea, these 3. years' last past, though no great numbers, compared with former years have been cast down by Fevers, yet those that have been (both Fevers and Small Pox) have been odd kind of Distempers, not reducible to any old Class of Fevers, and have always puzzled Physicians to deal with them. But this is no more than what agrees with the Account that is given of them by 
* De Lue Ven. cap. 7.  Sennertus, who saith, They especially do perish, who are seized by those Malignant Fevers, called Febres Gallicae, French Fevers, so termed, because they are complicated with the French Pox; for, the Venereous Virulency corrupting the Humours, puts upon them a malignant quality, rendereth the Fever the more grievous, and debilitates also the Natural Heat, so that neither the Fever, nor that Malign Disease, can be overcome by Nature.  
Nor is it with these dreadful Fevers alone that it is complicated, but with Hectic Fevers also. So saith that Author in the same place; For, the Venereous Virulency itself, and the Pains, want of Sleep, and other Symptoms, debilitate the Natural Heat, and hurt the Instruments of Nutrition, so that a Consumption of the whole Body follows, conjoined with a slow putrid Fever caused by vicious corrupted Humours. And upon this File you may hung most of those that are reckoned (as Mr Graunt saith) to die of a Consumption, in the Weekly Bills of Mortality. And I remember, that Septalius, in his Animadversions for the Cure of such persons, prescribes a Broth made of Veal and Sarsaparilla: a reasonable Remedy, because founded upon a right Notion, but alas too too short of power to reach the Business now. I could (if I list) be copious in Allegations out of Authors touching this French Hectic, but I am willing to shorten.  
This French Spirit, called Lues Venerea, haunts not only the Inward Parts of Men, but the Outward also, appearing in the form of Ulcers, (as Helmont shows) 
P. 845. 847.  Pustles, hard Bumps in the Flesh, Inflamed Tumours, purulent Apostems; as also renders wounds hard to be cured, insomuch that the best Chirurgeons do complain, with admiration, that of late even the slighter wounds will hardly yield to the usual Remedies, so that there is need of a new Foundation for Surgery as well as Physic. 'Tis too true of wounds, but especially of Ulcers in the main Body, yea and trivial read pimples in the Face, (as I have frequently observed) that the old Medicines will do no good on them, by reason of either the Venereous, or the Scorbutic Ferment, or both, latent in them. At this Instant, while I am writing, I have a Patient with an Ulcer, that was before handled by one in the old way, to no purpose, nor do I reckon I shall do any good with it but by Antiscorbutic Remedies. In the year 1661. I myself had a hot fiery Impetigo, which ran through my Beard round like a read Half-Moon from one Ear to the other; and, after all manner of Unguents, Waters, Lotions, etc. used for 12. months in vain, I devised a Scorbutic Liquor, & infused in it a certain Mercurial Powder; which, only by wetting the part therewith slightly with the top of my Finger, twice a day, took it instantly away; and I use that Infusion with the like success to other People ever since, who cannot be cured by any other means but such a one as this, which opposeth and strangleth those ill Ferments in the Cutaneous Parts, wherever it finds them. The like may be made for Washeses, to recover the flourishing colour of the Face, and restore Hair on the Head in the room of that which is fallen; a Blemish to which both Men & Women are too subject in this Venereous Scorbutic Age. To such Outward Maladies, Helmont adds also Inward, and saith, This French P. hath brought forth also new Palsies, 
P. 847.  new Gouts, Jaundice, Dropsies, and many more. And this deceived Paracelsus, who thought the French P. was of itself no Disease, because in his days he found it united with other Diseases.  

* De Lue Ven. cap. 7.  Sennertus likewise reckons up a great many of Diseases that it passeth under; as besides the External, the Internal, viz. when it puts on a form of those Diseases which befall the Heart; then it quickly kills people; in those of the Brain, it is slower; in those of other Parts, it is slowest; and the Venom will lurk there (he saith) and, though it seem extinct, will show itself after thirty years' time. It will act all the Diseases of Stomach, Liver, and Spleen. It will appear in a Headache, Vertigo, Falling-sickness, Catarrhs and Distillations of all sorts, strange Arthritical pains, the Diseases of the Lungs, and of the Womb, and all manner of Fluxes. So far Herald And his Testimony is Instar omnium, because he is a Collector of the Sense of most other Authors of Note, to which he hath added his own Knowledge and Experience.  
Nor doth it far thus with Diseases in regard of the Pox only, but the like pranks are played also by the Scurvy. Helmont 
* P. 84●.  tells us, that this Disease hath had a stroke likewise in Production of the strange Fevers both in Camps and Cities; and that such a Contagious Malady broke forth in the Low-countrieses, the very same year that the Scurvy first appeared in the world. His Abbreviator, 
* Lib. 2. cap. 2. De Febr. Naturâ.  Oswald Grembs, saith likewise of the Hectic Fever, that it is united with the Scurvy, it arising frequently from Scorbutic Matter, and so requires another manner of Cure, than the Consumptive Hectic of the Ancients, And quite contrary thereto; that is to say, not with Moistening Remedies, but rather such as will cut and attenuate the Offending Matter, and consume the putrid Exhalations. This I see confirmed by daily Experience.  

* Cap. 4.  Sennertus in his Tract de Scorbuto concerning the Scurvy, shows how it is gotten into all manner of Fevers, and Agues, from the Camp to the Cottage; so that, he saith, he who will cure them in this Age, must not have recourse to the Doctrines and Symptoms set down by old Authors, nor make a Judgement of them from the number of Days and Fits, but by the propriety of their Signs: For both in respect of Heat, Cold, Duration, and the rare Evils and Symptoms attending them, which are not to be heard of among the Ancients, there is a vast difference betwixt these and the old Fevers and Agues. He is very large in this; but I must make haste, and only tell you that 
* l. 7. de Morb. Contag. p. 374.  Horstius saith the like, also Forestus, and Eugalenus; this last man first opened the eyes of the world about this matter, and all agreed, that new ways of Cure must be found out for most Diseases, because of the Scorbutic Complication, as well as the Venereous. Yea 
* Ibid. p. 387.  Horstius saith thus, Eugalenus Scorbutum omnium Morborum quasi Materiam Primam esse contendit, i e. Eugalenus affirms the Scurvy to be as it were the Materia Prima of all Diseases; & the same (saith Horstius) is by Hercules Saxonia, in his Lectures and Consultations, avowed concerning the French Pox; so that the world since the days of those Authors, (some of which lived neare 100 years ago) must needs be brought by this time to a fine Pass. Those Two prodigious Maladies combining together to complicate themselves with all other Diseases, have now, in process of time, by reason of their contagious quality, so insinuated themselves, that they are become universal, a part of our Human Nature, and consequently inseparable from us, as well as from our Diseases. Yea more than this, they have so ordered the matter, that they have quite lost themselves within us; these two are become other things than they were when they first started up, in the appearance of Simple Pox and Simple Scurvy; but since that time, by being Compounded with each other, they loose their own primitive simplicity, and a Third Monster is started out of them, which we know not what to call; but, like the old Serpent, it hath twined itself with our corrupted Nature, and winding and turning itself in various Forms, it stings many to death invisibly, and poisons the rest of the world with new Ferments, working up one after another, and producing strange unheard of Infirmities, year after year: so that the Pox and Scurvy thus propagated, are not want to appear in their own Colours, nor with the common Symptoms, which follow the one when 'tis contracted by Coition, and the other when 'tis gotten by ill Diet, ill Drinks, ill Airs, etc. Allege not, that you have nothing of the Pox, noon of the Pocky Ferment within you, because you never had the usual Signs, as a Gonorrhaea, Bubo's, Ulcers, and the like, which are the usual Formalities of the Pox; nor be you over-confident, that you have nothing of the Scurvy, noon of the Scorbutic Ferment, because you have no lose Teeth, nor rotten Gums, etc. which are the common reputed Signs; Alas, these two Ferments, whither they go jointly or separately, do put on other Formalities, and disguise themselves in the habit of other Diseases, according to the inclinations of such weakly Bodies as they light upon. Guil. Romanus, a Germane Doctor, in an Epistle of his recorded by 
* l. 7. de Morb. Contag. p. 394.  Horstius, reproves another Doctor, that advised with him about the Case of a certain Patient, because he would not allow the Case to be Scorbutic, willing him not to be misled by the low Notions of common Practisers, who alleging that the Patient had no sore Mouth, no looseness of Teeth, not rotting of Gums, nor Spots in the Body, nor loss of lively ruddy Countenance, therefore concluded the Disease was not the Scurvy; this suits 
* Nugae sunt, & ineptiae vulgarium.  (saith he) with the vain Conceits of vulgar Physicians; and he there shows, the Case may be Scorbutic, and yet not one of the common Symptoms of the Scurvy appear in the Business—. In a word, for the right understanding of my Drift in this Disourse, consider, that I distinguish betwixt the Tinctures or Ferments of those two grand Diseases, and the Diseases themselves: The Diseases sometimes appear like themselves, when they are gotten in the common way; but when the Ferments propagate themselves, either by Lactation, or Hereditary Propagation, or by Contagion, they seldom or never appear like branches of such a Stock; but being Tinctured in the Blood and Humours of Bodies do pass into the Forms of such Diseases, as those Bodies which receive them are most inclinable to; and such Diseases, whatever they in common sense and outward appearance seem to be, are never cured by the Medicines usually applied against them, but by such Remedies only, as either totally altar or extirpate the Ferments, which are complicated with, or Tinctured in them. And therefore, 'tis well noted by 
* Cap. 7.  Sennertus in his Advisoes about the Pox, that when 'tis gotten in the usual way of Coition, it is the more easily cured; but very hardly when 'tis gotten by Suckling, or by Hereditary Propagation; for then, 'tis not so much the Pox, as a Pocky Ferment, and (as he saith) is hardest of all to be cured. The like holds also concerning the Scurvy and the Scorbutic Ferment. And thus I have been as plain in my style and language as I could be, in describing so mysterious and abstruse a Matter.  
I might enlarge by naming particular Diseases, to manifest the vast extent of the Scurvy's Complication with all other Maladies, and make Inferences thereupon of the necessity of new Notions and new Medicines; but that being done to my hand by the long Catalogues of Scorbutic Diseases, recorded by Sennertus, and before him by Horstius, and before him by Eugalenus; I think fit to refer you to the Authors themselves, this Treatise being already mounted to a greater Size than I intended. The commonness of such a Complication will hardly be denied by any man that is a Physician; therefore I think 'tis enough that I have touched upon the manner of it, and made it (I conceive) a little more easy to be understood and believed, than hath been done by any one before me.   

CHAP. V An Inquiry into the Alteration of the Nature of Diseases, in reference to Vermination or Breeding of Worms.  
THat Worms are, and may be generated of some bigness, and of several shapes, not only in the Bowels, but in every other part of the Body, is a matter so obvious in every Author of Note, and by continual Observation, that I suppose, noon will deny it: and that they are in these days more frequently appearing in all manner of Fevers, and other Diseases, than in former time, is by experience seen, and there is reason for it, because by the intermixture of Pocky and Scorbutic Ferments, humours are more vitiated, and a more poisonous putredinous Disposition or Corruption is introduced into men's Bodies, than was want to be in elder time. In the years 1660. and 1661. (as I have hinted in my second Chapter) there raged in the Country a Malign Fever, and I myself found worms coming from all people of all Ages from two years old to 70. of both Sexes; for I so ordered Juleps and other means, that I still mingled such Remedies with them, as might kill Worms, or altar the Wormatick matter which abounded within the sick every where; This I then began to do, and have done it ever since; not only in Fevers, but I mingle such Remedies constantly in all other Cases, and do found Worms frequently brought away from People in years, as well as the younger Fry: Therefore this Scope I continually propound to myself, and commend to others that they strike at Worms, and be continually devising Remedies which may suit with the main Disease, (let it be what it will); and withal altar the Wormatick Matter, if there should be no Worms to kill; for, this I found, that though the matter do not sometimes breed the Animals, yet as long as the Wormatick Cadaverous Humour and Matter remains in being, within the Body, so long the Body languisheth, and sometimes will have all the Symptoms that attended Worms actually existent; and no cure of the Main Disease, with which 'tis complicated, will go forward, till that Verminous Humour or Matter be extinguished or removed: which being done, and the Cure wrought by mingling Anti-verminous Medicines with the other, I thereupon conclude, a matter neare of kin to the Worms was A Con-cause (if not the only Cause many times) of the Disease, though I see no Worms actually come away.  
This is a Course that had its rise first from my own private Speculation; for, though others have written of a Complication of Worms with other Maladies, yet noon ever took notice of it as so general a Business. And if others will take to the putting of it in practice, by providing themselves with various Remedies of that Nature, fit to be mingled with other, in Diseases either Acute or Chronical, they will found the success exceed their expectation.  
But since the time that I first entertained this Conception, I have met with a Book, which, though it cannot confirm me more in Judgement, than I am confirmed already by my own Practice; yet it pleaseth me to see a Notion concerning Worms more finely improved, than ever I thought of before: The Author of it is 
* De Peste  Kircherus, the Famous Jesuit, now living at Rome, and 'tis highly commended by the two greatest Physicians of Italy, (as I intimated in one of the foregoing Chapters) by Name Sinibaldi, present Public Professor of Physic in the University at Rome, and Paul Zacchias, now chief Physician to the Pope and his Court, with whom the Learned Jesuit communicated his Papers before he put them in Print, and they revised them; so that what is said in that Book, is the Sense of three Men, known by their Learned Works throughout Europe. I found by the Date of the Epistle Dedicatory to the Pope, that it was written in the year 1658. and was since Printed at Leipsick, an University in the Elector of Saxonie's Country, with a Preface to it prefixed by Christianus Langius, Public Professor of Physic in that University, whose Name I have once before had occasion to mention; but the Book come not to my Hand till last year. He exhorts the Physicians of Leipsick to follow the example of Kircherus, by aspiring after Notions more sublime, than what are to be found in the common Doctrines of Philosophy and Physic, and saith, Thereupon they will acknowledge that Man born to open the Eyes of Philosophers and Physicians, who err and go astray.  
The Design of this Book is, to treat of the Pestilence, its Original, Causes, Signs, and Cure; The occasion of his writing was the strange Nature of the Pestilence which raged at Naples and Genoa, Anno 1656. and from thence flew to Rome; the Symptoms whereof were such as agreed not with the old Descriptions, and baffled all the old Antidotes and Cordials, and puzzled the Physicians in all their Consultations about the Causes and Cure of it: Which Kircherus considering, and pondering various Causes, at length he pitched upon those Effluviums, Atoms, Corpuscles, or Ferments, which (in the same sense that I have described them in the Third Chapter) do continually flow forth of all gross Bodies through the Air, whereby even the said gross Bodies do touch and take with one another, according as they are capable to receive Impressions from each other, through the working and counter-working of these Intermedial flitting Atoms or Bodikins, which when they issue from Contagious Bodies, impart somewhat of their own Natural Venom, and improve it, wheresoever they fix; and He thereupon concluded, that some such little invisible contagious bodies as these, carried through the Air, and insinuating themselves into the Bodies of Men, did, by their pernicious Ferment, induce a putredinous pestilent disposition in the Humours, and consequently, the Pestilence itself, where Nature had not strength enough to oppose and hinder the operation of its Fermental Force and Power.  
This is no other Doctrine than what I have asserted before, in maintaining the like manner of propagation of the Pocky and Scorbutic Ferment; and there is a parity of reason for the like propagating of these Contagions, as for the Pestilential, because the Ferments of Diseases are by Helmont, Horstius, Sennertus, and others, rightly termed, Seminia, Seminalia, Seminaria, Seminaries and Seminals, in regard they carry along with them the Seeds of the Infection of those Infected Bodies from whence they flow; and, wheresoever they lodge, they are like seeds sown, which hath in it a hidden power to produce its own like, and so they beget a Disease of the same kind with that which was their own Original, be it either Pestilential, Pocky, or Scorbutic.— But that which most remarkably touches the Point in hand, is, that he introduceth a new Paradox, (as himself calls it) into the world, viz. That the Contagion of the Pestilence was at that time conveyed abroad, not only by the volatility of such Effluviums, Atoms, and Corpuscles, as are Inanimate, but by such also as were Animated, living Creatures, and were a sort of Invisible Worms or Vermicles. This might seem strange at the first Report, and not to be belielieved, unless that which is not to be perceived commonly by Sight, may by help of Art be prsented to the Eye, and then there is no disputing against Sense. This that Author undertakes to do, (of which more by and by) and saith, 
* P. 81.  That these Animated Effluviums are constituted of indiscernible Animated Corpuscles, it doth appear by the multitude of Worms which are want to issue out of one and the same Body; of which some are so big that they are presently seen, the rest remain in an undiscernible state of Magnitude, yet multiplied in so great a number, as the numberless Corpuscles or Particles are, of which the Effluvium doth consist; and being exceeding subtle, thin, and light, they ply to and from, not otherwise than Atoms do, with the lest puff or motion of the Air: And he saith, These Worms are so fine, that they insinuate themselves, not only into Clotheses, Ropes, and Linen, but into other Bodies lesle Porous, as Cork, Wood, Bones; yea, into those which are least Porous and most compact, as metals, money, etc. Of this he in 
* Pag. 250.  another place tells us, they had daily Experience in the Plague-time, at Naples and Rome, where no money was received in Payment, but what was first well soaked and washed in Vinegar, if it come from any Infected Place; and he believed, nothing could resist the penetration but Diamonds only, because of their polished Superficies, and unconquerable hardness. By such Animated Effluviums 
Lib. D● Venen.  as these, Cardan saith, the great Plague that fell out in his time at Milan was raised, which unpeopled that great City, not only the Air being filled with them, 
* P. 85.  but the very dust of the Earth animated into such kind of Vermicles.  
Georgius Agricola tells, that in his time, a Plague come by eating of Fruits, Pears, Prunes, etc. so that the eaters died in few days after; which Fruits swarmed with multitudes of indiscernible Worms: which were no other than the Animated Corpuscles or Particles flowing from Contagious Carcases, and fastening upon Trees and Plants, being carried thither through the Air. In the late Pest likewise at Naples, many were infected and died presently after eating of Fruits: The use whereof must needs be hazardous in Infectious Seasons, especially such Fruits as are corruptible of their own accord.  
He is much more copious in Discourse about this, but I will contract him, as well as I can. Some will object, that if this were so, then by these Animated Effluviums or Vermicles, being blown by winds from one place to another, the whole world would soon be ruined by Contagion. I answer; that this is not want to be, by reason of the divers and disproportionate Situations of Countries, with their various Natures, Tempers, and Properties, and the divers Constitution of winds and Airs prevailing within them.  
Thus we see, in the same City or Country, the Pest usually declines with the Season of the year, because of the Alteration of the Air, etc. In cooler Airs, these Animated Effluviums or Vermicles, can neither swarm nor live. But if you would know, how these Vermicles come to be made visible, which are of so minute a Magnitude, and so subtle a Substance; the same Author tells us, the visibiliy is attained by the Instrument called a 
* i e. An Instrument so made, and fitted with glasses at each end, as that the smallest thing will be represented by it in so considerable a bigness; that the frame and composure of its Parts may be discerned.  Microscope. These things (saith he) may perhaps seem Paradoxes to the Reader, but when he shall, as I have done, by Experiments made the space of many years, by the help of most exquisite Microscopes, throughly see with his own Eyes, then I suppose, he will not only believe these things to be so, but instructed by Experience, be ready to attest the Truth of what I have said.  
Now, as the certainty of these things is by him alleged, in reference to the propagation of that grand Evil the Pestilence, there can no Reason be given why we should not have an Eye upon a Verminous Disposition in all manner of Diseases whatsoever: If invisible Corpuscles, Atoms, or Particles, may be vivified on this manner, and be conveyed at a distance from place to place, and from a sick person to a sound, or from putrid Carcases to living and lusty, so as to beget a Verminous Disposition within them, I suppose 'tis more easy to conceive, that within the same Body, wherein (be it through intemperance, or by any sort of Contagion) a putredinons Matter (Blood or Humour) is prepared, not only the grosser part of the Matter may be enlivened into the greater sort of Worms, but also the Salient Corpuscles, frisking Atoms, or active Particles therein contained, may be very often (if not continually) quickened into such Invisible Animals or Vermicles; and, as such, lurk in the Blood and Humours of the Body, and become the occasion of many strange Diseases both Acute and Chronical, which we are want to attribute unto some other Cause.  
The learned Author gives so much Light to this as hath convinced me, by manifold Experiments, which because they are the best kind of Arguments; and the clearing of this being of very great importance to the practice of Physic, I will set down all, but make them as short as I can. Before he comes to Experiments, he lays down this for a Position; Omne Putridum, exse & suâ Naturâ generare Vermes: i e. That every thing which is Putrid, doth of itself, and by its own Nature, generate Worms: whereupon he thus reasoneth. Whereas all generation consssts in what is hot and moist, according to the Philosopher's determination, a twofold Corruption may here be considered; the one Natural, the other specially adventitious or beside Nature, which properly is want to be called Putrefaction. I say therefore, that there is no living thing which is not liable to Putrefaction, even as the * Philosopher himself 
Arist. 2. de Hist. Anim.  affirms. For the understanding whereof, it is to be noted, that no living thing can be generated out of what is formally Putrid. But whenas that which is putrefied, being a mixed Body, is, by separation of impure parts from the pure, resolved into its own Elements, and whereas the pure Parts natural to the mixed Body being mingled with the putrid, are agitated by heat; and forasmuch as Nature always intends the best, hence it comes to pass, that the external heat works the prepared matter, not into any thing that is of an Excrementitious Nature, but thrusts forth the purer Parts of the Mixed Body into somewhat that is animated; and this is the only Cause of the Original of Animals out of Putrefaction. Moreover, whereas Philosophers are want commonly to say, that some Animals are generated out of mere Putrefaction alone, that is true, if we conceive the whole putrefaction of a mixed Body to be performed under one Action, but because no mixed Body is so corrupted, but that some of the purer Parts natural to it do remain; therefore when these purer Parts become Tinctured with in an ill fuliginous quality through the putrefying of the Excrementitious Parts, hence it falls out, that the said purer Parts being agitated by external heat, do thrust forth an Offspring of Animals, of the same Nature with the Excrementitious Parts which gave the Tincture. So much for his Philosophy of the Business: Now for the Experiments.  
We see, that the Earth, out of I know not what Putredinous Matter in its own Bowels, doth produce not only Insects of all sorts, but also various Monsters of Venomous Creatures, as Serpents, Toads, Dragons, in Dens and Caves of Mountains, which have their original from moisture and a various mixture of virulent Dregss and Slime; and the like are produced out of Ponds, Lakes, and Marshes, by the heat of the ambient Air working upon a Conflux of Terrestrial Parts. Yea, Water itself kept in a close Vessel, and exposed to the Sun, is quickly animated into Worms, as is seen by daily Experience, both in Voyages at Sea, and within the walls of our own private Houses. Who knows not, that Worms arise from putrefaction out of corrupted Nutriment within the bowels of Man's Bodies? And the like from corrupt humours creeping betwixt the skin, so that the whole Body becomes animated by little and little, as in the Lousy Disease called Phthiriasis?  
Again, there is no kind of Plant which doth not out of slime or mucous Matter, generate a certain Worm peculiar to itself; which secret is in these last Times discovered by the Microscope, and will be more experimented. Yea, Vinegar, Milk, the Blood of men in Fevers, are perceived to be full of Worms, although not to be discerned by an eye that is not armed with that Instrument.  
In the Carcases of Men and Brutes, that wondered Efficacy of Putrefaction in generating Worms doth very much appear: which being taught abundantly by Aristotle, Theophrastus, and Pliny, 
Arist. 4. de gen. c. 26. Theophr. l. ● l 4. c. 27. Plin. l. 11. c. 34.  and known to the Vulgar, I shall not insist upon.  
Moreover, Water elevated by Vapour, Air, Hail, and Snow, are full of Worms. Pliny saith so of Snow, in his Book de Divinis Nat. Charact. And Cornelius Gemma of Hail in lib. de Arte Metallicâ. As much is said of Air by Georgius Agricola; and the sudden generation of Worms, Frogs, and Insects (which have come down with rain upon the earth) doth confirm it. There is also scarce a Stick, or Fruit, or any other mixed Body, which doth not produce some Animal which disposeth that to Destruction which begat it, according to that of Lucretius, — obnoxia cuncta putrori Corpora, putrores Insecta animata sequuntur .All Bodies are subject to Putrefaction, and out of Putrefaction spring Animals. And that Worms of bigness visible arise out of putrid Bodies, is a matter known to All; but that all putrid Bodies should abound with an innumerable Swarm of Worms not to be perceived by the eye of itself, is a matter that was never known till the admired Invention of the Microscope: which I myself could never have believed, unless I had found it true by many years experience. Therefore, that the Reader may more fully behold the admirable power of Nature, what hath been hitherto said, may be manifested by irrefragable Experiments, as follows.  

Experiment I  
Take a Piece of Flesh, and expose it by night to the moisture of the Moon till early the next morning, then view it diligently with a Microscope, and you shall found, that all the Putrefaction contracted by the Moon is degenerated into innumerable Vermicles differing in bigness, but when you remove the Microscope, you cannot discern any by the quickest of your eyes, unless perhaps some few be among them that are grown to a sensible magnitude. You may try the same in Cheese, Milk, Vinegar, and the like Bodies abounding with Putrefaction. Yet think not 'tis to be done by every slight Microscope, but one made by a diligent and skilful hand; such a one as I have, which represents Objects a thousand times bigger than they are in themselves.   

Experiment II  
If you take a Serpent cut into small pieces, and putting it into rain-water, expose it for some days to the Sun, then bury it in the Earth for the space of a day and night, and afterwards taking out the parts grown flaccid with putrefaction, shall examine them with a Microscope, you will sinned all that's putrefied swarming with so great a Multitude of little springing Serpents, that no man, though he have the eyes of Lynceus, can number them: which Experiments may be performed with all kinds of Serpents; and sometimes in dead putrefied Serpents you will found some of them discernible by the Eye alone.   

Experiment III  
Matthiolus, Fuchsius, and many other Herbarists, declare, that Sage unwashed is very hurtful to such as eat it; yea, Mizaldus saith, that some by eating it have immediately fallen down dead: The Cause they impute to I know not what Toads poisoning the roots with their breath. But as for me, I have discovered another Cause of this Matter; for, while I examined more curiously the constitution of this Plant, by the help of my Microscope, at length I observed in those leaves which were more rough than the rest, that their whole Superficies was covered with somewhat like a Spider's Web, within which appeared Animals exceeding small, and which were perpetually at work therein, and certain round Things as it were Eggs were spread upon the Superficies, which as it is doubtless a certain Breed or Spawn of that sort of petit Animals, so by their virulent humour they may do a man a deal of mischief: But wipe a leaf with your finger, or wash it with water, and they allpresently disappear; from whence I collect the true cause of the pernicious quality of Sage that is not washed—. Moreover, if you make Experiment in other Herbs, you will to your very great admiration found, there is no Herb, out of whose moisture or putrid Mucor some Inf●ct doth not spring, which shows itself at first in the form of a very little worm, a little after it acquires wings, and is transformed into a Butterfly, or some other flying Infect, according to the condltion of the Herb or Plant; all which I having found true by frequent Experiment, others also may be satisfied that will make trial of the matter.   

Experiment IV.  
If with the Microscope you examine the powder of any rotten wood whatsoever, you will found a prodigious number of Vermicles, some armed with Horns, some set out as it were with Wings, and others not unlike those Worms that have many Feet; their Eyes also you will discern like black Points, and that they have a long Snout; so that it may appear, Almighty God hath manifested his own wondered Power, not only in the greatest Bodies of the World, but in the smallest, even in those Animals that are not to be discerned by the sharpest sight, having furnished every one of them with such Members, as without which they could neither move themselves, nor exercise any vital Actions. What a little Liver, little Stomach, little Heart, little Nerves, and Gristles, must there go to the making of such invisible Corpuscles! The lest Creature that we can see without the the help of Art, is a Mite, it resembling a little white Punctum or Point, but view it with a Microscope, and it appears to us a rough hairy Creature, like a Bear.   

Experiment V  
Take a Glass-Vial half-filled with Water, into which sprinkle some dust of the Earth, which will presently sink to the bottom; and so exposing the Vial to the Sun in the Summer time for some days, let it rest without shaking, until the Water begin to putrify; and when the Water doth begin to putrify, observe the bottom of the Vial, there will arise out of the settling of the water or injected dust, certain little round bubbles, every one of which in the following days will be animated into very little Worms or Vermicles, which will strangely friskings and sport up and down in the midst of the Water; and being come to Maturity, at length they be take themselves to the top of the Water, and there being in great numbers transformed into winged Gnats, they commit themselves to the Air, and become as troublesome to Men and Beasts in the Summer, especially by night, as others use to be.   

Experiment VI  
Every Living Creature out of its own putrefaction educeth some kind of Animal, agreeable to its own Nature, and different from all others, which as I have by Experiment found true in several sorts of Herbs, and may be seen by Corn animated into winged Animals; so it holds most certain in Animals, as well perfect as imperfect. The Carcase of an Ox becomes animated into Bees; Horses, both living and dead, generate Wasps and Scarabees. Men do breed Nits, Lice, Fleas; the like do some Brutes also. Man's rotten Carcase becomes a Seminary of Worms. Infects putrefied generate Animals of Nature like unto themselves. Nature is so solicitous about promoting the Generations of Things, that wheresoever She finds a Disposition, that is, heat with a due proportion of moisture, there She immediately thrusts forth an Animal. I could here produce innumerable Instances from all sorts of Living Things, but because these are enough for the proof of what I intent, I shall not longer insist on them. Only this one thing I avow, that all Putrefaction hath certain Seminals or Seeds within itself for the Generation of Animals, which being excited by external and convenient Heat, do break forth into the aforesaid Colluvies of Worms, so much the more pernicious as the putrefaction is more virulent.   

The Inference.  
From this new Doctrine, established by Demonstration of irrefragable Experiments, it clearly appears, that most of the odd Diseases of a Malignant Nature, and which Physicans know not what to make of, do for the most part depend upon a certain virulent and strange putrefaction, which being animated by time, as it degenerates into a certain verminous and indiscernible Generation of Worms, so also they occasion a strange Catastasis of unusual Exotic Symptoms, the Causes whereof Physicians cannot assign: For, as there is no sort of Meat which is not subject to such a wormatick production; so in the Body of Man there is no Vessel belonging to Vital Operation, which is not sometimes affected therewith. Hollerius tells us of a Scorpion bred in the Brain; also of a Man whom he dissected after Death, and found a world of Worms in his Liver, which were the Cause of his unknown Disease. Turn over the Volumes which given us the Historical Part of Physic, and you will found Examples of Worms, not only in the principal Parts of Man's Body, as the Heart, Liver, Brain, Lungs, Reinss, Spleen, Bladder, Stomach, etc. but in those Channels of the Blood, the Veins, and Arteries. For, whereas, by the unanimous Consent of Physicians, the Cause of all Diseases is said to be a certain putrefaction secretly lurking among the hidden recesses of the Humours; and whereas all putrefaction upon the next opportunity produceth Worms not to be discerned by the Senses; and seeing that according to the various distemper of Humours, Putrefaction acquireth Venoms of divers Natures, and divers powers in working, according to the various manner of combination of Malignant Humours, even such a variety of Powers also the Animals from thence springing must needs acquire, and become so much the more pernicious, by how much a Poison or Venom that is Animated is more violent than that which is Inanimate: And so it falls out, that this Animated or Wormatick Venom being disseminated by little and little, first infects the Mass of Humours, then creeping on gnaws the Bowels, and dispersing its Poison through the inmost Fibres of the Body, doth, with most horrible Fits and Symptoms, dispose a man by degrees toward his long Home. Hence it is, that Physicians perceiving such effects fall out beside the Course of Nature, as are little lesle than prodigious, in the exotic constitution of some Diseases, they admire what the Matter is, and try all Experiments; and so the apothecary's Shops are well nigh emptied of Medicines, and yet no hope of procuring health, whereas if they did rightly apprehended the nature of the lurking Enemy, perhaps they might by appropriate Remedies restore the Patient: But few do imagine, that we carry about with us an Off-sping of Animals begotten out of our own Blood and Bowels, of so great a contumacy, that if you overthrew their Auxiliary Forces in one place, you will found them immediately recruited in another.  
Moreover, that there may be a more full evidence of this Truth, so necessary to be known, the aforesaid Author saith, 
* Pag. 240.  he hath with his Microscope examined the blood of men sick of Fevers, which hath satisfied him over and over of the business; for, viewing the blood an hour or two after the opening of veins, I have (saith he) found it so full of Worms, that it made me almost astonished, and I have ever since been convinced, that man, as well living as dead, may abound with innumerable vermicles though undiscernible by the eye; so that well may we take up the saying of Job, I said to Corruption, Thou art my father, and to the Worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister. These Things perhaps may seem Paradoxes to some Physicians, but let such know, 
* Pag. 241.  that many things lie hid in the nature of things which were unknown to the Ancients, and to such also as have lived of late years, which the extraordinary Sagacity of the present times hath discovered by the benefit of the Microscope, and laid before our eyes.  
The Result of all I have brought here is this: That the Bodies of men are liable to be wrought on by each other at a distance, by the efflux and intervention of certain Atoms, Corpuscles, or Particles; and that these Particles sometimes are Inanimate, and sometimes Animated into little invisible Worms (as in the Case of Pestilential Infection;) but howsoever, be th●y the one or the other, it is certain 〈◊〉 they carry along with them a power able to corrupt Bodies which receive them, and turn them into the same nature and bad condition with Themselves. So much therefore to show, that such indiscernible Vermicles may be generated within us by secret corruptive Causes coming from without us, because those Corpuscles carry along with them Ferments, which have a power Alterative lodged in them, able to work upon Bodies of the same kind in especial manner, and by Fermentation convert both blood and humours into their own ill Nature, even as a very little leaven leveneth a whole Tub of Meal. But admit this could not be, yet the Case concerning our new Hypothesis touching Worms (great or small, visible or invisible) to be considered in the constitution of all or most Diseases, because somewhat of Putrefaction attends all human Bodies, is plain enough from Corruptive Causes lurking within us.  
But it may be objected, Men in all times have had Putrefaction, and so doubtless Vermicles latent in them, in Ages past as well now, though they had no Microscope to discover them, and yet they had not such strange prodigious Distempers attending their Diseases as you talk of, by reason of such Worms or Vermicles; why then do you insist so much upon Worms now, as a main Cause of the unusual Symptoms and Alterations in almost all Diseases, more than in former times? I answer, 'tis true, such Worms (no doubt) in respect of magnitude (or rather littleness) have lurked in the parts, blood, and humours of men in all Ages, because of Putrefaction, and have been Causes of so much mischief as the force of their nature could extend to; but consider, 1. That in old time, even the great Worms were not so frequently attendant upon other Diseases, as now we found them; for in reading of Hypocrates & Galen, and their followers, little is said of Worms in any other Disease but Fevers; but now a days we found them much more frequently in Fevers, yea and in Diseases of the Lungs, Liver, Spleen, Heart, Brain, Reinss, Bladder, and in the Colic, and Pains of the sides; and of the back, etc. which have all vanished upon the avoidance of Worms, effected by mixing Anti-verminous Medicines with other: which being a matter rare to be heard of till this latter Age, is an evidence, that now Bodies of men have usually more Putrefaction in them, for which many common Causes drawn from the latitude of Luxury in latter times, may be assigned, but I wave them as needless: only let me observe here, that in those greater, as well as the lesser Worms, the Symptoms are more strange and violent than heretofore. I had a gentlewoman not long since afflicted with a Pain in the region of the Liver; after other remedies used in vain, I gave her a gentle Purgative mixed with somewhat against Worms: It brought a great one from her, and after once or twice more using the same remedy, the Pain went away. Another, a gentlewoman of quality, now in Southwark, who the last year had a great pain in her stomach, a Cough, a great Inflation or Tumefaction in the region of the Liver; She ran all the Round of Physicians and Remedies, and her Body was wasted to the lowest ebb of a Consumptive state; but by Advice of a great Lord, who supposed wind to be a Cause, She chawed Tobacco, by which means vomiting (a little too violently for so weak a Body) She threw up 7. or 8. Worms; whereupon the pain went immediately away, all other terrible Symptoms were at an end, and She soon recovered to a perfect state, without any other means. This week, wherein I now writ, an Elderly woman, long afflicted with all the imaginable Symptoms which are want to attended Hypochondriack Melancholy, and which nothing else would ease, by giving her Pills which are want to work out Worms, many strange ones come from her, day after day. I could run out at large in Instances of this nature; but that were more fit for a particular Treatise about it. If the great Worms do mischief thus, what may we expect from the little ones, that are in the more abstruse and solid parts, and in the very blood and humours?  
2. Consider, that as Putrefaction is more frequent, so it is more virulent, having in it a greater degree of Venom than in olden time: For, you may remember what is noted before, That according to the various distemper of humours, Putrefaction acquires venoms or virulencies of various Natures, and divers powers in working, according to the various manner of combination of Malignant Humours; and so if the invisible Animals or Vermicles thence generated, arise now from a combination of humours, of condition more virulent and malignant than was known heretofore, 'tis no wonder, if Diseases be more often caused by them, and become more dreadful in their effects and Symptoms. Now, if you inquire, how the humours of man's Bodies, which are the Subject of Putrefaction, come to be more malignant and Poisonous than formerly, I, to avoid a tedious repetition of things, refer you to the foregoing Chapters of this Discourse, which sufficiently point out the new Parents of Putrefaction and Malignancy, viz. the Pox and the Scurvy, by which I have manifested what a marvellous Change hath been wrought in the whole Frame of the little world of man; so that the exotic Ferments being propagated and sublimated to a great height of venom, in their combination with our Blood and Humours, the venomous Product of putrefaction thence arising must needs induce a Malignancy in every malady, and consequently in Worms; not only in the visible ones of all sorts, but (which is of more sad and serious consideration) even in those petty Vermicles, which (whither they come into us from abroad, or breed within us) do the most frequent and greatest mischiefs, because the Parts and Liquors of our Bodies are rarely free from them, yet few or no Physicians take notice of them, or have remedies that will reach them; and so these invisible Vermin being neglected, as well as the greater, tender most Cases incurable, because being of a nature more poisonous and penetrative than in former Ages, they are now, by an active exerting and diffusing their virulency within the Body, become more able to Taint it, and more apt than ever to rage, and do prodigious executions.  
But because many are swayed in their Judgements, more by the concurrence of Testimonies, than any other Evidence, given me leave therefore to conclude this Chapter with the opinion of Langius, present public Professor in the University of Leipsick (whom I have occasion to mention once or twice before;) He, in his Preface before Kircherus declares himself abundantly satisfied about these things, and names one Dr. Hauptman, another Germane Physician, who affirms the same in a Book entitled De viuâ Mortis imagine. I shall not (saith he) insist upon those many most faithful Experiments made by Kircherus, and others both Physicians and Chirurgeons, who have abundantly proved with the Microscope, that upon the opening of Buboes and Tumours, they have been found full of innumerable Vermicles undiscernible by the eye. The like may be said of Wounds and Ulcers which so frequently puzzle such as endeavour the Cure of them. But he goes on, and discourses of that terrible Disease the Purples, which so frequently befalls women within the month after child-delivery, for, it having baffled the greatest Physicians and their most precious Cordials, thereupon he and Hauptman laid their heads together, and concluded the Principal and Immediate Cause of that roughness of the Skin in that Disease, must be from some extraordinary Putrefaction within; and so examining the matter with the Microscope, they found those petty Vermicles, spread upon the whole Superficies in the rough parts of the Skin; by which means you have here an Infallible experiment, touching the Original of that most Malignant disease the Purples; which is further confirmed by this, that after the using of all the Bezoardicks, Diaphoreticks, and Cordials commonly so called, without any success, he be took himself to the use of such remedies as have a power to kill and mortify the putrid seminaries of worms, by mingling them with such other remedies as were proper in the Case.  
From hence he bids us, with the like prudence to collect the causes and cures of distempers in the Measles, Small Pox, and Spotted Fevers, etc. and if you follow his example close, he saith, you will not err from the successful way of curing: And he knows no reason why he should not, in all and singular diseases which have any thing in them of a notable putrefaction or Fermentation of vicious humours, resolutely assert, that they spring from such a veuminous seminary of Animals, seeing he hath seldom failed of a prosperous success by such a course of Cure: For, as I affirm (saith he) that Inveterate headaches, Pleurisies, accompanied with intolerable pain, Pains and Gnaw of the Stomach, Torments, Gripes, or Wring of the Bowels, Epileptic Convulsions, Arthritical Tortures, and other the like distempers, do arise from Effluviums and Exhalations quickened into Animals, which, as being exceeding slimy, very easily adhering to the Nervous and Membranous parts, do, by twitching and lancing, affect them with very cruel pricking and shooting pains perpetually; So also by administering such remedies as are specifically destructive to Worms, and which have a strong power to precipitate them, all pains have been removed out of the body. Thus he; and in pursuance of this Doctrine, he promiseth ere long to publish a Treatise with the Title of Pathologia Animata.  
Now jest any should object it a matter impossible, that there should be so quick and ready a transmission of those little Animals along with the Liquors of the Body from one part to another; let me have leave to add one Testimony to illustrate this; and it is that of the ingenious Author de Ratione Motus Musculorum lately printed, who, page 9 after he hath shown that all the Membranes of the body, as well as the Muscles, are filled with a subtle spirituous Liquor, which perpetually passeth through all their Fibres, and keeps them in a due Tone, saith, No man can think this too much to be granted, who considers those very very little Animals which are furnished with all their appertinences, and yet are lesle than the smallest of those Fibres. And truly if this be so, tis no hard matter to conceive, but they may pass along through the Fibres, w●th celerity, as well as the said Liquor. But enough of this for the present, seeing it may serve to given some light, how much Diseases are altered from their old state, in reference to Vermination; and to stir up the wits and spirits of ingenious men, to make further inquiry into this, and many other Particulars, touching which we have no relief from the antiquated Doctrines and Medicines of former Physicians.    

CHAP. VI The Insufficiency and Uselessness of the old way of Physic, in respect of Method and Medicines, arguing a necessity of a new.  
IF my Premises be true, certainly the Conclusion will naturally follow: If all manner of Diseases are grown more rebellious, or more mortal than formerly; if they are all altered from their ancient State and Condition; if the Causes of this Alteration were never known to the old Founders of Physic, nor taken notice of by any that succeeded them, nor by any in this last Age so fully, as the matter requires; If also through the marvellous alteration by them wrought, there be introduced as it were another Nature both in men and Diseases; then it clearly follows, that the former Rules and Doctrines calculated for Curation from a consideration of other Causes, or from Causes lesle important, are almost, if not quite out of doors; and that the old Medicines, the invention of which was grounded upon such Doctrinal Hypotheses or Suppositions, as in these days of ours are lest considerable, must needs be in difficult cases useless, and in most cases insufficient; and that all manner of Encouragement aught to be given to such men as labour to establish new Doctrines, new Methods, and Rules of Curation agreeable to the new frame of human nature, and to the new Phenomena of Diseases; and that my Brethrens aught to apply themselves with all industry thereto, and instead of dwelling upon old Notions and Remedies, be take themselves to the Invention of new, more rational, and lesle loathsome, and which may more effectually meet with Diseases in their very Root and Original.  
This is a hard Chapter to be read by men that have taken up their rest, would lie a bed, because their names are up, and mean no more to go to School: but let such know tis no shame to learn; Ars longa, vita brev is; the Age of Methuselah is too short a time to run a round to any purpose in the Field of Nature; could I live 1000 years, I might always found work in a Laboratory and a Study, for the advancement of Physic both in Theory and Practice. The Maxims of our Profession are not like those of the Spanish Monarchy, which, Monsieur de Balzac saith, are eternal; and he gives this Character of the great Dons of Spain, that they and their Kings have them annexed to their Birth-rights, being bequeathed to them by their Fathers, and conveyed down to them by Inheritance; and 'tIS said, they are so precise in the observation of those Maxims, that they will hardly recede a moment from them, though it were to save the Monarchy. Perhaps there may be somewhat of Hyperbole in this: but however, it will become Physicians not to take up so pertinacious a stately Humour, either when a Life lies at stake, or in their ordinary Course of practice, as to tie themselves to old Methods and Aphorisms, remembering what prudent Celsus (the great Plagiary of Hypocrates) saith, Vix ulla perpetua praecepta Ars Medicinalis recipit, Scarce any of the Precepts of the Art of Physic are perpetual; and truly, by stiff adherence to them, many a person hath been lost, but the Thing may be justified, because he died by Rule and Sccundùm Artem.  
This is pretty tartly touched by that noble and industrious person Mr. Boil, in his 
* Put. ●. Essay. 5.  Experimental Philosophy. There was a while since (saith he) a witty Doctor, who being asked by an Acquaintance of my of the same Profession, why he would not given such a Patient more generous remedies, seeing he grew so much worse under the use of common languid ones, to which he had been confined, alleging, that at last he must needs die with them in his mouth: He briskly answered, Let him die, if he will, so he die Secundùm Artem. I hope there are but few of this man's T●mper; but it were to be wished there were fewer men that think that a Physician hath done enough, when he hath learnedly discoursed of the Seat and Nature of the Disease, and methodically employed a company of safe, but languid remedies, as unable to cure the Patient, as unlikely to kill him: For, by such an unprofitable way of proceeding, to which some lazy, or opinionated Practisers of Physic, have, under pretence of its being safe, consigned themselves, they have rendered their whole Profession obnoxious to the Cavils of Empirics. So Monsieur de Balzac (in his witty French Discourse of the Court) hath a story of a Physician of Milan, that he knew at Padna, who being content with a possession of his Science, and (as he termed it) the Enjoyment of the Truth, did not only not particularly inquire into the Cure of Diseases, but boasted that he had killed a man with the fairest Method in the world.  
It were to he wished they would rightly apprehended the nature of Diseases in this Age, and their Causes, before they lay so much stress upon old Methods and Means, and tie up men to their Forms: For (as it is well observed by the same 
* Ch. 1●.  learned man of honour) they cannot agreed yet about the Nature and Causes, and therefore no marvel they that would be thought the exactest Methodists, do miss so often of a right Method. Tis not (saith he) that I am an enemy to Method, or an undervaluer of it, but I fear the generality of Physicians have as yet but an imperfect Method, and have, by the narrow Principles they were taught in the Schools, been persuaded to frame their Method, rather to the barren Notions of the Peripatetic School, than to the full amplitude of Nature. Nor do I found, that Physicians have yet done so fit a thing, as seriously (and with such attention as the importance of the thing deserves) on the one side, to enumerate and distinguish the several Causes, which may any whit probably be assigned, how the Phenomena of that disordered state of man's Body, which we call a Disease, or its Symptoms, may be produced; and on the other side, by how many, and how differing ways the Phaenomena may be removed, or the Diseases they belong to may be destroyed. And if this were Analytically and carefully done I little doubt but that man's knowledge of the Nature and Causes of Diseases, and the ways of Curing them, would be lesle circumscribed, and more effectual than it was want to be. And I am apt to think, that even Methodists themselves would found, that there are divers probable, if not promising Methods (proper to divers Cases) which ways they yet overlook: And though in a right sense it be true, that the Physician is but Nature's Minister, and is to comply with her, who aims always at the best; yet if we take them in the Sense wherein those Expressions are vulgarly used, I may elsewhere acquaint you with my Exceptions at them. In the mean time, I confess to you, that I know not whither they have not done harm, and hindered the Advancement of Physic, fascinating the minds of men, and keeping them from those effectual Courses, whereby they might potently altar the Engine of the Body, and prevent or cure divers stubborn Diseases, more happily than the vulgar Methodists are want to do. And indeed, 'tis scarce to be expected, that till men have a righter knowledge of the Principles of Natural Philosophy, without which 'tIS hard to arrive at a more comprehensive Theory of the various possible Causes of Diseases, and of the Contrivance and Uses of the Parts of the Body, the Method which supposeth this knowledge, should be other than in many things defective, and in some erroneous, as I am apt to think the v●lgar Method may be shown to be as to some particular Diseases. To be short, how much esteem so ever we have for Method, yet since that itself, and the Theories whereon men ground it, are, as to divers Diseases, so hotly disputed of, even among eminent Physicians, that in many Cases a man may discern more probability in the success of the remedy, than of the truth of the received Notion of the Disease. In such abstruse Cases, methinks it were not amiss to reflect upon that reasoning of the ancient Empirics (though upon a somewhat differing occasion) which is thus somewhere expressed by Celsus, 
* I have read it in the Preface of Celsus.  Neque se dicere consilio medicum non egere, & irrationabile Animal hanc Artem posse praestare, sed has latentium rerum Conjecturas ad rem non pertinere; quia non intersit quid Morbum faciat, sed quid tollat. And as the controverted Method in the abovementioned Diseases, is not yet established or agreed on in the Schools themselves, so divers persons that are wholly strangers to the Schools, do yet by the help of Experience and good Specificks, and the Method which their Mother-wit, according to Emergencies, doth prompt them to take, perform considerable Cures.  
This Testimony of so worthy a person I have set down at large, that I might deliver my own Sense, in the language of one well-known to the world for Sufficiency, by reason of the great expense of time that he hath made in Medicinal Inquiries, continual Converse with Physicians of all sorts, and observations of Practice both Rational and Emperical. But jest you should think, that I like this Distinction in the common use of it, let me tell you, that I, who for many years have conversed with such Professors of Physic, as some in scorn term Empirics, and observed their various ways, and thought it no shame to make Collections from them, and from all the Old women I could meet with, which pretended to any thing of Physic, could seldom found any of them so irrational, as not to given some tolerable reason, and so much as satisfied me, that for the most part they had reason for what they did; and though perhaps their Discourse come not from them, clothed with such delicate Terms of Art, as pass current among the Schools, yet giving them some grains of Allowance, I concluded they spoke reason, and that their Method was right, because it was fitted to the Medicines they used, and both Method and Medicines so well agreed as to make Cures in many desperate Cases, left as incurable by others: And I must profess, that by observing the Practices of these, I have had opportunities to see more of Nature in her naked appearances and operations (as to the condition wherein she now stands in this present Age) than ever I could discover in all the Volumes that I have read. Therefore call men Empirics, or what you will, because they are neither graduated nor incorporated, I shall ever esteem such to be most Rational, as make Art to follow Nature, rather then strain Nature and her Anomalies to general Rules of Art, and who seeing Nature degenerated into Extravagancies never known heretofore, do endev●r to found out new ways and Remedies to deal with her: which he that adheres to that old Philosophy, which is usually made the entrance into Physic, will never be able to do; for (as it is well noted by the same Gentleman 
* Part. 2. Pag. 237. ) indeed the Physiology wherewith Physicians, as well as others, are want to be imbued in the Schools, hath done them no small disservice, by accustoming them to gross apprehensions of Nature's ways of working. And I found, that those Apprehensions commonly arise from Preconceptions grounded upon some general Aphorisms and Conclusions delivered by Authors, who (as my Lord Bacon notes) never took the right way towards an attainment of Science in things Natural, which aught not to be founded upon what we conceive in our Brains, but rather upon sensible Objects and Experiments, and so, through an enumeration of particular Experiments, we may by way of Induction rise up to a power of establishing general Conclusions; but for want of this, men have made too much haste in setting down Principles of Sciences. 
* Bacon, Advance of Learn. l. 4. p. 189. 190.  For, they use commonly to take a Prospect of Nature, as from some high Turret, and to view her afar of; and are too much taken up with Generalities, whereas if they would vouchsafe to descend, and approach nearer to Particulars, and more exactly and considerately look into things Themselves, there might be made a more true and profitable discovery and comprehension. Now the remedy of this Error, is not alone this, to quicken or strengthen the Organ, but withal to go nearer to the Object: And therefore there is no doubt but if Physicians, letting Generalities go for a while, and suspending their Assent thereto, would make their approaches to Nature, they might become Masters of that Art, whereof the Poet speaks, 

Orid, Remed Am. ●. 2.  Et quoniam variant Morbi, variabimus Artes;  
Mille Mali Species, mille Salutis ●runt.  
Because Diseases vary, therefore we Will vary Arts of Cure; and though there be  
A Thousand sorts of strange Distempers steal  
On us, we'll have a Thousand ways to heal.  Which (as the same noble Philosopher and Lord tells us) they aught the rather to endeavour, because the Philosophies themselves, upon which Physicians, whither they be Methodists or Chemists, do rely, are indeed very slight and superficial. Wherhfore, if too wide Generalities, though true, have this defect, that they do not well bring men home to Action, certainly there is greater danger in those Generals which are in themselves false, and instead of directing to Truth, misled the mind into the By-paths of Error. Medicine therefore (as we have seen) hath been such hitherto, as hath been more professed than laboured, and yet more laboured than advanced, seeing the pains hestowed thereon hath been, rather in Circle than in Progression: For, I found much Iteration, but small Addition in Writers of that Faculty. Thus Herald And the Truth is, he might well say there had been but little Advancement made in the Profession of Physic, for, I may safely say, that there hath been more of importance done to that End, since the time of his writing that Book, than ever was done in the world before; for, in former time, men contented themselves with the little Science that was left them by others, and made no Progress, but ran the Round of Comments upon the Greeks and Arabians, as the Oracles of Physic; and usually one Commentator steals out of another, so that you have but the same Dish of Crambe new cooked; and if you have one of the most voluminous, you have in a manner All: look but fifty or sixty years back, and see what a poor Case Physic was in to what it is now; nay, look but twenty years back, and you will say, never had any other Science or Art in the world such an Advance and Alteration in so short a time; insomuch that our Dogmatical Methodists can now vouchsafe to use commonly such Medicaments, as were startled at before, and with some patience hear of such Doctrines, Methods, and other things, as they were want, at the very first mention, to rant against heretofore. To speak truth, we are all of us too apt to prise what we have in possession, and to believe it so perfect, that nothing can be added to it; or else we would have others believe so, and when we grow lazy and stately, it is our Interest to have it so, and to persuade all men of any Interest that it should be so.  
But truly, tis much more honourable to acknowledge, that the greatest part of what we do know, is the lest part of what we do not know, and thereupon to given all manner of encouragement to searching heads to make further inquiry, and not straiten the hands of any whose industry and experiments may contribute toward the completing of our Art; the Harvest is great, and the Labourers but few; what vast crops are appearing in the spacious Field of Nature, to found work for Ages to fetch them forth! therefore it were well, if all men were invited to the Profession and Practice of Physic and Medicinal Researches, in all Countries of the world; especially the Nobility and Gentry, who by reason of their Estates and Interests, would be more able, and attain greater opportunities than other men, to inquire, and invent, and spend their time in Practice, especially among the Poor: which in former time (as we read) hath been the employment of the greatest Princes. I (for my part) cannot but think highly of so brave a Latitude, and so meanly of myself, as to set myself to learn of the meanest persons (though my education hath not been inferior to others) rather than scorn or oppress them; but if I would trample on any, it should be upon the selfconceited, and the proud, and that I would do to purpose, calcare superbiam majore cum superbiâ, and afterwards descend to confer with the lowest of this profession, to gain an understanding of his Notions about Nature, his way of practice, and the Reasons of it, and his Observations; and what I have already gained by collections thus made, perhaps you may have an account of in public hereafter.  
In the mean time know, Hypocrates himself gives it in command in his Book entitled Praeceptiones, that you count it no disparagement to learn of the most Contemptible persons, Ne cuncteris, etiam ab Idiotis inquirere & discere, si quid ad medendi occasionem facere videatur; Be not slack (saith he) to inquire and learn even from Idiots, if they have any thing that seems to promote a Cure upon occasion. Of this generous teachable temper Mr. Boyl himself is a noble example, who (I hear) disdains not to learn and collect from any person: And in one place 
* Part. 2. ●. 301.  he noteth it was the custom also of Henricus ab Here a great observator at the Spa, who in his Book entitled Observationes oppidò rarae, shows that he thought it not beneath his dignity to record divers receipts that he had from Mountebanks, yea, and from Gypsies. I remember also, that the late great Collector Riverius tells, in his Book of Observations, of his learning of a Beggar-woman to cure the Haemorrhoids with Millefoil infused in fair water, and drunk for a month together, which usually took effect with all that used it; and a Chirurgeons wife and another woman are named, that were so cured. And the learned Gentleman above named thinks it no shame, to learn from the experiments and practice of 
* p. 234, 235.  Farriers, Graziers, and Shepherds, who deal with Brutes, how to make Additions to the Art of curing the Diseases of men; many such things (saith he) may serve, either to enrich or illustrate the way of curing human Bodies: Their ignorance, and their Credulousness, together with the liberty and meanness of those Creatures which they Physic, gives them leave to vent ure on any thing, it having made them try upon Horses and Cattles, many such things as Physicians dare not try upon Men and Women. And among those many extraordinary things, some, as it often happens, have succeeded so prosperously, as to deserve to be considered by the skilfullest Physicians, some of whom might, without disparagement to their Profession, do an useful Piece of service, if they would be pleased to collect and digest all the approved experiments and Practices of the Farriers, Graziers, Butchers, and the like; which the Ancients did not despise, but honoured with the Titles of Hippiatrica and Veterinaria; and among which, if I had leisure, I might take notice of divers things, that may serve to illustrate the Method of Curing.  

* Lib. 1. chap. 18.  Dr. Primrose also, in that very ingenious piece of his, Entitled of Vulgar Errors, maintaining that our faculty or Physic being an Art Mechanical, and that it is ill done to separate the Physic of Men from the Physic of Brutes, saith, The wound of a Horse differs not in specie from the wound of a Man; they have the same Causes, the same Indications of Cure; the Physician is the Minister, be it of a Horse, an Ox, or a Man A Fever Continual, and Intermittent, is a disease common to Horses, Dogs, Kines, and Men; the Remedies also are common, as Bleeding, Clysters, Purgations, made of Medicaments Simple or Compound. The Physic of men hath nothing proper to it, which the Physic of Brutes may not challenge to itself; that they who have written of the Physic of Brutes, among the English (for whose sakes this Book is written) of which Markham is one, and another an Italian (whose name I have forgotten) as also those Ancients who have written of that sort of Physic, do use the same Remedies, and that with very great reason; for, Medicaments do not work upon man as he is a Rational Creature or a Man, but as he is a mixed Body. This is not only 
* Lib? 4. chap. 2.  his Opinion, but Aristotle's also, in his Metaphysics; and in his second Chapter of Rhetoric to his Scholar Alexander: yea Zabarel, and Piccolamini, reprove such Physicians as make man's Body alone to be the Subject of Medicine; seeing this Art extends itself further. Nor was it in ancient time thought any discredit for Physicians to observe the ways of curing Brutes, which have been taken notice of, and recorded by Columella, Cato, Varro, Pellagonius and Vegetius, all of them most noble Authors. Yea, Alphonsus King of Arragon retained in Pension two Doctors of Physic, with a large Fee of Allowance to cure his Horses and Dogs; and enjoined them to inquire and try, what Remedies, and what manner of Cure did best agreed with every Disease of Beasts; which having done, they set forth a very profitable Book about these things. The same 
* Cap. 87.  Cornelius Agricola tells us, was done, in his time by Joannes Ruellius at Paris, a man of great learning, and a principal Physician, who wrote a Book to the same purpose, with Collections concerning Diseases and Remedies of Brutes, out of Apsirchus, Hierocles, Theomnestus, Pellagonius, Anatolius, Tiberius, Eumelus, Archidamus, Hypocrates, Hemerius, Africanus, and out of Aemilius Hispanus, and Litorius of Benevento; which turned to the great Advantage of the Public, and the Advancement of the Commonwealth of Physic; in the compiling of which Books, these noble Authors thought it no matter of scorn, to consult all manner of Grooms, Herdsmen, and other keepers of Cattles, and Farriers; from whose ruder Speculations and Practice, I myself many times have had occasion to excogitate ways and Remedies for cure of Men, with notable success in the application; and would men lay aside the stately humour, and inquire among all sorts of Practisers, both upon Man and Beast, and improve inquiries of this nature, a far greater Amplitude would thereby accrue to the Body of Physic, than ever can be expected from the most diligent Readers, or the most lofty Speculators; all that hath been done in Physic hitherto, being of but little value to what may be.  
Enter into such an humble course of Inquiry and Observation, and the more knowing you become, the more you will know, that there is abundant cause we should despise no body. As Mr. Boil saith of such as cure Beasts, much may be learned among them, because they venture with any thing upon those creatures; so I found much may be learned among such as some are pleased to call Mountebanks, Quacks, and Empirics, especially in Chronic difficult Cases; for, usually they are the poorer sort of people that have recourse to them, upon whom having most liberty to try notable Medicines, and having often tried them with success, they go on, and are not (I perceive) so voided of reason, but they know how to improve them in their practice, and can from a Parity of Reason (which the Schools call Analogismus) invent new ones of the like powerful Nature, and which may given you, or me, or any other Physician, (by converse with them) occasion to endeavour to invent such, or better: now, the like opportunities are not to be had among Physicians of higher port, who attending the better sort of Patients, content themselves for the most part with the use of such Remedies, as their Bills upon the File, and the Apothecary will witness to be Authorised Medicines, and Safe; though I must tell them, other Medicines are now by time and experience seen to be every jot as Safe, but much more Effectual, which were damned by Bookmen when they were first invented, and do now pass with as much credit and Authority, as if they had never been cried down or contradicted; and doubtless, he is a very Wicked Practiser that will administer any Medicine, which he knows not whither it be safe or not; and a very Ignorant one, that is not able to judge certainly, if he do invent a new Medicine, whither it be fit or not, or who dares not venture it first upon his own Body, yet shall presume to given it to another: He that can analy see natural Bodies, and resolve them into their Principles, is Scholar enough to understand a Medicine. This is not spoken therefore to countenance any person so audaciously Emperical, as will at adventure be trying of Practices, though they have neither Reason nor Experience to guide them; but rather to encourage good wits (both great and small) seeing Diseases are altered, and do still altar, and many of them prove incurable by old methods and means, that they will not be so precise as to judge of men's Insufficiency in curing, by their skill in old learning, but rather by their knowledge of the Principles or parts of mixed Bodies, and the ordering of them for Medicine, their acquaintance with the present Phaenomena of man's nature and of Diseases, and by their Industry in making Experiments and Remedies proportionate thereunto. How many in this great City have I seen excellent at this, who never seen an University! Therefore hear again what Mr. Boyl saith, * and very excellently to the purpose, 
Pag. 286, 287.  that as Physic hath owed its beginning to Experiment, so those that practise it must enlarge and rectify their Principles, according to the new Discoveries which are made from time to time, of the Operations and power of the Productions, whither of Nature or Art Celsus in his excellent Preface, speaking in the sense of the old Empirics, of the original of Physic, saith, that Remedies being first found out, Men began to discourse of the Reasons of them; and that Medicine was not invented after Reason, but Reason was inquired into after the Invention of Medicine. And jest the mistaken name of Empiric should make you undervalue so useful a consideration, which not the nature of their Sect, but that of the thing, suggested to them, I shall add in favour of experienced, though otherwise unlikely Remedies, that 'tIS a Sentence ascribed to Aristotle (and in my opinion one of the best that is ascribed to him) Ubi res constat, si opinio adversetur rei, quaerendam rationem, non rem ignorandam; Where a thing is manifest, if Opinion be against the thing, then the reason of it is to be inquired after, but the Thing itself aught not to be disowned. And certainly, though there be scarce any sort of men, whose credulity may do the world more mischief than that of Physicians; yet perhaps neither Nature nor mankind is much beholden to those, that too rigidly or narrowly circumscribe, or confine the operations of Nature, and will not so much as allow themselves, or others, to try whither it be possible for Nature, excited and managed by Art, to perform divers things which they never yet seen done, by divers ways, differing from any, which by the common Principles that are yet taught in the Schools, they are able to given a satisfactory Account of. Thus he.  
And truly, the reason why I drive this Nail so home, is not, that I think that noble person a Friend to unlearned Empirics; nor that he, who hath so great a portion of Learning, would be reckoned an enemy to Learning and Learned men; only, I perceive he is of my mind in another part of his Book, where he implieth, there is no such need of Learning (commonly so reputed) to make a good Physician; for, 
* Pag. 395.  he by conversation with eminent Physicians having found, that the learnedst of them disagree so much about the Nature and Causes of Diseases, admits, that a man may prosperously practise. Physic, that is either ignorant of, or dissents from the received Doctrines of the Schools concerning the Causes of Diseases, and some other Pathological Particulars, provided he hath a Mediocrity or competent measure of knowledge in Anatomy, and the Nature of Diseases and their Symptoms, etc. Nor do I cite this, as if I myself were of the Spirit of Hercules Bovio, (the noted Italian Empiric, contemporary with Fracastorius and Fumanellus) who wrote a Book Entitled Il Flagello di Medici Rationali, the Scourge of Rational Physicians (which I have read translated, though not printed in English;) but I believe an old way of Profession of any Art to be very irrational, when the Subject matter of it is altered and become new (as I suppose I have proved that of Physic to be,) and I am 
* He was Physician to three Emperors. Consil. 322.  of Crato's mind, who allows a man that hath expert Medicines, to practise them, if he be so rational as with reason to administer them, For (saith he) though a Physician should consider the Cause, and the Part affected, and think that aught more to be insisted on than extraordinary Receipts of Medicines, yet I question not but an expert Medicine administered with reason, may avail more than that which is sometimes suddenly devised with great reason by a most learned Physician: And upon this account (saith he) I agreed with Hypocrates, that even the Rational Physicians aught to given place to the Empirics. 'Tis not vast reading and learning of other man's speculations that makes a Physician, but a neare Approach unto Nature (as my Lord Bacon calls it;) a strict and constant observing of her Motions and manner of Operations, is that which gives a man light how to trace her in the darkness of obscure Causes, when she is out of order, and to reduce her into order; and an observing of the various effects, or non-effects, and operations of all sorts of Medicaments, both old and new, together with a man's own manual operation in making them, will rnlighten him and conduct him so far, as to perceive Causes more evidently, and take of a great patt of that Scandal hitherto imputed unto our Profession, that it is but Ars Conjecturalis, a mere Conjectural Art, and the best part of the Professors but good ghessers, and of little use, seeing that men have been too apt to argue like the Empirics in Celsus; that as long as the Causes of Diseases and of Natural Actions, were obscure, it was to no purpose to inquire into them, because their Nature was incomprehensible, and thereupon they have been as apt also to conclude, Ergo No need of a Physician. Neque enim credunt posse eum scire, quomodo morbos curare conveniat, qui unde hi sint, ignoret; They will not believe he can know how to cure Diseases, who knows not from whence they proceed. And (saith the same Author) oftentimes new kinds of Diseases fall out in which Experience never yet gave any light: It is necessary therefore to consider how they began, without which no mortal man can understand, why he should use one thing more than another: And therefore the Empirics had reason to pled, that they aught to have as much liberty to practise, as others, while Causes remained obscure, because all Parties were in the dark alike in respect of Causes: And if I by this present Treatise have (as I believe I have) discovered more plainly the most important Causes, latent in most Diseases of this latter Age, than hath been done by any one man before me, and made the matter easy to be understood by the meanest Capacity, certainly all being alike instructed, other men as well as Scholars, little reason is to be given why all Professors should not have liberty alike to practise, as well those they term Empirics as others, so rational and new a Foundation being here laid to deal with our Diseases, which are proved to be in a manner wholly new; and truly there is great reason these they call Empirics should be pleaded for, because by prying into their Experiments and Practices, I was confirmed in my Apprehensions about this matter when I first entertained them in my mind, and have since been quickened by continual observation, to adventure upon this Undertaking, for the public Good of Physicians and their Patients.  
Wherhfore from this plain Discourse of my, it being certain, that Diseases are become new, and it being evident withal, what the Causes are, why their present state and qualification is (for the most part) different from the old; and seeing a more certain way of Practice doth thence now arise, if Remedies be found out to oppose and conquer them in their new Qualifications; What remains then, but that all Professors do set their Wits on Work about the inventing of proper Remedies? in the mean while, till that be done, it is of public concern that they be encouraged, and persuaded so to order some of the Medicaments which are already in use, that they may be fitted for the purpose. 'Tis incredible how much a good wit may do this way, by fitting some ordinary Medicines to strike at those Causes, which I have laboured to explain in the foregoing Chapters. What then might be done by more generous remedies? Therefore I hope men will be excited to set themselves on work, and in working proceed upon the Principles here mentioned, toward the inventing of higher and more noble Medicines, which may be of so large an extent and reach, as to pursue and overtake those causes wheresoever they be, and of so comprehensive a nature as to cope and contest with them, be they either complicated (as for the most part they are) or single; for, these being now known to be the main Constituents in most diseases (especially such as formerly seemed to be most occult and difficult) then, if it be true, that when the causes are known, Cures are half done, I suppose every Practisers Mother-wit may instruct him, being a man of good parts, how to form up a Method for his own use, by fitting it not only to the Nature and complication of those general causes, which are (more or lesle) concerned and prevalent in the strange and stubborn maladies of this Age, but also to the nature of such Medicaments as he is master of: For, a particular Method may be useful and effectual, being joined with the use of some Medicines, which will do little or no good in the use of other Medicines; as I have frequently seen.  
Vain therefore is that Learning which ties men up to a general set Method in curing, and inables them to excuse themselves for any thing they do, if they can but produce an odd Aphorism, or Text of Hypocrates or Galen, for a justification, and thereby prove (as Balzac's Italian Doctor did at Milan) that the Patient died with the fairest Method in the world; whereas that ancient Prince of the Faculty, and Galen the Usurper, being no Prophets, and little able to divine what Alterations of things would fall out in our days, could never foresee how to frame Precepts and Rules to guide Us in our Concernments. There are many things admitted and enjoined by them in the Methodus Medendi, which may by no means be allowed in ours, as the Case now stands: It will not be amiss therefore if I given you here an Essay (as brief as I can) in making inquiry what things for the future aught to be excluded out of the Profession of Physic as unnecessary or false, and what to be admitted; what old Foundations and Buildings are to be demolished, and what new ones established.  
To do this fully, by excurring into all Particulars, would require the compiling of vast volume; but I shall content myself with some of the most considerable.   

CHAP. VII. A particular inquiry into the main Philosophical Principles of the Profession of Physic.  
SYlvius de le Boe, present Professor of Physic in the University of Leyden, gins one of his disputations thus: 
* Disput. Med. These 1.  I cannot but wonder (saith he) that some Physicians, who are eminent for learning, should be so absurd, as not to be ashamed even now openly to profess, that all things which may make for the perfection of Physic, were known to any one or more of the Ancients, although they are discovered to be false by every days experience. Yea, some are so found as to urge, that in the institutions of Physic, we aught still to tread close in the steps of the Ancients, in the training of Students to the Profession. But 'tIS too late now to insist upon blind obedience about things Natural: especially seeing many of the Galenists have been so ingenious, as to declare their Judgement, that many things received as previous to Physic are unnecessary. My Lord Bacon in the 31. Aphorism of his Novum Organon, saith, tis in vain to expect any Advancement in Science, by super-inducing or grafting new things upon old; but an Instauration is to be made from the very lowest Foundations. Given me leave therefore to strike at the very Foundation of our faculty: and here I have one leading me the way, who (I suppose) of a pure Galenist, is the quaintest person that hath written, next after the most delicate Fernelius; I mean Heurnius the Hollander, who was Physician to old William Prince of Orange. In his Comment upon the Book of Hypocrates de Natura hominis; he in order to the study of Physic, cashiers the common Doctrine of the four Elements, and saith, To what purpose is it, in order to Physic, to search into the Nature of Elements? truly it is sufficient if we inquire into the powers and operations of Nature, so far as she hath an influence in the mutation of Bodies. In another place he saith, we aught to trust our senses rather than the opinions of Philosophers; for, it was one good saying of Aristotle, Nihil est in Intellectu quod non priùs fuit in sensu; and my Lord Bacon 
* Presace to the advancement of Learning.  makes Sense the surest guide for our Understanding in discovering the secrets of Nature, and proves at large, that if we will have any sounded knowledge of Nature, there is a necessity of deriving Philosophy from Sensible Experiments; we must use our own Industry, and trust our own eyes, and observations, because these produce to us somewhat that is certain; whereas a Philosophy and Physic form up of Intellectual Conceptions, digested into Conclusions and Aphorisms, (since the Intellect of man is naturally full of Idols and Fantasies, and various in every man) must needs be but the evaporation of Fancy; and it tends to the introducing of Opinions without end, instead of establishing Truth, which always is but One and the Same. Therefore the noble des Cartes took a more commendable course; for, as Boreel tells us in his Life, percieving that a knowledge of the Truth was not to be found among men, or Books, he laid them all aside, and betook himself wholly to a contemplation of the Book of the world; and that he might be at liberty to sounded the depths of Nature, he quit the Conversation of men, and retired to a little Village neare Egmont in Holland, where leading a solitary life for 25. years together, without a Library, he spent his time wholly in Experiments, whereby he discovered many things worthy admiration, for the benefit of mankind, and form unto himself a new Philosophy to led men to Physic; such a one as hath drawn many persons of high parts to follow him, and lay new foundations of Medicine, more consentaneous to the operations of Nature, than the Book-learning that was in fashion before it. But noon hath made a business of it so exactly as Regius the Professor of Utrecht, who (as I told you in the first Chapter) hath turned of all the Doctrine of the Elements, Humours, Temperaments, etc. and such other old Notions, as he reckons to be but mere Chimaeras; and I think tis no shame to follow so worthy a Leader.  
But as it hath been my design, all along this Treatise, to say little but what is in the language of the best Writers of this latter Age, or agreeable to their Sense; given me leave now to make use of one who is (I may well say) the Ornament of our Nation next to immortal Harvey, by name Dr. Willis, Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University of Oxon; one that hath made himself a Physician indeed and Philosopher by Fire, and given a good account why he departs from the Doctrine of the Ancients touching Fevers as well as other things. In the Preface he saith, That if he do recede from the common Judgement, he is not the first that hath swimmed against the stream of a received Opinion: That in matters belonging to Physic, those things that pleased men formerly, will not pass now, because the Ancients, resting upon a false Supposition about the Motion of the Blood, did very foully and dangerously err. That the Art of Physic aught to be wholly renewed, and the old Props failing, Posterity is concerned to take care that the Fabric be rebuilt from the very ground. That seeing we have now gotten new lights, and a knowledge of the Causes of things formerly unknown, it becomes not prudent men, and such as profess Philosophy, to hold their eyes shut still. That though the Doctrines of the Ancients be yet openly maintained in Universities, yet he cannot believe, but that most Physicians of a deeper Insight, do from their own Reason form unto themselves new Hypotheses to proceed by. That Physic was at first Emperical, and Remedies were invented by frequent trial of particulars, and not by general Precepts or Analogy; and if, after the example of Hypocrates, his Successors had be taken themselves to Observations only, and Experiments, without doubt the Art of Physic had been advanced to a greater perfection and fineness, and with much more advantage to the sick. But that which presently shut out the light which had been at first set up, and dimmed the eyes of posterity, was the preposterous endeavour of those men, who hastily, and in a manner after their own Fantasy, framed the Art of Physic into a general Method, after the fashion of some Speculative Science; and so by this means, a copious form of Doctrine, specious enough, but fallacious and instable, was built, before firm foundations were laid. Thus much you have from one of our University-Professors; and it were well if the Universities would wholly follow his example, and cleanse the Schools throughly from the Cobwebs of old Heathenish Philosophy and Physic.  
Much pains hath been already taken by the most acute and profound Helmont, the reading of whom I can never sufficiently commend to our Countrymen, now that he is printed in English; but know, 'tis not a flight reading will serve the turn: Ten times over is too little, though a man should have the help of a Tutor to direct him. Were I worthy to undertake such a work, I could never do the world the like service any other way, as I might in this, by Methodizing the several pieces of him into some better order, rendering his most subtle Conceptions more familiar and easy. And truly, the more regard is to be had to what he writes, because, as he was a noble Philosopher by Fire, so before he be took himself wholly to this new course of Study, he had been an indefatigable Student in the old; having read over the tedious Works of Galen twice, Hypocrates once, (getting his Aphorisms without-book) and all Avicen he read, and all the Greeks as well as Arabians, with many modern Authors, not lesle than six hundred, and collected Notes out of them all; but after all (he saith) counting what cost he had been at, he found he had gained Nothing, but repent of his Pains, and the spending of so many years to little purpose. 
* Vide Promissa Helmontii, Page 8.  The blame of all he lays upon Galen, the great Corrupter of so much as was tolerable in Hypocrates, and of the Schools, with Phantsies: This Galen arrogating to himself the glory of such as went before him, enlarged the Art of Physic, which before was contained in a few Rules, unto vast Volumes. He was pleased forsooth to determine, according to Hypocrates, that all Bodies were made up of four Elements; and parallel to these he established four Qualities, and so many simple Complexions, and then as many Couples of complex Qualities, and thence he confirmed also four Humours to make up our Constitutions; which were devices that others had dreamt of before him: And then, out of the strife and disagreement of these, as well simple, as complicate with fictitious humours, he would needs derive almost all Diseases, with the Scopes and Indications of Cure; as on the other side he concluded Health to arise from their Agreement and Proportion with each other. Moreover, every Disease he declared to be but a mere Disposition in quality; and that Contraries were to be cured by Contraries. His knowledge in Herbs was so little, that the virtues of Simples he transcribed out of Dioscorides, with the Elementary degrees of them as to Heat, Cold, etc. altogether neglecting the Seminal and Specific powers of them, because he was ignorant of them. By which easy road of Art propounded to the world, he procured to himself the Sovereignty of Physic, and Posterity being drawn in by so compendious a Course, a deep Lethargy crept in upon the Schools, through the Doors of Sloth and Idleness; and so it hath continued till this last Age of Industry and Inquiry. This Prince of the faculty (as some would make him) made it his business to rail at others that were before him, as Herostratus, Asclepiades, Protagoras, E●●sistratus, Herophilus, and many more; yea, he spared not his own Master Quintius▪ who was of the Sect Emperical. Lacuna an Italian, who hath taken pains to Epitomise him, intimates, that his scolding ●umor come to him by kind, his Mother having been such another perpetual Clack to his Father, as X●ntippe was to Socrates; n●r did he himself 
* De co●●o●cend●● 〈…〉, ●ff●ct 〈◊〉.  spare his own Mother, but gives the like Account of her in one of his Books: Not wonder then, that he swells up his volumes with so many impertinent digressions to abuse others, which being taken away by his Epitomiser, all his Doctrine is reduced but to one volume, not very big, though 'tIS said the number of what he wrote was 400. volumes; and the same person saith, he collected out of them whatever he found of Substance. He was so quarrelsome at Rome at his first coming, that the City was too little to hold him and the other Physicians; which made him retire out of it for a season; but having gained the opinion of the Emperor Antoninus, and cured his two Sons Commodus and Sextus, of sl●hgt Fevers, the Empress Faustina cried him up to the sky, being taken with the saccess; thereupon he began to grow insolent, and made a shift to insinuate so at Court, as to establish himself a Faction, which enabled him to triumph over all other Physicians, and by the countenance of Imperial Majesty given Laws to all the world in Point of Physic; wherein the Students of this faculty have most supinely acquiesced till this latter Age.  
'Tis high time therefore now for us, to shake of that yoke of Phantsies, under which men have so long been held in a pedantic Compliance; in order whereunto, given me leave to set down what Principles and Particulars hitherto received, aught to be exploded out of the Doctrine and Practice of Physic.  
I Away with the frigid Notion of four 
That aught to be excluded out of the Faculty of Physics.  Elements, which he, out of Aristotle, makes to be the Principles of all mixed Bodies, and frames Conceptions about this, agreeable to the Sense of Hypocrates in that very vain Book Entitled De Principiis. There is a very short, but sufficient Character given of this opinion by Dr. Willis in the first Chapter De Fermentatione. As touching the Four Elements, and the First Qualities thence to be deduced, I must confess (saith he) that this opinion doth in some sort conduce toward an explaining of the Phaeaomen of Nature, but in so gross a manner doth it solve the Appearances of things, and without any peculiar respect to the more secret Recesses of Nature, that it is almost the same thing to say a House doth consist of Wood and Stones, as a Body of four Elements. Instead of these the Doctor introduceth Five Principles of mixed Bodies, viz. Spirit, Sulphur, Salt, Water, and Earth, affirming, that according to their divers motion and proportion in Bodies, the reasons and varieties of the Generation and Corruption of things, especially of Fermentation, are to be considered. These Principles he doth not set down as most simple Beings altogether uncompounded, but as such Substances only, into which Things Natural and sensible are finally resolved as into Parts. By the combination and intestine Motion of these, Bodies are generated and do augment; by the mutual separation of them from one another, and dissolution, they are altered and perish. In the mean while, those Particles which are added to the Subjects, or that come from them, appear under the Form of Spirit, Sulphur, Salt, or one of the other two: And that these Particulars, being real, are much more subserving than the other, to gratify man's Intellect with a right Apprehension touching the nature of mixed Bodies, is evident to the eye of ev●ry one that takes pains to Analyse them by fire, and resolve them into their Principles. This suits exactly with my Lord Bacon's design, of raising a Philosophy from sensible experiments, if we would have it certain, and really conducible to an understanding of the Nature of man and of Diseases. Concerning the various Affections and Combinations of these Principles in Bodies, the said Doctor in his 
* D● Fermentatione.  second Chapter, gives a very notable and Demonstrative Account: to which Scholars are referred. But that the English Reader may clearly understand what is meant by these five Principles, I refer him to Monsieur ie Febure the King's Chemist, in the first part of his Book, entitled A Complete Body of Chemistry, newly Printed for Octavian Pulleyn Junior; which will easily inform the Ignorant, satisfy the Doubting, and convince others.  
II After the four Elements, away also with the four Qualities which are attributed thereto; I remember, the noble Lord and Philosopher 
* Novum Organon, Aphorism. 15.  beforementioned, will not so much as allow the Term Quality to be a tolerable Notion, in order to the understanding of the Concernments and Operations of Nature, and he totally excludes the Notions of Humidum and Siccum, Moist and Dry. And Helmont, 
* In the Latin Copy.  Pag. 316. shows what mischief the admitting of these causeth in the cure of Diseases: In Page 136. he saith, Moisture and Drieness are not to be understood to be Qualities in Abstracto, but they are rather Bodies qualified; and therefore (by the leave of the Schools) they are not acquired by Parts and Degrees, after the manner of Qualities. Water never dries, though it seem so to the eyes by vanishing: And Dry sounds nothing else properly but to be without moisture, and so contains nothing but a Negation of Moist. It is a wondrous piece of Folly then, to dream, that Moisture comes on by degrees, and a remission also of Moisture and Drieness in Elements; and so tis a monstrous whimsy to have introduced such kind of stupid Dreams into the Nature of Diseases, and Rules of Curing, and thereupon to have laid the whole Foundation of Physic, by making divers marriages of Moist Dry, Hot and Cold, with each other; and all this, to uphold the vain doctrine of Temperaments; not considering that in Nature there is no penetration of Moist with Dry, no radical union or commixtion or Temper possible betwixt them. Than as for the other Qualities (so called) Hot and Cold, Helmont 
* P●●ura.  cites the saying of * Hypocrates to cashier them; That neither Hot, nor Cold, nor Moist, nor 
pag. 320  Dry, are to be reputed Causes of Diseases; but rather that which is Acid, or Bitter, or Sharp, or Saltish. To this purpose also Hypocrates, in his Book De Veteri Medicina, speaking of a Fever, menrious the nature of it much otherwise then Galen; saying, that men in a Fever have it not absolutely from Heat (as the other is pleased to define it) but you are to consider Bitter, Acid, and Saltish, joined with the H●at, and innumerable the like; and so in like manner, not to consider Cold of itself, but as it is consociated with those Faculties. He lays not the stress of the nature of Diseases upon Qualities, but upon the other Particulars, though Galen be so bold as herein to leave his Leader; but Heurnius, upon the foregoing Text, a more sober Commentator, is very plain, and saith, Calidum & Frigidum principatum non obtinent inter Morbificas Causas, nec Medicam manum valdè implorant, Hot and Cold have no pre-eminence among Causes of Diseases, 
* Nec M●dicimanum v●ldè implorant.  nor do they much require the hand of a Physician: And if these be so little to be regarded, what will become then of most of Galen's Doctrine, and his Medicines, and the Doctrine and Medicines of his successors, and of the Shops at this day, which are all proportioned (for the most part) according to the Notions and Degrees of Heat and Cold? In another Text of the same Book also, Hypocrates was so prudent, as to advice us to have a regard to that in man which is Bitter, and Saltish, and Sweet, and Acid, and Austere or sour, and Insp●d, and Infinite other things having all manner of Faculties, power, and strength: which is one of the best Sayings to be found in that Author. And two or three Texts before that, he saith, Non enim Calidum est quod eximiam per se vim habet; Inter cunctas autem facultates, languidissimam esse existimo Frigiditatem & Caliditatem; that is to say, Heat hath not of itself any considerable force, but among all the Faculties, I think Cold and Heat to be the most languid; and yet the Frame of Galenick Physic seems (for the most part) to be built upon Hot and Cold, and a● attemperation of these with Motst and Dry, therefore both the Method and Medicines devised in proportion to those Conceits, must needs be erroneous and insufficient, while the Schools do (as 
* P●g ●39.  Helmont saith) perversely traduce the Seminal and Specific powers of Things into Elementary Qualities, from whence they raise their Doctrine of Temperaments, and to these they unadvisedly refer and ascribe the Vital and Seminal Faculties of Things. By such narrow poor Conceptions as these, Galen corrupted the Art of Physic, and the Arabians imitated him; so that (as I said) a Method of Curing, and of Composition of Medicines, hath been founded upon a mere mingling, confounding, and jumbling of pretended Contraries, to bring them to agreement and concord, as it were by Mathematical Rule of proportion: That is to say, the whole Fabric of Natural Science hath hither to stood upon mere opinions obtruded on us by gross Heathens, upon whom it is a shame to hear what high Eulogies are bestowed by some of their Christian Commentators, calling them Divine, Divine Hypocrates, Divine Galen, and I know not how many more Titles more fit for God than men; whereas these Masters extended their knowledge and their searches after it, not farther than the external shadows of things, seldom looking intra Corticem, to the Ferments, the Digestions, Seminals, and other Particulars of high moment, but placed all the energy of Nature in Fictions about the Disagreements, the Oppositions, the Velitations, the Contrarieties of Heat and Cold, Moist and Dry. By this means the idle sort of Gownmen that have imitated them ever since, lazing in their Studies over the Pagan Books of Institutions, seeing the Road open and easy before them, and that they might this way quickly get to their Journeys end of Scarlet, and Worship, and Profit, without so much as wetting, or smutching, or burning a Finger, have made very little Advance of the Art they profess, but studied their own ease, never diving farther into the Depths of Nature, the Differences, the Causes, and the Proprieties of Bodies, which it is impossible to attain without an Insight into Pyrotechnie, that is, working a knowledge of things Natural out of the Fire.  
This is it which (Mr. Boil 
* Experiment. Philos. part. 1. 35. 36.  well saith) may, as the Handmaid to Physiology, not a little contribute to clear up the nature of Digestions, and the Deficiencies or Aberrations in them, which produce a great part of Diseases. Indeed, since the Liquors contained in the Body abound, divers of them, with Saline or Sulphureous Parts, he that hath by Chemistry been taught the nature of the several Salts and Sulphurs, and both beheld and considered their various Actions one upon another, and upon other bodies, seems to have a considerable help to discourse groundedly of the Changes and operations of the Humours or Juices contained in man's body; which he hath not that never had Vulcan for his Instructor. And Page 30. 31. he saith, the Explications of a skilful Naturalist may add much to what he hath hitherto been commonly taught, concerning the nature and origin of Qualities in Physicians Schools; and that a little comparing of the vulgar Doctrine, with those various Phaenomena to be met with among Natural things, will easily manifest it to you. Much more likely explications, than those which were applauded some Ages since, of divers things that hap as well within as without the Body, have been given by later Naturalists both Philosophers and Physicians. The Theory concerning that disease the Stone, and of many other diseases which hath been given us by those many Physicians, that would needs deduce all the Phenomena of diseases from Heat, Cold, and other Elementary Qualities, is inferior to the account given us of them by those ingenious Moderns that have applied themselves to divers Inquiries, together with some of the more known Chemical Experiments.  
But that ingenious person, Monsieur le Febure, Royal Professor in Chemistry to his Majesty, and Apothecary in ordinary to his Household, having (as I hinted before) lately published a Book Entitled A Complete Body of Chemistry, dedicated to the King, is somewhat more plain, and noteth 
* Pag. 108.  such Galenists to be only Physicians in name, who after they have perused some University Writings, do persuade men, that Physic is nothing else but an Art of discerning Heat and Cold, and immediately take upon themselves the Practice, and fill their discourses with nothing else but Notions of Heat and Cold; and all their skill tends to speak more or lesle of these Qualities. But the learned Fernelius, who was the Ornament of his Age, doth confess and evidence, after having acknowledged this Error, that besides these first Qualities, there are many other powers hidden in mixed Bodies, which he plainly signifieth toward the latter end of his second Book de Abditis rerum Causis, where he plainly teacheth how the Seminal Virtue contained in Compounds, and which really is the Seat of all their activity, must be extracted. Moreover, in his Preliminary discourse before that Book, he saith, tis a very difficult matter for any to attain the exact knowledge of Natural Things, without the previous guidance of Chemistry, and a being acquainted with all its Parts; neither can any be reckoned a perfect Physician without the help of Hermetick Philosophy, since it is the truest Ground of Physic, without which no Practitioner can deserve any other Title than that of Empiric: For, it is not a Gown, or Degrees taken in Universities, which constitute the Physician, but a solid Knowledge of Nature, grounded upon sounded Reason and mature Judgement, improved by Practice and Experience. The rare Prescriptions of Chemistry have their Remedies grounded, not upon the act of first and second Qualities, but upon the Specifical and Internal virtues of their Principles. Doubtless there may under a Gown, and in an University, be as great a Knowledge of things Natural, as there is in a Royal City; and this the excellent Dr. Willis hath sufficiently shown, as some others his Compeers have also done, by their own personal worth and Industry; but then, the means to attain it, is not in the old lazy way, and by the old dull Principles; for, here lies the Bane of our Profession, that because a Book-knowledge of Hypocrates, Galen, and the rest that are counted Classic, is admitted in the Universities as a sufficient Test, to try a man's fitness to become a Doctor of Physic, therefore the lesle ingenious spirits content themselves with that sort of Learning, and seldom seek after the other; or if they do, they rest in a superficial Acquaintance with the use of some common Chemic Remedies which are to be had at the Apothecaries; whereas the case would be otherwise, and much more for the Advantage of mankind, and of the Art of Physic itself, if the world were divided betwixt Galen and Helmont; that is, that they who take degrees in the faculty, should by public Constitution be Obliged, to given a Proof of their Sufficiency, in the Doctrine of the One as well as the other; and in the Analytick Operations of Chemistry, as well as in the Peripatetic Speculations and Maxims of Galenism; for, though these cannot tender one the better Physician to cure, yet they make him the more accomplished, because he is acquainted with the ways both old and new: which very well agrees with that saying of the prudent Celsus, who tells us, tis true, that as to 
* In Praesat.  the Art of Curing nothing avails more than Experiment; and although there be many things not properly appertaining to an Art itself, yet it may by those things be advanced in quickening the wit of the Artist. Therefore also, that contemplation of the Nature of things, although it make not a man a more apt Physician, yet it renders him the more complete for the Profession: That is to say, in plain English, a Doctor bred up in the Contemplative Philosophy of the Schools, may be a Scholar and a very fine Gentleman; but what is that to the Curing of a Disease, or the rousing of a Heartsick Man from his bed of Languishment? This is to be expected rather from one that is qualified for the work by acquaintance with Mechanic and Experimental Philosophy. Therefore very much to the purpose is that other saying of the same Author, who, though he appear to favour the Sect of the old Empirics, yet hath, for his gravity and great Sufficiency, gained this Acknowledgement from many Admirers of the old Learning, that he is to be ranked next to Hypocrates: his words are to this Sense: 
* Celsus in Pre.  It is not so much matter, what moves the Arteries, as what all kinds of Motion do signify: but those things are to be known by Experiments; and in all kind of Speculations men may dispute Pro and Con; and so a good wit and acquaint Discourse may overcome; but know that Diseases are not cured with Eloquence, but by Remedies: Which if any man that is an Experimental Practiser come to know, though he be slow of Tongue, he will become a much greater Physician, than he that without such an Experimental Course, shall seek to adorn himself with an eloquent Tongue. And truly, this is the most considerable qualification that a man may arrive to by Galenick Philosophy; i e. to manage a discourse about fruitless Notions with Elegancy. With this weapon the Tongue, tis likely Galen himself prevailed over all the other Physicians in the Court of the Emperor Antoninus; for, he that writes his life describes him to be a very eloquent person, and that is a grand advantage to any man in the Courts of Princes. And yet for all his height of Eloquence, we see his Principles to be but strength and shallow; particularly, these concerning Elements and Qualities, which Hypocrates spoke but faintly for, and Celsus doth not vouchsafe once to mention. And Mr. Boyl saith, well, that 
* Experim. Philos. p. 281. part 2.  he seethe not how from those narrow and barren Principles of the four Elements, and the four first Qualities, the four Humours (and the like) any ordinary effects can satisfactorily be deduced: And if so, then certainly the Scholastic Method and Medicines erected upon such Scholastic Foundations, cannot in reason stand any longer, but aught to be turned up as Insufficient, and of little use, in an Age wherein better things are known. So much for Qualities: And yet let me have one fling more at them, which is this: That the admitting two of them, viz. the Notions of Heat and Cold, into the Doctrine touching Fevers, is a Cause why at lest a third part of the Sick do run a strange hazard every year of losing their lives; or else miserably languish and loose the habit of their Bodies, by the ill handling of them and Agues.  
III The common Figment of Qualities being cashired, the Galenick Doctrine also concerning Temperaments falls to the ground of Course, because it depends thereupon; and so I slightly pass it, as not only useless, but dangerous, because it casts many a Mist before the eyes of men, about the regulation of Diet, as well as the Curation of Diseases.  
IV. After Elements, Qualities, and Temperaments, the next Considerable is the old Notion of four humours, which they reckon to be Ingredients in the Constitution of the Bodies of Animals: This Conceit, as vain as the rest, passeth yet among the vulgar, both Physicians and others, who conclude that the humours floating in the Mass, aught to be acknowledged by the Names of Blood, Choler, Phlegm, and Melancholy; and from these they derive four Complexions, viz. The Sanguine, the Choleric, the Phlegmatic, and the Melancholic; and out of these they feign also as many Complicated Complexions, according to the predominancy of one humour over another; which are too frivolous to be named. Therefore I pass them by; and the rather, because 
* De Gener. Animal. Exercit. 52.  Dr. Harvey, whose Excellency lay most in Physiological discourses, puts a slur upon this Principle of four Humours, saying, If these things be so, then there is a necessity that the maintainers of this opinion must set down two kinds of Blood, viz. the whole Mass together in the Veins, composed of those four Humours, and a fourth part of it more pure, more florid, and more spirituous, which in the stricter sense they name Blood, and which some affirm is contained apart in the Arteries, and therefore separated from the rest for other uses: the ridiculousness of which conceit concerning two kinds of Blood, is plain enough from the received doctrine of the Blood's Circulation, seeing it is one and the same Mass of Blood, which fetches its Round, flowing out from the Ventricles of the heart, by the Arteries, unto all parts of the Body, and from thence back again through the Veins to the Ventricles of the Heart; which reciprocal Motion being continual, it is not to be imagined, that any one part of Blood distinct from the other, can be contained in the Arteries, but that it is the entire Mass which flows in that Circulatory Motion; and as it passeth along, it purgeth itself of its Feculencies by the common Emunctories of the Body, which Feculencies being diversified in colour and Consistence, according to the variety of their nature and condition, have gotten the Appellation of four distinct humours, as if they were so many parts, and sometimes, as if they were so many Excrements of the Mass of Blood; And so according to these gross Conceptions, the Galenists have form all their Notions about Pharmacy, aiming at an evacuation, or else a contemperation of supposed Humours, and Excrements; but there being no such matters as they Fancy to be Ingredient in the nature of Diseases, tis no Marvel if they miss the Curing of any Disease, which is not curable by Strength of Nature, and Length of Time.  
As for Melancholy (as they call it) the Receptacle which they bestowed upon it was the Spleen, pretending that its office is to separate the Drossy part of the Blood, which cannot be elaborated by the Liver, which Vessel they destinated to the purer part of Sanguification; but both these Opinions have of late been sufficiently disproved by the ingeny and industry of some searching heads, who determine the Liver not to be the office or Storehouse of Sanguification; and the Spleen to a nobler use than to receive drossy Blood, it appearing rather to be an Elaborator and Fermentator of the noblest Juice, viz. the Arterial Blood, by reason of that grand Intertexture of Arteries, by which it holds a neare Communication with the vital Parts of the Body. Concerning which read Bartholinus, Walaeus, and our most ingenious Dr. Highmore, and others, who have well improved the hints that are given by Helmont.  
As for Choler or Boil, they have hitherto reckoned it also to be an Humour; and nothing hath been more talked of than Bilious or Choleric Complexions and Diseases, till Helmont opened the eyes of the world, and showed, that Boil, which the Galevists make the parent of almost all active Diseases, is not an Excrement, but rather a Condiment, and Balsamic Preservative of the blood in its due vigour and activity; and that the fetid Cadaverous yellow excrement, which we found frequently avoided in Evacuations upward, or downward, is sometimes a good Juice or humour, vitiated, and tinctured yellow, and drawn out of the Body, by common ill natured Purgers; and sometimes a part of the Chyle corrupted, which comes forth either yellow or Sea-green, being Tinctured so, more or lesle, according to the Degree of that Corruption which hath seized it.  
Agreeable to this Doctrine of Helmont, the Learned 
* L●b. 1. ca 8.  Grembs hath determined the nature of Boil, and of that corrupted Juice which resembles it; and of late, Silvius de le Boe, in his Disputations at Leyden in Holland, shows that the Liquor or Boil contained in the Gall is not what Physicians commonly have defined it, but that it is 
* Dispu●. Med. 6.  a part of that noblest Liquor, the Arterial Blood, conveyed by the Cystick Arteries into that little thin receptacle the Gall; and that for the main, it consists of a Lixivious Salt, mingled with a mean quantity of Sulphur or Oil, and a volatile Spirit, by which it is endued with a notable power of penetration, so that it effects wondered operations within the Body, and keeps it from corruption; having in itself the nature of a Ferment, by virtue whereof the blood is maintained in an active state of Circulation, the work of the several Digestions is promoted, and the respective Ferments of every part and Vessel of the Body invigorated and quickened. Vain therefore are the old Speculations touching those many Diseases which have hitherto been owned, as proceeding from a redundance of Boil; and all the Remedies founded upon this Figment of a Bilious Humour, are either pernicious, or else useless to the end for which they are administered. The truth is, the Fabricators of the Four Humours may as well make them up seven or eight, by adding the Liquor Nervosus, the Serum, the Urin, and the limpid liquor of the Lymphducts; and I see no reason but they may as well add Spittle, Snivel, and Tears (for they are all of a different appearance;) however they may do well to add Tears of repentance, rather than fool the world any longer with such Phantsies, the admitting whereof runs the Precious lives and healths of men into many a hazard.  
To be brief therefore upon this subject, I will say little more, as from myself; but seeing Doctor 
* De Febr. Cap. 1.  Willis hath very excellently trussed up all that is considerable in a narrow compass, I will tender it as plain as I can to the English Reader. Though this opinion of the Four Humours hath ever since the days of Galen prevailed in the Schools of Physic, yet in our Age men begin to suspect it; nor is it so commonly made use of to solve the Phenomena of Diseases; because such kind of Humours do not constitute Blood, but those that are called so are (excepting the Blood) only excrements of the cruentous gore, which aught to be separated from it: For, the blood is in truth one only humour, nor is it one thing about the Bowels, and another in the habit of the Body; nor is Phlegm moved at one time, and Boil at another, or Melancholy (as the vulgar talk) but the Liquor boiling within the vessels is only Blood, and wither soever it is carried through the several parts of the body, it is still the same, and like itself. But because in some persons, by reason of the abundance of Natural heat, and through want of the same in others, the concoction of Aliment is sometimes more effectually, sometimes more remissly, performed both in the Bowels and in the Vessels, therefore there follows a divers Temperature of the Blood, although it be one and the same liquor, and according to its constitution, it may be said that men are either Choleric, Melancholic, or of some other Temper. Moreover, because while the Blood circulates within the vessels, some parts of it continually grow old and stolen, and others are supplied a new, hence it is, that from crudity, or too much coction, somewhat excrementitious must needs be heaped together: which nevertheless is by effervescencie separated from its Mass, even as it happens in the efflorescence or depuration of Wines; and so the Blood being after the same manner depurated, aught to be of itself without that which they call Boil, Phlegm, and Melancholy. And whereas those humours vulgarly so called do consist of other Principles, viz. that which they term Boil or Choler, of Salt and Sulphur, with an admixtion of Spirit and Water; and that which they term Melancholy, of the same, with an Addition of Earth; and seeing that of such Principles as these the Blood doth immediately consist, and is want to be sensibly resolved into the same, I judge it better to lay aside the vulgar acceptation of Humours, and to take into use these celebrated Principles of the Chemists, for explaining the nature of the Blood and of its Distempers. There are therefore in the Blood, as in all other Liquors which are apt to Ferment, very much of Water and Spirit, a Mediocrity of Salt and Sulphur, and some little of Earth : and when the Blood is resolved by putrefaction, it yields the same Principles separate, and Distinct.  
And because tis necessary, the Reader should have a little prospect into the nature and meaning of these Five Principles, he saith, that Spirit is a subtle and most volatile portion of the Blood. By the offervescencie 
Spirit.  of this it is, that the Blood is kept in a continual Ebullition and Motion, and purified from whatsoever happens to be mingled with it which is Heterogeneous or unapt for mixture, or else the Spirit being thereby disturbed in its Motion, there follows an exagitation of the Blood, and a Distemper, wh●ch never ceaseth, till the Heterogeneous matter be either subdued and reduced, or else evacuated. This Spirit, in destilling the Blood of Animals, becomes visible, ascending of a clear limpid colour, like Aqua Vitae, and by the adhesion of Salt it becomes very sharp and pricking.  
That Sulphur also abounds in the Blood, 
Sulphur.  appears, in regard we feed chief upon fat Aliments and such as have Sulphur in them; yea the Nutriment accrueing to the solid parts from the Blood, turns into Sulphur and Fat; and it is probable, that from the dissolution of this it receives its read Tincture: Hence it is, that the blood being impregnated with Sulphur, as well as Spirit, the whole Mass is very apt to Ferment; and it passing through the Heart, receives there a greater effervescencie or accession, to maintain vital heat in the whole Body. And when this Sulphureous part is exalted, and becomes luxuriant in the Blood, it perverts the Temper thereof from its due state, rendering it bilious or Choleric (as we call it) or corrupt, so that it cannot concoct the Nutritive Juice; or inflaming the Blood, it puts it into Heats and Burn, as in Continual Fevers; and hence it is, that the more of Sulphur any one hath in the blood, the more apt he is to fall into Fevers,  
That a Salt also is in the Blood is evident by Taste: That which is the Fixed Salt comes 
Salt.  by feeding upon Vegetables; and the less volatile Salt from other kinds of Food, which by a good Digestion of Nature, and by circulation, attains to be Volatile. Now if it so hap in the Blood, that by reason of ill Digestion, the Salty or Saline particles thereof are not rightly exalted, but remain crude, and for the most part Fixed, thereupon the blood becomes thick, and unfit for Circulation; from whence come Obstructions in the Bowels and solid Parts, and an increase of serous Crudities; But if by a Depression, or through defect of Spirit, the Salt becomes too much exalted, and fluid, the state of the blood become acid and austere, as is observed in the Scurvy and Quartan Agues, yea and various Coagulations of Salt happening upon this account, thence arise all manner of Arthritick Diseases, the Scrophula, Nephritick Distempers, Leprous Dispositions, and almost all Chronic Diseases: But when the Salt, after concoction well performed in the bowels and and vessels, is duly exalted, and by association with the Spirit made volatile, then, by reason of its mixture, the Liquor of the blood ferments the more equally, and is vindicated also from Puirefaction, and from Stagnation, (that is to say, defect of motion) and from Coagulation: For, the Saline particles do restrain the exorbitances of the Spirits, and especially of Sulphur: wherhfore they who have a blood well saturated with volatile Salt, are the lesle subject to Fevers: and from hence is is, that they who frequently let blood, are the more inclinable to Fevers.  
That Earth or terrestrial Particles abound 
Earth.  in the blood, appears by the grossness of its humour, and thickness of its Consistence. This serves to keep the blood from becoming too volatile, and from being too soon inflamed; even as in the ordering and making of Gunpowder, Coals are many times added in greater proportion, that its parts may not all at once and too soon take fire. And that there is such an Earth, appears also in the Distillation of Blood, after which you will found good store of that the Chemists call Caput Mortuum, a light Earthy substance apt to crumble.  
Lastly, that there is a Water or Watery part of the Blood, is seen by its Fluid nature; 
Water.  for, by this it is kept from being Stagnant or without Motion, and is circulated in the Vessels without thickening, and withheld from too much Conflagration and Adustion, and the Heat is preserved in good Temper. This also is made manifest in the Distillation of Blood, whereby there is educed a Water limpid and insipid, of at lest a double proportion in respect of the rest. From hence the matter of Urine, Sweat, and of any of the other moist Excrements, doth for the most part proceed.  
Now this being so, what remains, but that the ingenious Reader should lay these two Doctrines together to compare them, and thereupon judge which is most likely to direct men in understanding the nature of man's Blood, and of Diseases arising from its Distemper; whither that old Fiction of Four Humours, which I have shown to be frivolous; or whither this new Notion of the noblest Sect of Philosophers and Physicians, setting forth Five Principles in the Blood, which are demonstrable to the eye, therefore most apt to inform a Physician how to apprehended the Causes of every Distemper, as they arise from true and genuine Fundamentals of human Bodies, and consequently how to invent Remedies to quell those Causes, and remove them.  
And as to the invention of Remedies also, it is not to be imagined which way men can go rightly to work, without a like consideration of the same Five Principles, which are as demonstrable also to Sense, in resolving mixed Bodies, whither Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral, into their ultimate Ingredients or Parts, by Pyrotechnie and help of the Fire. For, as Monsieur le Febure (the Royal Professor of Chemistry) well saith, After that the Artist hath performed the Chemical resolution of Bodies, he doth found at last Five Substances, which Chemistry admits for the Principles or Elements of Natural Bodies, whereupon are founded the Grounds of its Doctrine, because in either of th●se nothing Heterogeneous can be found; and they are, 1. The watery part, which they term Phlegm. 2. The Spirit, termed also Mercury. 3. Sulphur, or Oil. 4. The Salt. 5. The Earth. Some given them other Names, and 'tIS free for every body to put what name they please, provided they agreed in the Things or Substances. Three of these substances offer themselves to our sight in a Liquid Form, viz. the 
The Nature and use of the five Principles.  Water, the Spirit, and the Oil: the two other, in the form of a solid Body, viz. Salt, and Earth. The use of the substance called Water is, to be as a curb and bridle to the Spirit, to dull and take of its acuteness; and to dissolve the Salt and weaken its corrosive acrimony; also to hinder the Inflammation of Sulphur, and unite the Earth with the Salt; for these two last substances, being brittle and dry, would given but little firmness and consistency to a mixed body, without the help of the Water.  
The next considerable thing drawn by fire out of the Composition of Mixed Bodies being the Spirit, observe that the nature of it is very penetrating, and the use of it is, to cut, open, and attenuate the most solid and fixed substances; it excites heat in Fermentation, untieth the Bonds of Salt and Sulphur, and makes them separable, resists Corruption and Putrefaction, yet by accident may be the cause of it; devoureth the Salt, and seizeth so greedily on it, that it can scarce be parted from it, but by extreme violence of the Fire: It is possessed of its own heat and cold (so appearing accidentally by its effects) for it doth not act by the common Elementary, but by its own proper Specific Qualities. This same Spirit communicates several noble Qualities to the Water, preserves it from corruption, makes it penetrative, and endoweth it with almost all its own activity: And in requital, the Water doth soften and bridle the fury of the Spirit, and makes it so tractable, that it may become useful a thousand ways: It is very serviceable while it remains in a due Harmony, hindering the growth of excrementitious matter in mixed Bodies, multiplying the substance, and strengthening the Faculties and Powers both in Animals, Vegetables, and Minerals. But if it exceed the condition of the mixed wherein it is, it alters the whole Frame of it, and becomes a Principle of destruction.  
The third thing visible in the artificial resolution of Mixed Bodies is Sulphur, appearing in the form of Oil; and because it is an Oleaginous substance, it easily takes Fire: It swims above the Water and the Spirit, because it is lighter and more Etherael: It resists Cold, and never congeles, being the Principle of Heat: It never suffers Corruption, but preserves from it such things as are immersed in it, preventing the penetration of Air: It sweetens the acrimony of the Salt, by whose help it is fixed and coagulated: It powerfully blunts the sharpness of Spirits: It's office is, to bind and temper the Earth with the Salt in the frame of Mixed Bodies: It causeth also a strict union of the other Principles, moderating the too great dryness of Salt, and the Fluidity of Spirit; and finally, by its means the other Principles do cement each other, and enter into a renacious compacted substance.  
The Fourth Principle educed by Pyrotechnie is the Salt. Without this and the Earth, the three foregoing Principles being volatile (as appears in Chemical operation by their flying the Fire) would be unable to endue the Mixed Body with a solidity requisite for its duration. The Salt being separated from the rest, offers itself to our Senses in a dry crumbling brittle Body, easily reducible to Powder, a sign of its external Drieness; but it is endued also with an internal Moisture, as is witnessed by its Fusibility. It is fixed, and incombustible, resisting the Fire, wherein it grows purer, suffers no putrefaction, and is as it were eternal, being able to preserve itself without alteration. It is easily dissolvible in Moisture, and being dissolved bears up the Sulphur, and joins it to itself by the assistance of the Spirit. The use of it is, to hinder Fire from consuming hastily the Oil: but if it exceed, or grow exorbitant, it corrodes and destroys with its acrimony whatsoever the other Principles or substances can produce, or would preserve.  
The last of Principles is the Earth, a naked substance, devested of all manifest qualities, except Dryness and Astringency. Its usefulness in Mixed Bodies is, by union with the Salt to 'cause Corporiety, and compactedness, taking in to its assistance so much of the liquid Principles as is necessary for the Composition. By this Description of these Five Principles, you may perceive, that you are not to understand common Water, nor Spirit, nor Sulphur, nor Salt, nor Earth, in the ordinary acceptation, as if the Sulphur and Salt, etc. were the same that are every day in Domestic use; but only in an Analagous' Sense, in regard of the likeness and correspondency which they have with those common substances from which they are denominated; for, upon this account only those names are taken up.  
Upon the whole matter therefore, it is evident, that the Blood and Body of man, and of other Animals, and the Bodies of those Vegetables and Minerals, etc. of which Remedies are made, have one and the same substantial Principles whereof they are constituted, and into which they are to be resolved only by the Art of Chemistry, and the knowledge of them cannot be sensibly manifested by any other means; therefore seeing the new Doctrinal Principles of the Helmontians or Chemists, are exactly consenting with those substantial Principles of Bodies, which by Artare made obvious to our Senses, and manifestly one and the same, it is left to any indifferent man to judge, which of the two sorts of Principles are most conducible to the Practice of Physic; whither the old ones, founded upon Four humours, which are no Parts of us: or the new One's here enumerated, which our Senses, by the help of Chemistry, Demonstrate to us, to be Parts really ingredient in the Composition of our Bodies.  
And as touching the Invention of Medicines proper for the Case of every Patient, certainly he who is able, by acquaintance with the operations of Nature, to comprehend the Phenomena which usually follow the Excesses and Defects, the Exaltations and Depressions, Fixations and Volatilising, Digestions, Fermentations, Meteorisms, and other Motions (exorbitant, or regular) of any of the Principles here laid down, must not only best understand the Constitutional state of a man's Body, and his Disease in the Causes of it, but likewise the Constitution and power of every Drug, Mineral, Herb, or Root, etc. that is to be made use of for remedy; and so by separating those of the Five Principles which are unfit to be continued in the preparation of any Plants, or Minerals, etc. or by altering and meliorating them in the Process, a Medicine and Method of using it, may be properly accommodated and suited, according to the exorbitancy, or Malignan●ie of all or any of the said Five Principles, which contribute to the causation and continuance of the Disease. For want of this looking to the Internal Principles and Proprieties, both of Diseases and Medicines, it is, that so many have been long in Physicians Hands as incurable; for, the old Dronish Stationary Method of Authors leads them to look after supposed Humours, and Hot, or Cold Cookeries of the Shops for Draining them, and a Qualifying or attempering of Qualities, by the damnable Rule of Contraries, which is destructive in innumerable Cases, and ineffectual in the rest that are of any difficulty; And as for the more facile Cases, which arise either from accidental Discrasies and Disorders, or from the intestine Motions of Particles in the Mass of Blood, at or about the Equinoctial and Solstitial Returns of the year, or through variations of Wether (wherein most of the Galenists desire most to deal) that saying of Hypocrates may very well be applied to them, Naturae sunt Morborum Medicatrices, strength of Nature, a good Nurse, and Kitchen-physic, after an Evacuation or two, and a little patience, sets the Distemper packing out of good-habited Bodies, but in others the Chronic Disease only retires till another Season; and so, the Incomes of a double Harvest (Spring and Fall) upon this Account, out of most great Fam●lies, are very much for the advantage of their learned Worships. In the mean while, they have little leisure, or lust, to enter upon a course for examining old Principles, a rectifying, or cashiering old Methods, and an accommodating the Profession with new, and new and better Medicaments, by Analysing the Bodies of Minerals, and making another kind of Scrutiny into the Natures of Plants and other Vegetables, than by considering outside Qualities, as Hot, Cold. etc. For, tis a shame to see how little is known of the Inward Essences and Proprieties of Herbs, or hath been done about discovering the Faculties of the other Medicaments, for these two thousand years past: yet the Learned (so called) have been content, to let matters go as they are; and were it not, that God hath given an Industrious Spirit of Inquirie to others, whom they upon all occasions brand, and seek to suppress, little Advancement would be made of the Art of Physic in the future; and we should be to seek of Noble Remedies, which are now every day in a Course of Improvement, and the perfecting of them is exceedingly wanted, for the quelling of those Exotic Venomous Ferments, which get ground apace, and are the Parents of those Monstrous rebellious Diseases, which start up in new Disguises almost every year. So much then for Demolishing the old, and receiving new Fundamentals in the Profession of Physic.   

CHAP. VIII. An Offer of divers other Particulars Considerable, in order to the Practice of Physic.  
NOw jest any should yet object; this discourse against old things doth not sufficiently establish things new in their place; If we given over the Notions about Elements, Qualities, Temperaments, Humours, and Complexions, in the Bodies of men, and in Diseases and Remedies, we would have somewhat else that is solid whereon to ground a proceeding in Cure, let me (besides the five Principles already mentioned,) offer unto you such other Particulars as will very much subserve also to the purpose: In the description whereof I shall be but brief, though a great Volume would be little enough to lay them out, in a due proportion to the worth and weight of the matters.  
1. There is to be considered in every Thing (Diseases as well as other things) a Seminal, and Specific Power, whereby it hath a subsistence, and peculiar Properties and Operations, which distinguish it from others, and qualify it, either for a producing its Like, or for exerting its vigour and activity in or upon others; This is the Root, and those that the Schools call Qualities are the Flourishes, and indeed but accidental Effects and Products of its force, not manifestations of its nature; for, an effect which we call Hot or Cold, is many times wrought by a thing which is not properly either, but rather as to outward appearance seems to be of a nature contrary thereto, as might be made evident by numerous Instances: To this it is which Physicians aught to have respect in the inventing of every Remedy, and the Calculating of every Case of Curation that comes before them; and the not knowing, or else the not applying themselves to this, is the reason, why relying upon other Notions, they so often miss the mark, spending their Inventions in the Culinary Conceits of Heating and Cooling, etc. while in the mean time they dig not to the root of the matter, but neglect the Essential Quiddities both of Remedies and Diseases; And hence it is, that so few Diseases are cured, besides those which Nature 
* Naturae sunt Morborum Med●catrices. Hippoc.  herself is able to cure, with the help of a little Customary Evacuation, and a few Doctoral Visits, and Chips in Pottage, and Time; which in the common Cases (as I have told you) will do All with the help of such stuff as is usually dispensed in the Shops, because abundance of Diseases there are latent in the Body as to their Seminal Causes, which break out, some of course at certain Seasons of the year, others upon certain Occasional Accidental Causes, as Alteration of Wether, Diet, Drinking, and some one or other disorder of Living: and such Diseases do for the most part, with a little patience, and help of Nurses, without that wicked way of Bleeding, and other excarnifications, retire of their own Accord, and of their own Accord return again at the like Seasons, or upon accidental Motion of the like Occasional Causes, because Physicians seldom design, or if they would, seldom know how to prescribe Remedies of a Fundamental Nature, such as are able to penetrate and pursue a Disease into its darkest Centre of retirement, and there extinguish his Seminal Power, that he may grow no more upon the Body: And hence it is, that the Scholastic Road of Practice is in tough Chronic Diseases but mere Practice, and a running of the Round, to the great dishonour of so noble an Art: And were it not that other men who are too often in contempt termed Empirics, have had notable successes in Curing innumerable Cases, which others had turned of as incurable, the Credit of our Profession had long since fallen to the ground.— The difference betwixt the Scholastic men and Us, is shortly this; Their Doctrine is founded upon Elements, Qualities, Contrarieties, Mixtures, Humours, and old Medicines; We insist upon the Internal Seminal Principles of Diseases, the manner of their Production, their Causes of Adaptation, their Affinities, Consents, Diversifications, and proprieties, with a perpetual Improvement of Medicinal Inventions, by the Preparations, Exaltations, and Appropriations of the Sublimer and more refined sort of Remedies; because they may be administered, and do their work, without respect to Qualities and Contrarieties, aiming at the very Quiddities of Diseases, as they flow from their immediate Essential Causes. It were endless to reckon up the Non Successes of the common Methods and Medicines which are proportioned to the Conceit of first and second Qualities and Temperaments; Witness their Fumes and driers for Catarrhs; their Issues, their Heaters in Epilepsies, Convulsions, and Vertigoes; their Humectators and Coolers in Hectics; their Analepticks, Nutritive Messes, Lick-pots, and Pectorals, destructive in most Consumptions; their Drainers in Dropsies; their Bleeding in Agues, Gouts, and in many other Cases; their Binder's in Fluxes; not to name any more, by which the greatest part of Patients are very little relieved, or else made much worse. And if it were convenient, a large Catalogue of People might here be inserted to confirm it: but the weekly miscarriages upon this Account call aloud for other Methods and Medicines, and another kind of Philosophy or knowledge in things Natural, than the Scholastic ones which have been received of old, to reach the new diseases of this Age in the very Centre of their Proprieties and Essentials, and to discern them through all their strange Phenomena or Appearances.  
2. Consider also, that whereas the 
Of Digestions.  Schools assign but three sorts of Concoction, or Digestion of Aliment; the First in the Stomach; the Second in the Liver; the Third in each part and particle of the Body; they are neither copious enough in the number, nor distinct in the Description; for, we cannot but (with Helmont) enlarge the Digestions as to Number, and specify them in other Terms. The First Digestion therefore we say is in the Stomach; the second in the First Gut called Duodenum, where the Felleous liquor of the Gall mingling with the Chyle, changeth the acidity which was bestowed on it by the Ferment of the Stomach, into another Substance full of Volatile Salt, whereby it is fitted for a further Process. The next Digestion or Concoction, the old Stagers will needs have to be in the Veins of the Mesentery as preparatory to Blood, and in the Liver as the Finisher of it; and to this, Helmont agrees, but the latter Experiments of Anatomists show, that the Liver hath no share in that work; and there is cause to believed, that the third Concoction is elaborated in the common Receptacle invented by Pecquet, which is seated at the Root of the Mesentery neare the Loins; after which it is conveyed by the Ductus Chyliferi, neare the Backbone, through the Chest, up to the Subclavian Branches of the Vena Cava, where it mixeth with the Blood, and with its stream passeth to the Heart; and there being impregnated with the noble Ferment of that Vessel, it becomes Blood, and puts on the Principles of Vital Power, which I may call the Fourth Concoction. The Fifth Concoction is in the Arteries, where its Spiritualisation and vitality is perfected. Than in course, according to Helmont, follows the sixth Digestion or Concoction, performed in all the Members, which the Galenists made to be the Third; but neither of these opinions may pass for current, because before the Blood is distributed to each Part or particle, it passeth under more operations and Elaborations, as it circulates through other Vessels, which I look upon as so many additional Digestions and Fermentations. The Anatomists pretty well agreed upon this general Circulation; and tis but reason; but in what order, it circulateth, it matters not to our Purpose; it sufficeth me to observe, that first or last it visits every Vessel, as the Lungs, the Brain, the Liver, the Spleen, the Reinss, and the Testicles, as well as the other aforenamed; and in every one of these it is impregnated with some one power or other, which noon of the other could bestow; and so out of all these Digestions in the several Vessels, there results as it were a conspiration of Powers, which become all united in one Point of Vitality within the Mass of Blood, for the maintenance of a vigorous state of health within the Body. Now that which occasioneth a great Defect in the Practice of Physic is, that Physicians are too narrow and short in their thoughts about Digestions, and do not consider the nature of Diseases, as they spring out of the Enormities, or the Defects, which are incident to every Digestion respectively; which is a subject too large to be insisted on in this Place, but might be very well worth the Discussing, by any that would engage his Pen, for Digesting a new Body of Physic in a just Volume; than which there is not a more necessary Work under Heaven.  
3. Great regard likewise is to be had to those Energetical powers which God hath 
Of Ferments.  implanted in every Vessel, whereby the work of Digestion in each of them is accomplished; and these Powers or Faculties we call Ferments or Levens, because though a Ferment be but (as it were) indivisibile Quid, a very small Thing, of a Spirituous and almost incorporeous Nature, yet it is able to leven, that is, alter and qualify with a peculiar Tincture whatever is brought to it for that purpose, by the appointment of Nature. Thus the Ferment or Leven of the Stomach, mysteririously seated in that part, hath a peculiar Power of Chylification, and may be called the Master Ferment, because it prepares All for the other; and the supreme Moderator of the other Ferments, because it hath an Influence for Good or Ill upon them All; for, if this be infirm, the rest are immediately languishing throughout the Body; which made Helmont assign the Stomach to be the principal seat of the Soul; and we see, that in sicknesses, it is the first that is out of order, and the last that is recovered. If it sends away the Chyle imperfectly digested, the next offices that receive it one after another, cannot make their Successive Digestions so complete as they otherwise might (for, the latter Digestions amend not the errors of the Former) and thereby Crudities or Excrements are still heaped up, to the weakening even of the Ferments themselves, so long, till being tired out with labour in vain, they can do no more service to the Body; and then by degrees it draws on to death: And thus many times the sicknesses which are felt in remote Parts, the Stomach is primarily in fault of; and the Ferment of it being rectified, the other Ferments also under its command share in the good of its recovery, and make a shift (if not too far evigorated) to recover of themselves. In like manner, on the other hand, if the subserving Ferments be at any time faulty, they recoil upon the Stomach: Thus, if in the second Digestion, the Duodenum fail in his Duty, through want of the Felleous liquor to assist it, or through any other Cause, many times it regurgitates, and putting the Pylorus into a Fury, it crucifies the Stomach, causing Nauseousness, Eructations, Pains, Vomit, etc. The like may be said from the other, till you come to the Heart, where the observation of its Ferment, when debilitated, evidenceth its power of reflection upon the Stomach; for, be it debilitated or disordered, either by excess of Joy, or Fear, or Sorrow, or Venery, or any thing that causeth a dulling, or dissipation of its Native Ferment, you see it enjoys not itself, but loseth its Appetite. Nor do they hurt the Stomach only, but prejudice likewise one another, there being a marvellous Consent betwixt them All, as there is betwixt the Wheels of a Watch or a Clock, because they set one another a going, and if any one be out of order, the rest are at a stand, and rather hinder than advance the Motion of their fellows. These are they, which abounding with an exalted Salt, Sulphur, and Spirit, are exceeding active, and continually busied in Fermental Action, for carrying on the Works of Sanguification, Nutrition, and Vegetation, for a conservation of the Archaeus in its Vital Function in every Part and Particle: And thus those Noble Operations, which Aristotle, Galen, Avicen, and their Followers attribute to Heats implanted in the several Parts and Vessels, are the effects of these Spirituous active substances called Ferments, which never cease from their activity, but bestow their Energy upon the Alimentary Juice, as it passeth through all the Shops or Offices of Digestion, by making it of a Volatile Nature, fit for the eliciting and generation of Spirits, and of that generous Liquor with which the Nervous and Musculous parts are irrigated and enlivened: To this agrees that of a learned and ingenious Author of our own, in his Anonymous Treatise lately published De Ratione Motus Musculorum; who in his sixth page, treating of those Spirituous Liquors, with which every part and particle of the Body doth abound, saith they are elaborated out of the Alimentary Juice as it passeth through the several Offices, and so become endued with various and distinct Natures, pro varid cujusque partis Temperie, ac Fermenti in ipsd peculiaris ratione, that is to say, according to the various Temper of every Part, and the nature of the Ferment which is peculiar thereto. From whence it necessarily follows, that if any of the Ferments be out of Order, the Body grows Spiritless, dull, tiresome, or unapt for Motion; Or if they be defunct, that they cannot at all perform the Duty of their respective Digestions, then all runs to ruin by an ill Habit or Consumptive Atrophe, because the nature of the Archaeus and of those Ferments which attended it, in the solid parts, is such, that if the Alimentary Juice hath not been elaborated as it aught to be in every shop, as it passeth from one to another, it comes to the last Digestion so imperfect, that instead of being assimilated to the Solid Parts, Nature rejects it as useless, and so it turns to vicious Excrement; whereupon the Ferments implanted also in the solid parts, wanting fit Matter to work upon for a good purpose, and not knowing how to be idle, begin to take ill Courses, and by reason of their restless activity, do prey upon the several Parts wherein they devil, and so by degrees consume the whole Body to a Skeleton; which too often falls out now a days, because of the Universality of Scorbutic and Venereous Ferments among the Sons of men, than which nothing is to be imagined more destructive of the Native Ferments and Digestions of the Body.  
In such Cases as these, when the respective Ferments are languid, and cannot digest the Alimentary Juice as they aught, the more Nutritive the Food is which men eat, the more mischief they run into, because it affords more Nourishable Matter than the Ferments are able to impregnate or make Volatile, to be assimilated unto the Solid Parts; and so the more men lad the Body with the best meats, the more of Excrementious matters are stored up in every Part, and so much the more pernicious, because the Corruption of the best is the worst; by which means nature is rather oppressed, or suffocated, than comforted. Hence it is, that so many persons, in Consumptions especially, are even killed by the Kindness (or rather Folly) of their Physicians and Friends, who never think they do well, longer than they are prescribing and giving them high Nourishing D●stillations, Broths, Jellies, and I know not what Messes, besides the Pectoral Syrups, Electuaries, and the like, which advance the Disease, and Patients toward a final Destruction, under pretence of Restauratives; whereas they aught in that and many other Diseases, to lay aside these things, and their Notion of Cure grounded upon Contrarieties, that Inanition indicates Repletion, an Emaciated body a rich Feeding; and to mind rather in the first place a reviving of decayed Ferments and Digestions; which being effected by proper Remedies, and by subtracting so much Aliment, as would otherwise clog them, and cloy the Shops of Digestion, then Feeding falls in properly, forasmuch as Nature having recovered her Fermental Force, knows how to make use of the Alimentary juice again, and improve it; which she will do of course, if she be prudently (i e. gradually) supplied, and will immediately repair the loss of Flesh, and of the rorid Succulencies, in the Body. Thus much of Ferments in general: For, to treat of them in particular, with their several Seats, and the mutual Dependencies and Consents which they have with each other, and what Doctrines may thence arise, for Direction in the practice of Physic, is a Design too copious for this Time and place: only, let me observe, what Mr. Boil saith, 
* Experim. ph●●os. pa●●. ●. p. 44.  That he who throughly understands the nature of Ferments and Fermentations, stall probably be much better able than he that ignores them, to given a fair Account of divers Phenomena of several Diseases (as well Fevers, as others) which will perhaps never be throughly understood, without an Insight in the Doctrine about Ferments. The truth is, scarce any Disease is to be understood without it; and therefore the Doctrine of the Schools having been unacquainted with it, must needs be insufficient also in respect of this; and their Remedies useless, because they reach not beyond Humours and Qualities, and are not able to penetrate so deep, as to relieve Nature in such profound and mysterious Desiciencies, as we here speak of: Nor did any of the old Authors, in their Discourses about the Method of Curing, aim at any thing like it.  
4. I might assert also that Doctrine never 
Of Diseases in general.  Dreamed of by the Schools in former days, touching the Notion of Diseases in general; for, they make a Disease to be no more but a mere Distemper in excess of Quality; whereas Helmont, and Grembs, make it appear to be a real substantial thing, inherent in that which they call the Archaeus or Vital Spirit, where it first hath its beginning, and by this means the first beginnings of Diseases are undiscernible, because they are actuated in and from so fine and subtle a Principle as that which we call Spirit; and that is the reason why Physicians so seldom Cure any Disease, which Nature with a little time cures not of herself, because they look not to the Spirituous original, be it either Hereditary, or Adventitious, but ground their Indications of Cure upon the mere Products and Effects of the Disease, rather than the Disease itself, or at the highest only upon Occasional Causes, which have no affinity to the essence of a Disease. Upon this Account, I have seen them Purge a Patient, and Bleed him (I know not how many times) over and over, supposing forsooth, that by this means they drain away much of the inward Cause, which such Remedies can never reach in its intimate recess; and suppose they could, yet they would rather exasperated than pacify the Archaeus or Vital Spirit, wherein all Chronic Diseases are radically seated. And truly, in this matter, Hypocrates was wiser than his Successors, in aiming at the essence of Diseases, while he ascribes so much to that which he calls Spiritus Impetum Faciens, or the Active forcible Spirit, as including the essentials of a Disease; for, in that Vital Spirit (which we call the Archaeus) implanted in any part of the Body, lurk the difficult sort of Diseases; and till that Spirit be pacified, or rectified, by a proper Remedy, or by some extraordinary benignity of Nature, it is, in such Cases impossible to attain a recovery;— And the truth is, a Cure of this kind is not to be effected by any Remedy, which is not invented and wrought by Rules, out of the best and most powerful Materials, which are want to be made use of for producing the Noblest Arcana; that is to say, Medicines of as comprehensive and universal a Nature, as may by the help of human Art and Industry be devised.  
And yet tis not to be denied, that there are many Diseases hap to be difficult and dangerous, which having been at first irritated by Occasional Causes, are removed upon altering or removing those Causes, by which the irritation or offence was first given to the Vital Spirit. Thus those things which Hypocrates calls Acre, Amarum, Ponticum, Acidum, Salsum, i e. Acrimonius, Bitter, Austere, Acid, or Saltish, becoming the Occasional Causes of Diseases, it is the Physicians part to inquire into these, and to provide suitable remedies; which though they be not of the Upper Form of A●canaes to reach the Archaeus, yet may alloy his fury at a distance, when these Occasions of offence are taken out of the way. And certainly, such considerations touching Diseases in general, are in order to the Invention of Medicines, more necessary to be entertained in this Age, wherein most mysterious Maladies are naturalised within our Vitals, than the poor Notions so much doted on, which led not men beyond the thought of Qualities, Temperaments, and Humours: for, these serve only against such distempers as are apt to wear of of themselves: And thus (as Grembs saith) 
* Lib 2. ca 1. De Morbis in genere.  Diseases sometimes are cured by Accident (that is, as we in English say, more by good hap than cunning) if they be inclinable to be consumed and resolved of their own Accord; but those which have fixed roots do elude and scorn Galenick Remedies, whereupon through want of Remedy they become incurable Diseases; for, a Remedy aught to respect that Instrument of the Soul called the Archaeus, or vital Spirit, which 
* Ortus Imag. Morbos. p. 44.  Helmont saith nothing can do but the more Mysterious Medicines, which are of such a comprehensive Latitude as is little lesle than Universal: Or which may be so deemed, at lest in a Comparative Sense, by comparing them with the dull Recipes of an inferior virtue.  
5. I may spend time also in explaining the Qualifications and Effects of that 
Of the Arch. us.  Vital Spirit called the Archaeus, and prove, that there is such a thing diffused through every Part and Particle of the Body, as director general of all the works of Generation, yea and Corruption also; the great Exciter of all Motions, being (as one describes it) a Thing very delicate to be conceived, but is 
* Grembs de Ortu Rerum, l. 1. cap. 7.  Medium quid inter Vitam & Corpus, & veluti Aura Nitens splendensque a kind of Middle thing betwixt Spirituous and Corporeous, as it were a Luminous Air: But for the more accurate description thereof, I refer you to Helmont himself. Yet because tis the Reformation of the Galenists which I aim at, I shall not omit to show, it was a thing apprehended by one of their own Authors, and indeed the wisest of their number, I mean the acquaint Fernelius. 
* De Ahd●t. rer. Caus. l. 2. cap. 7.  He gins thus, The proper signification of Spirit is Wind, in all Languages; and whereas Wind is very powerful, and effecteth wonderful things, and is not to be seen by our eyes, it hath so fallen out through a kind of affinity and similitude, that the name of Spirit is transferred unto every thing which falls not under our sight, whither it be corporeal, or Incorporeal. Hence it is, that the substance which is in Us, very like to subtle Air, undergoes the Appellation of Spirit. But it is somewhat of a nature differing from Body and Humours, which Hypocrates called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, or Incitans, somewhat of an impetuous force, not from the tenuity of its substance, but because it hath a great power of incursion, like Wind. So far therefore as it excites those impetuous Motions, it is understood to have some affinity with the Nature of a Body; but in asmuch as it cannot be seen, it draws neare to an Incorporeal Substance; whereby it comes to pass, that it is of a middle nature betwixt them, and partakes of both. This Spirit is the Vehicle and proper seat of the Soul and all its faculties, which perhaps you may properly call their Body: for so the Platonists of old said, that a certain Body of an excellent nature, Perlucid and Ethereal, is subserving to the Soul and its faculties, to the end that they may be United with the Earthy and gross Body. Yea, and as if he meant to paint our Archaeus to the Life, he a little beneath saith, Nature which is in that Spirit, hath obtained a condition more excellent and more divine than that of Spirit. And presently after he adds, it must needs be a Thing different from the Temperament of the body, and be constituted above the nature of a Temperament, seeing it is the Author of life and all the Functions. The heat which is in this Spirit is not of the common sort, (he saith) but plainly Divine and Heavenly, like the light or heat of the Sun. By this you see, his description of the Archaeus or Vital Spirit, exactly agrees with that which is set down by Helmont and his followers.  
Add to this also the sense of Heurnius in the beginning of his 
* Lib. 3. cap. 1.  Institutions, whom (of all the Galenists) I reckon the man that seen most, next to Fernelius, who defineth this Spirit to be a kind of Ethereal Body, elaborated out of the purest part of the blood, and changed into the Substance of a very subtle Air, and it is the prime Instrument of the Soul, for performance of all its Functions. To which I may add also, that it is the Creator of the greatest distempers: for, the same 
* Lib 7 cap. 7. Eu●q. Spiritum Causam Continentem dixere.  Author saith, that before Galen, that which we now call the Causa Continens of a Disease was ascribed to this Spirit by Herophilus and his followers; because when this Spirit in any part is extravagant, then a Disease arises, but when it returns to good order, then the Disease is at an end. And the same Author, cap. 5. cities the Authority of Plato in Charmide, Ubi eleganter demonstrat omnes morbos ex animo nasci, where he elegantly demonstrates, that all Diseases have their original in this Animus, this Wind, this subtle Ethereal Air, this Impetum Faciens of Hypocrates, this Spirit, or call it what you please; it matters not what the Name be, if we agreed about the Thing; Either the occasional irritation, or the spontaneous exorbitancy of this, which we call the Archaeus, is the prime Cause of every distemper. And in his sixth Book, cap. 1. he saith, that Argenterius, a learned writer of the same Tribe, endeavours his utmost to prove, that a Disease first hurts the Faculty, afterwards the Action or Function. Now consider, that the Faculty is one and the same with the Archaeus or Vital Spirit, and to be separated by the conception of the mind only; Facultatem nihil aliud esse intelligimus, quàm substantiam partium animatarum, By a Faculty (saith he) we understand nothing else but the substance of the parts which are animated; that is, in truth (say I) the Archaeus or Vital Spirit implanted in every part, which Fernelius before calls a very subtle Aerous Substance, endued with faculty to put in execution this or that Function for the service of the Body; but when it is infested, or enraged, then to raise Tumults, Discrasies, and Disorders, to the detriment of the Body: which exactly suits with the Notion of Helmont: And the use of it is very great; viz. in all our Scopes about Curation of Diseases, especially difficult ones, that we should raise our thoughts above the common Notions of Qualities, Temperaments, Humours, and the like, and bend our Brains to a course of Medicaments that are of a reach beyond those low conceits, and which will extend their power to a rectification, and pacification of the Archaeus, in any of the Parts affected. 
* Fernel. de Abd. rer. Caus. lib 2. Cap. 8.  Vix tu sanè possis numerando percensere functionum genera quae supra elementorum vires sunt, & quae nequaquam ad illorum temperaturam pertinent. It is (saith Fernelius) a hard matter to number up the sorts of Functions (or Operations) which are beyond the powers of Elements, and which do in no wise belong unto their Temperaments.  
The consequence whereof therefore must be this, that we aught to look after Causes more high, concealed hitherto from vulgar understandings, which the lazy Doctors of the Schools heretofore never inquired into, but with ease referred all that was beyond the common Doctrinals, to that grand Refuge of Ignorance termed Occult Qualities, Proprieties, and Occult Diseases, for which no reason (as they said) was to be given, because they had noon to given of their own, nor could found any in their outworn Authors, and therefore thought they had no reason to beaten their Brains about the Business, as long as they could do their own business without it. But enough of this, seeing it hath pleased God so to illuminate this Age, by the Industry of some few, after whose example some others are perpetually engaging themselves in discovery of things, as to their Essences and Causes, which heretofore had been locked up and kept occult, in the dark Chaos of Pride, Ignorance, and Idleness; yet with a pretence of Learning.  
6. I might insist also upon the Doctrine of Ideas, how far they contribute toward the Causation of Diseases, by their Influence upon the Archaeus; as also how Diseases are causable and curable by the force of Imagination; and what effects are produceable by Sympathy and Antipathy; and make reflections likewise upon the whole Doctrine of Magnetism; all which carry us above the usual gross Speculations belonging to our Profession; but jest I should in such discourses appear too Platonic, or Fanatic, in the opinion of such as consider not, that all the Effects and Operations in this visible world have a dependence upon the invisible, I forbear an Enlargement upon these particulars; though I must tell them, they are of excellent use, and without any Superstition, in the curing of Maladies, and do only conduct us out of the common Road into the Inner Closets of Philosophy and Physic: For, that Diseases are caused, and may be cured as well as caught, per radios invisibiles, by invisible radiations or Influences, or by intermediation of Corpuscles, Atoms, Effluviums, or flying particles, after an undiscernible manner, is a matter now so far out of question, that he who will deny it must first renounce his own knowledge of visible effects, and run cross to the Observations of the wiser part of the world, and against the more Sublime Conceptions of this Inquisitive Age.  
The last Thing that I might insist upon in order to the practice of Physic, is that which I had first in my Intention when I fell upon the penning of this Book; and 'tIS this Position, That there is in this Age somewhat of a venomous disposition, or Malignancy (more or lesle) in all manner of Diseases, not known to former Ages, which touching the work in general of Curing, is of a consideration paramount to the old Notions, about which there hath been so great a scuffle in the Schools: So that there was never so much cause as now, for men to consider Hypocrates his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which 
* De Ab●rer. Caus. lib 2. Cap. 10.  Fernelius translates not quid Divinum as properly so, but quid Admirabile, somewhat that is admirable or extraordinary in Diseases, as proceeding from a more hidden Cause, with is (saith he) above the condition of Elements; and works not upon the Temperament, but upon the whole Habit of the Body. But what this Extraordinary thing is, I forbear to repeat in this place, because it is sufficiently described in several of the foregoing Chapters, which discourse of the Marvellous Change that is wrought in all manner of Diseases, by the intervention of Verminous, Venereous, and Scorbutic Ferments.   

CHAP. IX.. An Examination of divers old Doctrines which more immediately relate to the Practice of Physic.  
HAving with good Authority examined, and upon good ground rejected the old Scholastic Principles of Physic, and substituted better in their places, as much more conducible to the Art of Curing, tis now time to proceed to an examination of the other Particulars, which more immediately concern the Methods and Practices of those that would be reputed the only Methodical Physicians; and here we shall have occasion to throw out divers other Doctrinals which have been hitherto received, and Abuses which have crept into the Profession.  
1. Let us cashier the Hypercritical Doctrine about Critical Days; as childish a Conceit as ever was owned by any Long Beards called the Children of men; for, truly it is like the Child's game called Ludere Par Impar, Even and odd, and yet the Ancients all are very grave at it, reckoning much upon even days and odd days, except only Celsus, of whose opinion you shall have an Account by and by. In the mean while know, that a Crisis 
* H●urnius in Hippoc. Progn. l. 3.  is a changing of the Disease to a contrary state, that is to say, either to better or worse, to life or to death; and the days to which such Mutations are ascribed are called Critical days. The establishment of them was by Hypocrates in his Aphorisms and Prognostics; and from him, Galen, and all the rest of the Commentators have borrowed the Fancy. They are supposed to be of most use in the Curing of Fevers, and other Acute Diseases; yet some are so vain as to extend them to the Hundred, and the Two hundredth day, when Diseases from Acute become Chronical; yea and they would yet spin out the Patience and Purse of a Patient further than this, in expectation of a Critical solution of a Disease by the benefit of Nature; which Doctrine being admitted, serves for two purposes very well; First, to cloak the Ignorance and Insufficiency of such, who sticking to old Rules of practice, have Authority to hold Patients so many days in hand without relief, and yet be reputed never the worse Physicians; Secondly to hid the Insufficiency of the old Art itself, and of those Medicines that belong to it, that Patients may be trained on to take more, and lay the blame of all upon a supposed rebellion of the Disease, rather than an impotence of the Course of Remedies; which if it cure not, yet must it be thought necessary to be continued, in expectation of the day of Judgement, otherwise called a Judicatory day of Crisis: In the mean time, the Apothecaries and the Nurses are bound to say Amen to the Business, and impute the delay to the great Caution and Care of the Physician, who is said to watch Natures Motions, but oftentimes lies gaping for the Motion of Nature so long, till for want of being roused by some noble Remedy, she fall asleep for ever.  
But to go on; let me given you the sum of Hypocrates in his Prognostics about this matter: There are in Acute and Feverish Diseases, which are reckoned by days, some days called Decretory or Critical, in which Nature of her own accord, without help of Medicine, doth upon an odd day make excretion of such noxious Humours asare separated by Digestion: Other days there are, called Indiciarie or Significative, which are supposed to signify, by some precedent sign, the coming of the Crisis upon a Septenary; as for example, they say the Fourth day signifies what will fall out on the Seventh, and so you are to reckon by Fours and Septenaries, till you arrive (if there be occasion) at an Hundred. Thus, Hypocrates dividing the week into two Parts, hath digested it into Quaternaries or Fours, which in making the Account are always Significative of the Septenaries. In short, some days are reckoned by an odd number, others by an even number. In his fourth Book De Morbis, he saith, 'tIS deadly to administer a Purgative upon an odd day (which by many Instances and Observations I know to be most false, and that in all probability Patients must have either Died, or been the more difficultly Cured, had they not been purged, or vomited upon such a day;) but upon even days he gives leave of Purgation; yet confesseth, that the Physicians before him did not think fit to observe these things: but concerning this, see more in 
* Epist. 〈◊〉 2. cap. 60.  Joannes Langius his Epistles.  
The Commentator upon Celsus, a Hot man for Hypocrates, having reckoned up these for Critical days in Acute Diseases, viz. 4. 7. 11. 14. 17. 20. 24. and 27. stops not here, but goes on to 31. 34 37. and 40. But let them reckon as they list, tis a shame to think, that the world in two thousand years' time should be not better improved, in some man's opinion, than to admit of such Conceits as these; that they can keep a Patient in an ordinary Fever twenty one days without relief, till Nature herself, by her own strength, or her great Enemy Death, come to given a release; and yet it shall be thought a wise piece of Art so to carry the matter, and the Physicians learned enough, though they be not Masters of so much as one noble Remedy, to given a Turn to the Disease, but the Patient shall be learnedly left to languish, and nothing be done, for fear forsooth of anticipating, or impeding a Crisis; whereas if a right course were taken with proper potent Remedies, the neck of a Fever might be broken long before it be spun out to the 21. or the 40. day, yea the sting of the Disease might be taken out in the very beginning. I must confess, that what 
* Lib. 2 ed▪ ●, de Febr, na●u●â.  Grembs saith of Helmont is very much; that he undertook, without Blooding, and with allowing the Patient Wine, to remove a Fever in F●ur days time, by the help of Diaphoretick Preparations; and that he thought any man unworthy the name of a Physician that cannot do the like. As for Blouding, I have seen enough of the wickedness of that practice in Fevers, and the Folly of fearing to relieve the Patient with a little Wine now and then, to support the Spirits; but it is not for any man to be positive in the number of Four days, who is not Master of such noble Medicaments as Helmont was, that can incide, attenuate, resolve, and take away the Occasional Cause in what places soever it may lurk; yet I know, that by the time that the Fever arrives at the first pretended Critical day, which in common computation is the seventh, there are Medicines to be had, with which the height and Fury of that dreadful Disease shall be either taken of, or else a Judgement shall be pronounced what the Event of the Disease is like to be.  
Which being considered, it cannot but Nauseate any ingenious man, to read the Superstitious Fooleries of Authors, and to see how they puzzle one another with petty quarrels about the Doctrinal part of this sort of Criticisms; and 'tIS like to be good, when they cannot agreed about the Causes of them, or any thing else that concerns them; and truly, the Consequent of it is miserable, because that one single pretence of waiting for Critical solutions of Acute Diseases, hath in all times, been an occasion of slaying at lest two parts of that part of mankind that hath died of Fevers; for 'its a Fundamental principle with some, that you are to deal with such a Patient only with Languid remedies (chips in pottage) and leave Nature to shifted of her own Accord to cure him, if she can: And yet these are called Safe Doctors, though they do just nothing, and can hardly make a step beyond Gascons Powder, magistery of Pearl, Bezoar (which is generally sergeant) Treacle-water, the cool Water of Sax: a few Syrups, and one or two more Shop-Magistrals, w●th a Clyster; which the Boys can tell the road of Administering, as well as themselves; and therefore tis but reason that the Master Apothecaries undertake to practise without us, and (to save the Patient's Purse) seldom sand for us till needs must, and even then also the Apothecary might proceed as well alone; for, he knows the Summa, Totalis at the Tail of all (as well as vulgar Mr. Doctor) to be but Blistering, Cupping, and Pigeons, and the like Cordials as before; and so there's an end of the story; but it concerns him to palliate all that hath been done, by late sending for a Doctor, who when he comes, doth just no more; and what more can be done for the poor Patient after this, but to leave him to his own good Nature, and God's blessing, by some happy Crisis to rescue him from the power of the Grave? whereas all this hazard might have been prevented at first, by other kind of Medicines and Methods: with which, ere long, a Course will be taken to furnish the Nation.  
In the mean while, it will be very necessary, 
Of Critical days.  for the information of our Countrymen, to descend a little to a view of the odd Conceits of the great even and odd gamesters about Critical days. Hypocrates himself was wiser than his Followers, in this one thing, that he would not venture to assign the Causes of such days; only he gives notice, that he in his own experience had observed them to fall out so, and thereupon concluded there was an innate propriety in these days to produce such effects more than other days. And Avicen saith, he did well in this business, to content himself only with Experience; but it is as lawful to object Exprieence against it, that in our Age all things fall out as well upon the other days, as upon those that he calls Critical. Nevertheless, let us see his ground for his opinion: its no other than this, that he supposeth a kind of Charm in the Number Seven, and in a Computation by Septenaries, saying, that a 
* Hippocr. lib. de Carnibus.  Septenary is as it were the Law of Nature, after the example whereof all things are dispensed; which suits just as well with the Law of Nature, as the Conceit of another Naturalist doth with his, viz. Aristotle, who trips up Hypocrates his opinion with a Trez or Trey (as we pronounce it) saying, 
* Aristor. lib. 1. de ●●lo, cap. 1.  that a Ternary is as it were the Law of Nature, whereby all natural things are disposed. Nevertheless, Hypocrates carries it with his Successors, who in the aforecited Book saith, man's life is dispensed by sevens. But it is to be observed, that whereas in his Epistle to his Son Thessalus, he gives no reason for this but the necessity of Nature; so in his Book de Aevo, having promised, that he would in time given other Reason by particular explanation, he wholly neglected the performance, and tamely resolves the whole evidence of the matter into his own observation and experience.  
Now though the grand Leader was so shy and timorous to venture upon giving a Reason, yet the Followers have been more hardy: some have assigned one Cause, some another, and so 'tis like to come to somewhat, when the prime Dictators can agreed upon Nothing. The Followers of Pythagoras referred the Cause of Critical days to the mysterious power of the Number seven, which odd number (they say) is more potent than an even number: For (they tell us) although number be not a substance, yet it hath a substantial effect upon things from a cause unknown to us: that is, ignotum per ignotius decernere, to determine an unknown thing by a thing more unknown; which Doctrine of theirs, touching number, is repeated by Galen 
* 3. d● diebus Decretor●is cap. 8. & 11. , and by him well enough refuted.  
But he lapseth afterwards himself as fond as the Pythagoreans, and falls in with the Astrologers, ascribing the Critical days to the Motion of the Stars, especially of the Moon, as their principal Cause. To which I say no more but this in short; If it were so, then the Squares and Weeks of the Moon would always concur with the Quaternious and Weeks of the Disease; but this very rarely falls out. Moreover Fracastorius, in a particular Treatise which he set forth upon this Subject, saith, If the Moon hath any Power, it must be by reason of her celestial Light and Heat; but her Light doth not sand forth Heat on one day more than another, but only as it is more or lesle reflected upon the earth; which happens in the Sun, when he is nearer, or his beams more direct; in the Moon, when she receives more Light from the Sun, which falls out when she is more remote from the Sun. If this be true, it follows then, that seeing she is on the eighth day more remote than on the seventh, and consequently hath more Light and Heat, we aught to conceive the Eighth day more likely to be Critical than the Seventh.  
And yet Fracastorius, who in this argueth sufficiently again Galen, commits as gross an Error himself, while he assigneth the Causes of Critical days to the Motion of the Melancholic Humour, which (according to the old Fancy) is supposed to have its Motion every Fourth day by a peculiar propriety. Upon this, as the Ancients vainly grounded the Circuits of Quartan Agues; so he supposed it might serve his Turn to establish a reason thereupon, why the Fourth day is said to be Critical. But suppose (as we have before proved) that there is no such Humour in the Body of man as that which is termed Melancholy; what then becomes of his Conceit about the Motion of it? And admit there were such a Humour, it would be hard to prove the Motion, noon of the old Graecian Writers having ventured to given any account for it but their own Word and Authority. Therefore he might have done better to assign no new Cause at all, when he contradicted Galen, but to have been silent, and to have laboured rather to excuse Galen, as 
* Med. Princ. hist. lib. 6. q. 11.  Zacutus (the great Galenick Jew) hath endeavoured; for, to save the credit of Galen for falling in with the Astrologers about this matter, he saith there are so many things in that Book wherein Galen is supposed to deliver that opinion, which are vain, false, and unworthy the wit of Galen, that he cannot but conclude it to be noon of his, but altogether Spurious and Illegitimate.  
But the most ridiculous of all is that of 
* Tract. de Dieb. Decret.  Amatus, and Cartagena, de sign. dier. Decret. c. 18. who both of them had recourse to Musical Notions, the Consent, and proportions of numbers; and as among those Numbers some are Dissonant, and others Consonant, so (say they) it happens in days of sickness; therefore the day's Dissonant from the first day, by reason of the cause of disagreement which they have therewith do stir up Nature to a Contention; but the days Consonant to the First day, by reason of the likeness which they have therewith, are disposed to quiet, and so do not provoke Nature to a Contest, and by consequence do not stir up a Crisis. Which is an odd kind of Riddle, to say not more. But this confirms what hath ever been observed, that one Absurdity begets a Thousand. That one Fancy of Hypocrates about Critical days hath set all his Followers a madding to given Reasons for them; and so they are all lost in a Fog.  
Therefore Asclepiades warily considering the matter, said it was a vanity to seek after a Cause of Critical days, supposing them a mere Figment; and he derided Hypocrates, for making some day's Indicatory, other days Judicatory or Critical: For, in no day (saith he) because it is even or odd, is there any danger more or lesle. This Judgement of Asclepiades is seconded very much to purpose by Celsus, whom Heurnius and other notable Galenists reckon not inferrior to Hypocrates. The truth is, he hath taken out of Hypocrates whatever is of moment, and digested it in his own Book, but he leaves him to himself in the business of Critical days and expectations. And though 
* Med. Pri. Hist. l. 6. Quaest 11. p. 979.  Zacutus would feign persuade us, that what Celsus declares against Critical days, is not according to his own mind, but that he relates it only as the Sense of Asclepiades, yet (by his Favour) tis no such matter; for, Celsus is very plain and positive in the Case, as will appear to any Reader, and I shall here translate the place Verbatim, 
* Celsus, de Re 〈◊〉. cap. 4.  where you shall see he approves Asclepiades his Judgement in casting of such days, and saith jure repudiavit, he did well in repudiating them. The words are these: Hypocrates, if a Fever abated upon any day besides a Critical, was want to fear a Return or Relapse. But 
* Asclepiades lived in the time of Pompey the great.  Asclepiades did justly repudiate this as vain, and said, there is in no day, because it is even or odd, any danger, more or lesle. For, sometimes the odd days become the worse. Sometimes also in the Disease itself the Course of days is changed, and that day becomes more grievous which was want to be the calmer: Moreover, the Fourteenth day itself is an even day, upon which the Ancients did lay so great a stress. Who when they contended that the eighth day hath the same Nature with the First day, so that the Second Septenary or Number Seven aught to begin from thence, did thereby contradict themselves, in not reckoning the Eighth, nor the Tenth, nor the Twelfth day, as the more powerful; for, they attributed more to the Ninth, and the Eleventh. Which when they had done without any probable reason, they passed from the Eleventh, not to the Thirteenth, but to the Fourteenth. We found also in Hypocrates, that the Fourth day is reckoned most grievous when the Patient is like to have his Critical Deliverance on the Seventh. So also he saith, that upon an odd day, the Fever may be both more grievous, and a certain sign of what is to come. And in another place, he apprehends every Fourth day as most efficacious in both respects, that is to say, the Fourth, the Seventh, the Eleventh, the Fourteenth, and the Seventeenth, whereby he passeth from odd to the account of Even. And yet here he holds not firm to himself, forasmuch as the Eleventh day computed from the Seventh, is not the Fourth day but the Fifth. So it appears, that which way soever we count upon number, there is nothing of reason to be found in that Author. And what (I pray you now) could be uttered by so grave an Author as Celsus, with more Tartness against Hypocrates his Phantsies about Critical days? So that I fear Zacutus his eyes were not his own when he read this P●ssage; but Baldwin Ronsseus in his Comment, saith plainly, that Celsus is clearly of one and the same opinion with Asclepiades, about this Business.  
I might to these add a large Account of the Quarrels among Authors, about the time from whence the computation of days is to begin, but I wave it: sometimes a Patient (as we often see) becomes Feverish for two or three days, and then it abates for three or four days more; and a few days after, the Fever comes on in good earnest: Now, in such a Case, it were well if any could assign a right time from whence the Computation should begin. Besides, admit a right time be pitched upon from whence to compute, yet to what purpose is it to reckon onward in expectation of a Crisis, whenas every small circumstance will altar the Motion of the Mass of Blood, and the Pepasmus or Concoction of the Morbific matter, upon which the Crisis is supposed to depend? so that it shall not come to pass on the Set-day according to expectation, and perhaps not at all: For, I have often observed, that sometimes a Purgation, sometimes want of Sleep, sometimes a little Broth, sometimes a little Cold, sometimes a slender Invasion of Ill News, Grief, or Fear, and divers other Accidents, have wrought a marvellous sudden alteration in a Patient, so that all things being out of order, what orderly Crisis (if any such Thing be now in Nature) can in reason be expected? The Truth is, there are so many probable Rubs in the way to hinder the process of the Pepasmus, that it is a wonder, if in the North-parts of the world, where our blood is not so fine and brisk, nor the Air so benign, as in warmer Climates, if ever we see in twenty years practise so much as one complete Critical Solution: For (as Doctor Willis 
* De Febr. cap. 9  well observes) if any thing fall out which is not clearly conducing thereto, the Crisis (if any be) proves vain and treacherous, seldom putting an end to the Disease. For, admit that the Moon or other Stars did by their Influence in part regulate the Critical motion (as Galen would have it wholly) yet the same Doctor well notes, the critical evacuations are determined only by a turgescencie of the adust matter; and that he shows may, pro re natâ, fall out sooner or later, so that there can be no certain time: And many times, I have observed a cruel Disease spend itself, without any the lest sign of a Crisis; especially when the Physician hath furnished his Patient with some commanding Remedies; for, these either immediately accelerate some Mutation that is like a Crisis, or else they need not the assistance of any such violent excretions as use to attended a Crisis, to put an end to the Disease; which they are want to dissolve after a more easy and lesle perceivable manner, little, being to be observed besides gentle Sweeting. And as touching the uncertainty of Critical days, Vallesius 
* Contravers. M●d. & Philosoph. l●b. 10. cap. 2.  also is very positive, and saith, if the Moon and the Stars do not govern them, they must needs vary, either by a change of the quantity of the Matter, or through an increase or diminution of the Patient's strength: For, if in a Disease which aught to be determined on the seventh day, you draw away, or add but a little matter, you may 'cause the Crisis to fall on the sixth or eigth day: Wherhfore seeing proportion may be altered in each Constitution, or in any Disease, it is impossible to six the same Critical days for all Fevers, and Natures, and Countries, and Ages, and Seasons. And if so, then the certainty of such days, and all the Doctrine about them, falls quite to the ground. To the very same Sense also speaks 
* Lib. 1. Epist. 35.  Langius in his Epistles, where he brings in Galen himself, confessing that Critical days are uncertain, because of the various Concerns of the Morbific matter, through Accidents, etc.  
This being so, it is very well done of Regius present Professor at Utrecht, to free our Profession from such a parcel of perplexing Notions to no purpose, as were left us in old Authors, touching this Critical Doctrine; For in the new Foundations of Physic by him laid, he takes but slight notice of it, and presently concludes in these words: In these Countries, Crises do seldom fall out, both because of the Coldness of our Air, and because our Physicians being furnished with more benign Purgers, do happily drain away the matter of the Disease per Epicrasin, i e. by gradua● gentle Purgation, and so they carry of the Cause of the Crisis.  
But of all others, I found Helmont most positive and powerful in the discussing of this Point, in his Treatise De Tempore, where, after some other Discourse about it, he adds this : I have always observed (saith he) with diligence, that there is never any Crisis at all, where the Physician being Master of his Art, knows how to take away the Disease before the usual time of the Crisis is come: For, as nature enjoyeth ordinary Motions, and is accustomed to them, and is readily governed by the unity of the Motive Faculty, so when the whole Business of a Disease rests only upon her shoulders, she endeavours at some times to stir up a Crisis, which otherwise the goodness, or the badness of a Medicine or manner of curing doth anticipate, retard, or destroy. By this means forsooth sometimes the Crisi● that was expected on the Fourteenth day is prolonged till the Fortieth. It is the part therefore of a good and faithful Physician, not to given any regard to Crises; and it were better for the Patient to have been without a Physician, if he be cu●ed by a Crisis; and so much the more, if his Crisis were slower. But to what purpose is so great a Catalogue of Critical days? s●eing it behoves a Physician to be so armed, as to be able to ●ame a dangerous Disease, and shorten a long one; that is, extirpate it betimes, that it may not be delayed in expectation of a Crisis. And the same Author, in his book concerning Fevers 
* Cap. 11. , adds more to the same purpose: A good Physician aught n●t to regard Crises, but rather to prevent them. For, Nature never intends a Crisis, unless it be when she is left to shifted for herself, and to bear the whole burden alone. Therefore a true Physician aught to overcome the Disease before the usual Time of Crisis, and so he neither expects, nor desires it. The Consequence then is, that it must needs be very pernicious to hold up the pretence of Critical days in the Profession of Physic, because the Physician is thereby enabled to justify himself, although he do leave Nature to herself to struggle with the Disease, while he lazily looks on, and with his formal visits only keeps Count of days, and orde's the common feeble Medicines, which have little power to effect any thing considerable towards a speedy extirpation of the Disease; so that of course the Patient aught to lie languishing, till time, rather than the Physician, brings on a delivery. But of this I have said enough before, as the great occasion of ruin in Acute Diseases; and a Cloak to the Ignorance of old Pedantic Practisers; besides that it strangulates all thoughts of devising more potent Medicines, or of introducing other Methods more agreeable to them, and much more rational, than those which depend upon the Superstitious Fictions of old heathenish Authors.  
II The next thing to be considered is 
Of Pulses.  the Doctrine of Pulses; which aught in part to be cashiered also, and in part to be retained. I remember, when I first studied Physic, I spent much time to understand the tedious Descriptions and Schemes or Tables of different Pulses enumerated by Galen; but they serving for no end but vexation of the Brain, ostentation of pretended Science, and to impose upon the world, it is meet to reduce the useful part to a narrow Compass, that Students may not be confounded about it in the future. The First that attempted this (if I mistake not, for I have not the Book at hand) was the grave Spaniard Per●da. Since him, 
* Greg. Horst. I●stit. Med. Disput. 13. Quaest 1. Conciliator D●ff●r 82.  Horstius, as grave an Author as he, hath done the like, and he brings in also one reputed the gravest of them All, viz. Petrus Aponensis the Conciliator, who shows how endless a matter it is to spin out so many Notions as Galen hath done about Pulses; for, (saith he) after the same rate of Magis and Minùs, they may be infinite; therefore he reduceth them to Ten in number; and that this is sufficient, they both of them demonstrate thus: In every motion are to be considered, 1. The Space by which the Motion is made, 2. The Time which is consumed in the passage of the Space, 3. The Quiet or Pause which follows both the Motions, 4. The Efficient Cause of the Pulse, 5. The Instrument whereby it is effected. From whence arise Ten simple Pulses.  
1. In respect of Space, or distention and contraction in the Space, a Pulse is great, or little.  
2. In respect of Time, to which the quality doth answer, it is Swift, or Slow.  
3. In respect of the Quiet or Pause, it is Frequent, or Rare.  
4. In respect of the Mover or Cause Efficient, it is Weak, or Vehement.  
5. In respect of the Place or Instrument whereby it is effected, it is Soft, or Hard. And so these make Ten Primary Differences of Pulses. But if you consider (or rather Fancy) divers Particulars in any one Pulse, or compare and mingle the Pulses with each other, then you may proceed in Infinitum; and there he turns us of to Galen; and thither you may go, if you delight in Quirks and Quillets, or have any time to throw away; where you shall found I know not what delicacies of the Touch in distinguishing Pulses, so that you had need have a Finger more delicate than ever was employed in the Touch of a Lute. There you have that which is termed Pulsus Dicrotus, Caprisans, Interruptus, Undosus, Vermiculans, Formicans, Vibrans, Convulsivus, Serrinus, Impar citatus, Arythmus, Ecrythmus, Heterorythmus, and I know not how many hard words more; which Modern Writers have been sick to think of; and Heurnius, in his Institutions, having reckoned up some of them, counts it but time lost to insist upon more; For (saith he) reliquas Pulsuum Differentias prudens omitto, I think it prudence to omit the rest. And Regius, in his new Fundamentals of Physic thinks not 
* Fundamenta Med. cap. 5.  the beforementioned worth the delivering, because (saith he) they are in a manner inobservable, and the nature of Pulses may be understood well enough without them. The same prudence (no doubt) hath guided his Brother Silvius de le Boe, Professor at Leyden, in his 
* Disput. Med. 8.  Disputations lately published, to reduce the Doctrine of Pulses to a short rational State, just after the same manner, as is done before by Horstius and the Conciliator. And truly it was high time to reduce them, for the sakes of young Students, seeing Galen and his Admirers (as Dr. 
* De vulgi Erroribus, l. 1. c. 15.  Primrose observes) had mounted them to above two Thousand differences. The very Names of which alone (saith he) if many should hear them, they would immediately renounce the touching of Pulses; for, they would amaze and terrify the ignorant, not lesle than if they were so many Magical Spells.  
And when all is done, regulate the Doctrine of Pulses as well as you can, tis fit I should tell the world, there is little certainty of Judgement to be made by them of a Patient's case, seeing every small Circumstance of 
* Pulsus autem ratione aetati●, s●xus, Temperamenti, deloris, & affectuum a nimi magnopere variatur. So saith Henricus Regius.  Hope, Fear, Grief, Diet, Drink, sudden Approach of the Physician, Friends, or other Company, want of Sleep, and the like Accidents, will induce a notable Alteration, so that I am resolved as little to credit my own Sense of the Pulse, as a wise man would a Gipsy that crosseth his hand to tell him his Fortune; and I would build a Prognostic upon the one, almost as soon as I would upon the other: which will be the lesle wondered at, when you shall found, that even those Pulses which are reputed Mortal, may be felt many times when the Patient, (though in the height of a Distemper) hath been far enough from Death. Therefore it makes me wonder, when I see how wondrous wise some would make people believe they are, that will from a touch of the Wrist deliver Oracles, and from thence pronounce Reasons to argue a Necessity of Bleeding, and other Proceed, when as nothing is more fallacious than the Pulse, next to Urines; and yet neither of them are wholly to be neglected, but to be reputed only Accessaries, not Principals, in the great work of Curation. Whosoever conceives otherwise, and to put his Conceit in practice, ventures to prescribe Remedies accordingly, shall always put the Patient to hazard, and kill more than he cures.  
3. Nothing needs a Rectification and 
Of Urines.  Improvement more than the Doctrine about Urines; for, besides the animadverting upon ordinary Abuses of Inspection, and pronouncing Judgement thereupon, little hath been done heretofore to procure a Reformation, whereas it is the old Doctrine itself that hath need to be reformed, and no man ever yet attempted it to purpose, except Dr. Willis, who finding that the Observations which concern the practice of that Doctrine, were (as he saith) 
* In Epist. ante disser. de Urinis.  either ill made, or not well digested into Method, that Method which is delivered by most, seeming more Emperical than Rational, did therefore undertake the Task, and hath excellently well performed it. Of old, the differences of Urines were recited barely, as they are want to be variously distinguished, according to their Colour, Consistence, and Contents: Than, to the several kinds of these they affix Pathological significations, collected only out of more ra●● Observations; while in the mean ti●e the causes of the Phaenomena, or Preternatural Alterations in Urines, are not assigned a● they aught to have been; nor is the signification of Urines, applied to the Causes of Diseases, but only to the Disease, or the Symptom, and therefore is oftentimes fallacious and uncertain; because the same Morbific Cause, as also the signification of the sam● Urine, may at once mediately respect dive●● Diseases and Symptoms. And therefore ●● is necessary, that a Doctrine or Method about Urines be instituted, above the vulgar Notions of Philosophy.  
He chooses therefore another way to go to work, to given Us an Understanding of Urines: he first thinks fit to anatomise them, by resolving them into the same Chemical Principles, of which our senses tell us that other mixed Bodies do consist.  
1. Salt or Saltiness in Urines, which is percieved by Taste and Touch, and is either Fixed or Volatile.  
2. Sulphur, which is sufficiently testified by their Putrefaction and Stench.  
3. Spirit; for according to the divers plenty or prevalency of Spirits, Urines do vary in their Hypostasis and Settle, and do Putrefy sooner or later.  
4. Water, or the watery part of the Urine; which though it abound more than the other Principles (at lest six to one) yet it cannot be so drawn away by distillation, but that some particles of the Salt and Sulphur do ascend with it and bestow on it an unpleasing Scent.  
5. Earth and slimy dregss; as is sufficiently apparent either by Distillation or Evaporation of Urine; For, when the other parts are exhaled, the Earth, like a Caput Mortuum remains in the bottom.  
These are the Principles which constitute the body of Urine, into which it is by Chemical Analysis easily resolved: And it is out of the divers combinations and contemperation of these, that the Accidents of Urine do arise, viz. the Quantity, the Colour, the Consistence, and the Contents, which according to Sense are the most remarkable things about it, and the principal objects of Judgement by Urine. And besides these things there is nothing else considerable in Urines.  
After this he proceeds to show how the Colours of Urines are to be considered and estimated, according to the different ingrediency of the said five Chemical Principles; which being dispatched in a very delicate and particular manner, he sums up the whole in general thus, in reference to Colour; that the paler Urines do all for the most part arise from too much crudity; and most of the high coloured Urines from Salt and Sulphur dissolved more plentifully, and sometimes from adust recrements cocted in the Serum, or from the grosser contents of the Urine. And yet the Colours notwithstanding may sometimes by accident be altered, and appear otherwise than they aught to be expected from the lesser or greater ingrediency of these Principles; but by these we are directed to a much more probable way of Judgement than formerly, as from Colours.  
Than, in order to a right knowledge of the Contents of Urines, he that will be a curious Inquirer, aught to resolve them into Parts, by which means he will attain Medical directions of no little moment: For, in divers Chronical Diseases, it is of great concern to inquire into the distempers of the Blood exactly, that the proportion of Salt and Sulphur therein contained, and the temperature, may be rightly investigated. To this end, it is convenient sometimes to evaporate Urines, or expose them to distillation; and sometimes to Precipitate the Contents of them, or resolve them by Putrefaction. As Evaporation and Distillation subserve much to the manifestation of the Salty Principle; so Precipitation and Putrefaction do show the grosser Contents of Urines, both as to weight and measure; only Putrefaction is want to show the several particles of every kind somewhat more distinct, and as separated from one another; for, if you let the Urine stand still several days in an Urinal, it will be very much altered both in the Colour, Scent, and Consistence.  
Thus much I thought necessary for giving the Reader a Taste of this new Doctrine about Urines; which certainly is much more agreeable to Reason, than any thing that ever was said before upon that Subject, and must needs be abundantly more conducible to the practice of Physic, seeing it directs our Judgement, not by mere outward Appearances, and bore Observations, as of old, but by an accommodation of our Understanding to the real Principles which are in Urines, the same as in Man's Bodies: from whence doubtless a more certain way of Judgement must needs arise, than can be imagined by any other course that may be taken, to judge by Urines concerning the State of the Blood and its Diseases. I cannot therefore but commend that tract of Urines to ingenious Practisers, as a more sure guide than any that they can meet with in former Authors; and exhort them, by manifold Observations and Experiments in their way of Practice, to follow the example given them, for the improvement of that Doctrine, and the settling of a right Method in this part of Physical practice, for time to come: And I hope it shall not be the lesle acceptable, as other new things have been, because it requires more care and trouble, than the lazy formal sort of Professors are willing to bestow; For, I have seen, that the knowledge which comes by it will abundantly recompense the labour, by discovering the Morbific Causes in particular persons.  
4. The reputed Oracles of our Profession, Hypocrates and Galen, are in the 
A brief censure of Hypocrates and Galen.  next place to be inquired into; whom though we aught not to reject, but to allow them the honour due to them, because they were men famous in their generations, yet know they were but men, albeit, some have endeavoured to make Gods of them; and truly, but children in the Art, such as lived in the nonage of true Philosophy and Physic, if they be compared with the learned of this latter Age. I would not detract from them, because for some things we are beholden to them, especially to Hypocrates; but 'tIS necessary to be a little brisk in expression, because the world is apt to dote upon old Authors, especially when they hear of honours little lesle than Divine given to these Erroneous Heathens: And some that speak lowest of them, say, they were infallible in the Things which they have left us. I remember Jo. Langius, in one of his Epistles, saith as much of Hypocrates, that he was fallere ac falli nescius, one that could not deceive nor be deceived; which saying he borrowed out of Macrobius. But it is the humour of many men, upon the credit of other men to fall a commending what perhaps they never seen, or did never understand, and so the Commendation passeth Customary and current from one to another, till the generality even of the learned come to given up their belief to what others have said; and so men hap to become famous Authors, as other men many times have the good fortune to grow rich, though they never deserved it. And yet we cannot but acknowledge these two were witty men, learned and able as the times went then, and I do believe they were Masters of so much wit, that could they now revive, and see what an Advance and alteration hath been made in the state of Physic, they would by common ingenuity be induced to quit their own Principles, as very rude and insufficient, if compared with others: wherhfore we have reason with thankfulness to own what we found approvable in them, but not to lie down sub magni nominis umbrâ, under the shadow of a great name, and make an Idol of it; We should rather reject what runs to superstition, and not pin the Faith of mankind upon the sleeve of Hypocrates, because others have done so; And yet some there are who have been so bold, as to sift, and note, and upon occasion reject him.  
The most Oraculous parts of him are 
A Censure of the Aphorisms of Hippocr.  supposed to be his Aphorisms, and his Prognostics. As for the Aphorisms, we found him tripping there at every three or four steps, when he comes to Points of moment: the rest, which are true, do for the most part fall under the observation of every Nurse, and so in such common things every She may be as Divine as Herald To clear this, it will be worth the while to take a brief view of them.— The First Book of Aphorisms contains only Rules which concern the Physician himself, what Caution he aught to use in prescribing Diet, and Purgation. The five first Aphorisms are of some moment, also, the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth are good, which forbidden feeding a Patient at the time of a Paroxysm, and in the height of a Disease, which certainly neither the Patient himself will do, nor any body else that hath common reason permit, if he would, or could feed, being in such a condition. The 22. is false in many Cases, and destructive in others; for, it commands us to delay purging, till Crudities be cocted; and the greatest part of them are incapable of Coction, especially in the Diseases of this Age. The 24. which allows us but seldom to Purge in the beginning of a Disease, and that with great Caution, is also very destructive; for, if ever it be lawful to Purge boldly, then is the time, because the Orgasmus or fury of redundant humours commenceth, and the Patient is then most able to bear the Remedy. But the lesle regard is to be given to this Aphorism, because it is directly contradictory to another in his second Book, viz. the 29. which is indeed more rational; where he enjoins us to Purge, if at all, in the beginning of a Disease, because (as Heurnius well saith upon the Text) it gives a Revulsion to the raging Humours, and takes of their Fury: And this is all that is considerable to be noted on the First Book.  
In the second Book the First Aphorism of Note is the 10. which commands us, before we Purge, to tender the Passages passable. This concerns not us so much in this Age, who have such noble remedies as will unlock the Passages, as well as draw away the Humours, at one and the same time, and both these with much kindness they will do: But it is very necessary to be observed by such as still use the old Purgers, which are (more or lesle) of a violent and Malignant nature; so that if the bad Humours cannot stir, the good Humours are forced, and being more fine, run away like a Torrent, to the great impairing of the Body.— The 20. hath nothing of certainty in it; which saith, that young men whose Bodies are laxative grow costive when they are in Age, and è contra.— The 23. which saith that Acute Diseases come to a Crisis in fourteen day's time; and the twenty fourth, which pretends to describe a certainty of Critical Motions, are found and false, as I have already proved the whole Doctrine to be which concerns Crises and Critical days. And truly, he before in his ninteenth Aphorism confesseth enough to overthrew all that Doctrine, saying, that the Predictions of the Events of Acute Diseases are uncertain.— The 36. saith, that Purgations in healthy Bodies, and in Bodies abounding with ill Juices, are impairing of the strength and vigour: which is a kind of Riddle that noon of the Commentators can solve; for, if in both these Cases a Purge be pernicious, when (I pray you) shall it be administered? But this may well enough svit with most of the old Purgatives, which will sufficiently afflict bodies, be they Sounded or Sick; though God now hath furnished us with such, as either in Sound or Diseased bodies, will operate with facility and pleasure.— The 37. agrees with the former. The 41. saith, they which are subject to Swoundings or Faint, die suddenly: which every day's experience proves manifestly false; for, no Affl●ctions are more ordinary and common than these, yet without any such consequent at the Heels of them.— The rest in that Book are most of them agreeable to the common Dictates of every man's Mother-wit, that hath seen any common Accidents and Circumstances concerning the Sick.  
In the third Book, the three first are little considerable; and from the Third to the twenty fourth Aphorism, you have nothing but common Notions and Prognostics about the effects of the various Turns of weather, and of the several Seasons of the year, in causing Diseases; some of which Particulars are false, others frivolous, the rest are & Lippis & Tonsoribus not a, obvious to every one; and the whole is more fit for an Almanac than the great Monument of Physic. The other which follow to the end of the Book, only tell us what we all know, i e. what Diseases are want to befall Children and old People.  
In the fourth Book, he gins with great-bellied Women, and saith, if you purge them, it may be done in the fourth month till the seventh; but not in the First months, nor in the last. This might be an useful Caution in those days when they had noon but violent Purgers; but what is that to us now, on whom God hath bestowed more Delicate Means? Why is it, that Physicians permit women all the time of their Childing, many times to labour and languish under a Load of turgent Humours, and very few of them think it fit to venture a Purging? I do here profess, that I have in the first months both Vomited and Purged them frequently with Success, and so likewise Purged (but not Vomited) them after the seventh to the very last of their Child-bearing, and never did I found any Inconvenience therein. And doubtless, others may do the same, if they please to take pains in fitting remedies of their own for the purpose, and by this means free women from those sorrows which (many of them) endure for want of such a neat Assistance. But be sure to do it only with Remedies of your own preparing, which a good Physician should always have ready at hand.— The 4. Aphorism saith, Winter is for Purging, and that Vomiting aught to be prescribed in the Summer. Till we have some good Reason for this saying, know that either of them may be done either in Summer or Winter, with good Medicines.— The 5. bids us not Purge before, nor in the Dog-days.— The 6. and 7. relate to the same Business: But know this, that delicate Vomitories and Purgatives may be given at any Season of the year: yea more than this, I upon occasion plentifully Purge my Patients in the Winter, though they keep Shop, or go abroad about their Business: But this is not to be done by any one that is not Master of the like Remedies. Far be it from me to mention this in ostentation; but I cite every day's experience, to show the frivolousness and uselessness of old Maxims and Medicines.— The 8. forbids Vomiting in a Consumption. But this holds not; in some Consumptions, which are attended with a recourse of Serous Matter to the Lungs, nothing is better than such a remedy.— The 1●. saith, that to Vomit persons in the Winter that have the Flux called Lienteria, is dangerous: And this perhaps might hold true still, if we had no other Vomitories than what he had, such as white Hellebore, etc. but know this, that in all Fluxes, nothing brings more advantage, both in regard of Revulsion and other Reasons, than a good conditioned Vomit doth in the beginning of Fluxes, at any time of the year: but such violent Vomits as by Hellebore and the like Medicaments, of which he speaks afterwards in the 13. 14. 15. and 16. Aphorisms, are not for the work.— The 18. which saith if the Patient's pain be above the Midriff, he is to be Vomited; if beneath, then he aught to be Purged, is very fallacious; and particularly, I avow it in the case of Pleurisies, in which most Physicians do observe the Rule of this Aphorism. The 38. the 39 and the 41. deliver vain Things. One saith, in what part soever most Sweat doth appear, there is the seat of the Disease. Another, that the part where cold or heat is first perceived, is the seat of the Disease. Another, that if Cold and Heat by Turns, frequently invade the body, it argues the Disease will be of long continuance: than all which particulars, our constant experience tells us nothing can be more fallacious.— The rest of the Aphorisms to the 69. deliver observations about Fevers, which svit with the Fevers of this Age, as ill as my old Shoes would fit a Colossus; and some of them relate to Crises and Critical days, which we have already thrown out of doors; and certainly with good reason are these things to be slighted now, because the whole Scene of Fevers (as hath been already shown) is exceedingly altered; and therefore those Aphorisms which were calculated for the Meridian of an Age so long since past, may come in fashion again hereafter, when the Platonic year shall, in its revolution, reduce all things to their ancient state. And yet some of these are in part true; but they are those Aphorisms only which deliver the Signs and Tokens of approaching Death, which will be one and the same, for the most part, to the end of the world.— From the 69. Aphorism to the end of this Book, they given Judgement upon Urines; and so are very uncertain, as might be made sufficiently to appear, could I insist upon every Particular. But this being enough, to have run through the four first Books of Aphorisms, I suppose the Reader is by this time sufficiently convinced of their uselessness, and informed what to guests of the three other Books (for, they are seven in all;) therefore I avoid them, that I may not be tedious, but do affirm them like the other.  
Now jest men should turn tail at me, as a person singular and saucy, because I presume with reason, to pass my Judgement upon that which hath been accounted the most creditable Piece of an Author so admired as Hypocrates; therefore to show that I am not alone, and that others before me have taken the boldness to censure him, I will bring in the learned Sanctorius, who hath spent one 
* Meth. vitand. Error l. 1. cap 31.  Chapter to show, that the Aphorisms are not of such verity as men have cried them up to be. He takes notice of the 41. Aphorism of the fifth Book, which saith, that if a woman take honeyed water, going to bed, and found wring pains thereupon in her Belly; it is an Argument that she hath conceived with Child: If no pains, then, that she is not with Child: which though Galen endeavours to justify by giving reason for it, yet my Author proveth his pretence of reason to be of no value, and blames Avicen for pretending the like. And besides Avicen, he tells of others that have laboured hard to save the credit of Hypocrates about this Aphorism; yet (saith he) I have often tried the Experiment, but could not observe any such Pains ensuing. He tells us also, He denies that an odoriferous Fume received by the genitalss of a woman, will, if she be not with child, always penetrate up inwardly to the Nose; which is avowed in one of the Aphorisms; because the passages of the Womb may be closed not only by a Conception, but by a false Conception, by suppressed Menstruals, by Fat, by Tumours, and by six hundred other Causes, as we know by Experience.— He reproacheth also that Aphorism which 
Lib. 5. Aph. 42.  saith, if a woman with child hath conceived a Male, She is lively coloured in the face, if a Female, then ill-coloured: For, who (saith he) can defend this Aphorism to be always true? How many women have we seen ill-coloured, being great with a Male, and well-coloured with a Female? In the 31. Aphorism likewise of the sixth Book, if a woman with Child be taken with an acute Disease, it is deadly; who can defend this to me, who have seen women sometimes seized with acute, and very acute Diseases, and yet they have escaped? Moreover, in the 79. Aph. of the fourth book, it is said, that sandy settle of urine be token the Stone in the bladder: Not man of understanding would maintain this, seeing such urines have been very often observed, without suspicion of the Stone. In like manner in the 70. Aphorism of the fourth Book, it is said, They whose urines appear troubled like the urines of Beasts, either have pains in the head, or shall have; and yet we have seen many sick have such urines, who never had a pain in the head throughout all the time of their sickness. Ecce quàm Hippocratis sententiae sunt aeternae veritatis! Lo (saith he) how the sentences of Hypocrates are of eternal verity! Galen therefore, to save the credit of his Leader, would have it thus understood, that though they be not all, yet they are for the most part true; and this excuse of his is recorded in his Comment on the 58. Aphorism of the sixth Book, which saith, that if the Omentum the Kall slip out, it necessarily putrefies; where he slubbers over the matter, saying, though it fall out otherwise, yet it is in a great part true. But (saith Sanctorius) consider the words of Galen well which follow, who saith, when this Aphorism and the rest of them are said to be of eternal verily, it is to be understood in a Figurative form of speech that they are so, though the very things do not come to pass: which is as much as to say, that only in a Figurative Sense they are true, but in a real Sense they are not so. And what is this (I pray you) but to given away the Cause, and the credit of the Aphorisms in a fine way of speaking? Therefore I cannot but wonder how Galen, who first cast this Figure in favour of Hypocrates, hath been able ever since to conjure all posterity quite out of their Senses into an admiration of those Aphorisms, which may (many of them) like the Oracle of old, be taken in both constructions, Pro or Con, (Aio te Aeacidem Romanos vincere posse )for, men have been exceeding tender of touching them, and mighty careful to save the reputation of them, because they were his, who had the luck to be cried up for Prince of the Profession, and it hath been the business of Commentators ever since to hold him up; as if the credit of Physic must needs fall to the ground, if that man were detected of Error, who in an ignorant Age, imposed upon the world his own Dreams, as matters of Eternal Verily. I must profess I would not willingly detract from the Ancients; Amicus Hypocrates, Amicus Galenus, sed Magis Amica Veritas; we aught to have a greater value of Truth than of Hypocrates, or Galen, especially when 'tIS clear, that the holding up a reverence to them is a Prejudice to Truth, and hath been the main Remora to the advancement of so noble an Art as that of Physic. Agitur de Corio Humano; Men's precious lives are at stake in the business, and it is the general interest of mankind that I have a regard to in this liberty that I take, which aught to be preferred before the Interest of any particular Corporation, or Sect of Physicians whatsoever. In my younger days, I come at first to the reading of these Aphorisms with as reverend a regard as any of them, and since that, made it my business to 
* For ease to the memory, Ralph Winterton of Cambridg published them in verse both Greek and Latin. An. 1633  say them by heart; by which means being enabled to produce them, or ken them to myself, upon any occasion, I have had the greater opportunity to observe the uncertainty and fallaciousness of them: nor do I found lesle Frailty in those other Works of his which are counted the most legitimate.  
As for the three Books of Prognostics, so much as is true in them, is of no higher a 
A Censure of the Prognostics of Hippocr.  nature, than what falls under the observation of the meanest persons that have to do about the sick: which makes me wonder, that so wise a man as Heurnius, should bestow these Flowers to adorn them; that they are most absolute, and full of Divine Oracles, and never reprehended in the current of so many Ages; And yet now for all this, they aught not to be used more kindly than they deserve: For, perceiving in the course of Practice, that many of them, and of the Coacae P●aenotiones, did fail me, I could not, at first, tell what to think of the rest; but afterwards, having the sum of them reduced into order under certain Heads Alphabetically, after the manner of Common Places, ready to be produced, I began to compare them upon occasion in observing the Sick, and by this means I am the better able to advice others to be wary how they trust them, because they have so often deceived me.  
In the First Book, the First noteth the Posture of the Face in Acute D●seases; If Nose be sharp, Eyes hollow, Temples fallen, Ears cold and contracted, Skin dried, Colour 
Text, 3.  pale, black, or leaden, it is a dangerous state, and pray you who is ignorant of this Truth? Not an old woman in all the Town but will seal to it. And yet out of this state men daily recover, and are apt to fall into it upon every light occasion, as by overwatching, Fasting, and immoderate Fluxes; which he himself in the very next Text admitteth; and to those might have added also excess of Venery, 
Text, 4.  Travelling, Study, and the like; either of which will presently bring a man's countenance to be the picture of this Facies Hippocratica; but of these he takes no notice, but records only the other three to be considered by the Physician upon his first access to the Patient.— The fourth Text makes Observations upon the Eyes, and pronounceth them deadly; to which I say, though the Eye be the Index of the Soul, and gives us, in many Cases, a notable guess at the inward state, yet the Judgements grounded according to his descriptions touching the Eye, are every jot as fallacious, as are the common Prognostics upon Urines; yet upon these and the Eyelids he bestows two Texts more.— From thence to the 17. Text, he dwells upon the Postures of lying in Bed, and gestures of the Hands; and the sum of all he saith is, that those postures and gestures are best which are most like the usual postures of men in health: Et è contra. Such Oracles as these are obvious, and are delivered at the fireside by every old woman that attends the Sick. And yet let me tell you, he that ventures his credit in Prognosticating upon postures and gestures, shall assuredly given cause ever and anon to be laughed at.— The 17. and the 18. tell us, that in acute Diseases a cold Breath is deadly; and that easy breathing portends good, but short breathing, and great breathing, pain and inflammation in the Breast, and a Delirium at hand; which sometimes may be so, but more often it is not so, as we all well know; and I should be loathe to be guided by such Phaenomena as these in the ordering of a Patient, seeing they fall out often, where there is neither Pain, nor Inflammation, nor a Delirium subsequent: Especially in Scorbutic Fevers, as most of the Fevers now extant are. The 18. and 19 are about Sweats, and tell us, those Sweats are best which abate the Fever, and that cold Sweats, and partial or imperfect Sweats, are bad: Thus you see all along, that what in these Prognostics is true is but very ordinary stuff.— From the 19 to the end of this First Book, he treats of Abscesses or Tumours in the Hypochonders, in Fevers; which in acute ones are seldom seen, but in other Fevers, and Agues, they sometimes hap, and but sometimes; and then usually when the body's habit is vitiated by preposterous ways of Curation.  
In the second Book of Prognostics, after three Texts spent about Dropsies (the second whereof is Oraculous, because a Riddle) He tells us in the fourth, that if the Head, Hands, and Feet grow cold, while the middle parts burn, tis ill, and that it is best, that the whole Body should be warm and soft.— The 6. saith, blue or livid Hands and Feet be token Death, and that it is not so bad, if they be black, which two Texts every body will grant, and preach on as well as the best Doctor; but the conclusion of the latter, which saith, that if the Patient hap to escape with life, yet the parts blackish will gangrene, is most false.— The 5. is common stuff, which saith, 'tIS good, if the Patient can turn and rouse himself cheerfully; but dangerous, if he be sluggish.— In the 7. he is very common likewise in his Prognostications touching sleep.— From thence to the 20. he treats of Stools, and out of the close-stool Pan he delivers Oracles, which are some true, and noon of them always true; yea the best of them about Stools are not frequently true; but it may be so, and it may more often not be so; for, tis very often to be seen, that the worse the Stools are which pass from the Patient, the more relief he receives, and the more speedily he recovers, Nature carrying of that way the Malignant matter of the Disease.— From thence to the 34. he plays the Pisse-Prophet, and undertakes to prognosticate from the Urinal, quasi vitro magico 
In Epistolae ante librum de Fermen.  divinare, to divine as it were by a Magical glass (it is Dr. Willis his expression) and I hope those sentences shall not be admitted for Oracles. The residue of this Book toucheth upon Vomit, Spit, Expectorations, and Purulencies; of which it is certain, that to judge so positively of a Patient's condition by Colours and Consistencies of Vomits and Spitals, is a very idle thing, seeing those which appear worst do (as we found) very often tend to the best: And as for Purulent People, it was the Impotency of the old Physicians, which in Diseases of the Chest, could not so manage a Cure of them (I instance a Pleurisy for one) as to prevent a termination of them in Purulency.  
In the third Book, the four first Texts discourse of Crises and Critical days; of which I have already eased the Reader.— The 5. and 6. determine upon what Terms you are to expect an eruption of Blood by the Nose after the 20 day of a Fever. But of what use is this now? when some of us are ashamed to see how long people are held in Fevers under cure, not only till the 20. day, but long after; whereas in fewer days a hopeful account may be given, if at all, except error be committed by the Patient, or his Attendants.— From thence to the 16. treating of Exulcerations of the Mouth and Throat, and Quinsies, his Doctrine is good.— The 16. relates to Critical days, and so is not worth the noting.— From thence to the 24. he treats of Abscesses or Tumours at the Tail of long Fevers and Agues; which are very rare to be seen in our days, only in some few they so fall out.— From thence to the 30. he treats of Headache in Fevers, and saith, If the Disease begin with Headache, the Patient becomes more afflicted the 4. day than on the 5. but is better again on the 7. Again, if the Head begin to ache on the third day of the Fever, then the Patient will be most afflicted on the 5. but will be freed from the Disease on the 9, or on the 11. day. Again, if the Head begin to ache on the 5. day then expect a Crisis on the 14. all which, he saith, holds good in Continual Fevers, and Exquisite Tertians: But let the Reader observe these Fevers, and he shall generally found all this to be fallacious and frivolous. And yet he concludes his Books of Prognostics with this Magisterial Assertion; that they will be found to prove true in Libya, that is to say in the hottest Country; and in Delos, i e. in a temperate Country; and in Scythia, i e. the coldest Country; which is as much as to say, they will hold certain in all Times and Places, having been so Calculated for the Meridian of Greece, his native Country, that they will serve indifferently for all Climates and Nations in the world: And this the Commentators will not stick to swear on the behalf of their great Master; though they cannot be ignorant, that things seldom fall out so: but the Trading upon old Notions must be held up, and there is the Business; If we recede from old Things, and suffer a reformation in any (said the Council of Trent) it will take of all reverence to the rest: I shall not apply it to the Concernments of Physic, but leave impartial men to judge, whither some Professors Interests, and Ignorance also, may not lie in the way of so necessary a work, as reforming and redeeming of so Noble a Profession; and what Credit is to be given to one that contradicts himself, I mean this our great Master, who forgot that the 19 Aphorism of his second Book consutes all that he delivers here as certain about Acute Diseases; for there he saith, that the Predictions concerning such Diseases are uncertain. And whereas he hath so imperiously said, that his Prognostics will hold certain in all Countries, I note it clearly contradicts the reason of his 
* Lib. 1.  second Aphorism, which bids us in Evacuations of the Body, have respect to the difference of Countries, in regard the same Effects cannot be expected in all alike, because (as Heurnius, who hath collected the sense of the best Commentators upon the Text, saith) according as a Country is hot, cold, moist, dry, or windy, and according to the manner of feeding used therein, ità variis succis circumfluent corpora, so men's bodies will abound with various Juices; from whence I argue, that if the Blood of men's Bodies differ according to their respective Countries, then by a parity of reason it follows, the Motions of it, and Operations, and Effects thereupon depending, must needs be different; and so 'tIS impossible that the same Events in reference to spontaneous Evacuations should fall out alike; in several Countries & tis much lesle to be expected they should so in regard Nature doth so particularly observe the Climate (as is implied in that second Aphorism) that you cannot without prejudice force her by Art, to any Evacuation, or excretion, which is not agreeable to her in the particular Country where she is. What then (I pray you) can ye think of one general Uniform Rule of Prognostication, touching the Phaenomena, and the Events of Diseases, in all the Countries of the World? I am sorry I have grated so hard upon this business, but it cannot be avoided: It is no more than what some of the more ingenious sort of men have been aiming at before; only, because in those days it was not convenient to discredit the old Learning, when they had no better to substitute in the room of it, therefore they endeavoured to salve all sores, and touch them very tenderly; but I say, — Immedicabile vulnus Ense recidendum est. —There is no redeeming of our Faculty, but (as my Lord Bacon's expression is) by attempting an Instauration ab imis fundamentis, 
Novum Organ. Aph. 31.  from the very foundations, and by taking of in the first place, that superstitious reverence which hath been so long paid to the antiquated Masters of the Profession.  
Thus much then for Hypocrates, touching whom I could spin out a volume by insisting upon other Works of his; but let it suffice, that 
* De vi●ndis error. lib 15. cap. 11.  Sanctorius gives one Caution touching his Sentences, that sometimes they are not true; and many of them have been detected by the industry of this latter Age. Mr. Boyl also is loathe to speak out, because he hath (he saith) 
* Exper. Phil. part 1. pag. 6.  a great respect for Hypocrates; and were it not for that, he should venture to say, that some of those rigid Laws of Draco (whose severity made men say they were written in Blood) did perhaps cost fewer persons their lives, than that one Aphorism of Hypocrates, which saith, that if a Teeming woman be let blood, She will miscarry; for, it hath for divers Ages prevailed with great numbers of Physicians, to suffer multitudes of their Female Patients to die under their hands, who might probably have been rescued by a discreet Phlebotomy, which Experience hath assured us (whatever the close of the 
* Hippocr. Aph. 31. lib. 5.  Aphorism saith to the contrary) to have been sometimes not only safely, but usefully employed, even when the Infant is grown pretty big. By neglect of this, numbers of Teeming women have been suflered to perish, who might probably, by a seasonable loss of some of their blood, have prevented that of their Lives. And the same noble person having ventured to say thus much, goes yet a little further, and shows the great inconvenience of resting upon Prognostics, and what mischief it doth in the practice of Physic, because upon the credit of them many times a Patient is judged incurable, and so left, when as it is no such matter : For (saith he) 
* Ibid. p. 73.  That in Acute Diseases, People given over by Physicians may recover, the more judicious even of those Galenists that are of a despondent temper will not deny: For, not only Celsus gives us this sober admonition, 
* Neq. ignorare oporte●, in acutis morbis sallaces notas esse & Salutis & Mortis.  that Physicians aught not to be ignorant, that even in Acute Diseases the Signs both of life and death are fallacious; but even Hypocrates himself, who was so skilful in Prognostics confesseth, that the Predictions in Acute Diseases are not wholly certain as to life and death. And even in Chronical Diseases, where Events are want much better to answer Physcians Predictions, there are sometimes such Cures performed, as may encourage human industry, and keep a sick man's Friends from forsaking the Cure of him. For, it hath been often seen, that divers persons given over by some Physicians, have been cured by others, perchance more lucky than more skilful, by the use of extraordinary, powerful, and especially Chemical Physic. Which discourse falls in very pat with what the same learned Gentleman saith in another place, 
* Ibid Essay, 3. p. 66.  viz. That the Prognostics hitherto current in Authors, and commonly made by Physicians, do suppose the use of the Received Remedies, and of the Dogmatical Method of Physic; but if there were discovered such generous commanding Medicines, as by powerfully assisting Nature, or by nimbly proscribing the Morbific Matter, might enable Nature to hinder the Disease from continuing its Course, and acting its Tragedies in the Body, then Physicians would not need in Acute Diseases to wait so long for a Crisis to instruct their Prognostics.  
Thus he: Which is indeed as much as I would say, and all that I intended when I d●d set Pen to Paper against Hypocrates his Aphorisms and Prognostics, viz. to show, that a precise regard to them doth but puzzle a Physician in his work of Curing, and dispose him to commit many errors, supposing such and such signs will produce such effects, and have such events as those books of Prognostics do tell him; and that therefore his main work is only to watch the motions of Nature, and wait for Critical Solutions and Excretions, and do just nothing, or what is as good as nothing, administer faint, languid remedies, which are of no force either to forward Nature or to hinder her; whereas if he were Master of more noble Remedies, there needed not this expectation to the 14. or the 20. day in Acute Diseases, but the Course of them might be cut of betimes; and in Chronic Diseases, they would not be so frequently led aside, to use this or that Method and Remedy, which they suppose, upon the credit of old Aphorisms and Prognostics, fit to be used, when as perhaps it is quite contrary to the nature of the Disease, and pernicious to the Patient. In a word; the Maxims and Predictions of this Author, and the Determinations of other old Authors, might (so far as they have any thing of Truth in them) be of some use, if we had no better Remedies than those of the Shops to rely on; or if Diseases themselves were not so exceedingly altered from what they were when those Authors were living. But the Case being altered, a new state of things requires new Medicines, and new Methods, with other Aphorisms and Prognostics more agreeable thereunto.  
Thus, the greatest stress of reputation lying upon Hypocrates, I have enlarged so much upon him, that I shall need to say the lesle of his Commentator Galen, because he writes after him; but sometimes he 
* 8 Meth. 2.  contradicts him; as when Hypocrates forbids the giving of Food to Patients before Paroxysms or Fits, the other saith it is not always good, for that Choleric People, if they be not fed in the beginning of a Fit, are apt to fall into a Marasmus. Lo then (saith 
* De vitan. err. l. 15. cap. 11.  Sanctorius) how those Medical precepts are often apt to deceive us, if they be not discreetly heeded! As for Galen Himself, the same learned man hath taken good pains to wean us from our Superstitious devotion also towards him, having reckoned up at lest 31. of his Errors, spending upon him four or five Chapters to that purpose: And whereas Galen seems most to triumph in his Book concerning the Use of the parts of man's body, that Excellent Anatomist Vesalius shows him to have been very ignorant of Anatomy, and that he never performed one Anatomical Dissection, so that it is supposed he took things upon Trust, and transcribed out of other man's works; for, he proves him to have erred in one Hundred and Sixteen Particulars touching Parts.  
Therefore, the more regard is to be given to what Sanctorius saith, that seeing Galen hath erred, if he speak contrary to our 
Lib. 3. c. 15.  Senses, why should we not reject him? and forasmuch as he is neither an Ally, nor Kinsman of my, nor Uncle to any of my Ancestors, that I know of, nor Canonised in the catalogue of Saints, as one that had been by Divine power inspired, I see no reason (saith he) why we may not all honourably relinquish him. Wherhfore, after he hath reckoned up his Errors, he tells us, that yet there are many men of no mean reputation, who had rather derogate from their own Senses, than from Aristotle or Galen, and who mortally hate and rail against such as would debate things mith freedom. And of this Temper (he saith) Jacobus Silvius was against Vesalius, calling him, in allusion to his name, Vesanus, that is to say, mad, or not right in his Wits, and his most excellent Book of Anatomy he calls a filthy Sink, a rude indigested heap of stuff, and thereupon exhorts the Readers to tear it, stamp it under foot, and throw it in the fire. At length, after all the bitter Invectives that he could make, he humbly besought the Emperor, to punish Vesalius, as a Monster of ignorance, ingratitude, and arrogance; and this for no other cause, but that he relied more upon his own Senses than the Authority of Galen. Indeed Silvius was a very learned man (as his numerous Write do show) but a little too Hotheaded with zeal for his Master; as most Galenists use to be, against any that would Dethrone him from the Infallible Chair, and the Principality of Physic.  
And yet I must needs desire a little more of their patience, to hear how he who made it his business to contradict, and trample down all the Physicians of his time, become guilty at last of contradicting himself; and thus it will always be when men writ with vain glorious pride and choler.  
About the beginning of his Book De Tremore & P●lpitatione, he saith, Trembling is an involuntary Motion of the parts; yet a little after he adds, that Tremblers have not Motion without the Command of the William  
In his second Book De Febr. Diff. cap. 1. he saith, a Semitertian is of the number of Continual Fevers. The same in effect he saith in Comm. 2. in lib. 6. Epid. cap. 22. and yet in his Book De Typis he affirms, that a Semitertian is not always Continual, but sometimes Intermitting.  
In 13. Method. Med. and in many other places, he saith, the Spleen is nourished with the grossest blood, much more gross than that with which the Liver is nourished: which he directly contradicteth in lib. 4. De usu Part. saying, that the body of the Spleen being finer than the Liver, and thicker than the Lungs, it is deservedly nourished with the finer part of the blood.  
In that little Tract of his, wherein he discusseth the Point of Purgation, he saith, that Serous and thin humours you are to purge in the beginning, but in gross and viscous humours you are to expect concoction. But note that he saith also, that all thin humours 
* Ex Comment. 1. in lib. 1. Epid. cap. ●4.  are crude; which Assertion he in many places opposeth, saying, that all crude humours aught to be concocted before they be evacuated; which he before limited only to gross humours.  
In his 2. Commentary upon the Prognostics, cap. 36. he saith, Children concoct all things very speedily, by reason of the strength of the Alterative power, which is stronger in them than in young men. The like he declares Comm. 3. in lib. 6. Epid. cap. 15. and in his 3. Comment. in Prognost. cap. 34. But all these places he contradicts in his Comment upon the 27. Aphorism, lib. 3. where he saith, that the Dispositions of Children are very quickly altered, as well through the moistness of their Bodies, as by reason of the weakness of their natural Power.  
In his Comment 1. in lib. 6. Epid. cap. 1. he saith, that the Nerves are not Hollow: which he contradicts in lib. 1. de Symptom. Caus. Also in his book De Dissectione Nervorum, and in the 8. 10. & 16. De usu Partium; and his fourth book De Locis Affectis, cap. 1.  
In his Comment on the 23. Aph. lib. 3. he saith, no man can stop his own breathing; which is as much as if he should say, the work of Respiration is not voluntary but perpetual: which is plainly contrary to what he saith in his second Book De Motu Musculorum, where he asserts the work of Respiration to be an Act voluntary, and at the arbitration of the soul: For proof of he produceth an Instance touching a Slave, who being vehemently stirred with anger, resolved to die, and lying along on on the ground, held his Breath till he died, etc.  
In his 1. Book De Simpl. Med. Fac. cap. 8. & 29. he saith, that Water doth cool and extinguish thirst, because of its Cold and Moist Nature. But he pronounceth the quite contrary Comm. 5. in lib. De Rat. Vict. in Morb. acut. cap. 40. where treating of Water, he saith it doth neither quench Thirst, nor Moisten. And in his Comment, on Aph. 13. lib. 4. he affirms, that water is, neither inwardly taken, nor outwardly applied, apt to moisten the solid Parts.  
In his Comment 1. in lib. De Rat. Vict. in Morb. Acut. cap. 22. he saith, that Honeyed Water, and Wine, do moisten more than Water can: yet in lib. 1. De Simple, Med. Fac. cap. 30. he writes, that of all moist things Water doth moisten most, and that nothing is more moistening than Water.  
In his third Comment on the same Book, cap. 40. he saith, that Water turns to Boil in such persons as have Bowels Tumesied, and that it is corrupted in a Bilious Stomach. But in lib. 9 Meth. Med. he professeth, that a true Erysipelas settled in any Bowel, is not to be cured otherwise than by drinking cold Water. Also, in his Book De Arte Cur. ad Glauc. he adviseth, that in very hot burning Fevers, such as arise from yellow Boil, that the Patient should drink water boldly.  
In several places, and especially at the end of his Book De Opt. Sectâ, he saith, a Phlegmon is a preternatural Tumour with pain, not apt to be compressed, but hard, and hot. Quite contrary to which he writes in Comment. 1. in lib. 6. Epid. cap. 29. Hard things grow hard by being dried through Cold; and that a Phlegmon doth not 'cause a hard Tumour, but that it yields to compression, after the manner of skins or bladders filled with water or wind.  
In lib. 6. de Locis Affect. cap. 2. And in Comment. in Aph. 10. lib. 7. and in Comm. 2. lib. 3. Epid. cap. 6. And in Comment in Aph. 44. & lib. 6. And in this third Book also concerning the Natural Faculties, he saith, that persons seized with that Disease called the Iliack Passion, do voided their Ordure upwards by vomit. Which directly thwarts what he saith in his Comment on Aph. 12. lib. 4. where he declars, that nothing contained in the guts can be voided by vomiting.  
A man might proceed a great way further at this Rate, if it were worth the while; but this is enough to tyre the Reader, and (I think) to instruct any man, that neither he nor Hypocrates are much to be relied on in the practice of Physic. And if I ever have a more fit occasion hereafter, I shall be more copious: But here now I intent brevity, and given only a Taste, to excite ingenious men to a more strict enquiry, and a shaking of that yoke of bondage, under which we have been detained in a superstitious adoration of poor Heathens, for so many Ages. And yet not so, as to cast them of wholly; for there is use of them in a degree, and of their Commentators, as there is of old Posts and Stones, though it be but to show where the old Road was, and how we may be take ourselves to better ways, by comparing it with the new.  
V The next thing to be brought under examination is Phlebotomy or Blood-letting: a thing very much practised, but how agreeable the Course is in these North-parts of the world, I shall Discuss by and by: In the mean while know, I do not reject it where there is urgent Cause; but 'tIS so seldom that there is a tolerable cause for it in our Climate, that I cannot but admire at the boldness of many Physicians, who make it (as I have often said) like the Prologue to the Play, a matter of Course and Custom in most Cases that come before them; though truly, in most Cases, nothing can be of worse consequence to the Body.  
In order to the more handsome Discussion of this so important a Point, given me leave to set down certain Particulars, as Prolegomena, i e. preliminary and introductory to the Discourse.  
1. We shall take for granted, because it hath been abundantly proved, that the Disease called the Scurvy or rather a Scorbutic state of Body is more or lesle to be considered, as befalling men generally in these Northern Nations. If so, then it is to be considered also, what kind of blood usually flows in the Veins of persons Scorbutically disposed: And here, in this matter, let me use the Authority of that grave Collector Sennertus, who in his Tract concerning the Scurvy 
Cap. 3.  saith, the Blood of persons touched with a Scorbutic Tincture becomes of the nature of Vinegar, and such also is the Blood of all Melancholic persons, as say 
* Hippocr. De V●ct. Rat. in Morb. ac T. 38. Galen, 3. De Sympt. Caus. ca 2.  Hypocrates and Galen, whereas in its right state in sounded persons it is compared to generous Wine; and he intimateth, that the Scorbutic humour is generated after the same manner as Vinegar out of Wine. And as there are many other things by him described, which as Causes contribute to the turning of Wine to Vinegar; so among the rest he tells us, it may be done by casting a little Ferment, that is leven or leavened bread, into it, which by degrees turns the Wine into its own acrimonious acid Nature. The same also is done, when an ill Scorbutic Ferment comes any way into that generous liquor the Blood, and turns it to an acid ichorous acrimonious state and condition: for a vicious Ferment, as well as crude and sharp humours, will corrupt the Mass of Blood. Moreover, if by any Accident, as Heat, or otherwise, Wine hap to loose its Sulphur, that is, its Sulphureous or Balsamic part (it being apt to evaporate) then it turns likewise to Vinegar: After the same manner also it fares with the Blood when its Balsamy Part is evaporated by Fevers, immoderate Heats, Sorrows, Studies, Watch, Exercises, or Venery, the corrosive Salty parts left behind predominate, and so pervert the Mass into such a sharp condition, that it can be compared to nothing more fitly than to Vinegar.  
As a further confirmation of this, take in also the Judgement of another grave Author, Greg. Horstius, who shows likewise, what the state of the blood is in Scorbutic persons; and first he speaks 
* De Mo●b. Contag. lib. 7. Sect. 1. Sect. 10. & 11.  as a Galenist, and saith, their blood is crude and Ichorous, apt to taint and corrupt all the Alimentary Juice which is daily added to it, and turn it into its own sour vicious Nature. After this again, he speaks much to the purpose as a Chemist, and saith, that the blood becomes thus Crude and Ichorous, and Nature is not able in Scorbutic dispositions to restore it, to its Balsamic state, because of an impure Bohemian-tartar, endued with Vitriolate and Aluminous qualities, diluted and united with the Mass of blood: which turns it into an acid state.  
This acid state of the blood, as to the manner of its generation, is very well illustrated by our learned Countryman Doctor Willis, in several places of his Book De Ferment. & Febr. And, which is as considerable to our purpose, he sets forth also the manner of its degenerating into a vapid flat state, like Wine or Vinegar that is corrupted and become flat or dead; which I shall take in also by and by, because upon both these considerations I ground divers of my following Arguments. This man, in his Book concerning Fevers, Chap. 1. & 6. agreeth with Sennertus, that in Scorbutic persons the blood is acid, even as it is in persons Hypochondriacal, or that are seized with a Quartan, wherein he saith that the liquor of the Blood in naturam Ponticam & acidiusculam degenerat, degenerates into a sour austere acid nature. And a little before he describes it thus, Sanguinis liquor à natu●â dulci, spirituosâ, & balsamicâ, in acidam & nonnihil austeram, instar vini acescentis, transit, i e. the liquor of the Blood passeth from a sweet, Spirituous and balsamic Nature, into an acid and somewhat austere, like Wine degenerating into Vinegar.  
2. In the second place, I would have this agreed on also; that the main cause of this acid state of the Blood is an abatement, or a decay of its Sulphur and Spirit: This appears by 
* Ubi supra.  Sennertus, who saith, that generous liquor, Wine, is want to become acid, when that principle the Sulphur is for the most part go from the Salt, either by evaporation or otherwise, and so that principle the Salt which before was Volatile, and friendly, becomes fixed, and acrimonious or acid: which is the true cause of Vinegar: which appears plain enough by putting flame to Vinegar, for, it will not burn, because the Sulphur is absent, and the Winy Spirit extinct, or depressed. This is seconded by the aforementioned Doctor, 
* Willis de Febr. ca 6.  who saith, that the evaporation of the Sulphur and Spirit out of men's blood, occasioned through the heat of the Summer, is one reason why men in Autumn have that acid state of blood, which renders them liable to Quartan Agues, and the Scurvy; which is not to be restored by any other means, than by dulcifying it; that is, by altering it with such Medicines and Meats, as may impregnate it anew with an amicable Volatile Salt, and a Balsamic Sulphur and Spirit: Just so as Wines, when they are growing acid, or flat and vapid, are not to be restored any other way, than by feeding them with Flesh, and rich Syrups, and fresh Leeses, or other things that abound with a Sulphureous and Spirituous nature.  
3. That as the Blood in People often contracts an acid state, so likewise in Scorbutic and other ill-affected bodies, it at length, after the manner of Wine, degenerates so far, as to grow vapid, flat and dead, being devested of its Balsamic Sulphureous and Spirituous part, in a further degree. This is illustrated also by the same industrious Doctor in his Book De Ferment. 
* Cap. 7.  where he shows, that the more of the Spirits and Sulphur of Wine is lost, the nearer it draws down and is impoverished to a vapid condition; which is more deplorable than the former; for there, part of the Winy Spirits are remaining, though depressed, but here they are almost, or else quite drawn of and fled away, so that the Wine is with marvellous difficulty, or not at all, to be recovered: And just so it fares with man's blood; it is, when it is once come to that vapid pass, very rarely revived and Spirited again, but being crude and watery, by degrees destroys the vital heat, and the Ferments of the parts, and becomes unapt for motion or Circulation.  
4. That the Blood many times may, after the manner of Milk, by some Cause or other be coagulated; in which Case the Doctor saith 
* De Febr. cap. 2. , the Mass is divided into parts, the more gross and terrestrial from the thinner part; by which means the blood is not so well circulated in the Vessels, but that its congealed parts (or portions of it like jelly) being apt to settle in the extremities of the Limbs, or to become stagnant in the heart, do interrupt its even Motion, or exceedingly hinder it; for the restauration whereof, Ebullitions greater than ordinary are raised in the blood; as in the Pleurisy, pestilent Fevers, small Pox, and all venomous Diseases: to which Sense he speaks also in 
* Cap. 1. de Febr. & ca 3. & 7.  other places, and enumerates other Diseases caused thereby, as the Quinsy, Inflammation of the Lungs, dysentery, as well as malign and pestilent Diseases. And that this Coagulation or Congelation be falling the blood is no new doctrine (though some have smiled at it) may be seen by Hypocrates his Book De Morbis (I mean the First Book, for, the other three are accounted Spurious) where you shall found the Notion in divers Texts; as in the 112, 129. and 145, etc.  
5. That the work of Sanguisication or bloud-making is performed by the Blood; that is to say, the Chyle being mingled in the Vena Cava with the stream of blood, and passing along with it through the heart into the Arteries becomes Blood, and as it passeth afterwards through all the Instruments or Parts, doth from the Ferment of every one receive somewhat that tends to its further Elaboration and perfection. For the clearing of this, 
* Oeconom. Anim. Exercit. 4.  Doctor Charlton hath well collected the Sense of the later and best Anatomists; which is, that the Chyle being imported into the Subclavian Veins, and from them into the Vena Cava, and thence immediately disembogued into the right Ventricle of the heart, is there converted into a liquor of a different Nature, viz. Blood, by a kind of exaltation of its Nature, or an advance of those natural Spirits which it containeth, into vital or more sublimed and active ones. By this, the Liver (he saith) is deposed from the office of Sanguification; and Dr. 
* D Gener. Anim. Exercit. 51. sub finem.  Harvey concludes, that the Liver borroweth its heat and colour from the Blood; but not the Blood from the Liver. And a little after, to set forth the manner of the Chyles being Tinctured by Blood into the same Nature and Crimson colour, he saith, the Chyle makes but a short stay in the heart, but remains constantly commixed with the Blood, until it be thereto perfectly assimilated. The blood flowing in the heart, Arteries, and Veins, doth in quantity at lest ten times exceed the Chyle of one Meal, and in strength or activity an hundred (for, what is more potent than that Spirit which enliveneth the whole Body; what more soft, gentle, and more easily superable than Chyle?) and therefore no doubt but the Blood doth easily obtain Victory over the Chyle, and overrun it with his own nature.  
To this agreeth that of Doctor Willis 
* Lib. De Febr. ca 3. , who saith, that the Alimentary Juice (or Chyle) which is supplied out of our daily Food, comes crude; but being commixed with the Blood, and circulated with it, is assimilated thereto: Indeed, of late years, this Doctrine hath prevailed among the most learned, that the Liver is not the office of Sanguification, as was supposed, but that the work is performed by other Means, and after another manner. Of this number is Andreas Caesalpinus, Conringius, Thomas Bartholinus, Vesalius, and Doctor Harvey, with others: and 'tIS questionless the very Truth.  
Now these five Particulars being confirmed as Preliminary, let me have leave to argue thereupon.  
I That we aught to be very wary of drawing blood in our Climate, in regard of the universal spreading of the Scorbutic Tincture: For, I am persuaded, more than half of the Sick do suffer upon this Account, in these Northerly Nations; as is cleared pretty well in the foregoing part of this Book, it being an undoubted Truth, that the Scurvy is predominating in most of our Diseases, and consequently that we have much more of a crude acid Serum floating in the Mass of Blood, than is usual in the more delicate Climates, where that Disease is but rarely found; and this, because, besides the consideration of Adventitious Causes, our blood is in its own nature much more Dilute and Serous. This you have well Discoursed by an eminent Professor of one of the Universities of Germany, by name Augustinus Thonerus, one that I found to have been in great esteem with Greg. Horstius, and with all the famous Physicians of that time; who having declared his own 
* Med. Obser. lib. 1. Obs. 33.  Judgement against bleeding in the Fevers of the Northern Climates, adds to his own also the Testimony of Zacutus Lus. in these words: It cannot be amiss here to recite what is said by Zacutus in his Observations touching the Blood of the Spaniards, and of the Germane, which is most worthy to be known and noted, viz. That in the bodies of Spaniards there abounds a blood thick, succulent, and compact, so that if they be seized by a Continual Fever, they all die, unless there intervene a large letting out of blood. On the contrary, the bodies of the Germane are filled with blood crude, watery, and not very firm or compact. If in Fevers the blood which is drawn from a Spaniard be fluid and watery, so that it do not thicken with standing, it is an undoubted sign, known even to Idiots, that they all die, because the Fibres of the blood are corrupt and dissolved: But in Germany, not only in malignant Fevers, but even in the lesser Diseases, and sickly persons, the blood, though fluid and watery, betokeneth no danger. Hereupon it comes to pass, that the Germane do hardly bear blood-letting, especially if it be large, because their blood is lesle Spirituous; as is evident by experience, in regard, that if we in health be let blood, merely for prevention of a Disease, we very often fall into grievous Faint, even while the blood is flowing: Much more then is it to be feared in Continual Fevers. The nature of the Iralians differs not much from the constitution of the Spaniards; and the complexion of the French is fiery, so that they may have greater need of eventilation by bleeding. Wherhfore, things thus standing, it were (saith he) a Physicians best course to use providence and caution in this matter, and to accommodate his counsel according to the diversity of Countries, Reason and Experience showing him the way.  
If this be the state of the blood of the Germane, from whom we English are extracted, and who live in a Northern Clime not much different from theirs, certainly what is true in this case of them, must needs very much concern us: The blood of us both is much alike, as to the Spirituous part, because most of the Sick in both Countries have their souls even drowned in a Flood of Serous and Scorbutic humours within the Veins, whose acidity and acrimony shows, after the manner of Vinegar, that the Spirits therein contained are either very few, or very much depressed. I would feign know then, whither in opening Veins that contain so much of an acid Serum, and so little of the noble Crimson liquor, it be not a great hazard to let out so great a part of the Crimson as appears in every Phlebotomy, because in it the Vital Spirits abound, and it is as it were the balsam of the blood, so that the subtracting of but a little must of necessity leave the rest behind much more liable to dilution and corruption, by reason of the superabundance of the Serous acid Humours, and therefore the lesle able to given a Tincture and nature of blood to the new Chyle which succeeds; whereupon, it not being duly assimilated and Sanguified, instead of being converted into good blood, doth degenerate, and add to the Flood of Crudities and Acidities, to the further disabling of the body at present, and a disposing it for the future to worse Diseases, and a languishing life, which is worse than Death. How many every year are seen upon this Account, exceedingly to suffer! when Physicians upon every slight Motion or Ebullition of Humours, are immediately for opening a Vein, the consequence whereof is, for the most part, a disposing of the Limbs to Numbedness, and Stiches, Aches, Prickings, Arthritick and Nephritick pains, and Agues and Fevers, debility of Stomach, and of all the Bowels, Gravel and wind-Colick, all manner of Hypochondriack passions, and the hastening on of old Age, through the continual heaping up of Crudities, because Nature, losing much of Vital power in every opening of a Sluice (on which power the validity of all the Ferments of the Parts and Vessels (which are the great Elaborators) the work of Concoction doth solely depend) is not able to given the Succeeding Chyle and Blood its due Digestion and Vitality. Tis to be granted, that at the first, our Scorbutic Patients seem to come of with relief, the diminution and eventilation of the liquor by Phlebotomy, putting a stop to the high boiling, and so there follows a Pacification, and hence it is that the Physician seems to deserve praise for it; but alas the relief is but fraudulent and temporary, the body pays for it afterwards, being thereby exposed to greater exasperations and ebullitions, upon the access of every extraneous Adventitious heat, and exotic irritating Spirit, when the Natural Heat and Spirits are by loss of Blood made weak and low: the truth of which is abundantly seen in the lesle Vegete, or the Valetudinary state of Bodies, especially if they abound with those acid and acrimonious Juices. What a horrid thing is it to see, how freely many times blood is drawn in the beginning of Agues, Fevers, and Arthritick Distempers, etc. upon a pretence of quelling the immoderate Fermentation of the Mass, whenas there are so many other ways to the Wood? but admit there were not, yet certainly handsome purgation by Specificks might be much more proper in such habited Bodies; for, even this, if the Medicine be right, gives as present relief, and without the like hazard; it drains the ill humours, without diminishing the Crimson Balsam and Vital Spirit, which departs and vanisheth (more or lesle) upon every Section of the Veins and Eventation of the Blood (as some do call it.) Methinks, as of all the Galenists I most admire Fernelius, so doubtless his determination is excellent in this Case 
* Metb. Med. l 3. cap. 1. , Venae Sectio fortasse vitiosum humorem qui consistit in venis, at non sincerum evacuat, sed Sanguine & utili humore permistum: Purgatio verò id solum quod vitiosum est & qualitate peccat, utilirelicto, nisi fortè immoderatiùs efferatur. The opening of a Vein (saith he) doth perhaps empty that vicious humour which is in the Veins, yet not sincere or mere, but mingled with the blood and the profitable humour: But Purgation empties that only which is vicious and offends in quality, leaving the profitable behind in the Veins, unless perchance it work too immoderately. To which let me add also, unless the Physician be destitute of such neat Purgers as are fit for the purpose. Now I know, there are many Citations brought out of Hypocrates and Galen to the contrary, preferring Phlebotomy as a more safe remedy than Purging. To which I say, whatever Hypocrates might do in Greece, or Galen who practised in Greece and Rome, by way of bleeding, is no example for us, not only in regard of the difference of Climates, but in respect also of the Alteration of Time and Diseases themselves: And there is this likewise considerable in the Case, that Hypocrates was acquainted with no evacuators but Hellebore and such like violent stuff; and Galen knew only the like, and ill-corrected Scammoniates, sharp and fiery, such as set Nature upon the rack; and therefore they had some reason, practising in so delicate Climates, in a lesle Tainted Age, to prefer Bleeding as a more safe remedy than purging; but what is that to us in the Northern world, at this time, where the states of men and Diseases, as well as Climates, are quite other things, and on whom God hath bestowed a better Furniture of Remedies? Truly, besides these reasons, there is so much the lesle Cause to heed what Galen saith about this matter, because as in many other things, so in this he hath the luck to be self-contradictory, as all heady quarelsom ambitious Writers are want to be; for, in his Comment on 2. Aph. 19 he extols Blooding as a safe remedy before Purging; and on the contrary 2. Acut. 11. He magnifies Purgation before Bleeding: Therefore, if in those Countries and Times it was a measuring Cast, that he could not readily conclude which to side with as best and safest, then the preference of Purgation is to be admitted without question by us now, having so many new measures of Reason to preponderate and invalidate the old. What a marvellous hazard then must we needs run by longer relying upon Galenick Doctrine, and exotic practices learned abroad, and brought home by some pretending Doctors? who return perchance with little more than a Diploma and foreign Twattle, to try Conclusions upon our Countrymen by strange Notions and Customs, not at all agreeable to the Constitutions of our Bodies; especially by the bold way of bleeding, which Thousand of Families are bound to curse; and this Custom is the more confidently owned by Travellers, because besides their Observations beyond-Sea, their Phantsies are heightened with old Galenick Authorities; especially in Fevers and all acute Diseases promiscuously; For, in Fevers, and most Agues, blood is drawn of course, because 
* 1. Aph. 23. 11. Method c 3 & cap 14. 15.  Galen saith, where any thing of Putredo is in Fevers, you are to draw blood, even to Fainting; and the whole stream of Authors run a madding after him, except only 
* 7 Collig. cap. 8.  Averro, the most judicious Author among the Arabians. But this manner of Practice will appear so much the more intolerable, if we go to sensible experiment; for, in blood-letting, suppose that Ten ounces be drawn, you will have sometimes 4.5. or perhaps 7. ounces of Humours, the residue good blood; now the loss of but a little good blood more concerns the Body as to damage, than the evacuation of the concurrent humours by Phlebotomy can advantage it, because the more Cacochymy or ill juice is contained in the Veins, so much the more reason there is, not to part with any part of the Crimson liquor, though never so small, because in it the Vital power is lodged to carry on the work of future Sanguification; and the Diminution of any part of it is but a disabling of what remains behind. Now in Purgation, the Case is much otherwise; for, though Helmont say Purgatives do but corrupt the Blood and Humours into that stinking state, and then draw them away, yet he must be understood of those deleterious venomous Purgers in common use; whereas new ones are found, and more may be found out, which will drain the Veins of their vicious humours in an amicable manner, and leave the blood behind purified from its own impurities, and untainted with any exotic Ferment contracted from the Medicine: which work being done without straining or offensive irritation of Nature, the Fermentation or Ebullition in Acute Diseases ceaseth of its self without any more ado. But if Purgation will not do, there are next to be used other means to pacify, with much more effect and security than by Phlebotomy, which always rids away a portion of the Sulphur, the Balsamic and Spirituous part of the blood; which if kept within the Body, would conduce to a more quick overruling and pacifying of the abundance of Saline acid Humours, which are floating in the Veins of most persons that are ill-habited, or Scorbutically inclined For,  
2. If it be true (as I have before shown) that a decay of the Sulphur and Spirituous part of any liquor, is the cause of its becoming crude and acid, and if thereupon also the Salty part become extravagant for want of the Spirit and Sulphur to restrain and attemper it; it is plain likewise in the blood, that the Balsamic Sulphur and Spirituous part thereof being but little, and lesle in our Northern Bodies than those of other Climates, it must be a pernicious course that shall offer to make it lesle; for (as I have hinted already) every little part drawn away leaves the remainder in the Veins lesle able to alloy or sweeten the acrimony of those acid and Saline Humours which are associated therewith. This is the Cause, why Fevers, and Agues, in these parts of the world, usually far ill upon bleeding; for, though for some hours after perhaps there seem to be some abatement, yet commonly presently the Disease becomes thereby more fierce and difficulty curable; the strength Spirits and Balsam (which should help to qualify and conquer the Morbific matter) being more abated than the Feverish Cause, or its Distemper.  
To second this necessary truth, given me leave to introduce the same learned Author, whom I mentioned before, viz. Thonerus the Germane Professor, whose Judgement concerning Continual Fevers is backed with Reason, Experience, and good Authorities; so that it cannot be amiss to cite him here at large. 
* Observe Med. lib 1. Obs. 33.  That drawing of Blood is (saith he) dangerous, and for the most part deadly, is evident in Reason: For, whereas the Source of those Fevers springs not from a Plethorie or Fullness, but from ill Juices, and that which feeds or kindles the Disease exists in a putrefaction and corruption of serous and pituitous Humours, frequently mingled with such as are ichorous and bilious; if then Blood be let, the Humours become the more unruly and confused, and natural strength is cast down by a resolution of the vital Spirits, which not being strong before in an ill-habited body, must needs be unable afterwards to encounter with the Disease and conquer it.  
Add moreover (saith he) that the Seminary of those Fevers being for the most part settled in the M●seraick Veins and the lesser vessels more distant from the heart, it falls out thereupon, that a Vein being opened, the more laudable blood flows out first; afterwards follows that which is much worse, and so by reason of vacuity, to preserve a continuation of the stream, the vicious humours being called away from the remoter or remotest parts, and brought nearer to the heart, 'cause much detriment and danger. And when there is Malignity in those Fevers, they have much more need of good Cordials so fitted as to infringe it, and discuss the Miasma or Malign Inquination of blood and humours. It is witnessed by Experience, that many persons who have drawn blood to prevent Fevers, have by that means been seized thereby, some examples whereof you will found in my Observations; and Philip Hochstetterus Physician of Aubsburgh, relateth in his observations, that he knew divers of the Nobility and Gentry, who having no Sense of any Disease likely to come on them, would needs be let blood for security, but within few days after fell into a Fever, and died. For my own part (saith he) I have by long experience found, that many persons seized by those Fevers, from whom blood hath been drawn by advice of principal Physicians, have thereby been sent packing to their Graves, although their bodies, as to outward appearance, have seemed Sanguine and Plethoric. Thereupon, I being afraid to follow their steps, do very rarely given order for or encourage the opening of a Vein. And it hath very often been no small matter of wonder to me, that foreign Physicians, both Italian, French, and Spanish, are so profuse in letting blood, in all Continual Fevers without distinction. Of late, four Germane, of which three were Barons, being at Paris, fell into a Fever, and were blooded several times, after the fashion of that place; the three Barons died, but the fourth man escaped, though lesle strong of constitution than the other. So far this grave Author; some of whose Expressions though I approve not, yet as to the main about the sound custom of Bleeding, he speaks Reason, and his own Experience in a Climate little differing from ours.  
The like also may be said concerning those Intermittent Fevers called Agues, for the Cure of which (especially in the Spring) 'tIS a common course to Vomit, Purge, and Bleed, This (as Doctor Willis saith, is 
* De Febr. cap. 3.  Curatio Dogmatica, the common Dogmatical way of curing Tertians, by which the Sick are miserably tormented, and the Disease seldom removed, so that this Disease is deservedly called Oppobrium Medicorum, the shame and Reproach of Physicians. Here, though he seem to disallow Vomitories and Purgatives, it must needs be understood of those Medicaments which are commonly used by such as practise the Dogmatical Galenick way, which usually infect the blood with an ill Tincture, and by irritation put it into a more fierce Fermentation, and worse disorder than before; but other Evacuators may be had whereby that Inconvenience is avoidable; and a little after, the same Doctor grants, that even by an ordinary Vomitory given a little before the Fit, the Ague is sometimes taken away. But that which makes against Blood-letting is, that he saith there, that the Cause of Tertians is an ill disposition of blood, acrimonious, and bilious, 
Ubi suprà.  so that it doth not rightly transmute and assimilate the new Chyle or Nutrimental Juice which is continually supplied, so as to make good blood of it, but turns it into an ill Fermentative matter: From whence I argue, that if the state of the blood be acrimonius, and (as he calls it) bilious, that is to say saturated with an adust degenerated Sulphur, as well as a sharp acidity (as it usually is in all Agues, but remarkably in Tertians) certainly in the drawing forth of such blood out of the Veins, the loss of the Balsamic genuine Sulphur and Spirit contained therein, which always issueth out mixed with the other liquors, must needs be very mischievous, because the remaining liquors become the more prevalent within the Veins, and turn the succeeding Aliment for the most part into their own vicious Nature, instead of Blood: So that tis no wonder, if every thing grows worse with a Tertian Ague after Phlebotomy. And if this be true touching Tertians, then the Reason holds a Fortiori touching the other sorts of Agues, because the rest are more commonly attended with a Blood much more vicious, either crude, acid, or acrimonious. Hence it is, that the usual consequence of opening a Vein is, that the state of the blood growing more degenerous, through the loss of its Sulphur and Spirit, is changed from its active, spirituous, sweet, balsamic condition, either into a flat and vapid, or else into an acid austere condition; and so for these three years past, I have observed, especially in bodies Scorbutically inclined, that Tertians in the Spring, after Bleeding, and other Dogmatical Dotages about Cure, have in a short time been converted into Quotidians, and before Autumn into Quartans: others have become Double-Tertians; and in time wearing away the body after the fashion of a slow continual Fever, have made it become Hectic, and wasted it to an incurable Marasmus. And those robust bodies that escape best, though the errors of Curation have not been able to sink them, yet usually they come of with a habit of body much impaired, being (most of them) all their days after liable to Dropsy, Gout, unwieldiness of body, Scurvy, Hypochondriack Melancholy, ill Concoctions, Obstructions, and all those Chronic Diseases that are the Concomitants, or Consequents, of Crudity and Acidity; among which are various Arthritical pains, pains of the Loins, Gravel, Stone, Scrofulous Tumours. Leprous, Scabby, Itchy, and Ulcerous Dispositions. And as these great Mischiefs the bodies of men remain liable to, after Bleeding, and other irrational Means and Scholastic Methods of handling Agues; so the usual practice of Bleeding, upon pretence of Curing any of those Chronic Diseases beforementioned, which proceed from a crude, ichorous, acid, acrimonious qualification of blood, though it seem to cure at present, yet the truce given by the Disease is but like Fides Punica, very treacherous, because the Crimson balsamic liquor having lost part of its Sulphur and Spirit, hath lesle of a Vital Sanguifying power than it had before, and so every addition of Nutriment serves but to advance the Heap of Crudities and Acidities, and the Saltish principle, grown exorbitant for want of the native Spirit and Sulphur to restrain it, is exalted to a condition much more corrosive, and destructive: So that upon the lest Accident, either by Change of weather, ill Diet, etc. or a Turn of the Seasons of the year, the palliated Diseases, return with more severity than before; and yet after this, I have seen men so mad as to attempt a cure again by Bleeding, which procures perhaps a new P●iliation, till after many Repetitions of the same wicked Course, the habit of the Body and the state of the blood becomes so depauperated, that its Vital principle being exhausted, there remains no more room for the like palliatory proceeding. Which leads me to a disquisition upon the third Preliminary Point; and that is the vapid, flat, insipid, dead state of the Blood.  
3. Now if there be such a flat, vapid, Spiritless state of Blood (as we suppose, may be) that is to say, not absolutely such, but in an analogical Comparative Sense, (for, so it may be said to be, if compared with that florid Vegete vigorous condition which aught to be;) then surely it will be yielded, that in such a Case, letting blood must needs be exceeding pernicious: For, the lesle of the nobler vital blood is in the Mass, the more mischievous it is to part with any part of that little, forasmuch as in all opening of Veins a considerable proportion of the Crimson liquor comes along with the other, and leaves the remaining Mass the more Spiritless and destitute. In any liquor, as the loss of the Sulphur, and a depression of the Spirits, causeth it grow acid and acrimonious; so a diminution, evaporation, destitution or deprivation of Spirits, causeth it to grow vapid, or (as we call it in English) flat and dead. This holds true likewise in the Liquor of the Veins: It may be concluded therefore, that when it is brought to such a Pass, or in any persons that led a Course of life which must of necessity bring it to that pass, we aught to be very careful to avoid the breathing of a Vein (as they call it) or rather the breathing out of the Spirituous liquor, which is that which gives life and vigour to the whole Mass, so far as it is capable thereof.  
The persons usually reduced to such a Pass as this are these,  
Such Scorbutic persons, and the Pocky, as have much of those Ferments either Hereditary, or else long settled and inveterated within them through ill Diet, or by ways of Contagion Mediate or Immediate long contracted; for, nothing eclypseth the luminous Ethereal Vital Spirit, and by that means depauperates the blood more than the poisonous Ferments of these Master-Maladies; and this is visible enough in those so Tainted, that have not by nature so strong a constitution of Body to resist the operative power and influence of the same Ferments, as some other Tainted persons have; for, in the weighing of all these Reasons you are to add a grain of Salt, that is, you are to given some allowance, according to the condition of the Patients; but be it what it will, Bleeding doth always bring detriment; and by frequent repetition of it, the Venom lodged in the other parts of the Mass gains the greater opportunity to show itself, and by such errors, it at length acquires a Dominion, even in the strongest persons, over the whole habit of the Body; and then they are reduced to the same visible Inconveniences and damages, which are want to ensue the bleeding of those other Tainted persons that are by nature of a more weakly Frame. But the sum of this Business is, that in these Cases, where any thing of those Contagious or Venomous Ferments lurks, Bleeding doth hurt more or lesle, though sensibly and presently in some more than in others; and this I observe, that when persons Tainted are seized with quick Agues, or Fevers, or other acute Diseases, which ever bring the strongest Constitutions down to a weakly state, the drawing of blood draws a miserable Train of Consequents after it. Which hath brought me to this Resolution, and I hope it will work upon others, seeing the Venereous, and Scorbutic Ferments are grown so universal, never to open a Vein but when there is a very great urgency, or else a necessity for immediate saving of a life, or upon some other extraordinary occasions; which are apprehended well enough by judicious Physicians, and it is not proper to my design, who affect brevity, here to recite them, and who have taken upon me, only to discover the vanity of comprising Phlebotomy within the compass of a common Formal Method, as it was of old, in order to the curation of most Diseases; whenas all Constitutions of men and Diseases in this Age do (as I have pretty well manifested) participate more or lesle of the aforementioned Ferments, and their Bloods are by the Fermental Venoms contained in them, more or lesle vapid, dis-spirited and impoverished, or apt to be so upon any small Accident that way tending.  
Next to the persons Scorbutically and Venereously Tainted, I may reckon those that are immoderate in the exercise of Simple Venery; for, excess this way wonderfully exhausteth the Spirits, and carries away as it were the Flower, and most balsamic part of the Alimentary Juice, to the defrauding of the Mass of blood of its noblest supply; so that it soon grows acid and acrimonious, and by degrees Spiritless, Vapid, and Insipid. Such persons as these are very liable to Fevers; and if they hap to be seized therewith, or any other Disease, the opening of a Vein brings such damage as is scarce to be repaired.  
It is to be observed likewise, that persons given to excess of Wine, or strong Waters, or other Tiplings, do in tract of time loose the noble native Heat of the body, and the Spirituous Balsamic part of the blood comes to evaporate and spend itself, by being infested with an extraneous preternatural Heat, and with Crudities; and so the Mass becomes as vapid by this way of intemperance as any other.  
The like may be said concerning people of a sorrowful Frame of Heart, or that are broken in their Fortunes, who are usually sick in mind rather then Body, and the mind disorders the body. Be their Disease what it will, I never seen them prospero with bleeding; or with the other Evacuations upward, or downward, if violent, or frequent.  
To these add also persons who are of little or no appetite to Feeding, or that have an ill Concoction; for, their liquor within the Veins must needs be very liveless, crude and vapid, seeing the Chyle comes to them imperfectly cocted; This is very well noted also by Doctor Willis 
* De F●br. Cap. 1. , who saith, that in men seemingly sounded, after the more plentiful feeding and playing the gluttons, perpetual Tiplings and large drinking Bouts, too great a quantity of Serum or juice is infused into the Blood, so that its whole Mass being too much diluted with crude Humour, becomes more watery, and the lesle Spirituous; by which means men are rendered sluggish, and unapt for motion or exercise. But noon have a more defective state of-bloud, than those that are worn and wasted by a long course of abstinence, hard labours, and Studies, Fast, and Watch; For, the same Doctor well saith, that in such Cases as these, the vital Spirit being very much evaporated, the Mass of blood doth begin as it were to grow vapid, flat or dead. He saith also, 
* Ubi supra.  that Diseases many times induce such a Disposition of blood habitually; as do the Scurvy, Jaundice, ill habit of Body, long Fevers and Agues, and the greatest part of Chronic Diseases; in which the whole Mass of blood, passeth from a Spirituous nature into a sharp, acid, or austere.— Now in all these Cases and Constitutions, to venture upon drawing of blood, unless in case of extreme necessity, is a thing so contrary to reason, as, not to be answered before God or man, seeing that after the detracting of any portion from the Mass, the slorid vivacious part which comes forth, though never so little, is not to be made up again, where there is a redundance of crude, watery, Spiritless liquor in the Veins, to drown and pervert all the succeeding Alimentary Juice, that should be made use of and improved towards the reparation of the loss.  
4. Moreover, if there be at other times such a state of the blood, as that which Hypocrates of old, and Doctor Willis of late, calls coagulated and congealed, certainly wherever this state of blood is found, the reason holds very strong here likewise against the opening of a Vein. Now doubtless, in all those Scorbutic Dispositions which proceed from a fixed Salt, it is obvious enough, that the blood not having the Spirit, and native Sulphur, sufficient to attemper and exalt the Saline principle to its due state, it doth by its coagulating nature tender the Mass of Blood the more thick, and unapt for Circulation; and in this Case, it being in reason to be supposed, that the Circulation which is, is performed by the most Spirituous and noblest part of the Mass, what can be said but that when a Vein is opened, the noble and more sprightly Juice is let forth, and the vicious left behind, to do mischief sevensold more than ever it could do before?  
Nor is it thus hazardous only in the common Chronic Scorbutic Dispositions; for, Coagulations of some parts of the Mass of blood do hap upon many other Accounts also of Acute Diseases, particularly in Continual Fevers. And very pertinent to our purpose, for the explanation of this particular, is that other place of the same learned Doctor, where he saith, that the blood, after the manner of Milk, is subject to many mutations within the Veins, and among the rest, to be coagulated, congealed or curdled, by the accession of acid Humours, and the like, that have a power to separate and curdle some part of the Mass. His words are these; 
* ●bi supra, circa finem.  as upon the opening of a Vein, the Blood that is drawn forth, doth by a spontaneous Coagulation, and separation of the parts from each other, imitate the various substances of Curdled or Turned Milk; so sometimes while it is contained within the Veins and Arteries, it undergoes just such another mutation by Morbific Causes, as Milk doth when it is imbued with the Runnet; by which means the blood being Clogged or Hindered in its circulation, or in some places congealed and settled by parcels, produceth manifold Distempers; among which, he reckons also Malign and Pestilential Fevers. And to this also may be ascribed many Distempers of the Heart, and Lungs, while so ill-conditioned a Blood passeth through them in its circuit, and besides an ill Tincture, leaves behind it some curdled portions, or else congealed Clodders, sometimes to the suffocating, but often to the obsessing and distressing of those two most noble Vital Instruments of the Body. To the like purpose he speaks very well also toward the latter end of his second Chapter, which I have mentioned also before, Sometimes (saith he) there happens a preternatural manner of effervescency or Ebullition of Blood, which induceth such an Alteration of it as befalls Milk; that is to say, sometimes there is induced a coagulation of that Crimson liquor by a Morbific Cause, so that its substance being turned, separateth itself into parts, and a secretion is made of the gross and earthy part from the thin: by which means the blood is not so readily circulaeed in the Vessels, but that portions of it like jelly, will be stagnant and clogging in the way, to the causation of divers Malign and pestilent Distempers.  
In his seventh Chapter, he saith the same, that è Miasmate venenato Sanguinem inficiente, ej úsque liquorem congelante, Febres Malignae dependant, from a venomous Miasma or Inquination infecting the blood, and congeling its liquor, Malignant Fevers do depend. And in his fourteenth Chapter, which treats particularly of Malign Fevers, he saith, that the Malign Ferment causeth a coagulation of the blood by parts, which congealed portions 'cause a Necrosis or inward Mortification, with a Syncope or dejection of Spirits. Which he repeats again in his 15. Chapter touching the small Pox and the Measles; and a little afterwards saith, that the blood being Tainted with the Ferment of the small Pox is apt to coagulate; and that the prime Intention in curing them is, that the motion of the blood should be preserved from Stagnancy, and that the congealed or gelid venomous portions of it be driven out toward the skin; in which respect I cannot but wonder that so learned a man, after he hath said thus much, should allow bleeding, if there be a Plethorie, as he doth express himself in the same place; whereas reason must needs hold very strong against it, because if there be in the small Pox and Measles (as he saith) a venomous or Malignant Miasma, and an aptness in the blood to coagulate, and if the venom cannot be drawn away by bleeding in any Malignant Disease (as he signifies sufficiently in the foregoing Chapters) nor the congealed portions of the Mass of blood be let forth (which in other places he grants;) I say if these things be so, I would said know then, whither that which is emitted from the Vein be not purior pars Sanguinis, the most florid Vital part of the blood, and whither it being drained out of the Body, it be not in reason to be expected afterwards, that Nature being debilitated by its loss, the venom having lesle of good juice within the Veins to control it, must needs grow the more tyrannous, and the gelid por●ions become the lesle conquerable, and the circulatory motion much more slow, and lesle equal, when that vital and more sprightly juice with should subdue, and quicken them to motion, and drive them forth toward the Skin, is separated from them? In such case, certainly a pretence of Plethorie is not passable, because Plethorie properly is but a Simple Fullness; but in these Diseases, the most cogent Indications are to be taken from the Malignity or venenosity of the Miasma, and from the obstinacy of the matter; that is to say, of those congealed or gelid portions, which exasperated Nature, and hinder the purification of the Mass, and deprive it of its regular equal Motion throughout the Body. Therefore I suppose at this time, the worthy Doctor (who I perceive is not very found of Bleeding) might be carried aside a little with the stream of Practisers; whose common Hypothesis hath been heretofore, that Nature being by Bleeding eased of part of t●e hurden of Morbific matter, is by that means the more enabled to deal with the Remainder: But as in these Malignant Diseases, Bleeding carries not away the Malignity; so where the offending matter within the Veins is grown grumous, curdled, or gelid, tis not to be imagined that the Prick of a Lancet can let it forth, but it will make way rather for a loss of the fluid and more lively part.  
No marvel therefore, that we in these North parts of the world, whose Bloods are more naturally abounding with crude, serous, acrimonious Humours, and consequently more inclinable to those Coagulations, do by experience found it so exceedingly destructive to draw blood in Fevers (which are most of them Malignant) and in many other Diseases (there being Malignancy and acidity almost in all). And for Fevers, 'tis intolerable to see how customary this course continues among us, it being a matter of cou●se, insomuch that if a Patient die which hath not bled for a Fever, many of the better sort, taken with Foreign Fashions, are apt to think it is for want of Bleeding. Tis not to be denied but cases extraordinary may hap to indicate it necessary, but then it should be admitted only upon such occasions, and not practised as a matter of course in our Climate: And the more suspicion there is of any Malignity, the more it is to be avoided.  
Hear therefore what our grave Germane Author Thonerus saith further about this matter. And it is not by virtue of his own opinion only, that he was against the opening of a Vein in his Climate, which is of so neare a nature to ours; but he 
* Thonerus, observe Med. ubi suprà.  brings in the Suffrages of other most eminent Germane Physicians, as Joannes Agricola an excellent Chemist and Practitioner, who in his Book entitled Parva Chirurgia, saith, that letting of Blood in a Malignant Fever is deadly, especially if it be delayed twenty four hours after the first seizure made by the Disease; and that he had observed above a hundred destroyed by Bleeding. To him agreeth also that famous Practitioner Rulandus, who plainly professeth, that he always found it pernicious, and that though the Veins have been opened at the very first, yet the Fevers were thereby the more exasperated, and the more grievous Symptoms followed; for, (saith he) the Feverish Foams doth not consist in a Plethorie, but in a cacochymy. Add to these also the learned Italian Fracastorius 
* Lib. De Morb. Contag. , who saith, that when those Malignant Fevers which shown themselves with spots, began first to spread in Italy, the Physicians pursued the old course of Bleeding, and though they began the cure with it, yet they all died that had a Vein opened. And if the Course proved so destructive even in Italy, in a Disease that had Malignancy in it, what shall we think then of it in our Climate, and in this Age, where not only Fevers, but most other Diseases have a Malignant and Contagious Ferment rooted in them?  
And notwithstanding what slipped before, I found Doctor Willis also (who hath had the honour of opening the eyes of the world, more than any before him, about the nature of Fevers) very positive against Bleeding: For in his ninth Chapter he saith, it is found by observation, that frequent letting of Blood renders men more apt to Fevers, wherhfore it is commonly said, that those who once let blood are inclined to a Fever, unless they do the same every year. And in his fourteenth Chapter, that where Malignity is, there, upon evacuation by Catharticks, or by Bleeding, Malignitas plerúmque augetur, it is for the most part increased, and, if not heeded, more largely diffuseth its venom. And how can it be otherwise? seeing the Cause of the Disease is many times so seated, that a strong Purge will not easily reach the place, much lesle will Bleeding be a means to evacuate any thing from thence: For, the Doctor and the best part of Authors do determine, that Malign Fevers for the most part 
* Chap. 1●.  are seated in the Animal Spirits, or in that Spirituous subtle liquor which is abounding in the Brain, the Nerves, and all the Nervous parts; and their venom takes impression the more profoundly, if the Patients have been oppressed either with Fears, or Griefs: These things the Doctor takes notice of as a great matter in the producing and qualification of those Fevers: To which given me leave to add my own observation; that I never seen any person so oppressed, that hath been seized with any Fever, but the Disease grew worse after Blood-letting, and the Cure much more difficult; but in Malign Fevers all things have proved so bad after it, that very few have escaped, but have immediately visibly drawn on toward Destruction. And the like may be said of persons that have been much delighted with, or debilitated by venereous exercises, Watch, hard Studies, etc. or any Course of life that brings on a dissipation and poverty of Spirit, though otherwise their habit of body may seem never so Plethoric, fleshy, or Sanguine.— But to return to the main; if it be so in Fevers of a Malign Nature, that the labes of their venom usually lurks in the Animal Spirits, and in the Spirituous liquor wherewith the Nerves and Nervous parts are irrigated and stored; and seeing it is in the nature of every Venom and Contagion whatsoever that befalls the Body, to take the course toward the Brain and the Nervous parts and liquors, and there seat themselves, as is evident in all Pocky and Scorbutic Malignities, I would feign know which way Bleeding, which drains only the Venal Blood, should be of use to relieve a Disease seated in so abstruse and remote passages as the Nerves; and what the evacuation of blood can contribute to the amending of a default contained in a nobler and more Spirituous liquor; and whither it be not a dangerous mistake, to aim at an eventilation and an allaying of ebullitions and Fervors of blood, when the Fever is caused and continued by an effervescence and exagitation of the other Liquor aforesaid; and what a madness it is, in such Fevers to consider a putredinous state in the Humours of the Mass of blood, whenas the Disease mainly consists in Spirit? Moreover, seeing the Pocky, and Scorbutic Ferments are so rise and general in this Age, that they get more or lesle into all Diseases, and induce a Malignity in them (as hath been already shown) it is worthy the care and study of Physicians to consider, whither Fevers in general have not a Touch of Malignity in our Age, upon that account, as (I have shown you) Helmont doth wisely determine; and consequently whither in our days, Fevers by the direction of those Malign and Contagious Fermenss, have not changed their usual Quarters in the Veins, Arteries, and Bowels, and taken up new ones in the Nervosum genus, the Brain and Nervous parts; and so whither the main battle in contending against them aught not to be maintained by Alexipharmacal Remedies, others than those in common use, and such as are more appropriate to the Nature of those Fermental Venoms, rather than by Bleeding and other evacuations? He who observes in these days, almost in every Fever, yea and in Agues, what little Spasms, Vellications, Convulsive Motions, Tremble, Stupors, Rigours, Torpors, drowsy and delirious Symptoms, and the like distempers incident to the Nervous parts, are attending, and much more frequently than in former time, will easily grant, that Fevers do for the most part settle in the liquor of the Brain, and of its Nervous Appendants; and so that Blood-letting, serving only to debilitate persons, because it cannot reach the offending Cause, must needs be out of Doors, together with the ordinary languid Julips and Cordials of the Shops. To say no more of this, I have been very much confirmed in my Judgement, by observing the Practice of one who is no Academian, but an ancient Practiser, of a good Insight into Nature, and exceeding dextrous and Successful in curing Fevers (a grand multitude daily flocking to him) and yet he draws no blood, and very seldom useth other evacuation than by breathing Sweats, procured by the use of Alexipharmacal means, such as oppose Malignity, and by dissolving, or discussing the coagulated or gelid portions of the Mass of blood, do restore the blood into a due course of Circulation, and preserve it so, till the Malignity be subdued, and dissipated per Diaphoresin, that is to say in English, by a breathing forth or transpiration through the Skin. And what is said here against Blooding in Fevers, etc. is by a parity of Reason applicable to divers other Acute Diseases; yea and much more to those that are Chronical, seeing the Coagulations and Congelations here described are most frequent in them, by reason of the acrimonious Crudities and Acidities which in these days are in Vogue among them. Nevertheless, where Customary evacuations of blood by Menstruals, Haemorrhoids, and the like, are suppressed; or if Patients have been often used to Blood-letting for their Distempers, somewhat may, in such cases, be indulged to necessity and custom, but not without the good consideration and care of a wise wary Physician.  
5. If it be true, which the most learned and industrious Inquirers of this Age do now hold, that in the work of Sanguification, it is the Blood which makes Blood; viz. that the power of converting the Chyle or Alimentary Juice into new Blood, depends upon the goodness and the validity of the old Mass, which is supposed to given it the true Tincture and Transmutation, then the drawing forth of the Crimson liquor in all the Cases beforementioned, wherein either the Spirits are decayed, or the Mass is vitiated, doth but disable Nature from making a new supply, as I have before endeavoured to illustrate; and so thereupon ariseth a just exception in innumerable Cases against Blood-letting. Therefore it will be very much to the purpose also, here to cite what is delivered by the same Doctor in several places, to show, that such a state of Blood is prevalent in the causation of most Fevers, and thereupon to argue against Bleeding in that case. In his first Chapter 
* D● F●br.  he saith thus: If the supply of the Alimentary Juice be not congenerous with the blood nor assimilated to it, but, by reason of a defect of coction, is wholly diluted into a crude humour, it is a principal cause of perverting the Mass, and rendering it sometimes waterish and cold, sometimes sharp or Salt, and sometimes acid, austere, and degenerated from its natural state after one manner or another, and becomes liable to be stagnant, i e. defective in motion, or subject to Feverish Ebullitions, and is a cause of Paroxysms or Fits in Agues and Fevers. This he confirms also in his third Chapter, saying, that the Esservescence of blood in Agues, which constitutes the Fit, depends only upon the non assimilation of the Alimentary Juice to the Blood; and that the said Juice daily supplied out of our daily Food, not being duly digested and Sanguified by mixtion with the old Mass, doth degenerate into watery crude humour, which Nature not being able to subdue, is provoked to that Feverish disturbance, which we call a Fit; and the Returns of it are not taken of, till the offending Juice be removed out of the Body. To this Sense is much of that Chapter, and he repeats it in his sixth Chapter when he comes to treat of Quartan Agues; which may be applied also to most other Agues, because though they have another Type and Formality, yet they have much of the Nature of a Quartan, by reason of the Scorbutic Acidities predominant in them more than heretofore, and that is the main reason why they are all become as difficult to be cured now, as Quartans were of old; so that drawing of Blood and other Evacuations are as little to be allowed in them, as in the Quartans; wherein the learned Doctor saith, Evacuators do not procure one jot of advantage, but rather by depauperating the Blood, destroy the strength; whereas the right way to cure is, to reduce the Mass from its crude acid state, by such remedies as will new Spirit the blood, and volatilize it.  
In a word, there is this to be said touching the different effects of Bleeding betwixt the Northern and the finer parts of the world; They bear it much better, because their blood is endued naturally with a greater plenty of Spirits, than ours, and hath lesle of that Serosa Colluvies with which the Northern men do abound; so that in the more delicate Countries when Blood is drawn, those Spirits which are lost thereby are, because of their plenty, better spared, and sooner repaired; partly by the benignity of the Native Air, and partly (yea especially) by the notable power of Assimilation which is in their Blood, much beyond others; which quickly supplies them with Blood again, because there is not in their Veins such a Flood of acid and vapid Serosities to drown and pervert the new Chyle, so as thereby to hinder the work of Assimilating it to the stock of Blood which remains behind; and therefore it is, that as they bear the loss better, in regard of a greater store of Spirits, so the reparation of the stock of Blood and Spirits is much quicker, in regard of the more sure and speedy dispatch of Sanguification. Now in the Northern Climates, especially in a cloudy dripping Island, as ours is, where the Air is not so impregnated with clear luminous Ethereal and Spirituous Atoms, as theirs is, and consequently not so neare of kin to the Spirit of man; as it cannot be expected here should be so great a plenty of Spirits in our blood; so likewise it is but reasonable (which is observed by Writers) that our Mass of blood should be floated with a greater quantity of Crude Serosities, and consequently that we should be not so able to bear Bleeding, because of the paucity of Spirits; nor so likely to repair what Blood is lost, because the Remainder hath lesle power to assimilate and sanguify the succeeding Alimentary Juice or Chyle. So that consider the different flate of the generality of men in the various Climates and Countries, and we see there is reason why they should generally approve Bleeding, and be relieved; and why we should have a general Aversation to it, so as not to permit the practice of it to be so general and customary, as in more delicate Airs and Countries, when we daily see it so destructive in our own. Away then with those Maxims and Methods of the Ancients about Phlebotomy, which were calculated for the practice of another Climate: And yet I deny not but some particular Cases may require it here; only the Customariness and commonness of the thing aught to be exploded. For the illustration and confirmation of our D●scourse about this matter, methinks that that of Heurnius is very pertinent, setting forth the nature of our Northern blood and Spirits, that they are qualified according to the Air; 
* Institut. Med. lib 3. cap. 8.  The Spirits of men (saith he) are variously affected by Aliments, and by the external Air; from whence it comes to pass, that those people which inhabit the cold parts of the world, by reason of their Dense or gross Spirits, which flow from a thick Blood, are stout and formidable, and fearless of danger, etc. The Asiaticks and such other finer Nations, have a finer blood and Spirits, etc. They have finer, and more Spirits, but more easily dissipable by Action, and by the fineness of their Air, and of their Blood, the sooner repairable after Act on. On the other side, we having more gross Spirits, by reason of the thickness and fogginess of our Air, and of our Blood, those Spirits of ours are not so easily dissipated, and remain strong even after action; but because when we loose our blood and Spirits together by Bleeding, they are not so easily or suddenly repairable, in regard of the abundance of Serous (yea and gross) Crudities which always float in the Mass, more than in warmer and clearer Countries; therefore it is, that though we be more stout and valiant in Acting, and will fight in blood to the last, when others shrink and fail, yet afterwards we generally feel more damage by loss of Blood, than the other are want to do.— But yet after all this, 'tis reported of the Turks, that though they live in those delicate Quarters of the Earth, they use not Bleeding, but are cured of their Diseases without it: which causeth wonder, that other Nations (as the French, Italians, Spaniards, and Portugals) breathing in the like Climates, should hold it so necessary, as that they seem not, in most sicknesses, to hope for any relief without it.  
I might to these reasons of my own add here also the Reason of Helmont; but they are too large, and I have already driven out this Treatise to a greater length than I intended; only 'tIS fit you take notice of what is said by his Epitomiser 
* D● Febr. lib. 2. cap. 2  Grembs, who after he hath reckoned up the several Arguments, concludes the Discourse about Fevers thus; That the opening of a Vein is a Fraudulent Remedy, and that by it no man can with any assurance promise' health: And whereas Nature is the Curer of Diseases, by how much the stronger she is maintained, so much the more happy she is in doing her work; and whereas in the course of the Disease she is sufficiently weakened by fasting, want of sleep, and other Accidents, it cannot be convenient to add weaking to weankness by letting of Blood. And he further signifies in the same Chapter, that blood-letting hath hitherto been tolerated, only upon this Account, that Physicians have not been Masters of such powerful Medicines as might be effectual without it, and that it would be not longer tolerable to continued the Custom, if such Remedies were invented: wherhfore, if ignorance of nobler Medicaments in ancient time, first brought it into practice, in Countries where it might be better tolerated than in ours, then certainly in this Age and Climate, where so many Reasons lie against it, and where God hath given a heart and wisdom to some laborious Students to found out better Medicines and Methods, it is intolerable to see so many of our Countrymen nursed up in an opinion, that hardly any Cure can be wrought without it.  
And as it tends not upon good account, towards the curation of those many Diseases, in which tis commonly reputed necessary; so the same Author saith also it is pernicious being used under pretence of preservation; 
* 〈◊〉. 3. de ●●●vitate vitae humanae, cap. 1.  prava ista consuetudo, etc. that ill custom of opening a Vein is no small cause of shortening a man's life; so that tis a wonder to see, that there is scarce a House in the City, wherein they use it not twice a year; so prodigal they are of wasting the Treasure of life! Yea more (saith he) I have known very many persons, very inclinable to an ill habit of body, and weaknesses of the Liver, and yet were so bold as to draw blood every year, and so 'tis not wonder they were afterwards snatched away by untimely death. And in the same place he adds this, Hanc malam comsuetudinem non praepediunt Chirurgi & Tonsores, blaming such Chirurgeons and Barbers as do not hinder this wicked Custom, which preyeth upon our Vital parts, cuts of the thread of life, accelerates an early death, and is in cause that even the strongest men have no long life; as is witnessed by experience. Thus Herald  
And so this is all that at this time I shall communicate upon this Subject of Phlebotomy; intending a more copious Discourse hereafter, if there shall be occasion.  
VI The last Particular that I mean now to insist on, is an examination of the state of Medicine, in respect of Medicaments, the old Scholastic Recipes or Compositions, which have been continued hitherto in the practice of Physic. I have in part shown you before, by many Inferences made upon the parts of my discourse in the several Chapters, how insufficient those Medicines must needs be which are in the reason of them grounded upon wrong Suppositions: For, as I told you, Mr. Boil 
* Exper. Phil. part. 1. p. 66.  hath very well shown, that the Doctrinals, and the Dogmatical Method, and the common Remedies, have a dependence upon each other. Indeed, if you keep to the Doctrine, you must hold to the Medicines; and if you use the Medicines, you must proceed in the Method, according to that Heathenish Galenick Doctrine. For, tis true, that An error in the Foundation cannot be amended in the Superstructure: If the trifling Notions of Elements, Qualities, Temperaments, Complexions, etc. be out of doors, what remains then, but to pray, that the crude, sulsom, ill-conditioned Messes and Mixtures, and Liquors, which are fitted to those Notions, may be thrown out of doors also? And if there be so great an Alteration of Diseases (as I have proved) and they proceeding (for the most part) from new Causes unknown to the Ancients, and of a much more mysterious Nature than formerly, (great Alterations having fallen out in the narrow Compass of twenty years past) what remains but that we aught to think also of another way of Pharmacy, for making of new Medicines; and not to destroy Apothecaries, but to rectify and encourage them? As the Case now stands with them, they are under a miserable drudgery (and I have heard some of them sigh at it) that Custom prevailing for the use of so many Horrid Electuaries, Lohocs, strange contrived Pills, crude Drossy Syrups, endless varieties of unguents, and Plasters, most of which are useless (and were they meliorated would yet be of little use) they are obliged to drudge and toil to have all these things in readiness, or else they must loose their Customers; and if they have not Customers enough to take them of, they must stand and perish upon their hands; whereas if these were mended by preparation, and reduced to a very small number; or rather if the stream of their employment were turned, by putting them upon a Materia Medica form for the most part in the noble way of Chemical Preparation, they might, without that great ado which is made every year, provide themselves in one year for seven or more years, of Medicines not liable to corruption, and in the usage, of much more advantage and pleasure to their Patients. In the mean while, 'tis pity to see so many ingenious men as are of that Profession, one of the worthy Companies of this great City, condemned as it were to a Trade much like the Confectioners; the greatest part of which are, as things now stand, exposed to a Temptation to exceed their usual Bounds, and to relieve themselves, renounce obedience to their Galenick Masters; in which course, it is humbly submitted to better Judgement, whither they do right to their Friends and Countrymen, or not; and whither a Toleration may not be given them to preserve themselves from rvine, till there be more proper Doctrines and Medicines instituted, in order to the practice of Physic; for, what use can there be of that piece of state the mere Scholastic Doctor, when the Apothecary sometimes must direct him, and at all times, as well, if not better, understands the Medicines, than he that seldom hath seen the making of a Medicine? or why should the sick be put to a double Charge for their cure, when as a common knowledge of the use of common Medicines is likely to tender them more effectual in the hands of an Apothecary, that useth them in such a Method as his own experience and Mother-wit will direct him, than in the hands or by the Prescript of such a Titular Doctor, as follows only that erroneous Method hitherto commended by the Schools? For my part, were I in a sick condition, and ignorant of the Art of Physic, and were there a necessity that I must submit to a Cure in the old way of means, I would rather commit myself into the hands of a prudent Apothecary, or of any prudent Practiser that is no Scholar, than venture my life at the dispose of any other Practiser that pedantically pins himself up to the old Scholastic Learning and Medicines; because he that is no formal Doctor will probably follow his own observation and experience, as he finds things altered in the Age and Climate wherein he lives, and so may hit on a cure, because he projects to himself such Means and Method, as seem agreeable to suuh Alteration; whereas a Doctor that is inspired with the Divinity of Hypocrates and Galen, having heard them boast in their Books, that their Maxims and Remedies are little lesle than infallible, and will hold so, in all Ages and Countries, to the end of the world, usually comes with those narrow antiquated Notions to the management of a Cure, and so must needs miss the mark, because things are otherwise now (though he will not believe it) than they were in the days of old, or in the Countries of Greece, Italy, and Arabia, from whence the common Oracles and Compositions are transmitted to us. Therefore doubtless the Apothecaries have reason to desire Favour in order to their Support and Maintenance; and the Sick, in many Cases, may with reason make use of the one, as well as, or without the other: And, admit there be a necessity (as there seems to be) of other Doctrines and Medicines in this Age and Quarter of the world, then certainly if the Dogmatic Physicians will not be converted, the Apothecaries have reason to leave them, and betake themselves more fully to the Study of Chemical Philosophy, and Chemical Preparations; and 'tIS advisable for them to fall upon this course betimes, if they mean to preserve their Trade, because now adays Princes, and Nobles generally apprehended the usefulness, gentleness, pleasantness and mighty power of Medicines so prepared, and what a Fulsomness and Insufficiency there is in the other: So that while it gains ground every day among the ingenious part of men, it is easy to foresee what the state of Physic will be after twenty years more are past, when Death shall have disposed of some few Practitioners, that are (as they think) too old and wise to learn better things.  
Tis not to be presumed I can be an enemy to a company of men so considerable, and of so great ingenuity as the Apothecaries, because I wish a Reformation of their Shops, that they may be eased of that yoke that is imposed upon them, and furnish themselves with finer and lesle bulky Medicines, such as may invite Physicians of the new and nobler way to employ them; which cannot be expected, till they have laid aside the other Medicaments: For otherwise, necessity will constrain Physicians to erect Laboratories, and take to the making of such Preparations within the compass of their own Houses, as will better fit and furnish them, for a finer and more delicate course of Practice. And if this Advice will not be harkened to from me, they may do well to given ear to a learned and most ingenious Member of their own Profession, I mean Monsieur Le Febure, the King's Royal Professor in Chemistry, and Apothecary in ordinary to the Household, who having dedicated to his Majesty the Book called A Complete Body of Chemistry, directs also an Epistle Entitled To the Apothecaries of England, wherein he tells them, that he hath, and always shall have the same Tenderness for them, as he hath had for his own Countrymen the French Apothecaries: That the end of his endeavours in his undertaking is, to advance the dignity of Pharmacy, that is to say, the Art of the Apothecary, which now lies bending toward its rvine, if it be not upheld by its true Arches and Pillars, the faithful learned experienced and curious Physicians; and that you may perceive he doth not mean the Galenick Doctors, he names those notable Chemists of the French Nation, Doctor Duhan, late public Professor at Sedan, Doctor Clos of Paris, who (as he saith) did him the favour to correct his Defaults, and led him by the hand through all his endeavours; and Doctor Vallot the French Kings chief Physician at present, under whom he served as that King's Apothecary, to perform operations by his direction for a true course of Pharmacy, which is Chemistry; so that you see the chiefest Physicians of our neighbour Kingdom have for some time been labouring to settle the Profession of Apothecaries upon a new and better, viz. the Chemical Foundation: For a little after he saith, He gives nothing in his Book to the Apothecaries but what he first received from the Physicians, so that it is to them only that they own the obligation. And he invites the Apothecaries to a falling to a more true and legitimate course of Preparation than formerly, as the only means to attain better Remedies and Compositions; and tells them, that he hath undertaken this labour for their sakes, because he never yet found one that hath taken the pains or care, to show and discover punctually the manner of operating upon things to preserve their virtue and correct their defaults; and that they may observe the difference there is in the correction of those Medicaments which are made according to the opinions and directions of ancient Pharmacy, with that which is directed and commanded by the Modern, viz. the Chemical; and that they may observe likewise the Envy and Malice of those that carp at and rail against Chemistry, whilst they through ignorance exclaim, that this admirable Art is not employed by its followers, save only on Poisons, whereas they will found Chemical Preparations of Animals and Vegetables, as well as of other things.  
Now other Apothecaries perceiving, not only by the words of this Apothecary Royal, but by the current of the stream of Practice running every day in other Nations and our own also, toward this new and more safe, as well as delicate way of preparation of Medicines, grounded upon a new and more certain Philosophy than the Scholastic, must needs be at a great stand what to do; for, in regard that the pedantic Galenists, and the Semi-Chymists of the Town, know not how to attempt a cure, but by prescribing the old stuff, in pursuance of the old Dogmatical Learning, therefore the Apothecaries must have that stuff in readiness, or else they loose the benefit of that sort of Practice: and whereas on the other hand, the later and more excellent Brood of Physicians do every day run under the Wings of Chemistry, and addict themselves only to Experimental and more rational Learning, and to the inventing and using of more noble Medicaments than the Shops as yet afford, there is a necessity lying on these Physicians, for the good of their Country, as well their own honour and content in the discharge of a good Conscience, to decline the use of that old fulsome (and for the most part) unwholesome stuff (the best of it being but dull languid, and of little efficacy to encounter the strange Hydra's of Diseases in this Age, or so much as to reach them in their lurking Dens and Centres of residence or retirement) and so not finding in the Shops what is agreeable to the new, they instead of sending Bills thither (as the fashion is) are constrained either to make Preparations in their own Houses, or else borrow and buy of one another what they know to be right and fit for their purpose: by which means most of the Apothecaries are strangers to them, and loose the greatest part of advantage, which otherwise might accrue to their Society by this new and nobler way of practice. What remains then for remedy and support to so worthy a Society as the Apothecaries, but that they should for present maintenance be indulged to make use of their own Medicines, at their own Discretion, among the Sick, seeing the prudent part of them understand the nature of them, and the old road of practice belonging to them, as well as (if not better than) the Galenists? For, unless numerous Families be impoverished, there seems to be a kind of necessity of such indulgence, till the old Galenick Formalities be reform, or laid to sleep, and a more useful state of Pharmacy, and of Physical learning, can by degrees be admitted and settled in their place, that so the Shops and the Physicians may mutually correspond again, and flourish in due time, by being established upon more sure Foundations, and upon a more rational course of Practice, than ever can be attained to by a pursuance of the old Scholastic Precepts, Methods and Medicines; which appear every year more fruitless and Wormeaten than formerly, and a very few years experience more will given them a Passport.  
For, most excellently speaks Fernelius in this, as in many other things, who though he died a Galenist, it must be imputed to the time wherein he lived, rather than his own default; for, though the noble Art of Chemical Experimental Philosophy and Physic lay then very much in the dark, yet the notable brain of that man had form to himself many more sublime Notions touching Nature and her operations, than the common Cramb of the Schools afforded; as may be seen by that refined Piece of his De Abditis Rerum Causis, concerning the hidden Causes of Things; which whoever reads will found he had so much good Philosophy in his head, as had he lived in this Age to see what we see, would quickly have brought him of to an embracement of the profession of Chemical Physic. For, he seen well enough, that Diseases in his days began to altar, and gives us to understand, that if there be an Alteration of the state of them, it must be also in the state of Medicine.  
In his 17. Chapter 
* De Abd. ●er. Causis.  treating of the occult powers of Medicaments, and of occult Diseases, he shows, that neither of them are to be considered according to the ordinary way of calculation upon Qualities, Temperaments, and the like. By occult Diseases he means such as do not lie in a distemper of Elements and Qualities, but have a higher and more secret Cause, which is termed à tot â substantiâ destructive of Nature. By occult powers of Medicaments, he means such as have a higher and more secret Faculty or power provenient à tot â substantiâ, to oppose and conquer those occult Diseases, without consideration of Temper or Distemper arising from Qualities, etc. In a word, by occult Diseases are to be understood such new ones as have a Malignity in them, which tender them not definable by the common Schemes of Galenick Philosophy; and occult Medicaments are to be apprehended such, as by a specific or peculiar power oppose and subdue Diseases, rather than by contrary Qualities and Tempers. But take him in his own Expressions, and he saith thus: I have (saith he) already shown, that there are those occult silent and secret Powers in things, and that they are contained within the limits of Nature: For, 
* Si occulti Morbi, necesse est & contraria illis, occultáque remedia, existere.  if occult Diseases at any time arise, there is a necessity that there should be occult remedies contrary to them. There is nothing in this whole world, to which Nature hath not produced somewhat that is like (or agreeable) and somewhat that is contrary, although it cannot be found out by our diligence. Therefore, as against Diseases proceeding from Distemper, we oppose virtues which are of a Distemper contrary; and against Diseases proceeding from matter, contrary faculties of matter; and against instrumentary Diseases, the second powers or virtues of Medicament, which arise from the powers of the Temperament and of the matter mixed together: So truly in occult Diseases à totâ substantiâ, it is necessary that nature should provide contrary powers, which are themselves also occult, and by disagreement à totâ substantiâ contrary to them. For, shall we think such strange Diseases should lie as incurable and destitute of proper remedies? or that nature should be so exceedingly defective, as not to afford us things necessary for life? Therefore in the nature of those Faculties and Qualities, which slow à totâ substantiâ, many orders or degrees are to be placed, whose extremes are contrary: Of these some are disagreeable, and wholly enemies to us; on the contrary, others are totâ substantiâ both friendly and familiar, and as it were preservative of our life. These are they which are customarily called the occult Proprieties of Medicaments. Thus far he; the result of which Discourse is, that if a new and occult nature of Diseases doth at any time start up, there must be occult new and noble Arcanaes made use of to cure them. To which Testimony of Fernelius, let me add also that of the best of the old Physicians, I mean the prudent Celsus, who tells us in his Preface, that there do often hap new kinds of Diseases, of which no Account can be given by common experience. And therefore it in such case is necessary to consider upon what account they began; without which no mortal man can understand, why he should use one Remedy rather than another. Now to apply this to our present business; seeing I have made it in some measure apparent, what the Reasons and Causes are of the strange Newness that is in all manner of Diseases; and the new Causes being known how it began; and Celsus affirming the Remedies must be proportionate to their Nature, and consequently new; and Fernelius avowing, that occult and mysterious Diseases must have mysterious Medicines to cure them; and the Medicines of the Shops not reaching the mysterious nature of the Maladies of this Age, but being the best of them but languid, because most of them proportionated only to the exterior Phenomena of Diseases, and not aiming at their internal central natures or essences, but being devised to answer and qualify obvious Qualities and Temperaments in the main of Medical practice, and of the Compositions thereto belonging, the use of them is to be left to such as neither know nor seek after better, if they can get the Sick to submit to them any longer. Petet autem Medicus novum Consilium, non à rebus latentibus (istae enim dubiae & incertae sunt) sed ab his quae explorari possunt. When the world is at this pass, then (saith Celsus) it concerns the Physician to entertain new Counsel, not deriving it from things latent (for those are dubious and uncertain) but from such as may by inquiry be made manifest: and this prudent Admonition (I say) should excite all Physicians in this Age of Wonders in Diseases, to entertain new Counsels for the invention of Medicines which may suit with the variation of Diseases. What fulsome odious violent stuff was in use in the days of Galen! which if a man should now use, he had need have a Farrier's Horn to force it down the throats of his Patients. Afterwards, when the state of Medicaments was amended by the Arabians, they being (as 
* Epist. Med. lib. 2. Ep. 2.  Langius observes) Medicamentis Graecorum Medicis opulentiores, stored better with Medicines than the Greek Physicians, though the use of Rhubarb, Senna, Cassia, Manna, and other fine things, was brought on, and better Compositions invented; yet they remained still mighty loathsome and ill-conditioned: And last of all, when Chemistry began to show itself, and held forth a greater purity of Medicine, after the Hot Heads of the Galenists then ruling had been cooled in their Graves, and their Reproaches buried with them, their Successors by degrees began to refine their Practice, and meliorate the Shop-Compositions, and what they did of that nature was done by virtue of Notions borrowed from such as they in scorn termed Paracelsians: and yet after all that they have done to this day, though they cannot so amend the old Slops and Messes, as to make them friendly to nature, and acceptable to the Stomach, they still retain them, because they are loathe to take pains to learn new and better means of practice; for, as Monsieur Le Febure well saith, 
* In his Preliminary Discourse.  they think it becomes not them to set their hands to work, to attain a true knowledge of mixed Bodies by Chemical Anatomy. They, and their Sectators, imagine they should wrong their Gravity and Doctoral state, to desile and fully their hands with the blackness of Coals; to which saying of his, let me add, that it is much more ease and profit, to lie a bed when the name is up, or instead of viewing old Books to spend their time in Studying old Nurses, and Midwives, with the Creatures, the Humours, and the Interests of Families: this is quickly done with a Diploma in a man's Pocket to authorize a Doctor. But (that I may continued the words of that ingenious Frenchman) the Course of Chemical Philosophers and Physicians hath been quite contrary; their learning lies not in Philosophical Maxims raised by contemplation, but are persuaded that operation aught to be joined to it, to attain full delight and satisfaction, and lay firm and sure Foundations to their Reason; being unwilling to build upon the quick sands of vain, frivolous, and fantastical opinions: which makes them willing to undergo the charges, Toil, and labour of practical Chemistry, and not be discouraged by watch and ill scents and savours, that they may the sooner attain to a solid and delightful knowledge of the works of Nature, and found out by the several experiments of their works and Processes, the abstruse Causes of her wondered effects. For, it is a very difficult matter for any to attain to the exact knowledge of things Natural, without the previous guidance of Chemistry, and an acquaintance therewith; neither can any be reckoned a perfect Physician without the help of Hermetick Philosophy, since it is the truest ground of Physic, without which no Practitioner can deserve any other Title than that of Empiric. It is not a Gown, nor a Degree taken in Universities, which makes a man a Physician, but a solid knowledge of Nature: To which I may add, that it is not a crossing the Sea, to buy that Degree abroad in Foreign parts, and a returning home swollen with Title and confidence. But there is a Theory belonging to Chemistry, as well as a manual operation. The Theory directs to a knowledge of the real parts and principles of mixed Bodies; and he who is not acquainted with them is a mere Empiric, though perhaps puffed up with Scholastic Learning, seeing he is altogether ignorant of the internal Principles of the Bodies of men and Living creatures, and of Vegetables and Minerals, and is therefore unable, either to invent a proper Medicine, or to given true Physical reasons why he doth administer such or such a remedy for such or such a Disease, because he considers not things real, as the Chemical Physicians do; and he knows not, that the rare Prescriptions of Chemistry have their Medicines grounded, not upon the actions of First and Second Qualities (which the Galenists are want to mind) but upon the internal Specifical virtues of their Chemical Principles. Thus far then I enlarge in the Sense of this most ingenious Artist: by whom it is sufficiently intimated, that the Medicaments of the Galenists imposed upon the poor Apothecaries, being grounded upon the low Notions of Qualities and Temperaments, cannot reach to the Centre of any considerable Disease. But that they are so grounded, you shall not take my word only for it, but have it acknowledged by one of the best of the Galenists themselves, I mean Langius, who in his time was chief Physician to five Princes Palatine of the Empire; and after he hath found fault with the vain Compositions used in Shops, concludes thus, 
* Epist. Med. 76.  Nec Medicamentorum Compositiones rectè Methodo concinnatas despuo, quas cum contrarietatis proportione oporteat morbo esse analogas. Remediorum igitur & Medicamentorum compositionis esse easdem Indicationes Galenus asserit, & recta curandi morbos ratio quae contrariis constat, exigit. I do not despise such Compositions of Medicines as are made according to a right Method, which aught to answer a Disease by a proportioning of Contraries. Galen affirms, and the right Method of curing Diseases, which consists in Contraries, doth require, that there should be the same Indications of Remedies, and of the composition of Medicaments .Than he goes on, and shows what Galen's conceit is touching a Disease; a Disease he makes to consist in Diathesi, an ill Disposition; and what is this ill Disposition? he makes it to consist in a preternatural state of Hot, Cold, Moist, Dry, etc. (as Helmont in many places throughout his work doth sufficiently mention, and confute it as a Fancy); and so according to the Galenick determination, not only the public Medicaments of the Shops, but the private Bills and Prescripts of the Galenists, are framed to this day; as may be seen upon the File in the Shop of any Apothecary; for, as in their Definitions of Diseases, they consider the ill Dispositions in Qualities as Diseases, whenas they are indeed but the Products and Consequents of Diseases; so in order to the work of curing, they generally proportion the Compositions of Medicines by the old Rule of Contraries, pretending thereby so to temper Ingredients which are of a nature contrary to each other, that out of their strife or contrariety, there may result a Medicine of such or such a Temperament, ●s they fancy may be proper to encounter such or such a Distemper or ill Disposition of the Sick; and thus they trifle about the Shel, but never touch the Kernel, never reach at the essential part of a Disease; whereas the Chemical Physicians, neglecting qualified Dispositions and Temperaments, consider the real Principles of human Bodies, as they do either in excess or defect, or any other enormous state whatsoever, contribute to the forming of a Disease; and accordingly in their analysing of mixed Bodies ordained for Medicine, they make an examen of the very same principles contained in them, and so order the Principles in the framing of a Medicament, that there may be in it a proportion of them, answerable to the same Principles in the body of man, and fitted to restrain, rectify, or encounter them when they in any wise are exorbitant, or peccant: So that in this way of curing, there is an accommodating of real Principles in Medicaments to the very same Principles in man's body, as grown irregular, and by consequence causative of Diseases. Now, Utrum horum Mavis, accipe ,choose which you please, and let the world judge, which Sect of Physicians is most likely to understand the nature of Diseases, and the fitting of Medicaments to cure them; whither the Galenists, whose way is not to acquaint themselves with those Constituent principles, which are visible in the Chemical anatomising of mixed Bodies, but rest in mere Traditional Doctrines and fantastic opinions, wrapped up in general Conclusions and Definitions of pretended Principles, and of Diseases, the mere Products of wit and opinion, than which, as my Lord Bacon saith, there is nothing more Polydaedalous, various and uncertain (the Brain of man being a wondrous winding Labyrinth of Conceptions); or whither the Chemists, who build their Philosophy or knowledge of Nature in man, and in Medicaments, and in Diseases, upon real operations and productions of things natural, which they see, feel, and handle?  
Nor are we to consider the Medicaments of the Shops only, as devised upon an Insufficient Foundation of reason, as to the principles considered by their Authors in the Devising of them; but to look upon the very Frame of them, and observe what want there is of due correction of Ingredients, and how both Pure and Impure go all together in the Mass; and then it is considerable what an endless number of Kindreds and contraries are jumbled into a Body, whose Virtues strangulating one another, a Virtue different arising from them all, is supposed to be the curative power inherent in the whole Composition; and all that they can say for their Treacles, Electuaries, and their other Trumpery, is this, That they have by experience been found good for this or that Distemper; and who then I pray you are the Empirics? Are not they that make Medicines by jumbling Ingredients at adventure, and then pled experience that they have done good, though the Mass be so made that the maker hath no rational ground to assure him it is good for this or that purpose? And shall not those men be reputed much more the Rational Physicians, who from their knowledge of the essential Principles of things do so form their Medicaments, that they have a certain ground wherhfore they put in this or that, and prepare things thus or thus, from solid reason leading them by the hand towards the accomplishment of their work? One years proceeding at this rate in a Laboratory by a knowing Artist, shall produce Medicines of true nobility and worth, both Catharticks, Cordials, etc. such as will in virtue (not to mention pleasure) weigh down all the bulky stuff that hath been since the days of Hypocrates, or that can by assistance of the Galenick way be invented to the end of the world.  
Nor let men think that I am without Authority for what I say, even from the most learned and ingenuous of the Galenists themselves, who thought there was great need of a Reformation of the Medicaments of the Shops, and accordingly have complained in their Write: But I shall cite only one, and that is the aforementioned Langius, in the same place of his Epistles; where he falls heavy upon the Apothecaries, and makes such Practisers also to be not better than the meanest Empirics, who by an ambitious and vain 
Langii Epist. Ubi suprà.  ostentation of a Plurality and great Bodies of Remedies, suppose those Medicaments to be the better, which are without Method made up of a world of Succedaneums, Roots, Stones, Metals, Herbs, and Flowers. And then he goes on thus, Nostri Logiatri omnia ad inanem ostentationem, in unum pharmacum numerosum, veluti in confusum Chaos conglomerare solent; quibus Pharmacopolas magis locupletant quàm aegros alleviant; that is to say, our mere Talkative Physicians are want, out of a vain ostentation, to heap together all things into one numerous Medicament, as it were into a confused Chaos; by which they enrich the Apothecaries rather than ease the Sick. This is very much condemned by Plutarch in his Symposiacks, 
* 〈◊〉. l. 4.  and derided by him, and he brings in the Testimony of Erasistratus, a Physician in request before Galen, and of a better Temper, upon the rvine of whose reputation Galen endeavours to raise much of his own.  
But though Langius speak so hardly of Apothecaries, it aught not to be charged upon all; the Fault is not in them, but in their Galenick Masters that impose on them a continuation of such Medicines, and hold the people (as well as they can) in an opinion of them, for the carrying on of their own dull dilatory way of Practice, which of all things under Heaven cries loudest for a Reformation; and the more ingenious sort of Apothecaries, which are not in confederacy with them, would rejoice in it as much as any, as a very great Deliverance. For, the stuffing of Bills with abundance of Ingredients is that which they sigh at as much as any. Therefore Mr. Boil would persuade Physicians out of this Humour; they should 
* Exp●r. Phi●. Part. 1. p. 239.  be persuaded (saith he) to decline that more frequent than commendable custom, of stuffing each Recipe with a multitude of Ingredients: For, I think Physicians may well be more sparing, as to the number of the things prescribed, than most of them use to be, both to save charges to their Patients, and for other Considerations. The addition of needless Ingredients to the Bulk of the Medicine makes it but the more troublesome to be taken, and the more apt to clog the stomach; besides, oftentimes the efficacy of the more useful Ingredients, as well as their quantity in each Dose, is much abated by their being yoked with those that are lesle appropriate, or lesle operative. Besides, it seems a great impediment to the further discovery of the virtues of Simples, to confounded so many of them in Compositions. For, in a mixture of a great number of Ingredients, tis so hard to know what is the operation of each, or any of them, that I fear there will scarce in a long time, be any great progress made in the discovery of the virtues of simple Drugs, till they be either oftener employed singly, or be but few of them employed in one Remedy. And besides all this, whereas when one of these Mixtures is administered, the Physician expects 
Pag. ●39. ●40.  but such operation as is suitable to the Quality which he conceives will be predominant in the whole Compound, several of the Ingredients may have particular Qualities that he dreams not of; which working upon a Body that the Physician considers as subject only to the Sickness that he endeavours to ●●re, may therein excite divers latent seeds of other Distempers, and make new and unexpected Commotions in the Body. And a little after, the learned Gentleman hath these words; I fear, that when a multitude of simples are heaped together into one compound Medicine, though there may result a new Crasis, yet 'tIS very hard for Physicians to know beforehand what that will be; and it may sometimes prove rather hurtful than good; or at lest, by the Coalition, the virtues of the chief Ingredients may be impaired rather than improved; as we see that crude Mercury, crude Nitre, and crude Salt, may be either of them safely enough taken into the body in a good quantity; whereas of Sublimate, which consists of those three Ingredients, a few grains may be rank Poison.  
And to show what a poor esteem he hath of the best reputed Medicaments of the Galenists, he proceeds thus : As for those famed Compositions, Mithridate, Treacle, and the like, though I cannot well commend the skill of those that first devised them; and though I think that when two or three simples may answer the same Indications, they may be more safely employed, yet I would by no means discommend the use of those Mixtures, because long experience hath manifested them good in several Cases. And in a word, though I had not the respect that I have for Matthiolus, and other famous Doctors that devised the Compositions, whereinto Ingredients are thrown by scores, if not by Hundred, yet however I should not reject an effectual Remedy, because I thought it proved so rather by Chance, than by any skill in the Contriver: And I think a wise man may use a Remedy that scarce any but a Fool would have devised. By which words of his, though couched as tenderly as may be, you may see what pitiful stuff he reckons those Antidotes to be, which have till of late been held in so great estimation, but are daily growing out of date, because Diseases being altered, they are of Service only in the slighter sort of Maladies which consist in Distemper; and though he handsomely brings it in, yet he doth as good as say the Authors made a business of them by chance, and that there was nothing of a sure Principle that guided them in the Contrivance.  
Certainly then, it is high time to look towards other Principles to direct us in the inventing of Medicines proper for the Age wherein we live; nor are we to look only to Principles, and the state of Diseases in this Age, but we are also to have regard to the Climate, and Country where we live, if in the framing of Medicines we will fit them right for the purpose to which we intent them; for, what will cure in one Climate or Country, may either kill, or make the Sick much worse in another Country, there being a kind of Crasis Temper or nature in one soil, and under one Sky, both as to Men and Things, which is different from those in other parts even of the same Country, much more in the remoter parts of the world; and therefore I do not see how we can, even for this cause, conceive that Medicaments, and Methods of using them, borrowed from Greeks, and Arabians, and other Quarters of the earth, can with reason be relied on, with so much Authority and confidence, as our ruling Galenists would persuade us at this day. I remember what prudent Celsus saith 
* In praesat. , differre quoque pro naturâ locorum genera Medicinae, & aliud opus esse Romae, aliud in Aegypto, aliud in Gallia; that is to say, the Kinds of Medicine aught to differ according to the nature of places, and that the work of curing is one thing at Rome, another in Egypt, and another in France. And that there is a different or lesle efficacious effect in one and the same thing used in different Countries, appears by a Drug now grown into common use in England, I mean Coffee, which Prospero Alptnus 
* De Mediciná Egypt.  relates to have abundance of virtues in that Country of Egypt, of which we found no effect in England, save that it serves to make a Liquor harmless enough in rheumatic Bodies, for ordinary conversation, like other Drink, but not for any considerable peculiar uses of Medicine, as in Egypt; where it is not only common Tipple, as here, but a noted Medicament also in many occasions of Sickness, though as to the same purposes here, it be wholly ineffectual. Besides, somewhat of difference is to be attributed likewise to the different manner of Life, Customs, Diet, and other Circumstances, which make people ●ven of the same Country differ from one another, much more people of divers Countries; which no Body will deny that considers the various effects of the same Medicaments administered in the North, and in the South of England; or to Gentlemen, Citizens, and Clowns: And therefore, I remember, Langius, in his forecited Epistle, commends to us the consideration of Domestic Medicines, calculated with an agreeableness to our own Country, Natures, and Cases; and the use-of them, rather than the Medicines devised by Foreigners. Indeed 'tIS a wonder to see, how a few Authors of one or two particular Countries, have, through the ignorance of mankind, for many Ages, imposed Medicines, as of universal use for all the world.  
By Domestic Medicines, I mean not such only as are growing at home in our own Fields and Gardens, but such Artificial Medicines also as are fitted to that which the Greeks call Idiosyncrasia the peculiar Temper of our Bodies as we are Englishmen, and to the condition of the Diseases of our Country, there being as great a difference in the proprieties of the Diseases of distinct Countries, as there is in the Natures of the people. It were to be wished, that Simples of the growth of our own Country were more used, and the knowledge of their Virtues better improved; and then certainly much more might be effected by them than yet we see; especially, were our Diet and Drinks more Simple and lesle Luxurious, and people more temperate, doubtless mere Simples might be of much more efficacy, because our Diseases would be more Simple, and much lesle Complicate than they are seen to be. But seeing we live in an Age, wherein there is a conjunction of numerous Luxuries, which men acquaint their Bodies with in their manner of living, there is no relying upon Simples in the greater Diseases; but there is a necessity of using Art to the utmost, till there be a more Temperate world; and all I contend for is, that in making use of Artificial Preparations, we should not rely upon devices of Foreigners, nor suffer them to be imposed upon us (as they have been of old to this day) as the only things to be rested on in case of Sickness, and upon that account up-held by Physicians for common use unto the People: but when we have occasion to make use of Medicines, the only way is to seek out such as are by our own Countrymen devised, with a regard to the peculiar condition of Nature in our own people, and to the altered state of Diseases among us. Upon such consideration as this it was, that Hadrianus à Minsicht quit the Prescripts of the ordinary Dispensatories, and framed a store of Medicaments for his own Practice more suitable to the Country where he lived, and much more pleasant than those Torments (meaning the common public Medicaments) 
* In Praesat. ante The saurum Medico-Chymicum.  which (he saith) are so nauseous, loathsome, and abominable, that they are neither easily taken, nor held; yea rather, men are miserably crucified, the whole body put violently out of order, the Ferment of the Stomach perverted, the native heat oftentimes mortified, and the natural strength and vigour much abated: which are the usual effects, especially of their Pills, Electuaries, etc. In the room of which, he tells us, he had devised such Medicaments as were fitted to these times, the places, and the people where he lived; being new in respect of Method, and so new, that the newness of Diseases, which in this most frigid old age of the world, and as it were new Age of maladies (ever and anon starting up and increasing, and which were utterly unknown to the Ancients) doth seem not so much to persuade, as to exact and command this newness also of Remedies. For, if it was commendable in the Ancients, yea and in the Physicians of all Ages, rather than unblameable, that they in their Compositions and Prescripts of Physic, had every one a respect to their own Air or Sky, and their own people, both Greeks, Arabians, Spaniards, Italians, French, etc. who who will blame me, or take it amiss, that I in my Prescripts do accommodate myself to our Countrymen, and these Northern Parts, especially the Inhabitants of the Lower Saxony, and of the Baltic Sea? Thus plainly Herald And truly, if his example were followed by some of the surly stately Sirs of the Faculty, sometimes to handle Coals and the Bellowss, sometimes the Pestle and Mortar, and ever and anon to be sifting and observing the new natures of Diseases, and the nature of our own people, and not look upon them through the false Perspectives of old Authors, the Nation had not been now to seek of remedies proper to its condition, nor would so many every day run away from their unprofitable Recipes, grounded upon old Foreign Gallimaufries, to seek, after tedious patience and expenses, a remedy from the hands of such as they disdain by the name of Quacks and Empirics; which Title better becomes some of those that would be thought the Learned, in whom the Title of Learner would at this time be much more honourable and commendable than that of Doctor, till Practise be meliorated, and the People sensibly found that the old unprofitable Learning be laid aside, and the pride which belongs to it, by having Diseases better understood, and more speedily and effectually removed. We every year see, the common Custom of the Sick is (especially if they be pursful, and desirous to be cured in state) to run the round of all the Galenick Messes, and after that a Methodical solution hath been given to the Purse-strings, with Phlebotomies enough to the Purse as well as the Body, then when 'tIS a shame to hold people in hand any longer, they are even turned of to the blessing of Tunbridge, or Epsam, or some such place, where if they be not cured by the Chemistry of Nature in those Mineral-waters, then, to the honour of those Physicians be it spoken, who are scandalously termed Empirics, into their hands they fall as the last Refuge, where the world seethe how often they receive a Cure; and 'tIS observable to reckon what numbers of people have been ready to attest the Truth of this, when the ruling Galenists have to no purpose endeavoured to vex the Practitioners.  
Here therefore it cannot be amiss to repeat what is said by Monsieur Le Febure concerning the Galenists: they buzz in the ears of the weaker and more timorous persons, and Sex, that they are to take heed of Chemical Physicians and Medicines, as dangerous, because they deal in Minerals, and so are but pleasant Poisons; * It is confessed (saith he) that many Remedies 
Part. 2. Book 2. p. ●●. 110.  in Chemistry are taken from the Family of Minerals: but for all this, it must not, nor can it be granted, that they are Venomous, or contrary to the nature of man's body; and to affirm it, is the height of Ignorance: For, if ancient Physicians have used them crude and raw, as they were, without any preparation, as may be seen in Dioscorides, Galen, Pliny, and several other Authors; If some of the modern Galenists also have made use of them, as Rondeletius of crude Mercury in his Pills against the Pox; and Matthiolus, who put Antimony in practice, calling it by way of Excellency the Hand of God; and if Gesnerus hath done the like with Vitriol; Fallopius, with the Fil of Steel; and Riolanus, and many others, with Brimstone, for Diseases of the Lungs, why should Chemical Physicians be debarred from the same Remedies, after they have by separating Purity from Impurity, prepared, corrected, and devested them from the malignity and venom which they did contain? which is a much better way than the pretended correction which Galenists given to their Medicines, who pretend to mitigate the vices and malignity of their Medicaments, by the addition of some other substance, which usually hath in its self some particular vice and impurity; as is obvious in the Preparations of their 
* Th●s Vegetables are every jot an malignant, being crude as any Mineral whatsoever.  Hellebore, Spurge, Scammony, Coloquintida, Agaric, and some others which they pretend to correct by a simple addition of Mastic, Cinnamon, Cloves, gum Drag: Ginger, and the like. But I cannot better resemble the difference between their way of correction and that of the Chemists, than by using a vulgar comparison touching an unskilful Cook, that in dressing of Tripes should think it enough to boil them with sweet Herbs, and never wash or cleanse them from their inward impurity.  
However the matter stands in D●spute in words, yet in very deed many of the Galenists seeing their own old Remedies very insufficient, and lesle pleasing, cast half an eye upon Chemistry, and are content to use such common Medicines of that sort as they can get from the Shops, but then 
* Pag. 111.  most of them (as Le Febure saith) do it by stealth; and those among them that would be thought quainter in practice than their Fellows, though they retain their old Learning, yet come on so far as to be Semi-chymists in the use of Medicines, dividing their practice betwixt the Laboratories and the Shops; and truly so far they do well, and they want but little of true conversion, seeing the only thing that remains to be done is a throwing aside of the old Principles and Methods, which not more agreed with the right order and Institutions of Chemical Practice, than the Laws of these Parts of the world do with the Government of Turkey, which bear as great a disproportion to each other as can be: to which they must likewise add a casting of the old Definitions and Descriptions of Diseases, and consider the Diseases of this Age under other notions and qualifications than they had of old. Therefore to stop the mouths of the Galenists fully (saith the ingenious 
* Ubi suprà, p. 110▪ 111.  Le Febure) take notice that they use in their Practice, though Emperically, Chemical Remedies, whither they be Natural or Artificial; as for example, do they not make use of crude Steel and Mercury, and many more natural mixed Bodies without preparation? Do they not use Spirit of Vitriol, Spirit of Sulphur, Mineral Crystal, Cremor and Crystals of Tartar, Crocus Martis Aperitive and Astringent, Salt of Vitriol, Sugar of Lead? And though most of them be unacquainted with Antimony, and the true time and Method of exhibiting that admirable Remedy, yet nevertheless they venture by stealth to given it their Patients, disguising it oftentimes with some Infusion of Senna, or some portion of their ordinary Pills; for, they mix Antimonial Wine in their Infusions, and Mercurius Vitae in their Pills. But that which is yet more to be noted and considered is; that when the Galenists, by the obstinacy of a Disease, are at a stand, and can not longer found in their Method a Remedy to cure, and eradicate the evil of it, because they never attained to a perfect knowledge of it, they use to sand their Patients to Baths and Minerals, as to the last Refuge; which practice of theirs makes them tacitly to confess, that there is in Minerals a more potent, penetrative and active virtue than in any other of those Remedies which they did put in pract●se before. This Truth is further confrmed by those remedies which are daily used by Chirurgeons with very good success, being for the most part compounded of Metals and Minerals; but those especially which do work with most efficacy.  
It is true, that Chemists do also sand their Patients to Mineral Waters, and enjoin them the use of them; but there is this difference betwixt them and the Galenists; that the 
* A prudent Clymical Physician knowing the nature of the several Waters, is able by skill, in his Study, even with common Water to make a preparation of Water equivalent to any of the Mineral Waters which are in u●e, that th●y who cannot go to the Wi●lis may be furnished ●●●●me.  Chemical Physicians are distinctly acquainted with the Sulphur, Salt, or Spirit, which predominates in the Waters by them prescribed; which the other Physicians do not, having but a confused and superficial knowledge of the virtue residing and hidden in these waters, and prescribing them only because others have used them before, not being able to given a Reason for the effects by them produced, much lesle to given an account of the efficient internal Causes of the same, since it belongs properly to the inquiry of Chemists, whose peculiar work it is to anatomise Mineral Waters, and demonstrate what Fire or Volatile substances are contained in them: And if the ingeni●us Artist finds not himself fully satisfied with the examining the Waters, he may further extend his inquiry in working upon the Earth's adjacent to these Mineral Spirits, and endeavour to discover what Metal most abounds in the Marc●sites growing about that place; which being done, it will be easy for him to found what Salt, or what Spirit, is the most likely to dissolve that Metal, and to mix and unite it so indivisibly as it is with the Water: and being thus instructed, he can never fail to assign pertinent and demonstrative Reasons, both of the effects and cause of the virtue and efficacy of those Mineral Waters. If it be answered, that Galenists do also given reasons for those effects, and assign them to the Salt, Sulphur, or Spirit predominant in the Waters; I reply, that they can never fully satisfy a curious Inquisitor and searcher of truth in Nature, by Reasons taken from the Doctrine of the Schools; but what light they have must be borrowed from Chemical Authors, and so far they are not more a Galenical Doctrine, since they reason only by the Principles and Organs of Hermetick Philosophy. Let us then conclude in the behalf of Chemical Remedies, and say, that they are the true weapons wherewith a Physician must arm himself, to conquer and extirpate the most stubborn and rebellious Diseases, even such as are held incurable by the ordinary Remedies of Galenical Physic.  
And yet for all this, the Galenists will not part with their old Scholastic Methods and Principles, though many of them come of so far as to make use of some of the ordinary Chemical Remedies, which prove the lesle effectual, because the use of them requires other Notions to manage them with advantage, even when they are best prepared. But that which is most considerable, and which brings a scandal upon Chemical Medicaments, as well as grievance many times to Patients, is, that the Galenists venturing to use them as they found them in the Shops, do too often light upon unlucky Preparations, such as are Crem Tartari adulterated with Alum; Calomelanos, the Emetic Powder called Merc. Vitae, and divers other Medicaments, which being made beyond-Sea by halves, or unskilfully, are bought at low rates, and brought in many times by Druggists and others trading in such Commodities, of whom Country-Practitioners and some Apothecaries do buy them, or else of mean Mercenary and unskilful persons who live in Corners, and venture upon the making of these edged Tools at lower rates than others; whereas the most industrious and ingenious sort of Apothecaries do, and the rest aught to make them carefully with their own hands, and to seek an amendment of those Preparations: but in the mean while, the fine fingered Galenist, whose fair hand is made only for feeling of Pulses, and so dares not fully them by raking in Cinders, leaves the validity of those Medicaments to the credit of others, and so the Patient is left to a miserable hazard; for, put case that one of the Ambulatory Doctors hath occasion to writ Bills for several Patients in a day, and in them hath occasion to prescribe those or the like operative Chemical Remedies which are in common use, perhaps the Patients live at several Ends of the Town, and so usually the Bills are sent to several Apothecaries, whom perhaps the Doctor never seen, much lesle knows whither they be honest careful men, or whither those their Medicaments be rightly prepared, what assurance can there be for the poor Patients? or what recompense be made them, if mischief be done by such a careless way of Practice?  
Besides, it is another error in practice, that in the most urgent and important Cases, when a Patient is upon the Vertical Point of life or death, as in extreme Case of Fevers, and the like, the common Road-Practiser is not furnished with some noble Remedies of his own, to interpose at such Critical Minutes, upon the efficacy whereof he might of his own knowledge surely rely, rather than leave the Patient to the cure of the Common-Cordials of the Shops, which (if they were of any powerful efficacy in their own nature, yet) do exceedingly differ in force and goodness, according to the various Preparations in the honest or dishonest, skilful or unskilful, diligent or careless hands through which they pass; yet Master Doctors Bills go to every Shop alike; that is, the Patient is ventured upon the reputation of any Shop he please to choose, or which the Doctor may commend, whereas in such Cases of extremity he should think it the best way to trust noon but himself, and rely upon no remedies but his own, which every good and knowing Physician aught, in discharge of conscience, to have in readiness upon occasion, seeing the lest excess, or defect in the nature of a Medicine, may at such a time, being relied on, be the destruction of the Sick.  
Hence it is, that the lesle literate and more Emperical Practisers, do oftentimes perform Cures in desperate Cases, when the Medicines prescribed by the learned Bills will do no good; the Reason whereof I cannot so readily ascribe to any thing else, as to this, that they are (for the most part) Masters of good Specificks of their own Preparation, to encounter Diseases in the most difficult plunging Cases, whose virtues they are sure of, & know that they may rest upon the use of them with safety. Which Sense of my touching this matter I the more willingly to express, because it jumps just with the observation of Mr. Boil in his 
* Part. ●. p. 220. & 221  Experimental Philosophy; where, after he hath told us out of Varenius and Almeida, how well Physic thrives among the Chineses, and the Japonians, where the unlearned Doctors use no blood-letting in their practice, and with reputation manage it, without that and other evacuations so frequently made here by Potions, and Issues, etc. wisheth that we had some of their Physic books to set our European Physicians to learn again: And having told us also, how the Art of Physic might be improved, if Physicians were a little more curious, to take notice of the observations and experiments, suggested partly by the practice of Midwives, Barbers, old Women, Empirics, and other illiterate persons, He saith, where the Practitioners of Physic are altogether illiterate, there oftentimes Specificks may be best met with, because such persons being want, for want of skill in Physic, and particularly in the art of mixing Simples, and in that of varying their Remedies according to circumstances, do almost wholly rely upon Specificks, whose virtues from their practice, may sometimes be better gathered, than from that of 
* Id est. Whose skill lies in old Book Learning, and the old Methodus Medendi.  skilful Physicians, in regard that those Empirics (besides that they assist not with any skill in the Methodus medendi the virtues of their remedies) are want to try to the uttermost of the effects of their few Specificks: And the nature of their Medicines may be the better known, in regard they are not want to blend them, as Learned men but too often do, with many other Ingredients, whose mixture either alters their nature, or makes it difficult to determine, whither the effect be to be ascribed to what is given for the Specific, or to some other of the Ingredients, or to the whole Compounds as such.  
And pag. 223, 224. the same noble person adds, that we should not disdain the Remedies of illiterate Practisers, only because of their being unacquainted with our Theory of Physic: nor should we by too great reliance on the Galenical, or other ancient Opinions, neglect useful Remedies, because presented by persons that ignore them, and perhaps too hold opinions contrary to them; therefore I leave you to consider what is in the person of that Emperical Sect, represented by Celsus, where having spoken of the darkness of the Causes of things, and the uncertainty of the Theorems of Physic, he saith, 
* In P●af.  that those speculations are of no concern at all to Physic, appears by this, in regard that those Physicians who differ in opinion from others about these things, have notwithstanding restored men to one and the same health. And this they have been able to effect, because they calculated their ways of curing, not from obscure causes, nor from natural Actions, which were diversely apprehended by them; but from Experiments, according as they conceived they might answer every one's Case: And truly, in the beginning, Medicine was not deduced from Speculative Notions and Questions, but from Experiments, etc. For though this Sentence ascribes too little to Reason, yet there is something in it that deserves to be considered; especially since we observe not, that the late Anatomical discoveries of the Motion of the Chyle, the Lymphatic Liquor, etc. by formerly unknown ways, in newly detected Vessels, hath yet made men cure diseases much better than before; not that I think that Anatomical and Pathological discoveries will not in process of time (when the Historia facti shall be fully and indisputably made out, and the Theories thereby suggested clearly established) highly conduce to the Curative part of Physic; but yet this observation may make it the more reasonable, to beware of relying so much upon the yet disputable Opinions of Physicians, as to despise such practices, though usually successful, as agreed not with them. Thus far from Mr. Boyl, out of whose Learned and Ingenious Book, I have already inserted divers passages of like nature, in the foregoing Chapters, and among the rest this, That he thinks it were no ill piece of service to mankind, if a severe Collection were made of the Cures of such persons as have recovered after a having been judged irrecoverable by the Doctors; which I am sure would redound unto no small reputation of such as they have scorned as illiterate, and unworthy of their conversation.  
But that which pleads highest in commendation of the meaner sort of Practisers, and which, if any thing, bespeaks it as the public Interest to connive at them, is, that without them, not only the rich many times remain uncured, but the poorer sort of people would be totally at a loss; For, Mr. Boyl well saith, 
* Pag. 138.  that though to cure cheaply be not properly and in strictness any part of the end of the art of Physic, which considers men's health, and not their purse; yet it aught in Charity, if not also in Equity, to be the endeavour of the Physician, especially when he dealeth with Patients that are not rich; for, not now to say any thing of the Fees of Physicians, which in some places are not very moderate, 'tIS certain that the Bills of Apothecaries, especially in Chronical Diseases, do often prove so chargeable, that even when the Remedies succeed, by that time a poor Patient is recovered, he is undone, and pays for the prolongation of his Life that which should have been his livelihood: Whence it comes to pass, that the more necessitous sort of people are either feign to languish unrelieved, for wa●t of being able to purchase health at the Apothecari's rates, or are deterred from applying themselves to a Doctor, till their Diseases have taken too deep root to be easily, if at all eradicated; And this oftentimes, not more through the fault of the Apothecary than of the Doctor, who in his prescriptions might, for the most part, easily direct things that would be much more cheap, without being much lesle efficacious. If this be so, I say the meaner sort of people were at a miserable pass, if they should be left without remedy, by the assistance of other Physicians, or be forced to wait the leisure of our Galenick Masters, till their Charity be greater.  
I for my part, am for Learning as much as any man, and have reason to be so, having been bred up in the Schools, and know it is of excellent use where it is rightly employed; but as for that which is commonly counted Learning in the Schools in order to Physic (which I doubt not ere long our Universities will reject) I conceive it not only useless, but destructive, misleading Practisers upon mistaken Principles, shallow Notions, and a wrong Method, to deal with the Diseases of this Age; and though the most ingenious part of those which follow the old Method, cannot but see the vanity of it, and of the old Definitions of Diseases, yet as long as Interest prevails, and the knot is not dissolved, expect no Reformation; For, Mr. Boil saith plainly, 
* Pag. ●03, 204.  that divers of the Eminentest Methodists themselves have more than once ingenuously acknowledged to him, and seriously deplored with him the incompleatness of their Art; and since about divers particular Diseases, we have observed the Method of some of the most reputed Doctors in England (which yet I think is at this day as well stored with Learned men of that Profession, as any part of Europe) not only very differing, but repugnant to each other, I suppose we may without disrespect to their Profession, descent from the most of them about those Cases, about which they are reduced to disagree so much among themselves. And it would be worth an impartial disquisition, whither since the Methodus Medendi aught to be grounded on and accommodated to the Doctrine of Diseases, the New Anatomical discoveries lately known, and others not yet published, do not by innovating divers things in Pathology, require some Alterations and Amendments in the Methodus Medendi.  
To this I answer, that perhaps they may; but let me add also, that the alteration of Diseases themselves, according to the description which I have made of its Causes in this Treatise, is that which cries aloud for an alteration, not only of the old Method, but of the state and composure of Medicaments also. As for the Method, it was never of a greater height of reputation, than in the days of Fernelius; and yet that excellent wit was not satisfied with it, but seen the vanity of it, and yet could not found in his heart to speak otherwise than tenderly against it; I cannot remember the Chapter where, but can recite the words, and they are these, Qui Methodum, scilicet Scholasticam, in omnibus nimiùm pertinaciter exquirit, pariter cum Morbo hominem de Medio tollit: which is, that he who in all points too pertinaciously insists upon the Scholastic Method, doth together with the Disease remove the man out of the world. And if he in his days seen there was a necessity of being lose from it, is it not a miserable thing to see, that men learned, and of reputation in the world, should tie themselves (for the most part) to it in this new state of Diseases? I remember, Oswald Grembs doth tax them for it tartly, in the Preface of his second Book, that though they make use often of Chemical Medicaments, yet they administer them according to the Galenick Method; but though in this (saith he) they would seem very Methodical, yet in truth they are no better than Empirics, while they given Chemical Remedies, but are ignorant from what ground they have their operation; for (saith he) if they know not from what cause Spirit of Sulphur gives relief in Fevers, not because tis cold, not because tis hot, not because it cuts and attenuates, but because it extinguisheth the hot Fermenting Alkali, which is the occasional, internal, and continent Cause of Fevers, then they cannot be called truly Methodical Physicians, because ignorance of the true cause renders them Empirics, and because if they perform a Cure with those Remedies, they know not why, or what they do.  
And yet truly, they are to be commended, rather than derided in the use of them, because though they be ignorant of the true Method of using Chemical Remedies, in regard they are unacquainted with the Nature and Reasons of the preparation of them, yet much good may be done in the administering by their hands, forasmuch as the excellency of the Medicines doth very often produce a good effect, notwithstanding a defect of Method in the application of them. And this also Mr. Boyl observes, 
* Page▪ 204, 205.  that the unusual efficacies of new Remedies, may probably make the Method of curing more compendious, because one Medicine may be so richly qualified, as to answer several Intentions, which in the common way require diversity of helps and Remedies. Thus for Instance, in the cure of the Kings. Evil, by the received Method the Physi●ian must propose to himself several Scopes (suited to several Indications) yet one single Medicine, without any sensible Evacuation, hath wasted the peccant humour, appeased the pains (which before were very great) discussed the unbroken Tumours, and healed the broken ones.— Thus according to the known Method, the great remedy in Pleurisies is copious Blood letting, which is strictly prescribed even to aged persons, and Teeming women, by the famousest of our Practitioners, and, I confess, not irrationally, where the Physician is furnished but with vulgar Remedies: and yet by some Helmontian Medicines we have known pleurisies cured, even in young men without Phlebotomy, and I some while since made a successful Trial.  
Also, that new and more generous Remedies may so far altar the received Methodus Medendi, as to make divers of its Prescriptions unnecessary, he gives a notable Instance of the Ricketss, one of the new and abstruse Diseases, by a slight preparation 
Ubi Suprà.  of Colcothar, experimented in divers children, which Remedy performs its work almost insensibly, save that in many Bodies it is (especially at first) Diaphoretic. Hereupon he saith, we may consider, that oftentimes the peccant Matter, 
Pag. 206.  though very offensive by its qualities, is much lesser than is supposed in quantity, and migbt, if we were but Masters of Specific Remedies, either be breathed out by insensible Transpiration, or carried of by Sweat or Urine, without tormenting, or weakening the Patient, by those other copious Evacuations of grosser matter, viz. Bleeding, Purging, Vomiting, Issues, etc. which are always troublesome and painful enough, though not always effectual. Nay that even in Chirurgery itself, if those that practise it were as knowing as Nature is bountiful, there would not be so often a necessity, as 'tIS commonly supposed there is, of multilating or tormenting the Patient to recover him. For certain it is (as he saith in 
* Pag. 1●4.  another place) that the Charges and Trouble of taking Physic may be very much lessened; and that if we did look after a deeper insight into Nature, we might by discovering the true Causes and Seats of Diseases, found out such generous and effectual Remedies (whither Specificks, or more Universal Arcana) as by quickly freeing the Patient from his Disease, may exempt him from needing either much Physic from the Apothecary, or many chargeable visits from the Doctor.  
And that this is to be done no other way so likely as that of Chemistry, he a 
* Pag. 196.  little after affirms, that by this very means, if men want not curiosity, and industry to vary and prosecute experiments, there must necessarily arise such a store of new and active Medicines, that in all probabilty many of them will be found endowed with such virtues as have not been, at lest in that degree, met with in the usual Medicines, whither simple or Compound, to be found in the Apothecary's Shops.  
Indeed, there are (saith he in 
* Page 405.  another place) certain Preparations and Compositions so lucky, and whose success doth so much exceed expectation, and the efficacy of common Compositions, that the same Physician, whose they are, may upon several occasions, prescribe an hundred others, each of which he may think as rational as any of those, which nevertheless shall all of them be inferior thereunto; and for instance, he makes mention of Sir Theodore de Mayern's peculiar way of preparing Salt of Steel, which he used with great success in many obstinate Diseases.  
Now my end in reciting all these Passages, is, to given some countenance to my own Conceptions, and the Judgement of others, who long for a renouncing of the ancient Methods and Medicines, while I express their Sense in the language of so noble an Author, who is so far from approving that piteous pedantic Humour, which causeth the whole Driven of Galenists to lie down, take their ease, and set up their Rest in a supposed sufficiency and perfection of those old Traditional Notions and Remedies, that he by his own industrious example of working, as well as writing, labours to excite others to higher Inquiries, and greater Achievements, by Chemical operation. And whereas many of the Galenists, being by tract of time convinced of the safety and efficacy of Chemical Remedies, have wheeled of in part, and in the use of them are become parcel Chemists, he concludes his Book with Advice to them, that they should not, by those common Chemical Remedies which are sold in the Shops, make a Judgement of those higher and more noble ones which may be produced, according as the Art of preparing Materials shall be promoted. Nor are they to rest upon the use of those Common Chemistries only; for (he saith) 
* Page 186, 187.  I must take liberty to add (and that upon serious consideration) that the Chemical Preparations hitherto common in Dispensatories, are, as to the generality of them, sarr enough from being the most dextrous, or noble, that can be devised. For, our vulgar Chemistry (to which the Shops own their venal Spagyric remedies) is as yet very incomplete, affording us rather a Collection of lose scattered (and many of them but casual) Experiments, than an Art duly superstructed upon Principles and Notions, emergent from severe and competent Inductions. And therefore till the Principles of Chemistry be better known, and more solidly established, we must expect no other, than that very few vulgar Chemical Remedies should be of the noblest sort; and that in the preparation of many other, considerable Errors should pass unheeded, and Faults gross enough be apt to be mistakenly committed.  
And in 
* Pag. ●96, 197.  another place he saith, he must particularly inculcate this, that if we had but a few petent Menstruums to unlock Bodies, or Alkahestick Liquors which can resolve a great variety of Concretes, without having their virtues, I say not impaired, but destroyed thereby, I scarce know what might not be done in Chemistry.  
But whereas the Cry of the Galenists is, that though the Chemical Physicians boast high of the virtues of their Remedies, yet they fall short of their Promises, Let me advertise you (saith the 
* Pag. 394.  same learned Gentleman) that if divers Chemical Remedies have seemed upon Trial lesle effectual than indeed they are, it is because they have been tried by such Physicians, as weaken their efficacy by not administ'ring them as they should: For, some Physicians will never exhibit a Chemical Remedy, till the Patient's strength hath been almost tired, if not quite spent with the unprosperous use of divers other clogging and debilitating Medicines. Others are so difsident of Chemical Remedies, that they never dare exhibit them in a full Dose, nor by themselves, but will blend a small quantity of a Chemical Medicine with other Ingredients, which either constitute with it a Medicine of new Qualities resulting from that Mixture, or at lest much clog or enervate the activity and virtue of the Chemical Ingredients; by which, even in so inconsiderable a Dese, these distrustful Doctor's dare yet require that great matters should b● performed. And another sort of Physicians there is, 
Pag. 394.  who are of so despondent, or rather partial an humour, that if a Chemical Remedy or Specific, do not presently perform the hoped for cure, though they found that even upon their disadvantageous manner of administering it, it doth good, yet they will quickly desist from the use of it: And because it doth not do wonders, they will not scruple to affirm that they have tried it, and found it do nothing; whereas they are want to continued their own Courses of Physic without Discouragement, though it be usually some weeks before the Patient found any good by them, and oftentimes the Patient is, by the tedious course of Physic he hath go through, very little bettered, if not much impaired, as numbers of the Printed Observations, as well as daily experiences, do testify. Which (saith he) I speak, not with an intention to disparage Physicians in general, the most learned and ingenious of them being free enough from the partiality which I here take notice of, but to keep good Remedies from being disparaged by the Envious or unskilful Trials of bad Administrers (as, say I, most of the Semi-Chymical Galenists use to be.) And though indeed some Chemists are so vainglorious, or unwary, as to promise', that the operation of their Remedies shall be as well sudden, as effectual, yet if the Medicines themselves be found available, although not swiftly so, that slowness aught to make us but condemn the Boast of the man, not reject the use of the Remedies. For (as he saith 
* Pag. 296.  a little after) sometimes the Patient's Constitution makes the Medicine prescribed by the Receipt unfit to be administered; and sometimes too, the Disease for which the Receipt is proper, is in the Patient complicated with some other distemper, which may be as much increased by the Specific, as the other Disease may be lessened. Of which he gives some Instances there, too large to repeat.  
Another Trick of the Pedantic sort of Galenists, and a very common one, is, that if Chemical Medicines be administered, though they be of the noblest, the safest, and best prepared sort, and much more gentle and efficacious (as generally the meanest of them which have due Preparations are) than any they can pretend to out of the common stuff of the Shops, yet if the Patient prove not curable by them, but draws down to death, and if the Forerunners of death be, as in many Cases they are, great Pains and other dire Symptoms, then knowing that the more ignorant and fearful sort of people are, even by the malice, or ignorance of such Physicians, as well as by their own Phantsies, made prejudicated against the name of Chemistry, those Physicians craftily take occasion from thence to work upon people's weakness, and buzz into their ears that those afflictive Conflicts of Nature and the Disease are caused by the Chemical Remedies, than which (I say) rightly prepared, there are not safer Remedies in the world. Upon this account it is, and by such subtle Insinuations (which are the Arts they have leisure to study, and little else to do, because all their Do lies in a Pen and Inkhorn and a Recipe) that they hold some part of the people in bondage to this day, though the greatest part are by time and observation grown too wise now to be bugbeared by them any longer. When Chemistry first began to open the eyes of the world, O then there was nothing but Fire and Faggot against it, because the Galenick Masters were disturbed by the Lift that it gave to old Ignorance and Error; whole Colleges began to ring against it as a new Art of poisoning the world, yea and not lesle than an Invention of the Devil, as the many Books they then set forth against it, do show, and among the rest, noon is more fierce than that which was published by the College of Paris against Sir Theodore Mayern and the famous Quercetan; and the numerous bitter railing Invectives contained therein against Chemical Remedies, I might here insert, were they not too tedious. Let it suffice to know, that they railed against things they understood as little as some of ours do at this day, being such Remedies as made those two persons men famous in their generation all over Europe, and yet Galenick Ignorance and Envy was so bold, as to condemn them by public sentence (touching which you have had an account in the first Chap. of this Treatise) and not only them, but the whole Art of Chemistry itself. And yet it was not long after, that these angry men the Galenists began to cool a little in consideration of the harmless and noble effects of some of the Medicines, the meanest of which they seen were able to effect greater Feats in curing, than the best of their old ones; so that after they had grumbled and gazed and repined and paused a while, they began to venture to use some of the more common sort of them. O, what, Mercury and Antimony! they were not once to be touched so much as with a pair of Tongues: But at length they did venture both upon Mercurial and Antimonial preparations (to their praise be it spoken) and these they are even to this day so fixed upon (I mean the more common preparations which they have settled the use of in the Shops) that most of them rest there, and care not to budge an inch from them, to busy themselves either in Meliorating them, or inventing higher and nobler Medicaments of that kind; nor do some of them willingly afford a good thought or word for any that are invented, or that are put upon improvement and advance by the industry of the more laborious Chemical Physicians; to whom (next under God) this new Age of Diseases is beholden for their Cures in most of the Chronic and most obstinate Cases; as every days experience doth now abundantly manifest.  
And therefore that advice of Mr. Boyl falls in very pat here, when he tells us, 
* Pag. 390, 391.  We must not be so timid as to suffer ourselves to be persuaded, that if a Patient miscarry after the use of those Remedies, the fault must necessarily belong to the exhibited Medicine. For oftentimes Nature will in despite of Remedies make a Metastasis of the peccant matter, and thereby impair the condition of the Patient; and much oftener before Death, the Conflict of struggling Nature and the conquering Disease, doth manifest itself in horrid and dreadful Symptoms, which some envious or ignorant Doctors (for the more learned are want to be more equitable and lesle partial) do injuriously impute to the Chemical Remedy given before the appearing of those Symptoms, not considering that the like Accidents are want to attended dangerous Diseases, and dying People, where Galenick Remedies only, and no Chemical ones at all have been administered. And that divers of the most Eminent and Methodical of our Modern Physicians, scruple not now to use frequently both Crocus Metallorum, Mercurius Dulcis, and some other Chemical Remedies, and to impute the miscarrying of the Patients that use them to their Diseases, rather than the Medicines; though not many years since, all the frightful Symptoms accompanying the dying People to whom they had been exhibited, were considently imputed to those Medicines. Thus he. To which let me add, that as it is nothing but Pride, Laziness, and Covetousness, which hinders some men of this Profession from being a means by their Interest and Authority to beget a more general esteem of Chemistry, as is due; and from giving a good example by industry unto others, to promote the invention of nobler Remedies, more fit for the occasions of this Age, than the common ones; and from owning truer Principles of Philosophy conducible thereto; so there is no question, but a little more Observation and Experience of the people, touching the truth of these things, will in the revolution of a very few years, enable the meanest to make a Judgement between things and People that differ, and totally disable Calumniators in their old Practice, not only of Physic, but of scandalising the more rational Practice, and the more excellent Remedies of other Physicians.  
And yet truly, I would not be mistaken, I am not so much for the use of Chemical Preparations, that the Fabric of Curation should rest wholly upon them, exclusive of the use of Simple and Single Specificks, which Nature herself hath prepared for us; I have collected such store of them by conversation with the meaner People and Practisers, which the Learned (as they would be counted) are want to scorn, and of so great efficacy have I found them, that I have no reason but to applaud rather than exclude them, and admire the wisdom and mighty power of the Creator, that hath endowed plain things with extraordinary virtues.  
Nor am I (as the same noble Gentleman 
* Pag. 1ST, 159.  speaks) of the humour of some Chemists (for there are faults on all hands) and of others that practise Physic, who so dote upon the Productions of their Furnaces, that they will scarce go about to cure a cut finger, with lesle than some Spagyric Oil or Balsam, and in slight distempers have recourse to Chemical, and perhaps to Mineral Remedies, which being for the most part such as vehemently altar the body, they do oftentimes more harm than good, when employed in common cases that need not such active Medicines. And methinks those that practice, as if nature presented us nothing worth the accepting, unless it be cooked and perfected by Vulcan, might consider, that Paracelsus himself often employeth Simples for the cure even of formidable Diseases. And though for particular reasons, I be inclinable enough to think that such searching and commanding Remedies as may be so much of kin to the Universal Medicine, as to cure great numbers of differing Diseases, will hardly be obtained without the help of Chemical Preparations, and those perhaps of Minerals; yet as to most particular Diseases, especially when not yet arrived to a deplorable height, I am apt to think, that Simples, or other unelaborate mixtures, may furnish us with Specificks, that may perform much more than some Chemists are want to think, and possibly be preferable to many of their costly Magisteries, Quintessences, and Elixirs. Helmont himself, a person more knowing and experienced in his Art, than almost any of the Chemists, scruples not to make this ingenuous confession, 
* Helmont Pharmacy. & dispensat. Nou. p. 458.  I believe (saith he) that Simples, in their Simplicity, are sufficient for the curing of all Diseases. And he elsewhere truly affirms, that there may be sometimes greater virtue in a Simple, such as Nature affords it us, than in any thing that the fire can separate from it. And certainly, the Specific properties of divers, if not most Simples, are confounded and lost by those Preparations, etc. And as for the long and tedious Processes of some Chemical Preparations, he spends two 
* Pag. 160, 161, 162.  or three Pages to show, that lesle elaborate and more skilful ones would procure Medicines of much greater efficacy. For (saith he) 
* Pag. 187.  it is not the elaborateness, but the skilfulness of Preparations, that produceth the noble Remedies; and a few Teeming principles well known and applied, will enable a man with ease to make better Remedies, than a great many furnaces and Glasses, though never so well contrived, and though very useful in their kind: And of this he gives an instance in the preparation of Opium, which in the Shops is imperfectly done by adding Saffron, Cinnamon, and other Aromatical Drugs to make it into a Laudanum, whereas (he saith) the correction is better performed by a digestion of the Opium in wine that is impregnated with an equal weight of the Salt of Tartar; the great power of which Salt, to correct the most violent as well as Narcotick Ingredients, may be seen by that Pil called Matthews his Pil (the Invention whereof is now claimed by an other Artist in Chemistry) wherein there is a great quantity of white Hellebor as well as Opium, and the grand corrector is that Salt of Tartar. The truth is, a good Mother-wit, that can reason out the Nature of mixed Bodies, whither Vegetables or Minerals, by examining those Chemical Principles of which (we see) they are composed, may do very much with the Simples both Vegetable and Mineral, without much straining by long preparations; I know it experimentally, only by making Mixtures, and Infusions, & Fermentations, without the concurrence of Fire, or Furnaces; & how much I have achieved by this plain way, I may given an account of hereafter; and particularly in the examination of Roots and Plants, some by Inciveration, but most by Infusion in several Menstruums, and many times by Mixtion of the Juices with each other, & with other Liquors also, and sometimes by mere single putrefaction of the Plants themselves; which courses who ever will follow, may found a way to given a better account of the nature of Herbs, and other Vegetables, than the world is yet acquainted with; very little having been known of Herbs since the days of Dioscorides, but what come by mere chance; for, the Herbalists have but written after his copy, and transcribed out of one another's Books; and the Galenick Masters (have for the most part) considered only the outside qualities of hot, cold, moist, dry, etc. and by estimate of these endeavoured to pry into their Natures, so that they still rest in the dark Chaos of unknown virtues, or hidden Qualities; whereas if they would take that Bunch of Keys, the sublimer Notions of the Principles of Chemical Philosophy, and use them, they might even by common little ways of Operation and Experiment, unlock the Simples, and look into the more essential part of their Natures; for even Vegetables may come to be understood this way, as well as the parts or Principles of Minerals come to be Analysed and Apprehended by the help of Fire, and more elaborate operations.  
And truly, this course of handling Vegetables, I take to be every jot as Chemical, as if they were examined only by Fire, like the Minerals, and aught to be Characterised by the name of Chemical Remedies, because he who makes the inquiry to invent them, is guided therein by reasoning according to the Principles of the Chemists. Nevertheless, this is not said to lessen the repute of that good way of examining and improving Vegetables, as well as Minerals, by the help of Fire and Furnaces; for nothing is more necessary than that helps in every way be made use of, for discovering the nature and virtues of all mixed Bodies; and hitherto we have been beholden (for the most part) to the fire for our discoveries, and are like to be; so that the hinting and offering of a new way of discovery can be no prejudice thereto, but all courses aught to be taken to improve the knowledge of the virtues of Vegetables as well as Minerals, because Vegetables are most for ordinary use, and when they will not do, then Minerals are often of most concern in the more desperate and deplorable Diseases. Therefore, tis a great mistake in the common sort of people to think, that Chemical Physicians deal only in Minerals; and that mistake of theirs hath given occasion to Scandalisers to work upon their Phantsies an aversation from the Chemists, whereas noon deal more in Vegetables and parts of Animals than they do, for the making of Medicines; only Mineral Medicaments are used upon occasion, and may be with as much safety as the other, at the discretion of such Physicians as take care of the preparation.  
And certainly, one may easily conclude, that their Knowledge and Discretion is most to be relied on, who are best acquainted with the Phaenomena, the operations and Mutations of Nature in Natural Bodies▪ and according to them are able to consider and make a due estimate both of things natural and proper in the Frame of Medicaments, and of things preternatural and exotic in Diseases, and from the consideration of real Principles, prevailing in the one, and peccant in the other, proportion their means and Methods of Curation accordingly: this prudent and most natural Course is that, which guides the learned Chemical Physicians in their Inventions of Medicines, and in the application of them. For Chemistry is without Dispute the truest Handmaid (as Mr. 
* Part 2. p. 35.  Boil calls it) to Physiology, and will not a little contribute to clear up the nature of Digestions, and of those Deficiencies or Aberrations in them, which produce a great part of Diseases. And truly, though Chemistry should never have brought to light any considerable Medicine for the use of men, yet it is praiseworthy, and to be encouraged even upon this Account, that besides the unlocking of parts and principles in mixed Bodies, the operations thereto belonging are made use of by learned men now adays, to illustrate the Doctrine of Diseases. For, let me once more cite what Mr. Boil saith, 
* Ubi supr●.  that since the Liquors contained in man's body abound, divers of them, with Saline or Sulphureous Parts, He that hath been by Chemistry taught the nature of the several sorts of Salts and Sulphurs, and both beheld and considered their various actions upon one another, and upon other Bodies, seems to have a considerable help to discourse groundedly of the Changes and Operations of the Humours, and other Juices of the Body.  
Thus the present learned Professor of Leyden, Francis de Le Boe in his Medical Disputations, illustrates the Alterations and Secretions of Juices and Humours in the Body by the operations of Chemistry; and when he comes to that part which con●erus the 
* Dispu●. ●.  Process of the Chyle both in the Stomach and the Bowels, Let me (saith he) for the manifestation of that Process, which hath hitherto lain hid quasi in Democriti puteo, call in to my counsel and assistance, Chemistry, an Art which produceth things admirable and stupendious every day, and is certainly of principal use in the discovery of natural Mutations, and in some Particulars, if I may speak it, exceeding Nature herself; the most profitable and only necessary Means, for the constituting of Natural Science, and a solid Body of Physic. And in 
* Disput 3.  another place, I shall not (saith he) as others have done hitherto, consider the nature of Diseases according to the Etymological definitions, whereby the Essences of them are very ill explained, and the sick worse cured, men resting in former time upon a dubious, barren, and sometimes mischievous Grammatical Disquisition of Terms in the Art of Physic; but my principal care is about the laying of such a solid Foundation of the Art of Physic, as may be fit for the better sort of Practisers, who desire to contend with Diseases, not wrangle about Phantsies; and therefore is aught to be, by the help of Sense and Reason, derived from the true Fountains of things Natural and Medicinal, that we may, by a Chain of Reasonings thereupon, be led to a finding out the true Causes of any Distempers whatsoever, and the right way of curing them. In prosecution of his purpose, he hath (as Doctor Willis did before him) from the Fermentations and effervescencies, alterations, and quietatious of External Liquors, endeavoured to illu●●●ate the like of the liquors in the Body of man, as to the causation & curation of M●ladies.  
It is of great use to observe the alterations befalling these two B●●ds (or as it were Ligaments) of the P●●ts of mixed Bodies, the Salt and the Sulphur. It is the Principle of Water which dissolves that of Salt (as may be seen in Hydropic Bodies;) which that Principle called Sulphur (the oily part) cannot do, but submits to the Fire, which the Salt will not do: and if while the Principle of Sulphur is added to Fire, the vapours thence elevated have not free egress to spend themselves ●●●o●d, they are ready to extinguish the Fire, and enervate its operation. Just so it fares many times in man's Body, when the Vital Flame thereof by some accident is hindered from making a due dissipation of an abounding Balsamic Sulphur in the Blood: For, even as a Candle burns, so doth the Lamp of life, by a convenient vicissitudinary supply and dissipation of oily matter, viz. of that Sulphureous Balsamic Alimentary Juice which is added every day. It were too tedious to Philosophise at large upon these two Principles in reference to Sanity and Sickness; therefore I cut short.  
Hitherto, Spittle hath been looked on as almost a mere Excrement; but he who considers, that if the Spittle be either defective or vicious, the work of Concoction goes not right on in the Stomach, will admit it to be an useful Ferment, consisting principally in a proportion of Water, Salt, and Spirit; and when the Stomach through its default is put out of order, he that attempts to cure it without a Notion of these things, may possibly by some lucky Stomachick Medicines relieve and assist the Stomach, but never throughly amend the Causal Default, unless it be by mere Chance.  
Boil also hath, till Helmont opened the eyes of this Age, been thought an Excrement, but now men begin to be of his opinion, that it is one of the noblest Ferments of the Body, separated from the Arterial blood, and serving for many uses, and particularly subserving to the motion of the Chyle, after it is passed from the Stomach to the Intestines, by promoting the Peristaltic Motion of the Guts; and that the Chyle being a Substance impregnated with a Volatile Spirit, a Lixivious Salt, and an acid Spirit, by the Fermental Action of the Stomach, becomes in the Duodenum impregnated by a far greater quantity of Lixivious Salt, and somewhat more of a Sulphur, or oily nature, and of a Volatile Spirit, than it had before, in order to its further Process in the Milky Veins and in the Heart, till it put on the rudimental Form of Blood; which Chemical Notions whoever is ignorant of, will hardly be able to understand the Nature of those many Diseases called Bilious, with other Distempers incident to the Stomach and Bowels, and consequently be lesle able to apply such Medicaments as may meet with them, according to the predominancy or exorbitancy of either of those Principles, ingredient either in the Chyle, or in the Boil; from whence arise abundance of fretful and frightful Diseases, especially in Children. As for Instance, when the Ferment of the Stomach, or the Boil, grown extravagant through the over acidity of the Spirit, or through excess or adustion of the Lixivious Salt, causeth Frets in Children, or Torments of Belly in elder people, then the Galenick Medicines usually given to lenify, dulcifie, and altar the matter, and pacify the Bowels, prove for the most ineffectual, whereas other Medicines administered by the hand of a Chemical Physician, which are severe in appearance, but having in them a power of strangulating those Saltinesses and Acidities which 'cause the Distemper, do immediately put an end to it. After this manner have I seen that severe corrosive Liquor called Oil of Vitriol by addition of the Acid Oil of Tartar, or of the Salt of Tartar, loose that Corrosive acidity which it had before. Not that I would have Oils of Vitriol and Bohemian-tartar used by any to do the like, in such Cases, within the Body; but I mention the Experiment, only to illustrate my Discourse, and convince the Reader, that a learned Chemical Physician, who understands these things, and thereupon knows immediately, from sure and rational Principles, how to form a Medicine, is the man more surely to be relied on for Cure, than the common Galenists, who rest upon old Notions, and general Shop-Medicins; and are usually strangers to the Properties of things, as they are discoverable by the genuine Principles and Operations of Nature. Thus those Acidities abounding in Quartans are often cured by Liquefactions of Sandivere, or of common Salt after its being calcined, a convenient number of Drops being duly exhibited in some proper Vehicle. And if those Acidities or Acrimonies be dealt with by Medicaments abounding with a Volatile Salt, they are immediately lenified: Just as Spirit of Wine being cohobated with Spirit of Salt, they so attemper each other, that the one loseth its Fervour, and the other its acrimonious Acidity.  
Thus in the many frequent Distempers, which arise from Ebullitions of sharp and acid Liquors in Scorbutic Bodies, in which Cases the common Galenists presently are for blouding to alloy them, a learned Chemical Physician, being Master of such Medicaments, as have power immediately to altar, pacify, or precipitate those Acrimonies and Acidities, performs the work, without any such damageable diminution of Blood, which is the grand Vehicle of vitality; and the draining of it in such Cases, brings the Bodies of Patients to such a Pass, that after once or twice relieving them by it, the most dangerous Consequent is this, that when they fall ill again, they look for it, and (Custom proving Another Nature) can have no relief without it, till the habit of the Body being destroyed by Iterated Phlebotomies, there remains no more place for the practice of that, or any other Remedy whatsoever.  
It is not above a Fortnight since, that a youth lying in a very Feverish state, with an ill Cough, I perceiving it come from a Wormatick Cause in the Bowels, ordered him a Cordial impregnated with such Alkalisate Salts as might altar the matter, kill the Worms, and abate the Feverish Heat, all in one; which a certain Doctor being brought in by some of the Friends to view the sick, having tasted, he said there was strong water in it, and 'twas too Hot, and sharp, and no more to be used, etc. because little considering the Worms in the Case, and that when that Cause was removed, the Fever and Cough would end of itself, he concluded from the heat it was a Hectic Fever, and so aught to be plied with cooling Pectorals; but the Boy two or three days after, avoiding a Worm, immediately recovered, without more ado. I had not mentioned this, but to show, how apt such Physicians, though otherwise learned, are to be mistaken by the outward consideration of Hot and Sharp, and other First and Second Qualities, when they go no further to ground a Judgement concerning the nature either of Diseases, or Medicines.  
But what saith noble Mr. Boil upon this subject? 
* Part. 2. p. 28, 29.  He that finds (saith he) that there may be acid Juices in the Stomach, and in other parts (as is frequently evident in the sharp Liquors which many Stomaches cast up) and that there are also Sulphureous Salts in the Body, as is apparent in Blood and Urine, which abound with such: He that observes how acid Liquors loose their Acidity, by working upon some Bodies, as Spirit of Vinegar grows almost insipid upon the Coral it hath corroded: and how those Saline Liquors, by working upon certain Bodies, degenerate into Salts of another nature, as we have sometimes observed in Oil of Vitriol working upon the Fourth part of its weight in Quicksilver; and how the contrariety of Acid and Sulphureous Salts makes them sometimes disarm, sometimes, after some ebullition, Precipitate each other, and sometimes unite into a Third substance of a differing nature from either of those from whose Coalition it results, as we see in Tartar Vitriolate, and (as I have observed) in a Salt which I sometimes make to emerge from a due proportion of Oil of Vitriol and Spirit of Urine, freed, after conjunction, from their Aqueous Moisture: And he, in a word, that hath carefully Analysed and made Trials on many Parts both of the Macrocosm and Microcosm, and heedfully applied his Experiments made on the former, for illustration of the Changes observable in the latter, shall be likely to explicate divers particulars in Pathology, more intelligibly than he that is a stranger to Chemistry. And so from some observations of his own he concludes, That the generality of fermer Physicians have ascribed too much to the Humours, under the notion of their being Hot, and Dry, Cold, and Moist, or endowed with such other Elementary Qualities, and have taken a great deal too little notice of the Saline and Sulphureous properties of things. And that is the reason (I say) why the old Scholastic Learning is not sufficient to furnish us with any tolerable account, touching the Nature of Diseases, and the curing of them: But he who is able, being instructed by Chemistry, to reason out things according to the real Appearances made in the Operations of Nature, and who to the consideration of other substantial Notions joins also this, That all Fixed things may be made Volatile by the help of the Volatile Spirit alone, and that by the volatilisation of what is Fixed, and a Fixation of what is Volatile, many wondered incredible Tinctures and Mutations of Humours and Liquors, may arise within, as well as without the Body of man, shall be able to apprehended the condition and cure of most of the Diseases hitherto accounted incurable by Galenical Physic.  
And truly 'tIS great Pity, that noon of the Chemical Physicians have yet taken the Task upon them, to writ of the several Diseases incident to the Body of man in such a manner, as from Chapter to Chapter, to Philosophise at large upon each Disease and the ways of Remedy, by the mediation of Chemic Principles, Processes, Alterations, and Productions: For hitherto, the useful Notions of this kind that have been published, lie scattered in several Authors, and call aloud for a Collection by the hand of some learned Chemist, who may be able to improve them in Discourse from his own knowledge and experience, and be ready to take in also the Counsel and Contributions of the ablest Brethrens of the Faculty, toward the accomplishment of so needful a work. And if the Hints which I have here given, touching the influence or concurrence of Venereous, Verminous, and Scorbutic Ferments, in the Maladies of this Age, be of any value in men's eyes, I hope the admitting of them as Hypotheses will be of use to others, as they have been to me, in the curation of Diseases; for, the great Remedies that I rely on are so fitted to those three, that be the Disease what it will, Acute or Chronic, they shall reach at it, and the three, All in one: And if at any time I have had success more than ordinary in the curing of any, whither Infants or others, I ascribe it (next the blessing of God) to the putting of this Notion in practice; and the effects following thereupon have in time assured me, that I am in the right, therefore cannot but recommend it to others, that they may (if they please) ex propriâ Mineruâ form unto themselves such Medicines and Methods, as may answer the Design of this Discourse.  Oswald Grembs, lib. 1. cap. 1. De Cordis affectibus. 
Si Galenicorum Remedia Secundam, & Tertiam Digestionem non attingant, multo minùs Quartam, & Quintam.   
THE END.