MAny when they shall read in Riverius , Sennertus , Primrose , Rondeletius , Stocherus , Johnstonus , and others , that there are no more Diseases treated of in such a Part or Bowel , will presently imagine that there are no more or other Distempers of that Part or Bowel , than what they have writ in their Practices of Physick , especially writing so numerously one after another of the same , and often of all the same , and no more than the same Diseases ; also the Reader will imagine that all the Causes , and no more than they that Authors set down , are in all Bodies that have such a Disease , and that all that have that Disease must be just in such an Order , or so handled , as Practical Authors have delivered : Moreover , the Reader reading such and such Prognostick signes to be good , and such to be tokens of death , by the description of Practices of Physick , will imagine that it should always ( if he be a young Practitioner ) so fall out : Moreover , for Diagnostick signes , the Reader will imagine a Disease , as the Inflamation of the Liver , or Obstruction of the Spleen , &c. should have all and onely those Diagnostick signes that practical Authors have delivered , and that the Inflamation or Obstruction must be just so and such a one as they have delivered .

Also for the Cure : When the young Practitioner reads such a Medicine will cure , or such a Receipt never fails , or by this or that method 20 have been cured , he imagines he can cure all , and that such Medicines are certain Cures , and such a method is a like successful in all Bodies , and that a Jaundice , Dropsie , Cough , Gout , &c. is just one and the same in all Persons , and therefore as he expects all persons to have such , all such , no more nor no other signs , causes , nor prognosticks of their sickness , or such a particular Disease , than what Authors have one after another set down in their Practices of Physick ; so also the Cure he expects to be the same in all : as for Example : He may read in Jo. Hartman his Practica Chymiatrica , & in the Chapter of the Cholick ; Ponater in Colica magnes super umbilicum & statim cessabit dolor : Let the Loadstone be put upon the Navil of one that hath the Cholick , and the pain will instantly cease . Riverius in his Practice of Physick , and Chapter of the Epilepsie , hath this ; Radix Valerianae-Sylvestris a Fabio Columna tantopere celebratur , ut semel aut bis exhibita ab Epilepsia liberare affirmat , refertque se hanc multis amicis dono dedisse , qui deindè divino priùs numine & fautore glorificato , pulvere hujus Radicis sibi restitutam sanitatem affirmarunt ; dosis autem est Cochleare semis cum Vino , Aqua , Lacte , aut quovis liquore appropriato , pueris vero in minori dose cum Lacte datur : In English , The Root of wild Valerian is exceedingly praised by Fabius Columna , so that once or twice given , he affirms it will cure them of the falling sickness ; and he saith , That he hath given this to many Friends , who did restore Health to themselves , glorifying God : its Dose is half a spoonful with Wine , Water , Milk , or any appropriated liquor ; to Children it is given in less quantity , in Milk . Jacobus Sylvius in his Methodus Curandi , and Chapter of the Jaundice , hath this ; Prassii item decocti ex vino albo tenui unciae quatuor Saccharatae matutinis aliquot , potae , omnem icterum sanant : That is , Four ounces of the Decoction of Horehouud given in white Wine sugared , for several Mornings , cures every Jaundice . We mention onely these for Example , for a thousand such may be seen in Authors ; and when the young Practitioner reads them , he doth presently conceive he must , as these write , cure all such Diseases by such Medicines or Methods ; but he shall be deceived : yet often such Cures have been ; but Authors have deceived , by not telling how oft such a Medicine hath failed , as well as how oft it hath cured : for there is no Medicine in use , but hath cured some , and there is none so excellent as to cure all ; nor are all Diseases , though never so slight , curable ; nor are all diseases , though never so dangerous and grievous , always and in all incurable .

Can did Reader , It is my zealous desire to Truth that thou shouldest really and truly understand all these things , and when thou readest any Author know thereby how to judge of them : For the Moderns , who come nigher to Truth in their Practices of Physick , than the Ancients , or Galen or Hippocrates , are very much misled . I chiefly commend Felix Platerus in his Practice of Physick , who followed his own Experience and Observations , though his own Experience was insufficient to demonstrate the Truth , all the Truth , and nothing but the Truth , in all Diseases . I have been much troubled to see how superstitiously Physicians have been led by the Traditition of Galen , Hippocrates , Etius , Aegineta , and Others .

1. For their Names given to Diseases , therein was much disorder : Some they called from the Cause , others from the Effects or Symptoms ; some they called Obstructions or Scirrhs , or Inflamations of the Liver , Spleen or Lungs , those were denominated from the Cause ; some they called Swounding , Panting of the Heart , Epilepsie , Convulsion , &c. these were so called from the apparant affliction or outward appearance , whenas the cause of each of these Symptoms or Effects was various , Physicians having reckoned so many Diseases of the Lungs , as a Cough , Phthisick , Pleurisie , spitting of Blood , Empyema , or spitting of Matter , Peripneumonia and Asthma ; divers Physicians reading them , will think , as formerly they have , ( for so it is best judging what will be , by what hath been ) that every Disease of the Lungs is one of these , and that the Lungs can be affected in no other manner than in one of these Diseases ; and in that Disease , so for Order and Measure as Authors have in their Practices of Physick described : How great an Errour and Mistake is it in the generality of Practical Physicians coming to a Patient , if they finde it a Disease of the Lungs presently to conclude it one of those Physicians have writ Chapters of ? As , If it be not an Empyema , it must be a Phthysick ; if it be not the Phthysick or Consumption of the Lungs , it is an Asthma ; if it be not reckonable as an Asthma , it must be proceeded against in cure , by the directions in the Chapters of Coughs ; if none of these , then it must be Haemoptoe , and cured just as the Practical Chapters of Haemoptoe direct : Nature runs not in these Orders , Nature is not bound up to such Rules , we shall hardly finde two in any one Disease exactly alike ; yet those that have exquisite Pleurisies do the most concur in Symptoms of any Diseases I know , nor are the Causes of an Empyema , Haemoptoe , Ph●hisis , Tussis , Asthma , &c. such and so many , no more , nor no others than what Practical Physicians have writ ; but there be many Causes , and diverse from those the Ancients especially took notice of , to produce the Diseases they write ; and consequently the Signs , Prognosticks and Cure must vary , where the Causes do so vary , Nature not running in that Method as the Ancients , and also the Moderns , dancing after their Pipes , have imagined .

2. As to the Definition of Diseases : In some Bodies and in some Diseases accidentally they may prove exactly true , but for the most part they do not : for where there are such difference of Diseases that they can neither properly be called one or another that are writ down in Practices , and where the Causes in each Disease may be so contrary and manifold , it will necessarily follow , the Signs much vary , and there is the Definition chiefly grounded on the cause and signs , the Fonndation of any thing being infirm or corrupted , the Superstructure must needs be infirm and instable : but I say accidentally , in some Diseases , in some Bodies at some times , we may meet with an exact coherence of the definition of that Disease with the Parties case , which being the suming up of the Disease , and the most general and chief causes and signs that happen to most in that Disease , it is much ( if Nature did go to a Rule , and was bound up to a Method ) so few should be found ( amongst many sick persons that have Diseases ) correspondent exactly to the Definitions in Practices of Physick .

3. For the Causes of Diseases : Physicians went huge conjecturally to work , and guessed by outward appearances what must be inward , and by the Effect they did judge the Cause , the contrary to which , is the way to finde out Truth ; they did not use to anatomize and see the wonderful variety there is in dead Bodies , and how Nature follows no Method in Diseases : As for instance , In Diseases of the Heart , the Ancients , and so recent Authors , have set down two , viz. Swounding and Palpitation , now Experience hath found thorough Diffection , that Side-pains , Bastard-Pleurisies , Gripings , Aguish distempers , Symptoms of Worms , Symptoms of ill Digestion , and Singultus , &c. do arise often from the Heart , as well as Vicine parts ; and Experience hath fully shewn that the Heart is not affected as the Ancients thought commonly and most often ; yet this we shall allow the Ancients and Moderns that have followed unquestioned Tradition , that the Heart is sometimes affected with one or more of those causes they attribute to it , and the more in casual and intermitting Distempers of it , but in confirmed Distempers of the Heart , or the same will hold of all the other Bowels , onely we instance in one ; the causes were Ulcers , or Worms , or Stones , or Bones , or clottered Blood , or mutation of the Situation , or Consumption of the Parenchyma , or swiming in serous matter in the Pericardion , or absence of the Pericardion , wasted thorow Diseases , or the growing amiss of the Heart , either for magnitude or figure , or other adnascences of fangous Flesh , or Scirrhs , or growing to the Lungs , &c. this is intended for all Bowels , in which the Ancients were as much mistaken as in the Heart ; all Bowels , as Liver , Spleen , Mi●●riff , Lungs , Gall , Pancreas , Mesenters , Uterus and Testes , have variety of Diseases , found by opening of diseased Bodies after their deaths , which the Ancients did not know , nor could finde by conjecture , nor in any of these is Nature bound up to a Rule and Method ; for in one the Liver is full of little stones , in another one great stone hangs appendent to it , in another is an Aposthumation , in another is an Aposthumation of another kinde , in a third may be also an Aposthumation of the Liver , yet differing from either of the former , in one it suppurates , in another it turns a Schirr , or hard Boil , in another it turns stony , and in others Glandules , such wonderful variety there is in the progress and changes of Diseases , even as the outward Signs in many sick Persons do demonstrate by their frequent changes ; in some the Liver is burnt up as it were , and parched , in others it is found quite wasted , in others it is found thrice as big as usually , specially in consumption of the Lungs , where the Liver grows out to fill up the void space , the Diaphragma yeilding : Sometimes the Liver is enfissured or cloven , and in it are many Bladders of Water , sometimes it is corrupted , and hath many small Aposthumes or Abscesses of black Corruption or Sanies , sometimes it looketh pale , sometimes is grown to some Vicine Part , sometimes one part of it is quite fangous , or quite consumed , the other part being intire ; and thus for other Bowels , they have the like .

Object . These are found so sometimes , and looked upon as singular Cases , and where strange Symptoms have been in a Body , Physicians have opened such , and not so commonly others , that died in ordinary manners ; and also many have sicknesses , pains and affects that come and go often in their Life-time , and there is likely no such Transmutation , Corruption or Consumption of the Bowels , and for these the causes assigned by the Ancients , as Galen , Hippocrates , Celsus , Aegineta , Rhasis , Avicen , Etius ●●d Others , might hold good : For those things that cause Death , might not cause curable Diseases , for they are not fixed likely in the Parenchyma of the Bowels .

Answ. I think there is nothing else that can be alledged for the Ancients , and the Moderns that have followed them :

1. It is not some time and as a wonder that they are found so , but commonly and in most ; and to satisfie my Reader , let him open the , twenty next Patients that die under his hands , and he will see in all of them singular things , as to what the Ancients writ , and will also finde that Nature is not bound up to a Method , or such an Order as some will have ; the more any man desires to be satisfied of the Causes or Signs that happen in Hydropicks , and the part or parts affected , and how , the more he shall admire , seeing still strange and wonderful variety ; and if so much in one Disease , what Method doth Nature go in for different Diseases ? Beyond-Sea they open such as they can get leave for , even as it happens , and strange things to the Sons of Superstition and Tradition , are familiar , and most commonly seen by the Sons of Experience .

2. For the most part those things that in an extream degree cause death , in a mean or middle degree cause a Disease ; so do Worms , Stones , Aposthumes , Hydropick Bladders , Glandula's , Adhaesion , Corruption , Consumption , Excrescence , &c. of the inward Bowels , all these in a remiss degree cause a Sickness or a Disease , and the self-same in an higher degree cause Death : Yet I confess windy Inflations , Indigestion , corruption of the Faeces , and intermittent Evils , do often come from Humours in the first Wayes , and Vapours , and Putrifaction , and too swift Excretion , or strong Retention , nor in many that die of malignant Diseases may alteration in their Bowels be seen , because it was a venomous Quality that killed them , and sometimes so suddenly that no Bowel can be so soon labifactated .

3. The Ancients were apparantly out ; to write onely of the Disease of the Stone in the Kidneys and Bladder , and so for the place and kinds of Worms ; there is no peculiarity in the Kidneys or Bladder to have the Stone , they are frequently found in the Gall , Stomack , Lungs , Head , Liver , Uterus , and Joynts , and outward parts : and those things that are generated in the outward Flesh , as Spots , Tubercles , Boils , Carnous Excrescences , Struma's , Glandula's , Worms , Stones , Phlyctenae , Bladders of Water , &c. are also frequently found in the inward Bowels . As for the Stone , as to the place , and kindes , and causes of it , so for Worms were the Ancients out , and all the Moderns that have pinn'd their Faith on their Sleeves ; commonly we confess the ordinary Worms incident to Children are found in the Body , and commonly they are in the Guts or Stomack , and Ascarades or Bots are often in the Body , yet nothing so frequent as the ordinary Worms Children void ; twenty have the ordinary Worms , to one that hath Ascarades or Maggot-Worms ; the Ancients did some of them mention the Taenia or Lumbri●us latus , or broad Worm , fifteen or sixteen Ells long , the length of all the Guts , and these were all : Now by Anatomizing the Dead , and by other Excretions of Creatures , it is found that Worms of all sorts are in all parts of the Body , and some are referable to Terrestrial Creatures ; but because they have no seed from any Creature , for the most part they have no coherence of form ; some are footed like Quadrupedes , some Bi-pedes , some crawling Worms , some hairy , some like Newts , some exact Maggots , some like Milli-pedes , or Wood-lice , some large like Serpents , &c. There is a wonderful variety in these things , and we have heard of Serpents in two or three , found in Englishmen of late years , of the Lumbricus latus , Cray-fish in similitude , vomited by a child , Worms in the Face , &c. by which we justifie Authors : But we have written a Chapter of these Creatures in our Physiology and Jatrosophy , a Work that can never be too much read , or studied .

What shall we say ? doth Nature proceed in no Method , or Order , or Coherence in causing Diseases ? Yes , there is some , but not as former Ages have generally supposed ; it is the spirit and quality of that spirit in every living , moving , and growing Being , that is the Cause , and wherein is the Method ; and the Stars , principally the Planets and Moon , by the Air , alter the quality of the Humours in our Body , and thence comes such variety in our Bodies : but yet if the Inward Cause in our Bodies comply not with the Outward , there is nothing done ; the quality of the Air by its seeds sown in our Humours or Blood , transmutes or changes them into the nature of the Seeds , the Blood findes a matter in it whose Spirit is of a quality Heterogenious and Heteropa thetical to the Blood , and so works to throw off its Enemy ; and in the Pox , Measles , Plague , and Purples , it throws off that Heterogenious matter by the Skin , Pores , or Habit of the Body ; but where the matter in the Blood is not so venemous , or exceeding adverse qualited to our Nature , the Veins throw it off on some part : for in the Body like draws like to it , as in the Earth , and Terrene Things , and puts off or separates any matter that is of a quality adverse or contrary to the Blood and Nature of the Spirits constituting our vitality : Now we see Water in the Blood , sometimes thicker , sometimes thinner , sometimes limpid , sometimes oleaginous , sometimes yellow , sometimes black , &c. and yet because this Humour hath not a quality Heterogenious to the Blood , it rests very well in the Blood , and is not endeavoured by Nature to be cast off , nor causes any Disease , for a thing that looks exactly as another , may be nothing like it in nature , so Sperma Humanum , and some glutinous and thick Flegm we raise from our Lungs or Palate of our Mouth , look exactly alike , and are in consistence the same ; and yet there is a Spirit of an enlivening nature in the Sperma Humanum , and onely a cold stupifying quality in the pituitous matter ; so Stibium , and the red Glass of Church-Windows , may in taste , smell , look and consistence of Body be the same , and yet there is a purgative Virtue or Quality in Stibium that the Glass hath not : So for Alabaster and some pieces of Arsenick , how much do they differ in quality , and how little in bodily appearance ? So in the Body of Man , if we could see the Humours and affected Parts , and the current of the Blood , we could not tell whether People would live or die of those Distempers , or how they would change , or what they would become for the most part : for an Humour looking like another in an abscess of the Liver , Spleen , Reins , or Lungs , shall not raise Symptoms alike , nor work alike , because the quality that is in it , alters it and works it ; in one abscess there is a petrifying quality , and that turns all the matter in a little time into perfect stone , one or many ; in another Abscess , Ulcer , Aposthume or Tubercle of any of these Bowels , the matter looking the same with the former , is a vivifying spirit , and that matter takes some or other strange and commonly different form , and enlivens and increases ; another Abscess hath a matter like the former , but in this is an Earthy Gummy Spirit , and insipid , and this turns all the matter into a Caruncle or Fungus , or if it be a little otherwise qualified , a Glandule , or many Kernels ; in another Abscess is a fermenting qualitied spirit , and that makes them Aguish , and this differs hugely in quality inter se ; for some fermentative matter is colder and duller , because it wants the sharp and hot spirit that is in other Humours , and this causeth colder Agues ; the sharper and hotter the spirit in this matter is , the hotter is the Ague : therefore many times they that drink much strong-Water make a cold Ague all hot Fits . Again , this matter differs in the peculiarity of the quality , some fermenting twice in one day , some once in twenty four hours , some once in two days , and some but once in three or four days : In another Excrementitious Matter is an Ossifick quality , and then a Bone is generated of the bigness and shape with the Excrementitious Matter , for the Ossifick Spirit transmutes it as it lies ; even as our Wells in England , and Earth about Shefford , turns the Wood into perfect Stone in the same figure it was ; and so a few Grains of Ens Auri , or Essence of Gold , transmutes much Lead or Q●icksilver into perfect Gold ; we see m●ltitude of Examples from Seeds thrown into the G●ound , or Animals Semen , either injected into Uterusses , or laid in Flesh , Mud or Earth , or Fruits , which works upon the fit matter it is in , and turns it into the form of the Creature from whom this Seed came , and it enlivens . And the Stars do very much qualifie and alter the Seeds in our Humours : Hence it is that often Coughs , malignant Pleurisies , Q●inzies , malignant Tertians , and divers strange confused kindes of Agues , are Epidemical ; and I have observed the mutations in divers Diseases to be from the Moon , and the other Planets , especially that Planet that was Lord of the First and Sixth House , at the Decumbiture of the Sick : and a Practitioner of Physick in this Town told me , when he had a long sickness , he could always tell when his Paroxisms , or times of greater illness would be , when the Sun was afflicted by the Body or Aspect of Saturn , or his Significator afflicted ; and did not Venus stand his Friend in many such evil Aspects , he thought he should have died .

Now such a Method doth Nature observe , that it is the casual influence of the Planets ( simply , or conjoyned with fixed Stars of the greater Magnitudes , that are milde or gentle-natured ) upon our Blood and Humours , and as the quantity and quality of our Blood and Humours vary , so the Stars act variously : for the Agent can do nothing , if the Patient is not fit ; and one Planet doth not so powerfully alter one mans Body as anothers , because in one it was his Significator at his Nativity , in the other a Significator of his Fortune , in another a Significator of his Religion at his Na●ivity ; and so though our Humours and Constitutions are much alike , yet in this respect the Planets vary . There is naturally in some matter , a greater proneness and aptitude to petrify ; in other , to ossify ; in other , to vivify or animate ; in other , to carnify ; in other , to sanguify ; in other , to lactify ; in other , to spermafy and crinify : and though the greater number of Planets that are stongest at such a time , do dispose the Humours to putrify or vermify , ( for at sometimes both old Folks and Children have Worms more than in other seasons ) yet in all Bodies there be not those Humours ; and in all Bodies that those Humours be , yet there is not in them a like putrifying quality : At such a time Venus is Lady of the Ascendant , commands Jupiter , Mars , the Moon , &c. in her House , is strongest of any in the Scheam , and yet all men at this time are not Veneriously inclined , for some are never libidinous ; yet at this time they may be more libidinous than others ; and at such a time an evil-minded men is the likelier to accomplish his incestuous Desires . VVe see huge mutations and changes dayly and hourly , sometimes in some sick persons , and how do these come , but from the motion of the Morbifick Cause ? and how is that changed and moved so strangely , but by the Attoms in the Air , drawn into our Body in our Breath , which are qualified from the Planets ?

We have in our Physiology , Jatrosophy and Pneumatography , sufficiently demonstrated the force of the Heavens on all sublunary Beings ; but we will here adde some more : Whence is it in Moon-Ey'd Horses their Eye or Eyes grow full at full Moon , and then they are bind ; and as the Moon decreases , they decrease , and then they see better ? Many Countrey-mens Experience attests this .

2. Concerning the alteration of Diseases , changing of Symptoms , and of all diseased Parts , dying and growing sick , it is apparantly seen in some Diseases by the alteration of the Moon , and divers have told me , That when the Plague did rage in this Town of Hitchin , most fell sick or died at change of the Moon , or full Moon , and four or five were buried then together , and when the Moon was at her full state , was the sickness in ●any in its Crisis or Exaltation ; and it is apparant to many intelligent Physicians , that our Bodies are fuller of moisture at full Moon , than other times ; and Experience shews us , the Epileptick and Convulsive have fits at full Moon commonly , and the Reason may be , because water in the Brain is oft found by Diffection to cause Epilepsies , and other Diseases , which the Practical Physicians hither to did not imagine : Now we know the Moon rules over Moisture much , witness the Ebbing and Flowing of the Sea ; doth it not in divers places of this Land increase and swell higher at full Moon , and in the declination of the Moon fall , and sink lower ?

Moreover the monthly Fluxes of Women , or Menstrues , are caused partly by the Moons influence , and partly by a created aptitude or natural faculty in them ; we see often they are , when stopt , easilier provoked at full Moon , than in its declination ; the Moon rules principally in Moisture , and principally in the Moisture of Feminines , for she is a Feminine Planet ; yet in Men the Haemorrhoids are periodical sometimes and monthly , and some have ( but rarely ) a Fluxus Sanguinis per Penem monthly .

Farmers did observe in these late years of Infection amongst Horses , that their Horses sickened or died familiarly at New or Full Moon : is not the Disease Lunatick so called from the Moon , for that at full Moon they are afflicted monthly ? and Physicians have observed Catarrhs and Defluxions to rise or fall from the Moon , and to be governed much thereby . Guainerius did observe one spake a strange Tongue he never learned , in New Moons ; and other melancholy persons have at such changes of the Moon alone spake a strange Language they never learned : If any think we speak slightly or conjecturally of many of these things , let them search in their proper Chapters Examples in our Physiology , and they shall see them confirmed . It is written of the Clupaea Fish in Sagona , a River of France , that in the encrease of the Moon it is white , and in its decrease black : So the Piscis Lunaris , or Luna-fish , is so appellated from the strange alteration the changes of the Moon makes in her , and her figure : We might be numerous in Examples .