In Respect of the Medicine; It is to be consider’d, that some Medicines may require it, to enhance their Virtue; others to remove some Inconvenience attending their Operation, which may deter People from using ’em so liberally as they ought to do.
As to the Former, the ordinary Circulation of the Blood, may not suffice to Answer the Nature of some Medicaments, and call out their utmost Efficacy; just as we see the heat of our Sun will cherish and keep alive some Exotick Plants, but yet will not suffice to bring ’em to their utmost Perfection, to flower and seed; so that Exercise in this Case, is like the just and exact Incubation to the Egg; that which Animates the Drug, and gives it a Power to produce the Effect it is directed to. A Medicine may not avail any more without Exercise, than Exercise without a Medicine, and yet when both are us’d together, there may be a Result from that Union, of the greatest Importance.
Therefore, before I come to speak of the Distempers, most liable to the Power of Exercise, I shall take Notice of two or three Remedies, which seem to demand this sort of Assistance.
The First, is the Decoctions of Woods; it is the general Complaint of those who take these for any Time, that they pall their Stomachs; to obviate which, if it be requisite that a Person should persist in this Course, nothing can be more proper than Riding, or some other gentle Exercise, because it will keep up the Vigour of the Spirits; and how much the Appetite depends upon that, is easie to imagine, besides that the Intention, the Diaphoresis, is likewise promoted thereby.
Another Medicine which should be followed with Exercise, is the Chalybeate, especially in Dropical Subjects; not for fear it should lye heavy upon the Stomach, as the Vulgar think, but because in these People, the Contents of the Stomach are much rarefi’d and flatulent, and the Steel is apt to cause Distentions and Gripes, and other troublesome Symptomes; so that it is necessary, the whole Body should be well warm’d, that those Particles may be discuss’d, and the Stomach qualifi’d to bear the Chalybeate; besides, that acquired Heat will enable it, after it comes into the Blood, to display its Effects the sooner, either as a Corroborative, or a Diuretick. In Hysterick and Hypochondriacal Persons, this Medicine, gives trouble after another manner, by Costiveness, by Head-ach, and Heating the whole Body too much; now all these are much qualifi’d by Exercise, for it will procure a Ventilation of many of those Particles, which the Medicine agitates and throws upon the Membranes.
I might proceed to enquire into the Nature of Balsamicks, but that I shall have occasion, as I proceed, rather to say something against their Use, in one of the Distempers, which I shall consider; but if they are to be us’d, what I have already said in Relation to the Fluids, will shew that a great deal depends upon a proper degree of Agitation in the Blood, for the uniting and throughly mixing the Particles, of a Medicine of this Nature, that it may be transmitted to the designed Part to some Purpose; and as it would be convenient a Balsamick should be taken in a larger quantity, if the Stomach of sick People could bear it; so during the Time of Exercise, while the Body is heated, the Stomach can bear a greater quantity than at other times, without any Sense of Irritation, or Inclination to throw it up. But I shall forbear to enlarge any more on these things, and go on to the Distempers, which seem most Naturally to demand this kind of Assistance; in Treating of which it will be easie to discern in every several Case, how the Gymnastick Part will agree, or fall in with the Pharmaceutick.
OF THE
CONSUMPTION.
The First of the Distempers then, is the Consumption of the Lungs; I take this to fall under the Power of Exercise; for these two Reasons.