This Effect will be the more certain, because a damp Air upon the surface of the Body checks insensible Perspiration, so that a great quantity of this being detained, the Obstructions are still greater in the small Tubes; whereas indeed upon the Account of a more than ordinary Heat, this Discharge ought now to be in an increased Proportion.
Such a Disposition of the Blood as this the Ancients call’d Putrid; and to speak plainly, it is a Beginning Stagnation, with a Succeeding Heat and Fermentation.
Nor would it be amiss here to take notice, how unjustly some Authors, having quitted the Consideration of plain Causes, for Occult Venoms and Deleterium quid, have brought in the θεῖον τὶ (something Divine) of Hippocrates [(167)] to favour their fond Hypothesis; tho’ His best Interpreter Galen, understood by this Expression no such thing as they mean; but on the other Hand, only the manifest Constitution of the ambient Air, such as himself has described in his Aphorisms [(168)], and which is exactly the same with That We have been discoursing of.
And therefore not only does Minadous [(169)] rightly Remark, that in his whole Epidemics, Hippocrates never once mentions any Venom or Poison as the Cause of Malignant Diseases; But the Divine Old Man himself in another Treatise [(170)] expresly teaches Us, that All Maladies do equally, or one as much as another, proceed from the Gods, there being nothing more Divine in this than in that, each acknowledging its own Natural and Manifest Cause.
But I willingly wave insisting upon these Heads, as well as the Hints which might be taken from this Theory, of some Use perhaps in the Cure of these Distempers; and leave it to our Physicians to judge upon how good Grounds They do, in Cases of this Nature, under the Notion of Alexipharmics, give such Medicines as raise a great Heat both in the Stomach and Blood; only praying Them to take Care, least while They are ingaging the Animal Spirits in War with Malignities, They do send Treacherous Auxiliaries to the supposed weak Party; that is, that they either raise new Tumults and Disorders of worse Consequence than the Original Mischief; or at least, by clogging the Wheels, and throwing Dust upon the Springs of the finest Machine in the Creation, do check and interrupt the Action of Nature [(171)], when ’tis imploy’d about the most Nice and Critical Work.
Neither can I, tho’ an occasion be fairly offer’d, by any means be induced to intermeddle in the Controversie of those Gentlemen, who by the help of Two Words are made Masters both of Philosophy and Physick; I mean, the Violent Assertors of Acid and Alkali. These scanty Principles fall infinitely short of that vast Variety there is in the Works of Nature; However, for Their Sakes who are as yet Advanc’d no farther, I will advise the Contending Parties, (because little good is got by Quarrelling) to Think of an Union, and if They can find no Remedies but out of these Two Tribes, to make Use of such as result from a prudent Mixture of some out of Each. If this Project does not take, to Resolve however on both sides, To Distinguish the differing Times of the same Disease, and know, that as, on the one Hand, Acid Medicines are oftentimes as certainly hurtful in the latter End, as they do service in the Beginning of the Fever; so, on the other, those which are Alcalious must necessarily for the same Reason do mischief in the first Periods, for which they are profitable in the last Days of the Distemper.
By what Mechanism this comes to pass, They will easily understand, when they have learn’d what Alteration such things as these are do make in the humane Body; nor will it then be a difficult Matter to convince Them, That He is equally a fond Slave to an Hypothesis, who because Acids are sometimes of great Service in Fevers, concludes that their Origine is Alcalious; as He who knowing that Stagnating and Fermenting Juices do easily turn to Acidity, from thence Argues that Alcalies are the only Cure of this Stagnation and Ferment.
But Dr. Pitcarne [(172)] has abundantly demonstrated the Weakness of These Men’s Reasonings, and the Vanity of such Immechanical Theories.
And here I would put a Period to this Part of the Discourse, were it not that these Distempers being sometimes Contagious, and Contagion being justly reputed a real Poison, it may be worth the while to examine a little what This is, and wherein it consists; more especially, because some may perhaps be apt to think This to be an Argument of an Occult Venom’s being the First and Original Cause.
We are therefore to take Notice, that when a Fever is communicated by way of Infection from one already Diseased, this most commonly happens in the latter End of the Distemper, that is, (as we before discoursed concerning the Hydrophobia) when the Fermenting Blood is throwing off great quantities of its Active Fermentative Particles upon the Glands of the most constant and easie Secretion; such are those in the Surface of the Body, and the Mouth and Stomach; By this means therefore the Liquid of insensible Perspiration, and the Sweat is impregnated with these μιάσματα, and thus the ambient Air becomes fill’d with ’em; so that not only, (as Bellini Argues [(173)],) may some of these Effluvia insinuate themselves into the Blood of a sound Person thro’ the Pores of the outward Skin, but also in Inspiration thro’ the Membrane of the Lungs; for He has in another Place [(174)] demonstrated how the Air, or something from It, may this way come to be mix’d with the Arterial Fluid; And thus the like Ferment will be rais’d Here, as was in the Originally Distemper’d Subject.