The causes of this disease and of the Symptoms belonging therunto, haue euer bin found hard to be described particularly: and especially in a vulgar tongue, I hold it not meete to discourse to freely of such matters, and therefore I doe craue pardon if I do but slenderly ouerpasse some poynts which might be otherwise more largely stood vpon
The causes of this disease are either internall, or external. The internall causes may be any thing contained within the bodie, as spirit, blood, humors excrements, &c. whereby this part is apt to be offended, but principally they are referred vnto these two, [50]blood, and nature.
Blood is that humor wherwith we are nourished: without which the infant in the mothers wombe could neither grow & increase in bignesse, nor yet liue: and therefore it was necessarie that those that were fit for generation, should be supplied with sufficient store of this humor, for the vse of this part wherin the infãt is to be nourished, for which cause there are large vaines & arteries deriued vnto it for the conueyance of bloud thereunto, and there is greater provision thereof made in womens bodies then in mens: least this part should bee forced to withdraw nourishment from other parts of the bodie, and so leave them weake and consuming.
Defectus. But this prouision of nature is oftentimes defectiue: as when it is cut off by violent causes, and the part left destitute of this familiar humor, which should serue both for the comfort of the infant, and of the part it selfe: which finding offence thereby doth communicate it vnto the other partes with which it hath affinitie according to Hyppocrates doctrine. 1. Morborum muliebrium, and Aristotle, de generat. animal. cap. 11. vteri euacuati sursum ascendunt & præfocationes faciunt. Hollerius et Rondelet loci citatis. Comment. 2 in lib. 1. Hypp de morb. muliebr. Cordæus giues vs an example of one who by chaunce cutting a vaine in her leg, whereupon she did bleede plentifully, fell into a fit of the Mother, and by moist and nourishing diet was recouered. The reason whereof Hyppocrates referreth to the ouerdrying of those parts through large euacuation of bloud, wherby the matrix doth labour by such motion as it hath to supply it selfe with moysture from other parts of the body: Lib. 4. cap. 22. or as Mercurialis doth enterpret it, doth impart by communitie (as is aforesaid) the offensive qualitie vnto the braine, and by that meanes procures convulsions, &c. Gallen 2.loc. affect. refferreth it into the ouercooling of those parts which necessarily must follow a large euacuation of bloud, which coldenesse being very offensive vnto the nerues and neruous partes by consent and compassion offendeth the braine also, and by that meanes may procure the former Symptoms.
Excesses. And as the want and scarsitie of bloud may procure this griefe, so the abundance & excesse thereof doth more commonly cause it, where the patients do want those monethly euacuatiõs which should discharge their bodies of this superfluitie: Gal. loc. affect. 6 Pereda in paschalium lib. 1. cap. 58. Altomarus. Syluius. as we see in strong and lustie maidens, who hauing ease and good fare inough, haue their vaines filled with plenty of bloud, which wanting sufficient vent distẽdeth them in bulck and thicknes, and so contracteth them in their length, whereby the matrix is drawne vpwards or sidewards, according as the repletion is, whereupon followeth a compression of the neighbour parts, as of the midrif which causeth shortnes of breath, by straightning the instruments of respiration of their due scope.
But if this bloud wanting his proper vse doe degenerate into the nature of an excrement, then it offendeth in qualitie as well as in excesse, and being detayned in the bodie, causeth diuers kinds of Symptoms, according to the qualitie and degree of the distemperature thereof.
Alteratio. This distemperature is either in manifest qualities, of heate, colde, moisture, drines, according vnto which it is said to be, Hypp. de morbis virginum. Altomarus Corruptio. Melancholicke, Flegmaticke, Choloricke, &c. producing Symptoms of the like nature, or in corruption and putrefactiõ of this bloud which breedeth diuers strange kinds of distẽperatures, Mercatus loco citato. according to the diuersity of the humor putrefied, the degree of putrefaction or the condition of the cause or author thereof.
Rondelarius c. 69. Platerus.
Pereda in pas. et alia.
Valesius de Tarranta. lib. 6.
Valesius testatur se deprehendisse circa vterũ hystericarũ croceum humorem fatidissimũ &c. lib. 5. c. 15.
Mathaus de grad. in 9. Rhasis. ca. 28. Item consilio 84.
Mercatus.
Gal.
Avicen.
Mercurialis.
Bottonus locis citatis.
Hercules Saxonia de plica. ca 14. et. 34. The other substance which most commonly is found culpable of this disease, is nature or sperma: which besides the suspition of superfluitie in some persons, may also receiue diuers sortes of alteration, and likewise of corruption, able to worke most strange and grieuous accidents in our bodies. For as it is a substance of greatest perfection & puritie so long as it retayneth his natiue integritie: So being depraued or corrupted, it passeth all the humors of our bodie, in venom and malignitie. For it must needs be a vehement and an impure cause that shal corrupt so pure a substance, which would easily resist any weake assault: and a substance so pure and full of spirits as this is, must needes proue most malitious vnto the bodie when it is corrupted. And therefore it is compared to the venom of a serpent, a Scorpion, a Torpido, a madde dogge, &c. which in a small quantitie is able to destroy or depraue all the faculties of our bodies at once.
Galen comparing the corruption of these two together, affirmeth that although from the putrefaction of bloud, diuers most terrible accidents doe arise, yet they are not so deadly as those which proceede from the corruption of nature; Syluius, &c. and proueth it by this obseruation that diuers women enioying the benefit of mariage, yet through the suppression of their ordinary euacuation falling into this disease, had their respiration and vitall faculties vntouched, although otherwise they were most grieuously affected.
Others also hauing those ordinarie matters in good sorte, yet being widdowes and taken with this grief haue felt decay in those faculties as well as in the rest.