Your faithful Friend
and Servant.
[1] In his Treatise of Fevers, c. 4.
[XXXIV.]
MADAM,
Your Author is not onely against Phlebotomy or Blood-letting, but against all Purging Medicines, which he condemns to carry a hidden poyson in them, and to be a cruel and stupid invention. But certainly he shall not have my assent; for if they be Poyson, they are a very beneficial Poyson; and Physical Purgations, in my opinion, are very necessary and profitable for the prolonging of life, and taking away of diseases, provided they be proper for those diseases in which they are used; and so is Phlebotomy, Vomits, and the like: but Medicines are often wrong applyed, and many times the disease is so various, that it is as hard for a Physician to hit right with several Medicines, as for a Gunner or Shooter to kill with Powder and small Shot a Bird flying in the Air; not that it is not possible to be done, but it is not ordinary, or frequent: neither doth the fault onely lie in the Gun, Powder, or Shot, but in the swiftness of the flight of the Bird, or in the various motion of the air, or in a hidden wind, or mist, or the like; for the same Gunner may perhaps easily kill a Bird sitting in a bush, or hopping upon the ground. The like may be said of Diseases, Physicians, and Medicines; for some diseases have such hidden alterations, by the sudden changes of motions, that a wise Physician will not, nor cannot venture to apply so many several medicines so suddenly as the alteration requires; and shall therefore Physicians be condemned? and not onely condemned for what cannot be helped by reason of the variety of irregular motions, but what cannot be helped in Nature? For some diseases are so deadly, as no art can cure them, when as otherwise Physicians with good and proper medicines, have, and do as yet rescue more people from death, then the Laws do from ruine. Nay, I have known many that have been great enemies to Physick, die in the flower of their age, when as others which used themselves to Physick, have lived a very long time. But you may say, Country-people and Labourers, take little or no Physick, and yet grow most commonly old, whereas on the contrary, Great and rich Persons take much Physick, and do not live so long as the common sort of men doth. I answer: It is to be observed, first, that there are more Commons, then Nobles, or Great and rich persons; and there is not so much notice taken of the death of a mean, as of a noble, great, or rich person; so that for want of information or knowledg, one may easily be deceived in the number of each sort of persons. Next, the Vulgar sort use laborious exercises, and spare diet; when as noble and rich persons are most commonly lazie and luxurious, which breeds superfluities of humors, and these again breed many distempers: For example, you shall find few poor men troubled with the Gout, Stone, Pox, and the like diseases, nor their Children with Rickets; for all this cometh by luxury, and no doubt but all other diseases are sooner bred with luxury, then temperance; but whatsoever is superfluous, may, if not be taken away, yet mediated with lenitive and laxative medicines. But as for Physicians, surely never age knew any better, in my opinion, then this present, and yet most of them follow the rules of the Schools, which are such as have been grounded upon Reason, Practice, and Experience, for many ages: Wherefore those that will wander from the Schools, and follow new and unknown ways, are, in my opinion, not Orthodoxes, but Hereticks in the Art of Physick. But to return to your Author, give me leave, Madam, to consider what his opinions are concerning the Purging of Choler; Come on, says he to the Schools,[1] Why doth that, your Choler following with so swift an efflux, stink so horribly, which but for one quarter of an hour before did not stink? To which it may be answered, That though humors may not stink in themselves, yet the excrements mixt with the humors may stink; also the very passing thorow the excrements will cause a strong savour. But your Author thinks, That by passing through so suddenly, the humors cannot borrow such a smell of stinking dung from the Intestines. Truly, 'tis easily said, but hardly proved, and the contrary is manifest by putting clear, pure water into a stinking vessel, which straightway is corrupted with an ill smell. He talks also of Vitriol dissolved in Wine, which if it be taken, presently provokes vomit; but if after drinking it, any one shall drink thereupon a draught of Ale or Beer, or Water, &c. he indeed shall suffer many stools, yet wholly without stink. I answer: This expresses Vitriol to be more poysonous, by taking away the natural savour of the bowels, then Scammony, Coloquintida, Manna, Cassia, Sena, Rhubarb, &c. to all which your Author is a great enemy; and it is well known to experienced Physicians, that Medicines prepared by the art of fire are more poysonous and dangerous then natural drugs; nay, I dare say, that many Chymical Medicines, which are thought to be Cordials, and have been given to Patients for that purpose, have proved more poysonous then any Purging Physick. Again your Author says, It is worthy of Lamentation, that Physicians would have loosening things draw out one humor, and not another, by selection or choyce. My answer is, That natural drugs and simples are as wise in their several operations, as Chymists in their artificial distillations, extractions, sublimations, and the like; but it has long been observed by Physicians, that one simple will work more upon one part of the body, then upon another; the like may be said of humors. But give me leave to tell you, Madam, that if your Author believes magnetick or attractive cures (as he doth, and in whose behalf he makes very long discourses) he doth in this opinion contradict himself. He may say, perhaps, There is no such thing as what Physicians name humors. But grant there be none, yet he cannot deny that there are offensive juices, or moveable substances made by evil, as irregular digestions, which may be troublesom and hurtful to the nature of the body. Or perchance he will say, There are such humors, but they are beneficial and not offensive to the nature of the body. I answer: Then he must make an agreement with every part of the body, not to make more of these humors then is useful for the body. Also he mentions some few that took Purging Physick, and died. Truly so they might have done without taking it: but he doth not tell, how many have died for want of proper and timely Purges. In truth, Madam, 'tis an easie thing to find fault, but not so easie to mend it. And as for what he speaks of the weighing of those humors and excrements, which by purging were brought out of some Princes body, and how much by the Schools rules remained, and of the place which should maintain the remainder; I onely say this, that all the several sorts of juices, humors, or moveable substances in a body, do not lie in one place, but are dispersed, and spread all about and in several parts and places in the body; so that the several Laxative medicines do but draw them together, or open several parts, that they may have freedom to travel with their chief Commanders, which are the Purging medicines. But your Author says, the Loadstone doth not draw rust. And I say, no more do Purging drugs draw out pure Matter: for it may be as natural for such medicines to draw or work onely upon superfluities, that is, corrupted, or evil-affected humors, juices or moveable substances, as for the Loadstone to draw Iron; and so it may be the property of Purges to draw onely the rust of the body, and not the pure metal, which are good humors. But few do consider or observe sufficiently the variety of Natures actions, and the motions of particular natural Creatures, which is the cause they have no better success in their cures. And so leaving them to a more diligent inquisition and search into Nature, and her actions, I rest,
Madam,
Your faithful Friend
and humble Servant.