The Manner of Dissecting the PESTILENTIAL BODY Printed for Nath Crouch at the Rose and Crown in Exchange Ally ΛΟΙΜΟΤΟΜΙΑ OR THE PEST Anatomised In these following particulars Viz. 1. The Material Cause of the PEST 2. The Efficient Cause of the PEST 3. The Subject Part of the PEST 4. The Signs of the PEST 5. An Historical Account of the Dissection of a Pestilential Body by the Author and the Consequents thereof 6. Reflections and Observations on the foresaid Dissection 7. Directions Preservative and Curative against the Pest. Together with the Author's Apology against the Calumnies of the Galenists and a Word to Mr. Nath Hodges concerning his late Vindiciae Medicinae By George Thomson M. D. Dii talem terris avertite Pestem London Printed for Nath Crouch at the Rose and Crown in Exchange-Alley near Lombardstreet 1666. IMPRIMATUR 1666. To the Truly Honourable WILLIAM Earl of CRAVEN Viscount of Ovington and Baron of Hampsted Martial MY LORD YOU have so obliged this whole NATION to Love and Honour you for those many eminent Graces and Virtues conspicuous in you especially that transcendent Charity towards your Neighbour in time of Extremity that should I conscious of your Noble Actions having so fit an opportunity neglect to render you Thanks and to celebrate your Praises for your bounty and liberality to this miserable City when the Contagion was grassant to the depopulating and depauperating of it I might deservedly be reckoned among ungrateful men Augustam Animam Augusto in pectore gestas you have a Soul like the Image of the Great Creator of a vast extent diffusive communicative beneficial to good and bad Sir you have given such example of Charity upon this late Exigent as more powerful to convert this hardhearted Age than the Tongue of Men and Angels Certainly the presence of your Person hath been a means to counterpoise the evil effects of fugitive Physicians so that many probably have evaded the fury of the late Pest through a strong Imagination that it was not so Contagious and Mortal as was conceived because a Person of your Dignity did dare to tarry here when it was most outrageous Blessed be the Wise Disposer of all things who hath preserved you to be an Instrument for his further Glory the Benefit of your Country and the maintenance of FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS against all Opposers And now I draw a little nigher your Lordship offering to you the First-fruits of my Difficult Labours collected in the time of the Raging Pest. The Substance of this Discourse is Practical no idle Dogmatical Fancy of a Non Ens no Necessary Directions from Hearsaid But I have here laid open what I visibly and experimentally have found to be true what I have handled with these hands and seen with these eyes Really Noble Sir all that I beg of your Honour is That you would be pleased to favour me so far as I Speak Write and Act according to Truth which I know is so prevalent that maugre all Adversaries it will at length be Triumphant and bestow upon all Honest Endeavours an Immortal Crown of Glory Your Lordship's most Humble and Affectionate Servant GEO THOMSON To the READER Courteous Reader I Know thou art Cloyed with multitude of Books that this Scribbling Age is fertile in Thou must needs nauseate Cramben Millies coctam the same homely Service a Thousand times set before thee the same things still repeated perhaps false or little for thy satisfactory Instruction So that it is enough to make thee look askew and scorn what I have here offered to thy Perusal expecting no other from me than Cuculi Cantum said siste Gradum If you please to make a Halt awhile I may deliver something thou may'st not repent to spend time to hear & take pains to read tending to thy Health that Goddess Salus without which no Temporal Felicity can be enjoyed by means of which so long as it favours us nothing but may be purchased I have ventured my own Life to save thine passing through a way little trodden full of Briars and Thorns and finding a shorter Cut I have given thee such Directions which if thou strictly follow may make thy passage through this valley of miseries more happy I have declared in this following Treatise how we are begirt on every side with infinite occasional Causes that seek to ruin us and what a Domestic Enemy we carry about us ready to betray us to the violent power of preternatural things infesting us I have been above this Twenty Years solicitous and sedulous to find out the genuine proper Causes and Cures of all Diseases malignant but especially the Pest for which end I visited all sorts of People the Poor as well as the Rich administering to them Medicines of my own preparation observing from one what might be useful to another yea I was so eager in the pursuit of Therapeutical Truth that I was restless till I had the full view of the inward parts of a Pestilential Body whereby my judgement was confirmed in some things and my Intellectuals instructed in others I have acted many Years formerly but especially now of late when there was most need the part of a Physician Chirurgeon and Apothecary as becomes every honest able Man lawfully called to this Noble Faculty Take it for an infallible Verity and I assert it without the least Rancour and Malice to any Person that it is impossible without miraculous Inspiration for a Physician to discharge his Duty in this honourable Profession unless he bring to Unity that which of late hath been made a Trinity through the Laziness Pride and Covetousness of a Company of Dogmatists I speak not this to disparage or discourage any able professed Apothecary or Chirurgeon that is laborious ingenious honest and furnished with competent Learning as for those that are otherwise qualified I look upon them as so many jackalls or Lurchers that hunt up and down for a Prey for their Masters that they may have a share and snip with them with some of whom I am acquainted who are an Honour to their Society for whom I have no small respect and kindness and so much that I prefer them without Partiality before many Titular Prescribers Grandia gradientes that carry a fair outside make a great noise in the World admired of a company of Idiots that gaze and dote upon them ut pueri Junonis Avem and yet are grossly ignorant in Materia Medica and the right preparation of the same My judgement is That it is no such preposterous thing as some Philo-Galenists account it who are as it were riveted into a fond opinion and applause of that Sect for a Physician that intends to acquire excellency in his Science to begin with Pharmacopoea and Chyrurgia supposed that he have some considerable knowledge in the Tongues Neither should I have thought it any Disparagement to me if I had been as they falsely allege at first professedly instructed and initiated in these Manual Operations as Doctor Bugs and some others have been Had I when the distressed Patient cried out for speedy help in the most acute Disease been to seek to an Apothecary or Chirurgeon for the preparation and dispensation of my Medicines or either of them to have made their address to a Doctor many a sick man had in the mean time perished or at least had suffered much damage A true Physician always carries an Apothecary's shop about him having in Procinctu at hand what is fitting to pessundate any potent Disease suddenly sallying out upon Nature He is unworthy the Title of a Doctor the Name of a Physician that labours not with his own hands to attain such Remedies sufficient to save his Patient's Life I question not but the time is at hand that whosoever is wilfully ignorant in this kind will be exploded by all understanding men for what madness can there be greater than for an infirm person that truly values Health to pin his Life upon the Sleeve of such a Doctor that prescribes a Composition the Ingredients whereof he knows not whether they be taken in right the proportion just when nor perhaps how it was made nay I go farther upon good grounds that shall not tell you the name of those concrete and judge of them laid before his eyes jointly ordained for a Medicine Be wise at length ye Mortals and suffer not a Dogmatist to Cheat you any longer with a formal Recipe sent I know not whether to be made up I know not how nor by whom but be ascertained before you meddle with a Physician that he have an intuitive knowledge of Animals Vegetals and Minerals that he is well versed in the separation of their pure Crasis with his own hands and then thou needest not doubt of a happy event Wishing thou may'st accept of my Advice for thy own welfare I remain thine whilst I am june 15. 1666 From my House in Duke's Place nigh Aldgate G. T. The Contents of the Chapters contained in this Treatise CHap. 1. Concerning the Name Essence and Material Cause of the Pest. pag. 7. Chap. 2. Of the Formal and Efficient Cause of the Pest. 26 Chap. 3. Of the Subject Part where the Pest doth principally reside and act these Tragical Scenes in Man's Body 39 Chap. 4. Signs of the Pest. 52 Chap. 5. An Historical Account of the Dissection of a Pestilential Body And the Consequents thereof 69 Chap. 6. Some Medicinal Reflections and useful Observations made upon this Pestilential Dissection 107 Chap. 7. Directions Preservative and Curative against the Pest. 144 The Author's Apology against the Calumnies of the Galenists 172 Courteous Reader Here are a few Material Faults escaped by the Printer which I would have thee to mend with a Pen as thou Readest 't is possible thou may'st meet with some Literal ones too which I have here omitted that may be passed by IN the Prologue page 5. line 17. for Orial read Trial. p. 23. l. ult. for read p. 54. l. ult. for Amphilogical read Amphibological p. 63. l. ult. for perspication read perspiration p. 64. l. 7. for Diapuoick read Diapnoick p. 84. l. 20. for Dee read Dey p. 88 l. 7. for senserint read senserit p. 105. l. 16. for Pseudiatori read Pseudiatri p. 107. l. 4. for labour read labour ΛΟΙΜΟΤΟΜΙΑ OR THE PEST ANATOMISED WHat that virtuous Lady once afflicted with the Leprosy wrote upon the Frontispiece of an Hospital which she erected for the Relief of Leprous Persons Haud ignara mali miseris succurrere disco That she had learned experimentally to pity and assist others in the like condition I do heartily endeavour to put in Practice And certainly none can truly condole another's unhappy Fate that hath not savourly and feelingly been made sensible of the vexation of the same himself Methinks it should be no small encouragement to a sick man to take down freely that bitter Potion for his recovery which hath often been swallowed by that Physician who hath been himself a Patient labouring under the like Grief When I look back and seriously ponder with myself what an Army of Diseases have laid Siege to this my frail Mudwall assailing undermining and battering it with great and small Shot sent flying from hereditary and outward occasional Causes I stand in Admiration that I have not ere this been laid flat on the ground insulted over by Worms I may confidently affirm That I have felt more or less in my Minority the smart of most Diseases that have an existence either traduced from my Parents or contracted by some exorbitancy and irregularity in my course of life Three several times have I been wounded by the venomous Arrow of the direful Pest from which I have recovered being despaired of by my Friends The first Arrow stuck deep and long in my Groin even four Months for want of application of appropriate Medicaments which the Galenists always want for indeed at that time I conceived nothing could act beyond the usual Dispensatory to which I did then too pertinaciously adhere to my Sorrow But the two last Arrows were quickly extracted and the wounds healed without extraordinary Labour and Dolour by Chemical means And though I am certain the second Scene of this Contagious Sickness did much transcend the former in respect of the ingress and egress thereof the magnitude of the Cause the Atrocity of the Symptoms with the sad Signs prognosticating Ruin Yet such Favour received I from the Donor of every good and perfect Gift that those purified Remedies which he was pleased to bestow upon me did in the space of Ten days from the time I was taken enable me to visit some of my Patients abroad Certainly had I been so well acquainted about Ten years' pa● with those Arcana's in my Art as now it is impossible that I should being at that time surprised with a malignant Fever have been Cloistered up Seven weeks in my Chamber extenuated to a Sceleton by no less than Six large Cruciating Vesicatories prescribed by no inferior Galenist who as it were extorted me out of the hands of an able Chemist for the intended Repute of his own Method which as soon as I was restored to my right understanding I declined absolutely declaring against bleeding in the Arm which he gave order should be put in execution the next day and had I not prevented it by an unmoveable resolution to the contrary the thread of my life had undoubtedly been cut off for I have positively set down and can make it good by practice That Phlebotomy in the Arm in any malignant Disease is absolutely destructive Give ye ear then all that desire to preserve Sanity to be healed of Languors and Infirmities to live a long and comfortable Life to one ' that experimentally knows it for a Truth and can verify it by Fact with sufficient Reasons to back it That the very foundation of the Galenical Doctrine for the radical Cure of any Disease in general and in particular this that is called malignant etc. the Pest is sandy and tottering not able to stand before a spirituous and fierce Orial of that subtle all-searching Spagyric power which like Lightning penetrates to the Centre of things dissolving them into their first Principles destroying what is superfluous in them and extraneous keeping entire and untouched that which is pure and defaecate Had I not been Passive as well as Active to find out the truth of Curing I might have remained to this day in the Cimmerian darkness of Dogmatical Vanities to which I confess I was too much wedded at first At length wholly resigning myself to be led freely by the thread of Nature through the manifold Tortuosities and Meanders of its wonderful operations I am throughly informed and shall endeavour to instruct others concerning the Being Cause Cure and Event of this late Pest as real Experience in myself and others hath taught me without deviating one tittle wilfully from the truth of things as they are in themselves CHAP. I. Concerning the Name Essence and Material Cause of the Pest. I Very well know the curious Linguist will expect the Nomenclature of the Pest in various terms wherefore to satisfy his desire I shall deliver them thus The Hebrews call it à radice locutus est vel ut sumitur in sensu malo perdidit quod sit res à Deo edicta vel decreta vel quasi sit perditio The Greeks à corrumpo to corrupt or spoil à percutio vulnero to smite or wound The Latins Pestis quasi perestis à peredo to eat up or devour vel Plaga The English the Plague the Pest the Sickness or Disease per excellentiam vulgarly the Infection Contagion or Distemper From the Name I pass to the Essence and Quiddity of the Pest which is a Contagious Disease for the most part very acute arising from a certain peculiar venomous Gas or subtle Poison generated within or entering into us from without At the access or bare apprehension of which the Archaeus is put into a Terror and forthwith submitting to the aforesaid Poison invests it with part of its own substance delineating therein the perfect Idea or Image of this special kind of Sickness distinct from any other Touching the Material Cause it is a venomous Gas or wild Spirit produced either inwardly from some degenerate Matter conceived within the Body or outwardly received from some fracedinous noisome Exhalations contained in the pores of the Air taking their Original from several putrid bodies excited to fermentation rarified and opened by the Ambient altered and moved by Celestial Influences and so disposed to this or that condition whereby an expiration is made of virulent Atoms which sometimes close penned up and drawn in by the Lungs do by their deletery power put to flight confound suffocate and mortify the Archaeus or vital spirits in as short a times as the strong fume of burning Brimstone doth destroy any small living Insect held over it I suppose I may well compare this mortiferous odour to the Gas or fume of Brimstone called by the Greeks forasmuch as Hypocrates calleth that abstruse Malignity of which a manifest prompt Reason is not to be given that is something above the Elements difficult for humane Capacity to render a Cause thereof To say truth 't is not for a Galenist that is clogged with of Temperaments and Humours to understand the sublime Mystery of for none can apprehend this but he that is Divinitùs doctus able to soar aloft by virtue of the nimble wings of Mercury which will by degrees carry him up to a high pitch of the true Philosophical knowledge of natural things This material virulent substance endued with exceeding Leptomery or subtlety of parts hath free passage through the pores of man's Body which are patent both for admission and emission of minute particles either friendly and agreeable to Nature or hostile and pernicious which the vigilant Custos the innate spirit of every part can easily distinguish and judge of detesting and abhorring the one with a perfect Hatred Terror Consternation and Confusion but embracing and hugging the other with confidence complacency and sweet delight Now the Concordance and Sympathy the Discord and Antipathy of all things in the Creation is plainly visible for Natura natura gaudet whatsoever is Symbolical and Congruous with another doth easily unite and shake hands with the same what is Antibolical and disproportionable to it is rejected loathed and nauseated Thus there is a continual Syndrom and Concourse with like matter to like and Naturae Bellum infer is odious both to the Macrocosm and Microcosm Water in an instant is conjoined with water not so easily with that which is Heterogeneous How quickly do the many Globes of Mercury coincide and couple into one making a larger Spherical body How extraordinary fertile do some Lands show themselves by an injection or superaspersion of some matter agreeable and consentaneous to their Condition Nature and inherent Property Behold how greedily the Air imbibes and swallows up any body attenuated to a high degree seeming as it were to be converted into an Identity with it This doubtless deceived the Ancients supposing from this Affinity and Parity between each an absolute essential Transmutation of one into the other which cannot be sith the primogenial simple and virgin Elements are stable never capable to undergo an Alternate vicissitude of one into another so that according to Mechanic demonstration it may be made good That there is not one grain more or less either of Air or Water since the very first moment of the Creation of both 'T is certain the Air is not only Separator Aquarum but likewise a Disparter and Segregator of all Tangible bodies whatsoever insomuch that the more it appropinquates any thing the more it breaks it into Atomical parts according to its own constitution and the disposition of that matter it doth surround Now the Air being ready according as it is qualified to admit Dilatation and Contraction and as it is thus modified so it penetrates insinuating itself so far as there is the least passage for it suffurating and insensibly carrying off whatsoever is capable to be volatilised hence all concrete that have the least Humidity do continually expire sending out various emanations suitable to their grosser matter whence they arise which acquiring an inward Ferment or torn into invisible parts by violent torture of the fire are all greedily sucked up into the spongy Spaces or Magnale of the Air which obnoxious to many Changes from the Blas Alterativum & Motivum of the heavenly bodies doth accordingly produce different Meteors thick or thin hot or cold serene or cloudy constitutions and consequently healthy or sickly Times Diseases malignant or well conditioned acute or long gentle or fierce Now when the ambient Air shall be crowded full of infinite small particles disagreeing to our Nature in their Figure Crasis Power Texture and Proportion making uncessantly a strong impulse upon the vital Aura how is it possible but it must needs be affected altered and at length subjugated to the Dominion of an Exotic Tyrant with which it conspires to the subversion of a goodly frame the obscuration and extinction of this bright and shining light of life which makes us beautiful effulgent and radiant so long as it continues clear and vigorous but once obscured or put out the Body becomes dark deformed lucid and ghastly to behold Now the venomous antecedent matter which occasions the Pest takes its Original immediately either from within the Body or without within the circumference of the Skin an absolute pestiferous Poison is sometimes engendered which being incubated by the Archaeus and fomented by several outward Accidents undergoing manifold Alterations is at last maturated and specified to this Hoc aliquid Pestilentiale this kind of virulent matter that occasions the Pest for without Controversy were a man separated from all Society and lived in never so wholesome Air yet such a pestiferous seed may spring up in the Body that may produce the same effect which an extraneous matter occurring doth frequently introduce Neither ought this to seem strange sith whatsoever within us degenerates from its native goodness becoming stagnant and excommunicated from the Commonwealth of life is either in some short time extruded and banished or rectified reformed and reduced if possible to its pristine goodness and if Nature cannot perform this then is it by little and little insensibly graduated to what it is capable of and disposed unto hence by the power of different Ferments ariseth such a distinct Poison congruous to that seminal power it was first endued withal Thus the Apoplexy Epilepsy Vertigo Lethargy Madness etc. take their Original cause from such a matter that never fails where there is a suitable Agent to mould it to explicate itself in this or that manner and at last to come to this or that determinate individual thing it was at first destinated so certain as a Hen-egg Turkey or Goose-egg if not interrupted by some accident do constantly afford what is appropriated inherently to each kind For Diseases in man's body have as certain a Seed as any Mineral Vegetal or Animal and make their Beginning Progress State Declination Period regularly and uniformly whatsoever the Galenists say to the contrary asserting That a Disease is only aliquid privativum non positivum excluding it all the Predicaments when in truth it is contained in all The outward antecedent occasional matter ariseth from some minute venomous Particles Aporrhaeas or Effluviums of several Bodies either taken into our Stomach or immediately entering in through the small pores of the Skin else darted into the ambient Air and there skipping up and down are ready to be admitted through the large patulous passages of the Body where they play more or less a sad Tragedy according to the capacity of the receiver for it falleth out that sometimes a Pestilential matter is taken in and by virtue of a robust innate Archaeus is forthwith excluded or tamed and brought under the Laws of Nature so that what would prove great damage and detriment to one man's health doth little impair another Now the usual common broad way through which this Poison is conveyed is for the most part the Mouth and Nostrils places obvious for the reception of these virulent Atoms and needs must it be so forasmuch as Respiration which consists of Inspiration and Expiration being uncessantly performed for the preservation of life must needs draw in together with the Air whatever is therein intermixed Now there is in some Topical Air a fermenting venom equivalent and every way as active as the Poison of a Scorpion Phalangium or Viper which though small in quantity yet operates stupendiously This invisible Gas this fracedinous Aura Lethifera that fluctuates here and there once taken into these living houses of Clay bears such a discord and hostility to them that if it be not in a short time extruded a certain ruin of the whole Fabric must needs follow for there is such an absolute disproportion and disagreement between these Opacons dark and spiss Atoms and the bright luminous beams of life that this must necessarily be extinguished if those once take firm possession in us in the very same manner as Subterranean Damps and Mephitical Exhalations cause the clear flame of a burning Lamp to become dim and dusky and at length to be annihilated Considering that we are thus beset on every side with such an allogeneous pernitions matter that doth frequently infest us it is almost miraculous that the thread of our lives is drawn out to any length considerable sith every thing hath Spinas & Tribulos in it somewhat disagreeable to our Nature yea certain things are so deletery that they dispatch us like the Basilisk smiting us down we know not when or how What strangely offensive Particles are in some places is well known to any that have often changed their Region and gone out of one Climate into another It is remarkable what josephus Acosta relates of the grievous effects that the Air causes in those that ascend the hill Pariacaca in America what violent vomitings even to blood defection of the spirits and faintings almost to death do continually disturb them till such time they have passed over the Perolede or Valve of the Air about that hill which without doubt contains in it those Corpuscles which are altogether incongruous with our spirits It is reported that such a noxious breathing arises from a certain Lake in Hungary that Birds that fly over are suddenly surprised with death Notable are the Stories of the Petrification of tender bodies by certain Corpuscles in the Air endued with such a saxifying power Some Tracts of Air offend the Eyes some the Teeth Some places are Scorbutical others Dysenterical these Febriculous those Arthritical and here and there some are Pestilential which are observed to produce the Pest Periodically as in Gran Cairo in Egypt where the beginning and end of raging Plagues may punctually be foretold the reason of the cause whereof seems very abstruse only in the general we may probably conclude That there arises some eminent alteration in the Air and those infinite Emanations it hath received into the Pores thereof from a Blas or Influence of the heavenly bodies Which although as I have formerly delivered are of themselves innocent free from any malignity venom or pestiferous property yet they cause various alterations and motions in the Air whereby it is disposed to be wholesome or unwholesome to us for we find experimentally That the Pest is most outrageous when the pores of tangible bodies are most ready to expire by the ambient Air which the nearer the Sun approacheth the hotter it is and thereby a Rarefaction and Subtiliation made of those parts which otherwise lie constringed dormant benumbed as it were and mortified by extreme cold for it is the nature of Cold to destroy the seminal power of all concrete as moderate heat on the contrary excites the seed of all things and provokes them to act We commonly see that a most putrid and putid substance congealed by violent Frost desists to send forth that horrid ill odour which the warmth would quickly extract from it questionless had not Divine Providence ordered That the middle Region of the Air should be extraordinary cold on purpose to spoil various Exhalations of their Ferments and Seeds it were impossible but that all things should have been long ago reduced to their first Chaos So efficacious do we find cold Seasons through the distance of the Sun from us in powerfully restraining this feral Disease the Pest that in this part of the World there hath seldom any great Mortality reigned amongst us in a very sharp Winter And I have observed that the late Contagion although it had taken deep root in man's body and endeavoured to pullulate and shoot out fresh yet was it so kerbed and tamed by the Autumnal Frost that it could never rise up to any height or get head its fermenting power being still kept under by the surrounding cold Air which is changed according to the remotion appropinquation interception and obscuration of the solar Beams which though innocuous lovely and glorious of themselves yet shining upon a stinking Dunghill or Kennel and opening the body of any putrilaginous substance do accidentally cause a Fermentation in its parts and thereby an Expiration of unsavoury and noisome Atoms prejudicial to man's life Hereby not only inanimate things induce a detriment to our health through a multiplicity of their copious Exhalations continually altering and making impression upon our spirits weakening their Tone debilitating their Vigour dissipating confounding and destroying them by their deletery property but likewise the Respiration Emanations or Effluviums of divers sorts of Animals do often prove hurtful to our Natures especially one man's body doth easily affect and infect another by reason of a symbolical Affinity that is between one mumial ferment and another for there is an easy transmigration of virulent Particles from body to body where there is a magnetism & a capable reception thereof and under the guise of a friendly Guest a mortal Enemy is sometimes entertained And doubtless there are some Men and Women seemingly healthful whose Breathe Aporrhaea's or Effluviums are very pernicious to others causing great inconvenience and disturbance in the Archaeus yet perhaps not sensibly to be discovered Sith than we are thus beset on every side with an invisible fracedinous Gas how is it possible that materials should be wanting for the framing the Pest and other innumerable Diseases Thus much concerning the antecedent occasional matter That which is next to be enquired is Materia conjuncta or Conttnens of the Pest which is part of the Archaeus contaminated by the Pestilential Miasm which primarily seats itself in the privy Chamber of the vital spirit which becomes one and joins with the Occasional Antecedent matter to dissolve the goodly structure of this Microcosm for the antecedent matter could do us no harm were not the Continent united to it so as to become capable to receive the true figure character or impression of this determinate disease the Pest where it remains till such time the foresaid matter be profligated or proscribed by the strength of the residue of the Archaeus as yet untouched and free from Contagion or the Image of the Pest expunged and thereby a Manumission and Redemption of the captivated spirit from that slavery it was before kept under by a domineering Idea Neither ought it to seem strange that I reckon part of the Archaeus for the conjunct matter of the Pest contrary to the Doctrine of the Schools who never dreamt of any such thing till that great Deliverer of Philosophical verity Helmont brought it to light forasmuch as nothing exotic or venomous could do us any hurt did not the Archaeus the vital spirit cowardly first yield itself Prisoner to the assailing Poison and then afterward become confederate to act with it to the demolition and devastation of that Fabric which otherwise might stand unmoved CHAP II. Of the Formal and Efficient Cause of the Pest. MAtter of itself is effete languid and dead if it be not quickened and actuated by some spirit which contrives moulds and fashions it into such a form that doth specify and make it distinct from another by its essential Properties and inseparable Accidents This spirit Archaeus of all Things is chiefly seated in the Seed for without a seminal power nothing can have production Every thing that acts is furnished with some portion of the universal Spirit and even those things that seem to be vapid dull and torpid to our senses have in them latitant a spirit dormant which gave them and maintains their being Now there are many different kind of Seeds Ferments and Spirits all derived from the Universal as there are things in the World which act according to the disposition of the Matter and capacity of the Subject For unumquodque recipitur secundum captum recipientis and Ex quovis non fit quodlibet Which is to be understood of a secondary concrete matter not primary simple Elementary sith according to Helmont and the best Philosophers all things take their Original from Water which transmuted to this or that according as topical Ferments and innate Seeds lead it However all compound bodies perfect and imperfect are confined and stinted only to bring forth their like and to act within the sphere of their activity without interfering grating encroaching and entrenching upon another's Commonwealth and within these bounds of their Monarchy do they still continue till they have acted the last Scene and taken their Exit and are so resolved again into their first aqueous Element from which daily arise new Actors in several Dresses To this do many Philosophers subscribe as Truth as it relates to Minerals Vegetals and Animals that have a manifest principle of generation but they will not allow Diseases to be taken into this Catalogue sith they arise from a depravation and distortion of Nature through the fall of the first Prevaricator who by his lapse put the creature in Arms against himself and all Mankind So that a disease with them is only a privation or mutilation of our health a defection from Sanity proceeding from divers Accidents that daily affect us preternaturally For they think they have spoken enough in telling us that some good is exclusively taken from us but are silent concerning that positive real evil that infests us having an absolute Entity in it consisting of a seminal power a fermental transmutation an operative Spirit and a lively Idea All which Endowments make a Disease to be Ens reale verum something in Reality That Maladies have in them a Spermatick power is evidently known by some hereditary Diseases that are propagated and traduced from the Father to the Son and from the Grandfather to the Grandchild which lie a long time unseen unfelt closely couched in the blood and at length break forth into Act upon some irritating occasion How is it possible that the Small Pox should lie above Twenty years in our bodies before it shoot out if it were not contained in a Seed which according to the disposition of each Individual when the fullness of time comes breaks forth sooner or later into Buds and Branches The Gout and Stone are sometimes so concorporated with our seminal principles that it may be thought as difficult to separate light from fire as to part two such Companions fundamentally conjoined in our Conception Moreover as it is the Nature of every Seed whether Vegetal or Animal in the very moment of breaking forth into Act to ferment that thereby its virtues may be diffused readily into all parts and likewise an equal distribution of Spirits made In like manner morbos seeds have their fermentation which though invisible at first yet at length are plainly apparent by effects So requisite is fermentation for the production of all things that without it the Spirit remains drowned and overwhelmed in untractable and indisposed matter Did not the poison of the Pest most contemptible for quantity ferment and season the whole mass of blood by altering the position and texture thereof by coagulating and changing it into a tartarous substance it could never cause such a tragical Catastrophe in man's body quite subverting its well composed frame For it is grand Ignorance to think that bare Qualities which are transient and momentany depending upon the influence of substantial Forms which cause a Flux and Reflux of the heat cold moisture and siccity according to the Motion Collision Exaltation Degradation Indigence and Abundance of Spirits in the body should on a sudden cause such a stupendious Metamorphôsis in this little admirable World wherefore nothing but that which causes a Zumôsis an Effervescence and leavens the whole lump of blood by its deletery diffusive property can turn all topsy turvy in this manner and bring a speedy ruin to this magnificent Structure Neither is there wanting in Diseases an Architectonical Spirit which is the Faber and Vulcan that hammers out and forges every kind of malady observing an exact Copy Rule and Canon which was at first imprinted in it by a vigorous Imagination As this Stamp Figure Idea or Character doth direct the Archaeus so it begins proceeds and at last concludes according as the impression lasteth This pure restless Spirit that at first moved upon the waters is ordained by the great Creator of all things to be an exact Fabricator of whatsoever hath a being which always at first portrays and delineates the scheam and fashion of whatsoever is afterwards to be done by it And although it was never intended by that Fountain of this universal Spirit that any thing hurtful or destructive to man should be produced yet ever since there was brought an Ataxy irregularity and inconformity upon the spirit of man through the disobedience and rebellion of the Protoplastes it hath minted and coined exorbitant monstrous exotic Images by direction of which it acts to its own calamity and ruin consuming spoiling making havoc of that through foolish vain Terrors Inquietudes Anxieties and Fury which ought to be preserved and cherished by regular and peaceable operations Now no sooner is it touched by any thing that is disagreeing and disproportionable to its natural constitution but it is affrighted perplexed fretted raged and disturbed and put quite besides itself if it cannot presently be rid of it yea the very thoughts of an approaching mischief doth sometimes cause the Archaeus from a groundless fright to bring that really to an existence which otherwise would never have been as is apparent when a timorous person hearing a relation of the Pest and the terrible symptoms accompanying it doth through the power of strong imagination making somewhat of nothing sow a pestilential Seed in the blood which fermenting and swelling up doth forthwith entertain the vital spirit that makes in itself a perfect Idea of that Disease which never ceases as long as it continues to diminish and at length to extinguish the bright shining Lamp of life Did not the vital Spirit at first running away afterward entertain treacherously as it were into its privy Chamber shaking hands and hugging in its bosom that which is virulent poisonous and deletery and thereby appropriate the same to itself entering into a firm league with that which is Tristissima mortis Imago the lurid and dismal Picture of lethiferous dissolution conspiring and co-operating with an irreconcilable Enemy to man's health neither the venom of any Mineral Vegetable or Animal nor the Heteroclite poison of the Pest could injure us or any way damnify us But as the Case stands Perditio nostra à nobis and that which was in the beginning ordained for a sole preservative to us doth often become our bane and destruction And Spiritus ille vitalis qui Actiones sanas etiam morbosas edit That Archaeus which is the instrument of Sanity is likewise the Author of Maladies and that saying is too true to our sad experience Nemo laeditur nisi à se ipsa We are indeed Self destroyers and do exactly patrize daily putting in practice what the First of Men taught us 'T is not the outside that simply defiles us but all our Misery flows from within 't is this domestic Enemy that doth infest us our familiar Friend with whom we continually converse that lies in our own bosom that betrays us and delivers us up for a spoil to the ambient Air Diet and other necessary things we are forced to make use of for a subsistence to support this brittle and friable clod of earth These poisonous Atoms that lurk in the pores of the Air and are wasted up and down with every blast slighly entering into our bodies unfelt unseen cannot of themselves make the Pest unless our Archaeus become an efficient and formal cause of its Quiddity so that it hath its immediate being from our vital Spirit which comes to pass in this manner So soon as these loathsome Particles enter in either through the larger or smaller passages of the skin the Custos or Centinel of that part where it first makes an impulse perceiving that its Territories is invaded by a cruel potent Adversary a destroyer of Nature being surprised with horror and confusion forthwith flies giving advantage to its Foe to take possession of that part and giving all over for lost It suffers the fermenting poison to alter the natural well disposed mumial ferment in our bodies and to change it into the same condition with itself upon this the Archaeus the forenamed Custos that keeps guard & always watches and wards Night and Day for the preservation of the whole being full of Consternation and Terror throws away the Reins of orderly Government and yields itself up captive to the imperious Placits of a Truculent Tyrant uniting itself intimately with full consent to demolish this beautiful Edifice and to that end doth immediately frame a seminal Idea and an absolute draught of what it intends to accomplish Then is the first beginning of the Pest and is as it were in Ovo acquiring maturity by degrees sometimes quickly sometimes slowly according to the strength or weakness of imagination vigorous power or feebleness of mumial ferments the subtlety or dulness of the Poison the activity or drowsiness of the Archaeus So long as the pestiferous occasional Cause whither it arise from within or without continues not actuated and as it were not animated by our Archaeus it can do us no harm but remains like an unpolished misshapen piece of Timber which was never yet brought into a form by a dextrous Mechanic So soon as the Architectonical spirit enters into this deletery matter it informs the same and brings that into an actual being of which otherwise it would have been deprived once quickened it never leaves to play a sad Tragedy unless the venomous matter be suddenly excluded the Idea obliterated and the Archaeus highly fortified upon the Theatre of this Microcosm with variety of dismal Scenes as several individual Constitutions admit from the Prologue of its Birth to the Epilogue of its Death CHAP. III. Of the Subject Part where the Pest doth principally reside and act these Tragical Scenes in Man's body I Have not been a little anxious but not presumptuous as the Galenists have falsely aspersed me to find out the chief Palace or Chair of State where this mortiferous Tyrant the Pest doth principally sit enthroned where by its beck and insolent frowns it makes this little World and all that inhabit in it to crouch creep and tremble That this Poison doth enter in and ride in the Triumphant Chariot of the vital Spirit both innate and influent is an undoubted Truth For as I said by means of it the Pest moves and hath a being and without the same it is as nothing for the pestilential matter whether generated within or hath an ingress from without through the Hand the Foot the Eye the Nostril Mouth or any other place still the Custos the vital Spirit of that part gives it entertainment by cowardly running from the poison and so betraying that trust that was reposed in it by yielding up treacherously itself and a strong hold to the fury of a potent Enemy to which the Archaeus becomes a Vassal to perpetrate those things that tend to Ruin and Desolation Notwithstanding this particular damage and nocument that arises from a dedition and timorous submission of the Archaeus to this pestiferous Gas making an incursion and invasion upon the Borders and Confines of this flourishing Kingdom Man's living Body were far more tolerable were not this venom conducted to the very Centre and Metropolis thereof the Stomach where the Soul itself keeps Court which encircled with all necessary Officers sends forth wholesome Edicts for the preservation of the body Natural In the Bedchamber of this Noble Membrane the Stomach doth this usurping Disease take its lodging darting Basilisk-like his virulent beams into all parts circumjacent in a Heteroclite and Anomolous manner sometimes causing a stupor and lethargical drowsiness like Opium sometimes a phtenzy or fury like Hemlock or Nuces insanae at one time a Numbness or Paralytical disposition like the Fish Torpedo At another time an inquietude or incessant motion like the poison of a Tarantula Now an insatiable thirst and a scorching flaming heat like one bit by the Serpent Dypsas then again a Coldness Rigour and Shivering like the venom of a Scorpion provoking in one man a hungry appetite a little before death in another an aversation and loathing of all Food producing a manifest Fever in this man and in that none at all or hardly any sensible striking down one as if he were Syderated or Apoplectical and tenderly handling another as it were in a dallying flattering and sporting way curiously spinning out the thread of his life for some days yea weeks and then at length cutting it off Thus this raging venom being once ushered by the desponding Archaeus into the innermost Recesses and Closet of life is by this means become Master of the whole vacua dominatur in Aula and having quite confounded the Eutaxy and good Government that was before in the vital ingenite spirit of the stomach quietly and sedulously working causes the same to be irregular exorbitant hare-brained foolish and furious careless what becomes of itself and what belongs to its tuition For the Confirmation of what I have delivered That the Region of the Hypocondries especially the Stomach is the principal place where the Pest taketh up its abode We are to take special notice what strange alteration is made in the Region Epigastrick by violent passions and how the Oeconomy of the whole body thereby is put into a disorder perhaps upon an imagination sometimes of that which is not at all real as it happens when a panic fear extraordinary anger an excessive joy some sad and dreadful News brought to us doth in a trice distract us making the first impulse upon the stomach and us Helmont excellently observes spoiling an eager appetite to our food in an instant quite taking off the edge of the stomach which before was sharp set And although the Galenists are plensed erroneously to separate the irascible and concupiscible Appetite so that they divide them into two distinct stalls placing the one i e. the irascible in the heart and the other the concupiscible in the stomach the lower adjacent parts yet if they weigh the truth of things seriously they may be better informed that the Orgiastick as well as the Epithymetick are chiefly lodged in the mouth of the Ventricle which the Ancients for that excellency they conceived of it adorned with the name of being of that power and sovereignty that according to its benign or malign Aspect it causes a serenity or obscurity in this little Horizon Here is the Bench where the sensitive Soul sits as Judge which if rightly tuned and well composed censures and straight puts to an end the manifold Conflicts Tumults Broils and Uproars in the Body Natural but if out of order and have an Atony it embroils all in Wars being the Ringleader Promoter and efficient cause of all Disorder and Confusion Now as from this Fountain the Stomach and its Copartner the Spleen which make according to Helmont a Duumvirate springs our Health the greatest felicity in this world so from the same root arises sickness and infirmity the bitter ingredient that mars all that delicious mess which either Nature hath provided or man's ingenious Cookery can invent In hac Olla continentur mors & vita This is that Pandora's Box which Adam to please his brutish appetite ventured to open for the reception of the forbidden fruit which was no sooner ingested but out flew infinite calamitous Maladies that vexed him and torture us his Posterity to this day In this little membranous Field was first sown the rebellious seed of all Diseases which ever since never ceased to propagate and multiply itself over the universal face of the globe of Mankind in a direful manner Here is the Plantation and Nursery of all sort of Fevers for never did I know any afflicted in this kind but still the digestive ferment of the stomach became impaired and degenerate from its Native goodness hence come those multiplicity of sad Symptoms which appear as Nauseousness Anorexy extreme Thirst bad Sapour Sopour tedious Watchings Dotage Melancholy Madness and the like Here is the Mine where the Stone and Gout have their Ens primum are first embrionated and lie in their rude Principles In this Duumvirate is the Nest where the Asthma Sqinsie Pleurisy Vertigo Epilepsy Apoplexy Lethargy Frenzy Diarrhaea Lienteria Dysuria Stranguria Ischuria Scorbute and this terrible blow Plaga excellens the Pest are first brooded hatched fed and at length perfected and able to subsist of themselves In this admirable Cavity is erected the Mint royal where the lively Image of Sanity and Infirmity are stamped and the lineaments of every Languor drawn out as it were with a Pencil that it may act uniformly in one continued series and tenor according to its kind and various constitution it meets with For even a vulgar Head knows how to distinguish a Quartan Ague from a Quotidian and both from a Tertian a continual from an intermitting Fever the Spasm or Cramp from a Palsy the Dropsy from an Atrophy or a macilent Consumption and several other Diseases one from another And this is deduced from the Parts affected the certain Symptoms Accidents and Products that inseparably accompany each of them The silly old Women called Searchers can report upon the bare Aspect of a pestilential Corpse when thy see Tumours of the Emunctories Cauterizing Carbuncles Blains Pustles and those stigmata nigra they call the Tokens in the superficies of the Skin that this or that Person died of the Sickness Wherein although they are sometimes mistaken by reason of some intervening outward Accidents which may hinder the eruption of these pestilential Blossoms yet an expert Physician that hath a more intuitive knowledge into these things than the common People will hardly ever be mistaken in the Diagnôsis of the Disease And certainly this could never be discovered aright were not the Idea and Platform of every grief as it were shadowed out limmed and sigillated in the ingenite Archaeus of the tender tractable Stomach and Spleen Neither ought it to seem strange that the Ventricle being a Membrane should have such admirable properties and rare effects bestowed upon it by power of the sensitive Soul there taking its principal habitation sith the womb of the same Texture doth sometimes act stupendiously even to the seeming imitation of a new Creation out of nothing as when the Idea of a Cherry Mulberry or the like is impressed by the uterine Imagination upon that part of the Infant according as the hand of the Mother shall be directed at that time of her earnest longing which fictitious fruit shall afterward flourish sooner or later as the Native Soil and Climate of that place doth bring real fruit to a speedy or late maturity Now forasmuch as the Stomach and its Compeer the Spleen the Duumvirate of this Commonwealth have such power committed to them that they are as the Key to open the Door to Health and Sickness and as it were the Helm that turns and winds this Vessel at pleasure In what ought a true Physician to be more solicitous than in preserving them in Eutonie eucrasy Eumetrie and to have special care of this excellent Organ lest any thing assumed may injure the ferment of these parts disturb disquiet and annoy the Archaeus thereof Away then with the seculent and dirty Medicaments of the Galenists which I can demonstrate to their faces if they dare to stand a Trial are not fitting to be received into such a Noble part for the Cure of any deep rooted Disease whatsoever And were not their Patients grossly ignorant in that which concerns their own life did they but understand the notable damage both present and future that attends those that enter into this Wire-drawing Galenical course of Physic they would utterly abominate such dreggy stuff if more pure and defecate Chemical Remedies could be obtained Never let any Lover of Learning harbour a thought that such an Elephant like Gigantical Disease the Pest is like to be detruncated and overcome by a Galenist who I 'll make it appear ipso facto knows not how to remove a trivial ordinary Fever radically and fundamentally And all this proceeds for want of a clear understanding of the right use of the Stomach the powerful influence it hath upon all parts the Nature of its Ferment and the tender respect that is to be given to the Archaeus the diligent Custos and watchful Janitor of the Orifice and Pylorus Suffer not then any that pretends to Cure thee to exhaust the innocent blood profusely by opening a vein in the Arm for the Cure of that Malady whose cause doth only Centrally depend upon an Exorbitancy Discord Dearticulation and Apostasy of the vital Spirit in the Duumvirate from the genuine well-disposed Constitution that ought to be in it CHAP. IU. Signs of the Pest. JUdiciously to dicsern the Pest from other Diseases is sometimes a Task of no small difficulty in that it hath no certain peculiar proper Pathognomonical inseparable Sign emergent with it not common to others So that an able Physician may sometimes be puzzled at first Access positively and absolutely to determine whether the Patient be smitten by this superlative stroke or afflicted with some other inferior sickness He alone that is Omniscious can infallibly tell in what instant time this pestilential poison is conceived or enters into man's body so closely doth it lie for the most part that none but he that knows things à priori can punctually discover that such an one carries about him a mortal Arrow shot into his Praecordia To see a man eat and drink liberally to be jocund frolic seemingly enjoying a Jubilee to exercise Venery and several Disports as at other times and yet to carry about him the very Picture of Death within is a Plague of the Plague To be undermined by a Clandestine Enemy little dreamt of digging like a company of pioneers into the very bowels of this Microcosm and on a sudden tearing in pieces unawares this strong fortress of life is that which heightens the malice of this truculent Calamity For had an able Physician opportunity granted him to encounter with this horrid Monster upon its first approach I make no doubt but that by means of the Artillery of powerful Remedies it might quickly be overcome dispossessed and mortified Wherefore the Case standing thus with us it is prudent Providence to stand upon our guard and discreetly suspecting the worst to fortify ourselves as well as possibly may be vim vi repellere and to get such a panoply of Arcanas that we may not easily be vulnerable or at least may speedily heal those wounds that are made by its intoxicated arrows Sith we are ignorant a priori when we are first assaulted with this fermenting poison let us strictly observe what may be useful to us à posteriori Yet ought we not to despair for some antecedent Signs may coniecturally lead us to a fore knowledge and prevision of this venomous Arrow that is let flown at us that thereby we may make the better provision defending ourselves pro re nara and thereby take off by Art the virulency that attends it for praevisa spicuia levius feriunt How significant the Stars are to forewarn us of this grievous wound to be inflicted upon Mankind is best known to Astrologers whose Predictions I have always found very uncertain and amphilogical for want of that Syderal knowledge which Adam once enjoyed Indeed I am bound to believe that the heavenly bodies were ordained in Signa Tempora Dies & Annos and the reason why we do not foretell what they often preindicate is to be attributed to the dimness and imbecility of our understanding which since our lapse is become uncapable of such Celestial mysteries It is confessed some general obscure Notions we may collect from above yet we for the most part square them as that crooked Line of our own Interest guides us not according to the straight Rule of Verity for every one is willing to put from himself the evil day and shift it upon another That Comets or Blazing Stars do portend some evil to come upon Mortals is confirmed by long observation and sad experience as likewise Phaenomena of a Parelios' Parasolene apparitions of Draconos volantes & Trabes Scintillae now Stars Battles fought and Coffins carried through the Air Howl Screeching and Groans heard about Churchyards also raining of blood unwonted matter etc. All of which having something extra naturam are portentous and prodigious ordained by that good Philanthropos to advertise us to a timely resipiscence and prevention of those evils that hang over our heads Moreover when unseasonable weather as extreme drought or superfluity of moisture infest us when waters contract a fracedinous Odour and Corruption when multitude of Infects as Toads Frogs Flies Cimires and divers poisonous Creatures appear when Cattle perish in great Numbers by some Contagious lues when malignant Diseases as Small Pox Spotted Fevers Scurvy or the like are frequent among us which gave me occasion perceiving how grassant the Scorbute was in this Nation to deliver a Prediction that in some short time it would break forth into some terrible Symptoms degenerating into this late acute Sickness Let this suffice in General to give a Premonition and Caveat of a future ●est for our premonition Touching the Signs that attend the Pest that it is present they are manifold all or most of which are maturely to be considered that we may attain a perfect Diagnôsis of this Heteroclite Calamity and withal make a Prognôsis for a discovery what is like to be the event thereof And here I must take notice what a promiscuous complication contexture and mutual intercourse there is of the Signs belonging to the Pest and other Maladies especially the Scorbute so that he ought to be very quicksighted that can sometimes rightly distinguish between one and the other Wherefore in delivering Judgement concerning a doubtful matter all Circumstances are strictly to be observed and a Syndrom of Symptoms to be mustered together that what a single cannot a collective Enumeration of Signs may instruct us in the Nature and Essence of that kind of Languor which hath seized upon the Patient When therefore an Oppression about the Praecordia a Loathing Vomiting a Vertigo great pain of the Head a notable redness in the veins of the conjunctive Tunicle difficult or irregular Respiration a great asperity of the Tongue extreme Thirst or no Thirst considerable a Soporous or Lethargical Disposition Agrypnie Restlessness and Inquietude a Misapprehension false Conception of things a delirium or raving a Faintness Palpitation of the Heart and lipothymy a Stupor and Numbness in several parts Spontaneous Trembling Lassitude alternate changes of heat and cold shooting pains especially in the Emunctories Eruption of Blanes Vesicles Spots Botches Carbuncles an obscure or manifest Fever sometimes violent sometimes gentle the pulse weak unequal intermitting formicant or vermiculant a laudable well-coloured Urine not at all discovering any evil affect when many or most of these Signs appear especially when the Disease is dominant an able Physician may confidently assert That the sick man hath a Pestilential poison within him Happy is he that meets with such a Physician that can detect in a seasonable time this subtle Serpent that lieth hid in the bosom that he may bruise his head before it infect by his noisome breath the greatest part of the vital Spirits hindering a free circulation of the blood by causing a restagnation and coagulation of the same for while the Pest is in fieri potent Remedies being duly administered do seldom miss or their right scope of Curing but when it comes to be in facto esse the Recovery becomes very hazardous For this reason I have urged some persons that would listen to me whom I have suspected to have received the Infection for to take what might give a check to its full Career stopping it in limine before it entered into the Bedchamber of life and so successful have I been this way that in a few hours there hath been by virtue of some active Remedies an Epiphany and Efflorescence of some Spot Tubercule Vesicle Bubo or the like on the skin which hath both satisfied the Patient by a timely prevention of future mischief and confirmed my Judgement with credit In some I have at first so taken off the force of the Venom by the frequent use of purified Sulphurs that it could never so seize upon the blood as to put any considerable stop to its motion so that hereby not the least cutaneous Emersion could be discovered as it happened to my Brother who had the Pest twice with a Fever Vertigo Oppression at the Stomach and other evident Symptoms belonging thereto and yet had neither Botch Carbuncle Blane Vesicle Pimple or Spot apparent in his whole Body And though as he told me he felt about a Hundred times for a Bubo in his Groin the virulent tartarous blood tending that way notwithstanding it could never gather to make any Tumour forasmuch as it was still ferretted subtiliated and dissipated by Medicines that were volatile and capable to be circulated with the blood and to be carried as far as the sixth digestion and there to execute the office of discussing any gross leutous matter without leaving a Caput mort behind Certainly the advice of the Poet Principiis obsta is to be embraced in any Disease but especially this which being morbus per peracutus quickly finishes its course when it once sets forth and hastens to a period oftentimes in a few hours Seeing therefore it treads so softly within us that it cannot be heard to walk remains sometimes so silent that it speaks little or nothing that we can understand for our instruction 't is wisdom to send out some Exploratores perspicaces subtle Scouts I mean exquisite Medicines that by their leptomery and specific Dowry implanted in them may search out and discover whatsoever is hostile in our Territories heating up the Quarters of that close Enemy which lies in perdu to destroy us ex improviso Wherefore if any notable Error be committed by any in Diet or any outward thing that is ordained no support our life let there be a timely prevention of the ill effects thereof And although 't is true that there is no sign in the Pest which may not appear in another sickness yet when such a Contagion is grassant and many of the forenamed Symptoms show themselves though very obscurely we have just cause to censure it to be of this kind and to withstand the same with Curatives suitable to the magnitude and activity thereof Much likewise is to be gathered from some Adjuncts and Circumstances annexed to virulent Symptoms and Products that may specify their Nature from what root they spring and show that they are not of the Classis of those that are mild and gentle for pestilential Bubo's Parotites Carbuncles and Blanes often break forth before any considerable Fever on a sudden and are far more painful than others that are well-conditioned Any small cutaneous Phaenomenon as a Vesicle or some vexatious Pimple somewhat unusual to us in time of mortal Contamination though no Fever nor any other bad Symptoms show themselves aught to dictate to us what may be the worse that nothing may be neglected conducing to the breaking this Cockatrice Egg in the beginning In short any sudden Alteration arising in us in time of Contagion and no solid Reason to be given for it may very well inform us that we are intoxicated and our Spirits infected by this Atrocious Arrow A defect of a customary Diaphoresis and a kindly perspication of the whole body especially towards Morning aught to make us suspicious and to move us to use all means to open the Pores by Diaphoretical and Diapuoick Alexiteries Whether this poison entered into us from without by Contact or Respiration and whether it took its original from an inward principle of Malignity is often hard to deem yet sometimes there ariseth a manifest change punction and dolour in that part where it had the first ingress and some remarkable impression made Topically as it happened in an obscure manner to my hand which was for some time demerged and souzed in the poisonous liquamen of a pestilent Carcase that had at that time retained a heat in the bowels Expedite and vehement is that Pest which is framed by a strong imagination of a fright in the Individual for it often absolves a fatal History in a very short time but what proceeds from a Terror of the Archaeus ingenite in every particular part although it have more danger in it yet it begins and makes it progress a little more leisurely for the most part giving fairer warning which I ought to have taken more notice of when those destructive Atoms entered into my hand at the time of the Dissection of such an infecting Cadaver Touching the event of the Pest that hath seized upon any person as to make a Prognôsis thereof forthwith infallible is scarce granted to any Physician it being a mere Proteus turning Chamaeleon like into all shapes of life and death for where there seems most security there is most danger and when the Symptoms are most direful to behold a happy conclusion of Sanity sometimes follows Thus much I have frequently observed that a very laudable Urine like to one healthy is oftentimes the worse and the more mild the Accidents appear to us in the greater hazard is that man's life That which I always principally depend upon to give a solid Judgement what may be the conclusion of this Scene for better or worse is the strength or weakness of the Patient the Maturity or Tardity of my access to him for is highly to be prized above all if he be able and honest From hence I take my Indication to perform my Duty being ascertained that Nature sunt Morborum medicatrices nothing where the vital Spirits do altogether fail can be done wherefore in this case of making a Prediction a good Physician ought to be guided chiefly by the Effects of some potent Arcana's which if they be rightly ordered and seasonably given will inform him how long and with what success this universal Archaeus Governor of this Fortress is able to hold out and by what ways sallying forth upon the Enemy it can rout profligate and cut it off Whosoever is not furnished with extraordinary Remedies shall find that Aphorism of Hypocrates true That is in acute Diseases there is no infallible Prediction whether the sick man will live or die which I confess trusting to a Galenical Crisis I have experimentally found to be true but he that by premature Medicines doth anticipate the same shall seldom Err in his prenotion for the Honour and credit of this Divine Art and Confirmation of the faith of the slander by in him that undertakes the Cure I know my Countrymen will expect my Judgement what I think concerning the state and condition of this approaching Summer Whether the Pest be like to break forth in this City in a raging manner again To which I answer Negatively So far as I can Conjecture by Natural Reasons taken from the ordinary course of all things which I observe have their first Rise an Ascent an utmost Height a Descent and then a Setting I have perceived the late Pest to be Ambulatory to make a progress from place to place and having made havoc in one Topical Quarter after some abatement it removed to another which signifies plainly that there are local seminal Dispositions prone to produce this peculiar poison at such a time above others which as it ripens sooner or later and finds our Bodies inclined to receive an Impression so according to our Capacity it breaks forth into Act speedily or slowly mildly or fiercely Now the pestilent matter being in great part exhausted and spent the Scorbutical malignity somewhat tamed and the Archaeus fortified daring becomes as it were an old Soldier not ready as formerly to give back upon every terrifying Occasion I may confidently conclude That London is like to enjoy this Summer the Company of the Galenists when there is least need of them which will I fear be an ill Omen to some so long as they continue Bleeding and Deletery Purgation more destructive to poor Mortals than all the Pests that ever reigned since the Creation AN HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE DISSECTION OF A Pestilential Body And the Consequents thereof CHAP. V. IN the Year 1665. a most rueful lamentable time as ever London suffered in this kind when the Sickness swept away many Thousands in a week in the Month of August I visited a lusty proper man by name Mr. Will Pick living in Peticoat-lane grievously wounded with one of those poisonous Arrows that flew thick about poor Mortals so that his condition seemed to be almost desperate and finding no relief at all from those frivolous and vain preparations a Galenist had exhibited to him usque ad nauseam was in some short space preserved by Chemical Remedies the poison being therewith excluded and the Archaeus of the Stomach redeemed from captivity At the same time there lay a Servant of Mr. Picks a youth about 15 years of age labouring under most horrid symptoms raving as it were extimulated by some Fury which Tragical Interlude was quickly terminated by a mortal Catastrophe Upon this I took occasion to request my then recovering Patient his Master to grant me liberty to open this defunct body for my own instruction and the satisfaction of all inquisitive Persons to which having given him some persuasive reasons to that purpose he straight condescended yet not without some jealousy and kind fear lest I should do myself injury upon his concession I being much exhilarated in my spirits having obtained that desire which was often denied me by those who pretended several slight excuses I girt up myself with all expedition getting in readiness what Instruments were fitting with a porringer containing Sulphur to burn under the Corpse which was at that time placed in the open air in a yard there adjacent which for several respects was very convenient and for my better accommodation a Servant by the permission of the foresaid Master was ready to afford me his service in opening the Coffin nailed up and administering some other things necessary for my design The head of the Coffin being taken off and the linen cleared away I could not but admire to behold a skin so beset with spots black and blue more remarkable for multitude and magnitude than any that I have yet seen some of which being opened contained a congealed matter in one more shallow and in another more deep Here I conceived something more than of ordinary Rarity might be discovered wherefore perforating the Membrane that involved all the rest I made entrance into the lowest venture or Region where appeared a virulent Ichor or thin liquor variously coloured as yellow greenish etc. the small guts being much distended with a venomous flatus did contain a great quantity of a foul scoria or dross in them but they were not as some apprehended outwardly spotted as the skin only some obscure large marks were made in their inward parts as likewise in the stomach arising from the poisonous liquamen therein lodged The Vena Porta and Arteria Caeliaca being divided afforded only a serous liquor no rubified juice at all that which was enclosed in these vessels was a firmly congealed substance of a very dark colour the Parenchyma of the Liver being separated was very pallid and did strait weep and send out a thin yellowish excrement The Spleen dissected appeared more than ordinary obscure a livid Ichorous matter following the Incision the Kidneys laid open abounded with a Citrine water but altogether exanguine as likewise the other viscera at length I came to that most excellent useful part the Stomach whose tender membranes when I had divided a black matter like Ink did show itself to the quantity as nigh as I could guests of a wine pint somewhat tenacious and slimy the inward membrane of the Ventricle was much discoloured but the bottom thereof not perforated as Helmont found in the like case in such a manner says he as if a potential cautery had been applied thereto Having sufficiently lustrated and viewed the lower venture I ascended to the middle and making a divulsion of the stern from the Mediastinum I intentively beheld the superficies of the Lungs stigmatised with several large ill favoured marks much tumified and distended the inward part of which being pertunded with my knife a sanious dreggy corruption issued forth and a pale Ichor destitute of any blood for which I searched by cutting this Organ of respiraion into various particles but could find none but a dirty coagulation which Hipocrates calls in the branches of Vena and Arteria Pulmonica After this I disparted the descending Trunk of the Cava and the Artery called Aorta expecting some considerable emanation of blood there if any where that might make a little inundation but no such thing succeeded for only some very few spoonfuls of a thin liquor of a pale hue came forth which might easily be licked up by a small handkerchief Diffecting these pipes secundum rectitudinem I found them stuffed with a thick curdled blackish substance which once laid hold on might be drawn out to some length Next I separated the Pericardium that robust coat that circumvolves the Heart replenished with a deeply tinged yellow liquor Then having opened the right cavity of the Heart I therein found a white congealed matter extracting which with my fingers and narrowly viewing it I could not compare it to any thing more like than a Lamb-stone cut in twain which the Servant beholding standing nigh easily assented to in his Judgement To render a sound reason of this albified coagulation in this right Ventricle of the Heart may perhaps puzzle a good Physiologist For in all those cadavers I ever saw dissected this hollow receptacle did still contain a blackish blood condensed arising from a stopping of the Circulation of it first in that place Now the most probable cause as I conceive with submission of this unwonted white substance may come from a sumption of mere crude milk which an indiscreet Nurse had given this youth not long before he died part of which passing out of the stomach little altered might be conveyed upon a pinch and stress to preserve life through the Venae lacteae in the mesentery or some shorter passages into the subclavian vessels and there entering the right cavity of the Heart be for want of that sanguifying power and that material transmuting ferment attending it changed according to the capacity of the Matter by a virulent preternatural ferment into this seeming glandulous flesh 'T was strange to behold instead of candid a black fuiiginous matter fitting only for the infernal stomach of the Dog Cerberus enclosed in one ventricle that public shop and treasury of life that aught to be furnished with all manner of utensils requisite for the sustentation of this little world and in another a white innocent lamblike juice lodged instead of a dusky concreted clot of gore and all this proceeding from the deletery ferment of this Heteroclite poison which that I may give you a further account had so altered the substance texture consistence and colour of that Solar Nectar contained in those curiously contrived Pipes veins and arteries that I may truly say not one spoonful of that ruddy liquor properly called blood could be obtained in this Pestilential body being partly congealed and partly colliquated into a Tabum or filthy matter Which I have experimentally found to be the usual effects of those poisons I have given to some Creatures whose carcases I have afterward dissected Having finished the Dissection of this loathsome Body I presently found some little sensible alteration tending to a stiffness and numbness in my hand which had been soaking and dabbling in the Bowels and Entrails then warm though it was Ten or Twelve hours after the Youth expired whereupon having cleansed away that foulness it was besmeared with I held it for some time over a dish of burning Brimstone and so received the Gas thereof but in vain Seriùs ejicitur quam non admittitur I might better had I foreseen what I do now kept it out than thrust it out for those sly insinuating venomous Atoms excited by the heat of the body opening the pores of my skin had quickly free ingress the Archaeus the Porter of my hand that should have better guarded it forthwith tergiversating and taking its flight being extremely terrified at the Alarm of so fierce and potent an Enemy and afterward in an abject manner conducted it to the principal place of the Souls residence the Stomach where after this lately entered poison had dressed and habited itself with that spirit that had the perfect Idea and Image of this sickness it was to act a Tragical part the Archaeus being obliged to be Executioner to bring to pass its own Ruin and now do I carry about me the very Pest closely spreading like a Gangrene diffusing its malignity into all my members covered over for some short space as it were in the ashes of silence while I in the mean time visited visit others visited administering that help to them which I then more perplexed at my Neighbour's Calamity than solicitous for my own suffer myself to want relating with joy what an Inquest I had made into that Subject which had made a Conquest of me Thus I walked up and down from Patient to Patient Dum hoc virus membra mea depascitur I ate I drank and slept well till about Two of the Clock the next Morning being Saturday at which hour I waked to sleep for ever had not Divine goodness given me an Antidote to rouse and raise me up no sooner had I recollected myself but I perceived such a kind of stupor in my Thighs and Legs that was at first in my hand than I began to ponder what I had done the day before and still those large and manifold Spots were too lively represented to my eye against my will Without further delay I forthwith called up my Servant a Stripling nigh Fourteen years old whom I commanded having lighted a Candle strictly to observe those Directions I gave him appointing such Remedies to be produced with all speed that I knew were very sufficient and valid by multiplicity of Experiments to resist this feral Disease And when I had delivered to him such Rules I thought necessary for life having taken a large quantity of my best Medicaments I charged him to follow me close doubling and trebling the ordinary Dose I usually gave which he so faithfully and sedulously performed with advantage that I dare assert that Five of my Patients joined altogether never did through my whole practice high these Twenty years take so great a portion of such like Remedies as it appeared by his own and others reports compared with that great expense of those preparations I had in store for I knew where Nature was so prostrate and the Disease so strong it was to be supported by extraordinary help which course had it not been vigorously taken I question had there been delay of what was needful for my recovery but two hours whether any Medicine in Nature could have been of any efficacy and validity for my Restauration such was the Magnitude Activity and Celerity pardon my expression good Mr. Captious Logomachus and let not one single term without any true saving knowledge breed a quarrel between us I say properly the Celerity in despite of any selfconceited cavilling Galenist of the Disease that then invaded me that would admit of no Truce or Respite For so soon as I was throughly awakened I felt a grievous oppression about the Midriff especially in the pit of the Stomach and such a sudden defection of the Spirits that I had much ado to hold out to advertise my Servant how he should menage his business My head also began to be much out of order exceedingly dozed and whereas Three or four Ounces of a Cordial liquor I took formerly did commonly put me into a breathing Sweat now ten times so much of the same did hardly cause a heat in the lower parts Perspicuous also was the Coagulation of part of my blood as many small Stigmata Spots scattered about my Breast and Arms did plainly testify but one above the rest was most remarkable in the bending of my right Arm where there appeared a very large Spot of an obscure colour of the bigness of a single Halfpenny which I often took a view of Well after some hours tedious Inquietude and despondency of Spirit with much Reluctancy and many an Agony a gentle Mador at length bedewed my skin with which I was somewhat relieved and persevering in the frequent repetition of Polyacaea and some other noble Remedies I began to be much refreshed sweeting liberally cum emphoriâ & dysphoriâ by turns for I frequently sustained ah Alternate Vicissrtude of desperate and hopeful Symptoms there being sometimes an Eclampfis a seeming serenity and clarity in the Archaeus then again nothing but Cloudiness Storms and Tempests Thus I passed over that doleful morning inter spemque metumque earnestly longing for the presence of that Excellent expert Chemist and legitimate Physician Dr. Starkey whom I sent to being verily persuaded that he if any under God would be a Comforter to me for I knew certainly that the best Galenist was a miserable one and that Spiritus Antiloimoides was a mere cheat sed heu lachrymabile ambo morbo laboramus eodem he was stricken and had as much need of mine as I of his succour and so we might condole but not conserve each other However this worthy Gentleman came to me whose very Aspect exhilarated and solaced my drooping spirits of whom when I had taken something I was wonderfully composed for some time This brave man that did I dare maintain it more good than all the Galenists in England put together was that night after he had been with me forced to yield himself prisoner to that insolent Conqueror which did then make spoil of many Thousands and so I was left destitute of two of my dearest friends in my saddest Condition For Honest and learned Dr. d ye of whom I shall speak further hereafter could not afford me his Assistance being much afflicted and oppressed after a former deliverance with the same venomous Sickness Wherefore I resolved to make use of that reason I was then master of and that outward aid I had then at hand uniting and mustering up all supplies that I conceived were proper for me laying aside all peevishness and foolish averseness to take what was fitting which fault I often found incident to most of my Patients to their own prejudice The Remedies that I took in a Quintuple quantity for what others took was Tinctura Polyacaea and no small portion of Pulvis Pestifugus Touching the Diet I observed it was good spirituous liquors as the best Wine and Strong Beer sweetened with a little sugar also now and then I drank a draught of White-wine Posset as for Galenical Juleps Small beer Barley water muccaginous Decoctions Broths satiated with the crude juice of Ingredients I detested for I knew they would annoy my stomach and so hinder the Archaeus from conquering the poison which upon every irritating occasion was ready to ferment My whole scope was to keep up the strength of the vital spirits without which I am sure no Malady can be cured Neither was I wanting to make use of helmont's Xenexton a Toad the powder of which my dear friend Dr. Starkey gave me made up in the form of a Trochisk of his own ordering I likewise hung about my neck a large Toad dried prepared not long before in as exquisite a manner as possibly I could with my own fingers This Toad sowed up in a linen cloth was placed about the Region of my Stomach where after it had remained some hours became so tumefied distended as it were blown up to that bigness that it was an object of wonder to those that beheld it Had I not felt and seen this swollen dead body of the Toad I should very much have doubted by relation the Truth thereof forasmuch as that Great Scholar in reality Van Helmont who shines with such a bright lustre in his Orb that the Galenical Bats and Owls are not able to look him in the face delivers these words Nam Buso exsiccatus utut sex horis maceretur semper tamen tumefactionis incapax i. e. A dried Toad though it be steeped in water for six hours together will not for all that be swollen or puffed up This he speaks for the confutation of Paracelsus who tells us That a dried Toad macerated and softened in Rose-water for six hours together doth draw the Pestilential poison so into its body that five or six Bufo's laid on one after another upon a Botch will all be wonderfully tumefied This saith Van Helmont can never be quod intumescere sit proprietas Archei vitalis quod non nisi occasionaliter tumor à venenis procedat Where the Vital Archaeus is wanting there can be no swelling from any poison quatenus a poison for every tumour from poison happens occasionalitèr or excitatiuè in as much as it excites exasperates and causes an indignation in the Archesus which being thus irritated and quite disordered frets rages storms and in this distracted mad fit produces such or such accidents and symptoms as the natural Idea of the specific venom shall direct and inform it Again Non tumet says the Acute Author Cadaver ictum à serpent Cadaver namque si non senserint nec tumefaciendi energiam retinuit A Carckasse for as much as it is deprived of all sense is uncapable of tumefaction from poison which doubtless is sound Philosophy never read or heard of from a Galenist for medicinal Instruction till this Privy Counsellor of Nature discovered it This rightly understood might serve as a good Argument to convince these Dogmatists that poisonous Vesicatories do but disturb Nature and take it off from performing a Sanative Office if rightly assisted by Art and divert it from that intended scope of profligating the pestilential poison to spend itself in opposing another contrived by a company of Impostors to delude Ignorant persons under a notion of drawing out the disease by these Blisters which are raised in all living bodies healthful as well as sick from a colliquating venom that Cantharideses have inherent in them vexing and galling the Archaeus of the membranous parts that it even changes the harmless and mild blood into such a sharp mischievous Ichor that a Dysuria or Ischuria a great pain or stopping of the Urine frequently follows but this obiter I shall hereafter make a larger discovery of this daubing with untempered mortar and those palliating deceitful courses that are daily imposed upon Credulous weak persons To proceed when I contemplate the foresaid words of this great Philosopher a man of that transcendent Reason and that clear bright Understanding I am not a little puzzled to find out the Efficient & Material Cause of the vast tumefaction of this Bufo incumbent on my breast That simple water of itself will not puff up a dried Bufo to that bulk ready to burst is plain by the Experiment of the Noble Author and my own knowledge Also a dead Bufo for want of a vital Archaeus cannot suffer such an expansion of parts from a venom never so active and pernicious to it as a Spider is reported to be considering mere poisons are little considerable in quanto but in quali neither is Man's pest poisonous to a Bufo no more than it is to a Dog or Cat to whom it is innocuous Wherefore I suppose till I be better informed that some virulent emanations either expelled by Nature strengthened with the presence of the Bufo or attracted by Magnetism carrying with them a transmutative putrefactive ferment imbibed by the Cadaver might attenuate rarify and have up the easily dilatable particles of the Bufo and might the ambient heat of the Bed being coadjuvant cause this kind of flatuous extension which Aporrhaa's being afterwards spent the succeeding application of another Bufo of the same magnitude prepared after the same manner managed with the like Circumstances suffered no such tumefied alteration which doubtless could never be had there been the same adequate cause present which was before Well be the Cause never so abstruse I am sufficiently persuaded That the adjunction of this Bufo nigh my Stomach was of wonderful force to master and tame this Venom then domineering in me and thereby subjugate it to the dictates of the vital Spirit somewhat more pacified and freed by degrees from that hotrid deformed pestilential Idea imprinted in it so that it was enabled to proscribe part of that tartarous Excrement through a place most opportune but not often frequented by such an evacuation the Fundament where appeared in some few days a very great Bubo of the bigness of a Tennis-ball quite stopping up the passage of the Anus My Head being now pretty well settled I was better able than before to reflect upon myself and to consult more rationally for my own safety wherefore after some serious considerations of my present condition I thought it fitting to give vent to this Tumour and to let out immediately the foul gore contained therein For this end I sent to an honest industrious young man a great lover of Chemistry one who was lately convinced by Fact of the Truth therein desiring him to apply Leeches to this swelling which he performed with much dexterity Three Sanguisugae having filled themselves usque ad nauseam a filthy corrupt blackish ichorous staining Recrement issued forth much like that I found in the Cadaverous Dissection By this Excretion I was exceedingly Recreated Nature discharging every day a great quantity of virulent moisture for the space of nigh three Weeks Thus continuing the frequent use of Tinctura Polyacaea and good spirituous Liquors I lay in a perpetual large Sweat Six days complete sometimes dejected almost Lipothymical and as it were dead in the Nest upon a reflux of the Venom to the Central parts and then again upon its Efflux to the Peripheria the Circumference of the Skin forthwith elevated cheerful and lively Upon the Sixth day I arose and walked about the Chamber with so firm a foot that my Brother and others wondered at the strength of my progressive motion that impetum faciens the vital Spirit being kept up with good Liquors and pure Chemical circulated Spirits agreeable to our Nature And I am persuaded upon the first setting my Foot upon the Floor after this sickness had not that painful Swelling in the Fundament hindered I could firmly have walked a Mile outright which thing considering the Atrocity and Outragiousness of the Disease and other Circumstances if ever it was or will be performed by mere Galenical Physic I will be bound to undergo Martyrdom for the approbation and testimony of their way as best Upon the Eighth day I went down Stairs to visit my Landlady Mrs. Ladyman most dangerously ill who notwithstanding her abortion miscarrying was saved from the Grave by an Almighty hand working by Chemical Remedies No sooner was I got up but my Maidservant and my Apprentice about Thirteen years old fell down being wounded with the same Arrow both of which escaped through a blessing upon the means That Four in one House should have the Pest about the same time and all escape when it raged most Mortally is a Mercy never to be forgotten by us Having recovered the Ferment of my Stomach in great part enjoying a sharp Appetite and having lost my flesh suddenly I thought I might according to Hypocrates advice get it again as speedily Sed difficile est modum tenere I went beyond the bounds of Sobriety eating and drinking too liberally presuming I could correct a small Error at my pleasure forgetting Hypocrates Aphorism And going abroad too soon out of a Zeal to visit my Patients being not throughly rid of a relic of Malignity that lay lurking within me and something more perhaps added by those loathsome Expirations of the Sick I was conversant with a Scald head being soon broken I fell into a most desperate Relapse with great oppression at my Stomach a Looseness difficulty of Respiration exceeding weakness Restlessness fruitless Sweeting etc. So that I thought it not possible to hold out that Night but this wanzing and ready to go out spark of life was once more blown up to a flame by that comfortable refreshing blast of former Chemical Remedies repeated in great quantity and so in four days I made another evasion from my tedious Bed resolving to be more cautious for the future I was fully confirmed in my health for which benefit I hope I shall be grateful to the most High Dum Spiritus hos regit artus At that very time whilst I did undergo many a sad Brunt many a trepidation of the heart and conflict of Spirit two of my most esteemed Consorts Dr. joseph Dey and Dr. George Starkey two Pillars of Chemical Physic were both reposed in their Graves before I knew of their Deaths concealed on purpose from me lest upon the apprehension of so great a loss my Calamity should be aggravated and I swallowed up in the gulf of Despair They are gone and at rest free from Persecution Slanders and Obloquys of their Enemies and have left me behind to deal with those that are always supplanting and contradicting the Truth Well I must be content considering Quicquid patimur venit ab Alto This came not out of the Dust but from the hand of him Above who for our abominable Crimes and our Ingratitude the grand Sin of this Nation was pleased to deprive us of Two such eminent Lights of which this wicked World is not worthy unless they could have prized them better 'T is not for my own so much though great as for the public interest that I heartily lament the Translation of these two brave Souls into a better place whose Praises all Candid and Ingenuous men will I dare say Celebrate and none but Sordid Envious Ignorant Spirits will ever detract from them It was I confess a most unhappy malevolent juncture of things at that instant that we should all Three fall sick at the same time neither of us being able to relieve each other for I am persuaded had Divine Providence been pleased to have spared any one of us from the severe stroke of his Indignation we might have been at this day all three alive for 't is the nature of this fly Venom to strike so unawares at the brain and to cause such an adiathesis a discomposure and disturbance in that Organ that a man hath not free libetty of his Reason to act what may be convenient for the securing his own life as it was too apparent in these Physicians of singular Parts One of whom i. e. Dr. Dey I visited in the Evening a little after I had Anatomised the Body relating to him what I had done which he was much delighted to hear At my departure from him that night I was surprised with the Pest he seemed cheerful having felt about a fortnight before the smart of this piercing stroke of which he was healed and so had likewise upon this second encounter had he not been too venturous to save others rather than his own life such was the true Charity of this Worthy Honest Gentleman towards his neighbour for he eviscerated and spent himself in toilsome Manual Operations leaving the way of Riches Honour Pleasure and Ease his Colleagues trod in having been admitted one of the College of London about twenty years whom he deserted to his prejudice in this World for Conscience-sake abominating their indirect and destructive manner of Practice knowing the Professors thereof as he often told me to be quite out of the way of Curing Diseases He was a Learned Scholar in deed as well as word a Pious Modest Charitable Humble Man so far free from Ostentation and Vainglory that he hid his Excellent parts when other of his Brethren far inferior to him made ten times the glittering show He took such laborious pains night and day in his Faculty that I am certain he exhausted his Spirits and thereby disenabled the Archeaus to resist the Contagion Carendo non fruendo agnoscimus He hath his Exit with applause and is wanted by many that better value him now than when they enjoyed him Dr. Starkey one of the Triumvirate that was then infected when he came to me having his Imagination dislocated yielded himself Prisoner to this Cruel Enemy that very night being wounded in his Groin a Bubo appearing there which I conceive if rightly ordered might have been a means to have saved him had he not poured in an unreasonable quantity of Small beer After which understanding what he had done he told those then present That all the Medicines that he had in possession were of no force to do him any good for the natural ferment of the Stomach was by this immoderate ingurgitation of dull flat Small beer totally subverted the poison exalted the Archaeus debilitated the blood made restagnant and congealed and the pores thereby obstructed that no considerable Diaphaeresis could be made I have reason to believe that had Dr. Starkey made use of his own Noble Chemical preparations in the beginning and followed them close as I did it had been no difficult thing for himself to have escaped that had an extraordinary Gift bestowed on him of Curing others in a far worse condition than he was reported to be But for my part I am persuaded that being very sensible of the impiety hypocrisy dishonesty the imposture subtle Frauds disrespect of Real worth odious Ingratitude and other notorious Crimes of the Times he was willing to resign himself to Death so that he was not much solicitous to live 'T is a thousand pities that a man of those excellent parts had no better entertainment and more kind usage here that he might have composed and settled himself to a further investigation of those Chemical mysteries into which hardly any in this Nation had a greater inspection The Spagyrical Republic and the Professors thereof are not a little obliged to him and have reason if they be not ungracious and ungrateful to speak of his memorable Name with Respect and Honour and he that shall do the contrary will savour of a Galenical spirit and aught to be reckoned among those his unworthy seeming Friends whom out of a sweet flexible nature and a hearty desire to do good for Mankind he taught many Philosophical Arcana's for which they rewarded him with persecution calumnies and base detracting language It was his fate as likewise Dr. Deys to be evil entreated and slighted because they could not cog lie and flatter & haec est ars quâ quivis possit ditescere and he that cannot do so in this leprous age of the world wherein men's minds have the greatest Plague and Miasm is like to far no better than they They scorned that reward which the World could give them and now enjoy perpetual bliss while their innocent Ashes lie digesting in their Urns till they attain that maturity of perfection of coming forth Diaphanous Splendid and Glorious Bodies There is one thing the truth whereof I cannot omit to give the World satisfaction in in reference to these Heroes of Chemistry Whereas there was a confident Report the broachers of which it is no difficulty to conjecture that Dr. Dey and Dr. Starkey were both present at the Dissection of this Pestilent Body It is an absolute untruth contrived on purpose to represent them presumptuous rash Persons in undertaking such a desperate business which cost them both their lives as they would have it that thereby the good estimation and fame of Chemical preparations may be eclipsed and the miscarriage of one of their own Sect who upon the like Occasion lost his life as I have told them in Galeno-pale for want of a Remedy which an Helmontist could have given him the better excused I question not as I have it from their own mouths but either of those Gentlemen would willingly have joined with me in this Anatomy had not the Opportunity offered to me occured so unexpectedly that I could not conveniently gain any leisure to send to them Moreover they were both seized upon by this Truculent Disease before I entered upon this Dissection so that Dr. Dey was not capable to assist me therein being infirm and Dr. Starkey went to and fro with this mortal Arrow sticking in his side unfelt and withal so great was his employment and medicinal negotiation at that time that it was both hard to find him out and likewise to divert him from those engagements of visiting his Patients he had taken upon him Wherefore I thought good to lay hold alone of that seasonable sudden Occasion then presented of prying into this dead Body which I often sought for but was still frustrated in obtaining so useful a Discovery through the peevishness and crossness of some and fond foolish fears of others And now Mr. Pick my Patient then recovering a rational person easily condescending to my desires gave order that his Servant should attend me who was the only man that stood by and looked on while I handled this horrid object and can at this day testify the verity of several remarks therein obvious to his eye Thus have I delivered to you the very plain Truth of the Anatomical Transaction of this Pestilent Cadaver that the Reader may be prevented from those Mistakes which Malevolent Forgers will impose upon him if he be not very Cautious These Pseudiatori are prone to corrupt the Text and to de●●●ve the genuine Sense of any Physical Experiment which through fear and want of appropriate Remedies they dare not venture upon for the benefit of their distressed Country For they enter in at the Backdoor and run away at the Fore-door on whom the gift of Healing was never bestowed because they never sought aright for that reason they could never obtain such a favour from Heaven to be protected by Divine Preservatives from the stinking noisome Breath of this mortiferous Basilisk wherefore they maliciously backbite those that perform any thing above themselves calling that a Presumption that tends to the preventing a Consumption and Devastation of a whole Nation CHAP. VI Some Medicinal Reflections and useful Observations made upon this Pestilential Dissection STultus est ineptiarum labour to take pains and not to improve it for the benefit of ourselves or our Neighbours may I confess be justly termed Presumption Folly Vainglory and an affection of Singularity But to undertake any dangerous and difficult design that a particular Country Nation yea the whole World may be meliorated in its condition and enjoy some comfort therefrom deserves to be encouraged promoted rewarded and to have better appellations given than some spiteful persons commonly fasten upon it I acknowledge that I cannot acquit myself wholly of Philautie Kenodoxie Ostentation etc. and I cannot help it for it is inherent and ingenite in me Homo sum nihil humanum à me alienum puto I am as prone as any other fine Gratia Dei anticipante to run into many enormous Crimes yet if I can judge any thing of myself and my Conscience doth not very much delude me I have always set before my Eyes in my Function next Gods Glory chiefly and in the first place the preservation and sanity of my dear distressed Neighbour endeavouring to make my own By respects to follow in the Rear Wherefore I have often abhorred to take those indirect and oblique Courses that would advance my own private Interest but debellate and overthrow the public prosperity of a people How solicitous I have been to keep poor afflicted man from falling into the Pit of destruction is only known to the the Searcher of all Hearts Duram suscepi provinciam I underwent a very difficult Task these late Contagious Times performing it not perfunctorily by Fits and Girds by halves in a trifling manner expressing as some that I know such a fear in looks and gestures that was enough to bring the Plague into a House free from it but I followed what I took in hand vigorously to a purpose not ready to take my flight as soon as I was entered the doors like the Statue of Mercury on Tiptoe leaving behind a pitiful Recipe of Ellec Diascor Methrid Theria aq Theriar Sir aceto Citri and such like Trash and Trumpery but I continued oftentimes half an hour and sometimes an hour conversing with my Patients and giving them effectual Remedies prepared with my own fingers opening their Bubo's and cutting out Eschars of Carbuncles by the operation of my own hand All this while the beholding my upright intentions preserved me in health even in the height when the Pest was most grassant till such time being desirous to learn what might instruct me farther in the Nature and Cure of this abstruse Sickness after that I had conversed with the Living about it I entered into more than ordinary familiarity with a dead body Itum est in viscera I searched many dark Corners thereof to be taught something but I bought my Learning at a dear Rate and what the Cadaver could not teach me of itself was infused into me to my sad Experience Experto credit I shall now deliver to you the Physical Observations I made resulting from both dead and my own living Body Observation I. In the first place I observe that the Punctilios Pulicar-like Spots those Stigmatick marks on the Skin with a Fever do always signify a stop more or less put to the Circulation of the blood some Coagulation or Grumosity therein caused through a malignity and Gorgonian Venom that depredates sacks and confunds the Vital Spirits that are the chief instrument of Motion so that when they become Torpid and stupefied part of the blood remains like standing pool prone in some short time to contract an evil odour Now if this Tartarous concretion be dissolved discussed or thrown out and lodged in an Emunctory or some by-place ignoble through the strength of Nature assisted by Art than all things succeed well but if this spissitude of the blood increase that the channels are exceedingly clogged and nothing is difflated ventilated and carried off by universal breathing sweats nor any morbifique matter discharged into any glandulous or external carnous diverticle conclamatum est that person may be judged in all likelihood to be lost Observation II. Whensoever these Cutaneous spots appear they always signify an endeavour in the Archaeus to extrude that which is noxious but failing in the very act by reason of its own impotence & the force of the virulent untameable matter carried out of the Capillary vessels as far as the skin it is there condensed by a preternatural coagulative ferment promoted by the ambient air into this round figure according as the sperical small drop is capable The annitence of Nature to make an expulsion from the Centre to the Circumference may instruct the Physician to use all means to imitate her to assist her to keep the blood in continual Motion to weaken the strength of the poison to kill an Exotic ferment to rarify and attenuate whatsoever is gross and lentous and to keep the Pores open that there may be free perspiration of the whole body Observation III. When the Natural ferment of the Stomach in the Pest is so far lost that instead of white a black juice is engendered it is a certain sign of the abolition of the vital Spirit and consequently of approaching Death For I never knew any afflicted in this kind whose strength failed that vomited an Excrement tinged black did escape where this blackness is there must needs be a privation of light with which our spirits symbolise they being luminous if so darkness the shadow of death must needs follow and doubtless great is that darkness that seats itself in the spirit of light and life Observation IU. That which did first occur most remarkable to my eye in this Dissection was the great alteration I found made principally in the Stomach in respect of the part continent and that which was contained therein In the continent certain Vibices Stigms strokes of an obscure colour imprinted the inward coat being stained with colours different from the natural and a fluid matter contained fuliginous pitch-like did sufficiently indicate to me that there the pestilential poison did take up its chief residence Observation V. When I contemplate what a pure white substance was taken into this Youth's stomach not long before he died and how strangely it was transmuted into another hue as black almost as Ink I cannot but smile to think on the vain Conceits of the Galenists that tell us of atra Bilis adusta & retorrida black Choler made by a mere torrefaction or violent burning heat and adustion according to their definition of a Fever as if there were a fire no whit different from a Culinary in our Bodies converting that which is white into black and black into white by a strong reverberating heat Suck like fond and foolish opinions have they harboured these Sixteen hundred years and upward for want of the knowledge of the Doctrine of Ferments which can never be so well illustrated as by Chemical Experiments which those Pseudo-Chymists boast they are acquainted with only I am certain in a formal manner sufficient to delude the world otherwise they would not deny the power thereof in their Actions If they did really understand how a little Leaven doth infect the whole Lump they would forthwith leave their bare beggarly Qualities in curing Diseases as Hot Cold etc. Relollea as Paracelsus calls them things transient and momentany ebbing and flowing every minute according to the disposition of the Subject and insist more upon substances whose  transmutation depends upon powerful ferments Observation VI. What a Sovereignty and Influence the Stomach hath over the whole body may be proved by multitude of Instances and Examples that I could produce but this was eminently conspicuous that when any thing was taken in that disturbed the innate Archaeus and required some difficulty to digest many horrid Symptoms did straight break forth as Vertigo Cephalalgie Delicium Frenzy Inquietude Dyspuoea Sopor defection of the Spirits a cohibition of Sweat and other cutaneous Fxcretions etc. This was plainly apparent in this Stripling who having an indiscreet Nurse attending him suffered much damage when she offered him that which was by no means to be admitted as tolerable the natural ferment of the stomach being perverted by the pestilent Poison And I doubt not but the period of his life was accelerated by the unwitting Dose of Milk which though it be the best Nutriment where it is well altered yet it often proves the worse corrupted Hereby we may learn not to ingest any thing into this noble Vessel but what may agree with the innate Archaeus may increase the vital Spirit rectify the enormous Ferment cherishing that which is genuine may be quickly altered and leave very little Dross and Recrement behind and such are those things that abound with noble Spirits as good Wine and strong Beer or Ale well brewed as for Flesh Broths Jellies Watergruel Ptisans Barley water and such like dull vapid things etc. they are all to be abandoned and excluded from entering into this Palace where the sensitive Soul sits so long as such a grand Enemy stands in defiance of it and seeks to destroy it Observation VII In all parts I took notice of & a great coagulation and some small colliquation of juices except in the Stomach where this Negro liquor did float without any Concretion or Coaction whereby I gather That the kindly and familiar Ferment of the Stomach made to dissolve and open any hard tough food and to change it into a fluxible white Chile that the nutritive and excrementitious parts may be the better separated being now degenerate and hostile did still retain a property like the former though tending to Ruin tabefying and colliquating what it touched and changing it into a black instead of a white juice On the other side the Ferments of the Fourth and fifth Digestions ordained lightly too incrassate thicken and to bring one portion of the blood to a moderate fibrous consistence and to subtiliate another becoming exorbitant and losing that primitive gift with which they were endued and acquiring a virulent Nature transcending their former bounds of Mediocrity and Modification of this red Balsam to be afterward assimilated doth now compinge and closely straighten the part thereof depriving it of that continual Circulation which is necessary for the generation of vital Spirits the immediate instrument of the sense and motion of every Animal and turns another small part into a venomous variegated Ichor or Serosity Observation VIII That whereas there is a power inherent in the Veins and Arteries to preserve the blood from Congelation even when the body is dead so great is the concretive force of the pestilential poison that the blood is suddenly put to a stop and becomes grumified turning into Glotts in a living body with nigh as much expedition as the Spirit of Urine changes Spirit of Wine into a white thick lump Observation IX That a kind of glandulous substance like a Lamb's stone should be found in the right Ventricle of the heart instead of an obscure clot of blood doth show how solicitous Nature though violently hurried away by a contrary Idea is to save itself from destruction sith that when the Haimopoietick power was lost she carries out of the stomach a small quantity of a rude Chyle passing a short way through some of the Sanguineous Vessels without receiving a rubicund Tincture into this noble Cavity and not able to give it the stamp and signature belonging to this vital Nectar was forced to yield it up to that impression which the exotic Ferment did make upon it Observation X. It being granted that blood doth make blood as I can demonstrate that it is in being before the conformation of the Liver and that when the Sanguis this pure defaecate sublimely graduated crimson juice stands still and loses its virtue than the milky Chyle cannot receive a vital Character and be tinged as it ought How cautious should we be to exhaust and spend prodigally this treasure of Life as the Galenists who to satisfy their erroneous Documents without any solid Reason or approved Experiments rashly let it out in many trivial Diseases which might easily be Cured by proper Medicaments Observation XI Any Artificial evacuation of Blood except that which is performed by immediate Derivation being degenerate in the Pest Spotted Fever Small Pox Meazils or any Malignant Disease whatsoever that hath always in it aliquid sanguinis congelativum something in it that doth condense and fix the blood is absolutely pernicious and brings certain perdition or at least great Calamity if thee be not present extraordinary vigour of Nature whatsoever the perverse Galenists pretend to the contrary that they empty an Athletic full Habit of Body and thereby cause Motion in the blood and so hinder the coagulation of it which opinion if rightly cavassed is notoriously false for they take a mere contrary course that diminish the good blood in this case which cannot be avoided when vent is given to a large vessel for out flies the best as well as the worst together indistinctly and hereby the Archaeus must needs be disenabled to resist the poison to attenuate profligate and tame any pertinacious viscous and noxious matter for I am sure if Hypocrates or helmont's Archaeus i.e. the Vital spirit the principal Author and efficient Cause of Sanity be wanting nothing benevalent can be expected That Phlebotomy in the foresaid sense doth cause this inconvenience I can make appear both Logically and Optically for the more good blood the more good Spirits and consequently in Reason all Vital Actions must needs be performed the more successively and a stronger expulsion made of what is offensive as on the contrary defect of blood and spirits causes all manner of mischief Experimentally also and visibly 't is true For I never saw any deprived of any great quantity of blood with that Alacrity stability celerity and safety as he that was cured dextrously à phlebotomos without emission of blood and spirits And through this indirect Course I frequently observe that those that are ordered after the Galenical Method fall from Acute Diseases into Chronic and Tedious Languors merely because their Physicians either exhaust their Blood consume their Spirits by deletery uncorrected cathartics torture crucify and gall them with Blistering Cupping and Scarifying Or keep them at a low ebb with their sluggish flat and spiritless Julips and Potions so that hereby the Archaeus becomes weak and feeble the blood must necessarily move slowly and for want of Active Spirits be retarded in its Current and in many places subsist like a standing Pool clottering and causing great obstructions Whosoever therefore that intends to keep the blood fine Remora fluent in its Channels free from Curdling let him study to the utmost to exhibit those Specifics that may mortify and annihilate the inspissative Torpedinous poison and advance the impulsive Spirits by those things that symbolise with and directly match them Observation XII Those variety of several coloured juices coagulated and colliquated apparent in this body were not as the Dogmatists affirm so many distinct Humours as Choler Phlegm etc. Analagous to the Elements fallen off from their native Temperament as they would have it but they all arose from the Chile and Blood disguised and masked in divers forms according as the Protean Ferments altered the Texture and position of their parts and so marked them with this or that colour Believe it there is no Real existence of those Humours as Choler Phlegm Melancholy that the Galenists frequently mention in most of their Writings but there is one only primigenious rivulet i. e. Blood that irrigates all parts of this Microcosm which as it meets with different Ferments so it is subject to divers alterations and manifold colours Observation XIII The usual effect of most poisons commonly known to us is to coagulate the blood as I have found evident dissecting divers Bodies destroyed by things deletery which I observed made a stigmatick impression in the Stomach and so condensed the Vital red Balsam in the Vessels that Clodders of four or five Inches in length might be extracted Observation XIV Whensoever there is any great concretion of the blood in the Pest no kindly beneficial sweat is to be expected till such time the constringent venom be overcome the gross matter attenuated rarified and an apersion made of the pores of the skin And this was manifest in this Youth who could by no means be brought into a breathing sweat durable with allevation the juices of his body being as it were frozen made torpid and indisposed to stir from a Narcotick poison Observation XV. I find such an indissoluble league connexion and coherence between the Vital Spirit and Sanguis pure blood in all perfect Animals insomuch that if they be separated from each other they both lose their essence and proper denomination for this most highly defaecated liquor doth maintain the spirit and the spirit doth move agitate and purify this liquor that it may be fit to be changed into itself I look upon the Chime or Cruor as upon the sweet juice of Grapes which hath little sensible spirit in it at first till it comes to be fermented depurated and segregated from its lees and foul faeces and then it explicates its activity in an admirable manner Likewise this crude juice rubefied is by long circulation and fermentation of the fourth and fifth digestions so cleansed and rid of all dross and filth that it attains an Homogeneous nature easily convertible into a Gas Vitale capable to receive the bright shining beams of the Soul as highly rectified spirit of wine doth the lucid flame If the blood harbour any thing extraneous acrimonious austere acide malignant venomous matter etc. it forthwith titubates and deviates from its integrity and accomplishment Then the Spirit its individual Companion falls into discontent peevishness frowardness fury and rage and an Ilias of Diseases follow and all is brought into confusion as likewise if the spirits be consumed disturbed suffocated extinguished by reason of perturbations of the mind pernicious fumes and odours great dolours or the occurse of any thing very violent altogether disagreeing with them the blood missing that Archaeus that should hold the reins of right Government and carry it about in a direct road where it may receive a just alteration by natural ferments doth become degenerate relapsed colliquated or coagulated as was visible in this Cadaver Observation XVI Sith it is so as it is intuitively conspicuous that the Pestilential poison doth principally strike at and deprave the Stomach and fistulary Vessels by colliquating the lacteous juice contained in that and by coagulating the blood in these what intolerable nonsensical practice is it to prescribe any thing either Dieterical or Pharmaceutick that is so far from hindering that it furthers these sad effects Observation XVII The extraordinary warmth that was in this body at twelve hours' end from the time it expired doth sufficiently testify what a Phlogôsis and combustion was about the viscera arising from a fermentation and impetuous collision of exardent Atoms which the fretting and furious Archaeus had agitated being exstimulated and at length enraged that it had entertained into its very penetrals such a mortal Enemy and now the Fuel being consumed the spirits exanclated and fire extinct there remains an Empyreuma a relic of heat in the parts defunct as a sufficient testimony of that notable ebullition and fermentation which was precedent in the living Observation XVIII I am commonly Censured by the Galenists presumptuous in venturing to open this Contagious Body for no other Reason as I can conceive but that I escaped so great a danger contrary to their expectation I confess I was a little careless in that I did not before fortify myself as I might have done being extreme eager in the pursuit of knowledge for the public good I am persuaded had I strengthened the Archaeus of my hand with some appropriate Balsamic Spirit and filled up the Pores with an oleaginous odorous matter the Pestilential poison could never have had so free an ingress and so easily have put to flight the vital Spirit making an inroad into all parts That the intoxicating Atoms did first invade my hand imbrued with that foul Gore I may without doubt conclude from long malaxing and steeping it in the body and from the perceptible Alteration succeeding For it is very unlikely that I who had sustained so long time before such abominable loathsome noisome Smells from Sores Carbuncles the tainting Respiration and faetide Expiration of numerous living bodies and all this while suffered no great detriment in my health should now receive an Infection by a Ten times less occasion in that respect the Emanations being little comparatively and those much weakened by a Pan of Brimstone burning under the Corpse Observation XIX The Pest that arises from a contrectation of Entrails warm is more active and breaks out more violently than that which proceeds from the light touch of the same cold & either of these are more Contagious than a bare Contact of the skin of a Carcase If the skin of a living body suffer discontinity the Contagion of the dead enters more forcibly as I found once experimentally to my prejudice in Anatomising one that died of a Spotted Fever for having accidentally cut my Finger and often washed it in that malignant juice I was more troubled to Cure it than any wound ever inflicted upon me all my life-time The space that this venom lay cryptick within me closely and silently working in this subterranean Microcosm before it acted publicly was Eight hours and then after a very sound sleep from Eleven till Two in the Morning a grievous oppression at the stomach with deep and difficult sighs seized upon me which doth still confirm me in this judgement That the Pest never falls to acting a Tragical Scene openly till such time it hath taken up its lodging place in the Stomach Observation XX. I have very good Reason and Experiment on my side to believe that had I forthwith after the Dissection be taken myself to Bed and liberally made use of those Remedies the good Creator bestowed upon me much of the Atrocity of this Sickness might have been allayed and perhaps the Poison made effete and feeble for I look upon this pestilential virulence though otherwise declined than commonly yet to hold such a proportion with ordinary Poisons that they both agree in many Circumstances We find that if an Alexiterium a proper Antidote be ready at hand in the very nick of time and straight be offered to one that hath suffered hurt from any Animal Vegetal or Mineral that is deletery there forthwith follows a frustration and annihilation of that pernicious property in it and the mortiferous effect thereof but if there be a dilation or procrastination and no check given to its furious and violent power opportunity once slipped all the Art of Man is at a loss to discover any thing medicable as a counterpoison in such a case He that expects help from a Physician when the fermenting poison hath had its full Career without any stop and hath played a Game almost to the last period without any bar having put out the light of the vital Spirits that no foundation is left for their Reparation or Relumination and hath choked up all the passages of the blood to be circulated as long as there is life may with as much reason require one without a Miracle to raise a dead body from the Grave Observation XXI Vis unita fortior had I not kept up my Spirits with high Cordials and strong Liquors had I not used Specifics Diaphoreticks those things that lenified and pacified the Archaeus the topical application of the Bufo etc. Had I not lain in a large Sweat continually Seven days together sometimes dropping down my Skin had not an extraordinary great Botch been thrust out in the Fundament and upon an Apertion made by Leeches many Ounces of a virulent quitture issued forth Had any of these forementioned been wanting I could not at this day have sucked in the Air and conversing among the Living have set forth to the World the History of this narrow evasion from the Jaws of all devouring Fate Observation XXII For any one to assert that the Pest is not Contagious or Catching argues either Sottish Stupid Ignorance or a perverse obstinate contradiction of Truth out of peevishness and singularity of Opinion The best Reason that these men have to maintain their gross Paradox repugnant to Sense is That some conversant among the sick have lain in the same Bed with them have held there Noses over their running Bubo's and Carbuncles yet have escaped the Infection All this while these Captious Disputants forget the true Axiom in Philosophy Unumquodque recipitur secundum captum recipientis There is no man affected like another in every respect but still every Patient hath some disparity though not discrepable and sensible to us in the reception of the Agent In one the imagination of the whole man is strongly fortified against the Infection and can vigorously resist it expressing an undaunted resolution but the imagination of the Archaeus may be weak in the same person and not able to make any resistance or renitence when it is assaulted by another's Contagious munial ferment but easily yields to it On the other side the fantasy of the Archaeus or vital Spirit of every part may be courageous and bold not ready to give way to the Occurse of any outward evil yet the imagination of fear and horror in the man may be so great that upon every slight occasion a pestilential impression may be made upon him If the fantasy of man and the Archaeus be magnanimous stout free from any Idea vain conceit of fear and terror having a strong and valiant persuasion that neither can suffer injury in this kind then the contagious effluviums cannot take place in such a body to offend it because they are altogether disowned and so being not appropriated are in a short time expulsed and dissipated before they can settle themselves to produce any act of hostility against Nature Now because few have this ingenite Gift bestowed upon them so as to be exempted from some pusillaminity and distrustful thoughts either of the mind or the Archaeus it is very rare when the Pest is very grassant and outrageous that one coming within the sphere of the activity of this poison depart without some stain and spot which sometimes is wiped off by strength of Nature helped by Art without any blemish to the health and I am confident many Thousands in this City have had a light Infection which passed away per Diap●aeam a transpiration of the whole body without the least cognizance of it For my own part I can avouch by several Signs being very curious and exact in the consideration of my own state that I often received the Scent or Tincture of the Pest but quickly washed it off by some Balsamical odour causing a profluence of a kindly Sweat And had I not out of a little too forward Zeal thrust my hand without due preparation into the mouth of this cruel Tiger I might have continued invulnerable to this day yet none but an unwitting mad selfconceited person will deny that the Pest according to its Etimon doth peredere mordere & devorare doth bite tear in pieces pierce even to the very marrow with its sharp fangs though some clad like Curassers with Armour of proof from Top to Toe have escaped those wounds that were inflicted upon others One may as well conclude that the Itch or Leprosy is not Contagious contrary to Divine Writ and firm experience because some coming within the same reach of contaminating Emanations with others that were infected have evaded the pollution Observation XXIII I have sometimes found the fermenting venom of the Pest especially furthered by large draughts of Small Beer after aestuation and effervescence of the Spirits so speedily congeal the blood that the best Remedies made use of at the first appearance of the Fever were balked and of no effect and being followed close could only indicate by driving out some Stigmata Vibices Spots and a suffusion of red or blue marks in the Skin what great malignity was within and that there was almost a total coagulation of the blood in facto esse as I observed in divers who having surfeited themselves were dispatched in the space of a few hours I have also seen some Remedies made use of for seasonable prevention to keep down and strangle this still pullulating poison not suffering it to make any condensation of the vital juice insomuch as though a violent Fever did break out continuing for the space of Five or six days yet the blood being kept in its due motion no Efflorescence or cuticular Eruption did appear no not the least Pimple or Spot but such a Rarefaction and Subtiliation was made by penetrative active and specific Medicines that if any coagulation was in fieri it was immediately prevented from further progress or if the blood began to be restagnant it was forthwith agitated if any grumous matter present it was sent packing per Diapnaeam & Diaphaeresin through the pores of the Skin fine capite mortuo without any faeces or sediment left behind Observation XXIV When I meditate seriously upon the extraordinary occasion that brought this Truculent Disease upon me when I contemplate its Magnitude Malignity the swiftness of its motion those direful Symptoms and Products that appeared when I consider that Three besides myself were sick at the same time of the same Malady in the same House the Landlady one of the Three being with Child miscarrying and that all of us recovered by the same means blessed from Heaven I cannot but heartily magnify the good Creator of all things that hath provided such potent Medicines for the Restauration of man fallen from his Sanity and withal be firmly resolved concerning the admirable efficacy of Chemical preparations abhorring the laziness perverseness and Ingratitude of those that still resist the Truth obstinately maintaining their own destructive Principles Method and Medicines CHAP. VII Directions Preservative and Curative against the Pest. O saith the candid learned Hypocrates Time is portrayed not without good reason with a  in his hand as keen as any Razor to signify to us that it cuts off those opportunities which once offered and neglected can never afterwards be regained Therefore an able Physician that is present in the nick of time is highly to be prized by the Patient Likewise he that asketh counsel for prevention or sends for an able Chemist as for the Galenist or Pseudochymist it matters not much when they are sent for sith in Truth I am sure I can make it appear some of them are to be avoided as the Pest itself at the very first onset of a Disease is to be attended with all diligence and to be supplied with the best Remedies possible For my part I had rather be altogether absent than be called upon when all that I can do is to discover to the standers by that the Disease is Mortal What good can be expected when Nature is extreme feeble and prostrate not able to rise up to make the least conflict with a forcible Disease when the fundamental strength is altogether wanting 't is impossible to make a reparation and redintegration of that which is abolished without a miracle Of all Diseases there is none that finishes its course with more expedition than the Pest nor any insinuates more slily treads more softly flatters more subtly and kills more treacherously the more cautelous therefore ought we to be how we give any harbour to it and through a careless supinity neglect means fitting to expel it is an undoubted truth delivered by Hypocrates He that desires to live comfortably prolong his days and defend himself from the Pest and other grievous infirmities incident to mankind next to powerful Medicines let him embrace Temperance in his Diet yet let him rather drink more so it be spirituos than eat let him rather exceed in sleeping than watching in motion rather than a sedentary course of life still discharging any excrementitious superfluity chiefly through the universal Emunctory the skin without any notable debilitation of the vital spirits but above all let him endeavour after magnanimity brave resolution and an undaunted firmness of mind to resist any vain conceits of infection Let the Air the principal vehiculum a nimble conveyer and translater of the fermental poison from one to another be defaecated purified and ventilated from thsoe diversity of effluviums and noxious exhalations that conspurcate its Magnale and fill up the pores thereof with soul corrupt hoary Atoms that annoy the Archaeus For this purpose nothing is more efficacious not only to segregate whatsoever is unclean but also to consume and mortify any thing malignant and repugnant to our nature then Sulphur Brimstone which may fitly be so called both from the giver of it and likewise from its Divine effects The use hereof I have in short set down in Loimologia de Elogio Sulphuris For Sulphurs highly mundified made terse and polite are as it were Archei Speculum the lookingglass wherein the Archaeus beholds itself with delectation and complacency being both reflected and illuminated by them for whatsoever is luminous and splendid doth by an emission of socillating beams exhilarate and dilate the vital spirits and dispose them to audacity but that which is dark misty and opacous doth cloud them causing fear and terror the harbingers of this unwelcome guest For this reason Anima Auri the clear Sulphur of Gold extracted by a friendly Menstruum being of a Solar property doth wonderfully cheer up the vital from an implanted congruity and a symbolical affinity between each other The same is likewise performed by the defecated Sulphur of Mars Antimony Vitriol Bloodstone native Cinnabar without castration of their virtue which taken into this Microcosm do by their Rutilation and Glistering Rays strongly fortify the Spirits against any imminent danger of the Pest and enable them to profligate and protrude by sweat the intoxicating particles generated within or taken into us from without Whosoever then desires to possess these Arcana's must labour with his own hands not thinking it inferior for him to take pains and toil for a public good It is a most infallible Truth That he can never be an absolute Philosopher and an able Physician that seeketh not after this Spagyrical Sophy by his own this Chirurgia Manual Operation must make him complete otherwise he is lame maimed and detruncated in the knowledge of his profession For I expressly assert as I have declared in Galeno-pale and can prove it That it is an egregious shame and an unsufferable abuse in a Nation That a company of Drones that can do little but make a humming Noise to please the Ear should neglect to gather with their own fingers that Aetherial Essential part of every Concrete which hath a sovereign virtue to preserve from and cure infirmities He that desires to attain an insight into these Mysteries let him compose himself without wavering to try what the fire can discover that true Philosophical light which Prometheus i.e. every prudent circumspect Physician endeavours to purchase from Heaven that he may be able to correct and mitigate those many calamities that Epimetheus i. e. an improvident indiscreet man brings upon himself ever since that once divinely gifted Pandora offered to him that Box which he out of a curiosity opening brought innumerable griess of Body and Mind into the world Let him make use of his own eyes and hands which are bestowed upon him for Speculation and Practice Let him intuitively examine the Sulphurs Salts and Spirits of Animals Vegetables and Minerals in which he shall find abscondite most powerful Remedies against the Pest and other stubborn Diseases The saline spirit of Blood Bones and Urine well rectified are of admirable use against the Pest Likewise the spirit of Hartshorn the stinking phlegm being well separated doth powerfully hinder coagulations of the blood and sweeten the Acidity thereof The Sulphur's or oils of any of these forenamed well mundefied and digested with a very clean fixed Alkali are so united thereto that they lose their nauseous unctuousity and become saline volatilizing the fixed Alkali I have often found the spirit of Tartar of singular virtue in the Pest but above all the pure salt of Tartar made volatile by a combination of its oil and spirit and tinged with the golden Sulphur of some Minerals doth effectually resist the pestilential poison cleanse away the dross and any Tartarous tenacious matter by Urine Sweat expectoration exhilarates the Archaeus pacifying the fury and exorbitance thereof Elixir Proprietatis prepared by a Menstruum free from corrosion not with the common oil of Vitriol or Brimston etc. is a very noble Medicine to prevent Contagion The legitimate spirit of Sulphur and Vitriol endued with that Leptomerie that there is a manifest avolation of its parts grateful to the smell pleasant to the taste friendly to the Membranes leaving no evil impression where it touches is none of the inferior Remedies to prevent and Cure this infection Spirit of Salt well deflegmed and its much acidity allayed by a benign Spirit familiar to our Nature is highly to be commended in this case Likewise Spirit of Sal Armoniac well corrected with Salt of Tartar is of Noble efficacy Common Sulphur often sublimed with bay-salt decrepitated affords an admirable Diaphoretic promoting the circulation of the blood as I have experimentally found Antimonium Diaphoreticum whose exquisite preparation is neglected by the Galenists and the approved use thereof much more unknown to them is a Remedy though ordinary in comparison of some Chemical elaborate Medicines far to be preferred before all dreggy obtuse Electuaries Opiates and Confactions as Mithridat Theria Elect. de Ovo etc. I dare avouch that any Physician throughly acquainted with the due preparation application and appropriation of this innocent thing for if it be hurtful it is because unskilful men touch it may do more service for his King and Country toward the Cure of any Endemical Sickness than any mere Dogmatist in Europe Opium corrected in such a manner and managed with that Method and Discretion as that pract cally learned Dr. Starkey hath taught the world aught to be highly esteemed for the quieting and mitigating the rage of the Archaeus and the carrying of Malignity Diaphoretically The best Oil of Amber and the pure salt thereof spiritualised that the Archaeus may the better hold correspondence with it strengthens the Stomach Womb all the other membranes and sinews seasoning the vital spirits with such a specifique odour that they are not easily affected with a fracide putrid pestiferous scent Concerning Prevention I know not any one thing for Inward use as a more sure staff to lean upon under God than the Best Flowers of ♀ quite bereft of their vomitive faculty and converted into a Diaphoretic and a little purgative property where the first and second Digestions abound with soul and fluid excrements without circumcising and robbing them of their virtue by acide violent corrosives or the Torture of the fire Mercury sublimed five or six times and afterward dissolved in a mild Menstruum grateful to the smell and pleasant to the taste wherein the polite blade of a knife dipped is not denigrated or sullied with an obscure colour may safely be taken into the body without the least prejudice for the dulcifying the Latex become eager acide or austere the impulse of the blood in its proper ducts the prevention of its concretion and for the Protrusion of the venomous Atoms from the Centre to the Circumference as I have tried with constant desired Success Crude Mercury well clarified and clean Lune without any Alloy brought to an Amalgama powdered then cast into coinimon Sulphur liquified in a Vessel of Mars and afterward this mass being often sublimed in a very strong close body with a firm head to it is at length reduced to a brownish powder fixed of extraordinary effect in all ill-conditioned Fevers causing no disturbance at all either by Vomit or Stool but by its emicant Blas doth animate the Archaeus to profligate any thing that is hostile to Nature Whosoever purchaseth some of these Noble Remedies need not doubt to cure prevent and so far as Art will permit that stubborn chronic disease the Scorbute which according to my Judgement in Loimologia hath furthered and fomented the late Pest. And since I wrote that little Tract I have been much confirmed in my opinion therein by several Experiments and Instances For this reason all those things that resist the malignity of the Scurvy are approved of use also to prevent this acute Sickness Wherefore in general the vital strength is to be augmented the ambient Air clarified an adaptation of mumial Ferments prevented the Archaeus of the stomach carefully cherished and fortified the blood purified and kept freely running in its Pipes the Venom mortified the morbifique Idea expunged and the whole body disposed to a continual Transpiration by that means the good God of Nature hath bountifully provided for us for this purpose nothing is to be preferred before the richly endowed juice of that Vegetable which Liber planted to free poor melancholy man in some measure from care and sorrow separated into various parts by a skilful Analysis of them each being exalted mundified and afterwards united again In this one Concrete lies hid an infinite Treasury of Secrets the true value of which for sanation of languors the Pseudochymists do no more understand than a Dunghill Cock the worth of a precious pearl if they did they would never thus prescribe small Beer Barley water Posset-drink made with water and Ale and such like poor faint Liquors in such a case when the Spirits without whose vigour nothing can be done aright are subjugated and depauperated by a predominant Sickness Among Specifics ordained against the Pest I find the Viper rightly prepared discreetly managed and applied to be deservedly worthy of praise as the Experiment on myself as well as others taught me Now the best way that I always discovered it most effectual was to dissolve the flesh by digestion in a delectable Liquor conspiring with and advancing the Balsamical Alexiterial virtue thereof likewise ushering it into remote parts that they might be the better seasoned with its odour and the terrifying imagination of the Archaeus the sooner abolished The more subtle and spiritual part of Amber is endued with incomparable power both to prevent and also Cure the Pest as I can Practically attest For I must needs subscribe being sufficiently instructed by Fact to that just Commendation the profound Philosopher Van Helmont gives of Amber Nil sanè saith he Stomachos Intestinis Nervis imo & Cerebro est gratius Succino in spiritu Vini resoluto There is not any thing that doth more gratify the Stomach Intestines Sinews and Brain than Amber dissolved in the pure spirit of Wine Camphire free from Dross and married to pure Spirit of Wine Tartarized is as I can judge of it by some little experience very beneficial to keep off and destroy by its eminent odoriferous Crasis the poisonous odour of the Pest. Horseradish fresh cut into thin slices and steeped in White-wine or Malago sulphurated in that manner as I have described in Loimologia is very sanative of the Scorbute and a great defensive against the Pest. The proper Urine of him that hath drank Wine either taken by itself or made into a clear Posset is without question an excellent Defensive especially taken with confidence for it attenuates the tartarous blood and carries it off by Sweat and Urine Juniper Ivy-berries Ginger bruised and English Saffran steeped in well rectified Spirit of Wine that it may be impregnated with the virtue of the foresaid Ingredients is a powerful Preservative if a Spoonful be taken thereof Morning Noon and Night with any other spriteful Liquor Some things outwardly applied and worn are much commended as the Emerald and Saphire and other precious Stones which often drawn in a Circle about a Bubo or Carbuncle placed directly against the Sunbeams or light as Helmont advises do magnetically extract the virulence and malignity in the body as is evident by a blackness arising from those fuliginous cauterizing Atoms that exhale As for Periapta Annulets a Verse out of David Solomon or any Prophet Superstitious Words Characters Signatures Sculptures framed according to the Conjunction and Aspects of the heavenly Bodies Talismanical Gamaheus and such like Inventions they are by no means to be trusted to Neither do I approve of those appendances of Quicksilver sublimate Auripigment Arsenic uncorrected etc. which I have observed are very uncertain in answering the expectation of him that hangs them about his Neck or applies them to the Pulses as an Zenexton I confess what Helmont saith That the strong Conceit of the person that uses the foresaid things may be of some force to prevent Infection for a little while yet the Terror of the Archaeus is not taken off or so much as mitigated by them and all that is hereby performed by them is that there is for some short time a privative exclusion of any notable persuasion that an evil effect of Contagion can seize upon the person The forenamed Author affirms That many Thousands died of the Sickness at the Siege of Ostend notwithstanding these supposed defensive Annulets which they so trusted to and those Blisters which were raised by Trochiscks of Arsenic and the like and Illae sunt saith he Tragoediae Medicae Italicae Imposturae sinales Periodi Iudaei porr● & Ethnici This is the Cheating Galenical Doctrine fetched from Milan Sweet smelling Spices Perfumes and several odoriferous things made up into a Pomander a powder quilted in a Bag or contained in a spongy Body continually held at the Nose when our Dogmatists feel the Pulse aversa fancy looking Westward when their hands point Eastward as if conscious of their own guilt they were ashamed to look their infected Patients in the Face These are most ridiculous shifts under which none but unwitting Physicians will ever shelter themselves as helmont hath it Quasi venenum desineret esse Aromate saturatum & non intraret penitius comite grati odoris ac quasi ipsa Aromata non contagio essent subnoxia quasi Arsenicum Napellus Ambari grys●o maritata cessarent nocere quasi adoratissimum vinum non statim contaminaretur fracido cado i.e. as if that lost its poisonous property that had good store of Spices mixed with it and was not rather conveyed farther into all parts by the conduct a grateful odour as if Spices were not liable to be infected as if Arsenic or Woolfsbane copulated with Ambergreese gave over their hurtful Nature as if the most fragrant Wine was not in an instant polluted by a musty Vessel These are Naeniae pitiful things to put any confidence in A true Zenexton or outward preservative is quite of another Nature as the Philosopher decides it for it depends not upon the mere fantasy excited or unmoveable belief of the person but its groundwork is laid in Nature which hath bestowed upon it this active gift to do so and so A true Zenexton according to Helmont aught to be no way capable of Infection if any expect it should keep him from the same And here we may take Notice that man's Pest differs from Brutes so that theirs is not mortally infectious to us nor ours to them by reason of the disproportion of mumial ferments that is between each however their skins or flesh may be so contaminated by our pestiferous Emanations that they may be a means to convey it from one man to another Our Noble Chemical Philosopher doth very much commend Amber for a Zenexton or Preservative from the testimony and experience of Gordiola a Spanish Chirurgeon Master of the Pest-house at Ostend who as he relates was preserved the space of Three years during the Plague there by means of a piece of Red Amber his Zenexton which he chafed till it grew warm upon the seven principal Pulses to wit the Temples the Wrists the Ankles and Left Pap I wonder he omitted the strongest beating Pulses in the Groin he as Helmont was an Eye-witness always continued in health when the rest of his Mates miscarried and the same Author backs this experimental Effect with prevalent Reasons taken first from its powerful attractive force manifested and stirred up by Frication next from its first Transparency Gummosity Porosity and Rarity of parts which make it more susceptible of our warmth and mumial odor lastly from the universality of its Traction being not limited as the Loadstone to Iron but generally drawing any thing so it be light and tractable whereupon he infers It may abundantly be able to draw the pestilent virulent Air to it sith it attracts light things especially when it shall acquire an appropriation and adaptation by a mumial ferment Questionless most admirable is the radiant influence of precious Stones and other translucent scintillating bodies rightly applied upon our Spirits even like the Stars of Heaven wherefore it ought not to seem strange if such a shining Concrete as Amber have such an extraordinary gift of preserving from the Pest bestowed upon it by the good Father of Lights for the relief of the poor distressed man that is not able to purchase costly Gems Another most effectual Zenexton that he highly extols is a Creature called by the Greeks & a flatu distendo tumefaceo from its swelling property in Latin Bufo à & quod bobus mortifera est à Rubeta quod in Rubis vivat vel à rubro colore in English a Toad It seems to be marked out and to have a stigmatical Signature impressed upon it to denote what a dotal excellency is contained in it against a Disease that is often conspersed with variety of Spots The great difficulty to bring this Animal to a true Zenexton lies in an exquisite preparation of it the manner whereof that great Investigator of Verity Van Helmont hath thus delivered as he received instructions from Butler an Irish man who to helmont's knowledge had Cured some Thousands of the Pest at London He gave directions that a large Bufo taken in the Afternoon in the Month of june should be hung up by the Legs nigh the fire over a vessel of yellow Wax made into the fashion of a Dish or Platter After three days that the Bufo had hung in this manner it vomited up a terrene matter and certain Infects Flies of a greenish colour with wings shining like gold than the Bufo forthwith died This Butler told our Philosopher That a Bufo ordered aright was a sufficient remedy for Forty thousand persons But unhappily the right knack of this business was not yet fully discovered to Helmont which he promised he would perform had he not been suddenly banished and sent packing away However perspicacious Helmont proceeded thus with great success he took the cadaverous Bufo dried and beaten in to powder with that filth it had vomited and so made it up into Trochisks with Tragacanth which he used with good event both for precaution and sanation of the Pest. After this he made a further progress thus he got in the Month of july the Moon decreasing a Bufo the oldest he could find whose eyes standing out were full of white Worms with black heads insomuch that both the inward parts of the eyes were changed into Worms closely joined together in each corner their heads appearing outward and if any attempted to get away the Bufo presently suppressed it with its Paw These he disposed and managed in the same manner as is set down before and found them a most incomparable Zenexton Gestati autem Trochisci saith he ad mammam sinistram arcebant contagium & loco infecto alligati statim virus extrahebant Trochisks made of a Bufo thus prepared and applied to the left Pap kept away Contagion and fastened to any place infected did immediately extract the Poison moreover that which is remarkable Erant Trochisci promptiores & validiores si in usum aliquoties recidissent quam recentiores The oftener they were used the more speedily and powerfully did they perform their business beyond those that were fresh and never used Now Adepti gives this Philosophical reason of the rare operation of the Bufo in this kind for being a Creature naturally very timorous that bears a perfect hatred against man and augmenting the same by an extraordinary fear it conceives at the presence of man when it dies the whole body is seasoned and distained with such an Idea of Fear that even the Cadaver retains the impression thereof after Death Qui terror ab homine saith Helmont naturalem energiam sibi acquirit & imprimit contra imagines territi Archei in homine siquidem terror Bufonis interimit & annihilat Ideas territi Archei humani This terror in the Bufo arising from the aspect of man acquires an Energy against the imagination of the terror of the Archaeus that which is natural mortifying this which is accidental And forasmuch as no Poison exerts its violent power without the ferment of man's Mumie which being different from a Brutes is the reason that our Pest doth not annoy them neither can the Pest infect any unless there be a symbolical Congruity and Participation of the Ferment wherefore it is the nature of this Zenexton to hinder the mumial Ferment from receiving and appropriating the pestilent Poison to itself and so disturbs it that it cannot roost in that immediate Subject or be fitted to it Hence it falls out that that venomous Idea of Hatred and Terror in the Bufo annihilates the image of the pestilent Poison in the Archaeus which straight is corroborated perceiving not only an extinction of the virulent Idea but also finding an appropinquation of something more desponding and timorous than itself for it is observed that the Bufo is a Creature so extremely fearful that if you take the advantage to look upon it with a firmly fixed intentive eye for a quarter of an hour there being no avoidance of your countenance it will shortly die with very terror as I have tried Thus man's Archaeus beholds as it were in a Glass the picture of the Bufo's pusillanimity with a delectable reflection by means of this applicated Zenexton which by Divine institution procures his Sanity Divers good Topical Remedies may be made use of with good success as Water-cresses Garden-cresses Bank-cresses Horseradish Dittander Napellus Aconitum Figgs stamped and boiled in Vinegar which applied to Bubo's and Carbuncles have an excellent Faculty to extract the Venom and dissolve any tartarous matter in the part That which I have found most laudable and of approved experience in Botches and Carbuncles is a Plaster made of the Balsam of Antimony of the Balsam of Brimstone Bals. Fuliginis and Burgundy Pitch which may be trusted to above any thing I have met with THE AUTHOR'S APOLOGY against the Calumnies of the GALENISTS WHat some men cannot obtain by fair honest upright means they will try to purchase by indirect unjust foul courses by slanders obloquys scurrilities forgeries and detractions One Comfort is I never knew the Contrivers thereof long to prosper but still at length they drew upon themselves the greater Odium from those credulous Persons whose unhappy fate it was to be seduced by them and however they might for a while set a good face upon their unhandsome Actions deceiving some indiscreet eyes yet in conclusion when they were discovered in their genuine colours they always came off with deserved disgrace Certain scurrilous lying Pamphlets have been vented abroad against me under disguised Names which some subtle sly Wits made use of to shelter themselves being conscious that if they should come to a Chemical Trial they would be found most Dross Now how far this is from Candour and Integrity let any impartial man judge If I have spoken writ or done any thing amiss in Physic I am forthwith ready to clear myself if I do not let me suffer any condign punishment The principal Design of the Galenists is to weaken the sinews of Truth by scandalously and falsely disparaging my Person calling me Fanatic one of an Anarchical Principle who have always as my friends can testify been Loyal to my Sovereign They whisper behind my back that I am no Scholar because that I have not spent my time altogether like themselves a company of Pedants Cavillers about Lana Caprina Captious Sophisters great Disputers or rather Wranglers Pro & Con about Quidlibets and Quodlibets such as study Cicero to confute Helmont who stand more upon a word misplaced a Grammatical Error than upon the Loss of a Man's Life If any of these false Impeachers dare appear to my face I should easily make it out that the Galenists are a company of grand talkative Impostors Ignorant in the main thing that belongs to their Art the radical Cure of Diseases and this I will maintain expressing myself in congruous Latin Greek and Hebrew Terms not as a Parrot or Daw that hath only learned Verba praeterea nihil but intellectually fruitfully for the benefit of Mankind As for their endeavours to vilify my Reputation by making the World believe that I was at first a Practitioner in Chirurgery before I applied myself to Physic although an untruth yet it conduces much to my Credit though otherwise intended by them For let me tell these men that are little else but smooth Orators Polyglossi multiloquous Doctors that if they were but truly Chirurgi Operators with their own hands they would have attained ere this a far greater excellency in that Art in which I am sure they are extremely deficient to their remarkable shame Withal I would have my Enemies know that I was so wellgrounded principled and had acquired such Theorems in the Profession of Physic before I entered upon the Practical part that I was able to give a fair Rational Account of that fraudulent way improperly called Methodical as well I suppose as the best of them Yea directly aiming at this and no other Faculty I made all Inquisition possible that I might be throughly instructed before I entered upon Medicinal Action and for that end after long Study I sought for and by good Providence found out a faithful Friend at first an Apothecary omnibus suis numeris & partibus expletus every way accomplished in his faculty afterward an expert knowing Physician one that was persecuted maliciously and wrongfully to his overthrow by the Dogmatists for preparing Lac Sulphuris an innocent useful Chemical Medicine for which Act doubtless divine Nemesis will at length bring them to shame This Gentleman conducting me to his Patients and informing me concerning several remarkable things in Physic gave me much light both in Galenical and Spagyrical Practice the last whereof according as I could judge then above Twenty years past seemed to be most effectual yet unwilling to forsake the old beaten Road of the Ancients I did not presently subscribe rashly to that to which I was forced afterwards by degrees to grant ipso facto to be Truth much inconsistent at that time with my Profit Then desiring to do all things decently and in order I purchased a Doctoral Diplôma to justify my Practice legally in any place of the world which I would rather burn than not be worthy Indeed it is an unsufferable Shame and a lamentable Calamity to this Nation That Idiots mere Dunces in Philosophy should take their degrees Modo tot Annos as Learned Honest Mr. Burton saith in Academia insumpserint if they have been of so long standing in the University it matters not a rush whether they be Literatores an Litorati modò pingues nitidi ad aspectum speciosi & pecuniosi And as he proceeds Philosophastri licentiantur in Artibus Artem qui non habent Eosque sapientes esse jubent qui nulla praediti sunt sapientia & nihil ad gradum praeterquam velle adferunt Many such kind of Medicasters' we have who ought to be degraded that Deserving men that have a just Title and Right to this Honourable Profession might be better esteemed and not be so vilified by a company of illiterate Pseudo-Chymists who seeing the Weakness of these Titular Doctors in their Art take occasion to slight those that have according to their due Merit been thus Dignified Thus much for the wiping off those Aspersions that they have wrongfully cast upon my own Person Next I shall answer in short to some things thrown in my Teeth and often charged upon me in reference to others and the noble Spagyric Science They upbraid me That I frequently meet and join with an illiterate Rabble Gunsmiths Heel-makers and Butchers that Rail against the Universities and all Learning in general This I confess ingenuously is the worst they can say of me That once I did for a time associate myself for the Promotion of that useful Chemical Art some Learned Chemists as Dr. Dey Dr. Manwaring etc. true Disciples of Helmont being likewise present with several Unlearned Unexperimented Pretenders thereto who not invited but intruded themselves impudently among us But perceiving in a short space myself defiled by their Heady  Rude Boasting Insolent Preposterous Carriage I straight withdrew and washed my hands of such Dirty Companions And when ever after it was my Chance to come into any of their Company singly I sharply Reproved them for their bitter Invectives against Learning When a Pragmatical Stickler not long ago did speak in Contempt of Learning asserting That a man might be a sufficient Chemist without the Languages I replied That the same Person would be far better had he been qualified with Literature as he ought So much Respect have I for some Professors of Physic though great Oppugners of true Chemistry yet otherwise very well endowed That did they not abuse the Gift of Tongues to maintain the Idleness of their Hands that pernicious course of Bleeding colliquating uncorrected Purgatives did they not defend too obstinately against all demonstrative Conviction fruitless feculent dull nasty Medicaments Blistering Issues Cuppings and Scarifications etc. And did not man's Life stand in Competition with these Tenants I should Honour Reverence and Admire them above others But as they have ordered the Matter I may in Verity affirm That it had been happier that they had never known how to have worded it so well unless they had been more skilful to have worked better for the Preservation and Cure of Mankind for so far as I can understand their knowledge of words which ought to be an Introduction to the right understanding of things is become a Remora a Pull-back to themselves that they cannot make an effectual progress in what is most necessarily Scientifick in Physic and withal not a little scandalous to others who have harboured but mean Conceits of Verbal Notions seeing so few salutary Actions proceeding therefrom I confess I am not a little ashamed when I hear of and am twitted with the great abuses in Chemistry committed by some of those who have been thought stout defenders of the same When I am told of an illiterate impudent fellow a very shame to the Art that is in fee with Midwives Nurses Busie prating wandering women that cry him up for a brave Doctor who cannot as the Proverb is say Boo to a Goose being neither truly acquainted with the Theory or Practic hath only got a fabric of fair beautiful Furnaces which speaks more for him ten to one than he can for the Art or himself When I say this is objected to me as undeniable I cannot but break forth into indignation that such a Divine Science should be thus polluted by every profane Idiot When a sad Relation comes to my ear at length confirmed without further doubt that an upstart Chemist taking upon him to be a Champion of Hermes and writing a copious Tract for the defence of this way containing much Truth should take into his hand a Patient a Gentleman of Quality enjoying his Health at that time according to his Friend's testimony better than he had a long space before should sequester him into a by-corner mure him up in a Quacks House separate him from his entire Friends should for prevention of the Gout without the least Tincture as some knowing Physicians affirm of the Venereal Lues salivate him or as that Gang hath found a new Term Nod him to the one and twentieth day with Mercurius Dulcis often repeated a Medicine unworthy to be used by a freeborn Son of Art if he knew better and that against his own Judgement led as he pretends by the Importunity of his Patient into this course that he should after the exhibition of prepared Pearl whether Galenical or Chemical they best know prescribe a Diet-Drink on the 17th day and then afterward slop him with syrup of Violets Rose-water and Milk distilled with spotted Lungwort Coltsfoot Sage wood-sorrel Plantain Succory O Brave Chemist I am persuaded he will write ere long for the Galenists and then in the Conclusion to suffer this distressed Gentleman dying on the 24th day to be concealed 9 days after his death from his dear Brothers without admission of other advice who at length enquiring of his Physician for his Corpse was denied by him the discovery thereof and having at length with much ado found it out summoned the Physician and others together that the Body pretended to be embalmed but otherwise manifest upon the inspection might fairly be opened for their own satisfaction and the acquittance of those that were about him which reasonable desire was denied by the Physician and afterwards prevented by him That this supposed Chemist should to excuse this foul Business afterward impeach an Honest laborious Chemist who had given Physic to this person the aforesaid Pseudochymist his Patient two years before and not since that he had a hand in this Gentleman's Death Whereas I heard it attested by one of Credit that there was a grateful acknowledgement of the Patient at that time both by word and deed that he had received very great Benefit by the foresaid falsely accused Physician When I say such an ugly Story comes to my ear often repeated to me as one concerned by persons of Credit confirmed by the Brothers of this Gentleman deceased men of Integrity and Good Report who had most of what I deliver here from the Pseudo Chemists own Mouth when being upbraided I am made sensible how this Base filthy Action not to be excused by any unless one of a superlative Impudence reflects upon the Chemical Profession and the Honest Able Professors of this Illustrious Art to the diminution of its repute among those that have not altogether a clear understanding in these things I cannot conceive otherwise but some evil Spirit of Darkness is changed into an Angel of Light and and is become on a sudden a Galeno-Chymist a Pseudochymist a mere Logo-Chymist and a Plano Chemist on purpose to bring an infamy upon Truth to delude the world and to frustrate it of that happiness it might enjoy by Pious Honest Modest Learned or Lovers of Learning truly expert laborious Spagyrists But enough of this I shall leave this Antesignanus of Confusion and Deformity with some of his Complices to be further examined by Justice that there may be a full discussion of this foul oblique Business I shall return once more to the Galenists at whose doors most of these grand Mischiefs in Physic may justly be laid 'T is through their Idleness Pride Covetousness Negligence Ignorance Egregious Insufficiency in their Art that such disguised Stentors in Chemistry such scandalous Persons Omnium horarum homunciones Nebulones viles Scurrae Idiotae Fungi merum pocus such as will sell a man's life rush into this Divine Art and prostitute their Souls for Gain I say the Dogmatists are exceeding Culpable herein that might in due time have prevented most of these jatrical Calamities for had they followed their Function as they ought Candidly Conscientiously and Laboriously these things had never been Notwithstanding all this they still persevere in their indirect way as obstinate as any Jew whereas if they would laying aside their present secular Interest be so ingenuous to submit to Chemical Truth and that no farther than I with some others are able to demonstrate visibly the certainty thereof These Meteors in Chemistry these inflated Bubbles would come to Nothing But instead of this Candour and Ingenuity they still stand upon the justification of their Mortiferous Principles for that end one of that Fraternity Mr. N. H. hath divulged a Sophistical Treatise for Vindication and Assertion of Galenical Opinions Some little cursory View I chanced to have of it enough to satisfy me what this Juggler and his Assistants aim at In his Epistle I took Notice how he importunes his Grace to promote the speedy enacting of Convenient Laws whereby Illegal Practisers may be restrained and punished I wish with all my soul that this Mr. N. H. might have his request supposed he and his Fellows might likewise be forced to undergo a Chemical Trial that their foul Dross in Physic might be discovered and their Cutthroat Bleeding in the Small Pox and other Malignant Fevers to the Loss of the Life of some Heroes might be made apparent then I am certain They as illegal Practisers would be the first that the Law would lay hold on to restrain and punish according to their Demerits To conclude had leisure been granted me to have strictly perused Mr. N. H. his Garrulous Tract contrived by one of his Sophistical wily Brethren lying couched in time of the Pest and garnished with many polite trimm words and backed by specious Authority of Writers but mis-applyed misinterpreted nihil ad Rhombum nothing pertinent to the main thing which every Honest Able Physician is bound to take in hand i. e. to cure Man as he ought I should perhaps have given some answer to his egregious Folly but it is enough that I have challenged this in Galeno-proclosis to make it appear that he is grossly Ignorant in the Fundamental Cure of any Malignant Fever And once more I propose to him this undeniably equal determination of our Controversies by Fact that he would vouchsafe to meet me in any Hospital with competent Arbitratours agreed upon by us both and according as they shall Judge of our Actions so let them proclaim us to the World If he deny to accept of this I am resolved to publish him no other than a mere sounding piece of Vacuity FINIS Books Sold by Nathaniel Crouch at the Rose and Crown in Exchange Alley near Lombardstreet THE Complete Bonesetter Enlarged being the Method of Curing Bones Dislocated Joints and Ruptures commonly called Broken Bellies To which is added The Perfect Oculist Mirror of Health Judgement of Urines Treating of the Pestilence and all other Diseases by Robert Turner Med. The History of the Life and Actions of St. Athanasius together with the Rise Growth and Downfall of the Arrian Heresy Collected from Primitive Writers by N. B. P. C. Euclids Elements the whole Fifteen Books Compendiously demonstrated by Isaac Barrow in Octavo An Exposition with useful Observations upon the Prophecy of Ezekiel delivered at several Lectures in London by William Greenhill The Knowledge of Christ indispensably required of all men that would be saved or demonstrative Proofs from Scripture that Crucified Jesus is the Christ wherein the Types Prophecies Genealogies Miracles Humiliation Exaltation and Meditorial Office of Christ are opened and applied in sundry Sermons on Acts 2. 36. by john Davenport of Newhaven in New England The Mystery of the Marriage Song and mutual spiritual Embraces between Christ and his Spouse Opened in an Exposition with Practical Notes and Observations on the whole Forty fifth Psalm by William Troughton Minister of the Gospel with an Epistle Commendatory by joseph Caryl A Treatise of the Person of Christ and therein a discourse about the knowledge 1. Of God who and what a one he is 2. Of the Son of God who and what a one he is 3. Of the first Promise of Christ and first Publication of the Mystery of him 4. Of the Times and Years of the first Fathers 5. Of the Account of Years from the Creation to the Flood and from both to the first coming of Christ and probably to his second Coming 6 Of Election The Abrogation of the Jewish Sabbath or Sabbath of the Seventh day of the Week by William Aspinwall An Improvement of the Sea upon the Nine Nautical Verses of the 107th Psalm discovering the great and many Hazards Mariners meet with in tempestuous Seas and their Deliverances Together with a full description of many various Objects they behold on Sea and Land viz. All sorts of Fish Fowl Beasts wild and tame all sorts of Trees Fruits Peoples Cities Towns and Countries By Daniel Pell FINIS