Deliramenta Catarrhi: OR, THE INCONGRUITIES, IMPOSSIBILITIES, and ABSURDITIES Couched under the Vulgar Opinion of DEFLUXIONS.  
The Author, That great Philosopher, by Fire, Joh. Bapt. Van Helmont, &c.  
The Translator and Paraphrast Dr. CHARLETON, Physician to the late KING.  
{non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}.  ¶. Arist. de Caelo. 1. cap. 10. 
LONDON, Printed by E. G. for William Lee at the sign of the Turks-head in Fleetstreet. 1650.   

The Translator to the Judicious and (therefore) unprejudicate Reader.  
SO malevolent, severe, and uncharitable have the Censures of many (yet such only, I conceive, whose parcel-literature, and incapacity of the more solid and weighty Notions of Philosophy, delivered in most proper and significant language, have depraved their Appetite of Knowledge, and made them fit to digest nothing, but crude salads gathered in the Poets Elysium, and soft Romances, oiled with the effeminate Extracts of the Stage, and spiced with some new French-English idioms) been of my precedent exercise; that the World might expect from me rather a Vindication of that, than the Publication of a second, of the same kind. But as I ever leveled my endeavours at a far nobler end, than the nothing of vulgar Applaus: so also have I declared the temper of my Genius to be too Stoical, to feel the weak assaults of that cowardly pygmy, detraction; whom handsomely to overcome, is to scorn. For common observation will justify, that no man ever entered the lists with that ignorant bugbear, but lost much by the encounter: his judgement inevitably receiving such wounds, as the reputation of his Courage could never cure, or compensate.  
Nor shall I at all recede from this maxim, though I here adventure to profess, that next to the discharge of that duty, which, as a scholar, I owe unto the public, in the Explanation, Improvement, and Communication of obscure Truths; the most forcible motive, that incited me to bestow a few recreative hours on the Translation, and marginal Paraphrase of this piece of Helmont, was to have an opportunity of letting these Semi-criticks know: that though they have privately accused, yet would it have stood more with their Honour publicly to have convicted me of such improprieties of expression, or unnatural perversions of my author's sense, as might make me alter any thing of moment in the former, or change my stile in the present discourse.  
For though I am sufficiently conscious to myself of more defects, and greater unevenness of my Pen, than the acutest of my Calumniators can discover; and do account it more noble to detect my own, than others Frailties: yet I dare appeal to the sober Decision of any, whose Studies hold any proportion with the Subject, (and such only can I allow for competent Judges) whether the fine and mysterious nature of many things, treated of in that discourse, might not have suffered a gross Eclipse, if dressed in a mere-english veil? Whether it be a Crime in me to trace the footsteps of those Worthies, who have infinitely botb enriched and ennobled our Language, by admitting and naturalising thousands of foreign Words, providently brought home from the Greek, Roman, Italian, and French Oratories; which, though in the untraveld ears of our Fathers they would have sounded as harsh, as St. Paul's {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} 
* Ineffabilia verba. 2. Cor. 12. c. ver. 4. ; yet have a few years made so familiar unto us, that now even Children speak much of Latin, before they can well read a word of English? And to draw in to the centre of the scandal, whether I have merited the epithet of {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} 
* Qui venustatem verborum, non sensuum acumen insectatur.  of one that praefers the novelty, or affected elegance of the Phrase, to the nerves and importance of the sense; merely because I rendered some Physical Notions in terms most amply and adequately exhibiting their qualities; and those no other, but such as are most frequent in the Schools: and attempted to paint the beauty and life of Helmont's spruce Conceptions, in Colours most strong and natural; though borrowed from the more precise, distinctive, and emphatical Tinctures of foreign Artists?  
I can not but applaud the Spirit, and happy fancy of this Tetrastick, 
Legisti nostros? risisti, Romule, libros? 
Casp. Hofmannus in praefatione sua ad lib. de generate. Homin.¶   
Ut vidi, ut risi, Romule Dive, tuos.  
Quae Causa effectus paris in tam despair causa?  
Risisti ingenium tute, ego stultitiam.  And when any of the tribe of Zoilus shall show us something of their own, I may perchance be furnished with an opportunity of Applying them.  
But lest I fall upon a parergy, and loosely deviate into that sinister path, which my resolutions abhor; I return directly to my duty, which is to give the impartial Reader the Reason, which persuaded me to exhibit my Explanation of Helmont's unfrequent, and new coined, or new-applied terms of Art, in Latin. In a word, I conceived that the Quality of the Subject, intimated by each of those paradoxical Appellatives, being such as falls under the comprehension of none, but the leading part of learning, and chiefly those, who have more than looked into the mysterious Temple of Aesculapius, did necessarily require it: and that no English, how plain soever, could have driven their ample meaning into those skulls, which are so thick, as not to admit it in Latin.  
As concerning the Verity of these Paradoxes, inspersed upon the ensuing Treatise, though I have formerly declared my Aversation to attempt any Commentary on, or decisive Assertion of any of his Innovations; in regard I ever found his reason stronger at Demolishing the Doctrines of the ancient Pillars of our Art, then Erecting a more substantial and durable Structure of his own, his wit more acute and active at Contradiction, than his judgement profound and authentic at Probation: yet shall I usurp the liberty to say, that many of the Grounds of his quarrel against the Schools, in this particular of Catarrhs, are sufficiently justifiable; and that if any member in the whole body of physic needs to have its errors purged, stupidity corrected, distortions rectified, and leanness reformed, doubtless this capital one of Defluxions may chiefly deserve the industry of the present, and grateful improvement of the future Age. Nor should I have only said it, had not my expectation, that some more judicious and elegant hand will shortly set about that so necessary, charitable, and honourable task, whispered me, that this difficult, and (therefore) infinitely desiderable piece of knowledge, would unavoidably have suffered irreparable detriment, disparagement, and obscurity from the Contagion of my unequal undertaking. And I am bold to promise, that if any sober mind, imbued with that useful Lesson of Aristotle, 
Metaphysicorum lib. 3. cap. 1. & de Coelo lib. 1. cap. 10.  {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, shall come to the dispute, denudate of all interest, and purged from all the dregs of Adhaerence to either side; he shall soon be convicted, that in all that long flux of time betwixt the days of Hippocrates and us, no one (at least that ever came to our view) among the numerous swarm of Pathologists 
* Writers on the Diseases and Symptoms incident to the body of man. , hath discoursed of the nature and causes of such Diseases as are in vulgar practice confidently referred unto the Distillation of Rheums from the head upon parts of inferior situation, with such clear and uncontrollable reasons, as not to have left very large gapps, for the easy illation of these scruples and objections raised by Helmont against them. In brief; whoever shall so far contribute towards the advance of his own knowledge, as to receive the Arguments here opposed to the traditional Theory of Catarrhs, with that equal justice of improving them to that height, with which they are offered; will, I doubt not, afford us his concurrent vote: that the chief impediment to their prevailing upon the belief of many dissenters, will be their Novelty. For hardly do we part with those Doctrines, which instilled into our tender and unwary years, have grown up together with our understandings, and hold our credulities enslaved to an implicit conformity, by the tyrannous title of Praescription. A deplorable remora to the timely exantlation of Truth, long since discovered and complained of by the grave and yet most acute Stagirite, in these words: 
* Metaphysic. lib. 2. cap. 3.  {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}. Quemadmodum enim consuevimus, ita judicamus dici debere, & quae praeter haec non apparent similia; sed quia non consuevimus, ignotiora & magis peregrina. Consueta enim notiora sunt. I shall here so far exercise your candour and Patience, as to tolerate a short Digression (though pertinent and material) concerning this Cardinal cause of {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, or Indocibility. The Description of this vice of the mind, since most ample and elegant, I shall borrow from that Noble Enquirer into Truth, Mr. Hobbs, in his inestimable manual of Human Nature. If the minds of men (says he) were all of white Paper, they would, for the most, be equally disposed to acknowledge whatsoever should be in the right method, and right ratiocination, delivered unto them: but when men have once acquiesced in untrue opinions, and registered them as authentical methods in their minds; it is no less impossible to speak intelligibly to such men, then to write legibly upon a piece of Paper already scribbled over. The immediate cause therefore of Indocibility, is Prejudice; and of prejudice, false opinion of our own knowledge. The natural Reason of it I shall adventure to deduce from the slender stock of my own Philosophy. We judge of the truth or falsehood not only of things subject to the apprehension of sense, but also of philosophical and Religious opinions, as we have been accustomed from the minority of our understandings: and although many times we are greatly deluded, yet cannot the arm of the strongest reason bend us from our accustomed judgement. The ground of this is, that not only the 
Cur solitae opiniones placeant: insolitae, etsi firmioribus rationibus bus innixae, displiceant.  Images, or bare Ideas (I mean not those intentional species, so much talked of in common Philosophy, for I believe I could prove that there are no such in Nature) of those things have an existence in the brain; but certain Notes or marks of Rejection or Approbation are also superadded unto them, and deeply impressed upon the brain. These Images therefore being again offered unto the mind, we perceive not only the things themselves; but at the same instant, even without any haesitancy or accurate examination, yea though most convincing and firm arguments are sometimes brought to the contrary, with great violence, we approve or reject them according to the conformity or disproportion of those Notes formerly registered. The remove of which obstruction shall be the constant business not only of my studies, but also of my earnest prayer.  
Quae in Schola & Cathedra aliquando praeter tationem, plerumque ad acuenda ingenia juvenrutis, in theoria proponuntur, sunt toleranda: quae vero in praxi in perniciem aegrorum praescribuntur, potius execranda & damnanda, quam admittenda esse, existimo.  
Quid verum, atque decens curo, & rogo, & omn is in hoc sum.  
Condo, & compono quae mox depromere possim.  
Ac ne forte rogues, quo me duce, quo lare tutor?  
Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri,  
Quo me cunque rapit tempest as, deferor hospes.  
Nunc agilis fio, & mersor civilibus undis,  
Virtutis verae custos, rigidusque satelles.  
Nunc in Aristippi furtim praecepta relabor:  
Et mihi res, non me rebus subjungere conor.  
Poeta Philosophus ad vada Maeandri concinuit.  
W. CHARLETON.   

The Errors of Physicians Concerning defluxions.  

The Summary.  
1. WHo is the Lord paramount of Diseases and Nature, 2. Some suppositions, by way of premises. 3. The conclusion. 4. Proved from experiments. 5. The explication of the Position. 6. The Lungs the part which first dies. 7. Why the Author deserted the Schools. 8. The forerunner of miseries to old men. 9 Purging medicaments, why destructive to old men. 10. The testimonies that Physicians give of their own ignorance, fatal: because too late. 11. That axiom of Physicians desumed from the use of things beneficial and hurtful, worthy their blushes. 12. Errors of Physicians. 13. The ground of Paracelsus his inconstancy. 14. The Generalogy of a Catarrh, or rheum, like an old wife's fable. 15. Diseases imputed to Catarrhs. 16. How great calamity arifeth to mankind from thence. 17. By what means they make the sick their perpetual slaves. 18. The ordinary subtersuge of the Schools. 19 Thirteen Positions. 20 Nineteen Conclusions emergent from those Positions. 21. By a sufficient enumeration of Parts. 22. A Dilemma. 23. Some Absurdities. 24. Ignorance in the Schools, the sole Mother of Catarrhs. 25 The same Ignorance, the fountain of Absurdities in their method of Cure. 26. Shame, the Cause of the Schools instability, 27. A deniail of principles granted in the Schools 28. Whence heat is de●ived to the Liver. 29, The proof from unsuccessful remedies. 30. the toothache examined. 31. The digestion of the Tooth and Nails, different from the Digestion of all other parts. 32. A Catarrh upon the inward parts, demonstrated impossible, 33. The Pose, or Cold in the head, described. 34. Absurdities dependent on the opinion of a Catarrh falling upon the stomach. 35. An enquiry concerning the dropping of rheum upon the Lungs. 36. What distils from the 〈◊〉, in the beginning of a Cold, and what in the continuance. 37. An Argument ab im●●ssi i● against the Cause of the Cough, delivered by the Schools. 38. The original of the matter causing affections of the Lungs, declared. 39 The vanity and infertility of remedies, from want of knowledge. 40. The decoctions of China, Zarza, &c. neither dry up excrementitious humours, nor prevent their generation. 41. Some Absurdities growing upon this root. 42. What s to be observed in Affections of the Lungs, 43. The doctrine of the Schools, concerning the motion of the Lungs, false. 44. The use of he Lungs, not yet known to the Schools. 45. 21. Peremptory reasons against the vulgar opinion of the use of the Lungs. 46. The error of the Schools, concerning the use of the midriff, confirmed by 8. Arguments 47. 7. Conclusions ensuing thereon. 48. Why the remedies of Physicians are inefficacious and barren. 49 That the means vulgarly used for the prevention and restraint of Catarrhs, are mere fopperies, and dreams worthy only the heads of old women. 50. Galen wholly ridiculous in his Books of the conservation of health. 51. The Ignorance of the Schools, right worthy our pity and tears. 52 The dissection of a living Dog, hath deceived the Schools. 53. A new Error, concerning lohoches, or Lambativ medicaments. 54. They depend on the supposition of a Falsity. 55. Some probations. 56. Whence the delusion of Catarrhs was first introduced. 57 The refutation of an unreasonable and wild persuasion. 58 What that is, which imposeth upon our sense, under the delusive disguise of a distillation. 59 What the second and succeeding matter. 60. Men's ignorance of the Latex, or fountain o● serous humours, hath been the basis to the opinion of Catarrhs. 61. Preoccupation. 62. The torture of night. 63. The inconstancy of Paracelsus. 64. Those liquid parts, which are not yet made communicants of vitality in our bodies, hold no correspondence with the stars. 65. The marrow not accountable amongst the liquid parts of the body.¶   

SEasonable it is for us, now to declare, that the large Catalogue of Diseases, imputed to a distillation of rheum, from the head even to the extremity of the toes, without any obstacle impeding the descent, is an old wife's fable, invented by the common adversary of mankind, on purpose, lest the Causes of Diseases being known, their Remedies might at the same time be revealed. However it may be, yet at lest is it hence manifested, that the schools are, even to this very day, seduced by the errors of the Gentiles, in the point of the Generation of rheum, its defluction, manner, way, matter, means, places, and organs; as also of its Revulsion and Remedies. For false and absurd must that superstructure be, which is founded on an absurd and impossible Principle. For which reason, the vain and ridiculous hope, which is erected upon Cauteries and fontanelles, is in like manner staggered and ruined: as I shall, in convenient place, demonstrate.  
Nature herself is the sole Aesculapius of diseases: and the Physician no more but her Adjutant; according to that 
1.  worthy maxim of Hippocrates. But the sense of that relates only to such diseases, which nature, by her own single power, usually cureth. But when she hath been so fataly foiled, that she cannot by her own strength arise again to maintain the conflict; the Physician, elected by the immense benignity of the Almighty Lord of Nature, and in whose balance all diseases carry the same weight, (i. e.) are equally curable (such is he, who hath, among a multitude of others of the same order, obtained some one universal Medicine) remains no longer her servant: but is become her Interpreter, Rector and very potent Lord. Let the name of my Lord Jesu be exalted to eternity, who ever vouchsafeth his munificence to Little ones, abjected in their own humility! For the Nature of a sick man being the chief receiver of morbific impressions, and the sensitive mover towards the contrary; the Patient must, then at least, when the diseases entertained become prevalent, yield to their conquering sword, or at best, in the future, live a Calamitous death, unless he shall be relieved and restored to his primitive integrity, by the auxiliary hand of the Physician. Yet is it not in the lot of every Physician, to arrive at Corinth, to ascend to that excellent knowledge: but his only, who hath the happy qualifications of a Vocation, Election, Exercitation, and Commission. For in the less accomplished days of Hippocrates, the transcendent virtues of Catholic medicines remained in the darkness of undiscovery (and in truth, even in our brighter days, they continue but jejune, and eclipsed with prejudice and derision, amongst vulgar Physicians) upon which consideration, he is deservedly to be excused, in that he conceived the whole business of the conquest of diseases to lie upon the shoulders of Nature, as being the sole protectress of life.¶  
Again, I have elsewhere showed, that, even from the first moment of the conception of an embryo, there is assigned 
2.  to every peculiar member one Implantate or Originary Spirit, as immediate precedent and governor thereof, and another Influent Spirit, deradiant from the heart, as the excieator and assistant of the former; which yet is not determined to perfection, nor individually disposed, unless first subdued to a qualification requisite by the praeparatory power of the Implantate. I have also taught, in another place, that every member enjoys the capacity of Vegetation, according to the virtue of its peculiar Ferment originally inoculated into its principles; and that, for this reason, there can be no expectance of any transmutation, conductive to a new generation, unless by the mediation of that Ferment.  
And from hence, by natural consequence, we may understand, that all vegetation is made by the spirits; and that so all debility of digestion in the members doth depend upon the diminution of the spirits and their peculiar Ferment, according to that in sacred Writ: My spirit (the involucrum or conservatory of the Ferment) shall be attenuated and (therefore) my days shortened. So that a member, which in its integrity affords no visible excrement, must produce a large and constant source of unnatural humour, when once wounded, injured, diminished, or impeded in the vigour of its appropriate Ferment. And, finally, it follows from hence, that according to the degrees of the injury and variety of Causes inferring that injury; there must be generated a difformity and dissimilitude of excrements respectively.¶  
Diseases, therefore, have their origine, not from one fountain, particularly from the Head (from whence the 
3.  Schools wildly imagine all Catarrhs to drop down) but from a single Idiopathy, or proper indisposition of every part, superinduced upon the topical or domestic Ferments. Thus, to example, Wounds, long after their sanation, break 
4.  forth again, and frequently introduce durable ulcers, and Apostems: and upon change of Weather, many years after their perfect consolidation, fall into a reincrudescence, and freshly renew their torture. Thus Coughs, Pleurisies, Spittings of blood, and Erisypelous tumours, or inflammations, have their set vicissitudes, and, after considerable intermissions, reinvade. For some excessive montain Cold, or other Damp suddenly surprising, the nightly Aer, marish or uliginous Fog, or malignant Fume belched from the acide bowels of Mines, doth frequently, with one assault, so violate and ruin the Ferments of the brain, or Lungs, that from thenceforward, during the whole afterlife, they become the too fertile magazines of various excrements. After this manner also in the eyes, ears, teeth, jaws, &c. Excrements (not such as the mucous or slimy excretions of the brain) are ordinarily occasioned by the irregularity or diminution of the Ferments peculiar to those parts. So Coughs and Asthmas, or difficulties of respiration first begin: and persever by a continued Ferment. Not, in sooth, by reason of 
5.  a viscid phlegm dropping continually from the head; but engendered in the womb of the Lungs, by a violation of their domestic Ferment. For the Lungs more easily submit to the invasion of any foreign injury, than the other parts of the body: in regard, the Lungs is of all members the first that grows old, decayed, and dies. As is manifest 
6.  from the Cough generally infesting old men, and from the rattling in the throats of all dying men, though they perish by any other disease, and not by affections of the Lungs. For this is proper to the Lungs, in this respect, that they continually suck in crude Aer, and being near to the heart oppressed, lavishly expend their own strength, and by reason of that exhaustion, decay much the sooner.¶  
In the first place I dissent from the Schools, because I very well know this kind of vitiosity in nature to belong to 
7.  the parts containing, and not to the humours contained. For excrementitious humours of this kind contained, are certain productions, which are begotten by the Archaeus, or vital precedent of the particular parts, depraved by some noxious inquination precedent.  
In the second, I dissent from them also in this point, 
8.  that I stand assured, that this evil is topical and primary, and not communicated by Deuteropathy or consent with the head. For the Coughs of old men, which for the plurality discourage all hopes of restauration, arise from this root; that in the lowest and smallest branches of the Respiratory Artery, or pipe of the Lungs, there doth constantly reside such a quantity of excrement, generated in the Lungs, which doth not only obstruct the tubes or conduits: but also, by the contagion of its presence, deprave and diminish the Local Ferment; whereupon there is hourly produced a new source or supply of excrements, as the plentiful maintenance of Coughs, which in men once entered the calamitous confines of old age, are hardly cured, by remedies known to vulgar heads: in regard such remedies neither arrive at the part affected, nor, in troth, are they endowed with any restauratory faculty. These kinds of excrementitious humours, therefore, are no other but topical defects of the parts misaffected: and every particular part hath its particular debility, whether innate or acquisite, from a diminution of its vegetative Ferment.  
And thus it is evident, that the various streams of excrements 
9  flowing from the various parts of the body, are all derived from this one fountain.¶  
On these firm grounds I apprehend, first, That all repetitions of Purgations, in these affections, are frustraneous and hurtful: in respect, they level their power only against the productions, or Effects, and not against the Causes; and chiefly because such viscid excrements, seated remotely from the stomach, are too stubborn and refractory to yield to the laxative operation of Purgers. You may pleas to add, that although Laxatives may seem to have afforded ease and relief, for a day or two after their use; insomuch as the mass of crude and inconfected blood in the mezaraick veins being voided by stool, there must of necessity succeed the more sparing dispensation of blood through the body, and penury of nourishment in the Lungs, and by consequence a less quantity of excrement be rejected: yet do they, by subtracting from the necessary aliment of the whole, and by leaving behind them an evil tincture in the instruments of common digestion, every day more and more infringe the universal economy of the body, and impugn the conserving vigour of nature.  
This when Physicians darkly, as through a veil, discover, 
10  and remain ignorant, that they have afforded no benefit to their Patients, by the exhaustion of the laudable juices of the body, and the diminution of natural vigour; they at length remit them to the sober rules of Diet, and kitchen physic, as the only hopeful means of their recovery, and so leave them, by the painful use of fontanelles, and reiterated moderate Purges, to run out their remaining sands, medicaly (i. e.) miserably. By which Concession, first, they insinuate that wholesome and moderate diet is to be preferred to most of those unfaithful medicaments of the shops: and upon the testimony of their own unhappy experience, conclude, that the Patient ought to abstain from them, as hurtful, and at best but rarely to be used. Our wish is, that now, after so many destructive exhaustions of sick men's strength, they would sit down contented, and in the future no more attempt, by the same fruitless means, to dreigne the hopes, bodies, veins, strength, and purses of the sick. At lest, I wish, that they would be mindful of their own axiom, wherein they unanimously consent, That the chiefest indication of the cure, is to be desumed from the benefit or harm which things already used have introduced. Which rule, although it be worthy the blushes of learned men, and only fit for the conformity 
11.  of empirics: yet, it may be wished, that, by the instruction thereof, they would be reclaimed from the practice of their former errors, and no longer in Coughs and Consumptions return to those inefficacious remedies, which they have observed, never to have been beneficial to any. For then would all Purgatives, Phlebotomy, Errhines, 
* Errhinum est medicamentum, quod naribus inditum, ex cerebro, sine sternutatione, humores & praesertim pituitam evacuat.  apophlegmatism, 
* Apophlegmatismi sunt remedia, quae in ore aliquandiu detenta, ejusque cavum leniter ferientia, per emissaria palati, capiosam pituitam è cerebro deducunt; quaesensimpostea frequenti sputatione facilè excluditur.  Lambatives, drinks of China, Zarza, Sassafras, Cauteries in the Coronal suture, and other deceitful remedies of the same order, be wholly laid aside, which are brought into use by Physicians, that they might not appear to have received their fees for nothing. It is also to be wished, they had suffered themselves to be instructed from their own practice, that while they pointed their endeavours directly against the Ablation, Revulsion, Derivation, and precaution of secondary Effects, viz. the Excrements wept from the injured Archaeus of the particular part: they at the same time tacitly confessed, that they neither understood their originals, nor set about the Cure of them, according to the just method of beginning at the remove of their primary Causes. And they had farther discovered, that a medical Course of Diet, is but a wild, languid, invalid and indeed desperate kind of remedy; and Kitchen aphorisms too contemptible a militia to encounter so formidable an Adversary, already entered upon the borders of life, and ready to dissolve the discordant Harmony of the whole Composition, by the general diffusion of its tyranny. No wonder therefore, if the Common people, observing the vanity of such Cures, have taken occasion to create this proverb, The best physic, is to take no physic.¶  
More then once have I lamented, out of a deep Commiseration 
12.  of the hard Condition of man, while I read over whole Centuries of the counsels of Physicians, and chiefly their Commentaries on the 9 Rhas'. ad Almansorem, where they run over all diseases of the body, from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot; that digging into the centre of each disease (as they believe and glory) and there exploring the Grandfather, or procatarctick Cause thereof, they ever and anon lay the blame on some one singular distemper, either natural or acquired: but yet with such a reserve of uncertainty, that they dare not precisely determine, whether they ought to account that distemper for the disease, or only for the Antecedent Cause of the disease, about which they Consult. But to prevent mistake, and to be sure of the right, generally in all infirmities they accuse both heat and cold. For example, in most, they cry out upon a Frigidity of the stomach, either solitary, or combined with an excessive Heat of the Liver; whence they foretell Catarrhs to be engendered, and maladies of those parts, upon which such rheums shall be rained down: and this hint they pursue unto the exploration of the nature not only of very many internal, but also of most external and Cutany defects. And with such Theorical and Practical decretals do the schools season the brains of their Disciples. For thus are infirmities of the eyes, ears jaws, tongue, teeth, chest, arms, loins, and thighs, charged upon the account of Catarrhs. Thus have Coughs, consumptions, difficulties of respiration, Pleurisies, Inflammations of the Lungs, Apoplexies, Palsies, sudden Deaths, Impostumes, Spittings of blood, found their pedigrees deduced from Distillations. Thus finally, is the stomach infested with Vomiting, Nauseounesse, dejection of Appetite, and debility of Concoction: as also the Liver and Spleen become misaffected. For crude and indigestible phlegm being dropped down from the retort of the Head, Obstructions, Hardnesses, Dropsies, Apostems, Schirrous tumours, Fevers, torments of the bowels, &c. are listed under the conduct of Catarrhs.  
To which epidemic tradition of Catarrhs, Paracelsus, though otherwise above modesty triumphing in his invention 
13.  of Tartars, and the 3 first hypostatical Principles, 
* Princ pia Hypostatic a sunt, quae majori v● ac efficacia prae reliquis pollent; unde in Schola HermeticaCheironia virilia, virtuosa dicuntur, suntque Sulphur, Mercurius, & Sal. Sal est principium hypostaticum, cum vi fermentandi & coagulandi. Ejus signatura est, ut intrinsecus sit fusil●, metallorum instar & fixus: ex trinsecus autem combustibilis et incinerabilis. Sulphur principium est hypostaticum, cum vi maturandi, tingendi, homogenea attrahendi, heterogenea repellendi, tendendi a centro ad circumferentiam, & vicissim. Hujus signatura est, ut intra sit fixum, oleaginosum sive pingue: extra inflammabile esse & fugitivum. Flamma quippe est Sulphur volatile. Mercurius est principium hypostaticum, cum vi vegetativa et instaurativa. Hujus signatura interna est sovere ignem potentem: externa vero est liquidum, glutinosum, incombustibile & frigidum esse. Joh. Raicus tract. de podagra.  doth 
14.  frequently subscribe, and always openly acknowledge the name of Defluxion (flussen) staggering into self-contradiction, under the drunken guidance of that great Lady, Incertitude.  
And this fabulous scene of Defluxions, which indeed is very well worth our serious tears, do the Schools so polish and trim up, and deliver from hand to hand down to posterity; that it now dares plead prescription, and usurp the sacred dignity of truth: yea common Idiots, by their own infirmities made passive Physicians, tire my ears with a tedious lecture of their Catarrhs. Whereupon, since it is a task extremely difficult, and such as my Genius abhors, to root out a customary doctrine from the minds of men unacquainted with more rational ways of learning, and in the place thereof, implant the seeds of solid truth; chiefly when vulgar heads are of that temper, that, like new vessels, they hardly part with that odour, wherewith they were first seasoned: it is my custom, even among persons of honour, to affect silence, not to preach upon the disease, or its Causes, several kinds, and remedies; but quietly concealing my detestation of the easy theory of the Schools, and dissembling an ignorance of all, go away as consenting to whatever hath been said. Yet, in some places, I adventure to leave a hint, that I am otherwise instructed, that Fools are not constellated to a capacity of medicinal Principles, nor myself to be their Paedagog. At best, I cannot but admire, that no man hath hitherto, after so long a revolution of time, ever discovered, and made animadversions on the palpable and superlative ignorance of Physicians: but that the grey-haired dreams of the Grecians have drawn the whole Christian World after them, into a servitude. 
* Vocabulum hic ab authore usurpatum, est Latria; {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} autem exprimit nedum cultum divinum, quo sensu legitur apud Job. Evangel. cap. 16. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} ast etiam servitutem, suxta illud Sophoc. in Ajace, {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}: & illud proverbium Phocylid. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, tempori servire.  that is ridiculous, lying, and pernicious to human society. To particular; they generally conclude that the head from whence their Nilus of Defluxions doth originally spring, is a Cold Distemper of the stomach, and an hot distemper of the Liver: and that the greatest part of mankind is in subjection to this tyranny. The manner of its generation they deliver thus; That the stomach, incessantly, during the whole act of Concoction, receiving an access of immoderate heat from the Liver, must of necessity, all that while, send up whole clouds of vapours into the brain: and that by reason the brain is, by its native temperament Cold, and set, like a cover over a boiling pot, or the head of an alembic, in the highest region of the body; all those vapours that ascend into it, are again condensed into Water; Which, since according to the propensity of its nature, it must tend downwards, doth afford an ample source to distillations, and a general maintenance to most diseases. That if this torrent fall down upon the eyes, ears, palate, teeth, &c. those parts have very good reason to bewail, and with plenty of rheum lament their unkind destiny, in being so near neighbours unto, and lying within reach of this tyrant, the Brain: but if upon the Lungs, it is quickly the inevitable 
15.  occasion of Coughs, Difficulties of respiration, and in fine of consumptions, of palpitations or tremblings of the heart, and so of immature death. But if the stream be turned upon the stomach, than doth the stomach suffer the just punishment of its former distemper, by admitting debility of Concoction, Crudities, Vomits, Orexies 
* {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, cibi appetentia proprie dicitur; quo sen●u et Juvenal. usurpavit pro vehementi edendi aviditate, rabidam facturus orexim.  or insatiate Appetites, swoonings, fainting Pains of the mouth of the stomach, Obstructions, Laskes, durable Fluxes of the belly, violent ejections of Choler upward and downward, fits of the colic, Atrophies, or universal leanness from decay of Nutrition, Dropsies, Schirrous tumours, and all other defects of the instruments official to common Digestion: yea Fevers, Putrefactions of the blood in the veins, as also stones of the Spleen, 
* Calculi enim quandoque in Liene reperiuntur, materiâ hac tartareâ longa die in e●dem coacervatâ, & ratione interni & nativi coagulationis principij, in lapideam induratâ duritiem. Hi autem ante mortens vix deprehenduntur, et medicinam spernunt.  Kidneys, and Bladder, have their ordinary materials from the slime of this Defluxion. That if these rivulets creep into the inmost closets of the brain, then sudden death, Apoplexies, and Palsies immediately ensue: but if in the hinder part of the head, by the neck they chanee to wander into the Nerves, Arteries, and Muscles, then must Gouts, Palsies, Pleuresies, and Convulsions of the receiving parts, unavoidably be introduced: yea all chirurgical defects, as Pains, Apostems, and the numerous progeny of ulcers, do they father upon Catarrhs.  
That if this deluge be not evacuated and dreigned by some of the forementioned sluices, but becomes a standing pond, from whose oppression the brain is not able to deliver itself, neither by the aqueducts of the nostrils, nor the laborious pump of Coughs: Oh! then instantly follows, a stupid drowsiness, an inexpugnable propensity to out sleep Endymion, 
* remit ocu'os ad pag. 68 în tract. de magnetica vulner. curat. & ibi fusè explicatum invenies, quid apud medicos designatur per Catochen.  Catoches, a Lethargy, Vertigo, Apoplexy, loss of Memory, and perdition of senses.  
For besides these forementioned distempers of Heat and Cold, and Defluxions necessarily resulting from thence; the Books, Orations, counsels, Conversations, Chairs and Practices of Physicians sound of nothing: and so the whole bulk of the Art of healing, seems, now a days, to be moved upon the slender hinges of Purgations, Phlebotomy, Scarifications, Baths, Sweatings, Cauteries, and, in short, upon no other than the diminutions of strength, and emaciations of the body, or exsiccations of rheums. 
16.   
To which end, they impose upon their Patients, the decoctions of the roots of China, Zarza, and the wood of Sassafras, brought from the East-Indies, upon design of drying up the luxuriant moisture of the brain: for the most part measuring the extent of the pharmaceutical and Diateticall Theory, by the rule of Heat and Cold.  
And by this means, they never release the sick out of their hands: but perpetually oblige them, like purchased 
17.  Bondslaves, to the irksome observance of their Precepts; though with manifest despair. In regard, while Physicians remain ignorant of the fundamentals and Causes of the disease, and by the light of their own unsuccessfulness read the vanity of their Operations, they must stand convicted of the impossibility of the Sanation: upon this ground, that the natural Frigidity of the stomach, doth Antipractically, or by Counter violence, impugn the Heat of the Liver; and so those remedies which would be beneficial to the stomach, must prove offensive and dangerous to the Liver, and so transpositively.  
All which impostures, since they conspire to the extirpation of the race of Adam, to the desolation of commonwealths, 
18.  and utter oblivion of families; I could not but think it my duty (what in me lay) wholly to subvert and dismantle this exsecrable heresy of medical Doctrine: and so much the more compulsion had I upon my conscience to attempt it, in consideration that this Pestilence hath possessed the heads of our Europeans, ever since the days of Galen, until now. 
* Proprio didactro, inquit Helmontius; {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} enim sonat idem, quod minerval Latin, five praemium doctrinae.  For rich men learn this Doctrine from the costly dictates of their Purses, and what they have learned, they soon communicate to others: and thus all diseases have their stories written in the monstrous Romance of Defluxions. Against which I shall declare, by Positions granted in the Schools.¶  
1. The stomach of man, during life, is actually warm, and its interior membrane or coat bedewed with a certain 
19  moisture.  
2. And impossible it is, that any aquous humidity should be actually seething in the body, and not at the same time send forth plenty of Vapours from itself.  
3. The superior way from the stomach, is the Gullet, or oesophagus, being a membrane round long and hollow, as a Pipe or Cane, extended from the stomach even up unto the jaws, and in substance the same with the interior coat of the stomach.  
4. This Gullet, by the privilege of its native constitution, is ever actually moist, and constantly (except at times of swallowing) actually shut (otherwise, distorted in avoidance of a Vacuum, it would laterally fall together, no otherwise then a bladder that wants some guest to fill its Cavity:) and the sides thereof mutually meet and touch each the other, by the compulsion of that necessity of Nature, which forbids a Vacuity. For the Gullet containg in it, neither meat, drink, nor aer, would of necessity be empty, should it remain open. But that it is not open, is evident from this, that otherwise, at the swallowing down of every morsel of our Diet the Aer, which would be beneath the morsel, and oppose the descent thereof, were the morsel proportionate in gravity to the renitency of the Aer, must be rammed down into the cavity of the stomach; and so there must follow for every morsel swallowed a Belch, or redischarge of that aer, by the superior outlet of the stomach. Finally, since the membrane of this Gullet is always moist, the sides thereof would of necessity fall together, if not distended by some force: which is never observed in the dissections of dead, nor could be of any use in living bodies.  
5. The mouth of the stomach is shut up by a Natural motion, and not by a Voluntary.  
6. And Anatomy affords no other knowledge of the Gullet, more than that it is narrow, locked up beneath by the Pylorus or inferior orifice of the stomach, and in the neck of man on all sides compressed by very many vessels circumjacent.  
7. The Gullet neither sucks in, nor contains any Aer: for by reason of its proper motion, natural to it as a moist membrane, and want of anybody to distend it from within, it falls together on all sides.  
8. The Gullet is not opened longwayes, but during the descent of Aliment. Which if very dry, makes a stand in the passage, nor easily descends, unless driven down by liquour superadded: which could not be, if the Gullet contained aer beneath the morsel, unless there followed a Belch upon the deglutition of each morsel. Yet the top of the Gullet, about the Larinx or head of the windpipe, is commonly open.  
9 The lower end of the Gullet is contracted by an alien power, and is therefore never opened but by the violence of some aliment or other tenant, either entering into, or expulsed from the stomach: Or upon the knocking of Hunger, it may be unlocked by a strange key, i. e. not by its own motion, since the humidity of its sides naturally disposeth them to Concidence, or falling together.  
10. No Aer, and much less Vapour, ariseth out of the stomach, and ascends, without giving the loud report of a Belch.  
11. Though that heat, which is necessary to the stomach, immediately causeth the exhalation of vapours: yet it follows not, that the same heat should protrude those vapours upward, with so great violence as is required to break open the door of the stomach, being fast locked, and distend the Gullet, since any one of these contradictory Theses being conceded, it will be a genuine inference, that every man must be troubled with continual belchings.  
12. In the stomach, as in all other vessels moderately hot, every watery vapour doth sooner, upon the least compression, return to its primitive consistence, and unite again in drops; then to be of power sufficient to elevate and distend a closely compressed membrane of considerable magnitude. Where we observe, by the by, That Vapours are not the Cause of Belchings: but only the Gas silvestre, 
* Gas bifurcatum, ab Helmontio nostro fabricatum inveni: primum scilicet Aquae, sive Meteoron; secundum sylvestre. Ga. Meteoron designat Aquam, in vaporem, per geniale aeris frigus (ubi omnia eo semel deducta consumuntur, & in pristinum aquae elementum retrocedunt) resolutam. Quinam vapour alterius utique sortis est, quàm vapour per Calorem suscitatus: eo itaque respectu, paradoxi licentia, in nominis magè convenientis egestate, halitum illum Gas nominavit Author, non longe â chaos veterum secretum. Gas autem sylvestre, est spiritus quidam naturae hominis planè hostilis, atque á prunoribus nondum cognitus; qui nee vasi● cogi, nec in corpus visibile reduci, nisi extincto prius semine, potest. Corpora enim continent hunc spiritum, & quandoque tota in ejusmodi forum halitum abscedunt: non quidem quod actu insit ipsis (siquidem detineri non posset, imò totum concretum avolaret) sed est spiritus concretus, & more corporis coagulatus, excitaturque acquisito Fermento, ut in vino fermentante, omphacio, pane, hydromellite, itemque ruber ille ex Chrysulca operante eructatus: vel additamento peregrino, ut ex auro, adjecto sale Armeniaco: vel tandem per aliquam Dispositionem Alterativam, qualis est Assatio, respectu pomi. Hujus autem ignoti hospitis tum ortus, tum hostilitatis atque implacabilli ferociae, quae nobis insidiatur capitaliter, exegesi ulterius paulò inhaerendum: eâ potissimum relatione, ut nedum Quidditas atque Nativitas hujus Gas innotescant ijs, quibus contigerit nondum omnia Helmontij mysteria perlustrare; sed etiam ut istud epitheton (sylvestre) non incongruenter illi appensum commonstretur. Primò itaque quoad essentiam ejus quidditativam; meditare, turpiter admodum esse delusos qui credidêre Gas uvarum est vini spiritum in musto. Gas enim uvarum & musti, ex fermento ebullitionis concept● excitatum, est tantum in via ad vinum; non autem Vini, in suajam dignitate constituti spiritus. Intercedens enim inter utruneque Fermentalis Dispositio, rem praecedentem disponit in sui transmutationem, ut inde aliud ens fiat. Siquidem extra dubitationis aleam est, omnem transmutationem formalem praesupponere Fermentum corruptivum. Secundò, quoad Nativitatem Gas in uva; nota. Vua ill●sa asservatur & exsiccatur: si vero pellis ejus semel fuerit disrupta, & vulnerata, illa mox fermentum ebullitionis concipit, hincque transmutationis initium. Vina ergo warum, pomorum, baccarum, mellis, itemque stores & srondes semel discerpta atque contusa, fermento arrepto, bullire ac ferve e incipiunt; unde Gas. Vltimò, quantum ad ejus Malitiam ac feritatem attinet, oenopoli sciant, vinorum Gas, si multa vi intra cados coerceatur, vina furiosa, mala atque n●civa reddere. Quapropter & morbidum Gas, ●vâ affatim comestâ, pluries aegritudines anxias c●ncitavit. Siquidem Fermenti spiritus tumultuantur, & cum digestioni nostrae sint inobedientes, spiritui Vitali se per vim associant, imò si quid sudore tenus excerni sit paratum, id sua fermeati aciditate grumescunt, atque insignes pariunt moleflias, tormina, diarrhaeas, dysenterias. Sed Etymi Gas explicationi satis superque hactenus insudatum.  or a certain wild spirit exhaling from some aliment.  
13. That granting a Natural spirit of the yet imperfect blood in the Liver, all the veins, by reason of their constant heat, would either about the parts of the Liver, or in their capillary branches, generate Catarrhs, which the Schools have baulked in their hunting of diseases.¶   

The Conclusions erected on the premised Concessions.¶  
FRom these Positions, confessed by general Consent, and demonstrated by the ocular evidence of Anatomy, it naturally follows, in the first place  
1. That no vapour can ascend from the stomach to the head; and the material Cause of Catarrhs, vulgarly believed, must fail, and the very groundwork of the doctrine of Defluxions be demolished.  
2. If so great a mist of ignorance hath surrounded the world in things manifest and obvious to the observation of sense: what Cimmerian blindness may not be suspected, in the common theory of such things as lie more deep and abstruse, and therefore have their Causalites only discernible by the optics of the most acute Reason?  
3. That submitting our belief to the doctrine of the Schools, a healthy and hot stomach would generate more and greater showers of Catarrhs, than an unhealthy, weak and cold one; which is point blank contratry to the opinion commonly embraced.  
4. That, in order to the Cure of Defluxions, according to the consequence of their theory, we ought to endeavour the Refrigeration, rather than the Calefaction of the stomach.  
5. That all men would of necessity be equally obnoxious to Catarrhs, and so continually infirm.  
6. Upon this ground, that all men have their Gullet, Brain, and stomach actually hot, equally moist, and constituted in the same Figure.  
7. That every man would naturally, like swine, belch at every step he treads: since the indesinent heat and moisture must unavoidably transmit continual Clouds of vapours from the stomach.  
8. That although we should descend to allow, that a vapour exhaled from the stomach might be of force sufficient to distend the Gullet; yea and be evaporated without ructation: yet would it remain of exceeding difficulty to infer an apprehension, that this vapour would not sooner be discharged by the annexed and open tubes of the mouth and nostrils, then make a long and difficult progress up to the brain, by the narrow Meanders and blocked up avenews of a membrane. That this Vapour, steaming up from the furnace of the stomach, would necessarily carry along with it a fulsome Hautgoust of the meat then suffering the act of Concoction, by the variety of ungrateful odours acquaint the nose with the unsavoury story of its various mutations, and be horridly offensive both to ourselves and company: and thus if all those frequent belches were thus strongly perfumed by Corruption, our very breath also, continually blasted with them, would save us the trouble of foreign poisons, disparage the fatal emislions of the Basilisck, and be as dangerous to Conversation, as the fumes of the Lago di Tripergola 
* Avernus, Gr. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, quo nullae aves accedunt, ob tetrum ejus odorem: propter quam graveolentiam, etiam hîc descensus ad inferos olim esse credebatur. Gas sylvestre.  in Campania, or the sulphureous farts of our Grandmother, when delivered from the colic, by the Crisis of an Earthquake.  
9 That since the material cause of belching is a nimble Wild spirit, arising for our Aliment, and far more subtle than a vapour; but yet doth never invade the Brain, unless, upon shutting the mouth, it chance to advance to the forepart of the head, through the funnel of the palate, and be thence exploded by the nostrils: assuredly, much less can vapours, that are more gross and corporeal, ascend so high as to insinuate themselves into all the narrow creeks and intricate Cells of the brain.  
10. That these volatile and fugitive spirits, the causers of ructation, are never carried in a direct path, up to the region of the brain; but in an oblique, leading through the organ of smelling: and therefore they never afford an odour, or become subject to the perception of the odoratory nerves, but when the mouth is shut, at the instant of their eruption; much less can a vapour from the stomach, by its own spontaneous motion, arrive at the remotest closets of the brain.  
11. That though we condescend, that Vapours, the material cause of Catarrhs, may in some degree arise up to the head, at least to the organ of smelling: yet can we not conceive, that this can happen, but when the mouth is shut; and so whoever gapeth, can never be infected with Defluxions, and by inference, to keep the mouth open, at the time of ructation, is a most easy and infallible precaution of the generation of rheums.  
12. That since two bodies cannot so far rebel against the conserving Laws of Nature, as mutually to penetrate each the others dimensions, in one and the same place; and since the passage from the jaws up into the brain is exceeding narrow, oppleted (for there is no vacuity in those organs) barricadoed above and so impervious (for our very breath, though violently compressed by stopping of the mouth and nostrils, cannot force open a way into the castle of the brain:) therefore cannot a vapour, arising from the stomach, approach the basis of the brain. By example, a Cane or hollow Tube, that is closely luted in the upper orifice, held in an erect position over a steam of hot vapours, doth not admit them to ascend through its perforation, by reason of the Aer, wherewith it was before possessed.  
13. Granting, that a vapour may climb upwards; yet would it not meet with any Plane or Concave, upon which it might, by Condensation, be reunited into drops: and much less any part of such figure, which resembleth the head of an alembic, or potlid. But in the basis of the brain, whether we gratis allow a vapour to ascend, is a narrow place, called the Pelvis, or brain tunnel; which sendeth two small tubes, or outlets, toward the nostrils, and as many backward toward the neck. Which two posterior cavities only could the ascendent vapour insinuate itself into; and those two are ever repleted with a muccous or viscid excrement, and perpetually, by a kind of guttulous distillation, discharge it down into the palate, as the proper Emunctories or dreignes of the brain, destined to the evacuation of the slimy redundant humours. And therefore albeit we concede, that a vapour can ascend so high: yet nevertheless can we find no place for the Concretion of a Catarrh.  
14. Should a vapour, if the exhalation of any such from the stomach be possible, ascend so high as this slender tunnel of the brain; yea should it, in so small a place, be condensed into rheum, and that rheum drop down again together with the Muccus, or indigenary excrement: yet would it prove of much less offence or danger, then that muccus, the ordinary excrement of the brain. All which the Shools themselves have by Anatomy discovered, and may (Please them to suffer the easy trouble of a serious pensitation) assuredly know to be inevitable: but, alas! they have eyes, and see not; they have ears, and, we may justly fear, they will not hear.  
15. That although the material Cause of Ructation be the Gas of our aliment, and impregnated with the particular odour thereof: yet the vapour of any meat whatever is converted into no other, than an insipid and harmless Water. By example, let any slimy juice, or spittle be artificially distilled, in any vessel, by a most gentle heat, exactly proportioned to the same degree, which is in the stomach of a living man: yet, undoubtedly, shall you draw off nothing, but an insipid and thin Water, wholly devoid of the least glutinosity; and less any salt, acid, or sharp Catarrh.  
16. That albeit the muccus, or phlegmatic excrement of the brain, fall down upon the jaws, and frequently introduceth various misaffections upon them, according to its various indispositions or deflexions from its natural constitution: yet neither the matter, nor defluxion thereof can endure the reason of a Catarrh; no more than the urine, drop by drop trickling down from the kidneys into the bladder, aught to be esteemed a Catarrh. Wherefore, if this muccus, whether insipid, salt or sharp, whether fluid or thick, dropping down upon those parts, which, as peculiar Emunoctries, are naturally ordained to the evacuation of it, may not be accounted a Catarrh, however evil Accidents it impress upon those parts; so neither the urine, though it deprave the integrity of the bladder.  
17. How much less ought the defluxion of any ●●ctitious humour, or imaginary excrement, whose nativity and transm●ssion are delivered to be by a manner, means, places, and voyages, naturally impossible, to be accounted a Catarrh?  
18. If the Brain, while it enjoyeth the influence and irradiation of vital heat, be not actually cold: without doubt, the reason of the Condensation of vapours into rheum, must be staggered into an impossibility. But if it be, by some degrees, less hot than the other parts of the body: must we then be driven upon this absurdity, that a vapour doth, as if endowed with sense and an arbitrary power of Election, inquire out and pitch upon the coldest part, as most accommodate to its future reduction into a humour? because, by the dictates of natural propensity, it rather desires by coagulation to be returned into its primitive, then by resolution to continue in the presen● condition?  
19 Or is it driven on by the crowd of other vapours, and on all sides recoiled from the hotter parts of the body, up to the brain, as to the coldest? if so, there would be a continual tempest in the soundest bodies, and nought but Lepanto Gusts, and Catarrhs in the best tempered heads: which to believe, is a madness beyond the power of Hellebor, and a dotage too absurd to be excused by the largest candour.¶  
20. But laying aside these Positions (which can, upon no necessity of nature, be verified) as worthy only a short confutation; we come now to prove, that should all the demands of the schools, hitherto mentioned, be freely granted them: yet could they be of no advantage, as to the manifestation of the Cardinal point in controversy, viz. the manner, reasons, and ways of the Defluxion of Catarrhs.  
21. For first these rivulets of rheum cannot make their progress to the outward parts of the head, betwixt the skull and skin: since, indeed the Schools themselves declare, that Vapours, the Antecedent matter of Catarrhs, do mount up from the stomach to the Basis, or lowest part of the brain, and there fix upon a Plane (imaginary, nor ever yet discovered by any Anatomist) in whose lower superficies they instantly enterprise condensation, and then, immediately after concretion, be rained down, like a malignant milldew, upon the members subjacent. Far distant, in sober truth, from this, that this foreign adversary, this mere excrement, an obscure alien to the brain, and sole occasion of so many and incorrigible infirmities, having in the lowest Plane of the brain transformed itself into Water; should thence either penetrate through the very substance of the brain, in the gross disguise of Water: or at length return again to invest itself in the thinner dress of a vapour, and wantonly take up quarters in the forementioned Plane.  
22. Not in the form of a vapour; for if a vapour flying up from the stomach, arrive at the bottom of the brain, and by the native cold of that part be concreted (as they say) into Water: beyond all dispute, by reason of the same opportunity of cold, it will continue Water, nor ever in that place be reduced back into a vapour again; until Nature herself run mad, and fall upon contradictory operations, such as shall out do the confusion of her primitive Chaos.  
23. If therefore, this Vapour be once changed into Water, by the inevitable activity of local Cold, it is too hard for the most incircumspect credulity to be persuaded, that this Water, of known hostility against the native economy of the head, should be kindly invited, nay greedily drawn into the most secret and otherwise inaccessible closets thereof: much less that it can attain so great thinness and subtlety, as, notwithstanding the resistance and compressive endeavours of non admission made by the parts invaded, to pierce through the very body of the Brain, its Membranes, Sutures, Skull, and Periostion, or coat environing the skull; then stop at the weaker counterscarp of the skin, and there begin its defluxion. And, beside many other inevitable absurdities, this Water can be at most but a kind of Rain-water; and therefore wholly unfit to be made a source of viscid Catarrhs, whose duration depends on their glutinosity: yea Catarrhs arising from this aqueous original, would, upon the first access of heat, vanish by transpiration, sooner than the thinnest sweat; unless the Galenists can show, how water made of vapours exhaled from the stomach, doth for ever after become fixed; as also, that by touching only upon a certain Plane (which the dissecting knife hath never yet lighted upon) in the head, it doth acquire a salt and sharp tincture. Again, the skin surrounding the skull, being far more rare and porous than the skull (through which it is allowed to pass, by transudation) must, according to the rules of probability, give way to the extermination of this water, either by insensible transpiration, or by sweat, much sooner, then imprison it so closely, as to force it, by seeking other vents, to introduce those various maladies vulgarly imputed thereunto. To which we may add, that the skin obtended upon the skull, doth most closely and tenaciously adhere unto it; nor can the single declivity of the place suffice to the diffusion of the rheum, and the violent avulsion of the skin from the bone. Moreover this Water, generated of vapours steaming from the stomach, ought, of unexcusable necessity, to have some internal Pulsor, or Driver, to ram it through the substance of the brain, membranes, skull, and periostion. But this driver must not be heat; for than would it cease to be Water, and in a moment, reassume the consistence of a vapour: which is wildly imagined to be condensed into water, by the frigidity of the brain. Further, Catarrhs are observed to be most frequent in old and infirm bodies, and Climates most infected with Cold: Wherefore this driver, in all probability, must be Cold, (which sober Philosophy affirms to cause a Constriction and fastness in the parts) whose business is to protrude this water through the brain, and in sooth in the gross form of Water; contrary to the ordinary energy of natural qualities. And this impulsive force must be either in the Water, bred of mere vapours fuming from the stomach; or in the brain, by which it is compelled, together with its membranes and skull, to open at the advent of this Water. Finally, since this kind of rain-water, made out of condensed vapours, is conceived to hang in pendulous manner on the jowest superficies of the basis of the brain; nor can be there detained in any quantity above a drop or twain, at most (for the narrowness of the Cavity forbids the admission of more) it must necessarily, either immediately fall downward in successive drops: or the brain must constantly play the sponge, and imhibe it drop after drop, so fast as it is condensed. Moreover, this excrementitious Water ought to have, besides the forementioned Driver, a Conductor, which may distend the skin, and in order to the generation of the pleurisy cause an avulsion of the membrane lining the chest from the ribs, as an Harbinger to prepare a lodging for it: and as well this Conductor, as Driver, aught to be of far more power than our own indigenary Blas.  
24. I shall at length expose at any rate, to common sale, these impostures and delusive dreams of the Schools: that no man may▪ the vizard of vulgar credulity being at the same time detected, longer suffer by the unfortunate purchase of false wares. Nor could I hitherto sufficiently admire, how the world could be so grossly cincumvented by the tradition of Catarrhs: in a business, I say, so foolish, vain, and altogether impossible, that men, the Charter of whose Creation doth entitle them to Reason, should thus prostitute their credultities to a Legend of Absurdities, nay absolute Impossibilities, and forfeit the dignity of their transcendent endowment upon the single seduction of only one idle fault, namely Ignorance. That they upon their lazy and indirect disquisitions, not finding any Cause, on which to charge their large account of diseases, have imposed upon the implicit belief of vulgar heads, drowned in a deluge of stupidity, these ridiculous fictions of Catarrhs.  
25. But the sweat, at least, is impregnated with a manifest saltness; upon which hint, the 
* Latex, apud Helmontium, qui humorum quaternarium adnihilare penitu▪ s contendit, est idem aquo us liquour, quem sanguini ubique per omne venosum genus arctissimè associatum, scholae nominarunt Serum; illumque tam urinae, quàm sudoris pariter atque lachrymarum communem secere materiam. De hoc peculiarem, et nostro quidem judicio sufficientem librum, cui inscriptio Latex humour neglectus, panxit Helmont: quo planè ostendit, ingens ab ipsa etiam natura positum esse, inter urinam & laticem, quem frequenter extravenato sanguini innatare cernimus, discrimen; tam quoad materiae essentiam, quam usus utriusque sive destinationes. Scopos autem sive fines, quibus inservire voluit Laticem, brevi verborum serie sic comprehendam. 1. Latex, ex sua natura pene insipidus, pro primo scopo habet, ut contemperet cruoris aciditatem, eandemque arceat; et potissimum post labores, astus, sudo●es perfusos, balnea, &c. nam in tanta perspirabilitate cruor valde condensaretur, nisi haberet aqueam partem admixtam pro sudore. 2. Cum in omni crudiori chylo, cremore, & cruore, sit aliquid excrementum; & cruor sub digerendo salem excrementitium reservet, etiam dum in purum alimentum convertitur: est ipsi pr●in Latex opportunus socius, qui in se recipiat hunc salem, eumque everrat. 3. Vt materialiter causet, ne ullum densioris compaginis residuum, in ultima alimoniae evaporatione remaneat: Sed simul per Diapnaeam explodatur, ratione Fermenti arterialis (ut Helmont in Blas Humano) vel ratione sudoris eluatur. Sudor namque materialiter, nil nisi Latex est, cui accessit Sal superfluus. 4. Cum oculus liquore opus haberet, ut ejus palpebra innocuè moveretur, & linguasaliuâ eguit, ut masticatos cibos madore temperaret; absurdumque foret, totum cibum è massa cruoris humectari: idcirco per venas Latex delatus est, unde saliva, lacryma, &c. fierent. Nam dum in Anginis, & infami Mercurij salivatione, plus justo saliva profluit, alvus consueto siccior evadit. Latex ergo in cruoris massa innoxius vagatur, ad loca opportuna defertur, distributivae facultati promptè auscultans. 5. Quod suo madore compescat, ne pulmo de hiscat, siccitate aeris attracti. Ad ipsius autem Authoris libellum recurrent studiosi, ubi omnium de hoc themate uberiorem doctrinam habebunt.¶  Latex, or Fountain of serous streams in the body, might with much more plausible reason have been adopted to the generation of rheum, as being a very convenient mother to own such a production: then an imaginary vapour, which requires to be conducted through so many insensible ambages, and blind Meanders, and whose possibility of existence cannot be asserted, without the joint concession of a thousand absurdities, and bold violations of the unalterable decrees of Nature. For the accustomed saltness of the latex, may bear the imputation of being the Cause of Pains and other erratic accidents, with nearer relation to verisimility; then an insipid Water, transmitted upwards from vapours▪ which have no real Idea, but in the distracted imaginations of either the Contrivers, or Abettors of this Fable. Again, when this Water hath traveled through the Brain, Membranes, Skull, and Periostion, doth it then grow weary, feeble, and unable to continue on its progress, and penetrate the easier perforations of the skin? or hath the former laborious pilgrimage so refracted its power of transudation, and impaired its memory, that it hath forgotten the way? Why doth the skin, which by reason of its numerous evaporatories, or capillary porosities, is ordained to transmit the grosser matter of sweat, resist the tenuity of that Water, which hath so nimbly run through the impervious skull? But should this Water be once collected into a pond, under the scalp; then would it either there swell into a tumid Cataract, or be dreigned downward in a slender thread of successive drops: or were the collection about the temples, it would soon become subject to the discovery of our touch: and should it be rained down, yet could it not avoid to infer a manifest tumour of insipid water, upon the terminus ad quem, or part recipient. And if in small quantity, it would soon be discussed by sweat. However, it can never fall down upon, nor be congregate amidst the Muscles; since each of them is strongly guarded by the outwork of a particular cross membrane, wherewith their substance is immediately covered. Besides, there is neither way for its defluxion from the head, betwixt the skin and periostion; nor place to entertain it amongst the intercostal Muscles, in order to the generation of a pleurisy. For can that insipid Water, which occasioned no pain or molestation, while it remained under the skin and hair of the head, within few minutes after its arrival at the intercostal Muscles, kindle a violent pleurisy, together with such intolerable torments; and only by its descent and single gravity avell the Pleura, or lining of the thorax, from the ribs, which is firmly annexed and immediately adheres unto them by the mediatory ligation of numerous solid Fibers? Certainly, that immanity and tincture of implacable tyranny must be acquired from no other impregnation, then what may accrue unto it during its Defluxion. To proceed, no Catarrh can descend upon the Teeth, or impeach their Nerves; which on either side from the basis of the brain are implanted into the mandible: since they are so exactly proportioned to the diameter of their receptacles, and so entirely fill them up, that there can remain none the smallest cranny for the intrusion of one drop of rheum; and much the less for this, that Water cannot enter any small perforation, that is shut beneath. If so, unfeignedly, we have no weighty engagement lies upon our reason, to enforce assent; that this rheum should customarily fall foul and infest one single tooth, and such only as is Carious, or hollowed by putrefaction. We shall add, that a Catarrh collected into a shower underneath the scalp, should, according to the vieinity and rectitude of conveyances, rather stream down upon the Cheeks, than the bottom of the Gums, through their fleshy Contexture, and persisting non-incorporate to the blood, trace the impervious paths of the nerves, through the mandible, until it invade some one particular tooth. Yea though this fantastic deluge might be allowed to drop down from above, and so be thought the cause of pain, in the upper jaw: yet no man can swallow so unsavoury an absurdity, as that Water, not at all participant of vitality, can by any means, or at any time, infest the lower. What if this vagabond rheum chance to decline towards the eyes, or ears? insooth, the malicious matter thereof must, from the conceited Plane of of the brain, first pass through the chief Ventricle thereof: and so in that royal place become a second and more fatal cataract; yea occasion sudden Death more probably, than an Ophthalmy, or bare inflammation of the eyes. Again, I 
Ophthalmia est annatae oculi tunicae inflammatio, â sanguine acri, venulas ipsius distendente, exorta. Consule practic●s.  well remember, that the seat of a pleurisy is not betwixt the skin, or external membrane universally swathing the body, and the intercostal muscles (whither, notwithstanding, the defluxion might more directly stream down from the periostion, then toward the internal parts) but either in the very substance of the oblique muscles; or between those and the Pleura immediately enshrouding the Chest, from which part the disease hath desumed its denomination. By what sluices therefore can a defluxion be derived from the head unto this place? I grant, indeed, by way of supposition, that a certain Muccus, or phlegmatic and glutinous excrement, doth, even in Children and men of the soundest constitutions, slide down by the palate into the stomach: yet this stands in no relation at all to a Catarrb; nor is that muccus bred from that cried up vapour of the first concoction; but is an unprofitable Excrement, begotten à Custode errante, 
* Inaudita prius Helmotij inter Paradoxa, ex professo ut essentiae, Causae, modique fiendi morborum, novis ejus in Physiologia theorematis melius accommodarentur, fabricata, haud infimum tenet locum hocce, de Custode Errante, ingenium. Viautem quàm brevissimè, & pro captu marginis, quid sibi voluit per Custodem, et quid per eundem errantem, explicemus; animadvertendum est, quod Author, cum insignem aquae cataractane è naribus, in principio Coryze (Frigus nuacuparunt rustici) ordinariò effluxisse cerneret; et uberrimum pariter Mucci proventum a pulmonibus tussiendo explosum: ut antiquatam, de Catarrho ex vaporibus in planum Cerebri delatis, eodem in loco rursum concretis, atque dein tandem guttulatim, partim per nervos olfactorios antrorsum, partim retrorsum per laryngem in exiles pulmonum tubos delabente, doctrinam pessumdaret; Custodes duos, unum in Cerebro, alterum in laring, â sapiente reram parent constitutos esse, affirmare ausus est. Priori in provinciam delegatum est, ut quoties Cerebrum ab externo aliquo malo lacessitum atque vitiatum fuerit, toties potestate sua alterativa, sive transmutationis energia, mucilaginosum quoddam Excrementum, ex sanguine in substantiam Cerebri mox ritè assimilando, vel (ut Helmontij verbis utar) ex totalitate Alimenti, priusquam aleret, fabricet; quo, tanquam lorica, partes frigore perculsae circumtegantur & ab immani hoste sartae tectaeque conserventur. Atque hanc potestatem, Mucci hujus effectricem, Custodis etymo opportunè quadrare, consentaneum est. Alteri, Laryngis nimirum Praesidi, munus fere idem est; puta; ut quoties aeris inexcusabilis injuria partem utranque, i. e. Cerebrum & Pulmonem adoriatur, toties è Latice & Cruore crudiori, Muccum etiam quendam, tanquam vestem, sive interstitium objiciat; in quem aer ferociens, partim depositâ primi ictus inclementiâ, mitescat. Quamdiu enim Custos rectè valet, atrocitatis aëris victrix superat: dum verò ob perfractum robur, primae suae destinationi ex voto satisfacere nequit; saltem multum Mucci fabricat, ut conceptam eluat labem, quam primitùs non fuit separando. Sed ah! ubi vel externa injuria major est, quàm quae sinat se sic deliniri; altiusve ferret ipsam laryngis aut pulmonum substantiam: jam titubat Custos. Nec solum desumit auxilium abs Latice, Sed ipsam proximi alimenti substantiam alienat, transmutatque in muccosam collam; unde Phthisis mox sequitur.  by the Guardian of the brain, seduced into a perversion of its office, as hath been clearly declared in convenient place.  
I grant moreover, that in the Gout, and other consimilar diseases, frequently the guilt may be imputed unto a certain salt excrementitious stream, fretting the parts assaulted: but of such, only the Latex, or source of aqueous serosisy in the body, is the Mint, cement, and Supply; and not an ascent of vapours from the stomach into the brain, not a miscellany of non-existent juices, nor a feigned Defluxion of phlegm mixed with Choler.  
26. For the Schools themselves, surrounded with shame, that the Head, being on all sides brimful of the brains, might be a Magazine for the collection of Catarrhs, and most Diseases charged upon their Defluxion; have (alack, and alas for woe) unjustly accused the stomach of continual smoking with vapours, and so contributing matter to their production: but finding the stomach not-guilty in healthy men, yet presently, in the Gout, they incriminate upon a Defluxion, and as benighted in a dark mist of their shame, whisper out this false impeachment, nor adventure to speak it out, as alleged from the testimony of positive knowledge. For they at first dash, steal the Question, borrow a kind of acrimonious Choler, and salt phlegm from the simple treasury of the blood, and leave the controversy undecided: whether those humours are to be derived from the Liver, separated, by a kind of Critical percolation in the veins, from the remaining laudable mass of blood, and so excluded and discharged upon the joints; or whether a certain Water, tartareous Muccus, or other anonymous Excrement be transmitted thither from the head, underneath the skin. For yet they remain unresolved; and are the more confounded in this, that they cannot manifest, what this cunning Separator, or Winnower of various humours, blended together in one form and consistence; or what that Conductor should be, who should transport these humours severed from the blood, incontaminate with any alien tincture in so difficult a passage, where many more solid substances are to be penetrated, only to the Conjunctures and Articulations: and now select and pitch upon this, and anon upon another determinate part: but leave unimpaired the more feeble and supine, and every day make a fresh conquest and subdue some one new joint; yea invade that member, which is become more capable of resistance by Nodes and Oppilations. Whatever, therefore, the Schools dotingly prattle concerning vapours elevated from the stomach, and recondensed in the brain, as the material Cause of Catarrhs; let all pass for a Christmas tale, or drunken beldame's dream.¶  
27. For the stomach is never Cold below its native convenient temper; indeed the Digestive Ferment 
* Fermentum digestivum, est proprietas quaedam essentialis, consistens in vitali quadam Aciditate, ad transmutationes ciborum in ventriculo potens; ideoque & specificae proprietatis. Non est autem fermentum istud digestivum, in sola Aciditate aliquali fitum. Neque enim acetum, vel jus Citri farinam fermentat: imo nec farina fermentata proinde est fermentum stomachicum; sed hoc est Acidum esurinum, stomachicum, specificum & humanum; ita quidem per singulas brutorum species Specificè distinctum, quod ipsis sit appropriatum. Mures namque, Glires, & Sues citius fame pereunt, quàm Phaseolum edant. In homine verò plerumque ad Generis amplitudinem aspirat. Interim plures Caseum horrent, vinum, lac, vel alia spernunt; quia non conficiunt. Ideoque quaecunque luctantur cum nostra digestione, obversantur Fermenti illius proprietati specificae, fermentumque conculcare nituntur.  (to which, and not to heat, the Faculty of Concoction ought immediately to be attributed; as we have in another tract concerning that particular Theme, to ample satisfaction evinced) may suffer Diminution: nor can the Liver ascend to an excessive Heat, above that constant degree of Vital flame, which first entitled it to Animation; for in severity of truth, there is no other heat in our bodies, but what was first kindled in our heart by that Vestal spark, or vital light, which immediately and solely constituteth the Essence of Life. And this the reason is, why every Carcase doth suddenly grow cold, as the heart of Winter, so soon as the Vital flame is extinguished. 
* Princium istud Formale, cujus beneficio & munere Animalium Corpora, alioqui frigida, concalescunt, edendisque Vitae actionibus apta redduntur, non esse Calidum innatum, sive Humidum primigenium insito spiritu & calore undique perfusum, contra Aristotelem, ejusque {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, acerrimè velitatur Author: tradens passim per suas lucubrationes, pro axiomate aeternae veritatis; quod in cunctis viventibus insit Lumen quoddam Vitale, immediatè & fontalitèr â Patre Luminum (Formas enim rerum omnium immediate â Deo creari, serio docet, in Lib. de Formarum ortu) dimanans, cordique, dum adhuc esset in utero recens embryonatum, tanquam proprio conceptaculo implantatum, in quo Vita essentialitèr consistit, atque cujus marcor Senium, extinctio Mortem necessariò infert. Inquit enim, de Vita solerter perorans; Vita est lumen & initium formale, quo res agit quod agere jussa est. Hoc autem lumen, a Creatore rebus infusum, datur unico instanti; prout â silice ignis excutitur, sub formae identitate ac unitate clauditur, perque genera et species est distinctum. Non est autem lumen igneum, cumbustivum, humidi radicalis consumptivum. Tam in pisce vitale est, quàm in Leone; tamque in papavere, quàm pipere. Nec etiam in nobis deficit Calor, ob humidi radicalis consumptionem: nec vicissim humidum deficit, Caloris defectu; sed solâ duntaxat potestatum Vitalium, adeoque et luminis diminutione & extinctione. Fusiorem vero Argumenti hujus explicationem me legisse memini, in tract. Humidum radical nuncupato; quorsum benevolos, avidosque doctrinae Helmontij ex instituto remittendos volui.¶   
28. But the offensive Heat of the Liver belongs to it only by Accident. For example, let a cold thorn or needle be pricked into any man's finger (an instance frequently mentioned by me, and largely explained in my discourse of Fevers) and thereupon shall instantly ensue a violent Pulsation, occasioned by the pain, an angry Incalescence, and tumour of the part. 
* Quicquid in sanis edit actiones sanas: idipsum in morbis edit actiones vitiatas. Spiritus enim iste calefacit hominem naturaliter in sanitate, idem qui in febribus aestuat. per exemplum. Spina querna digito infixa, actu et potentialiter frigida, mox in digito excitat calorem praeter naturam. Non quidem, quod calidi humores affluant, quasi per spinam eò convocati, expectassent spinae vulnus, & qui aliās suis sedibus temperati sedissent. Siquidem cruor vulneri proximus, primus accurrit, aditum venienti cruori praeripit. Et ipse per se quoque non calet: Sed ex gratia vitalis spiritus. Itaque inflammatio, & tumour cum pulsa duro, dolore, & calore, à solo spiritu causalitèr; ab infixa verò spina occasionaliter duntaxat procedunt. Helm. de Febr. cap. 1.¶  Not because this thorn is hot, nor that the blood then in vicinity to the wound had any immoderate offervescence before the infixation of the thorn: but that excessive ardour is kindled upon the entrance of the thorn into the flesh. Now let the same reason hold good, as concerning the Liver; for if that at any time conceive an unnatural ardour, it is caused by some thorn, or foreign impression which doth not indicate, in order to the extinction of that conflagration, any Refrigeration, but a total Ablation or eradication of it. For Refrigeration of the Liver is so far from working even a bare palliative Cure of this ardour, that indeed it renders the mischief desperate, for the future.  
29. And this, I earnestly wish, the Schools may be pleased soberly to observe; as also their vain and impossible figment of the Heat of the Liver, and the manifold Errors in their Method of Sanation, all streaming from this fountain. May they seriously observe also, how barren and unsuccesseful all such Remedies have proved, which have been directed (with grief I speak it) to the Head, stomach, and Liver, for the Cure of Catarrhs. Manifest therefore it is, that a Catarrh hath, in nature, neither Material Cause for its Generatton, Place for its Conception, Conduiets for its Traduction, Receptaries for its customary Admission, nor sufficient activity to make good its Penetration through the substance of the brain, Membranes, Skull, and Periostion. For where in all this admirable fabric of the body can we find, that Nature (whose Providence can be found no way deficient) hath built any house of office, or close-stool, merely for the reception of Preternatural Excrements: nor can it stand with the laws of verisimility, that a mere excrement generated in any part, should be endowed with an Arbitrary Power to transplant itself at pleasure from one place to another. And upon the concession of the doctrine of rheums, the Trepan would every day, be of as much use for the letting out of Catarrhs, as to give vent to the Purulent Effluxions of wounds in the head.  
30. But why should a Catarrh cease ●●flow downwards, immediately after the Tooth, which ached, is pulled out? whither because it hath so soon forgotten its way thither? And if the matter thereof be originally transmitted from below, whither, I beseech you, in relation to its natural tendency, should it then run? or upon what new part shall that ancient rivulet of rheum be diverted, which constantly used to creep into the channel of the teeth, and insinuate itself through those slender perforations, which the Nerves, as well within, as without, above as below, entirely possess and fill up? Doth the stomach, forsooth, cease, or not dare to continue the exhalation of vapours, and the communication of the fuel for Catarrhs, after the drawing of a tooth? or doth the whole store of rheum, yea such as shall be generated in the future, flow forth together with the blood, at the instant of the teeth evulsion? or upon the generation of flesh in the mortice of the drawn tooth, and so the cutting off all way of effusion, doth the Catarrh dry up? But sure the Catarrh could not attempt a passage through the rocky and impenetrable substance of the tooth? If not; what hindered it from swelling, by restagnation, into a necessary Apostem in the parts adjacent? why doth it frequently, when one tooth is pulled out, find a new channel and drive against another? Doth the evulsion of the first tooth turn the course of the stream upon the second? Doth the conductor of the rheum grow blind, and can no longer find its way to the remaining nerve of the drawn teeth, or at least to the carnous excrescence that succeeds the tooth? or can it with more ease drill a hole through a second firm tooth, then pass the spongy flesh that ariseth upon the ejectment of the former? why can it not constantly keep possession of that Current which itself digged? And so conserve an outlet for itself, before the new tenant of flesh take livery and seizin? Miserably, insooth, is this rheum deluded by the Chirurgeon, which thinking, according to its custom, to invade some one Tooth, and finding it removed, must be constrained to return back, by the same way it came, and execute its malice upon some more noble part; which it torments, in revenge of the affront done by the Chirurgeon. No tooth, therefore, aketh by reason of a Defluxion: but because, upon a detection of the Gum, it becomes too sensile; or that, in another case, the matter of its ultimate or most depurated Aliment, being defectively assimilated, conceives putrefaction at the root of the tooth: and hence that intolerable pain. 31. For the Digestion of the Teeth and nails is distinct from the Digestion of all other parts, in this particular; that the Digestion of those is performed in domestic vessels, or the very interior substance of each particular part; but of these in vessels only contiguous to their roots.¶  
32. But that no Catarrh can fall down upon the innards, the stomach, Lungs, Liver, Kidneys, &c. is in part already manifested, from that general evidence alleged against the possibility of its material Cause, ways of transportation, and manner of production: and may, in part, be evinced from this, that nothing can fall down upon the palate, much less into the stomach, contrary to our will, but what may instantly be ejected by exscreation. For we never swallow down the natural Muccus▪ ordinarily dropping from the head upon the root of the tongue; but unawares: nor is any Catarrh so far participant of the power of election, as cunningly to lie in ambush, till we are locked up in the arms of sleep, and then assault us when we are unfit to endeavour its evacuation. May all Fables, and Dreams of impossibilities be henceforth utterly exiled from the Confines of the sacred Art of Healing.¶  
33. Whatsoever, therefore, is distilled from the head upon the jaws; is the Muccus, or ordinary excrement of the brain, either in its natural and due constitution: or altered from it, into various irregularities, respective to the indispositions of the Custos, or president of those parts. But this Muccus is, in totality of essence, distinct from that Excrement, expectorated from the Lungs, by Cough. And then, what means this rash inadvertency of the Schools, when they direct, that, by exact inspection, we examine the spittle by Cough, whether it be watery, frothy, diaphanous, liquid, white, concreted, yellow, ash-coloured, or tawny? whether round, globular, of a consistence fit for impetuous defluxion? To what purpose, say I, do they command us to make our augury and explorations of the Diseases of the Chest and Lungs; if, as themselves opinion, those excrements we spit up, be Catarrhs, and originally derived from the head? For so a rheum, following upon some constipation of the os Ethmoides, or spongy bone, by the Muccus ordinarily descending into the nostrils; would be diluted with a crude and aqueous Muccus; for this cause, that provident Nature would hither send a plentiful torrent of the Latex for the ablution of that, whose thickness and viscidity caused the obstruction. And if the material cause hereof be primitively deduced from the stomach; why, when the spongy bone is obstructed, doth the stomach of a man perfectly in health, grow outrageous, play the tyrant, and oppress the brain with too great a charge of vapours? How can those vapours, when condensed above the palate, arrive at the odoratory Nerves, seated in the forehead, and there put on the form of a salt water, to wash and rinse away the obstruction from the spongy bone? From whence can vapours, of their own nature, insipid and harmless; in their short passage only acquire so much salt; which they should melt and precipitate downwards together with themselves, and, by this new acrimonious impraegnation, introduce frequent squinancies, and other inflammations of the throat and jaws?¶  
34. Why doth this rheum, elevated formerly from the stomach, and by no other transmutation, but only a bare Condensation into water (which is demonstrated, by the mechanic experiments of Pyrotechny, to be necessarily insipid and gentle) changed from its primitive consistence of a vapour; when once it falleth upon the stomach, occasion so many and grievous mischiefs therein: which yet not long before, during its commixture with other parts of the Chyle, was grateful and benefieiall to the same? Whence can it obtain this Hostility? What, from the Brain, one of the most noble parts of the body, and richly endowed with vital principles? And if this Vapour hath only touched upon the lowest Plane of the brain (as themselves affirm) and instantly fall down from thence, so soon, as it multiplies up to the quantity of one single drop; and since no third place can be found, to detain each successive drop: therefore can this perversity, or evil tincture, arise unto this rheum, neither from the momentany stay in the plane of the brain, nor from the Contagion of any malignant part, nor finally from any seminality or infusion of depravity received from thence. Unless, perchance, they shall be able to give in evidence, that, besides the bare condensation of the vapour into rheum, there intervened some Third causality, from which the Acrimony, saltness, and virulency of the Defluxion was derived: which hitherto they have neglected to prove.  
35. But since the numerous Comments, concerning Catarrhs and Pulmonary maladies, have grown up into huge Volumes, counsels, and Dispensatories: I conceive it my proper business to declare, that no theory of the Schools was ever more full of negligence, absurdity and danger, than this of Defluxions; on this account, that hitherto they have esteemed no sin more venial, than Homicide, committed out of incogicancy and circumspection; provided that the earth cover over their Crimes, and they become excused of murder upon the allegation of some axioms of vulgar tradition. And hence, amids my compassionate meditations, have I thought, that the Devil 
* Consule clarissimum {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} illum, Dom. Selden, de dis Syris syntag. 2. cap. 14.  Moloch fits Doctor of the Chair, and hath down to our days infatuated the world with the whimsy of Catarrhs. Whose material Cause, Nativity, Place of conception, Efficient, manner of Generation, receptary, progress, and collection, are equally unwarrantable by truth, because absolutely impossible in nature. These absurd doctrines therefore none hath broached and promulgated, but the old Serpent, the Father of lies; with design to depopulate Humanity. For whatever distils from the head is the native Muccus and pure Excrement of the brain, generated within its proper confines; and no foreigner brought in from the stomach.¶  
36. This Muccus, is constantly white, thick, viscid and innoxious; while the Custos, or Lord President of the head, continues sober, well disposed, and conforms its dominion to the wholesome Statutes of its primitive trust: but when it degenerates into exorbitancies, and irregular operations, and the powers committed to its administration are perverted into abuses; then doth the Muccus grow unnatural, wild, watery, acute, salt, sharp, yellow, tenacious, &c. and like a virulent torrent, shower down upon the palate from the funnel of the brain, by the most convenient and obvious floodgate.  
37. For that matter, which in the beginning of a cold, or pose in the head, trickles down in the form of a thin water, is not simply and merely the muccus: but salt Latex, wherewith nature endeavours to rinse away that excrementitious phlegm, which, as a foreign adversary, hath encroached upon the spongy bone, bordering upon the brain, and obstructed its sluices; as I have already hinted. Nor is that matter, which comes yellow and viscid, in the declination or exit of a Cold, the same with the first Latex, nor any the smallest measure of time detained and inspissated in the same place; (as the Schools notwithstanding confidently teach) since if so, the whole cavity of the skull, though all the brains were taken out, would not suffice to the reception of so vast a quantity of Excrement: but this new kind of Muccus is freshly created every successive moment, and differs from the natural and healthy Muccus, in diversity of colour, stink, viscidity, and acrimony. Besides, its ridiculous to apprehend this putrid Muccus, under the notion of an excrement well concocted and inspissated out of the former Latex; which is accidentally advenient, praeternatural, and depends upon a foreign vicious causality. Now, that the Latex makes the first flood in a cold, is manifest from this observation; that always, for two days, in every cold, the belly is more slow in the exclusion of its excrements, and the quantity of urine much diminished: which clearly evinceth that the salt current is in part diverted upon the brain. Again, this Latex evaporated in a convenient vessel, by a gentle heat, containeth nothing in its consistence, that can be inspissated into a thickness equal to that of the Muccus: but how much of the Muccus, the Latex shall dilute, and rinse away from the spongy bone, by its thinner stream; exactly so much, and no more of a mucilage, or glutinous substance, may be found in it.¶  
38. But however it be, and whatever that be which slides down from the Brain upon the Palate and root of the tongue: yet cannot the least single drop thereof enter into the Lungs, but before it descend so low, it must endanger the life by suffocation. For if one drop of liquour, slipping down the aspera Arteria or windpipe unawares, whilst we are drinking, threaten the deplorable Fate of Anacraeon 
* Had we said cross fate, the epithet had been more genuine, and had more clearly hinted the preposterous rarity. For how unusual and unnatural an Accident was it, for the invincible stupidity of a Poet to flow from his inspiration: and a volatile muse to be condensed into eternal dulness, by the sprightly fruit of the Vine, the same Inspirer, whose active flames had so often warmed and exalted her to the sublimity of rapture? : what would not so great a quantity of rheum, as is frequently rejected by Cough, even to the filling of several basons in a very short time, do as to the inference of suffocation? And far from the sober and rational ways of Probability must his credulity wander, who can submit to a persuasion, that the sleep of a few short hours can insensibly convey whole basons full of rheum into the Lungs; and that so impetuous a flood of phlegm can run down through the narrow chink of the Epiglottis, or Flap of the Larinx, without the manifest hazard of praefocation. In the days of yore I ingeniously confess, being deluded by the sophistry of the schools, during my pedantism and credulous pupillage, I disposed my patients, afflicted with affections of the Lungs, into such a posture, as that laying their faces downward upon their pillows, they might sleep in a prone position; with design, that the rheum (forsooth) might run out by the Nostrils, which would otherwise have flowed into the Lungs: and upon this score, I promised immunity from the peril of Defluxions. But the following morn derided my ignorance and folly, with an argument borrowed from the constant perseverance of the Cough and exscreation of rheum. For then did I discover, that an Orthopnaea, or extreme difficulty of Respiration, which constrains men to fetch their breath in an erect posture, put but a slight value upon the doctrine of Catarrhs, and amply convinced it as frivolous and inconsistent with truth. Since I observed many to be strangled in that prone and horizontal position; which yet was, with great gravity and confidence, prescribed by the Schools, as the only barricado, or damn, to intercept the antecedent matter of the Catarrh. Upon which observation I first built this justifiable position; that every particular member of the body, once disaffected, doth forge and coin a very great quantity not only of its natural and ordinary excrement; but also of new, alien, and adverse.  
39 Thus from the eyes, according to the variety of their disaffections, trickle down continued rills of a purulent effluxion, or of salt and corrosive tears, let forth with out the key of passion: and when the Throat is blocked up by a squinaney, there continually hangs down a rope of viscid phlegm from the tongue. And upon this root grew that branch of my judgement; that the Lungs are equally subject to the same law, with other members. So that as often as they are assauled, irritated, injured, wounded, oppressed, or tainted by any inquination of the aer, or contagion of malignant vapours belched from the sulphureous and bituminous bowels of Mines: so often must they produce various testimonials of their present langour, upon the credit of their own irregularities; and not that, upon any such occasion, those so destructive and venenate excrements can fall insensibly from the brain (whose integrity of constitution remains, for the most part, in such Cases, inviolate) and be received amongst the slender Conduits of the Windpipe. And hence grew my Wonder also, how the Schools could observe, that the matter running from the nostrils, in a Cold, did in the declination or Catastrophe much degenerate from what it was in the Prologue and first act; and imitate the proper and ordinary excrement of the brain: and yet, at the same time, not discover; that the same perversion or abuse of power lay in Common to the Lungs, as well as to other members of the body. According to their rule, whatever is avoided from the he Lungs, must be fathered upon the brain, must thence fall down insensibly (ridiculous) into the Windpipe, there, by a certain pepasmus, 
* {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, Maturatio: ita dicitur humorum praeter naturam, morbos efficientium {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}; quasique Alteratio in meliorem formam; ut {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, est naturalium concoctio▪ vide Hippocrat. & Galen. in epidemiis.¶  or maturation, be stewed into a consistence more sit for its future exantlation, and all that while be lodged in the small-bored pipes of the Lungs, without causing any intense Anhelation, or difficulty of breathing. When (alas) it can escape the observation of no man, that a far greater quantity of matter is frequently expectorated by Cough, in diseases of the Lungs, in the space of one month, than the whole cavity of the Chest can contain. Upon which consideration, we are bold to affirm, That the yellow, ashcoloured, and fulsome spital of men in consumptions, are errors of the Custos, or precedent of Vegetation in the Lungs, and materially the blood, degenerated into a white, yellow, stinking excrement; 
* Custos, qui laryngi & pulmon bus praesidet, ubi semel insanit, rectoque justitiae de tramite deviat, nedum humorem aquosum è v●nis advocat sui in auxilium; ast etiam ipsam alimenti proximi substantiam exhaurit, corrumpit, et in muccum infamem transmutat: tantò viz. viscerls alimento proximiorem, quantò altiùs ad colorem ex flavo rutilantem, & rubedini vicinius accesserit; reditque ab illo lapsu in pristinum, dum à rufo ad flavedinem paleae, atque inde demum ad albuminie o vi similitudinem propriùs appropinquarit. Hinc vice versa, in Hecticis cruentus evadit muccus, et cinerum obscurorum colorem assumit: dum ipsamet alimenti substantia abscedit transmutata, deficientemque ibidem vitae integritatem pandit. Tunc nimirum faetidus cadaveris incipientis odor in anhelitu, deliquia prodit Archei Pulmonarij. Sed haec ad mentem Helmontij.  which being thus exhausted, there must of necessity ensue an atrophe, or universal Famine in the body.¶  
40. Unsuccessful, therefore, and deplorable are the Prescriptions of cephalic remedies, in diseases of the Lungs; vain are the drinks of cooling Ptisans, vain are Lambatives, Syrups, and whatever else is swallowed down into the stomach: as such that must suffer a Castration of their virtues in their tedious journey, and undergo many formal transmutations, before they arrive at the part affected.  
41. And what can smell more of the Fool, then to give Decoctions of the Indian Roots, to dry up rheums? for how can China, Zarza, or Guajacum conduce to exsiceation, when drank in a liquid form? What can they dry up, which would not be more pernicious and desperate when dried up, than it could be in the more harmless consistence of a liquour?  
42. Why are such things referred to Exsiccation; which, in the policy of reason, want only some inhibitive Course to prevent their Causation: and when they are stolen into existence, require not an evaporation of their liquid and fugitive parts; but an entire ejection and eradication of their whole? Why do the Schools, in most of their disquisitions, look only open the effects and obvious Exteriors: and never pursue their search back to the Causes and more remote Proto-principles? What though these foreign and barbarous drugs procure a general sweat, and so diminish the requisite quantity of the Latex, to the great and almost irreparable detriment of the Patient: do they therefore strike at the root of the disease, and destroy the Cardinal efficient thereof? while by a spare diet, and plentiful sweats, they first diminish the necessary measure of blood; and secondarily cause an unavoidable leanness of the whole body. All which the Schools have drawn into practice, upon the design of exsiccation of superfluities; wildly imagining to comprehend, the competent quantity of blood, Generation of the exotic Excrement, and easy Expulsion of the same, under the single synonyma of Exsiccation. But (alas) will the radical indisposition of the Lungs be hereby rectified? will the Transforming Vulcan, or frantic Custos, which doth there coin loathsome and consumptive Excrements out of the laudable blood, be by this ineffective means subdued, lulled asleep, weakened, and reduced to its primitive sobriety, and convenient administration of its power? which enraged Vulcan doth never, no not when the sick are emaciated to living skeletons, remit or discontinue the execution of its fury. Turn from us, oh thou soul of goodness! that deplorable Calamity, which the sottish Sanhedrim of Pagans, and herd of blind Doradoes, pretending to the sacred mysteries of physic, which more study their own gains, than the safety of their afflicted brother, have drawn upon all Christendom.¶  
43. The Cardinal point of the Cure lies only in this; that the irregular and erroneous impression (which I call, the Factor of corruption, or Vulcan, resident in the Lungs) be expunged and eradicated. For that's the only Publican, which by an unsupportable Excise, impoverisheth the whole commonwealth of the body, and makes nature bankrupt, by exhausting the stock of aliment from the membranes, veins, Cartilages of the Windpipe, and all the substance of the Lungs; and converting the same into sordid and ulcerous excrements, which are continually pumped up by Cough. But if there hath preceded an eruption of blood in any vessel of the lungs, if the matter expectorated be sanguine, and the disease hath proceeded to an ulcer; In such a case, learn the right confection of such admirable Medicaments, wherewith Paracelsus was wont to cure the Consumption. For those, since being taken inwardly they cure even a Cancer or any other corroding malignant ulcer, have more than a pretence to the cure of ulcers in the Lungs: And if any medicament drank down into the stomach, do a cure of an ulcer in the thigh or foot: why should it not do the same in the Lungs? But what will the Schools do? they continue ignorant of the Causes, ignorant of the Remedies, and wavering twixt negligence and uncertainty, suspend all further enquiry; and yet confidently cry down the use of Mercury diaphoretic, fixed into a sweetness equal to that of honey; and the volatile Tincture of Lilium 
a Lilium est Tinctura Paracelsi ex stibio▪ Nam alcool stibii in clauso reverberio detinebat per m●nsem, ut evaderet leve, & volaticum, prime album, inde luteum, ex quo rubrum, & tandem violaceum (quod Lilium Antiquorum alii nuncupant) ex quo, per vini spiritus ad xx. digitos affusos, tincturam extrahebat, separatoque postliminio spiritu, Nobilissimam Lilii Essentiam paratam esse dicebat, in omni morbo praestantissimam. Arcani hujus praeparationem Paracelsus haufisse videtur ex libris Basilii Valentini Monachi, de Antimonio; qui extarunt ante plusquam 200 annus. : as also the milk or Element of pearl 
b Lac sive Elementum Perlarum fit, cum Margaritae in lacteum querdam cremorem (ex quo prius concrevisse meritò credantur) repetitis mult●ties solutionibus, liquoris solutivi evaporationibus, & spiritus vit●ioli affusione, dissolvuntur. Cum autem Helmontius, ne procis uniones projecisse videatur, ejusmodi artificium coram mundo propalare recuset; l●ct●ri, potissimum cui Hermetis adyta intrasse nondum contigit gratum fore duximus, si rectum ac minimè labortosum conficiendi Lac Margaritarum modum, paginae hujus margini inseramus, parcâ verborum serie. Margaritas, in porphyrite in farinam seu laeverem tritas, mitte in cucurbitam. Affunde menstruum acutum solvens (puta succum Limonum) ut duobus digitis excedat. Claude vitrom exactè. Colloca in cineres calentes, ut solvantur Perlae. Si una vice id non fit, muta menstruum; donec tota substantia delituerit. Solutiones distilla ad siccum. Affunde aquam stillatitiam dulcem. Macera: distilla; quod ter repete, aut donec acrimonia abierit. Calc▪ huic affunde optimum ex malvatico vino spiritum. Digere, distilla blande. Red alium: digere, distilla, idque repete donec oleositas spiritus Perlas in oleum mutaverit. Quod cum novo spiritu digerere, & per alembicum extrahere queas, tandemque abstracto spiritu, per se dare. Si Tabulas vis cape quantum vis: affunde spiritum Vitrioli, & fiet Lac. Ex hoc secedet Calx candida. Abstrahe humorem, & cum sacchari Chrystallini q s. aqua rosacea soluti, fac Tabulas Perlatas. .  
For unless the whole body throughout be tinged or bedewed with some supereminent Balsam; seldom or never are internal ulcers brought to Consolidation. And the Lungs, being a part that first submitteth to old age and death, can very hardly make a safe retreat back to their primitive strength, when once assaulted by any strong infirmity, the forlorn-hope of Death: but having their forces once routed, easily resign to the tyranny of the Conqueror; and therefore seldom receive any recruit or assistance from Common remedies.¶  
44. Upon the reputation of which reason, hath the antique error of the Schools (who, sooner than they will be brought to acknowledge any deficiency in their blue and invalid Medicaments, are ready to impeach Nature herself of imperfection, and transfer the blame upon the most glorious Author of Nature, by implicit accusing him of improvidence and drowsy omission) succeeded even down to our days. They positively affirm (forsooth) that the four lobes of the lungs are, during life, uncessantly expanded and compressed, by a short vicissitude of contrary motions, like a pair of Bellows, for the use of Respiration; so that the Aer inspired, is drawn only into the Lungs, but passeth no further into the cavity of the Chest. Which opinion, truly, hath been of bloody disadvantage in the method of healing: though at the same time, it served the Schools of Physicians for a weak sanctuary, and childish evasion. For upon the incessant and inexcusable necessity of the Dilatation and Constriction of the lungs, or perpetual motion of their substance, have they endeavoured to contrive an excuse for their practice: which leaves all Vleers of the lungs, all Consumptions &c. as desperate, and beyond the art of Aesculapius. Well a day, as if they could cure an ulcerous inveterate Cancer, or quiet Fistula of the Anus, or eyes, at pleasure! Which Error I thus encounter.¶  
45. In the Aer there perpetually sail up and down whole Clouds of dust atomized; and therefore, by a continual necessity, together with our breath we suck in whole swarms of these dusty atoms: and by consequence, the whole cavity of the Chest would in a very short time be filled with dirt, if nature had not provided us of lungs, in whose narrow Meanders, and almost impervious porosities, these atoms of Dust might be stopped and hindered from further advance. And in this relation, the Lungs have no other way of discharging their excrements, but by Exscreation; that the dust drawn in together with the Aer, might be pumped out of the Pipes of the Lungs, at the same instant the ordinary excrements of the chest are avoided. A use, indeed, which hath hitherto lain obscure and neglected by the Schools; who have unanimously denied the Lungs to be pervious. The hair, indeed, wherewith the nostrils are fringed, like a net, catcheth all the small fibres or threads of atoms flying in the aer, and hinders their further ingress: and the numerous folds, and annulary Cartilages of the Aspera Arteria, are like so many labyrinths to arrest and fix the finer dust, that it sink not to the bottom of the Lungs. In order to our proof, That the Lungs are immovable, we have a very sufficient argument from the forementioned use of them: and not only that, but further also, that the substance of the Lungs is uncapable of Expansion and Constriction. And therefore the Lungs of Birds (serving to the same common use of respiration, as well in them, as us) in regard they are, by many visible fibres, closely annexed and chained to the ribs, cannot by successive or reciprocal Dilatation and Constriction, make up the comparison of a pair of bellows. Again, the whole fabric of the Lungs consisteth of three large vessels, or tubes, equally dispersed through the whole (viz. the arterial Vein, the venal Artery, and Aspera Arteria, or Windpipe) of a sanguine Parenchyma, or blood concreted into a solid mass; and a peculiar Membrane, or scarf enshrowding all the rest. Now the three Vessels are Canals or Conduits, equally divaricated and distributed through their whole substance; and the two former are ever repleted with blood, and therefore absolutely impossible it is for them to receive in any of the Aer drawn in by inspiration: but the third is ever open, filled with Aer, and so incapable of any new inspired aer, until the aer drawn in at the last dilatation of the Chest, be first discharged down into the capacity of the Chest; for which reason, undoubtedly the aspera arteria, as also the Membrane enshrowding the Lungs, are full of small perforations. For this third Canale, consisting also of Cartilagineous or gristly rings, made contiguous each to other, by the intervention of a horny membrane, is ever distended and open; no otherwise then the main trunk of the Windpipe. The fourth part of the Lungs, is their parenchymatick Flesh, altogether as incapable to admit the advenient Aer. To conclude, the fifth part is a membrane, serving as a Coat to invest the whole structure. This summed up and considered, the result must be; that no part of the Lungs bathe any room to entertain any of the smallest parcel of the Aer brought in by inspiration: and that no part of them can, without violence and the dilaceration of their substance, endure the reciprocal motion of Dilatation and Constriction. A miracle it is to me, I profess, that the Schools, notwithstanding the uncontrollable evidence of this verity, can yet snort in their inveterate Lethargy: that though they stand convinced, and allow of all our allegations, as true beyond all Scepticity; yet do they not, even to this very day, cease to preach up their absurd opinion, that the Lungs are continually, by a reciprocation of contrary motions, like those of a pair of bellows, distended and recompressed. Again, the third of these vessels, or forementioned Tubes (though we should grant it not to be continually repleted with aer, but an absolute vacuity, unpossessed by any aer at all) in respiration (when yet it remains open at all times, nor can the sides thereof meet together by concidence, like a bladder, the cartilagineous rings forbidding it) can receive only such a proportion of new aer, as may respond to its capacity; but since at every inspiration we draw in so much aer, as must fill a larger capacity, than the dimensions of the whole Lungs can be extended unto: it seems of undeniable necessity, that the aer is not inspired only into the pipes of the Aspera Arteria, of themselves uncapable of constriction and dilatation, but is carried further down, even into the cavity of the Chest. For a close, when any man hath received a wound with a dagger or poniard, through the intercostal muscles; 'tis discernible with half an eye, whether or no the stab hath penetrated into the cavity of the Chest: for if yea, then is the aer, upon constriction of the Chest, exploded by the orifice of the wound in so strong a stream, that it will blow out the flame of a candle at considerable distance; which could not stand with possibility, if the aer attracted by inspiration did not pass through the Lungs into the cavity of the Chest. And the Consequence of this is, that the Lungs have no motion at all. A principal Argument, for the illustration of this paradox, is, that in the breast is seated a double membrane, perpendicularly intersecting the cavity thereof, from the neck down to the midriff, and therefore called the Mediastinum, or partition wall, provided by nature to guard the heart from the injuries of aer. This Mediastinum divides the cavity of the Chest into a right and left. Now manifest it is, upon the conviction of the former experiment, that the aer sucked in by inspiration, is drawn directly down into the cavity of the Chest; as also that the Lungs are, for the same reason, devoid of all motion. A second Argument, no less obvious or satisfactory, may be collected from the purulent expectorations in Pleurisies. For in these diseases are ever rejected by cough such excrements, as were first generated of blood extravenated and putrified, in the parts adjacent to the ribs, and membrane enshrowding the hollow of the Chest: and therefore it is of necessity, that the coat of the Lungs must be full of considerable porosities, or perforations, which suffice to the easy transmission of blood and thick purulent matter. All these things the Schools see, know, confess, and write of: and yet are so effronted by custom, that they adventure to deny, that the aerattracted by inspiration, is carried through the Lungs down into the hollow of the Chest; but affirm that the substance of the Lungs is perpetually agitated, twixt expansion and compression, like a pair of bellows. They concede, indeed, that the Lungs have many pores or small perforations, through which the extravenated blood and apostemated matter in Pleurisies are imbibed and spungd up: but will by no means grant, that the more subtle and penetrative Aer can be transmitted through those pores into the cavity of the Chest. Nor is there, why we should wonder at this obstinate infatuation; since they speculate only dead bodies, in which the pores of the membrane investing the Lungs are closed up by the condensing hand of death: and the same constantly happens in the optic Nerves, the spinal marrow, interstice or middle partition of the heart, and orifices of the mesaraick veins looking into the guts. The Lungs of any beast float upon the water, while they are boiling whole, but minced into small gobbets, they presently sink to the bottom: the reason belongs to the impletion of the Aspera arteria with aer. And if boiling water (pardon us the impertinency) cannot find access into the substance of the Lungs, while they are decocted; which way (we beseech you) can the grosser matter of a frigid Catarrh hope to force an entrance into it, at pleasure? The same is also demonstrable by an experiment, as easily made as mentioned. Let any man, by a strong efflation, breath out all the aer in his chest, as much as possibly he can; then with a ribbon measure the circumference of his body, near the point of the swordlike cartilege, above the pit of the stomach: and again, by as strong inflation, fill his breast with aer, and measure it the second time, and he shall find, by comparing the different measures, that more aer is attracted into the chest by inspiration, then can be contained in the dimensions of the Lungs. And much more, when he shall allow for that proportion of aer which tending directly downwards, depresseth the midriff upon the stomach. Try the same experiment, another way; draw in so much breath, as you can; then blow it immediately forth into a bladder, and you shall find, as before, that the quantity of aer inspired doth by many degrees exceed the magnitude of the Lungs. But in the mean time, be pleased to remember, that all the smaller tubes of the rough artery, as well as the upermost large canal, remain constantly wide open, as being distended by their Annulary Catilages, and must therefore be repleted with Aer, since nature and an absolute vacuity are incompatible. No doubt, but the belly and breast owe their intumescence to the inspiration of aer; if therefore the Lungs were capable of distention (which yet seems to us impossible) yet could they not be distended to a capacity sufficient to admit the tenth part of that aer, which the Thorax upon inspiration doth ordinarily receive; allowing for that aer, which doth depress the midriff downwards, and remain in the ever distended pipes of the rough artery, in avoidance of vacuity. By inference therefore, the motion of the Thorax doth argue the motion of the Lungs unnecessary. Should we grant, that the Lungs could fill the whole cavity of the chest (which the most impudent ignorance dares not assert) then would it sound concordant to reason, that the elevation of the ribs should dilate the Lungs: but since the aer, by the laws of its constitution, is subject to Dilatation and Compression (as common Philosophy phraseth it) therefore could not the elevation of the ribs draw in a sufficient quantity of aer. Yea, since that attraction cannot but be violent (as being a shift Nature is put upon, for the prevention of a vacuum) i. e. è diametro adverse to natural and vital motion: it follows, that the motion of the ribs is not ordained nor conductive to the dilatation of the Lungs. And since the Lungs have, neither in themselves, nor by infusion from any other part, any principle or causality of peculiar Motion; other than that dependent on the motion of the ribs (according to the Schools:) it results a serene and irrefutable truth, that they have no motion at all; but from the first to the last moment of Animation, continue quiet, without variation of Figure, or enlargement and contraction of Dimensions. What clearer manifest of folly and invincible dotage can there be, then to confess, that all the twigs, or smaller Canals of the rough artery are constantly wide open, as being necessarily distended by the contexture of the ringlike Cartilages: and yet at the same time confidently to maintain, that all the same Canals, upon the attraction and explosion of aer, in the reciprocal motions of Respiration, are dilated and compressed? Besides all this, the Schools, in their lectures, deliver it for established beyond dispute, that the diaphragm or midriff doth, as prime and sole Efficient, suffice to the ordinary use of Respiration: and yet anon they fall foul on their own maxims, and substitute the intercostal muscles, as Coadjutors, or Auxiliaries, to the performance of that office. Again, there frequently arise out of the stomach such belchings, as carry along with them the lively expressions of odours formerly received into the Lungs by inspiration: therefore are the Lungs and midriff perspirable, that is drilled full of small porosities. In earnest, 'tis worthy our most passionate tears, that the Schools have, for so many ages together, unhapily misspent their sweat and oil, in fripperies, childish pageantry, and composing Romances more wild than those of the Talmud or Ariosto. I shall urge another easy and familiar experiment; if, in a prone decumbency, that is lying with your face to the earth, you place one hand on your belly, and the other on your ribs, and at the same time draw your breath at a moderate rate, you shall then plainly perceive, that the muscles of the Abdomen are the only operators in the business of respiration: that the belly being lifted up, the midriff is drawn downward; and consequently that the cavity of the Abdomen is by so much enlarged, by how much the plane or diameter of the midriff (in itself lax and undistended) is less than its semicircle, when it is drawn downward, and so much the larger, by how much the more lax the plane of the midriff is. Nay what's more, if you bind in your ribs with a straight girdle, and then fetch your breath very gently, you shall sensibly perceive the belly to be reciprocally elevated and depressed, the ribs all the while remaining quiet, without any visible motion at all; and by consequence, that the Lungs in this case, should we grant them to move at other times (which truth forbids) can remain quiet a whole day together, if the constriction last so long. But in sighing, oscitation, sternutation, and intense respiration, or panting for breath (and in no other case) the muscles of the Thorax, running along betwixt the ribs, are sensibly perceived to officiate, and by a kind of substitute administration, concur to the action of respiration. For the ribs are semicircles propendent downward, or arched into a lateral convexity; to each of which is annexed one of the intercostal muscles, which bend them upward, and by a kind of familiar violence diminish their convexity in the dilatation of the Chest. And as they become greater, as to their concave, when they are bent into a diminution of their convexity; in that relation also do they become rounder, as to the figure of the chest; and so by consequence make the cavity of the thorax wider. Thus Orthopneumatick men, or such as by extreme difficulty in respiration are constrained to keep their bodies in an upright posture, heave up their shoulders high, every time they respire, by leaning their elbows or hands hard upon the pummels of their chairs; to the end, they may in some part relieve themselves in that extremity, by the enlargement of the chest, and greater detrusion of the midriff. A certain matron, wife to Patritius, in hard travale (for the child came forth preposterously, with the buttocks forward) by a large inspiration of acr, striving to promote her throws, and expedite the birth, broke the membrane environing her chest, betwixt the seventh and eighth ribs; yet without any manifest sense of pain (for a greater pain ever obscures a less) any Aposteme, or other Accident ordinarily subsequent upon wounds or dilaceration of that so sensible a part. Some few days after her childbed, as often as she held her breath long, or extended her chest, in singing, panting, &c. 
* Assellando (obscaenum sane vocabulum, et haud raro pro congressu venereo apud Martialem, aliosque lasciviores authores usurpatum) hic modestiori quidem metaphrasi, Panting reddere placuit.  she felt a very large tumour of wind bunch up betwixt her ribs; which sunk down again, when she compressed it with her hand, and let her chest fall in again at the efflation of her breath. And from that time to her death, she never slept, but with a swath drawn hard upon that part of her breast. Which instance puts it amongst truths most manifest, that the aer attracted by inspiration is carried through the Lungs into the cavity of the chest. The same have I observed also in a very Noble Lady, who got this misfortune in her travail; that whenever she held her breath, she had one side of her throat blown up, like a bladder distended with aer, to such a monstrous greatness, that no care or art could conceal it from the standers by. It makes very much also to our present purpose, that I have, with most serious attention, considered all Pulmoniacal and asthmatic Patients, and found, that, for the plurality, they sleep with great ease and quiet on one side, and can hardly fetch their breath on the other. For we have no reason to doubt, but this malady is Idiopathical to the Lungs, i. e. not occasioned by deuterapathy or consent with any other misaffected part: as also, that in that side of the Lungs, which respecteth the prone side on which the sick man than lies, and which must in that prone position bob and fret against the membrane lining the chest, those pores are constipated or obstructed, through which the aer used to be transmitted into the cavity of the chest: and moreover, that the pores of either Lobe of the Lungs dependent upon or facing the downward side, are either all, or at lest the greatest part of them (which we may know by observing the degrees of extraordinary respiration; for the more or less difficulty of respiration, may be a certain rule to direct our compute of the greater or lesser number of pores obstructed) by some lapse of providence in disordered nature, or foreign contingency obstructed. By which Argument it is manifest, that the Lungs are not Expanded and Contracted, like bellows, but pervious and transpirable, by reason of their numerous perforations: through which the aer smoothly gliding into the hollow of the chest, doth constantly hold an equal proportion to the magnitude thereof, as well in its diduction as contraction. And hence is it, that men sick of diseases in the Lungs draw their breath more easily when they sit up, then when they lie down: for the Lungs, when they hang directly downward in a free pendulous position, have on all sides those pores open and fit for the transvection of aer, which have not yet submitted to the oppression of obstructions.¶  
48. Beyond all excuse therefore do the Schools err, when they deliver, as an oraculous truth, that the midriff is the sole and prime Motor of the Lungs; and, in that relation, the proper and principiative efficient of Respiration. More particularly, that when the midriff doth contract itself towards its own centre, it then makes the Expiration; but when it relaxes toward the Circumference, the Inspiration: and so the quantity of aer inspired must in exact proportion respond to the measure of the midrifes expansion or relaxation. Our reasons these, 1. Since all voluntary Motion is performed by a Muscle, as the part solely and principally adapted by Nature to that action, by a retraction of the tail toward the head thereof; therefore, if their opinion stand allied to verity, must the midriff be a prime, heteroclite, and most principal Muscle, and the head thereof seated in its centre. 2. If the midriff be an organ primarily executive of motion; then, though the Muscles both of the Abdomen and ribs cease from all Contraction and relaxation of themselves, would the midriff maintain the successive motions of respiration, by its own single power: Which experiment positively denies. 3. Yea the muscles of the Abdomen, which are ordinary muscles, would have no motion proper to themselves, but be moved, at second hand, by the previous motion of the midriff. 4. Vain and useless would the contrivement of nature be, and her architecture imperfect in superfluity, in making the abdominal muscles; and the belly might have as conveniently been clothed with the single coat of the Carnous Membrane, as with the bombast and duplications of so many muscles. 5. Since every organ of Voluntary motion doth execute its function by Traction, or drawing the part, into which its tendon is inserted, towards itself; the breast, according to this error of the Schools, would be drawn very much inward by the Traction of the midriff, and the wast convelled into the dwindling figure of an hourglass. 
* Clepsydra in archetypo: quaeest organum quoddam artificiale, quo ex aqua, de vitro in vitrum deorsum, per exile foramen, guttulatim destillante, horas metiri solebant antiqui. Hodie vero, hominum ingeniis ad nobiliores machinationes feliciter provectis, exolescunt Clepsydrae; hisque super venere Clepsammidia, quibus horas mensuramus per ●ffluxum Arenae: ut & Horologia Automata, quorum orbiculi serratim dentati (graece {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, ut Arist. Mechanic.) sese mutuò protrudentes, vel á chalybe arcuatim tenso, & machinae infixo, vel ponderibus appensis circumgyrantur.  6. Further, the Expiration would not be a quiet or cessation from motion; but an absolute motion of the midriff contracted. 7. And so the Expiration would, even in most healthy men, be more difficult and laborious than the Inspiration; 8. Since then the Inspiration would not be a motion, but a relaxion or quiet of the midriff from its Contraction.¶  
49. Hence upon rational deduction I conclude, 1. That the true and proper use of the midriff hath hitherto remained unknown. 2. That the use of the Lungs hath never yet been met with, by the too lazy and jejune scrutinies of the schools. 3. That the exact manner and reason of Respiration hath also escaped the vulgar exploration of Anthropologists. 4. That Anatomists have never made a just and perfect discovery, which are the prime and principal instruments of respiration. 5. That the muscles of the Abdomen do alone suffice to maintain ordinary and moderate respiration. 6. That the Lungs are never moved by any natural expansion and Compression of their substance; but serve only as a sieve, or pecolatory, for the sequestration of the atoms of dust from the most simple and pure aer, which is immediately transmitted into the concave of the Chest. 7. That the deplorable difficulty of curing diseases in the Lungs, especially where their Continuity is infringed, doth not arise from this, that they are uncessantly agitated by a vicissitude of Compression and Expansion, and in that respect destitute of that rest and quiet, which is necessary to the consolidation of a disunion (which hath ever been alleged and admitted as an excuse for the languid and ineffectual operation of vulgar remedies) but from hence, that the small apertures or extreme orifices of their perforations are blocked up by obstructions, whose remove is a task too difficult for the infirm fingers of common pulmonary med●●●ments, and only to be hoped for from the Herculean energy of some chemical Panchreston 
* An universal Medicine. . To which we may subjoin, that nothing, besides aer, can arrive at the extreme pores of the Lungs, and that aer is, by reason of the oppilations, there arrested, and imprisoned, and doth also by degrees exsiecare the obstructing glutinous humours. From which depraved root there springs up a whole grove of preternatural productions which in their maturity put on the destructive blossoms of Aridity, Acrimony, and Malignity: and in the summer or ripening of these seeds of evil (which must, alas, be the autumn of life) there must grow a racemation or bunch of desperate Accidents, such as extreme anxiety in respiration, Apostems of the Lungs, exesion or corrosion of their vessels, spitting of blood, ulceration, consumption, and in the catastrophe Death. For let us suppose, that all the aer attracted by the expansion of the Chest, is ordinarily transmitted into the capacity thereof, through a thousand minute tubes or divarications of the Aspera Arteria; and that this just number of perforations in the Lungs is sufficient to the conservation of health, as to the interest of respiration: if therefore but a hundred of these be stopped up by obstructions, then must the party suffering this constipation, become, by one tenth part, more shortwinded, in long and intense motion, or ascending up hill, than otherwise he ought to be.¶  
50. From this advantage we have a clear and uninterrupted prospect into the field of Pulmonary remedies, and may at first glance discover, that Syrups, Lambatives, looches, &c. are lame and despicable reliefs of nature; since they never arrive at the parts distressed, but are either diverted into the stomach, intestines and other places wholly unconcerned in their operations; or so impaired in their activity by a tedious pilgrimage through many Concoctions and transmutations, that they lose their primitive faculties, and grow too languid and evirate to encounter the disease. Nay what's more sad, that if they did arrive in the zenith of their seminal powers and unrefracted qualities at the camp of the disease: yet, like cowardly and treacherous Auxiliaries, they would aggravate the charge of Nature, and ruin that part, whose assistance they pretend. Here also our enquiry meets a handsome argument, why no one of the forementioned infirmities of the Lungs may hope a Cure from any Plant in the physician's garden, or Confection in the apothecary's shop; unless Fire, discreetly governed by the learned hand of chemistry, and blown into a temper suitable to that Ignis non lucens, or invisible flame irradiating all our fabric of frigid Clay, shall graduate some medicament into a Noble entelechy, and make its balsam friendly and familiar to the principles of life, as natures own.  
51. But as for those Precautions of Catarrbs, which enjoin the use of Coriander seed, and other such vain fopperies, after supper, for the prevention of fumes arising out of the stomach; how much more worthily, in the judgement of sober reason, do they deserve our pity, than our confidence? For if the generation of vapours, from their causes (humidity as the material, and the innate heat of the stomach, the efficient) and their ascension be natural; what can Coriander do to hinder that these natural effects should not follow on the neck of their causes? Can Coriander inspersed upon boiling water in any small necked vessel, impede the exhalation or ascension of vapours out of the water? At the same rate let us prize those magnified trifles and serious nothings of the Schools, when they with great ceremony prescribe, that the hair must not be kembed, nor the head rubbed at night, but morn (forsooth) not towards the forehead, but backward; lest Catarrhs, obeying the positional friction, be drawn forward. Nor do we want just cause for our complaint, that both Gates leading into the divine Temple of Aesculapius are blocked up by heaps of frantic chimaeras and the fabulous traditions of doting beldames; since the true and proxime causes of diseases have to this very day, remained locked up in the dark of undiscovery: nor have those Moles in Philosophy ever digged deep enough into the centre of their Seminalities and first principles, or sweat sufficiently in their exantlation.  
52. For how frivolous is the doctrine of Galen, through all his five books of the Conservation of health? In all which long and hollow tract you shall hear of nothing, but the echoes of Baths, Frictions, and Apotherapia 
* Apoteraxia inscribitur exemplari Elzeviranio; sed vel ex Helmontii calamo ad alia ocyùs festinante, vel compositoris incuria, hoc vitium suam duxisse originem consentaneum est. Nullum enim vocabulum tale (quod sciam) apud Galenum reperire● est: Apotherapia autem quam plurimu in locis ejusdem lib. de Cons. sanit. usurpatur, cujus proprius scopus est, ut lassitudinem, quae immodico exercitio succedere solet, admoto oleo, submoveat atque prohibeat. Consul. Galen. lib. de san. tuend. 2. cap. 6. & 3. cap. 2. , or Unction after violent and athletic exercise. And though I have with commiseration observed the poverty and barrenness of Galen generally diffused through all his longwinded discourses; yet in no one piece of his voluminous works have I more manifestly taken the altitude of his wit, than where with extreme seriousness, he prescribes the several distinctions of positionall Frictions to be used (forsooth) longways, transverse, oblique, and circular; and these, like the ridiculous Ceremonics of Necromancers, to be observed with punctual and strict obedience, under no less than capital penalty. For Rome was infested with fewer diseases, and those more gentle and benign, and warmed herself at fewer funeral fires, in her first five innocent and growing Centuries; then after she had triumphed over conquered Greece, and among other Trophies brought home the fatal and infectious Libraries of Physicians. And all Europaeans, who harbour few or no Physicians, will, without any reluctancy to their experience, confirm the same.  
53. The Schools with serious gravity wonder, that so vast a quantity of Muccus, or glutinous jelly, should ordinarily be avoided by stool, upon the operation of Coloquintida; and yet that the quantity of expectorations in diseases of the Lung, should be thereby no whit diminished: and so while with insolent ostentation, they glory that they have found out the Antecedent cause of Defluxions; at the same time enchanted by the effects of Purgatives, they will by no force of argument be brought to confess the falsity of their phlegmatic axioms. Now Coloquintida, Seammony, Elaterium, &c. dry the body more in one day, than the Decoction of China can in three months. What benefit then can, in reason, be hoped from China, where more exsiccating Purgatives confess their invalidity: and their use must needs be horrid? From this, who so purblind in his understanding, as not to see, that the paedantick Schools, adhering to the doctrines of their Ancestors, have set up their rest in this, that the writings of the ancient ethnics ought to be their Ne ultra in Philosophy; that they are not obliged to any deeper disquisitions, or further explorations, but only to order their Cures, according to the antique and threadbare Theorems of physic. And though they cannot but observe their Practice shame their confidence, and the success fall short of what their specious Canons promise: yet do they not blush to veil over their bloody ignorance, nor feel compunction at their inhuman resolve, that they had rather their afflicted Patients should still remain suspended betwixt the calamities of the Disease, on one side, and the more murderous tortures of their Purgers, on the other; then take the pains to study and explore any more rational and probable means of their redress. And, sober truth makes me confess it, so many Myriads of Incogitancies and Absurdities, could never have thus long continued in the Schools, consisting of men so acute, judicious, prudent, and experienced (among whom I as willingly as justly confess myself the most despicable and unworthy) had they been pleased to abate any thing of their implicit subscription, and recede the lest step from the Axioms of Pagans. But, alas, they are closely besieged by the grand enemy of primitive truth; who holds them captived to the tyranny of his Delusions, by the chain either of Arrogancy, Incircumspection, Cruelty, Avarice, laziness, Stupidity, or, in fine, of shame to be reformed. Good Jesus! when wilt thou be pleased to cast this devil out of the Schools? when will the measure of these fatal evils be full, and the Vintage of these sour Grapes come; that, at length, by the comfortable sunshine of thy truth, this Egyptian night may be exhaled, and this mist of horrid calamities that sits heavy on the heads of all the wretched sons of Adam, be dispelled? Thy answer is, there can be no remedy for his blindness, who wilfully and stubbornly shuts his eyes against the light of a confessed verity. Therefore,  
Just God all things are just, thou dost approve;  
Thou unmoved Rule of Truth, and Font of Love!  
But since we scorned thy wiser laws t'obey  
we're made to Fools a Scorn, to Quacks a Prey.  
54. Some Anatomists there are who have dissected a living Dog; and when they came to the Larynx, drenched him with milk, or other broth, tinged with Saffron or bowl Armeniack, to the end they might perceive whether any part of the liquour entered the lungs: and found that a very small quantity thereof gave a tincture to the sides of the Aspera Arteria. On this they cried out, that there must be an insensible and ordinary descent of excrements from the brain into the Lungs; and enacted for an established truth, that Lambatives, since they are carried immediately into the Larynx, and thence slide down into all the most slender and remote tubes of the Aspera Arteria, must be the sole and extreme remedy of consumptions, and the most prevalent means to Consolidate ulcers in the Lungs. An experiment, in troth, of very much cruelty to the dog; but of far more cruelty and unhappy consequence to Man: since, at the persuasion hereof, the Schools have delivered it from hand to hand 
* Hic Author proculdubio allusit ad {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Antiquorum, â Pausan. sic descriptam. In Academia Promethei ara est: unde homines in urbem accensas lampadas ferentes decurrunt. Sequiturque victoria eum qui facem accensam conservarit; nam si extincta fuerit, alteri succedenti ea traditur: eademque ratione tertio successori, si secundus non pervenerit ad metam, cum lampade accensa. Quod si nemini ardentem defer licuerit, palma in medio relinquitur.  down to posterity, as an impraegnable verity; and making erroneous and unjustisiable inductions upon mistaken and only imaginary positions, have subscribed unto fopperies so pernicious.  
For, First, what can they expect that Syrups and Lambatives should do, in the slender branches or divarications of the Aspera Arteria, more than inevitably introduce the mischief of obstructions? To what end, therefore, should these fulsome looches naturally and ordinarily affect that way of descent into the lungs, or be transmitted thither, or there entertained? since in that place they can neither be digested, nor changed into good and nutritive or balsamical juice; nor yet conduce to the cure of either the purulent effluxions from ulcers, or viscid Muccus expectorated. And further, if some part of our liquour should ordinarily drop into the lungs, then would the ordinary spittle of healthy men savour of the broths eaten, or syrups licked down. And although our first spittle sometimes relish of the syrups, or other liquid remedies, newly swallowed down; yet such ariseth not from the Lungs, but Palate and other parts seated in vicinity to the jaws: nor do the succeeding salivous rejections, for that reason, confess an inquination or tincture of such Lambatives, as in another case the succeeding spittle returns fuliginous exhalations or fumes, received into the Lungs, a good while after their first admission. Again, were this feazible, then would any man, who should lick up several ounces of Syrup, in one evening, be, ere many minutes, reduced to the bosom of his cold grandmother, by the inevitable destruction not only of an Asthma, but even of suffocation ensuing; for a part of those Syrups must fill up and choke the great pipe or cavity of the rough artery. Seriously, our wonder may be excused, if we stand amazed, how the Schools, seduced by so blue and dull an experiment of a dog, have baulked the observation, that this coloured broth, or Milk died with Saffron, was rapt down in the Larynx, not by the ordinary way of Deglutition; but unawares and preposterously, the poor distracted animal howling amids his torments, and so opening the Epiglottis. Not that the same is done of custom in healthy, or frequently observed in rheumatic persons. For precisely, if a man in an extreme fit of the stone, endeavouring to make water, doth chance unwittingly to open the porthole of his arse, and confront an Irish man; must it therefore be the proper function of the Sphincter of the bladder, when it relaxeth itself, and gives way to the efflux of the urine, ordinarily also to unlock the sphincter of the port Aesquiline? For 'tis no rarity, for parts of the body, when their economy is infringed and disturbed into tumult and confusion, by excessive pain and torture, to perform their functions depravedly; and draw other parts also, to which they are allied by vicinity of situation, or connexion, into the same disorder and irregularity. Their belief had been more securely placed upon that History of one suffocated with a small feather, and of another with a hair, unfortunately slipping into the rough artery. For so had they stood confirmed, without dispute or haesitancy, that the Lungs can never admit any foreign intrusion, or receive the smallest grain, without considerable damage and hazardous anxiety; nay that such as are afflicted with difficulty of respiration, can by no means endure so much as fragrant suffumigations, for reasons alleged by us, in our discourse de Blas humano 
* Blas importat vim Motus, tum Localis, tum Alterativi; idque nedum superis, est eti●m inferis. Blas Humanum verò duplex constituitur apud Helmontium nostrum. unum nempe Naturale, quod singulis visceribus, prima ex conformatione, implantatum radicaliter, per energiam radialem, vel effluvium incorporeum, in partes sui regimini conf●gnatas, agit streu●è & monarchialiter: hoc est, potestate absoluta, independenti, non locorum vicmitati, connexion●, aut supinitati obligata, & quolibet corporis situ aequè truculentèr. Per exemplum. In Foemina hysterica, ex utero (cujus sceptro universam soeminei sexus oeconomiam, absolute subditam, seriò contendit Helmont) inspiratur blas potestativ●●in reliqua viscerum, quod situm eorundem primigeneum, figuram, officiae, imò & crasin etiam nativam mutet penitus, alienetque pro sui arbitrio. unde huic utiqu● radiali Regiminis actioni, nequaquam autem putaticiis scholarum vaporibus, humorumve reverà non-entium exhalationibus, quocunque etiam miasmate contagioso impraegnatis, ritè condonandas decrevit quaslibet uteri exorbitationes atque indignationes. Alio● perinde hujuscemodi Blas Humani Naturalis effectus, nobis evidenter satis conspiciendos exhibuit ipsa Natura, in singulis Digestionum officinis. Est namque constans Authoris dogma, Fel & jecur sua perficere munia, non quidem corporali contactu, congressu, aut commistione sui; nec denique amplectendo & recipiendo suum intra gremium: hast per Aporrhaeas incorporeas, influxum radialem, sive Fermentum inspiratum. Fel enim dimittit fermentale blas in intestina: & jecur suum in venas mesenterii. Alterum Voluntarium: quod per internum velle sibi motor existit, sive quod voluntate animalium ad motum localem dirigitur. Huic autem thesi, sat firmo tanquam fundamini, Helmont superstruxit suum ariem, ad istud scholarum axioma diruendum, quo incautae admodum docuere; In omni motu locali statuendum de necessitate primum motorem immobilem▪ In suo namque tramite, cui titulus Blas Humanum, ab illo sat demonstratum existimo, aliquid esse in sublunaribus, quod seipsum localiter & alterative moveat, ab que Coelorum Blas, & motore immobili naturali. Voluntas enim primum est ejusmodi movens. movetque seipsum quoque Ens Seminale, tam in seminibus, quam horum constitutis. Hinc insuper quaecunque Insensitiva moventur, per quandam veluti Naturae Voluntatem moventur, habentque saas naturales necessitates & fines. Fusior hujus paradoxi explicatio petatur ab ipso Authore. .  
If therefore Suffumigations and aromatic exhalations, such as promise a grateful succour to the Lungs in their oppressions, be injurious and burdensome; what will not grosser and slimy Lambatives do, though we grant them to arrive at the lower vessels of the lungs, with all their virtue and efficacy about them? No man, that ever saw but one dissection, will deny, that when ever any thing is swallowed down into the stomach, at the same instant the Larynx is shut close by the Epiglottis, or trap door, that carries the figure of an ivy-leaf; so that not the smallest atom can slip into the Lungs. And I have known some men strangled, who had their Epiglottis not shut sufficiently close but on one side, by reason of a Convulsion of one part, and a resolution or palsy of the other.¶  
55. And here we are fall'n upon the detection of another collateral Error of the Schools; in particular, their unadvised Assertion, that Lambatives swallowed down gently and by degrees, the head being at the same time reflected into a position looking above the horizon, descend into the Lungs; but not those, that are swallowed down greedily, and at once. If so, I demand, whether the dog under the dissecting knife, did lick and by degrees swallow down the coloured liquour; or chop it down at once? To what purpose did the Anatomists pour it into his throat to be drank at one swallow or gulp, if they knew before hand, that it could not fall into the Lungs, unless licked down gently? But letting this Hypothesis stand, that the Lungs absolutely abhor the admission of all external things, mere Aer and such as is not incorporated to Fumes and Exhalations only excepted: and then it will necessarily follow, that whether any thing be licked down gently, or drank down ravenously at once; yet still the precedent of the Epiglottis, or janitor of the Lungs attends the execution of his function, and observes the Clausure of the Larynx; since thereupon depends no less than the hazard of life. This, I conceive, may make it indubious to the most prejudicate, that Lambatives and syrups, though they may, by introducing an unctuous surface upon the parts, make them more smooth, slippery, and so more fit for the rejection of viscid excrements flowing from the palate and other parts adjacent; yet are they of no small detriment to the stomach, nor can, in the least degree, or largest latitude of intention, afford ease or benefit in affections of the Lungs. But the Schools reply, that the salivous rheum or defluxion, doth insensibly, and by its own spontaneous laps, or natural tendency, distil into the Larynx; and that, in this relation, Lambatives must be beneficial and sanative.  
56. But neither of these articles can stand; since into what position soever the neck be disposed, or however inflected, yet the same care and wariness of Nature to prevent that nothing drop or insinuate into the Lungs, is constantly continued. I beheld a Tumbler, not long since, stand upon his head, his hands and feet inverted, and in that posture drink a glass of wine. I appeal to Anatomy, and willingly submit my hand to the ferula.  
57 Many there are, out of whose mouths, while they sleep, run whole torrents of spittle; who if they chance to sleep in a supine posture, that is on their backs, it instantly happens, that they must turn themselves on one side, or awake and sit up, nature being affrighted by the terror of the danger imminent: and if any of the spittle fall accidentally and unawares into the Larynx; thenceforward, until all be again exploded, they cough uncessantly. But, to come home to the centre of the business; what comfort or succour can sugar, mixed with the cadaverous Lungs of a Fox, or imbued with the juice of Coltsfoot, adfer to the Lungs; when they utterly abhor the intrusion of any foreigner, admit nothing but Aer unless by accident and ex improviso, and when any thing is entered into their confines, immediately reject it with great anxiety and labour? Can such a remedy suffice to the restauration of the decayed Faculties? Can this cut up Catarrhs by the root, or expunge the seminal miasme, or original impression fixed upon the Archaeus? I profess, on which hand soever I turn me, on what part soever I place my disquisitions, I cannot discover, that the Schools war against diseases, with any other weapons, but the wild dreams of the Gentiles, or strike at any thing beyond their effects and secondary Productions, leaving the head and principal Causalities unassaulted; and all this, by reason of their ignorance of the Essence and Causes of Diseases. And hence hath the name of Physician fall'n under the facete reprehension of Comedians, and this proverbial reproach, that Physicians care not what they should think, what do, or how order their meditations, in order to their obedience unto that strict Precept: Be ye merciful, as your Father which is in heaven, is merciful, grown into use. And, as St. Bernard, concerning the Clergy feeding upon the sins of the people, in respect they live upon no other revenues, but alms; so I concerning Physicians. For they consider not, whether they discharge their duty to the Commandment, or satisfy the debt of Charity; who banquet and grow fat upon the defections, languors, and infirmities of the people. Often have I pondered, but discover I cannot, how these Plagues of Egypt, these clouds of palpable darkness, were introduced upon the Schools; unless from hence, that being seasoned with evil principles, and infected with unjustifiable traditions, they frequently met with Affections, which, according to their outward appearance, and without scruple or stricter indagation, they instantly referred to the fabulous scene of Catarrhs.  
58. For instance, a certain sick person, invaded with a head ache, soon after feels a dull and ponderous pain in the neck, a difficulty and indisposition to motion; and the leaden plummets of Morpheus are too light to draw down the curtains of his eyes; on the neck of these Accidents ensues a manifest pain and imbecility of the loins, which seems to be traduced down to the thighs, and thence to make a progress to the legs and feet. Hereupon it is decreed, that Pain (since an Accident of inherence) cannot transmigrate from one subject to another; unless something Material, successively trickling down from the brain along the muscles of the spin, and by a spontaneous motion arising from its own tendency to declivity, remove from a superior to an inferior part: which may very accommodately make out the received Appellation of a Catarrh. It must become our method of exploring verity, to examine and detect the dotage and improbability of this persuasion concerning defluxions, by the judicial test of Anatomy.  
59 For if this dolorifick matter distil, by successive drops, from the brain by the neck; no man can doubt, but that it must be transported thither, either through the Ventricles of the brain, or through the substance and membranes of the brain, or betwixt the Pia and Dura mater, or betwixt the Dura mater and the Skull, or, in fine, betwixt the Skull and the Skin. For the Consequence is warrantable from a sufficient enumeration of the parts. But, first, not through the Ventricles of the brain; since that could not come to pass without the inevitable introduction of an Apoplexy, or universal palsy: if the doctrine of the Schools, concerning the origination of these diseases, stand firm. For if the matter of the Defluxion be excluded from the cavities in the fore part of the brain, and thence discharged upon the fourth ventricle, and so carried into the spinal marrow successively; it cannot but horridly offend those noble parts, and being an alien and acrimonious excrement, cause desperate and invincible obstructions, and by consequence an Apoplexy or palsy. Secondly, the matter of this Defluxion cannot, per {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, by transudation through the substance of the brain, be first accumulated between the brain and its thinner investment, the Pia mater, and thence delaps; so that both Coats may yet keep their continual distance and separation from the very marrow of the spin: in regard the defluxion in its descent cannot but commit a divulsion and solution of unity, in the medullary roots of the nerves, according to their longitude; (i. e.) as they run out in their distinct disseminations. Which wanteth not a multitude of absurdities. In like manner, should the Catarrh be rained down betwixt the two membranes; each of those slender investments, provided by nature to envellop the spinal marrow, would be double: which Anatomical inspection could never yet justify. And should we allow it so to be, it would not only impede the motion of the Muscles; but also excite extreme torture, and convulsive retractions of the Nerves. So there lieth an Error in the Thesis; since the Nerve, indeed, is the organ delative of the mandates of the Will, (i. e.) the mediatory instrument by which the Will transmits her spiritual Mercuries on an errand to the muscles: but not Executive of Voluntary motion, (i. e.) not the immediate executioner of the commands given out. More plainly thus; the Will is Queen Regent; the Animal spirits, the Nuncij, or ambassadors; the Nerve, the instrument of their transvection or delation from the brain, or Whitehall of the soul, to the member to be employed; and the muscle, the executioner of her designs. That a Nerve is not the executioner of Voluntary motion, may be clearly argued from hence; that very few nerves, in thickness exceed a thread of double twisted silk. Now a Nerve, being inserted into the external part of its peculiar muscle, cannot probably convey the rheum down to the middle of the muscle, without inferring a palsy of that part, from its own obstruction, or a convulsion from the aerimony and virulency of the Defluxion. Again, if they shall affirm, that the Catarrh doth trickle down betwixt the Dura mater and the Skull; I may appeal for decision to Anatomy, which autoptically demonstrateth, that the perforations of the spondils of the spin, through which the nerves are threaded in their elongations from their original, the spinal marrow, are so exactly fitted to their magnitude, that not a hair can be thrust between, without a sensible Compression of the nerve; so that, by consequence, there can be no void space left for the intrusion of a Catarrh into the muscles, from the spinal marrow. We add, that though our Adversaries could find out a place; wherein this fictitious rheum may be congregated; or passage for its defluxion upon the spinal marrow, and diffusion thence through the perforatiens of the spondils into the muscles: yet, we believe, it would amuse their sophistry, to give a plausible reason of the succeeding progress thereof, and fully to make out, how a humour, once delapsed upon a nerve running out betwixt two spondils, can remigrate, or return back again to invade other nerves successively one after the other. What, doth the wanton rheum grow weary of one nerve, and to satisfy its desire of change, at pleasure remove to another? 'tis a Quaere not unworthy a substantial determination, how a deluge of salt rheum can stream along a tender and extremely sensible nerve, without causing a stuper, or dull insensibility, in that member into which it is inserted? Can it insinuate into the tendinous head, and thence creep along into the tail of a muscle? Can it retreat thence again, to assault other muscles successively, as the situation of the second is more prone or declive then of the former, and that then the third, & c? or, if there may be a new supply of the defluxion, constantly succeeding, imagined to flow from parts above, to fresh ones below; how comes it to pass, that the superior parts, first invaded, obtain an immunity from the mischief? For since the rivulet of rheum doth spring from one fountain, the brain; and run in one continued channel, the spinal marrow: why should it not rather follow the old tract, then wander into a new, and undergo the difficulties of forcing, and as it were mining out a fresh current? Why doth it, as if carried on by an adulterous unconstancy, desert it's anciently accustomed bed; and affect the embraces of a fresh, nay frequently a feeble part? Why doth it forsake its frequented quarters, and range in quest of strange and never yet frequented lodgings? Hath it such an Appetite or malicious propensity inherent, that goads it on to variety of objects, whereon to sat its hostility? For conclusion; that this Error can expect no sanctuary, in the possibility of the rheums defluxions between the skull and the skin, and through the firm substance of the Muscles, each being invested with a tunicle sufficiently compact and thick: may be amply collected from our precedent disquisitions.¶  
60. All this being summd up, by the impartial arithmetic of Reason, and examined by mature judgement; the total Product must amount to this: that there can be no way, medium, connexion, or dependence, by which a Catarrh may subsist, in verity. And since no rheum or material principle can be found out to have descended, even in any of those diseases, for whose sake chiefly the Schools first invented this chimaera of Catarrhs: Know all the friends of truth, that as often as any peregrine Aer or blast, any offensive odour, any putrefactive Ferment, or exotic Seminality is impressed upon, or conceived in the Influent spirit; so often is that contaminate and degenerate spirit excommunicated from the participation of Vitality by the severe justice of the incensed Archaeus. And the Genius or disposition of this depraved Seminality conceived, is of no less power than this, that it can transmit the Influent spirit, made an alien to its primitive purity by the assumption of an exotic Ferment, rather to parts seated at distance and in the suburbs, than such as are neighbours to the Bialto or palace of life. As we shall at large declare in our discourses of the Gout 
* In tractatu (Volupe Viventium morbus antiquitus putatus, nominato) ad quem Helmont. suos hîc remittit lectores, Arthritidis naturam, causas, atque nativitatem, brevitèr ad hunc modum descriptas videre est. Podagra (inquit) est Character morbidus, seminalitèr in spiritu vitae insertus, qui suae maturitatis terminis, fructum acidum fermentalem gignit, spermaticis partibus confermentabilem. Non existit ergo Podagra in cruore; multoque minus in excrementis. Verum Podagrici primum agitantur in praecordijs, & tom internas potuum atque ciborum, quam externas aeris vicissitudines sentiunt; imò & saepè has futuras praesagiunt. Quare patiuntur sebriles motus primum, circa officinam spiritus Vitalis, ac quidem paroxysmi initiis. Etenim primi motus è praecordiis ascendunt, sedem animae sensitivae adoriuntur. Conceptus namque in praecordiis Character, Lunae atque Mercurij typos explicat: atque deinde in corde perficitur. Formatus antem sive maturatus Character, spiritum ibidem febrilem induit, quatenus inficit. Qui simul atque acorem symboli vitae five sermentalem concepit, motu febrili abigitur squallens, & ad loca destinata (crudi viz. spermatis in synenia Articulorum) febriliter defertor. Spiritus, inquam, sic infectus, et non humour (quod notandum) synoniam in se transparens, cum Aciditate fermentali coagulat in gr●mum opacum. Ad●o ●t prae ponticitatis conceptae gradu, calores, delores, tumoresque pedagrae distinguantur. Laticem verò advocari doforis buccina, & per venas dimitti, ad eluend●m, certum est. Itaque ron quod dolet, quod tumet, vel ardet, Podagra est: sed hujus sunt producta. N●que enim per pilam bombardae sublato pede, ablata est simul podagra, sive Arthritis: siquidem in sensatione per organum sensus, fit tantum consensus partium, &c. Sed horum s●des esto penes Authorem,¶ , of the duumvirate 
* Lege jus duumviratus Helmentij. , and elsewherere. For thus Mercury, externally applied by Unction, subtly runs through all the body and invades the throat, tongue and teeth. Farther, when this vitiated spirit arrives at the place, to which it was dispatched; instantly it there imbueth the nutriment of that part with its putrefactive Ferment, transplanteth and transformeth it into a conformity or analogy to the idea of the Seminality: and that nutriment thus inquinated, by successive expirations or Afflations, and foreign impressions, doth disorder and pervert the sunctions of the digestive Faculty; and by this means doth not only generate a plentiful harvest of Excrements; but also stigmatize, or impress this depravity▪ upon the Implantate spirit of that part, so deeply, that it can hardly be expunged during the whole after life. All which the Schools, like mendicants, precarious desume from the brain; & erroneously impute to their four imaginary humours, and the defluxion of Rheums. On which Consideration, my Theory stands point blank in defiance to the doting tradition of Catarrhs; as positively denying and wholly subverting their material Cause, receptaries or places of concretion, efficient Cause, and manner of Generation and Defluxion: and separating the true Causes, Effects, and method of Sanation, far from the ridiculous fictions of a Catarrh.¶  
61. By this time, we believe, it is plain and unquestionable, that no salt, acid, sharp, phlegmatic, or choleric humour can distil from the brain; but that, whenever the Influent spirit, polluted with some alien and putrefactive impression, doth arrive at any part of the body; then doth nature, without delay, send thither the Latex, or source of serous humidity, to expung this impression, or at least rinse away the Excrements, there growing from the depravation of the digestive Faculty. For the Spirit, once vitiated by any foreign Contagion, wildly rangeth at pleasure through the nerves, arteries, yea and the very habit of the body; whereupon, the sick seeming to feel as it were the defluxion, or trickling down of a cold rheum, the brain is immediately accused as treacherous, and the grand author of this riot and irregularity in nature. Now since the Latex is sent to the part newly invaded by this malignant impression, not as the primitive Cause of the evil (though frequently, by accident, it doth foment and aggravate the mischief, and so make the vitiosity more durable) but as a relief, or stream to wash away the impression: hereupon have the Schools, to this day, remained doubtful, and durst never go so far as positively to determine; whether in the Gout the Catarrb is derived from the head, by the Nerves: or whether transmitted from the Liver only, by the Veins. And thus evident it is, that the phlegm and Choler of the Schools flow not from one fountain, or Cataract; as though the brain were the Common sewer of all these impurities. Again, as for the last refuge, whereunto the Schools fly, for protection of their impossible dream of Catarrhs; namely the Declivity or downwardness of the situation of the members, as in relation to the brain, and the facility of the passages: it may easily appear to be too rotten and fragile to afford them shelter. Since as in dead bodies there are none of these respective situations, but only in living; so also all motion of humours in the body is immediately caused by the Influent spirit, as the only impetum faciens, and mediately derived from the Principle of vitality in whose occonomy the Ascent of humours is of no more difficulty than the descent. For in living bodies, no humour oweth its motion downward, to the declive tendency of its Gravity: but, in impartial truth, to the aim or direction of that missive power, which leveled it at this or that determinate part. Hitherto concerning the impression of an External depravity upon the Influent spirit: it follows that we declare the probability and manner how the same spirit may conceive, and as it were batch an internal Character, or domestic tincture of corruption. It comes to pass not seldom, that the Latex contaminated by the admixture of some foreign Salt, doth therewith infect the Influent Spirit, so that it instantly becomes degenerate from its requisite simplicity and purity; though not by reason of any external injury of the aer, offensive odour, sulphureous Fume, &c. but from a breath or blast of Contagion conceived in the part affected: yea that taking a dislike or abhorrence from the Latex (as being polluted, and so uncapable of its vital irradiation) it grows enraged and forgeth within itself a character of anger and revenge. After this the uncivil Latex, like a rude soldier that intrudes himself into quarters against the will of the Landlord, forceth itself into the society of the offended Influent spirit; and though unfit for its conversation, as well in regard of its Acidity, as immoderate quantity, yet it still followeth and hangs upon its skirts. In which relation, the most hopeful remedies for most of these diseases which cause erratic pains, as also for internal Ulcers, must be Baths, Sudaries, and Stoves or hothouses: for by procuring liberal and profuse sweats, and by that means exhausting the Latex, as the secondary and fomenting material Cause, they seem more directly perpendicular to health, and conducible to the pacification of Archaeus his worship; then the more ineffectual and languid Solutives and Exsiccatives of the Schools.¶.  
Vain, therefore, is the story of a Catarrhs arising originally from the stomach into the head: and its Condensation, Concretion, and Congregation in the ventricles of the brain. Vain are the descriptions of its Defluxion, between the coats of the spinal marrow, or between the skull and skin, upon the Muscles. And, of necessity, vain and deplorable must such Remedies be, as are administered when the Causes of the Diseases are wholly unknown. Vain also are Cauteries and fontanelles, for the Revulsion and Exhaustion of humours, that have no real existence in nature. And to conclude, vain are the Decoctions of China, Guajacum, Sassafras, &c. exsiccating Drinks; since the evil ariseth, at least is occasionally aggravated by tbe Latex, and must be fomented by any immoderate quantity of humidity. From whence we have a fair opportunity to collect, that sober and parsimonious drinking doth very much conduce to health; nay to the cure of ulcers in the Lungs, as also of the gout. Since the Latex, which according to the Primitive institution of nature ought to be insipid, upon the excessive drinking of eager Wines, such are French, Rhenish, and Sherry, doth acquire a manifest Acidity, or sourness, and instantly communicate the same to the blood; from whence proceed Corrosions, sharp Spasmes and Convulsions, errattick pains, and chiefly the Gout. But of the history and necessity of this Latex, we have written a particular Discourse.¶  
62. You may please to remember, that the primitive Material of all concreted substances, is only Water 
* De rerum naturalium primordiis, per Mechanica Pyrotechniae experimenta, suo de more, inquirens Author, in tract. de Elementis; duo duntaxat reperit Primitiva Elementa: Aerem scilicei & Aquam. (Ignem namque Ens Anomalon, & adnihilationis ordinariò capax: Terram vero, secundarium tantùm elementum, sive fructum ex Aqua, virtute seminum, concretum, eò quod tandem cenvertibilis sit in aquam, per privationem suae essentiae, esse existimat.) In hanc autem sententiam se incidisse fassus est, exinde quod per Hermetis ignem didicisset, omne corpus visibile, puta saxum, lapidem, gemmam, silicem, arenam, marchasitam, argillam, terram, vitrum, calcem, sulphur, &c. transmutari in Salem actualem: & quod Sal iste, aliquoties cum Sale Circulato Paracelsi cogobatus, suam omninò fixitatem amittat, tandem transmutetur in aquam insipidam; & quod aqua ista aequiponderet sali suo, unde manavit. Nec in contrarium valet, quod imperitus aliquis forsan objiciet; Vitrum esse ultimum artis subjectum, quodque nec igne nec arte deleri, aut in aquam resolvi unquam possit. Erudietur enim, si Vitri pollinem pluri Alchali colliquaverit, ac humido loco exp●●uerit; mox totum vitrum reduci in aquam limpidissimam: Cui si affundatur Chrysulca, add●●o quantum saturando Alchali sufficiat, inveniet statim in sundo arenam sidere, eodem pondere, quo prius faciundo vitro aptabatur. Idem etiam sperari possit effectus ex Vniversali illo Menstruo, Liquore A●●hahest; qu● omnia totius universi corpora tangibilia perfectè reducit in aquam diaphanam, absque ulla sui mutatione (i. e. quoad Formam essentialem, sive nativam seminis dotem) viriumuè diminutione. Hujus autem siupendi sane Magnal●s praeparationem, â Paracelso, vel Basilio Valentino Monacho olim inventam, & ab Helmontio, veluti Arcanum nemini, nisi dato prius Sacramenti pig●ore, revelandum, subdolè defossam; me aliquando, ubi dabitur occasio, coram mundo liberè promulgaturum, spondeo.¶ : and all fruits or productions of mixed bodies arise from the same principle. Let us therefore grant, that the Latex, being naturally insipid, doth, upon the access and fermentation of any seminality, or fructifying tincture, instantly grow Acide. By example, in the beginning of the Spring, if you make an incision in the rind of a Vine or Birch tree, near the root, there will distil forth a very great quantity of thin insipid liquour, which is nothing but the water freshly attracted out of the earth: but if the incision be made higher in the stock or branches, then will the liquour be a little Acid. The reason is the same in the Latex, which being naturally insipid, doth, if contaminated by the contagion of any ferment admixed, acquire a sensible Acidity, and inherit any foreign quality, or tincture devolved from the vitiosity of our aliment. This Latex the Schools have wholly neglected, and indeed because they confounded it with the urine. 'tis a blind and rude method of exploring the secrets of nature, to make no distinction betwixt the Generatum, or production, and the Materia ex qua, or material cause thereof; no difference betwixt the Mother and the Daughter; as if the Muccus ordinarily dropping from the brain by the nostrils, the salivous humidity of the jaws and tongue, the Water effused betwixt the omentum, muscles of the belly and the skin, in the dropsy, and the urine, were all one and the same matter, namely the liquour we ordinarily drink. The Liver therefore being misaffected, and invaded by any hostile impression, if it sound a retreat to the Latex, and call back the streams thereof to its own assistance; doth not convert it into urine, but makes it the material cause of oedematous 
* {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, ab Hippocrat. lib. de natura hominis, appellantur tumores ' laxi, molles, indolentes, ad digiti compressionem cedentes, à pituita tenui, seu frigidtore & humidore parte massae sanguineae ortum ducentes.¶  tumours, or an Anasarca 
a Anasarca est tertia hydropis species; quam quod universa corporu moles aqua lenta & concreta suffundatur, Anasarcam & Leucophlegmatiam (turpiter enim hallucinatur Aretaeus, in 2. de diuturn. affect. cap. 1. dum discrimen quoddam inter Anasarcam & Leucophlegmatiam imaeginatur) Graeci nuncuparunt. Illius autem originem & naturam fuse aperiit Hipocrat. lib. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}.¶ .  
63. I am not a person subject to such extravagancies and wild singularities, as to affirm, that the pleurisy, toothache, and other such maladies, whose tortures were insufferable, were they not in some sort moderated by their acuteness, or brevity of duration, are no real Entities. For I too well know, and lament their tyranny over us. I admit them as Diseases: but oppose the vulgar tradition of the causes, manner, means, ways, end or destinations of Catarrhs. Those fictitious and inconsistent causes I deny, and explore other more real and probable; in whose remove, the direct way to the restauration of heath doth consist. I acknowledge that any man, upon the rupture of an Aposteme in the Lungs, may die suddenly: yet I positively deny, that a Catarrh is the cause of this Aposteme, or that death is ushered in by a Defluxion. And with much more earnestness I deny, that an Aposteme in the Lungs can be generated from vapours exhaled from the stomach, and recondensed in the brain. For which reason I account not a Consumption the daughter of a Defluxion of rheum upon the Lungs; but the genuine issue of their own Archaeus seduced into irregularity, and a depraved execution of the power delegated to his administration. I conced that the Gout may be praesaged a day or two before the invasion of its paroxysm from the sensation of the motion of the salt matter which runs to the joints like a drop of scalding liquour: but cannot allow a Catarrh to be the cause thereof, since I know assuredly that its material principles, manner of generation, ways of distillation and places of concretion and collection, are prodigious figments, irreconcilable to truth. But the Latex, ordained by nature to wash away the impurities from all parts official to concoction (like the river Alpheus brought by Hercules to cleanse the stable of Augeas) is of itself innocent and insipid: but in its course meeting with the pollutions of saline tinctures, resulting from impure and inconvenient aliment, it soon degenerates into hurtful and acrimonious, and breeds Apostemes, ulcers, and pruriginous maladies, as the Itch, scabs, &c. I cannot fool my own credulity so far, as to apprehend any probability in the common opinion, that vapours can ascend out of the stomach into the plane of the brain, be there condensed into water, where is a constant actual heat; and thence penetrate through the substance and double investment of the brain. Nor can I shake hands with that impertinent heresy of Paracelsus, that the aer drawn in by inspiration is carried down directly to the stomach, and other viscera of the lower belly: but allow that a very small quantity thereof is insensibly strained through the capillary perforations of the midriff. For in long compression of the breath, neither any considerable intumescence of the Abdomen can be observed; nor doth the breath, upon its efflation, smell of any thing contained in the parts below the midriff. In like manner can no vapours of Wine or other inebriative liquour, arise up to the head, unless by the Arteries 
* See Doctor Browne in the second book of vulgar errors. cap. 6. sect. 7. 1 edition. . For whatever procureth vertigoes or giddiness in the head, swoonings and other intoxicating Accidents, belongs to another commonwealth, then that Utopia of vapours. Nor from the Wembe can vapours be transmitted into the head; however vulgar pathology affirms, that wild and durable perturbations of the animal Faculties, and a strong cons●pition of reason, are derivatory from malignant and narcotiall exhalations arising out of tbe womb. For those surious motions and actions of the matrix are not to be ascribed to any sympathy dependent on the necessity of Perspirability; but to the mon●machy or civil war of that peculiar Monarchy of the womb, wherein women seem to be strangled by an ascension of some certain globular body, or lump, up to their throat. This action is a commotion or tumult of the offended spirits residing in that part, or an error in the government of the Archaeus, or uterine precedent enraged, to whose arbitary power all parts of the body must do hon age and conform: as I have amply explained in my Treatise called Ignota actio Regiminis. For the dominion of which the Womb hath over all parts of the body, is no less absolute or diffusive, then that whereby the Testicles distinguish a cock from a Capon, a Bull from an Ox, and a man from an Eunuch; as will in the Figure of the body, as the blood, flesh, skin, and animosity.¶  
64. But in regard all those disease conceived to proceed from Catarrhs, the contaminated Latex hath obtained a peculiar superintendency or domination over the other humours of the body, and responds to the nature of Water: therefore do all Accidents accompanying such infirmities observe their periodical exacerbations most toward night; the influence of the moon, queen regent of all human substances, operating those vicissitudes, or causing ebullitions in us at those hours. And these Accidents display their hostility most upon the brain, weakened by any native or acquired distemper praeceding: as also upon the Nerves and Membranes, as parts whose small stock of vital heat makes them less able to resist or subdue the impressions of external Cold. And hence is it, that Consumptive, hydropic, Gouty and decaying, bodies carry an infallible almanac in their bones, presage change of weather, and by the augury of their pains are sorewarned of ensuing tempests: which I have, for that reason, christened Tortura Noctis, the torture of night. It is my serious V●inam, and may be many others, that this way of prognostication had not cost us so dear, as the sufferance of such intolerable anguish and anxiety. For almost every week observes unto us, that men once enured to wear the fetters of the Gout, or tainted with any imperfection of the lungs, yea such as are only troubled with corns on their feet, are suddenly awakened out of their Profoundest sleep, by the twinges and cruel mementoes of their infirmities, against change of weather: and by this smart advertisement can at midnight tell, that Juno hath put on her sable weed of Clouds, and that the unconstant winds are tacked about to another point of the compass.  
65. Paracelsus was pleased to opinion, that Mercury was Lord Paramont, or precedent over the Alimentary liquour, through the whole body: and for that reason, in another place (de morbis miner alibus) both in name and reality, he confounds this Planet with the terrestrial Moon.  
66 But we, on more substantial and precise grounds, stand assured, that each nutritive humour of the body doth conform to the regiment, and obey the alterative influence of that seminal part, unto which it is proximly to be assimilated: nor do the liquid substances in the body hold any correspondence with the Stars, so long as they are not radically inoculated into the stock of Vitality, i.e. until, by the irradiation of the internal Sol, or vital Spirit, they are rarified and exalted into a fineness requisite to their participation of lif●. Which is a convincing argument, that the Marrow in the bones is an homogeneous part of the body; but no alimentary or liquid substance: since it is evidently subordinate to the Moon; and the brain, to whose influential power the bones are subject. And thus all diseases conceived to tyrannize over man, under the mistaken name of Defluxions, as also the Veneral Contagion, or French Pox, Contractions of the sinews, torments of the joints, &c. fall under this one general title or denomination, Tortura Noctis: in this interest, that their paroxysms or periodical invasions depend upon the motions or ebullitions of the Latex, are regulated by the influence of our Moon, and observe their tides or vicissitudes in exact conformity to the various motions, positions, and configurations or reciprocal Aspects of the Planets.¶   
FINIS.