IT's a great chance we find, to arrive to ones grave in this English Climate, without a smack of a Consumption, Death's direct doore to most English hard Students, Divines, Physicians, Philosophers, deep Lovers, Zelots in Religion, &c. London's Weekly Bills number deep in Consump­tions; the same likewise proving inseparable accidents ( attendants) to most of the other [Page 3] Diseases; which instances do evidently bring a Consumption under the notion of a Pan­demick, or Endemick, or rather a Vernacular Disease (a disease alwayes reigning in a Countrey) to England; that is a common disease owing its rise to some common ex­ternal and perennal (lasting all the year) cause of a Countrey; as a Consumptive Air, or a Consumptive Dyet. viz. eating much Flesh, drinking Hopt drink, &c. And be­yond this denomination the disease may not improperly be stiled Epidemick (popular,) that is, surprizing many at a certain season of the year; as we may observe Consump­tions to be most raging about the Spring and Fall, according to the dictate of the Divine old man (Hippocrates,) Malum ver tabidis, item (que) autumnus. that is, the Spring is bad for Consumptives, and so is the Fall. And considering withall its malignity and catching nature, it may be connumerated (numbred) with the worst of Epidemicks ( popular diseases,) since next to the Plague, Pox, and Leprosy, it yeilds to none in point of Contagion ( catching;) for it's no rare observation here in England, to see a fresh [Page 4] coloured lusty young man yoak'd to a Consumptive Female (Wife,) and him soon after attending her to the Grave. Moreover nothing we find taints sound Lungs sooner, than inspiring ( drawing in) the breath of putrid ( stinking and beginning to rot) ulcer'd, or consumptive Lungs; many having fallen into Consumptions only by smelling the breath or spittle of Consump­tives, others by drinking after them; and what is more, by wearing the Cloaths of Consumptives, though two years after they were left off.

The disease descending frequently from Consumptive Parents to their Children, speaks it Hereditary ( gotten as it were by inheritance from ones Parents,) insomuch that whole Families, sourcing ( descended from tabefyed ( consumed and dryed away) progenitours (ancestors,) have all made their Exits (dyed) through Consumptions; and in that order and Sympathy of consan­guinity (near Relation,) that I have heard of six Brothers Parisians ( Inhabitants of Paris) all expired of Consumptions exactly six months one after another. Besides, I have [Page 5] known several, Father and Son, Mother and Daughter, tabefyed (consumed) within Twelve months one of the other.

Most contagious Maladies (catching di­seases) have their Original recorded, the Leprosie in the primitive generation of the Jews, the Pox in the year 1494. the Scurvy in 1495; but the Consumption o'retops them all in antiquity, that questionless being the primitive disease before all others, which in all probability put a period (end) to our Protoplasts (first formed) Adam and Eve's days; for they being disseised ( turn'd out) of their most happy seat Para­dise, and so far discarded ( cast out) out of Gods favour, could not but fall into a most dismal, sad, and melancholique droop­ing, for the loss of their happiness, the occasional cause and forerunner of a Mar­cour, or drying and withering of their flesh and radical moisture ( the deep oyly moisture of the parts,) or otherwise they might have Spun the thred of their lives much longer, their principles of life being created in them to extend to an Eval duration ( lasting without end.)

THe common chink, through which errors and erroneous opinions do and have slipt into the Scholastique republique, to the endangering and enfoncing (drowning) of truth, is the too frequent misapprehension of the name of a thing, which being under­stood in one sense by me, and in another by you, must necessarily occasion us to discre­pate ( disagree) in the thing it self; and this certainly is the great cause of so many con­troversies and disputes between the Learned, and such others as are equally ballanced in right reason: now were not the miscon­ception of the name various between them, being considered really rational, they could not but agree in the thing it self, or otherwise they could not be estimated both rational. When my self was a Student in the Univer­sities, [Page 7] and oft being desired to oppose ex tempore, did no more than wilfully misap­prehend the names of things contained in the question, and upon those false nominal mis-consceptions, could with the greatest ease imaginable perform that task as long as I pleased, and so may you, or any man else. Being now conscious of the great errors and dangers, that may result out of a mis-conception of the names of things, shall so much the more apply my endevours to a distinct explanation ( explaining) of the names of my Subject, which usually are variously understood. Physicians in their Physical discourses, make use of several names, which are all translated into this one word of a Consumption, as if they bore no different significations; such are Phthisis Phthoe, Pye, Tabes, Morbus tabificus, Marcor, Marasmus, a Marcid Feaver, an Hectick Feaver, and an Atrophia.

The first denomination, to wit Phthisis, an Athenian word, is generally taken for any kind of an universal diminution ( lessening) and colliquation ( melting) of the body, which acception its Etymology ( deriva­tion) [Page 8] [...], to consume, im­plyes; but some are of opinion the word [...] ought to be written [...] with an v, deriving it from [...] to spit.

Hippocrates 7. Aph. 16. by Phthisis (Con­sumption) intends only such a diminution or shrinking of the Body, as follows incu­rable Ulcers of the Lungs, that are accom­panyed with a small Feaver. Cornelius Celsus applyed the word Phthisis to these three Diseases. 1. to an Atrophia, and in that signification did Aristotle also take it, when he wrot in 28. Probl. 1. that Diony­sius dyed of a Phthisis. 2. To an Ulcer of the Lungs. 3. To a Cachexia, or ill habit of body; but the Greek Physicians were wont to call any one [...]; i. e. Phthisicus, who was either grown lean only, or who was taken with a proper Phthisis, and con­sumed away; or who was naturally inclined to a proper Phthisis, namely by having a long Neck, a narrow Chest or Breast, Shoulders sticking out like wings, (whence they named such a one [...], that is, winged) a weak Brain, apt to send down Rheums or Catarrhs, and weak Lungs, that [Page 9] are disposed to receive Rheums and hu­mours from the Brain. Lastly, Phthisis is properly and strictly taken according to Hipp. for a Consumption of the Body, fol­lowing an incurable Ulcer of the Lungs, and attended with an Hectick Feaver.

Phthoe is likewise an Athenian word, importing a proper Consumption, occasion­ed by an Ulcer of the Lungs; but Galen 5. Met. 15. by Phthoe intends the spitting of blood.

Pye is by Aretaeus (lib. 1. de caus. & sign. diut.) used for a proper Consumption.

Tabes is the Latin word responding (an­swering) to Phthisis, and implyes the same proper and improper significations. Hippo­crates makes mention of six sorts of Tabes, or proper Consumptions. viz. first libr. 2. de Morb. he affirms that the body oft wasts by reason of a thick Phlegm, being retained within the Lungs, and there putrefying; according to which sense he writes, that a Distillation in the Lungs is suppurated ( turn'd to matter) in twenty days. 7. Aph. 38. The second he terms a Consumption of the Kidneys. Thirdly, the word Tabes [Page 10] is oft understood by him for a Consumption of the Lungs without being ulcerated, and depending upon a hot and dry Distemper of the Lungs, or an Hectick Feaver. Fourthly, by Tabes he doth also conceive a Consumption of the Lungs with an Ulcer and Hectick Feaver. Fifthly, lib. 2. de Morb. he inserts another kind of Tabes, which he calls a Tabes Dorsalis, or Consumption of the back. Sixthly, 3. Aph. 10. & 13. he proposes two kinds of Tabes or Consumptions, the one being a wasting of the body, occasioned by any internal cause, the other happening through some Ulcer in the Lungs. Morbus tabisicus is a term expressed by Hippocrates, denoting any kind of Extenuation or Con­sumption.

Marcor, five ex aegritudine Senectus, seu ex Morbo Senium, is an extreme diminution or Consumption of the body, following the extinction (quenching) of the Innate (born and bred in us) heat, much like to a tree, that's withered or dryed away by excess of heat, or length of time. The said Marcour may likewise be caused [Page 11] by Famine or over abstinence from food. Read Galen lib. de Marcore.

A Marasmus, imports three significa­tions, viz. 1. A Consumption following a Feaver. 2. A Consumption or withering of the body by reason of a natural extinction of the native heat, which commonly happens in those that dye of old Age. 3. An exte­nuation of the body, caused through an im­moderate heat and driness of the parts, which sort is common to young and old folks. A Marasmus is otherwise distinguish'd into true and false. The former is an equal diminution of all the parts of the body; the latter is an extenuation ( shrinking) of a single part only; as, the Stomach and Liver are oft observed to be consumed or wither­ed in those, that dye of an Hectick Feaver; the like extenuation doth frequently happen to the breast, Mesentery (a thick Skin of the Belly that tyes the Guts) Colon, Ieju­num, (both names of Guts) and Kidnesy; but the Diaphragma (the Midriffe, being a thick Musculous Skin that separates the breast from the Belly) is only exempted from a Marasmus, or withering, because [Page 12] that would necessarily intercept the breath, or occasion a Phrensie, before it could arrive to such a dryness. Lastly, a Marcour is either imperfect, tending to a greater wi­thering, which is cureable; or perfect, that is an entire wasting of the body, excluding all means of Cure.

Febris Marasmodes, seu febris marcida, according to Galen lib. de Marcore cap. 5. is an equal withering or drying up of all the parts of the body, it's ordinarily a conse­quent of a burning colliquative ( melting) Feaver, whereby the humours, grease, fat, and flesh of the body are melted, and after­wards slow into the capacity ( hollow) of the Belly: The softer and moister parts being thus melted away, the Febril ( Fea­verish) heat continuing its adustion ( burn­ing) upon the dryer fleshy parts, changes into a Marcid Feaver, which said parts wasting gradually through an insensible evaporation of their subtiler particles, are at length dryed up into the hardness and toughness of Leather.

An Hectick Feaver implyes a two­fold sense. 1. It's taken for any confirm'd, [Page 13] fix'd, and durable Feaver, admitting of no easie cure, or rather a Feaver that's grown habitual, in opposition to a Schetical (su­perficial or moveable) Feaver, which being but lately arrived is easily expelled, as a Diary or Putrid Feaver. 2. It's more gene­rally understood for a Feaver in the solid parts, into whose Penetrails (depth) and essential principles insinuating, is there as it were planted or rooted, and conse­quently proves the most stubborn to Cure of all other Diseases. What is meant by the solid parts and the Essential principles you may know in the next Chapter.

An Atrophy is by some taken for a dimi­nution of the body, for want of good and laudable nutriment (food,) which being rejected by the parts, must necessarily shrink for want of better nutriture. By others it's understood for a Consumption of the parts of the body, weakly, or depravately ( wrongly,) or not at all attracting nutriment, whether it be good or bad, or insufficient in quantity. Lastly, it implyes a diminution of the body, happening by reason of some fault in the Excretive (expel­ling) [Page 14] faculty of the parts, excerning or evacuating more than necessary. Peruse Galen de Sympt. differ. cap. 4. The said Consumption may also be supposed to arrive through fault of the Retentive (retaining) faculty of the parts, not retaining the nu­tritive ( nourishing) humours long enough. Thus much for differencing those terms, which otherwise might erroneously be taken for one and the same kind of Consump­tion.

BEfore we make a further inroad into this Treatise, it will be material to acquaint my Reader with the sense of these terms, which we have familiarly made use of throughout this discourse, namely Fundamental or Essential Principles, Essen­tial or Balsamick mixture, Innate heat and [Page 15] Radical or Balsamick moisture: all these though differing in words, import the same signification, as we shall now discover to you. In order to this, you are to take notice, that an Infant in the Womb prin­cipally receives its first constitution or generation from the Sperm ( or Seed) of its Father, injected (cast into) into the Womb of its Mother, which (to wit the Womb) contributes little else to it, than the earth to the Seed, that's shed or sown in her, namely keeps the Seed close toge­ther, that the Spirits may not evaporate (fly out in vapours,) cherishes it by her own Innate (rooted and fix'd) and Influent (sent from the heart) heat and spirits, thereby stirring, strengthening, and assisting the spirits of the Seed in the Womb, in forming the parts of the Infant intended; and lastly, transmits blood to the Seed to give the parts so formed an increase. The Seed consisting of a glutinous ( glewy) or Balsamick ( thick and cleaving like to a Balsam) moisture, and a turgency (fulness) of Spirits, displays it self (being now thus inclosed and stirred in the Womb) into several parts of various [Page 16] ( different) figures and shapes, as, into a Heart, Brain, Liver, Spleen, Arms, Legs, &c. These parts being of a very small propor­tion, as formed out of a small quantity of Seed, are no more than Foundation Piles of the ensuing body; which are afterwards to be increased and raised to a greater bulk, by the affluent ( flowing to) blood, that's transmitted ( sent down) out of the Mothers body through proper Veins and Arteries into the Womb, where it's glewed fast to those said foundation (rather fundamental) parts, and soon after assimilated or con­verted into flesh, and other similar substan­ces, whereby I say every part grows bigger.

The Ihfant being thus arrived to a com­petent Mole ( bigness,) makes its sally out of the Womb, that's now grown too little to give it any longer harbour; and having thus passed the Streights, it's tossed into the wide world, where it has got room enough to grow into its full dimension (measure,) which is performed by the daily ingestion ( swallowing down) of milk and other food, that's in a short time after digested into blood which being diffused ( spread abroad) [Page 17] through the Arteries and Veins to all the parts of the body, is, as we instanced before, agglutinated ( glewed) to those upper parts, that were immediately agglutinated to the foundation parts in the Womb: and thus you see the Infant grows bigger out of the Womb, by agglutinating one affllux of blood to another. Upon this premitted illustration it's no hard task to express to you the meaning of Fundamental or Essential Principles, which imply nothing else than the forementioned Foundation parts. So like­wise the Essential or Balsamick mixture denotes nothing but the Sperm or Seed, whereof the fundamental parts consist; and it's called Balsamick mixture, because it's a glewy spumous matter, mix'd with a great quantity of Plastick spirits (or spirits of the Sperm, that form the shape of the parts in the Womb) into the consistence of a Balsam, and may not improperly be named Essential, from its constituting the essence of the parts. The said Plastick spirits are concomitated ( attended) with a powerful heat, which is therefore denomi­nated ( named) the Innate heat (or heat [Page 18] born in us,) because its rooted and fix'd in the fundamental parts, and is inseparable from them during life. The Balsamick moisture expresses the glewy spumous matter of the Sperm, which is termed Radical, or the root moisture, because it's the root and foundation of all the parts of the body.

Finding you thus conducted through a smooth way, we'll instantly open a door, to give you passage to a more abstruse ( hidden,) but pleasant speculation, viz. the manner of a proper and improper Consump­tion, together with the reason of the incura­bility of the former, and facil ( easie) cure of the other. The Sanguin parts, that are superstructed ( built) upon the said Sper­matick ( seedy,) or rather Fundamental parts, out of the continual afflux ( flowing to) of blood to them, may per-chance be wasted or diminish one day for want of materials, namely blood, or by reason of some indisposition or fault in the blood; the next day possibly those defects of the blood may be supplyed by a copious ( plentiful) afflux of good blood, whereby the pre­ceeding diminish'd parts happen to re­increase. [Page 19] Which ebbing and flowing of the parts may in no wise be censured a Con­sumption, improper or proper. But sup­posing the forementioned Consumption should prove so durable, as to absorb ( dry up) and extenuate ( diminish) the said San­guin parts to an extreme degree, it's evi­dent, that the Fundamental parts must necessarily come into danger; which being once attaqued ( forcibly enter'd upon,) and considerably consumed, the superstructure ( or the whole body, that's built upon the Fundamental parts,) must unavoidably fall and come to ruine; which degree of Con­sumption we term a proper Consumption, as obtaining its seat in the foundation of the body, and admitting for the most part of no cure, or at least a very difficult one. We may appositely ( to our purpose) compare this discourse of a proper and improper Con­sumption to a decaying house, which though decaying or falling away by losing a roof, or a wall, comes in no great danger; but if neglected, the house begins to totter, and continuates its rupture ( breach) to the very foundation, which once wasted or endam­maged, [Page 20] the house must necessarily fall; and so the case stands with a superficial or improper, and a fundamental or proper Consumption of the body. So that as you'l read in the next ensuing Chapter, it's not every over-fasting, or over-labouring, or Physicking, that renders a man lean, and extenuates his parts, comes within the Sphere of a Consumption, since such an impair is soon rectifyed again; but as I inserted in the 4. Chapter, it's a durable and somewhat an habitual extenuation ( or wasting) of the Sanguin or Fleshy parts, that are not easily reduced to their pristine ( old) constitution, by reason of some habitual fault or disease of an Entrail, mov­ing directly to the Fundamental parts, where it may effect a perfect Consumption.

THe word Consumption being applicable to a proper and improper, or true and Bastard Consumption, requires from us a Generical ( general) description, quadrate ( fitting) to both. So that a Consumption in that respect, is a counter-natural ( against nature) Hectick ( deeply fix'd) latent ( hidden) and equal diminution, extenuation, or rather a wasting of all the parts of the body, notwithstanding the daily ingestion ( taking) of food with appetite. Whence appears, that the diminution or wasting of ones flesh in Feavers, is not to be termed a Consumption, because that extenuation is acute, and Schetical ( super­ficial,) that is violently quick, not lasting, and of no difficult cure; whereas in a Con­sumption the diminution is slow, durable, fix'd or habitual, and yeilding to no easie cure. Neither can it be reputed a Consump­tion, [Page 22] where the body is suddenly extenuated by fasting, that being rather a disease of the mind, refusing a timely supply of food to the body. Moreover it's requisite the exte­nuation ( wasting) should be universal, and not of some parts only, as in a Dropsie, where the upper alone do undergo a diminu­tion, and the lower an increase ( or swelling;) nor of a single part, in which case it's stiled an Atrophy, or withering of a part; as an Atrophy of an Arm, Leg, Toe, or Finger. Lastly, the diminution of parts must be latent ( hidden,) not caused by an over­labouring, or want of sleep, or by being over liberal in satisfying Womens imperti­nences, the causes whereof as they are ex­ternally obvious, so they imply no Consum­ption; though indeed there be a manifest shrinking of the slesh, especially in the last instance, viz. excess of Amours [...]enereal [...]ports. (lust) which in many we may observe to cause the appearance of a perfect Consumptive, or Hippocratical face, as hollow Eyes, a sharp Nose, shrunk Visage, &c. Insomuch that it's impossible to distinguish them from the last degree of Consumptives, but by their [Page 23] having a livid circle about their Eyes, (a pe­culiar sign of a goatish extenuation) their Schetical ( sudden) leanness, and the absence of an Hectick Feaver.

Many through their extenuation by a course of Physick do oft put a fallacy upon peoples fancies, that judge them Consump­tive, and particularly those that are Physick for a Clap, whose specifick ( particular) dis­position of body at that time is in a fortnights Physicking to be reduced to an Hippocratean (shrunck Consumptive) Visage, in such sort, that their acquaintance do usually give them up for lost; but herein their state is differenced from a proper Consumption, that upon their entrance into a course of Physick, they are apt in a very short time to lose their flesh, so as to counterfeit Ana­tomies, and afterwards upon the least inter­mission of their Medicines to impinguate ( grow fat) to admiration; besides their facil ( easie) support of churlish Remedies, which none but Pockifyed Patients could sustain with so small an impair of strength.

IN the preceeding Chapter, we have set down a description of a Consumption in general, comprehending a Proper or True, and Improper or False Consumption. Our present purpose is to begin with the first, and give you a brief, but plain, explanation thereof. Wherefore note, that Physicians when terming a Disease, (but in their sense it's rather a Symptom) a Consumption, do for the most part intend a Proper Consump­tion, which we do here describe, To be an habitual (or hectick, confirm'd or radicated) slow extenuation against nature; or rather a devouring of the Fleshy and Spermatick parts of the body, through an immediate slow corruption of the Essential mixture, viz. the Radical moisture, and the Innate heat. Whence you may deduct, that ordinary [Page 25] extenuations of a Month or two, more or less, are not to be nominated Proper Con­sumptions, which relating to the profound Balsamick mixture speak great danger of death, difficulty of cure, and implicitly a long space of time before any such offence against nature can be offer'd, because of the deep latency (hidden situation) of the substantial principles.

Consumptive extenuations must be against nature, to exclude natural ones, occasioned through want of food, required to fill up the vacuities (empty spaces between the Pores) of the parts, that happen through their daily dissipation (or dissolution;) but it's rather an Absorbing (sucking up) or devouring of the parts by Corrupting their Fundamentals, whereby every part doth not only shrink, but grows sensibly less in its substance, so as the parts, as far as they are consumed, can never be recovered, or made greater, by reason of the dissolution and corruption of their Fundamental mixture, and the return of their substantial principles into their first elements; unless it were possible to infuse new substantials into them, which to imagine [Page 26] faisible, portends a man to want a grain of his right Reason; and certainly none but such, as pretend to be meer Chymists, would assert, that Potable Gold (aurum potabile, or Gold Chymically reduced to a liquor, or a thin oyle, thereby being render'd potable, or sit to be dranck) contains a vertue of recruiting or augmenting Natures Essentials; which if possible, it's requisite the said Pota­ble Gold should be endued with a capacity of being agglutinated (glewed,) and assimilated (converted into a likeness)▪ to the Innate heat and Radical moisture; or at least be virtuated with a power of generating the said essentials out of the humours within the Vessels. The former of these instanced ways is rejected, because it's impossible a mineral (as Gold is) that is inanimate, (dead) and incapable of receiving life, and of ano­ther genus (kind,) should be converted into the highest and purest degree of an animate substance, as the Spermatick essentials are; for if minerals are not convertible into ano­ther Species, though of the same Genus, much less can they be surmised reducible into a Species of another Genus. Certainly what [Page 27] can not be expected from animated plants, yea Animals (living moving Creatures,) which though belonging to the same Genus are only convertible into flesh and other dissipable parts, but not into Spermatick ones) it's a vanity to look far in dead mine­rals. Touching the vain effects of Aurum potabile you may read more at large in the second part of my Philosophy Book 1. Chap. 1. Par. 5. In summa, unless it were imagina­ble to infuse the same animate living Sperm into the substance and penetrails (depth) of the parts, it's ridiculous to expect repara­tion from any other means; which makes it apparent, that it's more easie to generate a new man, than to repair one, that's partly consumed in his substantials. This by the way; but to return to the explanation of the forestated description: Putrid Feavers de­pend upon the putrefaction (or a tendance to Corruption) of the blood, whose immediate effect is the corruption of the said nutritive (nourishing) humours, but mediately and swiftly (if tending to death) corrupting the essential principles of the parts; where as in a Proper Consumption the corruption is [Page 28] immediate, and slow. Likewise other Diseases, as Dropsies, Jaundises, Ptisicks, &c. to arrive to the period of life, must necessa­rily cause a corruption of the essentials, though slow, yet not immediately, but me­diately by corrupting the blood.

Not to be desicient in any thing, that may add to the illustration of the subject of this Chapter, we shall annex Galen's definition of a Simple Tabes, or perfect Consumption; lib. de Tabe. A Consumption is the dying of a living Creature through dryness. This description is generical, extensible to Con­sumptions of Ulcerated Lungs, and those that attend simple Hectick Feavers; and so far it's agreeing to ours, that it confirms the latter branch, viz. that it's a devouring corruption of the essential mixture, which consisting chiefly of an oyly moisture is cor­ruptible through dissipation, or being dryed away, which Galen here intends by dryness, to wit the drying away of the Balsamick moi­sture. Moreover Galen's Commentators make mention of a two fold dryness, the one con­comitated with a heat, which they call a Torrid Tabes; the other with a coldness, [Page 29] termed Ex morbo Senium, when the parts are consumed through extinction of their native heat, and dissipation of their Radical moisture Gal. in the forecited Book subjects all the parts of the body to a simple Con­sumption or Tabes, excepting the Lungs, which being of a moist and soft temperature seem not at all disposed to suscept any dry­ness. But on the contrary, it's ordinary for Smiths, Cooks, and others, whose imploy­ment is conversant about the Fire, to incurre such an extreme dryness of their Lungs, that in the dissection of their Car­casses, they appear liker Spunges than moist Lungs; the like observation you'l read below touching the withered Lungs of one Pendarves.

IMproper or Bastard Consumptions are only slow growing extenuations (or wast­ings) of the fleshy parts, directly moving to a True and Proper Consumption, by rea­son of some indisposition of the intern parts, humours, and insluent spirits. In proper Consumptions there is a devouring of the Spermatick parts, and essentials, here only of the flesh and humours. So that a Bastard Consumption is curable with ease, because it's no more than a superficial and growing malady, relating to the consumed fleshy parts; but the other implyes a very diffi­cult cure, not by restoring the Spermatick parts, (which as we shewed in the preceed­ing Chapter is impossible;) but only by stenting and removing the corruption of the forementioned essentials.

[Page 31]A Bastard Consumption chiefly compre­hends these following. 1. An Hypochon­driack Consumption. 2. A Scorbuick Con­sumption. 3. An Amourous Consumption. 4. A Consumption of Grief. 5. A Studious Consumption. 6. An Apostematick Consump­tion. 7. A Cancerous Consumption. 8. An Ulcerous Consumption. 9. A Dolorous Con­sumption. 10. An Aguish Consumption. 11. A Febril Consumption. 12. A Cachectick Consumption. 13. A Verminous Consumption. 14. A Consumption of the Rickets. 15. A Pockie Consumption. 16. A Poysonous Con­sumption. 17. A Bewitch'd Consumption. 18. A Consumption of the Back. 19. A Consumption of the Kidneys. 20. A Con­sumption of the Lungs.

All these tending to a True Consumption, unless anticipated (prevented) by a mortal acute Disease, do justly come under the no­tion of Bastard, or growing Consumptions. Neither is't our purpose to treat farther of of these Diseases, than relating to Consump­tions, the manner whereof, how they may be conceived to cause such extenuations, we shall succinctly (in short) set down in particular Chapt.

AN Hypochondriack Consumption is an extenuation of the fleshy parts, occa­sioned by an infarction ( clogging and over filling,) and obstruction of the Spleen, pnrcreas, mesaraick, and Stomachick Ves­sels, through melancholly, or gross, dreggish, tartarous humours; whereby it happeneth, the blood is not sufficiently defaecated, or clarifyed, but remains muddy, and ditchy, which stagnating ( standing still without mo­tion) thus for a while turns saltish and acrimonious, offending and perverting the Stomach, Spleen, and Liver in their Offices, a necessary precedent of vitiated ( foul) blood, which being rejected by the parts, the body must needs fall away for want of better nutriture ( nourishment.) This salin sap of the Vessels for being refused recep­tion of the parts, indues daily a greater [Page 33] ferocity (fierceness,) and declares it self in a more hostile (like an Enemy) manner, by insinuating (peircing) into the profundi­ty (depth) of the parts, and so drying, absorbing (sucking up,) and consuming the Radical moisture and Innate heat, arrives to a Proper Consumption. Add hereunto the continual vigilies (overwaking, or want of sleep,) melancholique, sorry, dull, lingring passions, the said Hypochondriack patient is praecipitated (forced) into, whereby the spirits being rendred dull, stupid, languid ( fainting), and suppressed, are deserted ( left) incapable of ventilating (breathing) and purifying the blood, and debilitated ( weak­ened) in attracting ( drawing) nutriment for the parts, which consequently must wither and shrink. It's no wonder there­fore so many Melancholicks do daily drop into perfect Consumptions, since their prae­vious (foregoing) indisposition doth so di­rectly tend to an absolute marcour (dry­ness.

Among the rest of the Entrails, we have inserted the Spleen the chief seat of this Hypochondriack evil, against which assertion [Page 34] may be objected; that the Spleen rather seems to be superadded for some use, than any publick function of defaecating ( clari­fying,) or engendring blood. The use allotted for it, may be to fill up that empty space, that would be, if the Spleen were wanting, or to transmit heat to the Stomach for to promote digestion, or to serve for a supporter to the Veins and Arteries, that pass through it to several parts of the body. That its not destined for any absolute neces­sary function of generating or clarifying the blood, is inferred from that ancient custome, Plautus, Haliabbas and Pliny lib. 11. cap. 37. speak of, where they were wont to burn the Spleen of their foot coursers, that used to run for sport or wagers, and some they would quite cut out their Spleen, to make them run lighter, and render them long winded; be­cause the Spleen is otherwise apt to weigh down the Diaphragma (Midriff,) which is a chief instrument of Respiration. Ro [...] ­saeus in his Treatise de Part. Caes. Sect. 4. cap. 5. inserts an observation of several, whose Spleen were cut out; and of another, whose Spleen was quite worn or dryed [Page 35] away, and nothing remaining but the out­ward skin. We do easily admit of the possi­bility of the foresaid practice, since I have seen a tryal made of it upon a Dog, but with this consequence, that it certainly shortens life, and renders the remaining course im­plexed with sundry troubles and diseases. In the mean time that office, which we allow the Spleen, is performed by the Liver, Pancreas, and other parts, though with some difficulty, because they are overtask'd; for doubtless in that case the grosser part of the blood is evacuated by the Haemorrhoids, as it's usual in other accidents, when the body is mutilated (deprived) of an Arm or Leg. So that it appears, the Office of the Spleen is of great importance, though it may be supplyed by other parts in case it be diseased, obstructed, or exected ( cut out.) The same exception might be started against the Liver; for were it not for the effusion of blood of those great veins, that have their root in it, (or according to others terminate there,) which would necessarily follow an exection, the Liver might not only be exected, but it's Office likewise supplyed by the Spleen [Page 36] and the other parts. Since I have drawn my Reader a little out of the way by this objection, I shall conduct him back to the remainder of this Chapter, which is a brief inventory of the Signs of an Hypochondriack Consumption, that so he may not be sur­prized with the fate of it. 1. There is a frequent rumbling noise under the Stomach, thwarting from the right side to the left, and thence back again. 2 Pinching pains about the Stomach, as if they would girt a mans body close together. 3. Glowing heats under the short Ribs. 4. Frequent belchings, that smell sowre, or stink. 5. A windiness and puffing up of their Stomach, especially after dinner, and in the morning after they wake. 6. Much spitting. 7. Vomiting, or at least an inclination to Vomit. 8. If upon these Signs you find a wasting of your flesh, than look about you, especially if troubled with a Cough.

THe Scurvy is discovered a Melancho­lique Disease through its dreggish tarta­rous Eruptions, as course boils, pustles, &c. wherein it's differenced from Hypochon­driack melancholy, whose tartar (melan­choly) is retained within the body, & for that reason proves by far more incommodious (as appears by those doleful passions,) which if it were propelled ( cast forth,) in Boils, Bot­ches, or Ulcers, as in the Scurvy, would rather conduce to health, those sharp scorbu­tick dregs imitating the nature of yist, in causing the blood to ferment or work out in­to those eruptions ( breakings out,) whereby the blood is wonderfully clarifyed and pur­ged. Hence it is, that many Melancholiques and Splenetick persons are of an exceeding merry and cheerful disposition; by reason their melancholy by causing their blood to [Page 38] work, doth so much clarify it, whereout the spirits must needs afterwards be generated very clear, lucid, ( light) and lively.

But of this I have discoursed more at large in Venus unmask'd, Book. 1. Art. 37. Par. 134, 135. however though the Scurvy proves so healthful during its commence­ment ( beginning) and augment ( increase,) yet being once advanced to a state, is found to have indued a more disobliging and cor­roding nature, (as appears by those arthritick ( gowty) night pains, and Phagedenick ( raw) Ulcers it causes: Read my Vener. Discovery Book 1. Art. 9. Par. 39.) through the per­mutation ( change) of its Nitrous and Vi­triolat salt into an Armoniack, which par­taking of so penetrating and corrosive a na­ture, doth soon attaque the fleshy, and immediately after make, towards the cor­rupting of the Fundamental parts.

A Scorbutick Consumption is easily dis­cerned by observing a lingring wasting of ones flesh upon a praevious ( foregoing) Scurvy, attended with a Cough; the Signs of a Scurvy I have set down in Venus Unmask'd.

OF all Bastard Consumptions none doth more rapidly ( swiftly) occasion an extenuation of the flesh, than an Amorous Condition, which where it doth fasten, im­mediately causes a very sensible falling of the countenance; whence it's a common objection, when Maids do suddenly grow thin-jawed and hallow-eyed, they are cer­tainly in Love. Neither is there cause want­ing for so subitous ( sudden) an alteration, where there is such a lingring, sighthing, sobbing, and looking after the return of the absent object, the thoughts so fix'd, that they are imployed upon nothing but the past Vision; & the mind all that while so disturbed and perplex'd with hopes, doubts, fears, possibilities, and improbabilities, that the heart strikes five hundred sorts of Pulses in an hour; and hunted into such continual palpi­tations [Page 40] through anxiety ( oppression) and di­straction, that (as the saying is) fain would it break if it could. By means of all which alterations, violent motions, frights, fears, and other passions, the Animal ( spirits of the brain) and Vital ( of the heart) spirits suffer such losses and dispersions, that we see its ordinary for young Wenches to be redu­ced to faintings, sownings, and extreme weaknesses, to the admiration of their pa­rents, whence such subitous and effrayable ( frightful) symptoms should source ( take their rise.) Galen among the rest of his remarques ( lib. de pracogn. ad Posthum. cap. 6.) tells us of a Woman patient of his, whom he found very weak in bed, continu­ally tossing and tumbling from one side to the other, and totally deprived of her rest. No extern or intern cause could he discover of this malady, neither would she contribut: any thing of her own confession, though he oft required it of her, which kind of mute ( dumb) deportment gave him suspicion of some melancholy, or love business the wo­man was troubled with; however he repea­ted his visits the second and third time, [Page 41] though with as little satisfaction as before; but at last it happened one came to visit her, and told her she had been at the Theater, where she had seen Pylades (one of the Players) dance, whereupon Galen observed her to change her countenance, and imme­diately feeling her pulse, found it to beat very various and disturbed, a sign of some trouble of the mind, and so perceiving the same disturbance of her pulse, as oft as Py­lades was discoursed of, was confirm'd in his opinion, that all those symptoms were a product ( effect) of her love. Aretaeus lib. 3. cap. 3. instances likewise a young man, involved in the same passion, and surprized with the worst of symptoms. And beyond all this Valer. Max. lib. 5. cap. 7. records Antiochus the only Son of the King Seleucus, deeply fallen in love with Stratonica his Mother-in-law, who piously dissembling his burning passion, praecipitated himself into a most dangerous Consumption, the cause whereof his Physitian Erasistratus could in no-ways descry, before such time as Stra­tonica entring the room, moved a blushy colour in his face, and rendred his aspect [Page 42] vivacious ( lively,) but deserting him, he soon relapsed to the same paleness and lan­guor ( faintness;) which ebbing and flowing of his countenance with the uncertainty of his pulse, certifyed Erasistratus, of some love wound his Mother had struck upon his heart; and declaring this accident to the King his Father, almost cast down with grief for his Son, now ee'n strucken with his last fate, he soon yeilded his dearest wife for a remedy to Antiochus, considering it was chance, striving with his unparallel'd modesty and bashfulness, had reduced him to that extremity. Hippocrates shewed him­self no less skilful in discerning the discrimi­nous ( dangerous) state of Perdiccas King of Macedonia, occasioned by the doting love he harbour'd in his breast for Phila, one of his Fathers Concubines, whose presence at any time excited a great alteration of his pulse. But these passages that resent so much of natures impressions, do in no wise merit to be admired at, when brutish dotings prove so efficacious in impelling bodies into a marcour ( extreme leanness;) as Histo­rians verifie of a rich Athonian, and indiffe­rently [Page 43] descended, who spying a marble Statue erected in a publick place of Athens, and very curiously wrought, grew so passio­nate upon it, that he spent whole nights in imbracing it, at last desirous to impropriate this object to himself, wooed the Senat to part with it, offering to lay down a treble value; but they censuring it impious, to make Merchandize of what belonged to the publick, denyed his importune request, whereupon he increased in fondness, and bestowed a Golden Crown upon it, Cloath­ing it also with rich and costly Apparel, adored, and oft prostrated himself before it, which the Senat judging indecent, forbad him making any more addresses to their Statue. The young Athenian finding him­self deprived of his joy and delight, fell into a Consumption, and before that could limit the course of his life, he cut his own throat. This passion was not so ridiculous, but it was exceeded by the King Xerxes, whom many Authours affirm to have been strangely inamoured upon an Oak, which he would oft hug and kiss, as if it had been some pret­ty Woman. Many more modern instances [Page 44] we could produce to illustrate the force of this sort of passion upon bodies, which we refer to another place. These commotions of the mind and body do after a short conti­nuance menace ( threaten) a Consumption, by oppressing the heart and its vital spirits with such throngs of blood and spirits, that are impelled and propt into its Ventricles, ( small hollow rooms within the heart) whereby the heart is choak'd and obstructed in its pulsation ( beating,) and consequently hin­dred from transmitting vital blood to the parts, which for want thereof must necessa­rily wither and dry away; moreover in that case the blood grows thick and muddy for want of motion, and so acquires an ill qua­lity, and causes obstructions, as we have expressed in the preceding Chapter; besides the spirits growing dull and stupid do not perform their office in drawing the blood to the several parts, which must necessarily add very much to the wasting of the body. Lastly, if those love frights prove very violent, the blood and spirits returning in great streams to the heart, may not only suddenly choak it, but also extinguish its Innate spirits, and [Page 45] so that doting passion happens to terminate (end) into a mortal Syncope (swoun;) thus Euryalus a Knight belonging to the Empe­rour Sigismund, taking leave of his Mistriss Lucretia of Siena, praecipitated her into such a Love fit, that within a few hours after she Ghosted; which course Euryalus was like to have steered, upon the news of that sad accident, had his passion not been diverted, by some recreation his friends gave him. The like fate befell a Dutch Gentlewoman, upon the sudden death of her Puppy dog, which she doted upon beyond imagination, as the Scene afterwards attested.

But young blossom'd Girls seem to be troubled with another Divil within 'em, to augment ( increase) the fire of their doting hell, and that's their Mother, which must ever and anon be a fuming up to their throats upon the least disturbance of their Amours (love,) as I have oft been a Spectator of several, that fell into most terrible fits of the Mother, five or six in a day, upon a rupture of Marriage. I shall finish this Chapter with a short observation of the Prognosticks ( foresayings) of this Amorous Consump­tion, [Page 46] Young wenches once thoroughly smit­ten with Love darts, seldome or never lose that first impression, though they may be diverted by their parents, in shewing them an imparity ( unsutableness) in their Fortunes, Families, Persons, &c. and there­fore must be compelled to marry such others, as their Parents please, perhaps be­ing perswaded by some Bawdy-Broaker, who (according to the ancient custome) takes ten in the hundred for so much portion he Pro­cures, and so much Joynture answerable to the current rate of the market, much after the form Cows are sold in Smithfield, accor­ding to the goodness of their Hides and Tallow. In the mean while these poor Lasses droop away, between a lingring after their first Loves, and a certain chastity that forbids 'em eating Fish and Flesh in one day. The only prevention of this great mischief is, to imitate the Jewish custome, to pen up their Daughters, and let them be acquainted with none, but such as they cer­tainly intend for their Husbands; for beyond contradiction their first Love stands against all opposition of imparities of fortunes, [Page 47] families, or any thing whatsoever, as this narrative witnesses of a Princess of France, who walking melancholique alone in the field, fell in discourse with a Flemish Shep­herds, and finding his person, talk, gesture, and tone of speech quite different from the Court Company, began to admire him, and grew so much enamour'd upon him, that before their parting, they design'd their se­cret transportation into Flanders; to which purpose she put her self into the Garb of a Shepherdess, and in that disguise lived many years; but discovering her self a little before her death, did profess her self the happiest person alive, not for her condition, but in injoying him she first loved, and that she would rather ten Thousand times choose to live a Shepherdess (notwithstanding the hard­ness and vileness that attend so despicable a life) in the contentment and satisfaction of her Shepherd, than the glorious life of a Princess. If upon this you require a censure, I can but say, it was the humour of a Wo­man. Neither do I find men less estranged to extravagancies in this particular; Lucius Vitellius, the Father of Vitellius the Roman [Page 48] Emperour, a Sage and Prudent person, was so affectionately taken with a common Strumpet, that he would never suffer her to spit on the ground, but alwayes saved her spittle in a golden Vessel he carried about with him for the same purpose, whereunto he added so much Honey as would make it into a Sytup, which he was wont to lick with the greatest delight imaginable. This rela­tion doth not so much savour of folly, as that of Galeazo (Duke of Mantua) of mad­ness, he whilst so journing at Padua had so enslaved himself to a fond passion upon a Wench, that upon her commanding him to drown himself, he immediately gave Spur to his Horse, and so plunged himself head­long into the River. The great Charlemain, who was master of the better part of Europe, yet could not Master the passion he bore to a Gentlewoman, whom after she was dead, he would not suffer to be removed out of his Bed-Chamber in order to her Funeral, and though she stunk like a Carrion, yet sented to him like a Violet. What treachery men harbour within their breast to betray em to their greatest Enemy, Death! what a [Page 49] strange inchantment, that renders men thus wilfully sottish, melancholique, mad, and desperate! Certainly this must be some kind of curse intailed upon mankind, for having originally grossely transgressed in that par­ticular. But what remedy to resist so great an evil? Women in this case require the precedency of cure, as being the first occa­sion of that sin, and first cause of the curse, witness else their mother Eve, who could she but have passed by that sinful curiosity, God Almighty in his wisdome had reserved a more noble way of man's propagation, in lieu, that whereas man is now begotten in the burning Sin of lust like a beast, and born creeping out of his mothers belly down­wards towards the earth with shame, he would have been begotten in a more spiri­tual manner, and have been born gloriously, making his first ascension towards the hea­vens to salute his Creator. But to our dooms we do still find the daughters of Eve persist­ing in their mothers curiosity, in alluring the poor Sons of Adam to all manner of lasci­viousness and debauchery; and to that pur­pose they plaister their faces with patches, [Page 50] rub their skin with white Lead, and go naked to the very Paps (and they are like they say in France, to fall into the Amazones mode of waring short coats to reach no farther than their knees;) and in this posture will they be leaning out of their Balcones and Windows, frisking and gigling, that they would e'en tempt a Saint;

But all this is but speculation or dumb leche­ry; the practick part consists in their goatish discourses, winking at Church, going to Dancing-Schools, Plays, Spring-Gardens, Taverns, and where not.

Kissing though repeated hundred times over, is a piece of their Dancing-School breeding, that's not to be refused; and what saith the Italian to this, Donna basciata è mezzo guadagnata, a woman kissed is half conquer'd. How these creatures may be reformed, has been the study of many ages, though as we see to little purpose.

Thus far they all agree, women ought [Page 51] to keep within and seldome stir out; and when they go forth, the Italians will have them to have neither eyes nor ears; that is, they must not stair men in the face like bucks, nor listen after idle talk. Neither do they think it necessary for 'em to go to Church, imagining a Woman doth very well merit her salvation, in doing penance of keeping her self honest at home; besides, in imitation of Ovid's dictate, Otia si tollas periere cupidinis arcus, they would have them imployed twenty hours a day in Spinning, Knitting, &c. the rest of the time in eating and sleeping.

In short, these three Devises are necessary to make an honest Woman; Retiredness, Religion, and Employment. On the con­trary, where a Woman is used to Company, and little regards Religion, and is less im­ployed, there's you know what.

However, notwithstanding all these diver­tisements, they will now and then take an occasion to fall in Love, though it be but by hear-say, as Guyon writes in his divers Lecons 1. part fol. 365. of three Gentlewomen, that fell strangely in love with one and the [Page 52] same person. The Story runs thus: It hap­pened that a Waiting-Gentlewoman to the Dutchess of Urbin, took a great liking to a Gentleman, belonging to the same Court; but her modesty being such, as would not suffer her to declare her affection immediate­ly to him, advised with another Gentlewo­man a friend of hers about it, to whom she opened her breast, expressing likewise the merits and personage of the Gentleman; whose Characters agreeing so well with her own Phansie, she (namely the second Gen­tlewoman) grew furiously inamour'd upon the party described, and thereupon in stead of solliciting for her friend, she put Pen to Paper and wrote a most passionate Letter for her self, and addressed it to the foresaid Gentleman; this letter fell accidently into the hands of a third Gentlewoman, who upon the reading thereof was inflamed in Love to the same person, beyond any of the others, and began to push hard for herself: But fortune proved so just to them all, that because of their rash indiscreet passions, they lost their pains, and went all without him. Voilent Bruchus a Spaniard relates a passage [Page 53] not unlike this, of a Dutchess of Savoy, who fell desperately in Love with a Knight of the Family of Mendoza, only by hearing his Sister say, Would to God this Princess were Married to my Brother, and they would make the most glorious couple in the world, for perfection and beauty. This succeeded so happily, that some time after (as the com­mon saying is) they had one another. These two Narratives afford us another moral to be added as a fourth to the three foremen­tioned devises, to wit a young Maid must not only be kept in a perpetual retirement, devotion, and constant imployment, but must not so much as be entertained with a discourse of love, or young men, for fear of raising that evil spirit, which afterwards would not be easily allayed.

Now, though a sole rectification of Wo­mens corrupt passions (they by their allure­ments, gesticulations ( wanton actions) sleering looks, and lascivious discourses, being the prime movents, and inciters of this cursed inclination) were a means efficacious enough to prevent mens sortish affections, yet we will appose an instance or two, [Page 54] whereby you may observe how easily men are checked in their amorous appetites.

Raimundus Lullius, a great proficient in Chymical Philosophy, chanced to be fu­riously taken with the beauty of a certain young Woman, and being impatient of his Love flames, did vehemently importune her to allay his passion; whereupon she pre­fixt a day, which Raimund in no wise forgot to pass by, but presented himself at the very moment: The fair Lady, like a Goddess of chastity, in stead of gratifying his beastly lust, suddenly flung open her bosome, and offer'd a most filthy, stinking, ulcer'd Cancer of her Breast to his view, in design to relax, or rather break the strings of his Satyrick passion, which took so good an effect, that Raimund now bore greater respects to her for her chastity, than ever he did for her beauty. But because a sole example is so scant an illustration, I shall not think it much to contribute another no less remar­kable than the former. Hypatia the Phenix of her time, both for her incomparable wit, and excellent beauty, had the fortune of being most fondly doated upon by a young [Page 55] Scholar; the force of whose inclinations was so puissant ( strong,) that it was like to impell him into a distraction: the unparallel chastity of this virtuous Female could in no kind be prevailed with to favour him in what he so passionately aimed at, though her com­passion, sensible of the torment he endured in that amourous hell, would have com­plyed in whatever had been consistent with the nature of modesty. At length she disco­vered to her self an ingenious cure, to reme­dy the poor Schollar of his menaced insany ( madness,) in order whereunto, knowing him to be master of a great deal of reason, she muster'd a great bundle of her menstru­ous rags together (as the wise man calls them, and spread them all open before him; saying, you men that do so admire at the Elegant shape, and Nitourous Com­plexion of Womens upper parts, behold now, O Scholar! the constitution of their lower, the object of all your Lascivious Loves; what a filthy, nasty, detestable sight is here? whereat the ingenuous Scholar took such a regret, having been hither to deluded, in crediting this dictate of Hermes, Quod [Page 56] est superius, est sicut inferius. That is, what­ever is above is like to what is below; that ever after he abhorred the sight of a Woman. If arguments of this kind, drawn from the false appearance of Women, would take with the generality of men, there's enough to be said to fling 'em all out of favour. But enough of this.

GRief protracted to some space of time, doth inevitably ( unavoidably) absorb ( suck up) the fleshy parts of the body, and strait-way hasten to a perfect Consumption. Grief is a pain of the soul for the absence of some good thing, or the presence of an evil thing. Now, as far as the soul o'retops the body, so far its pains, or rather mournful sensations, exceed those of the Carcasle; A Gowt, a Colick, the cutting off of an Arm or Leg, or searing the Flesh with an hot [Page 57] Iron, are but Fleabits to the grieving pains of the Soul; for she being only chearful, doth as easily conquer, as endure them. But it's otherwise with the body, that imme­diately shrinks under the least pain of the Soul.

Among the varieties of Grief, the con­troversie of the greatest, is solely depending between Grief taken for a disgrace, and Grief for the loss of a Relation: And both these are such, as will attaque ( fall upon) and conquer the wisest and most couragious of either Sex; Reason in either of these cases can produce no other, than trifling argu­ments to suppress 'em. All ranks of Nobles and Ignobles are observed, to yeeld to the fury of these Soul-pains. Bajazed the Tur­kish Emperour, and Tamerian's Prisoner, rather than to sustain the disgrace of being carried about in an Iron cage, chose death, by running his head against the Grates.

Senca's Wife prefer'd dying with her Husband, before she would survive to grieve for his death.

Cecinna Petus being sentenced to death, but with a reservation, that he might make [Page 58] choice of his own way of dying, Arrion his Wife came to him, though full of grief, and in his sight drew a Dagger, and stabbed her self, crying out, the wound I have made doth not pain me, but the wound that thou wilt make, O Pete! pains me.

To give you an Emblem of a more Chro­nical ( of a longer time) operation of grief, wee'l commend a Narrative or two more to your Reading.

One Captain Munck a Dane, famous for the Expedition he performed to the North, to discover a nearer passage to the Indies, after a most dangerous Winter­quarter returned home, to give an account of his Voyage to the King of Danemark his Master; who being dis-satisfied at his de­portment, thrusted the said Captain from him with his Cane, whereupon he took his leave, and went home, but with such a resentment of the disgrace, that some few dayes after he put forward to another world.

The like Scene we observe in Don Olivares the great Favourite of Spain, who soon ren­dred his life to the conquest of grief he took [Page 59] or the disgrace of being deposed of all his Offices and Dignities.

Fates not much differing from this befell also Cardinal Woolsey, and many other Gran­dees, upon the like occasions.

In fine, it's a common observation among the Spanish Polititians, that the surest Stratagem, to be quite rid of a Statesman, that stands in the way, and besides to avoid popular clamours and censures, is to depose him of all his dignities, and imprison him, where without question the apprehension of his disgrace, or the pernicious air of a Prison, will soon set a period to the course of his days, or at least put him upon some revenge­ful attempt, whereby he may be rendred a riper object for a publick Scene.

This by the way, to illustrate to you the danger of a pain in the Soul, and the near sympathy there is between her and the body.

Touching the manner of causality, whereby grief effects such fierce symptoms, viz. a sudden Death, and a lingring Consumption, may be collected out of the preceding dis­course upon an Amorous Consumption, to wit, the former is caused, through a full and [Page 60] sudden irruption ( breaking in) of thick Me­lancholique blood into the Ventricles ( nar­row rooms) of the heart, thereby choaking the vital spirits, and putting a stop to the hearts pulsation, which if intermitted but three or four Pulses, portends a certain death. The latter is atchieved by a gradual suppres­sion of the vital spirits, through heavy tartarous ( dreggish) blood, which (namely the spirits) defecting, must necessarily cause an extinction of the innate heat and spirits, for whose nutrition they are designed, and so con­sequently a perfect Consumption must be the ultimate issue. Add hereto the restlesness and intermission from sleep grieved per­sons are molested with, whereby the blood is much dryed, the spirits consumed, and melancholy increased.

Moreover, as melancholick blood doth so much suppress the vital spirits, so it's very unapt for ministring matter for new spirits, or being converted into flesh, because of its grosseness and crudity. Neither doth that blood continue long so, as I said before, but acquires an acrimony, whereby it's much intended ( heightned) in its devouring and consuming quality.

MOderate labour of the body is univer­sally experienced to conduce to the preservation of health, and curing many initial ( beginning) Diseases; but on the contrary, the toyle of the mind, to destroy health and generate Maladies, by attracting the spirits out of the entire body from their task of Concoction, Distribution, and Excre­tion, to the brain, whither they carry along with them clouds of vapours and excremen­titious humours of the whole, thereby exces­sively annoying the brain and its faculties, impelling it into various Diseases, as Ca­tarrhs, ( defluxions of humours,) stupors, ( numness,) imminution ( lessening) of the memory and imagination; impairs of the external senses, as dulness of hearing or seeing, imbecillity ( weakness) in stirring or walking, &c. Likewise the other parts of [Page 62] the body, being deprived of their spirits, sustain very considerable damages; as, the Stomach happeneth to be weakned in its Concoction, whence crudities and loss of appetit; the Spleen and Liver in their Offices of defaecation, whence vitious, melancholick, dreggish, sulphurous blood, and obstructions of the Bowels and Vessels; the Heart in its distributing the blood to all the parts of the body, and strength of pulsation, whence an Atrophia, or want of nutriment in the parts, the immediate cause of a Studious Fastard Consumption. Add hereto a sedentary ( sitting) life, appropriate to all Students, crushing the bowels, and for want of stirring the body, suffers the spirits to lye dormant and dull, whence costiveness, dispersing malign putrid fumes out of the Guts and Mesentery ( a thick double skin that tyes the Guts toge­ther) into all parts of the body, occasioning head-ach, flushing of the blood to the head, feavers, loss of appetit, and distur­bance of Concoction.

It is beyond imagination to conceive the sudden destructive effects of a Studious life; some eight or ten years since there dyed at [Page 63] Abington one Pendarves, an incompara­ble hard Student, and Minister of that Town, who being dissected, his Lungs were found to be withered and dryed up into an exact resemblance of an ordinary Spunge in point of substance and bigness.

The like Emblems we find frequently in Universities, where Scholars daily drop away of Consumptions.

Neither is it an extraordinary observation, to see Consumptions in the Faces of hun­dreds of the late Preaching Divines; witness else their thin Jaws and number of Caps.

APostems, although internal, do rarely cause Consumptions before they break, unless seated amongst the Glandules in the Mesentery, where I have observed them to occasion a very discernable extenuation; which Symptom seems very strange in that [Page 64] case, since a Physician can scarce find any sensible cause of so visible an evil, the prin­cipal intrails giving no sign of the least distemper, and the appetit consisting as for­merly. In such a case many would impute the foresaid Consumption to obstructions, no other cause, disease, or part appearing suspicious; for a deep latent Apostem in the Mesentery if of no great mole ( bigness,) cannot be sensibly discovered, but by con­jecture only; since the touch cannot pene­trate so deep as to reach it, because of its deep situation, neither can the relation be expected from the Patient, because the part affected is inseusible.

In the Hospital at Leiden some twelve or fourteen years ago, I observed the like accident in a boy, who perceiving his flesh to shrink every day more and more, although without the least sense of any disease that should cause it, applyed himself to a Physi­cian of the Town, where he then lived, who imputed the cause of his Consumption to obstructions of the Liver and Spleen, (a trodden Sanctuary for hidden diseases,) and prescribed him a Deoppilative ( opening) [Page 65] and Purgative Apozem, not questioning his Cure. The youth finding no benefit, doubt­ed his Doctor had mistaken the Disease; upon this resolves to go to the University to see what the Professors could make of it, who all cryed out against Hypochondriack Ob­structions, except Prof. Lindanus, who conjectured it might be some hidden abscess in the Mesentery, which breaking some few days after was discovered to be an Apostem of the Mesentery, by the evacua­tion of the matter by stool.

How an Apostem in the Mesentery break­ing, causes a Consumption of the parts, is apparent, viz. by immitting purulent fumes into the Arteries, and Veins, corrupting and affecting the blood with a malign qua­lity, which proving very offensive to the parts, in subverting and poysoning their innate temperature, is rejected by 'em, whereby they are forced to wither for want of nutriment. The said purulent vapours crowding into the substances of the princi­pal and sub-principal parts, viz. the Heart, Brain, Spleen, and Liver, do likewise so infect, poison, and destroy their Innate [Page 66] temperaments, that they immediately begin to languish in their offices, to the great prejudice of all the body. But it's not so manifest by what means an Apostem in the Mesentery should occasion a Consump­tion before its maturation, or breaking, since no purulent fumes can be supposed to be transmitted throughout the body before a maturation, nor after, unless the humour break, because the said fumes cannot transude ( sweat) through the bag of an Imposthum.

In my opinion the parts happen to be consumed for want of nourishment, that's intercepted from them through the Apo­stems tumid compression and coarctation of the Mesaraick and Lacteal (milky) veins, whereby the transmission of Chyle ( a white juice all our Victuals is turn'd into in the Stomach) and blood is obstructed.

IT's requisite I should first tell you, what a Scirrus is, namely a hard tumour with­out pain, feeling to the touch like a stone, caused through a concretion of melancholick extravasate ( shed out of the veins or arteries) Blood. Setting aside the enumeration of compound Scirrous tumors, viz. Scirrous and Oedematique, Scirrous and Phlegmonique, Scirrous and Erysipelous, I shall only insert the kinds of generation of a sim­ple Scirrus; either it's primarly gene­rated out of the effusion of melancholick blood, or secundarily out of the dregs and remainder of a Phlegmonous or Oedematick tumour. Either of these befalling the Liver, Spleen, Stomach, Mesentery, or any other important entrail, may cause an extenua­tion of the Flesh, by compressing the vital and nutritive Channals, and so intercepting the course of the blood and vital spirits in [Page 68] their afflux (flowing to) to the parts. 2. By vitiating ( altering to worse) the substance and temperament of the said Entrails, whereby the blood is not justly prepared for nourishing of the parts.

CAncers invading any internal part of the body do in some space of time through an Arsenical Sulphur and Armoni­ack Salt (Ven. read unmaskt, fol. 65. & 67.) their constituent causes, corrode the flesh, and soon after corrupt the Essential mix­ture, which done renders them absolutely incurable, unless extirpated (rooted out) by exection or amputation (cutting off;) which within the body takes no place.

Hereupon the blood is soon vitiated with a malign quality, and its Course obstructed, which proves the immediate cause of an improper Consumption.

IT's needless to premit the description of an Ulcer, since its generally known; I shall only observe their difference; some to be external, others internal; and some to depend upon the intemperament of the part Ulcerated, others upon the continual afflux of lacerative ( taring) humours; and lastly, some to be irrigated ( moistned) with a more malign pus ( matter,) than others. Of these its certain both extern and intern do oft cause a gradual maceration ( wasting) of the Flesh; but of externals only such, whose pus ( matter) is virulent (venomous and malign, the steems whereof regurgita­ting (flowing back) into the Vessels, do sensibly infect the blood and the tempera­ment of the chief intern members, where the parts happen to be extenuated in such manner, as we have once or twice illustra­ted [Page 70] to you already. 2. Extern Ulcers de­pending upon the transmission of vitiate (foul) humours out from within the body, do occasion an extenuation of the parts, by attracting and depriving them of their nutriment, as I once observed in a youth in the Charitè Hospital at Paris, who through the daily and copious efflux ( eva­cuation) of matter through the Orifice (mouth) of a deep Ulcer in his Thigh, was reduced to a Skeleton, (skin and bones,) and so within a while after dyed of a perfect Consumption.

Intern Ulcers impell the parts into Consumptions through their purulent fumes, thereby poysoning and infecting the blood that should nourish them.

VIolent pains are only apt to cause infla­mations and acute Feavers, which terminating to a good or evil Crisis, are not likely to occasion Consumptions; so that it's only lingring, soft, durable pains, do dis­pose patients to them, by oft attracting the spirits from other parts, and spending them; for nothing doth wast the spirits swifter than pains; so that pains for spending of the spi­rits of all other accidents comes nearest to the copious and swift loss of spirits by Phle­botomy (opening of a Vein:) Now how the diminution of spirits causes a Consumption we have set down before in the preceding Chapters.

Add hereto the interception of sleep that pains occasion, which doth very much in­crease the dispersing and depopulating of the said spirits.

[Page 72]Next to these lingring durable pains, short intermittent, or swift recurrent pains do precipitate patients into Consumptions; as lingring pains of the Stone, recurrent pains of the Stomach, Meagrims, and other sorts of recurrent headaches do frequently mace­rate (make lean) the parts, and render their looks Consumptive and pining.

AGues if deeply radicated (rooted) do frequently impell (force) bodies into Consumptions, by vitiating (altering) the Liver and Spleen, and perverting their Offices.

Among these, Quartans and Tertians of a long continuance do most menace ( threaten) this Symptom; the former as depending upon a corrupt incinerated (burn'd) melan­choly, and the latter upon an adust ( burn'd) Stibial or Aeruginous Sulphur: both these [Page 73] being very active in devouring the fleshy parts, and intrenching upon the fundamental mixture.

A true and simple Tertian, terminating according to the ordinary observation, in seven returns or Paroxysms, is now and then succeeded by an Hectick Feaver, a fellow Symptom to a true Consumption, by reason of its swift termination, leaving some deep relicks of its cause (viz. Stibial Sulphur) in some of the chief parts, where it lyeth closely impacted ( propt in) and is not easily exter­mined (removed.)

Now, had the said Tertian been of a more slow and gradual pace, it would gradually have expelled those Relicks; so that you may know how dangerous it proves, for an Ague to disappear without taking Physick for it.

WE have oft observed, that malign continual peracute ( very sharp and violent) Feavers do after most dangerous and doubtful attaques suddenly remit into a sensible abatement of the ardent (burning) heat, insufferable thirsts, immanous ( raging) Head-aches and Phrensies; besides a change of their low quick inequal Pulles, into more ordinate ones, and a mutation of their red fiery Urin into a thick milky colour and curdle setling; by all which appearances hundreds of young Physicians have been deceived, and thereupon confidently assert­ed their Patients free from all danger; but much to their shame; for these be certain signs of an Hectick Feaver, and a true or perfect Consumption, as appears by their weak and languishing condition, without any sense of pain or heat, or perversion of their [Page 75] reason, which may continnue so with them for two or three weeks, and then they expire like a wasted candle.

Moreover it's attested by many Physi­cians, that a Continent Feaver, or a Synochos imputris doth sometimes migrate ( change) into an Hectick Feaver.

PHysicians do ordinarily observe three sorts of Worms, engendred within the body of man, viz. ordinary Gut Worms ( Lumbrici sive vermes teretes) of a long and slender shape like ordinary Earth Worms▪ being generated out of a slimy matter, col­liquated from the Mesaraick Glandules and adhering to the intern tumicks (skins) of the thin Guts, which as soon as vivifyed ( grown live) through a vital spirit inclosed within that slimy matter, as it were in a bag, and so shaped into Worms, loosen and slide off [Page 76] from the intern tunick ( coat) of the Guts, and frequently creep into the Stomach for nutriment, being attracted thither by the sweet chyle ( the white juice of the Stomach,) whence they are called Stomach or Maw­worms. These being most usually engender'd in Children, do commonly cause them to look hollow-eyed with a lived ( of a lead Colour) Circle about the under eye-lids, sharp nosed, thin jawed, and incommoded with a slimy mattery Cough, stink of Breath, and an Erratick Feaver; all Symptoms very near a kin to those of a True Consumption, and if not prevented in time render their Subjects incurable.

The cause of the foresaid extenuation of body and hollow-look, is imputed to the defect of nutriment, arriving through the chyle's ( the white juice of the Stomach) being absorbed by the Worms, and the bloods vitiation ( alteration) by malign putrid va­pors, smoaking throughout the Vessels out of a putrefyed slime of the Guts, and so consequently rendred unapt of being apposed ( joyned) to the parts.

[Page 77]The said putrid vapors through exciting a Feaver do colliquate the Phlegmatick hu­mours of the body and brain, which transu­ding ( sweating through) or distilling to the Lungs, cause their mattery Cough.

The stink of breath is caused through steems, rising from the corrupted chyle of the Stomach.

There is a second sort of Worms, com­monly resembled to a Womans hair-lace or fillet, thence called Taenia or Tinea, genera­ted likewise in the Guts. The shape of these Worms is flat, small, and round, like to Gourd Seeds, which being link'd toge­ther to the breadth and length of an ordi­nary hair-lace, seem to be united into one intire Worm, which sometime is found to be of an incredible length, it may be of five or six yards, as Tulpius records in his obser­vations. Iacobus Oethaeus lib. Observ. Med. attests to have seen three Worms evacuated by a Woman, the longest whereof did equal Eighteen yards. Alexander Camerarius recites one of twenty yards long. Platerus reports a view of several Worms, that were at least forty foot long. The breadth [Page 78] of this Verment is sometime an inch, other­times half an inch broad. It appears usually of an Ash colour, mark'd with black spots, or cross lines going a thwart, dividing it into thousands of small bodies like Gourds. Mo­tion it hath none, so that it can scarce be termed a moving creature, neither doth it live, because it doth not increase internally like living creatures, but by apposition. So that it's called a Worm only from it's external shape, and appearance, the head is small and long, and the tail short.

Persons thus vermifyed ( troubled with Worms) seldome go to stool without avoid­ing a great quantity of those verminous ( wormy) seeds, and are oft incommoded with gnawing griping pains round about the Navil, oftimes extending to the Hip-bone; which gnawing pains are apt to increase upon the least emptiness of Stomach, so that the patient is ever obliged to fill his Gut with an immoderate proportion of food, not only for to nourish his body, but also to appease that ravenous Verment, which notwithstanding doth defraude the body of its nutriment, and infects the spirits with [Page 79] malign steems, which in some space of time must necessarily produce a very sensible ex­tenuation of the parts.

The material cause of this Worm is a vitious slimy chyle adured by a strong heat, that dryes it up into such numerous bodies.

Ascarides are a small sort of Worms like Magots, bred in the intestinum rectum, or Gut of the Fundament, exciting an in­commodious itching of the Fundament, with frequent desires of going to Stool. They are usually discovered by the excrements being perfused with them. This sort of ver­ment, immitting putrid fumes into the Vessels doth sometimes cause faints, and Convulsion Fits, as Iessenus witnesses to have seen such accidents in several. They may also by the same malign smoaks occasion a decay of the parts, though more rarely than Maw-worms or a Tinea.

These Ascarides do now and then creep into the Thighs and other parts.

Worms are likewise generated in most other parts of the body, though very infre­quently. Bauhinus (if I mistake not) speaks of a Worm generated in one of the Ven­tricles [Page 80] of the Heart, the patient dying of a Consumption. Hollerius reports a Worm discovered in a mans Brain. Duretus remarks another generated in the Kidneys, and evacuated by Urin. Several make men­tion of Worms engendred in the Lungs, Liver, Spleen, &c. all perducing their sub­jects into Consumptions.

THe ordinary back dore the Pox goeth out at, when it commits its subject to the custody of its first Mother Earth, is a Pockie Consumption, occasioned through the dispersion of virulent steems out of the hearth of those Phagedenick Ulcers; by immanous ( outragious) arthritick ( of the joynts) pains, and continual vigilies ( inter­mission from sleep.) But since I have discours­ed of this in my Venereal discovery fol. 167. and 168. I shall insist no farther upon it.

I Shall not here undertake the task of dis­cussing the possibility of fascinous ( be­witch'd) Diseases farther, than refer your censures to such experimental instances as are produced for it. But whether those ex­perimental remarques may be credited; and if so, whether to be imputed to Witch-craft, therein lyes the point of controversie. Now these three Specifick notes will easily resolve the query.

1. The Symptoms of Witchcraft must transcend the dependance on natural causes, as Vomiting Pins, pieces of Nails, &c.

2. There must be several credible wit­ness, that assert the sight of those supernatural Symptoms.

3. The said Symptoms, as they are super­natural, so they must be only curable by supernatural means, namely by Devout [Page 82] Prayers, or Diabolical imprecations ( curs­ings) and exorcisms, by the same or other Witches. Several there have been, that attested the sight of persons, that vomited Pins, Hair, Pieces of Nails, Feathers, &c. these certainly are supernatural Symptoms, if true; but those witnesses being such, as their testimonies might well be doubted of, infer no conclusion.

3. it's certain some there have been that have vomited up the foresaid bodies, but they were such, as to get mony from the Spectators, had swallowed up thick short blunt Pins, or Feathers, and vomited them up again voluntarily, as having a power to force themselves a vomiting at their plea­sures by straining, or by other means in tak­ing Vomitories privately.

These two Symptoms are generally asser­ted fascinous. ( bewitcht) viz.

1. A Lingring Consumption without a sensible internal or external cause, and yield­ing to no kind of Physical Cure.

2. Effrayable and supervulgar Convulsion Fits, distorting the patients Neck and Back in a manner, that it's a Thousand wonders [Page 83] they are not broken, or dislocated, turning their eyes e'en round within their heads, deluding their Phansies with strange fright­ful visions, speaking strange languages, &c. an emblem of the first we have in the rela­tion of King Iames the 4. or 5. of Scotland, who falling away in his flesh more and more every day, without the precedence of any Procatarctick cause that should occasion it, as Melancholy, ill Dyet, &c. and notwith­standing the helps of Physick against any intern cause or Disease, that might be ratio­nally conjectured, at last was suddenly cured by decharming the Witchcraft, that that had long been suspected, and at length discovered in Danemark, which was an Image of Wax exactly resembling the said King, (whereby it was also known) and pierced through in several parts of the body with pins, and particularly in those parts, where the the King felt his pains, which as they were taken out of such parts, so his pains ceased likewise at the same instant in the same parts; and being all drawn out, felt himself intirely cured, and suddenly grew fat again. In reference to the decision of [Page 84] this instance; there can be only this objected, that had the King taken no Physick, his Di­sease might more probably have been suspe­cted fascinous; but since he had made use of the best Medical helps the Art of man could afford, which continued for a long space do oft at last perform marvailous cures; the Kings subitous recovery ought rather to be attributed to the Skill of his Physicians. Likewise Children are very apt to fall suddenly into a wasting of their flesh, which happening as the other instance without any visible cause, is frequently termed a Bewitch'd Disease; but question­less that Symptom must depend upon some obstruction of the Entrails, or Verminous disposition of body; and therefore a meet hallucination (errour) of the Vulgar.

The second particular is exemplifyed in Hysterick ( troubled with Fits of the Mother) Women, especially Maids, the rarity of whose Symptoms doth oft strike such an at­tonement into Spectators, that they confi­dently report them possessed with the De­vil. In the year 1661. there lived one Mary Waite of the Society of Free-willing [Page 85] Baptists, at Horly in the County of Oxon, who was frequently troubled with miserable gripes in her Guts, pinchings at her heart, choaking at her throat, suppression of her breath, blows on her head, ejaculations from her seat, and sometimes off of the Horses back whereon she rid, now and then was struck dumb, deaf, and blind, oft enter­tained with Angelick Visions, and reduced to a very low ebb of Strength, &c. all which extravagant Symptoms her Visiters were pleased to term Sufferings and Buffetings of Satan, and accordingly, to the intent of turning this evil one out of possession, they spent near upon a Twelvemonth with her in Prayer, but to little purpose, until such time that one of her Visions revealed to her, that she should feed upon bread and water, boild to a Panada, and drink nothing but Spring water; whereby she soon grew rid of her Devil, and intirely recovered. Now observe, to this day cannot that people be perswaded, but that the foresaid Mary was possessed with the Devil, and ascribe her deliverance to their implorations ( prayers;) so that judging the nature of the Disease by [Page 86] the remedy ( à juvantibus,) if we believe she was delivered from those Fits by Pray­ers of the Godly, we cannot deny the Disease to be Diabolical ( of the Devil:) But since the case appears quite in another dress to the eye of a Physician, who can soon produce parallel Symptoms, if not worse, issuing from ordinary Diseases, we may justly doubt of the rise of this.

It's not rare to see young Amorous Girls through the fury of an Hysterick (Fit of the Mother) Paroxysme cast into a Trance for an hour or two, and all that while under a resemblance to the features of death; and possibly diverted with some merry Phansies or rare Visions of their Sweet-hearts, or of Kings, Princes, &c. and it may be some a Courting or Embracing of them, which makes 'em now and then burst out into a strange Fit of laughing, to the amazement of their Visiters.

Others again of a more zealous frame during their Trance seem to converse with nothing but Angels or Devils, as this fore­said Mary, who according to the Narrative seems to have had several interviews and [Page 87] discourses with Angels and Devils, the con­tents whereof she afterwards recited to her Brethren, who faithfully recorded them upon Parchment, as some new Reve­lations.

But those of a more trist (sad) and me­lancholique composure, their Hysterick Trances proving Tragick perspectives to them, perhaps of beholding the murder or execution of some of their dearest Relations, or those they bear an affection to, are inci­dent into sudden cryes and howling tears.

And lastly, the Fits of others seems most Energick in their tongues, in occasioning them to speak strange Languages, and Sen­tences like Oracles; to which latter some of this age have given an equal credit, with that of the Ancients to the Oracles of Delph.

It's inserted in Histories that a Maid of Liege, whilest detained with one of her Uterin Passions, expressed her self very fluently in the Greek Tongue, although when released of her Fit, she was utterly ignorant of the said Language.

[Page 88]Another Italian Lass Peter Messias, [...] Camerarius makes mention of in his Ho [...] Succ. who proving Phrentick through the extremity of a Feaver, spake very good French, without ever having been known to be experienced in that Tongue. But to return to Mary, wherein I do willingly re­tard my self somewhat the longer, since a [...] intire tract has been published by her Bre­thren to delude the world with their mira­culous casting out of a Devil; which all the while proved to be no other than an Hyste­rick Passion; and if that may be termed Devil, then many an Hysterick Woman has a Devil more in her than she had before.

To render the point more clear; [...] choaking in her Throat, griping, and pinch­ing of the heart, (Cardiaca passio) he [...] trancing, imaginary beating of her head, (which is no other than a sudden Convulsion of the Dura mater) her being cast off her Seat or Horses back, an effect of a strong Convulsion violently and swiftly retracting all the Muscels of the body one way, which must needs be forcible enough to cast the body to a great distance; for a man volun­tarily [Page 89] can cast his body a great way by leaping▪ through the natural impulse of some of his Muscels, much more when they are all violently moved one way by a strong Con­vulsive motion; her strange visions and imaginations, &c. are all genuine Symp­toms of an Hysterick Passion, or Fit of the Mother, fuming up in malign and poiso­nous clowds to her Guts, and there causing a griping, thence to the mouth of the Stomach, and there occasions that seeming pinching at her heart; thence to her Heart, where it caused a Deliquium (fainting) and Syncope, (sowning) so up to the Lungs, whence her choaking; and thence to the Brain, the occa­sion of all her depravate ( false) visions; or sometimes those venomous fumes might di­rectly have tended to the brain, and spring of the seven pair of Nerves; & thence down the back, where they may impell all the Nerves and Muscels into a Convulsion. Add here­to her cure by Panada, and drinking of Spring water, (argumentum à juvantibus) singularly conducing to the repelling of those uterin fumes, (smoaks of the Mother) and coarctating ( shrinking) the passages, whereby [Page 90] the said fumes must necessarily be intercep­ted, and in time absolutely cure her.

However this one Symptom seems the strangest of all, that as she rid on Horseback she saw the Devil twice making to her in the shape of a black Angel. As to this I am very apt to believe her; and the manner thus: her Imagination being depraved with those black Hysterick smoaks, and accustom­ed to receive an impression of a Devil, from those black clouds forming themselves into such a shape within the Cells of the Brain, possibly just at the termination of the Optick nerves, (the Sinews of the sight,) they might easily return to the same shape and impression; besides, those clouds so shaped might as wel make an impression upon the roots of the Optick Nerves within, which continuated to the eye, especially if hebetated ( rendred dull or dozed,) cause the same per­ception, as a wind within the head, when the brain is distemper'd by a cold, beating against the root of the auditory Nerve (the finew of the hearing) and protracted to the Tympanum (a little Skin within the Ear) causes the sensation of a noise, as if it were [Page 91] heard from without, though it is not; or in short, why should not the Eye be subject to be deceived by an object from within, as well as the Ear by an internal noise, or the Tongue by a tast from within? that it is so, is apparent in Phrenticks, who do really imagine, they see that without, which their imagination is affected with within.

A Consumption of the Back here implyes little more than a sensible gradual di­minution of the strength in the back, arriv­ing through a counter-natural proflux ( flowing) of Sperm (Seed.)

Common experience is a suffrage (vote) to Galen's Dictate, that a natural and mode­rate evacuation of Sperm through Venereal Embraces, doth greatly conduce to the pre­servation of health; disposes a man to fetch his breath more freely, and renders the bo­dy [Page 92] light and sprightful; and that not only in men, but other Animals; a Cock hath no sooner pleased a Hen, but presently after he Crows; a tone that corresponds to singing, attesting his mirth & spritefulness: the reason is because Omne nimium est Naturae inimi­cum, whatever is overmuch is offensive to nature, as oppressing the spirits; which burden being diminish'd, or taken off from them, must needs render them more lively and lusty. Now the more noble and excellent that is, which is abounding, the greater damage it imports; and therefore blood when abound­ing, causes acute putrid Feavers, inflamma­tions of the Bowels, that oft inevitably tend to the ruine of the whole: but of a far more dangerous importance is an over plenitude of the Spirits, as being of a more noble and excellent degree; whence it is, that a reten­tion of the Seed proves of so calamitous a consequence, because of its turgency with spirits: in Women we see it effects such effrayable Hysterick Symptoms, (as appears in the Narrative of Mary Waite) as no other Disease can Parallel: in men it occasions in­flammations of the Testicles or Cods, (com­monly [Page 93] terminating into grangrenes, incurable Ulcers,) a continual melancholick dull hea­vy posture of body, difficulty of respiration, ( breathing) palpitation ( beating) of the heart, a durable tinning noise and pains in the head, and worse then all these a Sper­matick (seedy) Feaver, in malignity and putrefaction transcending all others. By the way, this sort of Feaver is not mentioned by any Authour, because it's comprehended under continual humoral Feavers, but cer­tainly for want of observation, whose Urins if heedfully perspected, appear full of white filaments ( threds) or Spermatick Hairs, which Physicians have hitherto erroneously judged adust ( burn'd) hairs expelled from the Kidneys. Another most ridiculous (though not without great danger) Symptom the said Spermatick Plethory, or retention of Seed produces in Women, is a Madness of the Mother, ( furor uterinus,) impelling them to all manner of Lascivious looks, Bawdy discourses, and inticing gestures, to such a degree, that they oft take up their Coats, and beg men to humour them, as if they begged for an Alms. Hereto corresponds [Page 94] a Madness of the Father, which we find so extravagant in some men, that they cannot forbear, but must bend all their discourses looks, and actions, to wantonness; nei­ther can this or that in Women be sentenced vice, because occasioned by a Disease, which the Apostle himself could term no other than Burning, (whereby we see he compar­ed it to the greatest pain in the world,) and therefore to prevent the growth of so dangerous an accident, he advised all rather to Marry than to Burn. However in these days that Symptom seldom arrives to that height of Madness in Men, since they can easily find the way to a Bawdy-house to prevent it; yet this doth not exclude but that its as possible in them, as in Women, whose chastity worn into them by a strict educa­tion, rather than by the dictates of their seeble reason, diverts them from taking the same course of prevention. Neither is this all the mischief of a Spermatick Plethory, of times transmitting hot putrid steems of Sperm to the brain, (which is not strange, there being that Sympathy and intercourse between the brain and the natural parts, that [Page 95] the least Phancy of a pleasing object puts them into posture,) which insinuating into its substance, engender a Bedlam madness. And what makes so many hundreds of Wo­men run Mad, but that which they call Love? by oft stirring of those inflamed and putre­fyed Spermatick fumes, which not being vented through their natural passages, are preternaturally forced up into the pores of the brain, whereby its temperament is sub­verted, and a venene ( venomous) quality subsequent to it, depraves the Phansie into a Madness. Now had these females not been interrupted with Wooers, those parts would have remained dormant, and consequently not attracted or generated such a quantity of Sperm, which otherwise abounding and be­ing oft stirred with their love visions with­out evacuation, must necessarily putrefie. So that we may hence plainly collect, the first inconvenience Women fall into through rupture of Love, which had hitherto occa­sioned that plethory and commotion of Sperm, must be Fits of the Mother; because the Seed being augmented, moved, and not vented, must putrefie, and so cause those [Page 96] Fits. 2. The next inconvenience is a Bedlam madness ( mania,) produced through a stronger passion of Love, occasioning a greater Plethory ( aboundance) of Sperm and a stronger commotion, which not being vented, because of the Womans frustration in her Love, inflames and turns to a more malign venene putrefaction, whose fumes do easily intoxicate ( poison) the Brain. Not­withstanding though all sorts of madness im­ply so difficult a cure, because of the deep latency of a venene cause in a noble part, yet this kind of madness that's occasioned by Love, in the commencement yeelds to the easiest cure, viz. by slackning the bridle of chastity, whereby vent is given to the pu­trefying Sperm, and the ascending malign Spermatick fumes revell'd ( drawn back:) And by that sort of cure I have heard of seve­ral Women reduced to their perfect wits; and of two or three Maniacks ( Mad-mer,) who although impelled into that distemper through an adust malign Hypochondriack Melancholy, were set to rights again by the kindness of their Mistresses; for which cure there can no other reason be given, than that [Page 97] Venereal evacuations do potently revell (or draw) from the head, (whereby the said Melancholick fumes are retracted down­ward,) and refrigerate ( cool) the adust hu­mors that inflame the Brain; and lastly, abate that over plenitude of raging spirits. Moreover, we may observe that Italians, though extremely disposed to a Maniack Madness, through their adust Melancholick temperature and studious course of life, yet it's a very rare thing to hear of any Ma­niacks among them, and that certainly for no other reason, than their frequent use of Women, which the indulgence of their Religion has made Universal: on the con­trary in those Countreys, where the seve­rity of their Laws doth strictly enjoyn cha­stity upon the Inhabitants, as in Holland, though the coldness of the Climat and their cold Dyet doth oppositely resist Maniack Madness, yet there is not a Town so small, but is provided with a Bedlam, for to secure those numbers of Maniacks both Men and Women. Neither is the benefit of this sort of evacuation so particular, as to relate on­ly to individuals, but that the publick also [Page 98] partakes of it, as in Turky, Italy, and Spain, and other Countreys, where Polygamy (hav­ing many Wives) and Scortation ( Whoring) are tolerated, they find it renders their Sub­jects both Men and Women more tractable, and obedient to Government, and seldom are known to rebel; questionless, by subtra­cting great quantities of spirits, which are so copious in the Sperm, the Plethory where­of would otherwise render them ( viz. the Spirits) turbulent and furious.

On the other side where that kind of liber­ty is restrained, their Subjects do oft fall into furies and rebellions against the Magi­strate, as appears too often in these Septentri­onal ( northern) climats: the reason is as before, because the said Plethory, and retention of Sperm renders the Spirits furious and mad.

This premissory discourse doth not infer so great a dammage from an over-repletion of Sperm, but that the detriment of an over­evacuation may be equal, or rather surmount it. Henricus ab Heer in his observations relates the Cure of one of his Patients, whom finding suddenly reduced to the lowest ebb of weakness, could suspect no other cause, [Page 99] but his over-pleasing his Wife; in which surmisal, the Patients Urin replenish'd with whitish Spermatick Filaments, and his con­fession after he had recovered his Speech, confirm'd him. This doubtful Cure gave a sufficient testimony of the danger, he was precipitated into through that Venereal Syncope.

Neither is this the sole Disease those fu­rious Goats arrive to, but are oft strucken with tremblings of the joynts, Palsies, Gouts, and other neuritick ( Sinewy) Diseases. Two years ago, I had a Flemmen in Cure at Lon­don, his Disease was a Ptisick in a dangerous degree, or Asthma oft excurring to an Orthopnoea (a Ptisick in the worst degree;) the cause a Metastasis or translation of tar­tarous humours from his joynts to his Lungs; for it seems his preceding Disease was the Gout, which was droven inwards through the unskilfulness of his Physician into his breast. Hereupon I inquired into the first occasion of this Arthritick ( of the joynts) malady, whether it was Hereditary, or acquired by ill Dyet, or by what other ex­ternal cause; to this he gave me a full satis­faction, [Page 100] ingeniously confessing, that when a young man and marryed to a lusty Frow he had so travailed himself off his Legs, in yeelding to his Wifes insatiableness, that about a year after he fell into an Universal tremor ( trembling) of all his joynts, that when going his Legs trembled under him, and was no sooner recovered of that, but Arthritick pains succeeded, which after­wards exchanged into an incurable Ptisick. Several other evils this kind of excess pro­duces, but most frequently a Consumption of the Back, which Hippocrates stiles a Tabes Dorsalis, appropriating it most to young­men, surfeiting themselves with the first tasts of their Nuptial ( wedding) delights.

The immediate cause of this Consump­tion is an insupportable loss of Animal spi­rits ( those that move the joynts), engendred by the Medulla Spinalis ( or Marrow of the Back) and the Brain, which said losse of spirits must necessarily occasion a great weakness of the Back and Brain, and conse­quently of all those parts that depend on them, viz. the joynts, as the Legs, Arms, &c. 2. The Brain and Back suffering so great a [Page 101] draught of Animal spirits, must necessarily draw a great proportion of Vital blood to recruit themselves, and furnish the other parts, that do so immoderately draw from them, whereby the fleshy and other parts being deprived of their nutriment, must consequently be extenuated, and if continu­ed, reduced to a perfect Consumption.

That an excessive evacuation of Sperm doth subtract such a large quantity of spirits i [...] plain to those, that conceive the genera­tion and constitution of it; viz. it's con­stituted and generated out of a copious ( plentiful) conflux ( flowing) of Animal spirits, transmitted ( sent) from the Brain and Marrow of the Back, through proper chanals, leading into the Testicles, ( Cods) whose office is to abstract the purest part of them, and so to knit and unite them into a thick fluid body. Whence taking our Cal­culation from the essence of wine abstracted from its first body, it appears probable, that the Sperm being an essence abstracted from a great quantity of Animal spirits, (which again are essences abstracted from a large proportion of Vital blood) doth in the [Page 102] quantity of a dram contain as many Animal spirits, as are contained in an ounce within the Nerves, which ounce of spirits can be abstracted from no less than eight ounces of Vital blood; if so, you may easily appre­hend what dammage the body must suffer by a small loss of Sperm. That Sperm is ulti­mately abstracted from Animal spirits is evident, in regard the Brain and Back do so immediately partake of the Symptoms of an immoderate evacuation, viz. a great weakness and pain of the Back, a contracting pain of the Sinews in the Neck, and all the Muscles of the Body, and obtusion ( dulness) of the senses, both internal and external, &c. I could insert many other arguments, clearly demonstrating that assertion, but that my compendious design will scarce permit.

To conclude, I shall only add two ways of immoderate evacuation of Sperm, viz. by over-frequent converses with Women; and by a Running of the Reins.

THe bare words of a Consumption of the Kidneys, do plainly declare their pro­per intendment, and therefore shall spare my pains of proposing a Description; that which falls most in consideration, is the causes thereof, which may be conceived to work that Symptom various ways, viz. by starving of the Kidneys; by colliquation; ( melting) by devoration or corrosion ( gnaw­ing) of their substance; or by dissolving of their fundamental mixture. In reference to the first; they may be starved through ob­struction of the Emulgent Vessels, that should transport their nutriment to them; or through a compression and coarctation ( shrinking) of their substrance by reason of some compressing tumour within their slesh, as a Scirrus, Oedema, or an Apostem, or quantity of Gravel generated within their [Page 104] Parenchyma (substance,) or from a com­pressing cause from without, yet within their capacity or Pelvis, as a Stone, &c.

2. The humours and Fat of the Kidneys are apt to be colliquated ( melted) through a great heat from within, as an Ardent ( burning) colliquative ( melting) Feaver, or an inflammation of their flesh; or through an excessive heat from without; as through over-riding, running, going, sitting with the back against a Fire, or against the hot Sun.

3. Mordicant excrementitions Gall, and Armoniack tartar ablegated ( sent) thi­ther with the Urine, do inflame, corrode, and Ulcerate their flesh, whereby it's con­verted into matter: or Gravel and Stone, generated within their capacity do oft grind away their flesh, and effuse their blood, apparent in a Sanguine Emiction ( making water.) 4. Sometimes a malign humour insinuates into their substance, causing an immediate dissolution of their Balsamick principles, which happens now and then in malign Feavers; and by taking of poisons, as Cantharides, the Herb Dipsacus, &c. Through these kinds of Consumptions the [Page 105] Kidneys have been observed some to be eaten away by an Ulcer to the ambient ( cir­rounding) Skin, others to be dryed into a friable ( brittle) substance.

Each sort of these Consumptions is de­tected by its proper Signs, viz. a colliqua­tive Consumption by a great heat in the upper part of the Loins, a high coloured Urin with a number of small streeks of fat, swimming a top in the form of a Cob­web. An Ulcer of the Kidneys is known by a grating pain in the Loins, and excretion of matter, descending to the bottom of the Urinal. The other sorts are likewise distinguish'd by particular signs.

A Consumption of the Lungs may import two significations; the one, a conside­rable wasting of the Lungs themselves; the other, their occasioning the intire body to consume without any great loss of their own substance. We shall relate our discourse to both.

Reflecting upon the particular substance of the Lungs, their situation, and connexion, ( fastning) we shall discover them to be very much exposed to extern and intern injuries, and no less capable of injuring the Noble parts, whereby the whole by reason of its ab­solute dependance on them must likewise receive a great prejudice. Anatomy exhi­bits the Lungs to be of a laxe, porous, light, or spungy texture of substance, which wise Nature hath so formed, for to answer her scope, in a continual motion of inspiring and [Page 107] expiring the Air, whereunto a weighty body would otherwise prove very disobedient, and unless porous and pervious ( full of holes) like to a Spunge unfit to imbibe and transco­late (strain) the Air; for in effect the office of the Lungs is only to serve the heart in the capacity of Aereal strainers, to strain the air and seperate it from gross, or other offensive inherents it may carry with it. Wherefore since the Lungs by reason of their office are obliged to a perpetual commerce with the Air, (which is subject to momen­tary alterations, now cold, hot, dry, or moist, then thick, thin, foggy, rymy, stinking, poisonous,) they must necessarily lye open to great yea irreparable dammages, especially where their bodies are so unapt to resist or sustain them, because of their thin, and lacerable ( easily to be tared) com­posure.

To these inspirable hurts we may annu­merate those they sustain from their expira­tion of all sort of noxious ( offensive) and fuliginous ( sooty) steems, and stinking putrid breaths, and besides all that being constantly imployed in motion without acquiring [Page 108] a moments rest. Their situation is within the breast, hung perpendicular under the Brain, and near to the heart, whose wings they represent, whereunto they are connect­ed by the Arteria Venosa and Vena Arte­riosa; by means of which situation they are exposed to receive all the droppings from the Brain, whence Coughs, Ptisicks, Ulcers; besides the ill humours the Vena Arteriosa conveighs thither, which together with those distillations from the Brain, finding them a very fit Cistern, because of their Sponginess, do oft force them into such a swelling, as may justly be termed a Dropsie of the Lungs. Next considering their coherence with the heart, are thereby rendred more capable of doing the greatest mischiefs.

By the precedence you may now observe, how facil it is to drop into a Consumption of the Lungs, a Disease that is so fatal to Londons Inhabitants; and no wonder, but a greater wonder any can steal away into their Graves without a Consumption, con­sidering the pernicious air of the City, the weaknesses of Lungs people inherit from their Parents, and their exposal to those inju­ries, we have just now instanced.

A Consumption of the Lungs is either without, or with an Ulceration. That without arrives through a Scirrosity, Apo­stem, Putrefaction of humours within its pores, or a Crude tubercle (a small hard swelling.) 1. The Lungs oft imbibing Phlegmatique and Melancholique humours, (that are distilled from the Brain, or con­veighed thither through its pores and chan­als,) are now and then deprehended Scirrous ( of a stony hardness) by dissipation ( dispersion) of the subtiler parts, and lapidi­fication ( conversion into a stony substance) of the grosser that remain, or they may be left indurated ( hardned) through the gross reliques of a Peripneumonia, or inflamma­tion of the Lungs. 2. By Disfection of expired Pulmonicks, ( diseased in their Lungs) [Page 110] their Lungs have oft appeared full of small hard Imposthums. 3. Excrementitious hu­mours, such as are expectorated by a Cough after a Cold, or in an Asthma (Ptisick) Peripneumonia, or Pleurisie, are very apt to putrefie and corrupt in the Lungs, (as ap­pears by the stinking breath of such that are so indisposed,) whereby their accessory nu­triment being vitiated, ( rendred faulty) and rejected by the Lungs, they are occasioned to wast. 4. A Crude Tubercle obstructing the inspiration of fresh air, and expiration of the fuliginous steems of the heart, doth thereby extremely inflame and dry the Lungs, the continuation whereof doth at last reduce them to an absolute withering.

How these kinds of Consumptions pro­pagate their evil to the whole body, may easily be collected from the former dis­course.

HEre I must make my Reader familiar with the Traditional notions, young Students in Physick derive from their Hackney Authors, upon an Ulcerous Con­sumption of the Lungs. And to be more methodical, it's not unnecessary to digest their documents into several classes.

1. Let's make a disquisition of what they make of it. Pulverinus, Godofred. Steeghius fol. 447. and Sennert. 305. define it a Di­sease of a diminish'd bulk, ( diminuta mag­nitudo.) Hollerius, Duretus, Forest. Nic. Piso, &c. state it a Disease of a discontinuated Unity, ( Soluta Unitas,) because it sourceth from an Ulcer in the Lungs. Platerus passes it by, though Mercurial subtly spyes three sorts of Diseases in it, viz. a diminish'd quantity, a discontinuated unity, and a hot [Page 112] distemper. But Capivao. comments it chiefly to be an hot distemper, there being a conti­nual heat of the parts, and an inflammation of the Lungs, alwayes conspicuous in that Disease. What to assert among these once great Rabbies seems at first sight difficult, but upon a little pausing upon the matter you'l find it a clear case. Those that infer a dis­continuated Unity, namely the Ulcer in the Lungs for the Disease, mistake the Disease for its cause, the Ulcer being the chief cause of the Consumption. Neither can they be thought orthodox that fling in their verdits for a diminuted magnitude, that rather ap­pearing to be an effect, or symptom of the Ulcer in the Lungs, and so is the heat of the parts; so that none of 'em can hit one ano­ther in the teeth, that they are in the wrong. But should I insist longer upon these triffles, I am like to make my self a participant of their ridiculous discourses, and therefore shall step over to give you a brief of the causes, they allow to the foresaid Consump­tion; though indeed I ought to have touch't, what part they generally conclude the place affected; which some will have the Lungs, [Page 113] others the heart, and many the whole body. The Authour of that Treatise intituled De Definit. Medic. brings in likewise the breast, ( thorax,) throat, and aspera arteria (wind-pipe) being affected with a malign Ulcer, for seats of an Ulcerous Consump­tion.

Touching the internal causes of this sort of Consumption, Dogmatists do universally state an Ulcer of the Lungs to be the imme­diate cause, which happens sometime in the Parenchyma or flesh of the Lobes of the Lungs; othertimes in their pipes, ( bronchia.

This Ulcer in the Lungs may be occa­sioned by several mediate causes, viz.

1. Sharp bilious (cholerick) corrosive (gnawing) humours, issuing out at the pores or lips of the veins, into the spongy substance of the Lungs, whose flesh they af­terwards devour & corrupt, soon making a putrid hole or cavern, which is then termed an Ulcer of the Lungs.

2. Hippocrates assigns a ferin (wild and taring) Catarrh falling into the Lungs, for another antecedent cause of a Pulmonique Ulcer: a ferin Catarrh is an hot, thin, and [Page 114] sharp distillation of Rheum, which stream­ing to the Lungs, gnaws their veins and flesh, and so effects an Ulcer.

3. Gross Phlegm stagnating ( lying still) in the Lungs, in process of time putrefies, and acquires a gnawing quality, thereby making prey of the substance of the Lungs.

4. The rupture ( breaking) of a vein in the Lungs, effusing blood into their pores, where it immediately putrefies and Ulce­rates.

The Ulcer these causes produce in the Lungs, Hippocrates calls a ferin (wild) Ulcer, because the Nails of those, whose Lungs are Ulcerated, are recurvated or turn'd back like the claws of wild beasts, that is, when they begin to draw near to their long home.

Moreover this sort of Ulcer is ever cir­rounded with an inflammation, which being digested into matter, renders the Ulcer so much the more sordid.

To these wee'l add two more, namely a Pleurisie, which by expectorating ( spitting out humors by coughing) sharp putrid matter through the Lungs, may now and then occa­sion an Ulcer.

[Page 115]Lastly, an Empyema or a collection of purulent matter in the capacity (hallow) of the breast, if not suddenly cured, doth undoubtedly impel the Patient into a Phthi­sical Consumption.

Chymists impute the cause to a corrosive salt, that's divorced from the Sulphur and Mercury of the blood, and afterwards dis­solved in those liquors, that distill into the Lungs.

THe indexterity and worse success of the most famous of our Consumption Cu­rers, do evidently demonstrate their dimness in beholding its causes; and upon that account we may justly prye into the mysteries they involve them in, and unravel what is so strongly knit in every Physicians pericranium▪ To this purpose we are to [Page 116] gaze each limb of that Doctrine by it self under the aspect of these ensuing Queries.

1. What kind of Choler this is that prove [...] so ravenous upon the Lungs?

So careless are Authours in this particular, that they imagine the cause of a Consump­tion sufficiently delared in their scripts, by imputing it to excrementitious choler; but whether they denote the ordinary yellow gall, ( bilis flava) vitellin, green, red, or adust black choler, is left as a bone for every Readers discretion to knabble at: if we should commit the first of these, namely yellow, or vitellin choler to the test, common obser­vation in yellow Jaundises, and other Disea­ses excuses them from such an Ulcerous acri­mony ( sharpness,) wherein though very copious and rampant, injure the body no other way than by deforming it with a citri­nous (yellowish) discoloration.

In the next place, yellow gall is so fami­liar with the substance of the Lungs, that they seem to thirst chiefly after the more yellowish or cholerick part of the blood for their nutriture.

[Page 117]Green gall the Institutists would persuade us, to be an effect of an over-hot Stomach, produced out of the hotter proportion of the chyle, ( the white juice of the Stomach,) which varies in deepness of colour, according to the intenseness of the heat of the Stomach, some being of a lighter green like Verde­grease, thence called Aeruginous gall ( Bilis Aeruginosa,) other of a deeper stain, or of a dark brownish green, like boyl'd Calwort leaves, or woad, thence termed Bilis Glastea; another of a green, different from both like to a leek, therefore denominated Bilis Por­racea, i. e. Leeky gall. Neither is't their judgment, that any of these greens should be capacitated of damnifying the Lungs, because of the remoteness of their harth; and was their Spring of a nearer situation, they cannot well tell how from a corrosive gall to derive the other Symptoms, that usually attend Pulmonique Consumptives, as moist Phlegmatique coughs, frequent spittings, drowsiness, and dulness of the senses; which rather declare their dependance on a cold Phlegmatick humour, than a sharp cholerick one. Whence we may deduct a second and [Page 118] third Query. viz. 2. How chance such cold Symptoms in Consumptions to issue from an hot cause? 3. Upon surmisal that Aeru­ginous gall should gnaw Ulcers in the Lungs, is it transmitted to them from the brain (whether it may be supposed to be sublimed from the Stomach) by distillation, or through the Vena arteriosa? If either way, why should it pass through the principal parts, as the Heart, or the Brain, without annoying either, which seem of a more tender disposi­tion than the Lungs, that are hardned with the weather, or extern air they inspire? 4. It's wonder Authors never summon'd blew gall for the cause of Consumptions, which the expectorated (spit out by Cough) matter oft appears tincted with; and beyond that, the Lungs of expired Consumptives do not seldome appear full of those blew kind of Spots, which instance together with the eruption of blew spots (exant hemata livida) in malign Feaver, are a certain attest of blew gall. This the Institutists have so little noted, that they never thought of putting it in their Institutes. However not questioning whether Green, Blew, or Black [Page 119] be the mischief, supposing it to be any of them, and situated near or about the Sto­mach, why should it prove more Anarrho­pous, (flowing upwards) so as to attaque the Lungs, than Catarrhapous, (flowing down­wards,) as it doth in a Dysentery (bloody flux) pains of the Haemorrhoids, inflammation of any of the lower parts, Diabetes (a conti­nual pissing) or a hot Dysury (difficulty of making water.) 5. In what part of the body is the true spring, or source, where this cor­rosive choler is engendred? 6. Whether a Pulmonique Consumption never happeneth but upon spitting or coughing up blood? 7. By what power or quality doth fleam stagnating in the Lungs cause a Consumption? 8. Whether that consuming fleam is harbour'd in the Pipes, or substance of the Lungs within their Pores? 9. Whether the foreinstanced fleam distils from the head▪ or be imported through the Vessels? 10. Whether an Hectick Fea­ver be a cause of a Consumption, or a symptom of the cause of a Consumption, or symptom of the Consumption it self? 11. Whether a Pul­monique Consumption cannot happen without the concomitance of an Hectick Feaver? [Page 120] 12. Whether there be no other sort of true, perfect, or proper Consumptions, than a Pul­monique (of the Lungs) Consumption? These and many other problems being pass­ed by, not only for stating of them, but resolving, do impeach Physicians of their sloth, and absolute insufficiency of curing Consumptions, which unless determined is a pregnant testimony, they manage their office in that Disease with as little Skill as Conscience. Neither is the reader to be­have himself so strict and precise as to be contented with no less clear a solution than a demonstration, our notions in Physick being of that scantness, as seldom reach beyond a rational conjecture; which if I ingaged to remonstrate here in this Chapter, should in order of discourse be obliged to make use of the terms and principles inserted in this and the preceeding Chapter, and that with the same disadvantage other assertions have hitherto so obscurely been proved. Where­fore I shall refer you to the next ensuing Chapter, where I do expect a grain's or two allowance, which all men have granted them [Page 121] in attempting a solution of doubts by them­selves stated.

THe passage to this abstuse (hidden) speculation is like a Labyrinth (maze) divided into several stops, turnings or wind­ings, where at each division we must halt, to advise what way lyes most direct whither we are design'd; for the truth of causes steps so lightly through mens imaginations, that they must use great subtility to track its vestiges (footsteps,) which we find now adayes so obliterated (blotted out) with their course searches, that it seems almost barricado'd from any intellectual approach. In pursuit of this precept wee'l advert you of several stops or windings, being neces­sary positions, whose light will lead you to that so obscure cause of a Consumption of the Lungs.

TO decline confusion of causes we have reserved these▪ being of a more rare emergency, for a particular remarque. This distinction of Consumptions is universally observed, that some are moist, others dry. A moist Consumption receives its nomen­clature ( name) from a moist sputation ( spitting) or expectoration that attends it; a dry one is known by its dry Cough: This latter, besides the ordinary praecited causes, is sometimes occasioned by various acci­dents of the Heart, as Wounds, Ulcers, Bones, Stones, and Worms, that are bred in it, and particularly by a Marcour, or a Hectick of the Heart, which together with the Lungs, as Melangthon witnesses ( lib. 1▪ de Anima) were found to be as dry as a [Page 148] Baked Pear, in the expired body of Casimir Marquéss of Brandenburgh. Thus likewise Telesius reports the heart (and consequently the Lungs) of a noble Roman dryed away by an immoderate heat, to nothing but the skin. Fernelius in his Pathol. lib. 5. cap. 12. tells us of one that dyed Consumptive, whose heart was afterwards discovered to be corroded into three large Ulcers, the steems of whose matter must needs have infected the Lungs. Bauhinus among his observations registers this following; that he dissected a Corps, wherein he found the Lungs consumed; the capacity of the breast to be full of putrid and concreased blood, the Pericardium (a skin wherein the heart lyes inclosed as in a bag) to contain above a quart of white matter ( pus,) and the heart extremely extenuated and consumed about the surface. The symptoms that molested the party, were a Cough, a pain in his Breast, difficulty of respiration, and an Hectick Feaver. The Pericardium is like­wise summon'd by Petr. Salius de our▪ Morb. c. 7. for an apparent cause of a Tabes or Marcour, if anywise affected, [Page 149] as suppose inflammed, or pustulated. This may seem strange, that an ignoble part should bring the whole body in danger; but then considering its near situation to the heart, the cause is obvious enough, whence to derive its Consumptive symptoms.

Some might rather imagine, that the drying up of the waterish humours contain­ed in the Pericardium, (supposed by most modern Anatomists to be distined for to moisten and cool the heart) may now and then impell a man into a Consumption, for want of which water, the heart dryes away and shrinks, whereunto the other parts are obliged to sympathize. But in my opinion it's questionable, whether any such waterish liquor be floating in the Pericardium, whilst a man is yet living; for in Beasts, as Dogs or Cats, whose breast hath been pierced alive, to discover, whether the said Mem­brane the heart is wrapt up in, be moistned with that kind of serosity, no such thing was deprehended, in whom notwithstanding there appeared the same necessity for a cooler, as in men, whose languishing heart probably whilst a dying, may seem faintly [Page 150] to sweat such kind of moist drops into its bag. 2. There have been some, that were born destitute of a Pericardium, witness Columbus lib. 15. Anat. where he recites the Anatomy of a Scholar at Rome, whom he found wanting of a Pericardium; so Galen lib. 7. cap. 13. Administ. Anat. doth like­wise instance a Boy, whose heart lay visible, because the breast bone was part cut out, and the Pericardium partly putrefyed.

A dry Consumption may likewise chance upon a Vomica or a tumor of humours turn'd into matter and inclosed in a bag, (whereby Authors would have it differenced from an Apostem) in the Lungs, which before it breaks causes a stertour (or noise in the Throat) in breathing, and a very troublesome Asthma.

A Pulmonique Consumption doth some­times happen upon a Varix, or vein swell­ed in the Lungs, which in length of time doth burst, whence an effusion of blood, and soon after a congestion of purulent matter.

Hippocrates in coac. praed. makes men­tion of a kind of suppuration, that survenes [Page 151] Lethargies, which doth commonly termi­nate into a Consumption. viz. quicunque vero servantur ex Lethargicis ut plurimum suppurati fiunt: those that recover of a Lethargy, for the most part become sup­purated. But lib. 1. de Morb. he relates five kinds of Pectoral suppurations more, that tend to the same period, unless according to 15. Aphor. lib. 5. they expectorate the matter in 40. dayes. viz. First, there is a suppuration of fleam distilling from the head into the hallow of the breast. The second follows a Pleurisie not expectorated. The third happens upon the bursting of a vein in the breast. The fourth upon a Phleg­matique Pleurisie. The fifth succeeds a varix in the breast bursted, or sweating out ( per Diapedesin) blood.

But those that are curious to be further satisfied touching the manner of Pectoral or Pulmonique suppurations, let them per­use Hipp. lib. 1. de Morb. where he doth most incomparably illustrate that subject. Here may be questioned, Whether Phleam according to Hippocrates his dictate is sup­purable, or disposed to be converted into [Page 152] matter? Pure Phleam certainly is not, but being mixed with other humours is expe­rienced to be suppurable.

Hippocrates lib. de Glandul. describes a Sciatique Consumption ( Tabes coxendica;) Alius morbus oritur ex desluxione capit is per venas in Spinalem Medullam, inde autem in Sacrum os impetum facit, & in coxendi­cum acetabula, sive juncturas deponit, & si tabem fecerit homo marceseit; atque hoc mo­do, contabescit & vivere non expetit. i. e. Another Disease takes its beginning from a defluxion of the head through the Veins into the Marrow of the Back; thence forceth to the os sacrum, and expels (to wit the distilled humour) into the Hip joynts.

The Lungs do sometimes though very rarely grow fast to the Pleura (the skin that lines the breast within,) whence such as are detained with that accident are Lung-grown: The symptoms attending, are a heavy pain in the breast, a difficulty of respiration ( breathing,) faintness, &c. which continuing do advance their subjects to a Consumption. This sort of Consump­tion might be annumerated to an Asthma­tick [Page 153] Consumption, as Mercatus and others are pleased to term it, since the symptoms appear not different from those in an Asthma, saving there is only a Cough want­ing to make up the train. The cause of this Lung-growth is imputed to a superficial sanious or ichorous exulceration, whose matter being somewhat glutinous, cleaves to the foresaid Pleura, and dryes up to it, whereby it's fastned. The truth hereof is evidenced in the dissected bodies of those, that were Lung-grown, whose Lungs are ever found ichorous and mattery near the place of adhaesion, witness the dissected bodies of Ferdinand the Emperour, and Francis the French King, whose Lungs, according to the Testimonies of Gesner, and Holtzach, were not only deprehended fast­ned to the sides of the breast, but in a great part putrefied and sanious. But whether those filaments (threds,) that serve in lieu of ligaments to tye the Lungs to the Pleura, being shortned by a strain, or imbibition of humours, may not produce a Consumption, seems not improbable; an Asthma it's cer­tain they do, and consequently may attract [Page 154] humours to the Lungs, and prove an acci­dental cause of overheating and overdrying the heart, for not expiring the fuliginous steems, that issue thence, and not inspiring fresh air sufficient to cool and moisten it. on the other hand, these said filaments being overmuch relaxed, or broken, do induce that accident which may be properly stiled the Rising of the Lights. Some other infrequent ( rare) Consumptions may hap­pen, but such as scarce appear among ten thousand Consumptives, and therefore shall forbear their insertion, committing their narrow search to Physicians their proper industry.

THose Procatarcticks that required a larger comment, as love, grief, &c. we have discoursed of in particular Chapt. others that are limitted in a narrower extent of speculation, and particularly such, as promote English Bodies beyond those of other Nations into Consumptions, we intend to treat of here.

To begin with these latter, it's not im­probable the causes must be inherent in those non naturals, whose quality, and our use of them differing from other Nations, trans­port our bodies beyond theirs into extenua­tions and Marcours.

1. We differ extremely from all others in our dyet. Flemmings and Germans buy flesh meat by the pound, and eat it by ounces; we buy meat by whole joynts, and eat it by pounds.

[Page 156]2. They usually boyl and roast their meat, until it falls almost off from the bones, but we love it half raw, with the blood trickling down from it, delicately terming it the Gravy, which in truth looks more like an ichorous or raw bloody matter. 3. Flesh once a week is a variety to their great ones, once a month a delicacy to their Burgers ( Citizen's,) and once a year a feast to the rabble, and that at their Kermisses or Fairs only. But their thriving dyet the hogs has taught 'em, viz. Cabbage, Turnips, Salates, Butter-milk, Whey, &c. Which renders them alike not only in fatness, but in manner of humour, witness their Brawny Necks, Fat Trype Guts, and grunting hoggish de­portments. But here on the other hand great and small, rabble and all, must have their Bellyes stuffed with flesh meat every day, and on Sundayes cramb their guts up to the crop with pudding.

4. Neither is the difference only in the eating part, but drinking, they overwhelm­ing their panch daily with a kind of flat Scarbier, or Rotgut; we with a bitter dreggish small liquor, that savours of little [Page 157] else than hops and muddy water. The wine they so much debauch themselves with, is a kind of crude dull stumd Burdeaux; we with Canary. Thus we have parallel'd the dyets of two Nations, in order to a further examination of their different effects, ren­dring those of a squabbish lardy habit of body; us of a thinner though more fleshy appearance, and some who by their stronger natures, exercise, or labour, are equally matcht to digest and subdue that mass of flesh they daily devour, acquire a double strength to what those Hermits receive from their Herbage.

But since we experience that sort of feeding, doth scarce improve our carcasses beyond a lean habit, and the contrary dyet to stuff the hides of our Neighbours with a large proportion of Grease and Tallow, gives us argument, to impute to it a great part of the occasion, that inclines us so much to Consumptions. Wee'l insist a little further upon the matter; first, touching our so greedy devouring of flesh, especially Beef, and Mutton, whereof there is a greater quantity consumed in England, than in all [Page 158] Spain, France, Holland, Zealand, and Flanders, as I can demonstratively make appear to you by this sole instance: you'l grant there are more gloves worn here, then in all Holland, Zealand, and Flanders be­sides, for from the highest to the lowest they usually go with their hands in their Pockets in the Summer, and in the Winter hold'em to their Noses to blow'em warm. Next, we wear out more Shooes here by two thirds than all France, where it's uni­versally known, the paysantry goes barefoot, and the middle sort throughout all that Kingdome makes use of Wooden Clogs. Now this considered, that notwithstanding the great number of gloves and shooes worn out here, besides millions of pairs that are transported hence to the Barbado's, Virginia, and many other Plantations, we abound so much with Hides, Gloves, Sheeps and Neats Leather, that we furnish the better part of all Christendom with them; which is a certain sign there must be an incredible number of Sheep and Oxen killed, whose flesh since we make no forreign Merchan­dize of, (saving only of their Skins and [Page 159] Hides,) must necessarily be all consumed among us. But to declare to you the great mischiefs (which is my chief business) this flesh greediness heaps upon us: a Plethory (fulness of blood) both ad vasa and vires, is the first and immediate effect; the next, a Plethora ad vasa (an over fulness of the Veins and Arteries with blood) doth easily upon a small commotion or heat of body, fall, or other accidents, burst a Vein in the Lungs, whereupon commonly follows an Ulcer, and soon after a Pulmonique Con­sumption.

Moreover, note that a Plethory produced by immoderate eating of flesh is more im­petuous and turgent, and therefore so much disposed to burst a Vein; whereas any other Plethory engendred of Fish, Milk, or Herbs, being less turgent, and diluted with wate­rish humours seldom swells to that height.

The Plethora ad vires (a fulness of blood, that oppresses the strength) is the evident cause, that renders us universally lean, by suppressing our spirits and hebeta­ting ( dulling) their vigour, whereby they are not only incapacitated of digesting [Page 160] the alimonious humours into flesh, but of attracting blood to the parts to nourish them; which defect reduces the body to a leanness, and if continued to a Consump­tion.

Lastly, know, that flesh meat being so nutritive, and likewise hard of digesture, doth abound with the most and worst dregs of any other kind of meat, especially if not totally digested, as seldome it is by those that glut down such immeasurable propor­tions of flesh. These dregs immediately perfuse the blood with melancholy, cause obstructions of the Spleen and Liver, and stick in the capillar insertions of the Sto­mach, being soon incinerated and calcined into such Salts as we premitted in the pre­ceding Chapter: which after a short inter­lapse of time produce Coughs, Ptisicks, and at last a Pulmonique Consumption.

For a further proof hereof wee'l add a dictate or two of Hippocrates. lib. de veter. Med. he saith, that Meat eaten in greater quantity than what is convenient, tabefyes (consumes) the body. And lib. de loc. in homine; he speaks thus, If the body conquers [Page 161] the meat it eats, it flourishes; but if it be overcome, and yeilds, the body grows lean.

Now let's pass to the other part of your Dyet, that so much admired Mistress of your fond Palats, Canary, to whose debauchery a far greater number of Murders may be imputed, than to the fury of the Sword. What malignant Feavers, Dysenteries, per­nicious Consumptions, doth it impell Eng­lish bodies into? Sack drinkers that some­times have over balasted their panch with that liquor, do by their beastly return of it present their Spectators with a view, what a most filthy corrosive greenish oyl its con­verted into, by the preternatural heat of their Stomach, which in length of time being congested in some considerable quan­tity, and floating in a violent stream through the Vessels, is the cause of so many malign Feavers, as generally reign here towards the latter end of the Summer. This is the the account of its acute ( quick and violent) effects; it's Chronical ( of a longer protra­ction) ones are, a vehement drying and inflammation of the bowels and humours, whereby great and obstinate obstructions [Page 162] are engendred, by drying away and absorb­ing the subtiler and more waterish part of the humours, and leaving the grosser behind, which soon turns to an adust melancholy, the further effects whereof have been suffi­ciently declared already.

Neither are the meaner sort of people destitute of their Ambrosia, who must needs every day after Sunset bestow three pence out of their groat, in Strong Beer, a liquor that attributes the better half of its ill quali­ties to the Hops, being an inland drugg, con­consisting of an acrimonious fiery nature, setting the blood upon the least Cacochymy ( vitious humours) into an Orgasmus (a vio­lent working,) by an ill ferment it yeilds to the Stomach, Liver, and Spleen, which doth likewise render the humours fiery, adust, and melancholique. Small Beer, though it partakes less of the Hops, yet ac­cording to their proportion, corresponds in offensive and insalubrious ( unwholsome) qualities; whence we may observe, that Patients in Feavers and many other distempers, receive a sensible prejudice from that rot-gut, though the quantity of [Page 163] Hops be less; by the foresaid Orgasmus it excites. By this you may judge, since small Beer at the best proves so unwholsome a drink, what it doth at worst, perhaps being brewed with a thick muddy and clayish wa­ter, which the Brewers covet the rather, because of adding a body or substance to the drink, which the dead remainder and small quantity of Malt can in no wise con­tribute to it: now to give a strong tast to this dreggish liquor, they fling in an incre­dible deal of Broom, or Hops, whereby small beer is rendred equal in mischief to strong.

The third Endemick cause, whence we derive our extenuating diseases, is the Air, which as I have expressed to you before in Chapt. o. obtains a more particular and immediate power from its continual com­merce with our Lungs and Vital spirits, of committing violence upon them and the Vitals. There is none, who hath traversed the least tract of ground beyond his native Soil, but can attest the strange alterations the Air produces upon bodies, especially if diseased: The Air o'th Alps subjects [Page 164] the Inhabitants there to distillations to their throat, which congested do in a short space swell into a huge mole; the Indian Air disposes Northern bodies to Dysenteries; the Spanish Air engenders the Kings evil; that of Padua a blindness, where I remem­ber I took notice of several blind folks, but whether the Air of that place had produced that accident in them, or whether they came from other places thither to be cured by stroaking their eye-lids over Saint Antonio di Padua's Tomb, by which means great numbers (as they told me) have been re­duced to their perfect sights, I inquired not. The Air at Rome is likewise very pernicious, especially all the Summer, at which time, as I was informed there, no person will hazard to travel towards Naples; for fear of incurring that dangerous phrensie and burning Feaver, which the change of Air unavoidably brings upon them, especially upon those that return from Naples to Rome, among whom scarce one in a hundred escapes, though they use the extremest re­medies, as actual cauteries and scarifica­tions for their recovery. What calamitous [Page 165] effects the Air of this City wrought upon us the last year, you may read in my Discourse of the Plague. In fine, there's no cause of questioning, but that the Air doth evidently concur to the production of several Disea­ses, and particularly of this English Ende­mick; but through what means or disposi­tion, it's that I am about, to illustrate to you. The situation of this Island is such, as disposes it to a continual clowdiness, which in the Summer renders the Air cooler, and in the Winter warmer. The matter whereout those perennal clouds are raised, is the Sea that cirrounds us, which clouds so attracted, the westerly winds, blowing three fourths of the year, do conti­nually blow upon us; in lieu whereof, if eastern winds did perflate our clime more frequently, would not only blow away those misty clouds, but exceedingly clarifie and refresh our Air. These clouds, as they are raised out of the Sea, so they still par­take of the salin (saltish) bodies, they drew up with them thence, which descend­ing upon us by degrees, and being perfused through the Air, do through their salin acri­mony [Page 166] corrode our weak Lungs, and with their thick foggy substance obstruct the Bronchia Pulmonum, or Lung-pipes. This Pulmonique indisposition of the Air, is very much heightned in great Cities, espe­cially where a great quantity of Sea-coal is burned, as here in London, where the num­ber of Brew-houses, Cooks, and Smiths Shops, besides all other Private houses, Brick and Lime Kills about the City, makes smoak, that at a distance London appears in a morning as if it were drowned in a black cloud, and all the day after smothered with a smoaky fog, the consequence whereo [...] proves very offensive to the Lungs in two respects. 1. By means of those Sulphurous coal smoaks the Lungs are as it were stifled and extremely oppressed, whereby they are forced to inspire and expire the Air with difficulty, in comparison to the facility [...] inspiring and expiring the Air in the Coun­try, as people immediately perceive upon their change of Air; which difficulty, op­pression, and stopping must needs at length wast the Lungs, and weaken them in the function. 2. Those fuliginous smoaks part­ly [Page 167] consisting of salin corrosive steems, seem to partake of the nature of Salt armoniack, whereby they gnaw and in time Ulcerate the tender substance and small veins of the Lungs. That coal smoak is of so corrosive a quality is easily experienced by those, that are beset with smoak in a room, whose eyes it bites and gnaws that it forceth 'em to wa­ter, and by pricking their Throat and Lungs puts them into a dry Cough. These salin corrosive steems are very much intended by the addition of those, that exhale from Houses of Office, Pissing places, and other nasty stinks and fumes great Cities are ever pester'd with.

Another great cause of the frequency of Consumptions among us, and especially about the City, is a continuated descent of weak Pulmonique Children from Con­sumptive Parents, who propagate and trans­fuse their Pulmonique Seminaries to their whole subsequent generation; which occa­sions so many hundreds to drop hence every year to the Countrey for fresh air.

Hitherto we have insisted upon those causes, that effect Consumptions Ende­mick [Page 168] to this Island; there remains a citation of such others, as indifferently may produce that malady in any other Countrey. Immo­derate feeding upon Powder'd Beef, Bacon, Salt Fish, Pickled Meats, Anchiovi, and debauching with Brandy, Sack, and other strong Wines and Spirits, do inflame and acuate the blood, whereby it's capacitated to corrode the tender veins of the Lungs, whereupon follows spitting and coughing up of blood. A fall, (and according to Hippocrates lib. 2. de Morb.) vehement exercise or labour, violent vomiting, a blow upon the breast, calling a lowd, do oftimes occasion a vein to burst in the Lungs. Catching cold on the breast, by going cool in the morning or evening, (as many do by leaving their Doublets unbut­toned, or women by running up and down in their Smock sleeves, or lying naked with their breast in the night) doth impell the blood suddenly into the Lung-veins, where­by being overfilled, burst into an effusion of blood. Those that are naturally destitute, or have lost their Uvula, (palat) are like­wise very incident into a rupture of a Lung [Page 169] vein, in admitting the cold air, without that previous alteration, the Columella (palat) contributed, by hindering the cold air to irrupt suddenly into the Lungs. The eating of a Sea hare is thought to corrode the Lungs by a Specifick property. Pliny lib. 7. 2. writes, that there is a certain people in Aethiopia, whose sweat preci­pitates any into a Consumption whom it touches.

Consumptions do frequently arrive upon a sudden suppression of the Haemorrhoids ( piles,) witness Hippocrates 6. Aph. 12. If upon curing of Haemorrhoids that have ran long, you do'nt leave one, there is danger of a Dropsie, or Consumption; because na­ture was wont to evacuate its burden of vitious Melancholique and Cholerick blood out at those veins, which passage being stopt, it's forced to regurgitate upwards to the Lungs; the like happens upon the stop­page of Womens courses, which if not suddenly look'd to, sets them undoubtedly into a Consumption, Dropsie, or some other dangerous Disease, as Hippocrates lib. 2, de Morb. also observes. viz. Si virgo [Page 170] ex suppressione mensium in tabem deve­niat, &c. What constitution of the year is most like to engender Consumptions, Hip. tells us: First, for moist Consumptions that survene distillations of sharp putrid fleam, a moist and southerly Autum upon a dry and Northern Summer, is apt to produce them. 3. Aphor. 13. Secondly dry Consumptions generally appear upon a long continuation of hot and dry weather. 2. Aphor. 16. per squalores vero tabes, &c. The season or time of year for Consumptions is the Autum. 3. Aphor. Autumno invadunt Fe­bres, Hydropes, tabes, &c.

THe surest cure for a Pulmonique Con­sumption, is to prevent it in those, that are naturally inclined to that evil, or have but lately conceived the Seeds of it, and are just a budding. But because the [Page 171] preventive part is frequently neglected, upon hopes of waring it out, or by chang­ing the air, or for want of knowing the state they are in, (which to discern in the commencement is difficult even to Physi­cians themselves, who are not seldom mistaken in that point,) the impending danger where of requires a mature caution, I shall delineate such natural and adventi­tious dispositions, as appear suspicious. 1. To descend from Phthisical Parents, or such as were Pulmonique, that is, affected with any kind of trouble in their Lungs, be it a Cough, difficulty of breathing, Asthma, or a Pulmonique Consumption, is a great argument, since it's observed that Consump­tions prove so hereditary, and that some­times in a strange manner; viz. some deriving their extenuating Diseases from their Grandfather, though their immediate Parents did not seem troubled with the least kind of distemper in their Lungs. The reason is, because those hereditary seeds remained dormant in their Parents, and never were reduced in actum, which never the less were transfused into their Children, [Page 172] in whom they might be raised to growth. 2. Brothers or Sisters taking their passage through that Disease to their Graves, leave an ill omen to the remainder of their kin. 3. Whom nature hath shaped with a great head, long neck, narrow breast, and shoulders sticking out like wings, and a lean habit of body, seem very much inclin­ed to a Consumption. 4. Such as are subject to thin sharp Coughs, itching of the Eyes, a tickling in their Throat, pains of their Sides, and do not thrive upon a good dyet, are prepared for a Consumption. 5. To omit letting blood at certain seasons that the body is accustomed to, or to escape bleeding at the Nose, or avoiding blood by the Haemorrhoids if usual, or for women to be obstructed in their courses, argues danger. 6. Especially at the fall, and in persons aged from Eighteen to Thirty five years. 7. To be apt to spit blood oft, though it distills from the head, or is ex­pressed out of the terminations of veins in the Throat, signifies a Phthisical inclination, & is dangerous; because it's a sign, the blood is sharp and thin, and may upon a small pro­vocation [Page 173] vent its fury upon the Lung veins.

8. And lastly, any of the Procatarcktick causes mentioned in the Chapter preced­ing, or the beginning of this Treatise, or any other Disease, producing a durable leanness and dryness of body, with a short, dry, or moist Cough, portends an ill con­sequence, as you may observe out of Hipp. 2. Aph. 3. in all Diseases it's better for the belly to be thick; on the contrary, when the belly is very thin, and very much consumed it's dangerous.

SInce spitting of blood (haimoptysis) doth so frequently forerun Ulcers in the Lungs, it's requisite I should tell you what kind of spitting of blood forespeaks danger of a Consumption. Wherefore [Page 174] know, that blood evacuated at the mouth with the spittle, may either distill from the brain, or palat, or be expressed out of the Throat, or Gullet, or forced out of the Stomach, Breast, Mediastinum, Diaphragma, Lungs, or Wind-pipe. Among these, blood forced out of the Lungs gives the worst appearance, and doth seldom vanish with­out leaving an Ulcer behind it.

Moreover there is a very considerable difference in respect of danger, in blood that issues out of the Lung veins, which are apt to shed their humours upon these four occasions.

1. Upon a rupture or bursting, among the Greeks called [...].

2. Upon the corrosion of a vein, that is, when it's eaten through by sharp gnawing blood, in Greek termed [...].

3. A vein gaping or its lips being forced open by a Plethory, is apt to effuse a quantity of blood, in Greek called [...].

4. When the Tunicks of the veins are grown thin, and the blood is likewise ren­dred subtil and piercing, it's apt to sweat [Page 175] through, which is nominated a [...].

This latter is oft cured, and therefore of a more hopeful aspect; but the two former for the most part contemn all remedies. The bursting or corrosion of a Vein in the Pleura succeeds these former in a malicious Omen. Any of these bloody sputations be­ing too suddenly cured, oft changes into a tragick Scene. The like happens upon external applications of restringent me­dicines to the breast, or in case internal restrictives be exhibited without dissolvents, to dissolve the crumbs of blood, that usually concrease out of the extravasated humours, which otherwise would occasion a suffoca­tion. A bloody sputation, whether proceed­ing from the Lungs, or Stomach, inti­mates less danger in Women, whose ob­structed courses were the cause of it; be­cause these being carried down do seldom miss a cure of the former, as Hippocrates doth likewise aphoristically tell us; A Woman vomiting blood, her courses breaking forth puts a stop to her vomiting; but this is to be understood, in case a Vein gapes or is forced open by a Plethory, not if a Vein be bursted or corroded.

[Page 176]The same reason holds good in men, sur­prized with a sanguin sputation upon a sudden cohibition of their Haemorrhoids, which being recalled do frequently stent the other Symptom; but if their Haemor­rhoids have disappeared for a conside­rable time, than such a sputation survening upon it proves more perilous than other­wise.

Spitting of blood is more curable in Plethoricks, and young folks, than in others of a thinner habit of body, and old people, because as Hippocrates implyes in 2. Aph. 34. They are less endangered in Diseases, whose Disease suits with their nature, age, and habit of body, and time, than those whose Disease is in no part agreeable.

In summa; any kind of spitting of blood imports a very discriminous state, unless it happens as I said before upon the gaping of a Vein, or being opened, (but not bursted or corroded) by a Plethory, in which case it's a great help to nature, being over burden'd with blood; and it usually stops of it self. Thus I have known several women vomit up great quantities of blood, possibly a [Page 177] pint or two, without any prejudice. Some I have heard of, that have coughed up a quantity not much less, no kind of detri­ment following upon it. A Vein bursted or corroded in the Lungs, is look'd upon to be for the most part incurable (though some do escape,) because of the continual motion and Coughing of the Lungs, taring the gap wider, and hindering the conglutination and cicatrization of the vein; besides their remote distance from the Stomach, the vertues of Medicines, being quite spent before they can arrive thither. Spitting of blood being complicated with other chroni­cal Diseases, as great obstructions of the Bowels, Asthma, &c. is rendred less capa­ble of cure than otherwise. A varix or a sweld vein in the Lungs doth oft a good while after burst out into a sudden spitting of blood, the patient not dreaming of the least Disease his body should be subjected to; for the Lungs being insensible within, cannot advert him of any tumour or swel­ling. This accident usually happens, when a man hath had a fall, or bruise upon his breast, whereby the grosser part of the [Page 178] blood was suddenly impelled into a Vein of the Lungs, where it causes that swelling, which possibly may burst a month or six weeks after, for want of taking something at the beginning to dissolve the impulsed blood.

A broken Vein conglutinated, or a cor­roded one cicatrized, is very apt upon a small irritation, as a cough, vomit, fall, &c. to burst again, or return to an Ulcer, because the cicatrize, or agglutination is performed by a dissolvable, or sometime friable kind of humour, that's easily colli­quated, or rent asunder by the continual motion of the Lungs, and especially if ren­der'd violent by a Cough, or other accident. Wherefore persons that have been so indis­posed, ought to refrain from taking Vomits, or moving their bodies violently; & timely to remedy any kind of Cough, or other Pulmonique Diseases.

We have given you a large comment of the Prognosticks of spitting blood; the remainder of this Chapter wee'l imploy in the Diagnosticks. Blood that's evacuated from the Lungs is forced up with a Cough [Page 179] without any pain, and if a Lung-vein be bursted, generally at the first gush a great quantity is cough'd up, which afterwards comes up in smaller proportions.

The blood that's evacuated at first, ap­pears thin, pure, and florid, with a little yellowish froth upon it; that which is afterwards evacuated, shews paler, and watered, with a few bubles on it; at last it's expectorated mixt with fleam. That which sweats through the veins, comes up diluted (pale and watered) in small quan­tities mixt with fleam, spittle, or some of the serum of the blood.

If a Lung Vein be corroded, the blood at first comes up in a smaller quantity; afterwards in fuller streams. Physicians do vary much in the colour of Pulmonique blood that's evacuated, some will have it a purple, others a florid, yellow, or natural red. As to that, Lung-blood generally ap­pears somewhat lighter than a natural red, because its conceived to be rendred more aereous by the Lungs. Nevertheless it varies according to the constitution of bodies; for in some it may be purple, in others yellow, [Page 180] or red. Another dispute that's moved among Authors is, whether Lung-blood is alwayes evacuated with a Scum or froth up­on it, according to Hippoc. 5. Aph. 13. Those that spit out frothy blood with cough­ing, it comes from the Lungs. For to de­cide this controversie; you must note, there is a fourfold substance concurring to the constitution of the Lungs.

1. The Grisly substance of the Lung-pipes.

2. The tough substance of the Ligaments, that tye the great Vessels to the Lungs, and joyn the pipes together.

3. The Parenchyma or flesh of the Lungs.

4. That which the small veins and arte­ries consist of. This considered, observe that the blood that's evacuated out of the pores of the corroded Parenc. of the Lungs, is ever frothy, because it's forced through a number of small holes or pores in the Lungs, where­by it's rarefyed and rendred frothy. But the blood that's cast out of the greater Vessels is not alwayes thoroughly frothy, but only a top, which is caused by it's being mingled with the Air in the coughing it up; and for [Page 181] that reason blood that's vomited up, may also appear frothy, as Hippocrates lib. de Coacis, tells us, those that spit up (vomit up) frothy blood, and are troubled with their right side) they spit it from the Liver, and commonly dye. Thus likewise we see that blood evacuated in a Dysentery is frothy a top. So Avicen doth witness, the blood to be frothy, that's propel'd out of a Vein of the Breast; and Paulus writes the blood out of the Throat to be frothy. Last of all you must distinguish between pure blood, which usually is expectorated less frothy, than that which is mixt with windy fleam and melancholy, or only windiness.

This simple bloody sputation of the Lungs is differenced from that, which con­comitates a pleurisie, or a Peripneumonia (inflammation of the Lungs;) because these two latter are ever painful, to wit a pleu­risie is attended with a stitch, the other with a heavy pain of the breast, besides other Diagnostick symptoms; whereas a simple blood spitting arrives without any pain or feaver. Blood that's cast out of the throat or wind-pipe, is spit out with a [Page 182] hawking, or a small cough, and that in small quantities or streaks; that out of the Gums is spit out without hawking, cough­ing, or vomiting; that out of the breast is expelled with a difficult cough, and shews lived and full of crumbs; but blood that distills from the head, since it may be eje­cted by cough, vomit, hawking, or spit­ing, may easily delude both Patient and Physician, unless there be a narrow inspe­ction made, for sometimes a small vein bursting in the head will trickle down (but with a tickling in the Throat) in great streams into the wind-pipe or stomach, whence it's returned by cough, or vomit; the usual way to find out the spring of this flood, is to cause the Patient to gargle twice or thrice a sharp Oxycrate, which will either stop the cough, or appear with a deep tincture.

Another way for tryal is, that the Pa­tient is to hold his mouth full of water, and blow his Nose hard, by which means if there be a vein burst in the head, some blood will come forth at the Nostrils. Moreover the Physician is to enquire into [Page 183] the Procatarctick causes, whether the party be troubled with a Head-ach, or hath had a fall, or taken cold, and is enrheumed, or the face be high colour'd.

Blood that's ejected by vomit, no doubt but comes out of the Stomach-veins, but whether it be blood that's destined for its nourishment, or whether sent from the Spleen or Liver, & effused into the Stomach through the Splenick branch, or Gastrick vein, is also nicely search'd into by Practick Authors.

If the evacuated blood be florid it's Stomach-blood, if black and in great quan­tity, it's Splenetick; if red and copious, it's Hepatick. Moreover, if the blood be Splenetick, signs appear of an affected Spleen; if Hepatick, of the Liver.

YOu must appeal to your memory to have read in the foregoing part of this Treatise the distinction of Proper and Im­proper Consumptions; this latter we have diffected into its several kinds, among which I am only to tell you, that an Im­proper Pulmonique Consumption is deci­phered with nothing but a kind of a Pulmo­nique Disease, be it a Cough, Dyspnaea, Asthma, &c. and a discernable wasting of the flesh, protracted to some continuance, which doth certainly menace the sudden consequence of a Proper Ulcerous Pulmo­nique Consumption.

As to the evidencing a confirm'd Con­sumption of the Lungs, the signs are these.

1. There is an old Cough, contracted possibly at the latter end of the fall, or in [Page 185] the winter, or the first approch of the Spring, and continuing for three, six, or nine months, without spitting blood the whole time.

2. Observe that such a cough▪ that proves so durable, doth not alwayes continue at the same stand, but is far more urgent sometimes than othersome, and somewhiles again returns to that remission, that it seems to be quite gone, until the patient relapses of his own accord, without any provocation of an external cause or errour, into the same or rather worse state than before.

3. The matter expectorated is thick, tough, glewy, frothy, uneven, bubbly, graish; or thin, liquid, crude; or thin and mixt with thick, clotty, blewish, yellow, greenish or blackish fleam, or streaks only.

4. A difficulty of breathing, with a kind of a whiesing noise.

5. Violent stitches up and down the breast, and back, below the shoulders, which for a while are moveable; afterwards fix either under the shoulders or paps, which then give a strong presumption of a confirm'd Phthisis.

[Page 186]6. The face looks deadish, and livid, with a dark blewish or brown circle about the under eyelids, the eyes appear hollow, flat, and shrunk, without their natural gloss.

7. All this while the appetit is wanting, and is bent to nothing more than to a draught of stale strong Beer, though that be as bad as rots-bane for 'em: and this is a very usual attendant.

8. The body is sometimes loose, and sometimes bound; or in some it's generally loose, and in others contrary.

9. They sleep unquietly, and disturbed with fiery or melancholique dreams, and feel hot and glowing at their waking, being likewise much disposed to sweat about their breast, neck, and head. Their limbs do oft feel sore and weary. For the most part they are drowsy and lumpish all day. By this time an Hectick Feaver begins to shew it self, by a quick, soft, low, and unequal pulse; a small glowing of the palms of the hands and feet after meat, &c.

This is the first degree of a confirm'd Pulmonique Consumption, from which [Page 187] the second degree differs in the intension of the forementioned Symptoms; namely,

1. The Cough sounds more hollow and deep; continues longer before any matter is brought up; and is more urgent in the night than the day.

2. The humours or fleam that are expe­ctorated, are turn'd into a thick matter (pus.)

3. The body is consumed to nothing but skin and bones; the flesh of the Muscels being withered into dry tough strings, the skin feeling rough and dry like Leather: And the face changed into an Hippocratean visage, otherwise called a Mortiferous face, and deciphered 1. progn▪ 7. viz. a sharp Nose; hollow Eyes; the Temples fallen and retch'd; the Ears cold and contracted, and their fibres turn'd; the skin about the fore­head hard, retch'd, and shrunk; the colour of the Face is Greenish or Blackish.

4. At this degree the Legs and Belly usually swell, and sometimes burst out at the toes into a water.

5. The appetit is quite lost.

[Page 188]6. A sensible Hectick Feaver, ever grow­ing higher in the night then in the day, be­cause the cold of the night stops the pores; it's known by a quick, hard, low, uneven in motion and fortitude, Acre or stinging Pulse, and a glowing heat of their body an hour or two after Victuals.

7. It's ordinary for Consumptives in this degreeto entertain their visiters with strange rambling discourses, of their intent of go­ing here and there, or doing this and that, as if they did in no wise expect to change their dwellings into a grave.

8. They are extremely fretful and pee­vish; never well at rest, but always calling for this or that, or changing their seats or posture of lying or sitting.

9. They are incident to Convulsions in their Necks, and Gripes in their Bellies.

10. They are very subject to Nocturnal pollutions (or evacuations of the Sperm without Phansie,) the reason whereof Aristotle gives 5. Probl. 53. because sharp colliquations falling to the spermatick parts, excite the excretive faculty,

11. Aristotle among his Problems doth [Page 189] likewise write, that Consumptives are very apt to breed Lice, which probably are en­gendred out of their clammy sweat, by a putredinal heat that attends them.

12. Their Cheeks appear oft of a rosie red colour, especially after meat.

13. At last they spit out peices of their Lungs, it may be small grisly bits, that are eaten off from the Lung pipes, or small light uneven pieces of spungy flesh.

14. If you desire a particular remarque whereby to know which of the parts are most apt to consume first, that so you may be forewarned in time, I'le resolve you: A Consumption is no where so visible as at the fingers ends, whose flesh commonly shrinks before any other part of the body, and that for two reasons. 1. Because it's the finest, tenderest, and most delicate kind of flesh, consisting of a most exact tem­perature, whereby it's the better disposed for the touch, no part of the body feeling so exactly; which tender consistence renders it the more colliquable and consumptive.

2. Because the heat of the body reflecting at the fingers ends, redoubles, and is more [Page 190] intense than in any other part, as doth more evidently appear in Feavers.

The last and third degree foretell the nearness of their fate, which for the most part follows within three or four dayes upon the appearance of these signs, which Hippocrates doth orderly digest in 5 Aphor. 14. and 7. Aphor. 72. After the evacua­ting of blood upwards follow a Tabes, ( an exquisite Consumption,) and evacuation of matter upwards; after a Tabes a defluxion from the head; after a defluxion a loosness and a stoppage of the expectoration; and after the stoppage, death. To be more particular. 1. There is a loosness, whereby the mat­ter that should be evacuated upwards by Cough, is drawn downwards, or rather fixt in the Lungs; not only so, but the Spirits, that should actuate the Lungs in the expe­ctoration, are consumed, dispersed, and drawn downwards, whereby the Lungs are rendred unable of Coughing up the puru­lent matter, which remaining causes a stop­page, that doth suddenly choak the heart. 2. A shedding of the hair is another fatal sign, hapning only at last, when the body is [Page 191] quite dryed up, and contains not so much excrementitious moisture, as to nourish the hair, read 5. Aphor. 12. Quibuscunque tabidis capilli fluunt, &c. 3. A stinking breath, a sign the purulent matter is affe­cted with the worst degree of putrefaction, the immediate effect whereof is a faetor or stink. 4. The Nails of the Fingers and Toes bending, or turning crooked like the claws of a Beast. This arrives because the flesh underneath is consumed, whereupon they are dryed into a crooked round shape like horns, that bend crooked by being over dryed by lying in the Sun, or before the Fire. 4. Frequent sweats, especially on their breast. 5. Rhases lib. 4. Con. writes, that Consumptives, when they are near death, grow light headed. This sign holds true in some, but not in others, many dying with their perfect understand­ing and memory. Yet this is frequent, that their sight grows dimme, and therefore can not see at that distance they could before, which makes them oft imagine they see strange things, which they don't. Their hearing is also grown very dull upon a sud­den; [Page 192] for otherwise Consumptives in the first and second degree have a very sharp hearing. 6. their voice is very hoarse. 7. The spittle of Consumptives being powred up­on burning coals, stinks very strong. 5. Aphor. 11. Cum tabi implicitis, quod tussiendo excluditur sputum, graviter oleat, dum carbonibus ardentibus infunditur, capil­lique defluant, funestum. 8. they fetch their breath at last very easily, yet not without the sense of a great clogg at their Stomach; and a whiesing or whisling in their Wind­pipe. 9. Their Pulse is intermittent every sixth or eighth Pulsation, in others it's caprizans, myurus, or formicans. 10. Their Feet and Legs dye first; which commonly are cold and dead a quarter of an hour or more before the other parts.

Thus we have delineated the whole Hi­story of a Consumption, that absolves its course without spitting of blood. There re­mains only an observation or two upon that, which is attended with a bloody spu­tation, which either happens at the begin­ning, whereupon necessarily follows the spitting of matter, according to that Apho­rism, [Page 193] Post sanguinis sputum, pur is spu­tum, &c. Whether the matter expectorated be fleam, or pus (matter that's bred in an ulcer▪) is known by stirring it with a stick; if it be fleam, it will cleave and stick; if pus, it will divide and separate; or thus, being dropt into a Bazon of Salt-water, if it descends to the bottom in a grayish pow­der like flower, it's purulent matter; if it swims, its' a fleam; if it partly swims and partly sinks, it's a mixt substance: If the Ulcer in the Lungs be deep in the Parenchy­ma, it's discovered by a hard Cough; and if almost reaching to the Ambient Mem­brane, then there is a sore kind of pain with a hard cough; but if the cough be painful and the matter comes up easie, it's a sign the Ulcer is in the wind-pipe, as the expe­ctorated cartilaginous particles do further declare. The Patient having for a while cough'd up purulent matter, is ever and anon upon a fit of coughing, fretting, or anger, or any other commotion of hu­mours apt to expectorate small quantities of diluted blood with fleam.

[Page 194]Wee'l put an Epilogue to this Chapter, inserting only the signs of matter expecto­rated through the Lungs from a suppuration of the breast. The proper signs of a sup­puration are comprehensively mentioned by Hippocrates lib. de coac. praenot. 49. Those that are grown suppurated espe­cially upon a Pleurisie, and Peripneumo­nia, (which is also to be supposed upon a Squinsie, the suppuration whereof is more dangerous than any other) are troubled with small heats in the day, but violent in the night, and do spit nothing out, that is worth taking notice of; they sweat about the neck and shouldors, and their eyes grow hollow; and their cheeks are red; but the extremities of their fingers are worse hot and rough. Their Nails are turn'd crooked, and grow cold; and there arise tumours about their legs, and pustules about their bodies; they have an aversion from Victuals. Besides these, 1. there preceded a distillation of Rheum from their head, or a Pleurisie, Squinsie, or Inflammation of the Lungs. 2. A Fea­ver, according to 2. Aphor. 47. Whilst matter is engendring, pains and feavers [Page 195] arise, &c. 3. Beating or aking pains. 4. Great shiverings and difficulty of breath­ing, near the time of the tumour breaking; which being broke, the Feaver and pains abate, and the matter (if not expectorated) is propell'd into the capacity of the breast, where upon the Patients stirring or turning himself abed from one side to another, it makes a fluctuating kind of noise, like the [...]umbling of water in a Cask. After a while it corrodes the ambient membrane of the Lungs, and is expectorated with a hard deep or hollow cough.

AS the kinds of Pulmonique Consump­tions are various, so are their Prog­nosticks, wherefore we must instance these latter in the connumeration of the former. First, touching the Sex, and Ages a Con­sumption [Page 196] is harbour'd in. Children caeteris paribus are more frequently cured than those of riper years; next Women, who as they are less disposed to the surprize of Consumptions, by reason of their courses carrying those acrimonious humours away, before they can attain to make any head; so for the same reason, their cure, when at any time illapsed into that Disease, is easier performed than in men; among whom old men that are Consumptive, are the least capable of help, because naturally they abound so much with salt fleam, that heigh­tens and irritates the continent cause of their malady. Before we deviate from this particular of the Sex, take in this observa­tion; that women whilst a breeding, are now and then allarum'd at the second month with Consumptive symptoms, that are caused through the return of their courses (being intercepted) to their Lungs.

Among these many dye tabefyed before the full expiration of their time; others that have the good fortune of miscarrying, or being delivered, escape by means of their floods, revelling the humours from their [Page 197] Lungs. Some again through their straining, pressing, impatient cryes, and commotion of their bodies, at the time of their labour, do sometimes break a vein in their Lungs or Breast, or cause a varix, or corrosion of a Vein, whereupon a Consumption follow­ing speaks a very hazardous case: or if a Consumption surprizes a Childbed woman, that hath not been well laid, or hath not been well purged after delivery, foretells an equal danger.

The procatarctick causes render the Di­sease more or less curable: a Consump­tion of grief, as it moves more slowly than others, so its malign effects are impressed with a more certain and irresistable force; wherefore unless prevented in the bud, takes an ineradicable root. Next hereunto for obstinacy of cure are an Hypochondriack, Amorous, and a Studious Consumption. As for a Cachectick and Aguish Consumption they admit usually of an easier cure than others. A Poysonous, Ulcerous, Renal, Dorsal, Verminous, Bewitch'd, Dolorous, Apostematick, and Pockie Consumptions are more or less curable, or incurable, ac­cording [Page 198] to the Age, Sex, Climat, Season of the year, Habit, Temperament, Part affected, Duration, and other ill symp­toms attending the Disease.

Having but cursorily proposed to you a declaration of the presages of Bastard Con­sumptions, wee'l imploy the more time and paper in relating the Prognostick signs of Pulmonique Consumptions, according to the several degrees observed in the preced­ing Chapter.

A Consumption of the Lungs in the be­ginning is very curable, but herein differs from all other curable Diseases, that it's not to be worn away by change of dyet, or moderate exercise of body, or a cheerful spirit, whereby many other maladies have been dislodged; but in stead of being de­mulced by counterpoising preservatives of the Patient, goes on its way, until it hath made an absolute conquest of the body; and notwithstanding though remedies be used at its first appearance, unless they are prescrib­ed by a dexterous hand, so as to hit the hu­mour of the Disease, and temperament of the Patient, like a Cancer is rather irritated [Page 199] and eats deeper into the parts. So that Consumptives, though their case appears not with so discriminous an aspect, ought not only to be sollicitous for remedies against their evil, but to be assured of their skill that apply 'em; for a fault committed in the cure at first, admits of no appeal afterwards.

The first degree of a Pulmonique Con­sumption implyes a difficult and long cure; and may easily upon neglect of the patient, or usage of improper Medicines be render'd incurable.

The second degree is formidable; and but few of this rank recover, and many more are turn'd over into the Empiricks pit. However wee'l add some notes out of Hippocrates to discern the curables from the incurables. 1. Their spittle must be tryed, if it stinks being poured upon the coals; or sinks as it's cast into a Bason of salt water; or being spit upon the ground, if it shews with round clear specks like glass spectacles, signifies a desperate and irreco­verable condition. The like presage read in a gray, blew, yellow, green, black, mixt, and uneven spittle. Take a survey of [Page 200] Aret. lib. de sig. & caus. Morb. diut. cap. 8. If on the other hand the spittle appears first sanious, afterwards mattery, white, smooth, even, and without stink, there's some hopes. 2. If the Patient be free from a putrid Feaver, that increases in the night, is ano­ther hopeful sign. 3. They must be free from drought, which confirms the absense of a putrid Feaver, otherwayes frequently affecting Consumptives in the beginning and first degree. 4. The flood of humours, that used to distill into the Lungs, must be diverted (or rather derivated) through the Nostrils. 5. It's also supposed, the party be not reduced to the greatest extenuation. 6. His ordure must be rather hard, than soft, for a looseness is generally very pre­judicial. 7. It's required the Party should have a square, fleshy, and hairy breast, and not very bony, which signifies a competent strength of nature in the Patient. If the contrary signs appear, you must look for nothing but death. The case is the same with those who feel a great oppression upon their breast, speak hoarse, and seem to have a stiff neck, (or at least is not very [Page 201] flexible,) and the joynts and knuckles of their Fingers shew big, and their bones small: Add hereunto the symptoms of the third degree, which bring death along with them.

You are also to make distinction of the part affected; for an Ulcer of the breast is of a less difficult cure than one in the wind­pipe, and that in the vessels of the Lungs worse than it; but an Ulcer in the substance of the Lungs is the most deplorable of any, which the University of Physicians declare absolutely incurable, though Hippocrates seems to assert some curable, namely in whom the seven forementioned conditions are deprehended. Which sentiment we find likewise confirm'd by the experience of several reputed Authours; Cardan in his Treatise de Cur. Admirand. No. 2. 4. 5. 6. 7. 10. recites many Consumptives by his care and skill perfectly restored; among which number were several of the second and third degree; but I doubt he quack't a little sometimes: however Erastus exceeds him in asserting cures much more incredi­ble. Saith he, in his Disp. Paracels. part. 1. [Page 202] pag. 210. I'le tell you some thing, that's hard to be believed: God hath restored some Consumptives, that made use of my help, who it was clearly apparent, scarce beheld the half of their Lungs. And in another place he vaunts to have cured many Con­sumptives in the beginning, and some that were absolutely desperate. Ingrassias in Consil. pro fist. pect. Franc. Arcaeus de febr. cap. 8. Valleriola lib. 2. Observ. 3. lib. 3. Obs. 6. & lib. 5. Obs. 5. 6. Haelidaeus. lib. 3. Cons. 7. Beniven. de Abd. c. 44. Forest. lib. 16. Obs. 58. Crato Cons. 152. Poterius cent. 3. cap. 19, 20, 21. and among the Ancients Avicen. lib. 3. Sen. 10. Tract. 5. cap. 5. Rases 4. cont. Valesc. de taranta lib. 3. cap. 2. Abynzoar. lib. 1. Theysir. tract. 11. cap. 2. Mesues cap. de Phthisi, besides many others, do bring in perfect cures of Consumptives of all degrees; but questionless performed with great diffi­culty, because of the continual motion and coughing of the Lungs, (thereby taring the Ulcer wider) and their remote distance; and at last the Ulcer is only covered with a limber callus, that easily falls off, upon [Page 203] any commotion of body, cough, or cold taken in the breast, and so forceth patients into an incurable state.

An Hereditary Consumption, likewise one that's engendred by malign arsenical fumes under ground (whereunto those that dig in Mines and Coal pits are much subje­cted) are incapable of any sort of cure.

A spitting of blood that happens upon the bursting of a Lung-Vein, unless it be stopped or conglutinated in three or four dayes at farthest, either occasions a Phlegmone or inflammation of the Lungs, which suppurating turns to an incurable Ulcer, and a Proper Consumption; or by evacuating an insupportable measure of blood kills the Patient by inducing a Syn­cope (Swoun;) or suffocates him by coagu­lating in the Lung-pipes.

An Ulcer in the left lobes is more peri­lous than in the right, because it's nearer to the heart. The same reason makes a sup­puration contained on the right side of the Mediastinum more dangerous than on the left.

[Page 204]A Consumption ensuing upon a spitting of blood is of quicker termination, than one that's occasioned by an Ulcerous disposition of the Lungs, and fomented by salin distil­lations from the brain, which may be pro­tracted to some years. Avicen and Erotian write of a Woman that was Consumptive three and twenty years together. Iul. Alex­andrinus and Mat. de Grad. cap. 54. com. in 9. lib. Rasis speak of another woman that lived Consumptive eight and twenty years. Forestus knew another woman that strove eight years with a Consumption. Neither is this case very rare in this City, there being many, I can attest of, that have been lingring for many years, though affe­cted with a Chronical cough, difficulty of respiration, and an extreme lean habit of body. The reason of this prorogation is imputed to a certain absorbing salin distil­lation, which being imbibed by the Lungs, is not so corrosive as to gnaw Ulcers into the Lungs, but doth only absorb their nutri­ment, and insensibly diminish their Paren­chyma, whereunto the whole body sympa­thizing, is also insensibly emaciated. But [Page 205] that which is far rarer is, that Ulcerous Consumptions of the Lungs should extend to so long space, as Arculanus reports of two that spitted matter four years toge­ther.

We have reserved this insertion touching the Prognosticks of this Disease by the Urin for the Epilogue of the Chapter, which usually is various throughout the whole course of the Disease: in the first degree it's thick and turbid, with a pretty deal of set­ling; at the second it appears thin and ob­scure without any sediment, or very little, and of a pale straw colour, and a greenish circle a top; though in some I have observed it bloody and obscure, like water, where raw flesh hath been washed in; in others it's thin and blackish. At last it's evacuated clear like water, and in a small quantity; yet this is not Universal.

IT's a double misery to be pursued by a lingring Disease, whose nature and cause are disguised under a cloud of various symp­toms, which if otherwise appeared in a more visible dress, would it self betray what remedies were most likely to remove it: since therefore Consumptions assault us in that obscure manner, I have engaged my study and industry, to procure you in the preceding discourse a most ample Narra­tive of that malady, comprizing the total of all observations thereunto relating, that so that intestine enemy being discovered might with more certainty be aggressed, according to the implicit meaning of that trite saying, a Disease once known is half cured. So that the greater pains I have taken in the speculative will very much alleviate me in describing the Practick or Therapeutick, whose office is distributed into three parts, viz. the Conservative, [Page 207] Preservative, and Curative. The Conser­vative part in this Treatise is chiefly con­cerned in preserving a healthful body in the same state against all external causes, that may dispose or force it into a Consumption; Such are the six non naturals, viz. a Con­sumptive Air, and emaciating Dyet, Motion and Rest, the Excretions and Retentions, Sleep and Restlesseness, and the Passions of the mind.

If you find your self obliged to live in a Consumptive Air as this of London, make choice of the more open, high, dry, and gravelly part of it, where the houses are built East and West, shunning those close, low, nasty, dirty and stinking Allies, and Lanes near the Thames side, where the Air being damp, and replenish'd with putrid and stinking vapours, is pen'd up, and obstructed from being ventilated by the winds, or its one free motion. 2. Once a day at least take a walk in the Fields, to refresh your self with the open Air, which inspired fresh doth exceedingly recreate the Lungs, Heart, and the Vital spirits, and through its tenuity opens the Lung-pipes, and [Page 208] purges them from all those thick sooty steems; Moreover, opens all the pores of the body, and gives vent to those excre­mentious evaporations. 3. Retreat some times into the Country for a day, three or four to feast your Lungs with that pure clear air, and to purge them from the smoak of London.

Touching your dyet observe these Rules: 1. Never tye your self to a constant dyet, as alwayes to eat meats of easie digesture, as Veal, Pullets, Sweatbreads, &c. refusing this because it's obstructive, as Beef, Veni­son, Bacon, &c. or that because hard of digesture as Pork, Geese, Ducks, hard Cheese, Biscuit, &c. or because it's loosen­ing, as Cabbage, Spinage, &c. or raw and windy as Salats, Cherries, Apples, &c. for if every objection against this, or that sort of meat, will cause you to refrain, than you must resolve to live without Victuals, there being no meat in the world, but what may be excepted against, in saying this is windy, and that is stopping, &c.

Neither would I have you to be too strict in the quantity of your meals; as alwayes [Page 209] to leave off with an appetite, or to forbear eating Suppers upon the account, that it may hinder your rest.

Neither is't overwholsome to feed con­stantly upon flesh, refusing fish, and other victuals, as pease, beans, &c. arguing as some simply do, that flesh breeds flesh.

Likewise for drink; be not so scrupu­lous as to refuse a glass of Wine, upon pretence that it's inflaming, neither estrange your self from small Beer, as some Drun­kards do, fearing it will bring 'em into a Dropsie. But on the contrary keep a loose dyet, feed sometimes upon fish, pease, salats, spoon meat; other times upon flesh, eggs, roast, boyl'd or fryed meats. Some­times eat liberally, othertimes sparingly; drink sometimes small beer, sometimes strong, or wine. Sometimes eat Suppers, othertimes fast.

However mistake me not, I tell you once more, that a loose and inconstant dyet is the most wholsome to those that are healthful, according to that adage, Sanis omnia sana. The arguments for this assertion are these. 1. God Almighty having created that va­riety [Page 210] of creatures for mans food, we are no [...] to doubt but they are wholsome, because he hath created them for our sustentation; not our destruction. 2. We may observe in the new Testament, that Christ sometimes fed upon fish, othertimes upon flesh; some­times drank water, somtimes wine; som­times he prayed and fed sparingly, other­times frequented feasts, where he met with varieties. And in the Old Testament the Patriarchs fed promiscuously upon herbs, most sorts of flesh and fish, whom we can­not question but were most skilful in dyets, as their long protracted ages attested. 4. If God had thought flesh meat only best for us, he would never have provided all these other creatures, as fish, and herbs, for mans food (all things being created for him,) unless necessary to be eaten with other Victuals; for flesh or fish single would otherwise have been sufficient; besides, God and Nature do nothing in vain. 5. The eagerness of the appetite is a sign of the proneness and readiness of the Spirits in and about the Stomach to digest; but the appetite being generally more eager after [Page 211] variety of meats, it's a sign the spirits are more prone and ready to digest them. On the other hand, one being tyed to a single and constant dish, his Stomach doth not much long for Dinner or Supper; and as he eats without appetite, so he digests it hea­vily, which must necessarily contract cru­dities and ill humours. 6. The spirits of the Stomach growing familiar with the Victuals daily ingested, do not only digest them imperfectly, but are slug in their ex­cretive faculty in evacuating the excre­mentitious humours; which is more appa­rent in this instance, a man that doth feed upon one dish at a Meal, shall nothing near evacuate (or in plain English, go to stool) so quick or readily as one that dines upon two or more; because there is generally a contrariety between several meats, which doth not only augment the fermentation in the Stomach, but excites and stirs the digest­ing spirits, & afterwards prompts them to a ready evacuation. Lastly, one that dyets upon variety, hath this convenience, that what's deficient in one Meal is supplyed by another, or what is faulty in one, is corrected [Page 212] by the other; if one day you have engen­dred obstructions by eating too much pud­ding, rice, bread, & c. eat the more Spoon meat next day, and so you are right again; or if you have drank too much small beer at dinner, and thereby oppressed your Stomach with crudities, drink wine at supper. Or if you have exceeded in quantity at one time, eat or drink less at another. In summa, accustome your self to no kind of victuals or drink, neither to time or quantity; but follow these Rules. 1. Eat flesh meat four or five times a week; and fish twice or thrice, whereby you'l qualify the dryer and overstrong juice of flesh, by tempering it with the moister and weaker of the fish.

2. Never make a meal of flesh alone, but have some other meat with it of less nutriture, as in the Summer, Pease, Beans, Artichoaks, Salats, & c. in the Winter Butter'd Wheat, Milk Pottage, Broaths, or Souppes. 3. A small excess committed now and then is no wise hurtful, through means whereof the supervacaneous humours are stirred▪ and nature prompted to eva­cuate them by stool or vomit; but if neither [Page 213] follows (as in a clear body it may not) ballance your excess next day with fasting, or a proportionable abstinence. This rule was very strictly observed by the Ancients, who thought it a great preventive to drink strong Wine once a month to that excess, as should force nature to return it both wayes; whereby they found that the subtil heat of the Wine did colliquate their super­fluous humours, and [...]serate obstructions, and its impetuous spirits evacuate the said humours with the Wine; whereupon usually followed a copious sweat, that procured a free transpiration; which rule is to this day still kept in use among the Germans. How­ever I can in no wise approve of so dange­rous a preservative, that doth so oft impell Drunkards into Feavers, bursting of a vein by vomiting, and inflammations of the Entrails.

The next of the non naturals is Motion and Rest; in which particular I would advise you to walk moderately ( ad Ruborem non sudorem) until you be thorough hot, but not force your self into a sweat; above all you must be careful you come not in [Page 214] the Summer from the Country out of that thin air into our thick mist in a great sweat, and open pores, into which our thick air intruding, may stop the pores, and occa­sion great Feavers, which too many are precipitated into, by their unadvised posting to Town in a sweat; This I suppose may be the reason, why those that return from Naples to Rome in the Summer, do undoubtedly fall into a Feaver.

In reference to their excretions, they must be sure to exonerate at least once a day; and if the dryness of their Guts be an obstacle in some hot and dry constitutions, they may remedy that by drinking a good draught of fresh small beer, or whey in a in a morning, and feed upon laxative and moistning herbs, as boyl'd Spinnage, Lettice, Endive, & c.

What concerns their proportion of sleep, every one knows what his nature requires. But avoid sleeping after Dinner, or imme­diately after Supper; because it fills the head with fumes and vapours, and occa­sions Catarrhs.

[Page 215]In relation to the passions of the mind, take this ancient rule; Bene age, & laetare, i. e. Do well, and be cheerful. Avoid all occasions of anger, fretting, and peevish­ness, which disturb the blood, and enrage the corrosive humours. Thus much for the Non Naturals. Wee'l include one rule more; considering that it's impossible, but the healthfullest person living in such an air, and following the City mode in his Kitchen, must engender acrimonious hu­mours, and obstructions, and be subject to a constipation of the pores, it will prove very advantageous to open a Vein every Spring in case he be Plethorick, and purge; or if only Cacochymick, to clarify his blood with a laxative; and drink whey for a month or three weeks, to qualify the heat and sharpness of his humours.

THe Preservative part relates to the preventing of a Consumption in those that are inclined, or have lately conceived the seminaries of a Consumption. Who they are that are thus inclined, or are just entring the threshold of a Consumption, the foregoing discourse of Chap. 29. will acquaint you. In the interim take notice, that the same means we intend to prescribe for a cure, are likewise excellent preser­vatives, requiring only a moderation, ac­cording to the age of the Disease, time of year, and other circumstances.

The Indications taken from the Non naturals, which probably have made a great part of the first occasion of that Consump­tive disposition, point at a mature change and rational correction of them.

[Page 217]1. The air appearing so malicious in this Morbifique conspiracy, exacts a more particular regard. Wherefore it's of abso­lute necessity for Initiate Consumptives, to change that air how bad or good soever it may be reputed, wherein they have con­ceived or bred their consuming Seminaries; if bad, as thick, foggy misty, smoaky, moist, putrid, clowdy, or salin and acrimonious, they must make choice of a serene, thin, dry, temperate, sweet, and pleasant air; thus Galen. lib. 5. Meth. Med. advised all tabefyed persons, and such as were onely disposed to a Phihisis, to remove to Tabiae, a hilly place situated between Surrentum and Naples, whose temperature and dry­ness of air, produced by the Sulphureous smoaks of the Mount Vesuvius that's hard by to it, concurred to cure many a despe­rate Consumptive.

2. Though the air be generally expe­rienced good, notwithstanding the Patient having contracted his evil there, possibly by reason of some hidden contrariety that air harbours against his temperament, is a sufficient indication for his changing the air, [Page 218] and that for a considerable time, it may be a year, or two. For a moist Consumption the middle of England, as Worcestershire, Glocester, or Oxfordshire, seems to be en­rich'd with an air propitious for their reco­very; however I imagine that some places of Languedock one of the South Provinces of France, may for air excell that, or Galen's Tabiae. For dry Consumptions a moister air is more proper.

Neither is't only the change of air, that proves so soveraign to Consumptives, but the change of Bread, Beer, Flesh, Com­pany and other circumstances, do very much conduce thereunto.

2. What advantage a loose dyet imports to a healthful constitution, the same detri­ment it contributes to a declining or crazy one; wherefore since every small distemper assumes so easie a growth from the least disorder of dyet, how much the more may a Consumptive disposition, the worst of distempers; which certainly is an argument of the necessity of a strict dyet, now here prescribed to you in these rules.

[Page 219]1. Abstain from all obstructive, melan­cholique, and dreggish Victuals; as Beef, Pork, Geese, Ducks, Cheese, Crusts of Breed, Pyecrust, Pudding, Salt fish, hard boyl'd or fryed Eggs, or any kind of fryed Meat. Likewise from hot Spices, as Pepper, Ginger, Cloves, &c. and pickled meats, as Anchiovy, Pickled Oysters, or Her­rings, Pickled Cowcumbers, &c.

2. Feed only upon meats of easie dige­sture, and inclining somewhat to a moist temperature; as Veal, Chickens, Poulets, Mutton, Lamb, Sweetbreads, Potch'd Eggs, &c. and among the sorts of Fish, Soals, Whitings, Perch, &c. among Herbs, Lettice, Endive, Succory, Sorrel, Porce­lain, Chervil, &c. but note that they must be boil'd.

3. Neither are you to allow your self flesh meat too liberally, because according to 2. Aphor. 11. impure bodies the more you feed them, the more you hurt them; and 1. Aphor. 17. When nourishment is taken beyond nature, it breeds a Disease; because nature being oppressed and distemper'd, cannot concoct the meats it assumes into [Page 220] that temperate juice it doth when it's in better temper; but rather converts them all into ill humours, which must necessarily give an addition to those Consumptive salin corpuscles; and beyond all others flesh meat, as I have intimated before.

4. Dyet most upon Spoon meats, as Veal or Cock Broaths prepared with French Barly, Succory, Maiden hair, Agri­mony, Grass roots, Sweet Fennil, and Persly roots, Raisons and Dates.

Buttermilk affords a most Medicinal and Soveraign food in this disease. I remember I once knew a young Fellow at the Hague, who was fallen into an Ulcerous Consump­tion upon spitting of blood, and notwith­standing the danger of his Disease required the most potent Remedies, refused all help, and wholly devoted himself to Buttermilk, by which sole dyet he recovered beyond the expectation of all that saw him: whence you may deduce of what consequence a strict dyet is.

5. Refrain from flesh meat at supper, in lieu whereof you may now and then enter­tain your self with a Pippin roasted with [Page 221] Saffron, and sweetned with Sugar of Roses, and carui Confects.

6. Drink no kind of strong Ale or Beer, or any liquor that contains Hops or Broom for its ingredients: but make use of small Ale brewed, out of an indifferent propor­tion of Malt, and a sufficient quantity of brown Suggar, in new river water, which excells that of the Thames. This makes the pleasantest and most delicate small liquor, proving very agreeable to the Palat and Stomach, and preventing Diseases. Most wines seem noxious, yet Rhenish Wines (I mean those small Wines, Bachrach and Deal) doth accidentally impinguate by helping the digesture, removing obstru­ctions, and rendring the blood fluid and digestible. This is verifyed by the corpu­lent and fat habits of body of the Inhabi­tants of the Rhine, whom I observed all a long, in descending that river from Bazil in Switzerland as far as Collen, to be uni­versally very fleshy, fat, and healthful; and my self, though entring into Germany in a lean case, was so much improved, before I left the Rhine, that in respect of corpu­lency [Page 222] and fatness I differ'd little from any of them; which I could impute to nothing but their wine.

For motion observe these rules. 1. Walk daily in a pleasant, airy, and umbragious Garden, Park, or Field. 2. Gentle travel in a Coach or on Horseback through a healthful and divertising countrey, doth oft conquer an initial Consumption. What concerns the Excretions and Retentions, and Passions of the mind, regulate your self according to former instructions. These prescripts being thus observed, we are to reflect upon indications drawn from inter­nal causes of growing extenuations; viz. the substraction of salin corrosive humours, engendred by the Spleen, and sublimed up­wards by reason of its obstructions. In this case the opening of the left Median in Ple­thoricks; afterwards the application of Lee­ches to the Haemorrhoids; and hereupon a prescription of a laxative and deoppilative whey, will answer all indications; and for particular derivatives, issues, and senitive Glysters contribute great relief.

HEre you are to distinguish, whether the Lung-vein be burst; or corroded; or sweats out blood; or gapes. The first of these indicates a sudden evacuation of blood by Phlebotomy, for depletion and revulsion; and afterwards requires con­glutination. The second indicates likewise a subtraction of blood in the beginning, for to revel and draw from the Lungs, and demulce the acrimony of the blood; and thereupon make use of conglutinating Me­dicines. The two latter indicate Phlebotomy for revulsion▪ restringents to stench, and incrassatives to thicken the blood.

Wherefore at the first budding of this Symptom, especially if a vein be bursted, and the spitting of blood copious, imme­diately evacuate as large a quantity of [Page 224] blood out of the arm, as the Patient can bear without Swouning; for the greater and more sudden the evacuation is, the soon­er the blood spitting stops; in which case expedition is very necessary, for otherwise the continual coughing would attract a greater stream of blood, and create a more difficult cure. So that Practick Authours advise ill, for subtracting blood in smaller proportions out of several veins at several times; which method, if the Patient can­not suffer the other, may notwithstanding be used, and seconded by Cupping-glasses applyed from below the shoulders down­wards; likewise glysters, rubbing and tying of the extremities. Purgatives during the violence of the symptom are to be refrain­ed; but afterwards, for to prevent its re­turn, may be prescribed, and those only senitives mixt with restringent purgatives, as Myrobalans, Rhubarb, &c. The other indications are to be answered out of these several classes.

Classis 1. Of ordinary conglutinatives and Emplasticks, Cinquefoile, Tormentil, Millfoile, Cumpry, Willow weed, &c. [Page 225] Syrup of Cumphry of Fernelius. The Em­plasticks are Bole armene, Terra sigillata Sanguis Draconis, spodium, gum Arabick, Dragant, Amylum (or the finest kind of flower, where they make starch of) Mastick, Franckincense, &c. Pyrola, Shepherds purse, Sanicle, Golden Rod.

Cl. 2. Of Restringents. Sumach, Plan­tain, Houseleek, Knotgrass, Mouse ear, Porcelain, young Oak Leaves, Vervaine, Horsetail, Ladies Bedstraw, Bramble bush Leaves, Speedwel, Acorn Caps, Pomgra­nat-shells, Red Roses, Wild Pomgranat­flowers, White Poppy seeds, Henbane Seeds, Myrtle Berries, Sumach Seeds, Coral, Blood Stone, Crabs shels burn'd, Rhubarb tosted brown, Acacia, Hypocistis, Crocus Martis, burn'd milk, Syrups of Dry Roses, Quinces, Myrtles, Porcelain, Poppies, old conserve of Roses, &c. Out of these Phy­sicians may form Electuaries, Trochisces, Sublingual Pills, Apozems, and distilled waters, according to their best thinking. To these wee'l subnect such as are more speci­fically recommended by famous Authours.

[Page 226] Trallianus lib. 7. cap. 1. doth beyond all others, and that justly extoll these fol­lowing specifiques. 1. The juices of Leeks and Netles, with a small quantity of Vineger, do most egregiously stop the blood of a bursted Vein. 2. He tells us, that the juice of Porcelain being drunk, is a most excellent and powerful remedy. 3. The decoction of Cumfry root is very much commended by him. 4. The juice of Knot­grass, doth singularly conduce to any kind of spitting of blood. The same vertue he attri­butes to the juice of young Mastick leaves; and particularly expresses an esteem for Sumach. And beyond these formentioned Specificks he attributes an incomparable quality of cohibiting the most desperate kind of bloody sputation, to a Blood-stone, grinded upon a Porphyr to an impalpable powder, and exhibited in a dose of Knot­grass juice.

Galen 7. de Comp. Med. prefers white Henbane Seeds; but Amatus Lus. Cent 6. car. 4. speaks wonders of the juice of the greater sort of Nettles. Hollerius lib. 1. cap. 27. Sets a great esteem upon Knot­grass. [Page 227] Duretus writes a great praise of the Distill'd water of those tails that hang upon Willow Trees. He puts likewise a great confidence in Trochisci è carabe. Valetius upon Hol. exerc. 27. recites a cure of one that spitted blood, who had tryed all the famous Physicians he could hear of, and at last was cured by Scaliger, who prescribed him this powder.

R. Spod, ros. rub. bol. arm. ter. sigil. haemat. ā ʒ v. coral. rub. carab. margarit. non perfor. ā ʒ ij ss. gum. Arab. tragac. ā. ʒ ij. Sem. papav. portul. sem. ros. rub. sem. Arnoglos. corn. cerv. ust. ā ʒ iij. Acac. suc. Barb. hirc. suc. glycyr. ā ʒ ij. amyl. torrefact. ℥ j. M. f. Pulv. Dos. ʒ iij. in aq. pluvial.

The same prescription he found after­wards extant in Serap. cap. 25. [...]r. 2. ex­cept that here is an addition of coral. [...]ar. and Marg.

Syr. è symphyt. fernel. and Syr. coral. Quercet. are likewise in great request. Platerus writes he cured a Woman with Trochis. Alkekengi cum opio taken in Goats milk. Quercetan's Aq. ad Haemoptysin [Page 228] is much commended. Chymists exhibit 9 or 10 drops of Oyl of Vitriol in the juice of Knotgrass; they likewise make use of Tincture, and Salt of coral, crocus Mart is, ol. mart. tinct. Smaragd. ol. succin. &c. But beyond all these I prefer Cerus. Anti­mon. prepared with Spirits of Vitriol, especially where there is suspicion of coa­gulated extravasate blood, which may be conjectured by the Feaver, faints, difficulty of respiration, and excretion of crumbs of blood; in which case the Physician must look to his business, or else loses his Patient.

Galen prescribed oxycrate to dissolve the said coagulated blood. Others com­mend Pulv. carb. tiliae, coagul. hoedi, cer­vi, leporis, sanguis hoedi non concretus, rad. rub. tinct. camphora, sperm. caeti, mumi [...], ocul. cancror. cicer. rub. pulv. & Aq. cherefol. Diaph. in peracut. Spir dulc. Merc. essent. Bellid. &c. But Mouse-dung taken from one Scruple to half a dram in chervil water excells them all.

To return to the remainder of this Chap­ter; Those praecited Medicines proving defective in stenching that internal bleed­ing [Page 229] take your refuge to narcoticks, among which that of Haelidaeus is most famous, whereby he cured many in desperate ca­ses, viz.

R. Sem. Hyoseyam. papav. alb. ā ʒx. terr. Sigil. coral. rubr. ā ʒv. Sacchar. ros. vet. q. s. m. f. Elect. Dos. ʒj. ad ʒj ss Mane & sero. This composition Crato 5. Epist. f. 377. asserts to be excerpted out of Rhases his Cont. Laudanum opiatum, pil. cynoglos. 'Diacod. Pil. è styrace, Philon. rom. may also be brought into use here. In cases of that importance, I would advise Physicians not to lose their time and op­portunity in giving slight remedies, but ascend to those more effectual Medicines. The breast may be annointed with cool and mild restrictives, as Oyle of Roses, Violets, Myrtles, &c. Camphor dissolved in Oxy­crate wherein clouts or rags being steeped and applyed about the Testicles, and sometimes about the waste, are very helpful. Issues in the Legs are most effective in revelling the corrosive humours.

Galen supposing that sometimes a distil­lation of sharp humours might corrode an [Page 230] Ulcer into the Lungs, advised a Consump­tive Woman to shave off her hair, and apply an Emplaster of Piggeons dung, or Thapsia, to extract, absorb, and divert those humours in the Brain; (others make an issue on the head at the sutura coronalis for the same purpose,) which kind of pra­ctice must necessarily rather add to the Disease in attracting a greater quantity of humours out of the whole to the head, after­wards falling down upon the removal of the Emplaster in fuller streams to the Lungs than before; besides such a kind of rough Medicine being very dissonant to the dig­nity and temperature of a noble part, might infer irreparable dammages. But since we have made it visible, that the brain is only a part transmittent, and that humours oft are precipitated to the Lungs, before they arrive to that height of the brain, there can no kind of benefit be expected from so irra­tional an application. On the other hand those subliming humours ought rather to be intercepted before they are mounted to the head, by sublingual Pils, Trochisces, ad­stringent and incrassating Syrups, Loochs [Page 231] Electuaries, &c. To the same intent Celsus lib. 3. c. 23. approves of exulcerations made under the Chin, on the Shoulders, Breast, or Neck; Hildanus writes he cur­ed several initial Consumptions chiefly by drawing a Seton through the Neck. When all is done, they do nothing, until they bend their design and force to the Part Mandant, and eradicate the root of the Disease; which done, there remains nothing more.

The Patient is obliged to abstain from flesh; and dyet upon Panada, Rice Milk, Boyl'd Porcelain, Lettice, Potcht Eggs, &c. some commend Pork, upon the answer of the Oracle, that advised Dumninus the Philosopher to Hogs flesh, whereof as oft as he eated, his spitting of blood stop'd; and leaving it off, return'd; possibly be­cause the juice of this sort of flesh is gluti­nous; for the same reason others approve of Eels, Muscels, Cockles, Crabs, Lob­sters, &c. Damocrates the Physician cured a Roman Woman only with Goats milk fed with Mastick-leaves. Trallianus relates, he cured several with Milk only.

[Page 232]His drink ought to be a decoction of steel dust, burn'd Harts horn, red Sanders, or Knotgrass, and sweetned with Sugar of Roses, dissolving in it besides a convenient quantity of Sal Prunellae; or an Emulsion made of the four greater cold seeds, white Poppy seeds, and spirits of Vitriol. He must forbear much talk, walking, and all violent motions, and passions.

I'le only add an observation of a very speedy cure; one Mr. S. D. a Merchant, who through a violent vomit brake a Lung­vein; I caused immediately a large quan­tity of blood to be drawn out of his right Arm; & thereupon gave him this following

R. Dulced. Mart. Spec. Haemop. ā gr. 4. Opij Spag. praep. gr. ss Aq. urtic. Maj. ℥ ij. m. f. pot. capiat mane & sero.

This he took thrice and was perfectly cured. The like effect it performed in one W. S. a Taylor.

THe Indications in the first degree point at sutable preparatives, to pre­pare those corrosive salin humours, and remove the forementioned obstructions of the Spleen, Stomach and Liver; which is to be performed by Agrimony, fumitory, Succory, Scabious, Borrage, Buglos, En­dive, Maidenhair, Harts-tongue, Spleen­wort, Cuscuta, Burnet, Grass roots, ditch Dock roots, the five opening Roots, the four greater cold Seeds, Syr. e 5 rad. bizant. de cichor. cum Rh. Some of these or all you may make use of in Whey, whereby having prepared those adust humours, it's necessa­ry they should be purged by gentle purga­tives and laxatives; as Polypod. sem cartham. Manna, cassia, tamar. Syr. ros. sol. de Cichor. cum Rh. ros. sol. cum Agar. de [Page 234] pom mag. de Epithym. Senna, Rhab. agar. crem. tart. Tart. vitriol &c. out of these you may compose Apozems, to prepare the humours and at the same time purge them; but by degrees ( per Epicrasin;) after this if there was a small quantity of blood eva­cuated at the Haemorrhoids by Leeches would be very advantageous. The cough in the mean while must be remedied with Sy­rups, and Loochs, sublingual Pills and Trochisces to expectorate the humours out of the Lung-pipes. If the matter be tough thick and cleaving, it must be cut, attenu­ated and deterged; if thin, it must be thick­ned by incrassatives, as Syr. Nymph. jujub. looch è Papav. portul. &c. This kind of short cough in the first degree is that which Phy­sicians call a Tussis Vulpina, a Fox­cough. Touching the curative of the second degree, where we meet either with an Ulcer in Lungs, or an Ulcerous disposition; the former, namely the Ulcer, must be cleansed or deterged, and afterwards cica­trized or consolidated. The first is perform­ed by hot and dry Medicines; the latter by cold and dry. Moreover, there must be a [Page 235] particular respect had to the urgent symp­toms of this degree, viz. the Hectick Feaver and Consumption of the parts. Having first subtracted a part of the vitious humours, by a laxative as Manna, cassia, Syr. ros. sol. &c. it's generally agreed upon by the most famous▪ ancient and modern▪ Physi­cians, that milk is the only Medicine and food, that will answer all indications; for by its wheyish part it cleanses and deterges; by it's cheesy it conglutinates; by its buttery part it restores and nourishes the consumed parts; And by its unctuosity promotes expectoration. But since there are several sorts of milk, you are to make distinction of them. Womans milk is most nourishing, but less detergent; Asses milk is more cleansing, and less restorative; but Goats milk is between both; that is, it's more nourishing and less cleansing than Asses milk, and more cleansing and less nourishing than Womans milk. But because the cleansing faculty is most requisite, Asses milk is universally preferr'd; and to render it the more effectual, it's advisable to seed the Asse with restringent and detergent [Page 236] herbs, as Yarrow, Plantain, Vine leaves, Knotgrass, Bramble-bush leaves, &c. Pla­terus records several cured by Womans milk suck'd warm out of the Breast; and among the rest there was one, that throve so well with his Wives milk, that he pur­posely got her with child again to prevent his want of milk for the future. Chamels milk is a degree beyond Asses for cleansing. In stead of Womans milk, Sheeps or Cows milk may be used. Likewise Mairs milk alone, or Cows milk being diluted with Whey, may be substituted in stead of Asses or Chamels. Touching the use of milk, you must observe the quantity, time, and correction of it; for the quantity, you must accustome your self to it by degrees, beginning from a quarter of a pint, and ascending to a pint or a little more; ac­cording to the parties appetite, and strength of digesture. The time must be in the Mornings and Afternoons, taking your dose alwayes five or six hours before and after meat, warm from the Cow or Ass, and besure to refrain sleeping upon it, for otherwise it would fume up to the head. [Page 237] Lastly, because milk is so apt to sowre in a weak Stomach, you must sweeten it with Sugar of Roses, or clarified Honey. Some boyl it with yolks of Eggs, to make it more nutritive; others quench steel in it to ren­der it the more conglutinating.

But after all these Encomia, know that a milk dyet in many cases proves hurtful, particularly, 1. When the body is affected with a putrid slow erratick, (discernable, or sometimes latent) Feaver, as gene­rally it is. 2. Consumptives are very sub­ject to evaporations and fumes flying to the Brain, obstructions of the Bowels, and disposition to engender hot Cholerick and Salin humours; all which evils milk is very apt to encrease, nothing being more vaporous than it, nothing more Fea­verish, nothing more obstructive, by reason of its cheesy parts, and nothing more con­vertible into hot cholerick humours than it's buttery parts, as appears in Children, whom it doth so extremely fill with green and yellow gall, and fleam; and disposes them to Catarrhs, Consumptions, Feavers, Loosenesses, &c. 3. Most Physicians for­bid [Page 238] milk to those, that are troubled with weak Stomachs, sowre Belchings, Grumb­lings in their Guts ( Borborygmi) Loose­nesses, all which Consumptives are seldom free from. 4. Many passages of Hip. do also disuade 2. Aphor. 11. and 17. and lib. de vet. Med. Meat eaten in too great a quan­tity tabefies the body, and lib. de. loc. in hom. If the body doth not digest the meat it eats, it's rendred lean; besides several other places, which would prove too tedious to recite. Wherefore you must be very care­ful, you do not exceed in your milk dyet; but the surest way is not to meddle with it without a Physicians advice. More­over take away the root and cause of the Consumption, and the body will soon thrive upon it.

For these reasons I do attribute much more to a Whey dyet, which I have advised to many▪ with the greatest success imagina­ble, enjoyning them to drink nothing but white Whey sweetned with Sugar or old Conserve of Roses; to Dine and Sup upon Buttermilk, boyl'd with French Barly bea­ten in a Mortar, or Oat-meal, and after­wards [Page 239] sweetned with Sugar of Roses, and coloured yellow with English Saffron. But lest they should be clyed with that, they may gratifie their Palats with variety of Broaths, and especially with Broath made of an old Cock, with the addition of aperi­tive and pulmonique herbs, which together with the use of some laxatives only, is in great vogue among the Italian Physicians for the cure of Consumptions. Some advise their Patients to dyet upon Crabs, Lobsters, Oysters, Cockles, Muscels, Frogs, &c. but against reason, those meats being of too hard a digesture for weak Stomachs; never­theless the juices expressed out of them, or liquors distilled from them, are experienced very proficuous. Others prescribe milk boyl'd with flower, thick ptisan, confections out of Capons, Partridge, and Tortises flesh, Crabs, Lobsters, Sweet Almonds, Pistaches, White poppy seeds, the four greater cold Seeds, &c. For their ordinary drink, they approve of Barly Water, Small Meetheglin, the decoction of Harts­horn, or the Small Ale described in Chap. 34. But beware of stale Beer.

[Page 240]The Air ought to be dry and temperate; witness the story of that old Woman, that was preserved many years by the dry Air of the Bakers Oven, where she was used to work. Aretaeus commends a Sea Air, and therefore the Ancient Physicians were wont to send their Patients to Alexandria, for to have the benefit of the Salt Air during the Voyage, which being of a drying nature, they conceived might conduce to the dry­ing up of the Ulcer in the Lungs. But in my opinion the Sea Air being nauseous, moving one to Vomit, and stirring the humours of the body, should rather prove offensive. Pliny doth highly esteem the Air of Forests, where pitch is collected.

The detersives for the Ulcer are com­posed out of Vulneraries, agglutinatives, and pectorals; viz. Burnet, Centaury, Betony, Agrimony, Vervain, Mouse-ear, Avens, Ladies Mantle, Arsmart, Periwincle, Bugle, Lilly of the Valley, Solomon's Seal, Serpentine, Snakeweed, Aristol. rot. Cicer. rubr. Isop, Water Germander, Colts-foot, Card. Benedict. Lung-wort, Maiden hair, Scabious, Penny-royal, Ground Ivy, Cud­weed, [Page 241] Ros solis, Origan, Horehound, Oak of Ierusalem, Calamint, St. Iohns-wort, Elicampaine, Squils, Orris, Myrrh, Tere­binthin, Fox Lungs, Spec. diaireos, Diaca­laminthe, Looch San. & expert. è pulm. vulp. Syr. nicot. [...] ped. cat. &c. The agglutinatives we have set down in the Chapter preceding, and are to be made use of when the Ulcer is sufficiently cleansed. The experience of famous Practitioners re­commends to us several Specifiques. 1. Ros solis is extold above most other Pulmonicks by several. 2. Speed-well is likewise very frequently used against Ulcers in the Lungs, an Herb certainly without comparison. 3. Camerarius speaks much in the praise of Oak of Ierusalem; which also makes the basis of Syr. Botryos, described in the Lond. disp. 4. The generality of Physicians attest Spot­ted Lungwort to be a most egregious Pul­monique, both for deterging and congluti­nating an Ulcer in the Lungs. 5. An inge­nious Physician at Padua told me this fol­lowing for a great secret in an Ulcerous Consumption of the Lungs. Masterwort­root boyl'd in Metheglin, and afterward [Page 242] mix'd with a third part of aq. Sperm ranar. 6. Langius and others make use of Ground Ivy, for the last and extreme remedy. You may take it either destilled, in the Juyce, or Syrup; dissolving only in them some Conserve or Suggar of Roses. 7. Saffron is commonly-stiled the soul of the Lungs, which when they are ready to be stifled and choak'd with thick tough fleam and puru­lent matter, have been miraculously re­covered by a dose of Saffron in wine; where­fore no prescription for Pulmoniques ought to pass without some grains of Saffron in it. 8. Millepedae or Palmers have for many Ages been reputed the greatest detersives and cleansers of the Lungs, a quantity of them being tyed in a fine Linnen rag, and steeped in Metheglin or Whey, and so used; or being burned to ashes in an oven and mixed with old Conserve of Roses. 9. Avi­cen. lib. 3. Fen. 10. Tract. 5. cap. 5. mesues. cap. de Phthisi. Valleriola lib. 5. Obs. 5. Forest. libr. 16. Obs. 58. Montan. in Cons. 152. do all bring in unquestionable Testimonies of several, by them particularly mentioned, desperate Consumptives, per­fectly [Page 243] cured of deep and sordid Ulcers in the Lungs, by the sole means of Suggar of Roses; but of at least a year old, & devoured in great quantities several times in a day, and so continued for some weeks. 10. Fon­seca consult. 58. tom. 1. sets a great value upon the Decoction of yellow Sanders. 11. Arcaeus lib. de Febr. Erastus lib. 3. Cons. 8. Fracast. lib. 3. de morb. contag. cap 8. Ingrassias in consult. pro fist. pect. Stabelius in Disput▪ and several others, re­cite a great number of Phthisical cures, and those desperate ones, performed by a De­coction of Guaiacum wood. 12. Trallianus lib▪ 7. c. 1. speaks wonders of the use of Bloodstone. Cardan writeth no less of the Decoction of Crabs Legs and Tails; Fern. of the Syrup of Cumphry, others of the Syrup of St. Iohnswort flowers, and Syrup of Tobacco. 12. For Compositions, this fol­lowing powder of Haly Abbas is by Vales­cus, Forestus, Rondeletius, and all others re­ceived for a singular Medicine, whereby the three former cured some Consumptives, beyond their own expectation. R. Sem. pap. alb. ʒ x. gum. arab. amyl. ā ʒiij sem portul. [Page 244] malv. al [...]h ā ʒ v. sem cucurb. cucum. citrul. cydon. ā ʒ vij. Spod. glycyr. gum. tragac. ā ʒ iij. m. f. Pulv. 13. This of Trallianus I esteem equal with the best composition that ever was prescribed by any. R. Suc. s [...]mpervivi. passi cretici, mel. attic. ā. cyath. 2. sem. urtic. cucum. sativ. cup [...]es. ā ℥ j. [...]oq. ad Consump. med. part. Colat. adde pic. liq. cyath. & coq. ad consist. mellis; huic admisce nard. syriac. ʒ j. thuris ʒ iij. Croci▪ pip. alb ā ʒ ij. m. f. Elect.

Here I have registred to you the most efficacious Medicines of this and the former ages, which unless applyed by a dexterous hand, may sooner kill than cure. Moreover note these detersives may be mixt with the restringents, consolidatives, & incrassatives of the preceding Chapter, according as the Patients condition shall require.

For external means, drying suffumiges or smoaks are oft prescribed with good success. They are usually composed out of Frankin­cense, Myrrh, Pitch, Olibanum, Benzoin, Styrax. Gum. hederae, Amber, Rose leaves, Coltsfoot dryed, Sanders, lign. Aloes, &c. but the fume of Sandaracha is particularly [Page 245] commended. Emollient & temperate Oyls & Liniments seem to facilitate respiration, which the Physician must alwayes have an eye to, and therefore it's necessary he should ever mix some lenient pectorals with his other Medicines: Issues in the lower parts do also divert.

Hermetical Physicians go another way to work; they begin with a galliard vomit, and so proceed to detersives and agglutinatives; viz. Flowers of Brimstone, Balsam and milk of Sulphur, Elixir proprietat is, crystal mart. Extract. Aristol. rot. spir. salis dulc. Ol. vitriol. ol. mercur. dulce, spir. sulphuris per camp▪ ol. succin. magist. ocul. cancror. magist. perlar. tinct. sal. & magist. coral. rub sac­char. saturn. Mynsighti. antimon. diaphor.

To Dogmatists this Chymical practice seems suspicious; in regard that vomits do violently conquassate the Lungs, and tare the Ulcer wider. Moreover Hip. 4. Aph. 8. doth very much condemn vomits in such, as are onely disposed to a Phthisis, much more in those that are already tabefyed. Hereunto may be replyed, that vomits though they infer some small detriment to [Page 246] the Lungs, yet they import a far greater benefit by working immediately upon the parts mandant; and Hip. himself lib. 2. de Morb. did frequently exhibit Hellebor to Consumptives, which is experienced to be a very churlish Medicine.

On the other hand Chymists quarrel with Dogmatists for letting blood in Con­sumptions, where nature is already so much defrauded of its Genius, and consequently rather hungers for a greater supply of nutriture: this objection they easily an­swer, in asserting that in many Consump­tives there is a Plethora ad vires, (though in no wise ad vasa) a great acrimony in their blood, and an impetuous afflux of humours to their Lungs, which do very urgently indicate Phlebotomy; whereby Hipp. 5. Epid. 6. recovered a Consump­tive, whose disease contemned all other remedies; and Galen 6. Epid. cured a Woman of a Phthisis by the same means. Several other Authours likewise observe many rescued from imminent Consump­tions by detracting small proportions of blood. No doubt but Phlebotomy and [Page 247] Vomits have their use in this malady; but the Temperament, Age, Sex, and Idiosyn­crasia of the Patient, degree of the Disease, and other urgent or contraindicating symp­toms must be exquisitely observed.

It's time I should take leave of my Rea­der, which the urgency of my affairs doth now prompt me to; However for his last farewel we'l entertain him with some few observations of mixt cures, namely partly spagyrical, and partly dogmatical.

Obs. 1. One G. T. a Merchant's Appren­tice, upon a continuated debauch, was sur­prized with a tedious Cough, oft expectora­ting small quantities of blood, whereupon he soon dropt into a proper Consumption, but was in a short time recovered by these means; I advised him to the Country, where by my appointment a proportion of blood was extracted twice out of the Haemorrhoids by Leeches. Before and afterwards was seve­ral times purged with this bol [...]. R. extract. rec. cass. ℥ ss pulp. tamarind. man. calabr. ā ʒij. crystal tart. ℈ j. Rhab e [...]. pulv. agar. rec. troch. ā ℈ ss spic. nard. gr. 4. cum sacchar.

[Page 248] M. F. Bol. for sixteen dayes he took this Elect. mornings and evenings, drinking upon it a draught of Decoct. of red Sanders sweetened with Sugar of Roses, and acuated with a drop or two of Spir. Sulphur. per camp. R. Magist. stypt. Specif. Hect. croc. angl. ā gr. 4. Conserv. ros. vet. ʒ j.

M. F. Bol. His ordinary drink was white Whey; his dyet broaths alter'd with herbs, and oftimes Buttermilk.

Obs. 2. A young woman aged 24, spit­ting blood and matter upon the stoppage of her courses, was let blood out of the foot, and oft purged with Diaprunum lenit. ℥ ss Merc. dulc. gr. 15. crem. tart. ℈ j. She drank a decoct. of Sarsa with Veron. agri­mon. heder. ter. Dates, Corrents, and Liquorish for 21 dayes, at the expiration of which term she was cured of her Cough, and there appeared a shew of her flowers. I advised her also to Looch. Papap. and è Pulm. vulp. ana. and to make an Issue in her left Leg.

Obs. 3. A Child aged 3. deform'd with the Rickets, & consumed to skin and bones, was cured in a month by the Tincture of [Page 249] tartar, taking two drops twice or thrice a day in Whey.

Obs. 4. I have seen many thousands of Diseased in the Hospitals of France, Ger­many, Italy, Holland, Flanders, and other parts, but never observed so many great Diseases complicated in one body, as not long since in one of my Patients; the party had been seised of a latent venereal malady two or three years together, and newly again surprized with a Green virulent Conorrhe, a constant excretion of purulent matter; an immitigable Cough, a confirm'd Dropsie, a most forbid Ulcer in the Kidneys, evacuat­ting constantly a great quantity of blood and Pus (matter) with his Urin, a perfect Con­sumption, great obstructions of his Bowels, and many other most urgent Symptoms. Whence I could observe the strange force of nature, though in a body naturally weak, to support such a number of great Diseases; and that which to me appeared more strange, was an intermission of at least two pulsations in nine or ten, continuing that type for several hours, I am confident, if not dayes.

[Page 250] Obs. 5. A Smith that had expectorated putrid, thick, ugly matter for at least two months, I cured out of charity; I gave him two doses of Antimon. resuscit. the prepara­tion whereof I have divulged to you in Venus Unmask'd; and advised him to drink twice a day a small draught of Spring water being render'd bitter with soot burn'd out of wood, and sweetned again with brown Su­gar, which in a month perfectly cured him. I thought to have presented you with seve­ral other remarques; but that the Bulk of this Treatise being already swell'd beyond my purpose, obliges me to come to an