In your Authors Treatise of Fevers, I find one Chapter[1] whose Inscription is, A Perfect Curing of all Fevers, wherein he declares the secrets of the Cures of Fevers, consisting all in Chymical Medicines. But considering, that if all Fevers could be cured by such Medicines, then all Physicians would strive to obtain them; I can hardly believe (by your Authors favour) that any such perfect curing of all Fevers can be effected, but that your Authors prescriptions, if they should come to the tryal, might fail as well as any other. Likewise he mentions a Medicine of Paracelsus, Named Diaceltesson, or the Coraline Secret; which, he says, cures radically the Gout no less then Fevers: Which if so, I wonder why so many Great, Noble and Rich Persons, groan so much under the pains of the Gout; certainly it is not for want of cost to have them prepared, nor for want of an ingenious and experienced Chymist; for this age doth not want skilful workmen in that Art, nor worthy and wise Physicians, which if they knew such soveraign medicines, would soon apply them to their Patients; but I suppose that they finding their effects to be less then the cost and labour bestowed upon them, forbear to use them. Moreover, he mentions[2] another remedy for most diseases, by him call'd Driff, prepared also by the Art of Chymistry; but I believe all those remedies will not so often cure, as fail of cure, like as the Sympathetical Powder; for if there were such soveraign medicines that did never fail of a successful effect, certainly men being curious, inquisitive, and searching, would never leave till they had found them out. Also amongst Vegetables, the herb Chameleon and Arsmart are in great request with your Author; For, says he, they by their touching alone, do presently take away cruel diseases, or at leastwise ease them. Which if so, I wonder that there is not more use made of them, and they held in greater esteem then they are; Also that your Author doth not declare the vertue of them, and the manner and way how, and in what diseases to use them, for the benefit of his neighbour, to which end, he says, all his labours and actions are directed? But again, your Author confirms, as an Eye-witness, That the bone of the arm of a Toad presently has taken away the Tooth-ach at the first co-touching. Which remedy, if it was constant, few, in my opinion, would suffer such cruel pains, and cause their teeth to be drawn out, especially if sound. Likewise of the mineral Electrum or Amber of Paracelsus, he affirms[3] to have seen, that hung about the neck, it has freed those that were persecuted by unclean spirits, and that many simples have done the like effects; but surely, Madam, I cannot be perswaded that the Devil should be put away so easily; for he being a Spirit, will not be chased by corporeal means, but by spiritual, which is Faith, and Prayer; and the cure of dispossessing the Devil belongs to Divines, and not to Natural Philosophers or Physicians. But though exterior remedies, as Amulets, Pomanders, and the like, may perform sometimes such effects as to cure or preserve from some diseases, yet they are not ordinary and constant, but meerly by chance. But there are more false remedies then true ones, and if one remedy chance to work successfully with one distempered person, it may fail of its success applyed to others in the same kind of distemper; nay, it may cure perhaps one and the same person of a distemper once, and in the return of the same disease effect little or nothing; witness those remedies that are applyed in Agues, Tooth-aches, and the like, especially Amulets; for one and the same disease in several persons, or in one and the same person at several times, may vary and change so often, and proceed from so different causes, and be of so different tempers, and have such different motions, as one and the same medicine can do no good: And what would the skill of Physicians be, if one remedy should cure all diseases? Why should they take so much pains in studying the various causes, motions, and tempers of diseases, if one medicine had a general power over all? Nay, for what use should God have created such a number of different simples, Vegetables, and Minerals, if one could do all the business? Lastly, your Author rehearses[4] some strange examples of Child-bearing Women, who having seen terrible and cruel sights, as Executions of Malefactors, and dismembring of their bodies, have brought forth monstrous births, without heads, hands, arms, leggs, &c. according to the objects they had seen. I must confess, Madam, that all Creatures are not always formed perfect; for Nature works irregularly sometimes, wherefore a Child may be born defective in some member or other, or have double members instead of one, and so may other animal Creatures; but this is nevertheless natural, although irregular to us: but to have a Child born perfect in the womb, and the lost member to be taken off there, and so brought forth defective, as your Author mentions, cannot enter my belief; neither can your Author himself give any reason, but he makes onely a bare relation of it; for certainly, if it was true, that the member was chopt, rent or pluckt off from the whole body of the Child, it could not have been done without a violent shock or motion of the Mother, which I am confident would never have been able to endure it; for such a great alteration in her body, would of necessity, besides the death of the Child, have caused a total dissolution of her own animal parts, by altering the natural animal motions: But, as I said above, those births are caused by irregular motions, and are not frequent and ordinary; for if upon every strange sight, or cruel object, a Child-bearing-woman should produce such effects, Monsters would be more frequent then they are. In short, Nature loves variety, and this is the cause of all strange and unusual natural effects; and so leaving Nature to her will and pleasure, my onely delight and pleasure is to be,
Madam,
[Your] faithful Friend, and humble Servant.
[1] Ch. 14.
[2] In the Ch. named Butler.
[3] Ch. Of the manner of entrance of things darted into the body.
[4] Ch. Of things injected into the body.
[XXXVIII.]
MADAM,