Deliramenta Catarrhi: OR, THE INCONGRUITIES, IMPOSSIBILITIES, and ABSURDITIES Couched under the Vulgar Opinion of DEFLUXIONS.

The Author, That great Philosopher, by Fire, Joh. Bapt. Ʋan Helmont, &c.

The Translator and Paraphrast Dr. CHARLETON, Physician to the late KING.


¶. Arist. de Caelo. 1. cap. 10.
LONDON, Printed by E. G. for William Lee at the signe of the Turks-head in Fleet-street. 1650.



The Translator to the Judicious and (therefore) unpreju∣dicate Reader.
SO malevolent, severe, and uncha∣ritable have the Censures of ma∣ny (yet such onely, 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 Sallads gathered in the Poets Elizium, and soft Ro∣mances, oyled 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, then the Publication of a second, of the same kind. But as I ever level∣led my endeavors at a far nobler end, then the


nothing of vulgar Applaus: so also have I de∣clared the temper of my Genius to be too Stoi∣cal, to feel the weak assaults of that cowardly Pygmie, detraction; whom hansomly to over∣come, is to scorne. For common observation will justifie, that no man ever entered the lists with that ignorant Bug-bear, but lost much by the encounter: his judgement inevitably re∣ceiving such VVounds, as the reputation of his Courage could never cure, or compensate.

Nor shall I at all recede from this Maxime, though I here adventure to professe, that next to the discharge of that duty, which, as a Scholer, I owe unto the Publique, in the Explanation, Improvement, and Communication of ob∣scure Truths; the most forcible motive, that incited me to bestow a few recreative houres on the Translation, and marginal Paraphrase of this piece of Helmont, was to have an oppor∣tunity of letting these Semi-criticks know: that though they have privately accused, yet would it have stood more with their Honour publickly to have convicted me of such improprieties of expression, or unnatural perversions of my Au∣thors 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 my self of more defects, and greater unevennesse of my Pen, then the acutest of my Calumniators can discover; and do account it more noble to detect my own, then others Frailties: yet I dare appeal to the sober Decision of any, whose Stu∣dies hold any proportion with the Subject, (and such onely 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 grosse Eclipse, if drest in a meer-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 naturalizing thousands of forraigne Words, pro∣vidently brought home from the Greek, Ro∣man, Italian, and French Oratories; which, though in the untraveld ears of our Fathers they would have sounded as harsh, as St. Pauls〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉*; yet have a few years made so familiar unto us, that now even Children speak much of Latine, before they can well read a word of English? And to draw in to the Cen∣ter of the scandal, whether I have merited the Epithite of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉* of one that praefers


the noveltie, or affected elegance of the Phrase, to the nerves and importance of the sense; meer∣ly 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 Helmonts spruce Conceptions, in Colours most strong and natural; though borrowed from the more praecise, distinctive, and emphatical Tinctures of forreigne Artists?

I can not but applaud the Spirit, and happy Phansie of this Tetrastick,

Legisti nostros? risisti, Romule, libros? *
Ut vidi, ut risi, Romule Dive, tuos.
Quae Causa effectus paris in tam dispare causa?
Risisti ingenium tute, ego stultitiam.
And when any of the tribe of Zoilus shall shew us something of their own, I may perchance be furnished with an opportunity of Applying them.
But lest I fall upon a Parergie, and loosly de∣viate into that sinister path, which my resoluti∣ons abhor; I return directly to my duty, which is to give the impartial Reader the Reason, which perswaded me to exhibite my Explana∣tion


of Helmonts unfrequent, and new coyned, or new-applied Termes of Art, in Latine. In a word, I conceived that the Quality of the Subject, intimated by each of those paradoxi∣cal Appellatives, being such as falls under the comprehension of none, but the leading part of learning, and chiefly those, who have more then looked into the mysterious Temple of Aes∣culapius, did necessarily require it: and that no English, how plain soever, could have dri∣ven their ample meaning into those skulls, which are so thick, as not to admit it in Latine.

As concerning the Verity of these Para∣doxes, inspersed upon the ensuing Treatise, though I have formerly declared my Aversa∣tion to attempt any Commentary on, or deci∣sive Assertion of any of his Innovations; in regard I ever found his reason stronger at De∣molishing the Doctrines of the Antient Pillars of our Art, then Erecting a more substantial and durable Structure of his own, his Witt more acute and active at Contradiction, then his judgement profound and authentick at Probation: yet shall I usurp the liberty to say, that many of the Grounds of his quarrell a∣gainst the Schools, in this particular of Ca∣tarrhs,


are sufficiently justifiable; and that if any member in the whole body of Physick needs to have its errors purged, stupidity corrected, distortions rectified, and leannesse reformed, doubtlesse this Capitall one of Defluxions may chiefly deserve the industry of the present, and gratefull improvement of the future Age. Nor should I have onely said it, had not my expe∣ctation, 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 de∣siderable piece of knowledge, would unavoyd∣ably have suffered irreparable detriment, disparagement, and obscurity from the Con∣tagion of my unequall undertaking. And I am bold to promise, that if any sober mind, imbued with that usefull Lesson of Aristotle,*〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, shall come to the dispute, denudate of all interest, and purged from all the dreggs of Adhaerence to either side; he shall soon be convicted, that in all that long flux of time betwixt the daies of Hippocrates and us, no one (at least that ever came to our view) among the numerous swarm of

Pathologists*, hath discoursed of the nature and causes of such Diseases as are in vulgar practice confidently referred unto the Distilla∣tion of Rheums from the head upon parts of inferior situation, with such cleare and un∣controulable reasons, as not to have left very large gapps, for the easie illation of these scru∣ples and objections raised by Helmont a∣gainst 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 chiefe impediment to their prevailing upon the beliefe of many dissenters, will be their No∣velty. For hardly doe we part with those Doctrines, which instilled into our tender and un wary yeers, have grown up together with our understandings, and hold our credulities enslaved to an implicite confor∣mity, by the tyrannous title of Praescrip∣tion. A deplorable remora to the timely ex∣antlation of Truth, long since discovered and complained of by the grave and yet most acute


Stagirite, in these words: *〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉. Quemadmodum enim consuevi∣mus, ita judicamus dici debere, & quae praeter haec non apparent similia; sed quia non consuevimus, ignotiora & magis pere∣grina. Consueta enim notiora sunt. I shall here so far exercise your Candor and Patience, as to tolerate a short Digression (though perti∣nent and material) concerning this Cardinal cause of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, or Indocibility. The Descrip∣tion of this vice of the minde, since most ample and elegant, I shall borrow from that Noble En∣quirer into Truth, Mr. Hobbs, in his inestima∣ble 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 ac∣knowledge whatsoever should be in the right method, and right ratiocination, delivered unto them: but when men have once acquies∣ced in untrue opinions, and registred them as authenticall methods in their minds; it is no lesse impossible to speak intelligibly to such men, then to write legibly upon a peece of Paper already scribled over. The immediate

cause therefore of Indocibility, is Prejudice; and of prejudice, false opinion of our own knowledge.
The Naturall Reason of it I shall adventure to deduce from the slender stock of my own Philosophy. We judge of the truth or falshood not onely of things subject to the apprehension of sence, but also of Philosophi∣call and Religious opinions, as we have been accustomed from the minority of our Ʋnder∣standings: and although many times we are greatly deluded, yet cannot the arm of the stron∣gest reason bend us from our accustomed judge∣ment. The ground of this is, that not onely the *Images, or bare Ideas (I mean not those inten∣tionall 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 certaine Notes or marks of Rejection or Approba∣tion are also superadded unto them, and deeply impressed upon the brain. These Images there∣fore being again offered unto the mind, we per∣ceive not only the things themselves; but at the same instant, even without any haesitancy or ac∣curate examination, yea though most convincing

and firme 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 regi∣stred. The remove of which obstruction shall be the constant businesse not onely of my studies, but also of my earnest prayer.
Quae in Schola & Cathedra aliquando praeter tationem, plerumque ad acuenda ingenia juven∣rutis, in theoria proponuntur, sunt toleranda: quae vero in praxi in perniciem aegrorum praescribun∣tur, potius execranda & damnanda, quam admit∣tenda esse, existimo.

Quid verum, atque decens curo, & rogo, & omn is in hoc sum.
Condo, & compono quae mox depromere possim.
Ac ne forte roges, quo me duce, quo lare tuter?
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.

VV. CHARLETON.

Page 1
The Errors of Physicians Concerning DEFLVXIONS.
The Summary.
1. WHo is the Lord paramont 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 dyes. 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 Physi∣cians give of their own ignorance, Fatall: because too late. 11. That Axiome of Physicians desumed from the use of things beneficiall and hurtfull, worthy their blushes. 12. Errors of Physicians. 13. The ground of Paracelsus his inconstancy. 14. The Generalogy of a Catarrh, or Rheume, like an old wives fable. 15. Diseases imputed to Catarrhs. 16. How great calamity arifeth to mankinde from thence. 17. By what means they make the sick their perpetuall slaves. 18. The ordinary subtersuge of the Schools. 19. Thirteen Positions. 20 Nine∣teen 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
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of Catarrhs. 25 The same Ignorance, the fountain of Ab∣surdities 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 unsuccessefull remedies. 30. the Tooth-ach ex∣amined. 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 opi∣nion of a Catarrh falling upon the stomack. 35. An enquiry concerning the dropping of Rheume upon the Lungs. 36. What distills 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 ori∣ginall of the matter causing affections of the Lungs, declared. 39 The vanity and infertility of remedies, from want of know∣ledge. 40. The decoctions of China, Zarza, &c. neither dry up excrementitious humors, 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 knowne to the Schools. 45. 21. Peremtory reasons against the vulgar opinion of the use of the Lungs. 46. The error of the Schools, concerning the use of the Midrife, confirmed by 8. Arguments 47. 7. Con∣clusions ensuing thereon. 48. Why the remedies of Physici∣ans are inefficacious and barren. 49 That the means vulgarly used for the prevention and restraint of Catarrhs, are meer fop∣peries, and dreams worthy onely 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 pitty and tears. 52 The dissection of a living Dog, hath de∣ceived the Schools. 53. A new Error, concerning Lohochs, or Lambativ medicaments. 54. They depend on the supposi∣tion 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 Destillation. 59. What the second and succeeding matter. 60. Mens ignorance of the Latex, or fountain o• serous humors, hath been the basis to the opinion of Catarrhs. 61. Preoccupation. 62. The torture of night. 63. The inconstancy of Paracel∣sus.
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64. Those liquid parts, which are not yet made commu∣nicants of vitality in our bodies, hold no correspondence with the starrs. 65. The marrow not accountable amongst the li∣quid parts of the body. ¶

SEasonable it is for us, now to declare, that the large Catalogue of Diseases, imputed to a destillation of Rheume, from the head even to the extremity of the toes, with∣out any obstacle impeding the descent, is an old wives fable, invented by the com∣mon 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 Schooles are, even to this very day, seduced by the errors of the Gentiles, in the point of the Generation of Rheume, its defluction, man∣ner, way, matter, means, places, and organs; as also of its Re∣vulsion and Remedies. For false and absurd must that super∣structure be, which is founded on an absurd and impossi∣ble Principle. For which reason, the vain and ridiculous hope, which is erected upon Cauteries and Fontanels, is in like manner staggered and ruined: as I shall, in con∣venient place, demonstrate.

Nature herselfe is the sole Aesculapius of diseases: and the Physician no more but her Adjutant; according to that * worthy Maxime of Hippocrates. But the sense of that re∣lates onely to such diseases, which nature, by her own sin∣gle power, usually cureth. But when she hath been so fata∣ly foyled, that she cannot by her own strength arise again to maintain the conflict; the Physician, elected by the im∣mense benignity of the Almighty Lord of Nature, and in whose balance all diseases carry the same weight, (i. e.) are equaly curable (such is he, who hath, among a multitude
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of others of the same order, obtained some one Ʋniversal 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 vouchsa∣feth his munificence to Little ones, abjected in their own hu∣mility! For the Nature of a sick man being the chiefe re∣ceiver of Morbifick impressions, and the sensitive mover to∣wards 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 Calami∣tous death, unlesse 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 Co∣rinth, to ascend to that excellent knowledge: but his one∣ly, who hath the happy qualifications of a Vocation, Electi∣on, Exercitation, and Commission. For in the lesse accom∣plished dayes of Hippocrates, the transcendent virtues of Catholique medicines remained in the darknesse of undisco∣very (and in truth, even in our brighter dayes, they con∣tinue 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 businesse of the conquest of diseases to lye upon the shoul∣ders of Nature, as being the sole protectresse of life. ¶

Again, I have elsewhere shewed, that, even from the first moment of the conception of an Embrion, there is assigned * to every peculiar member one Implantate or Originary Spi∣rit, as immediate president and Governour thereof, and another Influent Spirit, deradiant from the heart, as the ex∣cieator and assistant of the former; which yet is not deter∣mined to perfection, nor individually disposed, unlesse first subdued to a qualification requisite by the praeparatory power of the Implantate. I have also taught, in another place, that every member enjoyes the capacity of Vegeta∣tion, according to the virtue of its peculiar Ferment origi∣nally inoculated into its principles; and that, for this reason, there can be no expectance of any transmutation,
Page 5

conductive to a new generation, unlesse by the mediation of that Ferment.

And from hence, by naturall consequence, we may un∣derstand, 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 Fer∣ment, according to that in sacred Writ: My spirit (the involucrum or conservatory of the Ferment) shall be attenu∣ated and (therefore) my dayes shortned. So that a member, which in its integrity affords no visible excrement, must produce a large and constant source of unnatural humor, when once wounded, injured, diminished, or impeded in the vigour of its appropriate Ferment. And, finally, it fol∣lows from hence, that according to the degrees of the in∣jury and variety of Causes inferring that injury; there must be generated a difformity and dissimilitude of excre∣ments respectively. ¶

Diseases, therefore, have their origine, not from one fountain, particularly from the Head (from whence the * Schools wildly imagine all Catarrhs to drop down) but from a single Idiopathy, or proper indisposition of every part, superinduced upon the topicall or domestick Ferments. Thus, to example, Wounds, long after their sanation, break * forth again, and frequently introduce durable Ʋlcers, 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 tumors, or inflammations, have their set vicissitudes, and, after considerable intermis∣sions, reinvade. For some excessive montain Cold, or o∣ther 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 vio∣late and ruine the Ferments of the brain, or Lungs, that from thenceforward, during the whole after-life, they become the too fertil magazines of various excrements. After this manner also in the eyes, ears, teeth, jaws, &c. Excrements
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(not such as the mucous or slimy excretions of the brain) are ordinarily occasioned by the irregularity or diminuti∣on of the Ferments peculiar to those parts. So Coughs and Asthmas, or difficulties of respiration first begin: and per∣sever by a continued Ferment. Not, in sooth, by reason of * a viscid Phlegme dropping continually from the head; but engendered in the womb of the Lungs, by a violation of their domestick Ferment. For the Lungs more easily sub∣mit to the invasion of any forraigne injury, then the o∣ther parts of the body: in regard, the Lungs is of all mem∣bers the first that grows old, decayed, and dies. As is mani∣fest * 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 neer 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 ve∣ry well know this kind of vitiosity in nature to belong to * the parts containing, and not to the humors contained. For excrementitious humors of this kind contained, are cer∣tain productions, which are begotten by the Archeus, or vi∣tall president of the particular parts, depraved by some no∣xious inquination precedent.

In the second, I dissent from them also in this point, * that I stand assured, that this evill is topicall and primary, and not communicated by Deuteropathy or consent with the head. For the Coughs of old men, which for the plura∣lity discourage all hopes of restauration, arise from this root; that in the lowest and smallest branches of the Respi∣ratory Artery, or pipe of the Lungs, there doth constantly reside such a quantity of excrement, generated in the Lungs, which doth not onely obstruct the tubes or con∣duicts: but also, by the contagion of its presence, deprave and diminish the Local Ferment; whereupon there is hour∣ly produced a new source or supply of excrements, as the
Page 7

plentifull maintainance of Coughs, which in men once entered the calamitous confines of old age, are hardly cu∣red, by remedies known to vulgar heads: in regard such re∣medies neither arrive at the part affected, nor, in troth, are they endowed with any restauratory faculty. These kinds of excrementitious humors, therefore, are no other but topi∣call defects of the parts misaffected: and every particular part hath its particular debility, whether innate or acqui∣site, from a diminution of its vegetative Ferment.

And thus it is evident, that the various streams of excre∣ments * flowing from the various parts of the body, are all derived from this one fountain. ¶

On these firm grounds I apprehend, first, That all repeti∣tions of Purgations, in these affections, are frustraneous and hurtfull: in respect, they levell their power onely against the productions, or Effects, and not against the Causes; and chiefly because such viscid excrements, seated remotely from the stomack, are too stubborn and refractory to yield to the laxative operation of Purgers. You may pleas to adde, that although Laxatives may seem to have afforded ease and relief, for a day or two after their use; insomuch as the masse of crude and inconfected blood in the mezara∣ick veins being voided by stool, there must of necessity suc∣ced the more sparing dispensation of blood through the body, and penury of nourishment in the Lungs, and by consequence a lesse quantity of excrement be rejected: yet do they, by substracting from the necessary aliment of the whole, and by leaving behind them an evill tincture in the instruments of common digestion, every day more and more infringe the universall oeconomy of the body, and impugne the conserving vigour of nature.

This when Physicians darkly, as through a veile, disco∣ver, * and remain ignorant, that they have afforded no be∣nefit to their Patients, by the exhaustion of the laudable ju∣ces of the body, and the diminution of naturall vigour; they at length remit them to the sober rules of Diet, and kitchen physick, as the onely hopefull means of their reco∣very,
Page 8

and so leave them, by the painfull use of Fontanels, 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 unfaithfull medicaments of the shops: and upon the testimony of their own un∣happy experience, conclude, that the Patient ought to abstain from them, as hurtfull, and at best but rarely to be used. Our wish is, that now, after so many destructive ex∣haustions of sick mens strength, they would sit down con∣tented, and in the future no more attempt, by the same fruitlesse means, to dreigne the hopes, bodies, veins, strength, and purses of the sick. At lest, I wish, that they would be mindfull of their own Axiome, wherein they unanimously consent, That the chiefest indication of the cure, is to be desumed from the benefit or harme which things already used have introduced. Which rule, although it be worthy the blushes of learned men, and onely fit for the conformi∣ty * of Empyricks: yet, it may be wished, that, by the in∣struction thereof, they would be reclaimed from the pra∣ctice of their former errors, and no longer in Coughs and Consumptions return to those inefficacious remedies, which they have observed, never to have been beneficiall to any. For then would all Purgatives, Phlebotomy, Errhines,*Apophlegmatismes,*Lambatives, drinks of China, Zarza, Sassafras, Cauteries in the Coronal suture, and other de∣ceitfull remedies of the same order, be wholly layed aside, which are brought into use by Physicians, that they might not appeare to have received their fees for nothing. It is also to be wished, they had suffered themselves to be instru∣cted from their own practice, that while they pointed their endeavours directly against the Ablation, Revulsion, Deri∣vation, and precaution of secundary Effects, viz. the Excre∣ments wept from the injured Archeus of the particular part: they at the same time tacitely confessed, that they neither understood their originals, nor set about the Cure of them, according to the just method of beginning at the remove
Page 9

of their primary Causes. And they had farther discovered, that a medical Course of Diet, is but a wild, languid, in∣valid and indeed desperate kind of remedy; and Kitchen A∣phorismes too contemptible a militia to encounter so formi∣dable an Adversary, already entered upon the borders of life, and ready to dissolve the discordant Harmony of the whole Composition, by the generall diffusion of its tyran∣ny. No wonder therefore, if the Common people, obser∣ving the vanity of such Cures, have taken occasion to create this proverbe, The best physick, is to take no physick. ¶

More then once have I lamented, out of a deep Commi∣seration * of the hard Condition of man, while I read over whole Centuries of the Councels of Physicians, and chief∣ly their Commentaries on the 9. Rhas. ad Almansorem, where they run over all diseases of the body, from the Crowne of the head to the sole of the foot; that digging into the Center 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 naturall or acquired: but yet with such a reserve of uncertainty, that they dare not pre∣cisely determine, whether they ought to account that di∣stemper for the disease, or onely 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 infir∣mities they accuse both heat and cold. For example, in most, they cry out upon a Frigidity of the stomack, either solitary, or combined with an excessive Heat of the Liver; whence they foretell Catarrhs to be engendered, and ma∣ladies of those parts, upon which such rheumes shall be rai∣ned downe: and this hint they pursue unto the explora∣tion of the nature not onely of very many Internall, but also of most Externall 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 jawes, tongue, teeth, chest, arms, loyns, and thighs, charged upon the account of Catarrhs. Thus
Page 10

have Coughs, Consumtions, difficulties of respiration, Pleurisies, Inflammations of the Lungs, Apoplexies, Pal∣sies, suddain Deaths, Impostumes, Spittings of blood, found their pedigrees deduced from Distillations. Thus finally, is the stomack infested with Vomiting, Nauseou∣nesse, dejection of Appetite, and debility of Concoction: as also the Liver and Spleen become misaffected. For crude and indigestible Phlegme being dropped downe from the retort of the Head, Obstructions, Hardnesses, Dropsies, Apostems, Schirrous tumors, Fevers, torments of the bowels, &c. are listed under the conduct of Catarrhs.

To which Epidemick tradition of Catarrhs, Paracelsus, though otherwise above modesty triumphing in his inven∣tion * of Tartars, and the 3 first Hypostaticall Principles,* doth * frequently subscribe, and alwayes openly acknowledge the name of Defluxion (flussen) staggering into self-contra∣diction, 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 poste∣rity; that it now dares plead prescription, and usurpe the sacred dignity of truth: yea common Idiots, by their own infirmities made passive Physicians, tire my ears with a tedi∣ous lecture of their Catarrhs. Whereupon, since it is a taske extremly difficult, and such as my Genius abhorrs, to root out a customary doctrine from the minds of men unac∣quainted with more rationall wayes 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
Page 11

hardly part with that odour, wherewith they were first sea∣soned: it is my custome, 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 de∣testation of the easie 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 con∣stellated to a capacity of medicinal Principles, nor my selfe 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 drawne the whole Christian World after them, into a servitude. * that is ridiculous, lying, and pernicious to humane society. To particular; they generally conclude that the head from whence their Nilus of Defluxions doth originally spring, is a Cold Distem∣per of the stomack, and an hot distemper of the Liver: and that the greatest part of mankinde is in subjection to this tyranny. The manner of its generation they deliver thus; That the stomack, incessantly, during the whole act of Concoction, receiving an accesse of immoderate heat from the Liver, must of necessity, all that while, send up whole clouds of vapours into the braine: and that by reason the brain is, by its native temperament Cold, and set, like a cover over a boyling pot, or the head of an Alembick, in the highest region of the body; all those vapours that ascend into it, are againe condensed into Water; Which, since ac∣cording to the propensity of its nature, it must tend downwards, doth afford an ample source to distillations, and a generall main∣tainance to most diseases. That if this torrent fall down upon the eyes, ears, palate, teeth, &c. those parts have very good reason to bewaile, and with plenty of rheume lament their unkinde destiny, in being so neer neighbours unto, and lying within reach of this tyrant, the Brain: but if upon the Lungs, it is quickly the inevi∣table*occasion of Coughs, Difficulties of respiration, and in fine of Consumtions, of palpitations or tremblings of the heart, and so of
Page 12

immature death. But if the stream be turned upon the stomack, then doth the stomack suffer the just punishment of its former di∣stemper, by admitting debility of Concoction, Crudities, Vo∣mits, Orexies*or insatiate Appetites, Swounings, fainting Pains of the mouth of the stomack, Obstructions, Laskes, durable Fluxes of the belly, violent ejections of Choler upward and down∣ward, fits of the Colick, Atrophies, or universall leanesse from decay of Nutrition, Dropsies, Schirrous tumors, and all other defects of the instruments officiall to common Digestion: yea Fe∣vers, Putrefactions of the blood in the veins, as also stones of the Spleen,*Kidneys, and Bladder, have their ordinary materials from the slime of this Defluxion. That if these rivulets creep in∣to the inmost closets of the brain, then suddain 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 Convul∣sions of the receiving parts, unavoidably be introduced: yea all Chirurgicall defects, as Pains, Apostems, and the numerous pro∣geny of Ʋlcers, 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 it self, neither by the Aquaeducts of the nostrils, nor the laborious pump of Coughs: Oh! then instantly follows, a stupid drousinesse, an inexpugna∣ble propensity to out sleep Endymion,*Catoches, a Lethargy, Verti∣go, Apoplexy, losse of Memory, and perdition of Sences.

For besides these forementioned distempers of Heat and Cold, and Defluxions necessarily resulting from thence; the Books, Orations, Councels, Conversations, Chairs and Practices of Physicians sound of nothing: and so the whole bulk of the Art of healing, seems, now a dayes, to be moved upon the slender hinges of Purgations, Phlebotomy, Scarifica∣tions, Baths, Sweatings, Cauteries, and, in short, upon no o∣ther then the diminutions of strength, and emaciations of the body, or exsiccations of Rheumes.*

To which end, they impose upon their Patients, the de∣coctions of the roots of China, Zarza, and the wood of
Page 13
Sassafras, brought from the East-Indies, upon designe of drying up the luxuriant moysture of the brain: for the most part measuring the extent of the Pharmaceuticall 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 *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 dis∣ease, and by the light of their own unsuccessfulnesse read the vanity of their Operations, they must stand convicted of the impossibility of the Sanation: upon this ground, that the naturall Frigidity of the stomack, doth Antipractically, or by Counter violence, impugne the Heat of the Liver; and so those remedies which would be beneficiall to the stomack, must prove offensive and dangerous to the Liver, and so transpositively.

All which impostures, since they conspire to the extirpa∣tion of the race of Adam, to the desolation of Common∣wealths, * and utter oblivion of familyes; I could not but think it my duty (what in me lay) wholly to subvert and dismantle this exsecrable heresie of medical Doctrine: and so much the more compulsion had I upon my conscience to attempt it, in consideration that this Pestilence hath posses∣sed the heads of our Europeans, ever since the dayes of Galen, untill now. * For rich men learn this Doctrine from the costly dictates of their Purses, and what they have learnt, 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 gran∣ted in the Schools. ¶

1. The stomack of man, during life, is actually Warme, and its interior membrane or Coate bedewed with a cer∣tain *moysture.

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 it self.

Page 14

3. The superiour way from the stomack, is the Gullet, or oesophagus, being a membrane round long and hollow, as a Pipe or Cane, extended from the stomack even up unto the jawes, and in substance the same with the interior Coate of the stomack.

4. This Gullet, by the privilege of its native constitu∣tion, is ever actually moyst, and constantly (except at times of swallowing) actually shut (otherwise, distorted in avoy∣dance of a Vacuum, it would laterally fall together, no o∣therwise then a bladder that wants some guest to fill its Ca∣vity:) and the sides thereof mutually meet and touch each the other, by the compulsion of that necessity of Nature, which forbids a Ʋacuity. 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 downe of eve∣ry morsell of our Diet the Aer, which would be beneath the morsell, and oppose the descent thereof, were the mor∣sell proportionate in gravity to the renitency of the Aer, must be rammed downe into the cavity of the stomack; and so there must follow for every morsell swallowed a Belch, or redischarge of that aer, by the superior outlet of the sto∣mack. Finally, since the membrane of this Gullet is always moyst, 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 stomack is shut up by a Natural mo∣tion, and not by a Voluntary.

6. And Anatomy affords no other knowledge of the Gul∣let, more then that it is narrow, lockt up beneath by the Py∣lorus or inferior orifice of the stomack, and in the neck of man on all sides compressed by very many vessels circum∣jacent.

7. The Gullet neither sucks in, nor containes any Aer: for by reason of its proper motion, naturall to it as a moyst membrane, and want of any body to distend it from within, it falls together on all sides.

Page 15

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, unlesse driven down by li∣quor superadded: which could not be, if the Gullet contai∣ned aer beneath the morsell, unlesse there followed a Belch upon the deglutition of each morsell. Yet the top of the Gullet, about the Larinx or head of the wind-pipe, is com∣monly open.

9. The lower end of the Gullet is contracted by an aliene power, and is therefore never opened but by the violence of some aliment or other tenent, either entering into, or ex∣pulsed from the stomack: Or upon the knocking of Hun∣ger, 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 lesse Vapour, ariseth out of the stomack, and ascends, without giving the loud report of a Belch.

11. Though that heat, which is necessary to the stomack, immediately causeth the exhalation of vapours: yet it fol∣lows not, that the same heat should protrude those vapours upward, with so great violence as is required to break open the dore of the stomack, being fast lockt, and distend the Gullet, since any one of these contradictory Theses being con∣ceded, it will be a genuine inference, that every man must be troubled with continuall belchings.

12. In the stomack, as in all other vessels moderately hot, every watery vapour doth sooner, upon the lest compressi∣on, 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 onely the Gas silvestre,* or a certain Wilde spirit exhaling from some aliment.

Page 16

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. ¶

Page 17
The Conclusions erected on the premi∣sed Concessions. ¶
FRom these Positions, confessed by generall Consent, and demonstrated by the ocular evidence of Anatomy, it na∣turally follows, in the first place

1. That no vapour can ascend from the stomack to the head; and the materiall Cause of Catarrhs, vulgarly belie∣ved, must faile, 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 blindnesse may not be suspected, in the common theory of such things as lye more deep and ab∣struse, and therefore have their Causalites onely discernable by the opticks of the most acute Reason?

3. That submitting our beliefe to the doctrine of the Schools, a healthy and hot stomack would generate more and greater showers of Catarrhs, then an unhealthy, weak and cold one; which is point blanck 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 then the Calefaction of the stomack.

5. That all men would of necessity be equaly obnoxious to Catarrhs, and so continually infirme.

6. Upon this ground, that all men have their Gullet, Brain, and Stomack actually hot, equaly moyst, and constitu∣ted in the same Figure.

7. That every man would naturally, like swine, belch at every step he treads: since the indesinent heat and moysture must unavoydably transmit continuall Clouds of vapours from the stomack.

8. That although we should descend to allow, that a vapour exhaled from the stomack might be of force suffici∣ent
Page 18

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 progresse up to the brain, by the narrow Meanders and blockt up avenews of a membrane. That this Vapour, steaming up from the furnace of the stomack, would necessarily carry along with it a fulsome Hautgoust of the meat then suffering the act of Concoction, by the variety of ungratefull odours acquaint the nose with the unsavoury story of its various mutations, and be horridly offensive both to our selves and company: and thus if all those frequent belches were thus strongly per∣fumed by Corruption, our very breath also, continually blasted with them, would save us the trouble of forreigne poysons, disparage the fatall emislions of the Basilisck, and be as dangerous to Conversation, as the fumes of the Lago di Tripergola* in Campania, or the sulphureous farts of our Grandmother, when delivered from the Colick, by the Crisis of an Earthquake.

9. That since the Materiall cause of belching is a nimble Wild spirit, arising for our Aliment, and far more subtil then a vapour; but yet doth never invade the Brain, unlesse, upon shutting the mouth, it chance to advance to the forepart of the head, through the funnell of the palat, and be thence exploded by the nostrils: assuredly, much lesse can vapours, that are more grosse and corporeal, ascend so high as to in∣sinuate 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 be∣come subject to the perception of the odoratory nerves, but when the mouth is shut, at the instant of their eruption; much lesse can a vapour from the stomack, by its own spon∣taneous motion, arrive at the remotest closets of the brain.

Page 19

11. That though we condiscend, that Vapours, the ma∣terial cause of Catarrhs, may in some degree arise up to the head, at least to the organ of smelling: yet can we not con∣ceive, 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 easie and infallible precaution of the generation of rheums.

12. That since two bodies cannot so far rebell 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 jawes up into the brain is exceeding narrow, oppleted (for there is no vacuity in those organs) barrocadoed 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 sto∣mack, 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 rea∣son of the Aer, wherewith it was before possessed.

13. Granting, that a vapour may clime upwards; yet would it not meet with any Plane or Concave, upon which it might, by Condensation, be reunited into drops: and much lesse any part of such figure, which resembleth the head of an Alembick, or Pot-lid. But in the basis of the brain, whe∣ther we gratis allow a vapour to ascend, is a narrow place, called the Pelvis, or brain tunnell; which sendeth two small tubes, or outlets, toward the nostrils, and as many back∣ward toward the neck. Which two posterior cavities onely could the ascendent vapour insinuate it self 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 Palat, as the proper Emunctories or dreignes of the brain, destined to the evacuation of the slimy redun∣dant humors. And therefore albeit we concede, that a va∣pour
Page 20

can ascend so high: yet neverthelesse can we find no place for the Concretion of a Catarrh.

14. Should a vapour, if the exhalation of any such from the stomack be possible, ascend so high as this slender Tun∣nell of the brain; yea should it, in so small a place, be con∣densed into rheume, and that rheume drop downe again to∣gether with the Muccus, or indigenary excrement: yet would it prove of much lesse offence or danger, then that muccus, the ordinary excrement of the brain. All which the Shools themselves have by Anatomy discovered, and may (pleas them to suffer the easie trouble of a serious pensitati∣on) assuredly know to be inevitable: but, alas! they have eyes, and see not; they have ears, and, we may justly feare, they will not hear.

15. That although the materiall Cause of Ructation be the Gas of our aliment, and impregnated with the particular odour thereof: yet the vapour of any meat whatever is con∣verted into no other, then an insipid and harmlesse Water. By example, let any slimy juice, or spitle be artificially di∣stilled, in any vessel, by a most gentle heat, exactly propor∣tioned to the same degree, which is in the stomack of a li∣ving man: yet, undoubtedly, shall you draw off nothing, but an insipid and thin Water, wholly devoyd of the least glutinosity; and lesse any salt, acid, or sharp Catarrh.

16. That albeit the muccus, or phlegmatick excrement of the brain, fall down upon the jawes, and frequently in∣troduceth various misaffections upon them, according to its various indispositions or deflexions from its naturall con∣stitution: yet neither the matter, nor defluxion thereof can endure the reason of a Catarrh; no more then the Ʋrine, drop by drop trickling down from the kidneys into the bladder, ought to be esteemed a Catarrh. Wherefore, if this muccus, whether insipid, salt or sharp, whether fluid or thick, drop∣ping down upon those parts, which, as peculiar Emunoct∣ries, are naturally ordained to the evacuation of it, may not be accounted a Catarrh, however evil Accidents it impresse upon those parts; so neither the urine, though it deprave the integrity of the bladder.

Page 21

17. How much lesse ought the defluxion of any ••ctiti∣ous humor, or imaginary excrement, whose nativity and trans∣m•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 ir∣radiation of vital heat, be not actually cold: without doubt, the reason of the Condensation of vapours into rheume, must be staggered into an impossibility. But if it be, by some de∣grees, lesse hot then 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, enquire out and pitch upon the coldest part, as most accom∣modate to its future reduction into a humor? because, by the dictates of naturall propensity, it rather desires by coagu∣lation 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 recoyled from the hotter parts of the body, up to the brain, as to the coldest? if so, there would be a con∣tinuall tempest in the soundest bodies, and nought but Le∣panto Gusts, and Catarrhs in the best temperd heads: which to believe, is a madnesse beyond the power of Hellebor, and a dotage too absurd to be excused by the largest candor. ¶

20. But laying aside these Positions (which can, upon no necessity of nature, be verified) as worthy onely a short con∣futation; we come now to prove, that should all the de∣mands of the schools, hitherto mentioned, be freely gran∣ted them: yet could they be of no advantage, as to the ma∣nifestation of the Cardinal point in controversie, viz. the manner, reasons, and wayes of the Defluxion of Catarrhs.

21. For first these rivulets of rheume cannot make their progresse 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 Stomack to the Basis, or lowest part of the brain, and there fix upon a Plane (imaginary, nor ever yet disco∣vered by any Anatomist) in whose lower superficies they
Page 22

instantly enterprize condensation, and then, immediately after concretion, be rained down, like a malignant mill∣dew, upon the members subjacent. Far distant, in sober truth, from this, that this forreigne adversary, this meer excrement, an obscure alien to the brain, and sole occasion of so many and incorrigible infirmities, having in the low∣est Plane of the brain transformed it self into Water; should thence either penetrate through the very substance of the brain, in the grosse disguise of Water: or at length return again to invest it self in the thinner dresse 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 stomack, arive at the bottome 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 opportu∣nity of cold, it will continue Water, nor ever in that place be reduced back into a vapour again; untill Nature her self 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 Wa∣ter, by the inevitable activity of local Cold, it is too hard for the most incircumspect credulity to be perswaded, that this Water, of knowne hostility against the native oecono∣my of the head, should be kindly invited, nay gredily drawne into the most secret and otherwise inaccessible closets thereof: much lesse that it can attaine so great thinnesse and subtility, 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 coate environing the skull; then stop at the weaker counterscarfe of the skin, and there begin its defluxion. And, beside many other inevitable absur∣dities, this Water can be at most but a kinde of Rain-water; and therefore wholly unfit to be made a source of viscid Ca∣tarrhs, whose duration depends on their glutinosity: yea Catarrhs arising from this aqueous originall, would, upon the first accesse of heat, vanish by transpiration, sooner then
Page 23

the thinnest sweat; unlesse the Galenists can shew, how wa∣ter made of vapours exhaled from the stomack, doth for ever after become fixed; as also, that by touching onely up∣on 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 then the skull (through which it is al∣lowed to passe, 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 seek∣ing other vents, to introduce those various maladies vul∣garly imputed thereunto. To which we may adde, that the skin obtended upon the skull, doth most closely and tena∣ciously adhere unto it; nor can the single declivity of the place suffice to the diffusion of the rheume, and the violent avulsion of the skin from the bone. Moreover this Water, generated of vapours steaming from the stomack, ought, of unexcusable necessity, to have some internall Pulsor, or Dri∣ver, to ram it through the substance of the brain, mem∣branes, skull, and periostion. But this driver must not be heat; for then would it cease to be Water, and in a mo∣ment, re-assume the consistence of a vapour: which is wildly imagined to be condensed into water, by the frigidi∣ty 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 affirmes to cause a Con∣striction and fastnesse in the parts) whose businesse is to pro∣trude this water through the brain, and in sooth in the grosse form of Water; contrary to the ordinary energy of naturall qualities. And this impulsive force must be either in the Water, bred of meer vapours fuming from the stomack; 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 conden∣sed vapours, is conceived to hang in pendulous manner on
Page 24

the Iowest superficies of the basis of the brain; nor can be there deteined in any quantity above a drop or twain, at most (for the narrownesse of the Cavity forbids the admis∣sion of more) it must necessarily, either immediately fall downward in successive drops: or the brain must constantly play the spung, 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 Pleurisie 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, ought to be of far more power then 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 grossely cincumvented by the traditi∣on of Catarrhs: in a businesse, I say, so foolish, vain, and altogether impossible, that men, the Charter of whose Crea∣tion 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 onely 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 implicite beliefe of vulgar heads, drowned in a deluge of stupidity, these ridiculous fictions of Catarrhs.

25. But the sweat, at least, is impregnated with a mani∣fest saltnesse; upon which hint, the *Latex, or Fountain of serous streams in the body, might with much more plausible reason have been adopted to the generation of Rheume, 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,
Page 25

and whose possibility of existence cannot be asserted, without the joynt concession of a thousand absurdities, and bold violations of the unalterable decrees of Na∣ture. For the accustomed saltnesse of the latex, may bear the imputa∣tion of being the Cause of Pains and other erratick accidents, with neerer relation to verisimility; then an insipid Water, transmitted upwards from vapours▪ which have no real Idea, but in the di∣stracted imaginations of either the Contrivers, or Abettors of this Fable. Again, when this Wa∣ter hath travelled through the Brain, Membranes, Skull, and Periostion, doth it then grow weary, feeble, and unable to con∣tinue on its progresse, and pene∣trate the easier perforations of the skin? or hath the former labori∣ous pilgrimage so refracted its power of transudation, and im∣paired its memory, that it hath forgotten the way? Why doth the skin, which by reason of its numerous evaporatories, or capil∣lary 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 colle∣cted into a pond, under the scalp; then would it either there swell
Page 26

into a tumid Cataract, or be dreigned downward in a slen∣der 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 Tumor 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 out∣work of a particular crosse membrane, wherewith their sub∣stance is immediately covered. Besides, there is neither way for its defluxion from the head, betwixt the skin and perio∣stion; nor place to entertain it amongst the intercostall Muscles, in order to the generation of a Pleurisie. For can that insipid Water, which occasioned no pain or molestati∣on, while it remained under the skin and hair of the head, within few minuts after its arrivall at the intercostall Mus∣cles, kindle a violent Pleurisie, together with such intolerable torments; and onely 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 ac∣quired from no other impregnation, then what may ac∣crew 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 smalest cranny for the intru∣sion of one drop of rheume; and much the lesse for this, that Water cannot enter any small perforation, that is shut be∣neath. If so, unfeignedly, we have no weighty engagement lies upon our reason, to enforce assent; that this rheume should customarily fall foule and infest one single tooth, and such onely as is Carious, or hollowed by putrefaction. We shall add, that a Catarrh collected into a showre underneath
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the scalp, should, according to the vieinity and rectitude of conveyances, rather stream down upon the Cheeks, then the bottome of the Gums, through their fleshy Contexture, and persisting non-incorporate to the blood, trace the impervi∣ous paths of the nerves, through the mandible, untill it in∣vade some one particular tooth. Yea though this phanta∣stick deluge might be allowed to drop down from above, and so be thought the cause of pain, in the upper jawe: yet no man can swallow so unsavory an absurdity, as that Wa∣ter, not at all participant of vitality, can by any means, or at any time, infest the lower. What if this vagabond rheume chance to decline towards the eyes, or ears? insooth, the malitious matter thereof must, from the conceited Plane of of the brain, first passe through the chief Ventricle thereof: and so in that royall place become a second and more fatall cataract; yea occasion suddain Death more probably, then an Ophthalmy, or bare inflammation of the eyes. Again, I * well remember, that the seat of a Pleurisie is not betwixt the skin, or externall membrane universally swathing the body, and the intercostall muscles (whither, notwithstanding, the de∣fluxion might more directly stream down from the periosti∣on, then toward the internall 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 sluces therefore can a defluxion be derived from the head unto this place? I grant, indeed, by way of supposition, that a certain Muccus, or phlegmatick and glutinous excrement, doth, even in Children and men of the soundest constitutions, slide down by the palat into the stomack: 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 unpro∣fitable Excrement, begotten à Custode errante,* by the Guar∣dian of the brain, seduced into a perversion of its office, as hath been clearly declared in convenient place.

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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, onely the Latex, or source of aqueous serosisy in the body, is the Mint, Caement, and Supply; and not an a∣scent of vapours from the stomack into the brain, not a miscelany of non-existent juices, nor a feigned Defluxion of Phlegme mixt with Choler.

26. For the Schools themselves, surrounded with shame, that the Head, being on all sides brimfull of the brains, might be a Magazine for the collection of Catarrhs, and most Diseases charged upon their Defluxion; have (alack, and alas for wo) unjustly accused the stomack of continual smoaking with vapours, and so contributing matter to their producti∣on: but finding the stomack 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
Page 29

this false impeachment, nor adventure to speak it out, as al∣leaged from the testimony of positive knowledge. For they at first dash, steal the Question, borrow a kind of acrimoni∣ous Choler, and salt Phlegme from the simple treasury of the blood, and leave the controversie undecided: whether those Humors are to be derived from the Liver, separated, by a kind of Critical percolation in the veins, from the remaining laudible masse of blood, and so excluded and discharged upon the joynts; or whether a certain Water, tartareous Muccus, or other anonymous Excrement be transmitted thi∣ther from the head, underneath the skin. For yet they re∣main unresolved; and are the more confounded in this, that they cannot manifest, what this cunning Separator, or Win∣nower of various humors, blended together in one form and consistence; or what that Conductor should be, who should transport these humors severed from the blood, incontami∣nate with any alien tincture in so difficult a passage, where many more solid substances are to be penetrated, onely 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 joynt; yea invade that member, which is become more capable of resi∣stance by Nodes and Oppilations. Whatever, therefore, the Schools dotingly pratle concerning vapours elevated from the stomack, and recondensed in the brain, as the material Cause of Catarrhs; let all passe for a Christmasse tale, or drunken Beldams dream. ¶

27. For the stomack is never Cold below its native conve∣nient temper; indeed the Digestive Ferment* (to which, and
Page 30

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 suddainly grow cold, as the heart of Winter, so soon as the Vital flame is extinguished. *

28. But the offensive Heat of the Liver belongs to it one∣ly by Accident. For example, let a cold Thorne or needle be pricked into any mans finger (an instance frequently men∣tioned by me, and largely explained in my discourse of Fe∣vers) and thereupon shall instantly ensue a violent Pulsation, occasioned by the pain, an angry Incalescence, and Tumor of the part.* Not because this Thorne is hot, nor that the blood then in vicinity to the wound had any immoderate offerves∣cence before the infixation of the thorne: but that excessive Ardor is kindled upon the entrance of the thorne into the
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flesh. Now let the same reason hold good, as concerning the Liver; for if that at any time conceive an unnatural Ar∣dor, it is caused by some Thorne, or forreigne impression which doth not indicate, in order to the extinction of that conflagration, any Refrigeration, but a totall Ablation or eradication of it. For Refrigeration of the Liver is so far from working even a bare palliative Cure of this Ardor, 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, Stomack, 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 Fabrick of the body can we find, that Nature (whose Providence can be found no way deficient) hath built any house of office, or closestool, meerly for the reception of Preternatural Ex∣crements: nor can it stand with the lawes of verisimility, that a meer excrement generated in any part, should be endow∣ed with an Arbitrary Power to transplant itselfe at pleasure from one place to another. And upon the concession of the doctrine of rheumes, 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.

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30. But why should a Catarrh cease ••flow downwards, immediately after the Tooth, which aked, is pulled out? whither because it hath so soon forgotten its way thither? And if the matter thereof be originally transmitted from be∣low, whither, I beseech you, in relation to its natural Ten∣dencie, should it then run? or upon what new part shall that ancient rivulet of rheume be diverted, which constantly used to creep into the channel of the teeth, and insinuate it selfe through those slender perforations, which the Nerves, aswell within, as without, above as below, entirely possesse and fill up? Doth the stomack, forsooth, cease, or not dare to con∣tinue the exhalation of vapours, and the communication of the fuell for Catarrhs, after the drawing of a tooth? or doth the whole store of rheume, yea such as shall be generated in the future, flow forth together with the blood, at the in∣stant of the tooths 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 hindred 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 turne 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 firme tooth, then passe the spongy flesh that ariseth upon the ejectment of the former? why can it not constantly keep possession of that Current which it self digged? And so conserve an outlet for it selfe, before the new tenant of flesh take livery and seisen? Miserably, in∣sooth, is this rheum deluded by the Chirurgeon, which thin∣king, according to its custome, 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
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more noble part; which it torments, in revenge of the af∣front 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 mat∣ter of its ultimate or most depurated Aliment, being defe∣ctively assimilated, conceives putrefaction at the root of the tooth: and hence that intolerable Paine. 31. For the Digestion of the Teeth and Nayls is distinct from the Digestion of all other parts, in this particular; that the Digestion of those is performed in domestick vessels, or the very interior substance of each particular part; but of these in vessels onely contigu∣ous to their roots. ¶

32. But that no Catarrh can fall down upon the Inwards, the Stomack, Lungs, Liver, Kidneys, &c. is in part already manifested, from that generall evidence alleaged against the possibility of its materiall Cause, waies of transportation, and manner of production: and may, in part, be evinced from this, that nothing can fall down upon the Palat, much lesse into the Stomack, contrary to our will, but what may in∣stantly be ejected by exscreation. For we never swallow down the naturall 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 cun∣ningly to lie in ambush, till we are lockt 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 jawes; is the Muccus, or ordinary excrement of the brain, either in its naturall and due constitution: or altered from it, into various irregularities, respective to the indis∣positions of the Custos, or Praesident of those parts. But this Muccus is, in totality of essence, distinct from that Excre∣ment, 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 spitle
Page 34

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, doe they command us to make our augurie 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 Eth∣moides, or spongy bone, by the Muccus ordinarily descen∣ding into the nostrils; would be diluted with a crude and aqueous Muccus; for this cause, that provident Nature would hither send a plentifull torrent of the Latex for the ablution of that, whose thicknesse and viscidity caused the obstruction. And if the materiall cause hereof be primitively deduced from the stomack; why, when the spongy bone is obstructed, doth the stomack of a man perfectly in health, grow outragious, play the tyrant, and oppresse the brain with too great a charge of vapours? How can those vapors, when condensed above the palate, arrive at the odoratorie Nerves, seated in the forehead, and there put on the form of a salt water, to wash and rince away the obstruction from the spongie bone? From whence can vapours, of their own na∣ture, insipid and harmlesse; in their short passage only ac∣quire so much salt; which they should melt and precipitate downwards together with themselves, and, by this new acri∣monious impraegnation, introduce frequent squinancies, and other inflammations of the throat and jawes? ¶

34. Why doth this rheum, elevated formerly from the stomack, and by no other transmutation, but only a bare Condensa∣tion into water (which is demonstrated, by the mechanick experiments of Pyrotechny, to be necessarily insipid and gentle) changed from its primitive consistence of a vapour; when once it falleth upon the stomack, occasion so many and grievous mischiefs therein: which yet not long before, du∣ring its commixture with other parts of the Chyle, was gratefull and benefieiall to the same? Whence can it obtain this Hostility? What, from the Brain, one of the most noble
Page 35

parts of the body, and richly endowed with vitall principles? And if this Vapour hath only touched upon the lowest Plane of the brain (as themselves affirme) 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 deteine each successive drop: therefore can this perversity, or evill tincture, arise unto this rheum, neither from the mo∣mentany stay in the plane of the brain, nor from the Conta∣gion of any malignant part, nor finaly from any seminality or infusion of depravity received from thence. Unlesse, per∣chance, they shall be able to give in evidence, that, besides the bare condensation of the vapour into rheum, there interve∣ned some Third causality, from which the Acrimony, saltnesse, 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, Councels, and Dispensatories: I conceive it my proper busi∣nesse to declare, that no theory of the Schools was ever more full of negligence, absurdity and danger, then this of Defluxions; on this account, that hitherto they have estee∣med no sinne more veniall, then Homicide, committed out of incogicancy and circumspection; provided that the earth cover over their Crimes, and they become excused of mur∣der upon the allegation of some Axiomes of vulgar tradi∣tion. And hence, amids my compassionate meditations, have I thought, that the Devil *Moloch fits Doctor of the Chair, and hath down to our daies infatuated the world with the whimsey of Catarrhs. Whose materiall Cause, Nativity, Place of conception, Efficient, manner of Generation, re∣ceptary, progresse, and collection, are equally unwarrantable by truth, because absolutely impossible in nature. These absurd doctrines therefore none hath broached and promul∣gated, but the old Serpent, the Father of lies; with designe to depopulate Humanity. For whatever distils from the head is the native Muccus and pure Excrement of the brain, gene∣rated within its proper confines; and no forreigner brought in from the stomack. ¶

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36. This Muccus, is constantly white, thick, viscid and in∣noxious; while the Custos, or Lord President of the head, con∣tinues sober, well disposed, and conformes its dominion to the wholsome Statutes of its primitive trust: but when it degenerates into exorbitancies, and irregular operations, and the powers committed to its administration are perver∣ted into abuses; then doth the Muccus grow unnaturall, 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 meerly the muccus: but salt Latex, where∣with nature endeavours to rince away that excrementitious Phlegme, which, as a forraine adversary, hath encroached upon the spongie bone, bordering upon the brain, and ob∣structed 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 deteined 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 Muc∣cus is freshly created every successive moment, and differs from the naturall and healthy Muccus, in diversity of colour, stinke, viscidity, and acrimony. Besides, its ridiculous to ap∣prehend this putrid Muccus, under the notion of an excre∣ment well concocted and inspissated out of the former Latex; which is accidentally advenient, praeternaturall, and depends upon a forrein vitious causality. Now, that the Latex makes the first flood in a cold, is manifest from this observation; that alwaies, for two daies, 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
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Latex evaporated in a convenient vessell, by a gentle heat, containeth nothing in its consistence, that can be inspissated into a thicknesse equall to that of the Muccus: but how much of the Muccus, the Latex shall dilute, and rince 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 liquor, slipping down the aspera Arteria or Wind-pipe unawares, whilst we are drinking, threaten the deplorable Fate of Anacraeon*: what would not so great a quantity of rheume, as is frequent∣ly rejected by Cough, even to the filling of severall basons in a very short time, doe as to the inference of suffocation? And far from the sober and rationall waies of Probability must his credulity wander, who can submit to a perswasion, that the sleep of a few short houres can insensibly convey whole basons full of rheume into the Lungs; and that so impetuous a flood of Phlegme can run down through the narrow chink of the Epiglottis, or Flap of the Larinx, with∣out the manifest hazzard of praefocation. In the daies of yore I ingeniously confesse, being deluded by the sophistry of the schools, during my pedantisme and credulous pupil∣lage, I disposed my patients, afflicted with affections of the Lungs, into such a posture, as that laying their faces down∣ward upon their pillows, they might sleep in a prone position; with designe, that the rheume (forsooth) might run out by the Nostrils, which would otherwise have flowed into the Lungs: and upon this score, I promised immunity from the perill of Defluxions. But the following morne 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 extreame dif∣ficulty of Respiration, which constrains men to fetch their
Page 38

breath in an erect posture, put but a slight valew upon the doctrine of Catarrhs, and amply convinced it as frivilous and inconsistent with truth. Since I observed many to be strangled in that prone and horizontall position; which yet was, with great gravity and confidence, prescribed by the Schools, as the only barracado, or damm, to intercept the antecedent matter of the Catarrh. Upon which obser∣vation I first built this justifiable position; that every parti∣cular member of the body, once disaffected, doth forge and coyne a very great quantity not onely of its naturall and ordinary excre∣ment; 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 efflu∣xion, or of salt and corrosive tears, let forth with out the key of passion: and when the Throat is blockt up by a squinaney, there continually hangs downe a rope of viscid Phlegme 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 bow∣els of Mines: so often must they produce various testimoni∣als 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 de∣clination or Catastrophe much degenerate from what it was in the Prologue and first act; and imitate the proper and or∣dinary 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, aswell as to other members of the body. According to their rule, whatever is avoyded from the
Page 39

he Lungs, must be fathered upon the brain, must thence fall downe insensibly (ridiculous) into the Windpipe, there, by a certain pepasmus,* or maturation, be stewed into a con∣sistence 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 moneth, then the whole cavity of the Chest can conteine. Upon which consideration, we are bold to affirme, That the yellow, ashcoloured, and fulsom spittle of men in Consumtions, are errors of the Custos, or President of Vegetation in the Lungs, and materially the blood, degenerated into a white, yellow, stinking ex∣crement;* which being thus exhausted, there must of neces∣sity ensue an Atrophy, or universal Famine in the body. ¶

40. Unsuccessefull, therefore, and deplorable are the Pre∣scriptions of Cephalick 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 sto∣mack: as such that must suffer a Castration of their virtues in their tedious journey, and undergo many formal transmuta∣tions, before they arrive at the part affected.

41. And what can smell more of the Fool, then to give De∣coctions of the Indian Roots, to dry up rheums? for how can China, Zarza, or Guajacum conduce to exsiceation, when drank in a liquid forme? What can they dry up, which would not be more pernicious and desperate when dried up, then it could be in the more harmelesse consistence of a Liquor?

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42. Why are such things referred to Exsiccation; which, in the policy of reason, want onely some inhibitive Course to prevent their Causation: and when they are stolne into ex∣istence, require not an evaporation of their liquid and fugi∣tive parts; but an entire ejection and eradication of their whole? Why do the Schools, in most of their disquisitions, look onely open the effects and obvious Exteriors: and ne∣ver pursue their search back to the Causes and more remote Proto-principles? What though these forreigne and barbarous drugs procure a general sweat, and so diminish the requi∣site quantity of the Latex, to the great and almost irrepara∣ble 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 plentifull sweats, they first diminish the necessary measure of blood; and secondarily cause an un∣avoydable leannesse of the whole body. All which the Schools have drawne into practice, upon the designe of ex∣siccation of superfluities; wildly imagining to compre∣hend, the competent quantity of blood, Generation of the exo∣tick Excrement, and easie Expulsion of the same, under the single synonyma of Exsiccation. But (alas) will the radi∣cal indisposition of the Lungs be hereby rectified? will the Transforming Vulcan, or Frantick Custos, which doth there coyne loathsome and consumptive Excrements out of the laudable blood, be by this ineffective means subdued, lulled asleep, weakned, 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 li∣ving skeletons, remit or discontinue the execution of its fury. Turne from us, oh thou soul of goodnesse! that de∣plorable Calamity, which the sottish Sanhedrim of Pagans, and herd of blind Doradoes, pretending to the sacred my∣steries of Physick, which more study their own gains, then the safety of their afflicted brother, have drawne upon all Christendom. ¶

43. The Cardinall point of the Cure lyes onely in this; that the irregular and erroneous impression (which I call, the
Page 41
Factor of corruption, or Vulcan, resident in the Lungs) be expunged and eradicated. For thats the only Publican, which by an unsupportable Excise, impoverisheth the whole Com∣mon-wealth of the body, and makes nature bankrupt, by exhausting the stock of aliment from the membranes, veines, Cartilages of the Windpipe, and all the substance of the Lungs; and converting the same into sordid and ulcerous excrements, which are continually pumpt up by Cough. But if there hath preceded an eruption of blood in any ves∣sell 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 Ʋlcer, have more then a pretence to the cure of Ʋlcers in the Lungs: And if any medicament drank down into the stomack, doe a cure of an ulcer in the thigh or foot: why should it not doe the same in the Lungs? But what will the Schools doe? 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 diaphoretick, fixed into a sweetnesse equall to that of Hony; and the volatile Tincture of Liliuma: as also the Milke or Element of Pearle b.

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For unlesse the whole body throughout be tinged or be∣dewed with some supereminent Balsam; seldome or never are internall 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 Forlorne-hope of Death: but having their forces once rou∣ted, easily resigne to the tyranny of the Conqueror; and therefore seldom receive any recruit or assistance from Com∣mon remedies. ¶

44. Upon the reputation of which reason, hath the an∣tique errour of the Schools (who, sooner then they will be brought to acknowledge any deficiency in their blew and invalid Medicaments, are ready to impeach Nature herselfe of imperfection, and transfer the blame upon the most glo∣rious Author of Nature, by implicit accusing him of improvi∣dence and drowsie omission) succeeded even down to our daies. They positively affirm (forsooth) that the four lobes of the lungs are, during life, uncessantly expanded and com∣pressed, by a short vicissitude of contrary motions, like a paire of Bellows, for the use of Respiration; so that the Aer inspired, is drawn only into the Lungs, but passeth no fur∣ther into the cavity of the Chest. Which opinion, truely, hath been of bloody disadvantage in the method of healing: though at the same time, it served the Schools of Physici∣ans for a weake sanctuary, and childish evasion. For upon the incessant and inexcusable necessity of the Dilatation and Constriction of the lungs, or perpetuall motion of their substance, have they endeavoured to contrive an excuse for their practice: which leaves all Ʋleers of the lungs, all Con∣sumptions
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&c. as desperate, and beyond the art of Aesculapius. Well a day, as if they could cure an ulcerous inveterate Can∣cer, or quiet Fistula of the Anus, or eyes, at pleasure! Which Error I thus encounter. ¶

45. In the Aer there perpetually saile up and down whole Clouds of dust atomized; and therefore, by a continuall necessity, together with our breath we suck in whole swarms of these dusty atomes: 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 Atomes of Dust might be stopt and hindered from fur∣ther 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 pumpt out of the Pipes of the Lungs, at the same instant the ordinary excrements of the chest are avoyded. A use, indeed, which hath hitherto layne obscure and neglected by the Schools; who have unanimously denied the Lungs to be pervious. The haire, indeed, wherewith the nostrils are fringed, like a net, catcheth all the small fibres or threds of Atomes flying in the aer, and hinders their further ingresse: 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 sinke not to the bottome of the Lungs. In order to our proofe, That the Lungs are immove∣able, [ A] we have a very sufficient argument from the foremen∣tioned use of them: and not onely that, but further also, [ B] 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 [ C] us) in regard they are, by many visible fibres, closely annexed and chained to the ribs, cannot by successive or reciprocall Dilatation and Constriction, make up the comparison of a pair of bellows. Again, the whole fabrick of the Lungs consi∣steth [ D] of three large vessels, or tubes, equally dispersed through the whole (viz. the Arteriall Vein, the Ʋenall Artery, and
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Aspera Arteria, or Windpipe) of a sanguine Parenchyma, or blood concreted into a solid masse; and a peculiar Mem∣brane, or scarfe enshrowding all the rest. Now the three Vessels are Canals or Conduits, equally divaricated and di∣stributed through their whole substance; and the two for∣mer are ever repleted with blood, and therefore absolutely impossible it is sor 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, untill the aer drawn in at the last dilatation of the Chest, be first discharg∣ed down into the capacity of the Chest; for which reason, undoubtedly the aspera arteria, as also the Membrane en∣shrowding 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 other∣wise 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 summ'd up and considered, the result must be; that no part of the Lungs bath any room to entertaine any of the smallest parcell of the Aer brought in by inspiration: and that no part of them can, without violence and the dilacera∣tion of their substance, endure the reciprocall motion of Dilatation and Constriction. A miracle it is to me, I professe, that the Schools, notwithstanding the uncontroulable evidence of this verity, can yet snort in their inveterate Lethargy: that though they stand convinced, and allow of all our allega∣tions, as true beyond all Scepticity; yet doe they not, even to this very day, cease to preach up their absurd opinion, that the Lungs are continually, by a reciprocation of con∣trary motions, like those of a paire of bellows, distended and recompressed. Again, the third of these vessels, or fore∣mentioned Tubes (though we should grant it not to be [ E] continually repleted with aer, but an absolute vacuity, un∣possessed by any aer at all) in respiration (when yet it re∣mains
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open at all times, nor can the sides thereof meet toge∣ther by concidence, like a bladder, the cartilagineous rings forbidding it) can receive onely such a proportion of new aer, as may respond to its capacity; but since at every inspi∣ration we draw in so much aer, as must fill a larger capacity, then the dimensions of the whole Lungs can be extended unto: it seems of undeniable necessity, that the aer is not inspired onely into the pipes of the Aspera Arteria, of them∣selves uncapable of constriction and dilatation, but is car∣ried further down, even into the cavity of the Chest. For [ F] a close, when any man hath received a wound with a dag∣ger or poyniard, through the intercostal muscles; tis dis∣cernable with half an eye, whether or no the stab hath pe∣netrated into the cavity of the Chest: for if yea, then is the aer, upon constriction of the Chest, exploded by the ori∣fice of the wound in so strong a stream, that it will blow out the flame of a candle at considerable di∣stance; which could not stand with possibility, if the aer attracted by inspiration did not passe through the Lungs into the cavity of the Chest. And the Con∣sequence of this is, that the Lungs have no motion at all. A principal Argument, for the illustration of this pa∣radox, is, that in the breast is seated a double membrane, perpendicularly intersecting the cavity thereof, from the neck down to the midrife, and therefore called the Mediasti∣num, 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 mani∣fest [ G] it is, upon the conviction of the former experiment, that the aer suckt in by inspiration, is drawne directly downe into the cavity of the Chest; as also that the Lungs are, for the same reason, devoyd of all motion. A second Argument, no lesse 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
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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 easie transmission of blood and thick purulent matter. All these things the Schools see, know, confesse, and write of: and yet are so effronted by custome, that they adventure to deny, that the aerattra∣cted by inspiration, is carried through the Lungs down in∣to the hollow of the Chest; but affirme that the substance of the Lungs is perpetually agitated, twixt expansion and com∣pression, 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 subtile and penetrative Aer can be transmitted through those pores into the cavity of the Chest. Nor is there, why we should wonder at this obsti∣nate infatuation; since they speculate onely 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 optick Nerves, the spinal marrow, interstice or midle 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 boyling 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 boyling water (pardon us the im∣pertinency) cannot find accesse 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 de∣monstrable by an experiment, as easily made as mentioned. Let any man, by a strong efflation, breath out all the aer in [ H] his chest, as much as possibly he can; then with a ribon measure the circumference of his body, neer the point of the swordlike Cartilage, above the pit of the stomack: and again, by as strong inflation, fill his breast with aer, and measure it [ I] the second time, and he shall find, by comparing the diffe∣rent
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measures, that more aer is attracted into the chest by inspiration, then can be conteined in the dimensions of the Lungs. And much more, when he shall allow for that pro∣portion of aer which tending directly downwards, de∣presseth the midrife upon the stomack. Try the same expe∣riment, another way; draw in so much breath, as you can; then blow it immediately forth into a bladder, and you shall finde, as before, that the quantity of aer inspired doth by ma∣ny degrees exceed the magnitude of the Lungs. But in the [ K] mean time, be pleased to remember, that all the smaller tubes of the rough Arterie, as well as the upermost large canale, 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 incompati∣ble. No doubt, but the belly and breast owe their intume∣scence to the inspiration of aer; if therefore the Lungs were capable of distension (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 inspira∣tion doth ordinarily receive; allowing for that aer, which doth depresse the midrife downwards, and remain in the ever distended pipes of the rough Arterie, in avoydance of va∣cuity. By inference therefore, the motion of the Thorax doth argue the motion of the Lungs unnecessary. Should [ L] 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 eleva∣tion 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 quan∣tity 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 naturall and vital mo∣tion: it follows, that the motion of the ribs is not ordeined nor conductive to the dilatation of the Lungs. And since the Lungs have, neither in themselves, nor by insusion from any other
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part, any principle or Causalitie of peculiar Motion; other then 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 va∣riation of Figure, or enlargement and contraction of Dimen∣sions. What clearer manifest of folly and invincible do∣tage [ M] can there be, then to confesse, that all the twigs, or smaller Canals of the rough Arterie are constantly wide open, as being necessarily distended by the contexture of the ringlike Cartilages: and yet at the same time confi∣dently to maintain, that all the same Canals, upon the at∣traction 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 establisht [ N] beyond dispute, that the Diaphragme or midrife doth, as prime and sole Efficient, suffice to the ordinary use of Respira∣tion: and yet anon they fall foul on their own maximes, and substitute the intercostal muscles, as Coadjutors, or Auxi∣liaries, to the performance of that office. Again, there frequently arise out of the stomack such belchings, as carry along with them the lively expressions of odours formerly re∣ceived into the Lungs by inspiration: therefore are the Lungs and midrife perspirable, that is drild full of small poro∣sities. In earnest, tis worthy our most passionate tears, that the Schools have, for so many ages together, unhapily mispent their sweat and oyle, in fripperies, childish page∣antry, and composing Romances more wild then those of the Talmud or Ariosto. I shall urge another easie and fami∣liar 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 per∣ceive, that the muscles of the Abdomen are the onely operators in the businesse of respiration: that the belly being lifted up, the midrife is drawn downward; and consequently that the cavity of the Abdomen is by so much enlarged, by how
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much the plane or diameter of the midrife (in itself lax and [ O] undistended) is lesse then its semicircle, when it is drawne downward, and so much the larger, by how much the more lax the plane of the midrife is. Nay whats more, if you bind in your ribs with a streight 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 in∣tense [ P] 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 sub∣stitute administration, concurre to the action of respiration. For the ribs are semicircles propendent downward, or ar∣ched into a lateral convexity; to each of which is annexed one of the intercostal muscles, which bend them upward, and by a kind of familar violence diminish their convexity in the dilatation of the Chest. And as they become greater, [ Q] as to their concave, when they are bent into a diminution of their convexity; in that relation also do they become roun∣der, as to the figure of the chest; and so by consequence make the cavity of the thorax wider. Thus Orthopneuma∣tick [ R] 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 midrife. A certain ma∣tron, wife to Patritius, in hard travale (for the child came [ S] forth preposterously, with the buttocks forward) by a large inspiration of acr, striving to promote her throws, and expedite the birth, broak the membrane environing her chest, betwixt the seventh and eighth ribs; yet without any ma∣nifest
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sence of pain (for a greater pain ever obscures a lesse) any Aposteme, or other Accident ordinarily subsequent up∣on wounds or dilaceration of that so sensible a part. Some few dayes after her childbed, as often as she held her breath long, or extended her chest, in singing, panting, &c. * she felt a very large tumor 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 drawne 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 tra∣vaile; that whenever she held her breath, she had one side of her throat blowne up, like a bladder distended with aer, to such a monstrous greatnesse, that no care or art could [ T] conceal it from the standers by. It makes very much also to our present purpose, that I have, with most serious attenti∣on, [ V] considered all Pulmoniacal and Asthmatick 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 maladie is Idiopathical to the Lungs, i. e. not occasioned by deuterapa∣thy 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 then 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 de∣pendent 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 lesse 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
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nature, or forreigne 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 lye 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 erre, when they deliver, as an oraculous truth, that the midrife 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 midrife doth contract itself to∣wards its own Center, 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 relaxa∣tion. 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 taile toward the head thereof; therefore, if their opinion stand allied to verity, must the midrife be a prime, heteroclite, and most principal Muscle, and the head thereof seated in its Cen∣ter. 2. If the midrife be an organ primarily executive of motion; then, though the Muscles both of the Abdomen and ribs cease from all Contraction and relaxation of them∣selves, would the midrife 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 pre∣vious motion of the midrife. 4. Vain and uselesse would
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the contrivement of nature be, and her architecture imper∣fect in superfluity, in making the abdominal muscles; and the belly might have as conveniently been cloathed 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, to∣wards itself; the breast, according to this error of the Schools, would be drawne very much inward by the Traction of the midrife, and the wast convelled into the dwindling figure of an Houreglasse. * 6. Further, the Expiration would not be a quiet or cessation from motion; but an absolute mo∣tion of the midrife contracted. 7. And so the Expiration would, even in most healthy men, be more difficult and la∣borious then the Inspiration; 8. Since then the Inspiration would not be a motion, but a relaxion or quiet of the mid∣rife from its Contraction. ¶

49. Hence upon rationall deduction I conclude, 1. That the true and proper use of the Midrife hath hitherto remai∣ned unknown. 2. That the use of the Lungs hath never yet been met with, by the too lazy and jejune scrutinies of the Schooles. 3. That the exact manner and reason of Respi∣ration hath also escaped the vulgar exploration of Anthro∣pologists. 4. That Anatomists have never made a just and perfect discovery, which are the prime and principall in∣struments of respiration. 5. That the muscles of the Ab∣domen doe alone suffice to maintain ordinary and mode∣rate respiration. 6. That the Lungs are never moved by any naturall expansion and Compression of their substance; but serve onely as a sieve, or pecolatory, for the sequestration of the atomes of dust from the most simple and pure aer, which is immediately transmitted into the concave of the
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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 allea∣ged and admitted as an excuse for the languid and ineffe∣ctuall operation of vulgar remedies) but from hence, that the small apertures or extreme orifices of their perforations are blockt up by obstructions, whose remove is a task too difficult for the infirme fingers of common pulmonary me∣d•••ments, and onely to be hoped for from the Herculean energy of some Chymicall Panchreston*. To which we may subjoyn, that nothing, besides aer, can arrive at the extreme pores of the Lungs, and that aer is, by reason of the oppila∣tions, there arrested, and imprisoned, and doth also by de∣grees exsiecare the obstructing glutinous humors. From which depraved root there springs up a whole grove of preternaturall productions which in their maturity put on the destructive blossomes of Aridity, Acrimony, and Malignity: and in the summer or ripening of these seeds of evill (which must, alas, be the autumne of life) there must grow a race∣mation or bunch of desperate Accidents, such as extreame 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 As∣pera 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 stopt 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, then other∣wise he ought to be. ¶

50. From this advantage we have a cleare and un-inter∣rupted
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prospect into the field of Pulmonary remedies, and may at first glance discover, that Syrups, Lambatives, Loochs, &c. are lame and despicable reliefes of nature; since they never arrive at the parts distressed, but are either diverted into the stomack, intestines and other places wholy unconcerned in their operations; or so impaired in their activity by a tedious pilgrimage through many Concoctions and trans∣mutations, 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 ruine that part, whose assistance they pretend. Here also our enquiry meets a hansome argument, why no one of the forementioned infirmities of the Lungs may hope a Cure from any Plant in the Physicians garden, or Confection in the Apothecaries shop; unlesse Fire, discreetly governed by the learned hand of Chymistry, and blown into a temper suitable to that Ignis non lucens, or invisible flame irradiating all our fa∣brick of frigid Clay, shall graduate some medicament into a Noble Entelechie, and make its balsame friendly and familiar to the principles of life, as natures own.

51. But as for those Precautions of Catarrbs, which en∣joyne the use of Coriander seed, and other such vain foppe∣ries, after supper, for the prevention of fumes arising out of the stomack; how much more worthily, in the judge∣ment of sober reason, doe they deserve our pitty, then our confidence? For if the generation of vapours, from their causes (humidity as the material, and the innate heat of the stomack, the efficient) and their ascention be naturall; what can Coriander doe to hinder that these naturall effects should not follow on the neck of their causes? Can Coriander in∣spersed upon boyling water in any small neckt vessell, im∣pede the exhalation or ascention of vapours out of the water? At the same rate let us prise those magnified trifles and serious nothings of the Schools, when they with great
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ceremony prescribe, that the haire must not be kembed, nor the head rubbed at night, but morn (forsooth) not towards the forehead, but backward; lest Catarrhs, obeying the posi∣tional friction, be drawn forward. Nor doe we want just cause for our complaint, that both Gates leading into the divine Temple of Aesculapius are blockt up by heaps of fran∣tick Chimaera's and the fabulous traditions of doting bel∣dames; since the true and proxime causes of diseases have to this very day, remained lockt up in the dark of undiscovery: nor have those Moles in Philosophy ever digged deep enough into the Center 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 echo's of Baths, Frictions, and Apotherapia*, or Unction after violent and athletick exercise. And though I have with commiseration observed the poverty and barrennesse of Galen generally diffused through all his longwinded dis∣courses; yet in no one piece of his voluminous workes have I more manifestly taken the altitude of his wit, then where with extreme seriousnesse, he prescribes the severall distinctions of positionall Frictions to be used (forsooth) longwaies, transverse, oblique, and circular; and these, like the ridiculous Ceremonics of Necromancers, to be observed with punctual and strict obedience, under no lesse then capitall penalty. For Rome was infested with fewer diseases, and those more gentle and benigne, and warmed herselfe 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 satall and infectious Libraries of Physicians. And all Europaeans, who harbour few or no Physicians, will, without any re∣luctancy to their experience, confirme the same.

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53. The Schools with serious gravity wonder, that so vast a quantity of Muccus, or glutinous gelly, should ordi∣narily be avoyded by stool, upon the operation of Colo∣quintida; and yet that the quantity of expectorations in di∣seases 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 confesse the falsity of their Phlegmatick axioms. Now Coloquintida, Seammony, Elaterium, &c. dry the body more in one day, then the Decoction of China can in three moneths. What benefit then can, in reason, be hoped from China, where more exsiccating Purgatives confesse 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 antient Eth∣nicks ought to be their Ne ultra in Philosophy; that they are not obliged to any deeper disquisitions, or further explorations, but onely to order their Cures, according to the antique and thredbare Theorems of Physick. And though they cannot but observe their Practice shame their confidence, and the suc∣cesse fall short of what their specious Canons promise: yet doe they not blush to veile over their bloody ignorance, nor feel compunction at their inhumane 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 redresse. And, sober truth makes me confesse 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 confesse my selfe the most despicable and unworthy) had they been pleased to abate any thing of their implicite subscription,
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and recede the lest step from the Axioms of Pagans. But, alas, they are closely besieged by the grand enemy of primi∣tive truth; who holds them captived to the tyranny of his Delusions, by the chain either of Arrogancy, Incircumspecti∣on, Cruelty, Avarice, Lazinesse, Stupidity, or, in fine, of shame to be reformed. Good Jesu! when wilt thou be pleased to cast this devil out of the Schools? when will the measure of these fatall evils be full, and the Vintage of these soure Grapes come; that, at length, by the comfortable sun∣shine of thy truth, this Aegyptian night may be exhaled, and this mist of horrid calamities that sits heavy on the heads of all the wretched sonnes of Adam, be dispelled? Thy answer is, there can be no remedy for his blindnesse, 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 unmov'd Rule of Truth, and Font of Love!
But since we scorn'd thy wiser Lawes t'obey
Wee'r 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 milke, or other broth, tinged with Saffron or Bole Ar∣meniack, to the end they might perceive whether any part of the liquor 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 in∣sensible and ordinary descent of excrements from the brain into the Lungs; and enacted for an establisht 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 ex∣treme remedy of Consumtions, and the most prevalent means to Consolidate Ʋlcers in the Lungs. An experiment, in troth, of very much cruelty to the Dogge; but of farre more cru∣elty and unhappy consequence to Man: since, at the per∣swasion hereof, the Schools have delivered it from hand
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to hand * down to posterity, as an impraegnable verity; and making erroneous and unjustisiable inductions upon mista∣ken and onely imaginary positions, have subscribed unto fopperies so pernicious.

For, First, what can they expect that Syrups and Lamba∣tives should doe, in the slender branches or divarications of the Aspera Arteria, more then inevitably introduce the mis∣chiefe of obstructions? To what end, therefore, should these fulsome Loochs 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 balsamicall juyce; nor yet conduce to the cure of either the purulent effluxions from ulcers, or viscid Muccus expectorated. And further, if some part of our liquor should ordinarily drop into the lungs, then would the ordinary spitle of healthy men savour of the broths eaten, or syrups lickt down. And although our first spitle sometimes relish of the syrups, or other liquid re∣medies, newly swallowed down; yet such ariseth not from the Lungs, but Palate and other parts seated in vicinity to the jawes: nor doe the succeeding salivous rejections, for that reason, confesse an inquination or tincture of such Lambatives, as in another case the succeeding spitle returns fuliginous exhalations or fumes, received into the Lungs, a good while after their first admission. Again, were this fea∣zible, then would any man, who should lick up severall ounces of Syrup, in one evening, be, ere many minuts, reduced to the bosome of his cold grandmother, by the inevitable destruction not onely of an Asthma, but even of suffocation ensuing; for a part of those Syrups must fill up and choak the great pipe or cavity of the rough arterie. Seriously, our wonder may be excused, if we stand amazed,
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how the Schools, seduced by so blew and dull an experi∣ment of a Dogge, 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 poore distracted animal howling amids his torments, and so opening the Epiglottis. Not that the same is done of custome in healthy, or fre∣quently observed in rheumatick 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 re∣laxeth it selfe, 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 oecono∣mie 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 beliefe had been more se∣curely placed upon that History of one suffocated with a small fether, and of another with a haire, unfortunately slipping into the rough arterie. For so had they stood confirmed, without dispute or haesitancy, that the Lungs can never admit any forraigne intrusion, or receive the smallest grain, without considerable dammage and hazardous anx∣iety; nay that such as are afflicted with difficulty of respira∣tion, can by no means endure so much as fragrant suffumiga∣tions, for reasons alledged by us, in our discourse de Blas humano*.

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If therefore Suffumigations and aromatick exhalations, such as promise a gratefull succour to the Lungs in their oppres∣sions, 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 vertue and efficacy about them? No man, that ever saw but one disse∣ction, will deny, that when ever any thing is swallowed down into the stomack, at the same instant the Larynx is shut close by the Epiglottis, or trap doore, that carries the figure of an Ivy-leafe; so that not the smallest atome 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 resolu∣tion or Palsie of the other. ¶

55. And here we are falne upon the detection of another collateral Error of the Schools; in particular, their unad∣vised 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,
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whether the dog under the dissecting knife, did lick and by de∣grees swallow downe the coloured liquor; or chop it down at once? To what purpose did the Anatomists poure 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, unlesse lickt down gently? But letting this Hypothesis stand, that the Lungs absolutely abhor the admission of all external things, meer Aer and such as is not incorporated to Fumes and Exhalations onely excepted: and then it will necessa∣rily follow, that whether any thing be lickt down gently, or drank down ravenously at once; yet still the President 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 lesse then the hazard of life. This, I conceive, may make it indubious to the most preju∣dicate, that Lambatives and syrups, though they may, by in∣troducing an unctuous surface upon the parts, make them more smooth, slippery, and so more fit for the rejection of vis∣cid excrements flowing from the palate and other parts ad∣jacent; yet are they of no small detriment to the stomack, nor can, in the lest degree, or largest latitude of intention, af∣ford ease or benefit in affections of the Lungs. But the Schools reply, that the salivous rheume or defluxion, doth insensibly, and by its own spontaneous laps, or natural ten∣dency, distill 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 in∣flected, yet the same care and warinesse of Nature to praevent that nothing drop or insinuate into the Lungs, is constant∣ly continued. I beheld a Tumbler, not long since, stand up∣on his head, his hands and feet inverted, and in that po∣sture drink a glasse of wine. I appeal to Anatomy, and wil∣lingly submit my hand to the ferula.

57. Many there are, out of whose mouthes, while they sleep, run whole torrents of spitle; who if they chance to sleep in a supine posture, that is on their backs, it instantly
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happens, that they must turn themselves on one side, or a∣wake and sit up, nature being affrighted by the terror of the danger imminent: and if any of the spitle fall accidentally and unawares into the Larynx; thenceforward, untill all be again exploded, they cough uncessantly. But, to come home to the center of the businesse; what comfort or suc∣cour can sugar, mixt 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 forreigner, admit nothing but Aer unlesse by accident and ex improviso, and when any thing is entred 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 fixt upon the Archeus? I professe, 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 wilde dreams of the Gentiles, or strike at any thing beyond their effects and secondary Productions, leaving the head and prin∣cipal Causalities unassaulted; and all this, by reason of their ignorance of the Essence and Causes of Diseases. And hence hath the name of Physician falne under the facete reprehen∣sion of Comedians, and this proverbial reproach, that Phy∣sicians 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 revenews, but Almes; so I concerning Physicians. For they consider not, whether they discharge their duty to the Commandment, or satisfie 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 Aegypt, these clouds of palpable darknesse, were intro∣duced upon the Schools; unlesse from hence, that being
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seasoned with evil principles, and infected with unjustifia∣ble traditions, they frequently met with Affections, which, ac∣cording to their outward appearance, and without scruple or stricter indagation, they instantly referred to the fabu∣lous scene of Catarrhs.

58. For instance, a certain sick person, invaded with a head ach, soon after feels a dull and ponderous pain in the neck, a difficulty and indisposition to motion; and the lea∣den 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 imbecillity of the loyns, which seems to be traduced down to the thighs, and thence to make a pro∣gresse to the legs and feet. Hereupon it is decreed, that Pain (since an Accident of inhaerence) cannot transmigrate from one subject to another; unlesse something Material, succes∣sively trickling down from the brain along the muscles of the spine, 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 recei∣ved Appellation of a Catarrh. It must become our method of exploring verity, to examine and detect the dotage and improbability of this perswasion concerning defluxions, by the judicial test of Anatomy.

59. For if this dolorifick matter distill, 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 suf∣ficient enumeration of the parts. But, first, not through the Ventricles of the brain; since that could not come to passe without the inevitable introduction of an Apoplexy, or universal Palsie: if the doctrine of the Schools, concerning the origination of these diseases, stand firme. For if the matter of the Defluxion be excluded from the cavities in the fore part of the brain, and thence discharged upon the
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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 Palsie. Secondly, the matter of this Defluxi∣on cannot, per〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, by transudation through the sub∣stance 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 spine: 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 in∣vestments, provided by nature to envellop the spinal marrow, would be double: which Anatomical inspection could never yet justifie. And should we allow it so to be, it would not onely impede the motion of the Muscles; but also excite ex∣treme 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 media∣tory 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 Embassa∣dors; the Nerve, the instrument of their transvection or de∣lation from the brain, or white-hall of the soul, to the member to be imployed; and the muscle, the executioner of her designes. That a Nerve is not the executioner of Vo∣luntary motion, may be clearly argued from hence; that very few nerves, in thicknesse exceeed a thread of double twisted silk. Now a Nerve, being inserted into the exter∣nal part of its peculiar muscle, cannot probably convey the rheume down to the midle of the muscle, without inferring
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a Palsie of that part, from its own obstruction, or a convulsion from the aerimony and virulency of the Defluxion. Again, if they shall affirme, that the Catarrh doth trickle down be∣twixt the Dura mater and the Skull; I may appeal for deci∣sion to Anatomy, which autoptically demonstrateth, that the perforations of the spondils of the spine, through which the nerves are threaded in their elongations from their ori∣ginal, the spinal marrow, are so exactly fitted to their mag∣nitude, that not a hair can be thrust between, without a sen∣sible 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 rheume may be congregated; or passage for its deflu∣xion upon the spinal marrow, and diffusion thence through the perforatiens of the spondils into the muscles: yet, we be∣lieve, it would amuse their sophistry, to give a plausible reason of the succeeding progresse thereof, and fully to make out, how a humor, once delapsed upon a nerve running out betwixt two spondils, can remigrate, or return back a∣gain to invade other nerves successively one after the other. What, doth the wanton rheume grow weary of one nerve, and to satisfie its desire of change, at pleasure remove to another? Tis a Quaere not unworthy a substantial determi∣nation, how a deluge of salt rheume can stream along a tender and extremly sensible nerve, without causing a stu∣per, or dull insensibility, in that member into which it is in∣serted? Can it insinuate into the tendinous head, and thence creep along into the taile 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 passe, that the superior parts, first invaded, obtain an im∣munity from the mischiefe? For since the rivulet of rheume doth spring from one fountain, the brain; and run in one
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continued Chanel, 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 a∣dulterous unconstancy, desert its antiently 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 strang and never yet frequented lodgings? Hath it such an Appetite or malitious propensity inherent, that goads it on to variety of objects, whereon to sate its hostility? For conclusion; that this Error can expect no sanctuary, in the possibility of the rheums defluxions be∣tween the skull and the skin, and through the firme sub∣stance 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 Arithme∣tick of Reason, and examined by mature judgement; the to∣tal 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 rheume or material princi∣ple can be found out to have descended, even in any of those diseases, for whose sake chiefly the Schools first invented this Chimera of Catarrhs: Know all the friends of truth, that as often as any peregrine Aer or blast, any offensive odor, any putrefactive Ferment, or exotick Seminality is impressed upon, or conceived in the Influent spirit; so of∣ten is that contaminate and degenerate spirit excommu∣nicated from the participation of Vitality by the severe ju∣stice of the incensed Archeus. And the Genius or disposition of this depraved Seminality conceived, is of no lesse power then this, that it can transmit the Influent spirit, made an alien to its primitive purity by the assumption of an exotick Ferment, rather to parts seated at distance and in the suburbs, then such as are neighbours to the Bialto or palace of life. As we shall at large declare in our discourses
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of the Gout*, of the duumvirate*, and elsewherere. For thus Mercury, externally applied by Unction, subtily 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, trans∣planteth and transformeth it into a conformity or analogy to the idea of the Seminality: and that nutriment thus in∣quinated, by successive expirations or Afflations, and for∣reigne impressions, doth disorder and pervert the sunctions of the digestive Faculty; and by this means doth not onely generate a plentiful harvest of Excrements; but also stigma∣tize, or impresse 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 Humors, and the defluxion of Rheums. On which Consideration, my Theory stands point blanck in defiance to the doting tradition of Catarrhs; as positive∣ly denying and wholly subverting their material Cause, re∣ceptaries 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. ¶

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61. By this time, we believe, it is plain and unquestion∣able, that no salt, acid, sharp, phlegmatick, or Cholerick humor 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 sourse of serous humidity, to expung this impression, or at least rinse away the Excrements, there growing from the depra∣vation of the digestive Faculty. For the Spirit, once vitiated by any forreigne Contagion, wildly rangeth at pleasure through the nerves, arteries, yea and the very habit of the bo∣dy; whereupon, the sick seeming to feel as it were the de∣fluxion, or trickling down of a cold rheume, the brain is immediately accused as treacherous, and the grand author of this ryot and irregularity in nature. Now since the La∣tex is sent to the part newly invaded by this malignant im∣pression, not as the primitive Cause of the evill (though fre∣quently, by accident, it doth foment and aggravate the mis∣chief, and so make the vitiosity more durable) but as a re∣lief, or stream to wash away the impression: hereupon have the Schools, to this day, remained doubtful, and durst ne∣ver go so far as positively to determine; whether in the Gout the Catarrb is derived from the head, by the Nerves: or whe∣ther transmitted from the Liver onely, by the Veins. And thus evident it is, that the Phlegme and Choler of the Schools flow not from one fountain, or Cataract; as though the brain were the Common sewer of all these impurities. A∣gain, as for the last refuge, whereunto the Schools flye, for protection of their impossible dream of Catarrhs; namely the Declivity or downwardnesse of the situation of the mem∣bers, as in relation to the brain, and the facility of the pas∣sages: 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 onely in living; so also all motion of humors in the body is immediately caused by the Influent spirit, as the onely impetum faciens, and mediately derived from the Principle of vitality in whose occonomy
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the Ascent of humors is of no more difficulty then the descent. For in living bodies, no humor oweth its motion down∣ward, to the declive tendency of its Gravity: but, in impar∣tial truth, to the aim or direction of that missive power, which levelled it at this or that determinate part. Hitherto con∣cerning the impression of an External depravity upon the In∣fluent 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 domestick tincture of corruption. It comes to passe not seldome, that the Latex contaminated by the admixture of some forreine Salt, doth therewith in∣fect the Influent Spirit, so that it instantly becomes degene∣rate from its requisite simplicity and purity; though not by reason of any external injury of the aer, offensive odor, sulphureous Fume, &c. but from a breath or blast of Conta∣gion 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 reuenge. After this the uncivil Latex, like a rude souldier that intrudes himselfe 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 hopefull remedies for most of these diseases which cause erratick paines, as also for internall Ulcers, must be Baths, Sudaries, and Stoves or Hot-houses: for by procuring liberall and pro∣fuse sweats, and by that means exhausting the Latex, as the secondary and fomenting materiall Cause, they seem more di∣rectly perpendicular to health, and conducible to the pacification of Archeus his worship; then the more in∣effectuall and languid Solutives and Exsiccatives of the Schools. ¶.

Vaine, therefore, is the story of a Catarrhs arising ori∣ginally from the stomack into the head: and its Condensa∣tion, Concretion, and Congregation in the ventricles of
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the brain. Vaine are the descriptions of its Defluxion, be∣tween the coats of the spinal marrow, or between the skull and skin, upon the Muscles. And, of necessity, vain and de∣plorable must such Remedies be, as are administred when the Causes of the Diseases are wholy unknown. Vain also are Cauteries and Fontanels, for the Revulsion and Exhaustion of Humors, that have no real existence in nature. And to con∣clude, vain are the Decoctions of China, Guajacum, Sassafras, &c. exsiccating Drinks; since the evill ariseth, at least is oc∣casionally aggravated by tbe Latex, and must be fomented by any immoderate quantity of humidity. From whence we have a faire opportunity to collect, that sober and par∣simonious drinking doth very much conduce to health; nay to the cure of Ʋlcers in the Lungs, as also of the Goute. 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 sowernesse, and instantly communicate the same to the blood; from whence pro∣ceed Corrosions, sharpe Spasmes and Convulsions, errat∣tick paines, and chiefly the Gout. But of the history and necessity of this Latex, we have written a particular Dis∣course. ¶

62. You may please to remember, that the primitive Mate∣rial of all concreted substances, is onely Water*: and all fruits or productions of mixt bodies arise from the same principle.
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Let us therefore grant, that the Latex, being naturally in∣sipid, doth, upon the accesse and fermentation of any semi∣nality, 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, neer the root, there will distill forth a very great quantity of thin insipid liquor, 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 liquor be a little Acid. The reason is the same in the Latex, which being naturally insi∣pid, doth, if contaminated by the contagion of any ferment admixed, acquire a sensible Acidity, and inherit any for∣reine quality, or tincture devolved from the vitiosity of our aliment. This Latex the Schools have wholy neglected, and indeed because they confounded it with the Ʋrine. Tis a blind and rude method of exploring the secrets of nature, to make no distinction betwixt the Generatum, or producti∣on, and the Materia ex qua, or materiall 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 jawes and tongue, the Water effused betwixt the omentum, muscles of the belly and the skin, in the dropsie, and the Ʋrine, were all one and the same matter, namely the liquor 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
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into Ʋrine, but makes it the material cause of oedematous*Tu∣mors, or an Anasarcaa.

63. I am not a person subject to such extravagancies and wild singularities, as to affirme, that the Pleurisie, Tooth-ache, and other such maladies, whose tortures were insufferable, were they not in some sort moderated by their acutenesse, 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, maner, means, waies, end or destinations of Catarrhs. Those fictitious and inconsistent causes I deny, and explore other more reall 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 earnestnesse I deny, that an Aposteme in the Lungs can be generated from vapours ex∣haled from the stomack, and recondensed in the brain. For which reason I account not a Consumption the daughter of a Defluxion of rheume upon the Lungs; but the genuine issue of their own Archeus seduced into irregularity, and a de∣praved execution of the power delegated to his administra∣tion. I conced that the Gout may be praesaged a day or two before the invasion of its paroxysme from the sensation of the motion of the salt matter which runs to the joynts like a drop of scalding liquor: but cannot allow a Catarrh to be the cause thereof, since I know assuredly that its material principles, manner of generation, waies of distillation and places of concretion and collection, are prodigious
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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 in∣sipid: but in its course meeting with the pollutions of sa∣line tinctures, resulting from impure and inconvenient ali∣ment, it soon degenerates into hurtfull and acrimonious, and breeds Apostemes, Ʋlcers, and pruriginous maladies, as the Itch, Scabbs, &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 stomack 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 heresie of Paracelsus, that the aer drawn in by inspiration is carried down directly to the stomack, and other viscera of the lower belly: but allow that a very small quantity thereof is insensibly strained through the capillary perforations of the midrife. 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 conteined in the parts below the Midrife. In like manner can no va∣pours of Wine or other inebriative liquor, arise up to the head, unlesse by the Arteries *. For whatever procureth vertigoes or giddinesse in the head, swoonings and other in∣toxicating Accidents, belongs to another Common-wealth, then that Eutopia of vapours. Nor from the Wembe can vapours be transmitted into the head; however vulgar Pa∣thologie affirmes, that wild and durable perturbations of the Animall Faculties, and a strong cons•pition of reason, are derivatory from malignant and narcotiall exhalations arising out of tbe wombe. For those surious motions and actions of the matrix are not to be ascribed to any sympathy depen∣dent on the necessity of Perspirability; but to the mon•machy or civil war of that peculiar Monarchy of the wombe, wherein women seem to be strangled by an ascention of
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some certain globular body, or lump, up to their throat. This action is a commotion or tumult of the offended spi∣rits residing in that part, or an error in the government of the Archeus, or uterine President enraged, to whose arbitary power all parts of the body must doe hon age and con∣form: 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 lesse absolute or diffusive, then that whereby the Testicles distinguish a Cocke from a Capon, a Bull from an Ox, and a man from an Eunuch; as wil 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 humors of the body, and responds to the nature of Water: therefore doe all Accidents accompanying such infirmities observe their periodicall exacerbations most toward night; the influence of the Moone, queen regent of all humane sub∣stances, operating those vicissitudes, or causing ebullitions in us at those houres. And these Accidents display their hostility most upon the brain, weakned by any native or acquired distemper praeceding: as also upon the Nerves and Membranes, as parts whose small stock of Vitall heat makes them lesse able to resist or subdue the impressions of exter∣nall Cold. And hence is it, that Consumptive, Hydropick, Gouty and decaying, bodies carry an infallible Almanack in their bones, presage change of weather, and by the Augurie of their pains are sorewarned of ensuing tempests: which I have, for that reason, Christned Tortura Noctis, the torture of night. It is my serious Ʋ•inam, and may be many others, that this way of prognostication had not cost us so deare, as the sufferance of such intolerable anguish and anxiety. For almost every week observes unto us, that men once inured to weare the fetters of the Gout, or tainted with any imper∣fection of the lungs, yea such as are onely troubled with cornes on their feet, are suddainly awakened out of their
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Profoundest sleep, by the twinges and cruell 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 un∣constant winds are tackt about to another point of the Compasse.

65. Paracelsus was pleased to opinion, that Mercury was Lord Paramont, or President over the Alimentary liquor, 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 humor of the body doth conform to the regiment, and obey the alterative influence of that seminall part, unto which it is proximly to be assimilated: nor doe the liquid substances in the body hold any correspon∣dence with the Stars, so long as they are not radically inocu∣lated into the stock of Vitality, i.e. untill, by the irradia∣tion of the internal Sol, or vital Spirit, they are rarified and exalted into a finenesse 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 Ʋeneral Contagion, or French Pox, Contractions of the sinews, torments of the joynts, &c. fall under this one generall title or denomination, Tortura Noctis: in this interest, that their Paroxysmes or periodicall invasions depend upon the motions or ebullitions of the Latex, are regulated by the in∣fluence 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.