Chapter X (32)

Precious stones are diversely censured; many explode the use of them or any minerals in physic, of whom Thomas Erastus is the chief, in his tract against Paracelsus, and in an epistle of his to Peter Monavius, [4140] That stones can work any wonders, let them believe that list, no man shall persuade me; for my part, I have found by experience there is no virtue in them. But Matthiolus, in his comment upon [4141]Dioscorides, is as profuse on the other side, in their commendation; so is Cardan, Renodeus, Alardus, Rueus, Encelius, Marbodeus, &c. [4142]Matthiolus specifies in coral: and Oswaldus Crollius, Basil. Chym. prefers the salt of coral. [4143]Christoph. Encelius, lib. 3. cap. 131. will have them to be as so many several medicines against melancholy, sorrow, fear, dullness, and the like; [4144]Renodeus admires them, besides they adorn kings' crowns, grace the fingers, enrich our household stuff, defend us from enchantments, preserve health, cure diseases, they drive away grief, cares, and exhilarate the mind. The particulars be these. Granatus, a precious stone so called, because it is like the kernels of a pomegranate, an imperfect kind of ruby, it comes from Calecut; [4145]if hung about the neck, or taken in drink, it much resisteth sorrow, and recreates the heart. The same properties I find ascribed to the hyacinth and topaz. [4146]They allay anger, grief, diminish madness, much delight and exhilarate the mind. [4147]If it be either carried about, or taken in a potion, it will increase wisdom, saith Cardan, expel fear; he brags that he hath cured many madmen with it, which, when they laid by the stone, were as mad again as ever they were at first. Petrus Bayerus, lib. 2. cap. 13. veni mecum, Fran. Rueus, cap. 19. de geminis, say as much of the chrysolite, [4148]a friend of wisdom, an enemy to folly. Pliny, lib. 37. Solinus, cap. 52. Albertus de Lapid. Cardan. Encelius, lib. 3. cap. 66. highly magnifies the virtue of the beryl, [4149]it much avails to a good understanding, represseth vain conceits, evil thoughts, causeth mirth, &c. In the belly of a swallow there is a stone found called chelidonius, [4150]which if it be lapped in a fair cloth, and tied to the right arm, will cure lunatics, madmen, make them amiable and merry. There is a kind of onyx called a chalcedony, which hath the same qualities, [4151]avails much against fantastic illusions which proceed from melancholy, preserves the vigour and good estate of the whole body. The Eban stone, which goldsmiths use to sleeken their gold with, borne about or given to drink, [4152]hath the same properties, or not much unlike. Levinus Lemnius, Institui. ad vit. cap. 58. amongst other jewels, makes mention of two more notable; carbuncle and coral, [4153]which drive away childish fears, devils, overcome sorrow, and hung about the neck repress troublesome dreams, which properties almost Cardan gives to that green-coloured [4154]emmetris if it be carried about, or worn in a ring; Rueus to the diamond. Nicholas Cabeus, a Jesuit of Ferrara, in the first book of his Magnetical Philosophy, cap. 3. speaking of the virtues of a loadstone, recites many several opinions; some say that if it be taken in parcels inward, si quis per frustra voret, juventutem restituet, it will, like viper's wine, restore one to his youth; and yet if carried about them, others will have it to cause melancholy; let experience determine. Mercurialis admires the emerald for its virtues in pacifying all affections of the mind; others the sapphire, which is the [4155]fairest of all precious stones, of sky colour, and a great enemy to black choler, frees the mind, mends manners, &c. Jacobus de Dondis, in his catalogue of simples, hath ambergris, os in corde cervi, [4156]the bone in a stag's heart, a monocerot's horn, bezoar's stone [4157](of which elsewhere), it is found in the belly of a little beast in the East Indies, brought into Europe by Hollanders, and our countrymen merchants. Renodeus, cap. 22. lib. 3. de ment. med. saith he saw two of these beasts alive, in the castle of the Lord of Vitry at Coubert. Lapis lazuli and armenus, because they purge, shall be mentioned in their place. Of the rest in brief thus much I will add out of Cardan, Renodeus, cap. 23. lib. 3. Rondoletius, lib. 1. de Testat. c. 15. &c. [4158]That almost all jewels and precious stones have excellent virtues to pacify the affections of the mind, for which cause rich men so much covet to have them: [4159]and those smaller unions which are found in shells amongst the Persians and Indians, by the consent of all writers, are very cordial, and most part avail to the exhilaration of the heart. _Minerals._] Most men say as much of gold and some other minerals, as these have done of precious stones. Erastus still maintains the opposite part. Disput. in Paracelsum. cap. 4. fol. 196. he confesseth of gold, [4160] that it makes the heart merry, but in no other sense but as it is in a miser's chest: at mihi plaudo simul ac nummos contemplor in arca, as he said in the poet, it so revives the spirits, and is an excellent recipe against melancholy, [4161]For gold in physic is a cordial, Therefore he loved gold in special.

Aurum potabile, [4162]he discommends and inveighs against it, by reason of the corrosive waters which are used in it: which argument our Dr. Guin urgeth against D. Antonius. [4163]Erastus concludes their philosophical stones and potable gold, &c. to be no better than poison, a mere imposture, a non ens; dug out of that broody hill belike this golden stone is, ubi nascetur ridiculus mus. Paracelsus and his chemistical followers, as so many Promethei, will fetch fire from heaven, will cure all manner of diseases with minerals, accounting them the only physic on the other side. [4164]Paracelsus calls Galen, Hippocrates, and all their adherents, infants, idiots, sophisters, &c. Apagesis istos qui Vulcanias istas metamorphoses sugillant, inscitiae soboles, supinae pertinaciae alumnos, &c., not worthy the name of physicians, for want of these remedies: and brags that by them he can make a man live 160 years, or to the world's end, with their [4165]Alexipharmacums, Panaceas, Mummias, unguentum Armarium, and such magnetical cures, Lampas vitae et mortis, Balneum Dianae, Balsamum, Electrum Magico-physicum, Amuleta Martialia, &c. What will not he and his followers effect? He brags, moreover, that he was primus medicorum, and did more famous cures than all the physicians in Europe besides, [4166]a drop of his preparations should go farther than a dram, or ounce of theirs, those loathsome and fulsome filthy potions, heteroclitical pills (so he calls them), horse medicines, ad quoram aspectum Cyclops Polyphemus exhorresceret. And though some condemn their skill and magnetical cures as tending to magical superstition, witchery, charms, &c., yet they admire, stiffly vindicate nevertheless, and infinitely prefer them. But these are both in extremes, the middle sort approve of minerals, though not in so high a degree. Lemnius lib. 3. cap. 6. de occult. nat. mir. commends gold inwardly and outwardly used, as in rings, excellent good in medicines; and such mixtures as are made for melancholy men, saith Wecker, antid. spec. lib. 1. to whom Renodeus subscribes, lib. 2. cap. 2. Ficinus, lib. 2. cap. 19. Fernel. meth. med. lib. 5. cap. 21. de Cardiacis. Daniel Sennertus, lib. 1. part. 2. cap. 9. Audernacus, Libavius, Quercetanus, Oswaldus Crollius, Euvonymus, Rubeus, and Matthiolus in the fourth book of his Epistles, Andreas a Blawen epist. ad Matthiolum, as commended and formerly used by Avicenna, Arnoldus, and many others: [4167]Matthiolus in the same place approves of potable gold, mercury, with many such chemical confections, and goes so far in approbation of them, that he holds [4168] no man can be an excellent physician that hath not some skill in chemistical distillations, and that chronic diseases can hardly be cured without mineral medicines: look for antimony among purgers.

SUBSECT. V.—_Compound Alteratives; censure of Compounds, and mixed Physic_.

Pliny, lib. 24. c. 1, bitterly taxeth all compound medicines, [4169] Men's knavery, imposture, and captious wits, have invented those shops, in which every man's life is set to sale: and by and by came in those compositions and inexplicable mixtures, far-fetched out of India and Arabia; a medicine for a botch must be had as far as the Red Sea. And 'tis not without cause which he saith; for out of question they are much to [4170]blame in their compositions, whilst they make infinite variety of mixtures, as [4171]Fuchsius notes. They think they get themselves great credit, excel others, and to be more learned than the rest, because they make many variations; but he accounts them fools, and whilst they brag of their skill, and think to get themselves a name, they become ridiculous, betray their ignorance and error. A few simples well prepared and understood, are better than such a heap of nonsense, confused compounds, which are in apothecaries' shops ordinarily sold. In which many vain, superfluous, corrupt, exolete, things out of date are to be had (saith Cornarius); a company of barbarous names given to syrups, juleps, an unnecessary company of mixed medicines; rudis indigestaque moles. Many times (as Agrippa taxeth) there is by this means [4172]more danger from the medicine than from the disease, when they put together they know not what, or leave it to an illiterate apothecary to be made, they cause death and horror for health. Those old physicians had no such mixtures; a simple potion of hellebore in Hippocrates' time was the ordinary purge; and at this day, saith [4173]Mat. Riccius, in that flourishing commonwealth of China, their physicians give precepts quite opposite to ours, not unhappy in their physic; they use altogether roots, herbs, and simples in their medicines, and all their physic in a manner is comprehended in a herbal: no science, no school, no art, no degree, but like a trade, every man in private is instructed of his master. [4174]Cardan cracks that he can cure all diseases with water alone, as Hippocrates of old did most infirmities with one medicine. Let the best of our rational physicians demonstrate and give a sufficient reason for those intricate mixtures, why just so many simples in mithridate or treacle, why such and such quantity; may they not be reduced to half or a quarter? Frustra fit per plura (as the saying is) quod fieri potest per pauciora; 300 simples in a julep, potion, or a little pill, to what end or purpose? I know not what [4175]Alkindus, Capivaccius, Montagna, and Simon Eitover, the best of them all and most rational, have said in this kind; but neither he, they, nor any one of them, gives his reader, to my judgment, that satisfaction which he ought; why such, so many simples? Rog. Bacon hath taxed many errors in his tract de graduationibus, explained some things, but not cleared. Mercurialis in his book de composit. medicin. gives instance in Hamech, and Philonium Romanum, which Hamech an Arabian, and Philonius a Roman, long since composed, but crasse as the rest. If they be so exact, as by him it seems they were, and those mixtures so perfect, why doth Fernelius alter the one, and why is the other obsolete? [4176]Cardan taxeth Galen for presuming out of his ambition to correct Theriachum Andromachi, and we as justly may carp at all the rest. Galen's medicines are now exploded and rejected; what Nicholas Meripsa, Mesue, Celsus, Scribanius, Actuarius, &c. writ of old, are most part contemned. Mellichius, Cordus, Wecker, Quercetan, Renodeus, the Venetian, Florentine states have their several receipts, and magistrals: they of Nuremberg have theirs, and Augustana Pharmacopoeia, peculiar medicines to the meridian of the city: London hers, every city, town, almost every private man hath his own mixtures, compositions, receipts, magistrals, precepts, as if he scorned antiquity, and all others in respect of himself. But each man must correct and alter to show his skill, every opinionative fellow must maintain his own paradox, be it what it will; Delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi: they dote, and in the meantime the poor patients pay for their new experiments, the commonalty rue it. Thus others object, thus I may conceive out of the weakness of my apprehension; but to say truth, there is no such fault, no such ambition, no novelty, or ostentation, as some suppose; but as [4177]one answers, this of compound medicines, is a most noble and profitable invention found out, and brought into physic with great judgment, wisdom, counsel and discretion. Mixed diseases must have mixed remedies, and such simples are commonly mixed as have reference to the part affected, some to qualify, the rest to comfort, some one part, some another. Cardan and Brassavola both hold that Nullum simplex medicamentum sine noxa, no simple medicine is without hurt or offence; and although Hippocrates, Erasistratus, Diocles of old, in the infancy of this art, were content with ordinary simples: yet now, saith [4178]Aetius, necessity compelleth to seek for new remedies, and to make compounds of simples, as well to correct their harms if cold, dry, hot, thick, thin, insipid, noisome to smell, to make them savoury to the palate, pleasant to taste and take, and to preserve them for continuance, by admixtion of sugar, honey, to make them last months and years for several uses. In such cases, compound medicines may be approved, and Arnoldus in his 18. aphorism, doth allow of it. [4179]If simples cannot, necessity compels us to use compounds; so for receipts and magistrals, dies diem docet, one day teacheth another, and they are as so many words or phrases, Que nunc sunt in honore vocabula si volet usus, ebb and flow with the season, and as wits vary, so they may be infinitely varied. Quisque suum placitum quo capiatur habet. Every man as he likes, so many men so many minds, and yet all tending to good purpose, though not the same way. As arts and sciences, so physic is still perfected amongst the rest; Horae musarum nutrices, and experience teacheth us every day [4180]many things which our predecessors knew not of. Nature is not effete, as he saith, or so lavish, to bestow all her gifts upon an age, but hath reserved some for posterity, to show her power, that she is still the same, and not old or consumed. Birds and beasts can cure themselves by nature, [4181]naturae usu ea plerumque cognoscunt quae homines vix longo labore et doctrina assequuntur, but men must use much labour and industry to find it out. But I digress. Compound medicines are inwardly taken, or outwardly applied. Inwardly taken, be either liquid or solid: liquid, are fluid or consisting. Fluid, as wines and syrups. The wines ordinarily used to this disease are wormwood wine, tamarisk, and buglossatum, wine made of borage and bugloss, the composition of which is specified in Arnoldus Villanovanus, lib. de vinis, of borage, balm, bugloss, cinnamon, &c. and highly commended for its virtues: [4182]it drives away leprosy, scabs, clears the blood, recreates the spirits, exhilarates the mind, purgeth the brain of those anxious black melancholy fumes, and cleanseth the whole body of that black humour by urine. To which I add, saith Villanovanus, that it will bring madmen, and such raging bedlamites as are tied in chains, to the use of their reason again. My conscience bears me witness, that I do not lie, I saw a grave matron helped by this means; she was so choleric, and so furious sometimes, that she was almost mad, and beside herself; she said, and did she knew not what, scolded, beat her maids, and was now ready to be bound till she drank of this borage wine, and by this excellent remedy was cured, which a poor foreigner, a silly beggar, taught her by chance, that came to crave an alms from door to door. The juice of borage, if it be clarified, and drunk in wine, will do as much, the roots sliced and steeped, &c. saith Ant. Mizaldus, art. med. who cities this story verbatim out of Villanovanus, and so doth Magninus a physician of Milan, in his regimen of health. Such another excellent compound water I find in Rubeus de distill. sect. 3. which he highly magnifies out of Savanarola, [4183]for such as are solitary, dull, heavy or sad without a cause, or be troubled with trembling of heart. Other excellent compound waters for melancholy, he cites in the same place. [4184]If their melancholy be not inflamed, or their temperature over-hot. Evonimus hath a precious aquavitae to this purpose, for such as are cold. But he and most commend aurum potabile, and every writer prescribes clarified whey, with borage, bugloss, endive, succory, &c. of goat's milk especially, some indefinitely at all times, some thirty days together in the spring, every morning fasting, a good draught. Syrups are very good, and often used to digest this humour in the heart, spleen, liver, &c. As syrup of borage (there is a famous syrup of borage highly commended by Laurentius to this purpose in his tract of melancholy), de pomis of king Sabor, now obsolete, of thyme and epithyme, hops, scolopendria, fumitory, maidenhair, bizantine, &c. These are most used for preparatives to other physic, mixed with distilled waters of like nature, or in juleps otherwise. Consisting, are conserves or confections; conserves of borage, bugloss, balm, fumitory, succory, maidenhair, violets, roses, wormwood, &c. Confections, treacle, mithridate, eclegms, or linctures, &c. Solid, as aromatical confections: hot, diambra, diamargaritum calidum, dianthus, diamoschum dulce, electuarium de gemmis laetificans Galeni et Rhasis, diagalanga, diaciminum dianisum, diatrion piperion, diazinziber, diacapers, diacinnamonum: Cold, as diamargaritum frigidum, diacorolli, diarrhodon abbatis, diacodion, &c. as every pharmacopoeia will show you, with their tables or losings that are made out of them: with condites and the like. Outwardly used as occasion serves, as amulets, oils hot and cold, as of camomile, staechados, violets, roses, almonds, poppy, nymphea, mandrake, &c. to be used after bathing, or to procure sleep. Ointments composed of the said species, oils and wax, &c., as Alablastritum Populeum, some hot, some cold, to moisten, procure sleep, and correct other accidents. Liniments are made of the same matter to the like purpose: emplasters of herbs, flowers, roots, &c., with oils, and other liquors mixed and boiled together. Cataplasms, salves, or poultices made of green herbs, pounded, or sod in water till they be soft, which are applied to the hypochondries, and other parts, when the body is empty. Cerotes are applied to several parts and frontals, to take away pain, grief, heat, procure sleep. Fomentations or sponges, wet in some decoctions, &c., epithemata, or those moist medicines, laid on linen, to bathe and cool several parts misaffected. Sacculi, or little bags of herbs, flowers, seeds, roots, and the like, applied to the head, heart, stomach, &c., odoraments, balls, perfumes, posies to smell to, all which have their several uses in melancholy, as shall be shown, when I treat of the cure of the distinct species by themselves.

MEMB. II.

SUBSECT. I.—_Purging Simples upward_.

Melanagoga, or melancholy purging medicines, are either simple or compound, and that gently, or violently, purging upward or downward. These following purge upward. [4185]Asarum, or Asrabecca, which, as Mesue saith, is hot in the second degree, and dry in the third, it is commonly taken in wine, whey, or as with us, the juice of two or three leaves or more sometimes, pounded in posset drink qualified with a little liquorice, or aniseed, to avoid the fulsomeness of the taste, or as Diaserum Fernelii. Brassivola in Catart. reckons it up amongst those simples that only purge melancholy, and Ruellius confirms as much out of his experience, that it purgeth [4186]black choler, like hellebore itself. Galen, lib. G. simplic. and [4187]Matthiolus ascribe other virtues to it, and will have it purge other humours as well as this. Laurel, by Heurnius's method, ad prax. lib. 2. cap. 24. is put amongst the strong purgers of melancholy; it is hot and dry in the fourth degree. Dioscorides, lib. 11. cap. 114. adds other effects to it. [4188]Pliny sets down fifteen berries in drink for a sufficient potion: it is commonly corrected with his opposites, cold and moist, as juice of endive, purslane, and is taken in a potion to seven grains and a half. But this and asrabecca, every gentlewoman in the country knows how to give, they are two common vomits. Scilla, or sea-onion, is hot and dry in the third degree. Brassivola in Catart. out of Mesue, others, and his own experience, will have this simple to purge [4189]melancholy alone. It is an ordinary vomit, vinum scilliticum mixed with rubel in a little white wine. White hellebore, which some call sneezing-powder, a strong purger upward, which many reject, as being too violent: Mesue and Averroes will not admit of it, [4190]by reason of danger of suffocation, [4191]great pain and trouble it puts the poor patient to, saith Dodonaeus. Yet Galen, lib. 6. simpl. med. and Dioscorides, cap. 145. allow of it. It was indeed [4192] terrible in former times, as Pliny notes, but now familiar, insomuch that many took it in those days, [4193]that were students, to quicken their wits, which Persius Sat. 1. objects to Accius the poet, Illas Acci ebria veratro. [4194]It helps melancholy, the falling sickness, madness, gout, &c., but not to be taken of old men, youths, such as are weaklings, nice, or effeminate, troubled with headache, high-coloured, or fear strangling, saith Dioscorides. [4195]Oribasius, an old physician, hath written very copiously, and approves of it, in such affections which can otherwise hardly be cured. Hernius, lib. 2. prax. med. de vomitoriis, will not have it used [4196]but with great caution, by reason of its strength, and then when antimony will do no good, which caused Hermophilus to compare it to a stout captain (as Codroneus observes cap. 7. comment. de Helleb.) that will see all his soldiers go before him and come post principia, like the bragging soldier, last himself; [4197]when other helps fail in inveterate melancholy, in a desperate case, this vomit is to be taken. And yet for all this, if it be well prepared, it may be [4198] securely given at first. [4199]Matthiolus brags, that he hath often, to the good of many, made use of it, and Heurnius, [4200]that he hath happily used it, prepared after his own prescript, and with good success. Christophorus a Vega, lib. 3. c. 41, is of the same opinion, that it may be lawfully given; and our country gentlewomen find it by their common practice, that there is no such great danger in it. Dr. Turner, speaking of this plant in his Herbal, telleth us, that in his time it was an ordinary receipt among good wives, to give hellebore in powder to ii'd weight, and he is not much against it. But they do commonly exceed, for who so bold as blind Bayard, and prescribe it by pennyworths, and such irrational ways, as I have heard myself market folks ask for it in an apothecary's shop: but with what success God knows; they smart often for their rash boldness and folly, break a vein, make their eyes ready to start out of their heads, or kill themselves. So that the fault is not in the physic, but in the rude and indiscreet handling of it. He that will know, therefore, when to use, how to prepare it aright, and in what dose, let him read Heurnius lib. 2. prax. med. Brassivola de Catart. Godefridus Stegius the emperor Rudolphus' physician, cap. 16. Matthiolus in Dioscor. and that excellent commentary of Baptista Codroncus, which is instar omnium de Helleb. alb. where we shall find great diversity of examples and receipts. Antimony or stibium, which our chemists so much magnify, is either taken in substance or infusion, &c., and frequently prescribed in this disease. It helps all infirmities, saith [4201]Matthiolus, which proceed from black choler, falling sickness, and hypochondriacal passions; and for farther proof of his assertion, he gives several instances of such as have been freed with it: [4202]one of Andrew Gallus, a physician of Trent, that after many other essays, imputes the recovery of his health, next after God, to this remedy alone. Another of George Handshius, that in like sort, when other medicines failed, [4203]was by this restored to his former health, and which of his knowledge others have likewise tried, and by the help of this admirable medicine, been recovered. A third of a parish priest at Prague in Bohemia, [4204]that was so far gone with melancholy, that he doted, and spake he knew not what; but after he had taken twelve grains of stibium, (as I myself saw, and can witness, for I was called to see this miraculous accident) he was purged of a deal of black choler, like little gobbets of flesh, and all his excrements were as black blood (a medicine fitter for a horse than a man), yet it did him so much good, that the next day he was perfectly cured. This very story of the Bohemian priest, Sckenkius relates verbatim, Exoter. experiment. ad. var. morb. cent. 6. observ. 6. with great approbation of it. Hercules de Saxonia calls it a profitable medicine, if it be taken after meat to six or eight grains, of such as are apt to vomit. Rodericus a Fonseca the Spaniard, and late professor of Padua in Italy, extols it to this disease, Tom. 2. consul. 85. so doth Lod. Mercatus de inter. morb. cur. lib. 1. cap. 17. with many others. Jacobus Gervinus a French physician, on the other side, lib. 2. de venemis confut. explodes all this, and saith he took three grains only upon Matthiolus and some others' commendation, but it almost killed him, whereupon he concludes, [4205]antimony is rather poison than a medicine. Th. Erastus concurs with him in his opinion, and so doth Aelian Montaltus cap. 30 de melan. But what do I talk? 'tis the subject of whole books; I might cite a century of authors pro and con. I will conclude with [4206]Zuinger, antimony is like Scanderbeg's sword, which is either good or bad, strong or weak, as the party is that prescribes, or useth it: a worthy medicine if it be rightly applied to a strong man, otherwise poison. For the preparing of it, look in Evonimi thesaurus, Quercetan, Oswaldus Crollius, Basil. Chim. Basil. Valentius, &c. Tobacco, divine, rare, superexcellent tobacco, which goes far beyond all the panaceas, potable gold, and philosopher's stones, a sovereign remedy to all diseases. A good vomit, I confess, a virtuous herb, if it be well qualified, opportunely taken, and medicinally used; but as it is commonly abused by most men, which take it as tinkers do ale, 'tis a plague, a mischief, a violent purger of goods, lands, health, hellish, devilish and damned tobacco, the ruin and overthrow of body and soul.

SUBSECT. II.—_Simples purging Melancholy downward_.

Polypody and epithyme are, without all exceptions, gentle purgers of melancholy. Dioscorides will have them void phlegm; but Brassivola out of his experience averreth, that they purge this humour; they are used in decoction, infusion, &c. simple, mixed, &c. Mirabolanes, all five kinds, are happily [4207]prescribed against melancholy and quartan agues; Brassivola speaks out [4208]of a thousand experiences, he gave them in pills, decoctions, &c., look for peculiar receipts in him. Stoechas, fumitory, dodder, herb mercury, roots of capers, genista or broom, pennyroyal and half-boiled cabbage, I find in this catalogue of purgers of black choler, origan, featherfew, ammoniac [4209]salt, saltpetre. But these are very gentle; alyppus, dragon root, centaury, ditany, colutea, which Fuchsius cap. 168 and others take for senna, but most distinguish. Senna is in the middle of violent and gentle purgers downward, hot in the second degree, dry in the first. Brassivola calls it [4210]a wonderful herb against melancholy, it scours the blood, lightens the spirits, shakes off sorrow, a most profitable medicine, as [4211] Dodonaeus terms it, invented by the Arabians, and not heard of before. It is taken diverse ways, in powder, infusion, but most commonly in the infusion, with ginger, or some cordial flowers added to correct it. Actuarius commends it sodden in broth, with an old cock, or in whey, which is the common conveyor of all such things as purge black choler; or steeped in wine, which Heurnius accounts sufficient, without any farther correction. Aloes by most is said to purge choler, but Aurelianus lib. 2. c. 6. de morb. chron. Arculanus cap. 6. in 9. Rhasis Julius Alexandrinus, consil. 185. Scoltz. Crato consil 189. Scoltz. prescribe it to this disease; as good for the stomach and to open the haemorrhoids, out of Mesue, Rhasis, Serapio, Avicenna: Menardus ep. lib. 1. epist. 1. opposeth it, aloes [4212]doth not open the veins, or move the haemorrhoids, which Leonhartus Fuchsius paradox. lib. 1. likewise affirms; but Brassivola and Dodonaeus defend Mesue out of their experience; let [4213]Valesius end the controversy. Lapis armenus and lazuli are much magnified by [4214]Alexander lib. 1. cap. 16. Avicenna, Aetius, and Actuarius, if they be well washed, that the water be no more coloured, fifty times some say. [4215]That good Alexander (saith Guianerus) puts such confidence in this one medicine, that he thought all melancholy passions might be cured by it; and I for my part have oftentimes happily used it, and was never deceived in the operation of it. The like may be said of lapis lazuli, though it be somewhat weaker than the other. Garcias ab Horto, hist. lib. 1. cap. 65. relates, that the [4216]physicians of the Moors familiarly prescribe it to all melancholy passions, and Matthiolus ep. lib. 3. [4217]brags of that happy success which he still had in the administration of it. Nicholas Meripsa puts it amongst the best remedies, sect. 1. cap. 12. in Antidotis; [4218]and if this will not serve (saith Rhasis) then there remains nothing but lapis armenus and hellebore itself. Valescus and Jason Pratensis much commend pulvis hali, which is made of it. James Damascen. 2. cap. 12. Hercules de Saxonia, &c., speaks well of it. Crato will not approve this; it and both hellebores, he saith, are no better than poison. Victor Trincavelius, lib. 2. cap. 14, found it in his experience, [4219]to be very noisome, to trouble the stomach, and hurt their bodies that take it overmuch. Black hellebore, that most renowned plant, and famous purger of melancholy, which all antiquity so much used and admired, was first found out by Melanpodius a shepherd, as Pliny records, lib. 25. cap. 5. [4220]who, seeing it to purge his goats when they raved, practised it upon Elige and Calene, King Praetus' daughters, that ruled in Arcadia, near the fountain Clitorius, and restored them to their former health. In Hippocrates's time it was in only request, insomuch that he writ a book of it, a fragment of which remains yet. Theophrastus, [4221]Galen, Pliny, Caelius Aurelianus, as ancient as Galen, lib. 1, cap. 6. Aretus lib. 1. cap. 5. Oribasius lib. 7. collect. a famous Greek, Aetius ser. 3. cap. 112 & 113 p. Aegineta, Galen's Ape, lib. 7. cap. 4. Actuarius, Trallianus lib. 5. cap. 15. Cornelius Celsus only remaining of the old Latins, lib. 3. cap. 23, extol and admire this excellent plant; and it was generally so much esteemed of the ancients for this disease amongst the rest, that they sent all such as were crazed, or that doted, to the Anticyrae, or to Phocis in Achaia, to be purged, where this plant was in abundance to be had. In Strabo's time it was an ordinary voyage, Naviget Anticyras; a common proverb among the Greeks and Latins, to bid a dizzard or a mad man go take hellebore; as in Lucian, Menippus to Tantalus, Tantale desipis, helleboro epoto tibi opus est, eoque sane meraco, thou art out of thy little wit, O Tantalus, and must needs drink hellebore, and that without mixture. Aristophanes in Vespis, drink hellebore, &c. and Harpax in the [4222] Comoedian, told Simo and Ballio, two doting fellows, that they had need to be purged with this plant. When that proud Menacrates ὀ ζεὺς, had writ an arrogant letter to Philip of Macedon, he sent back no other answer but this, Consulo tibi ut ad Anticyram te conferas, noting thereby that he was crazed, atque ellebore indigere, had much need of a good purge. Lilius Geraldus saith, that Hercules, after all his mad pranks upon his wife and children, was perfectly cured by a purge of hellebore, which an Anticyrian administered unto him. They that were sound commonly took it to quicken their wits, (as Ennis of old, [4223]Qui non nisi potus ad arma—prosiluit dicenda, and as our poets drink sack to improve their inventions (I find it so registered by Agellius lib. 17. cap. 15.) Cameades the academic, when he was to write against Zeno the stoic, purged himself with hellebore first, which [4224]Petronius puts upon Chrysippus. In such esteem it continued for many ages, till at length Mesue and some other Arabians began to reject and reprehend it, upon whose authority for many following lustres, it was much debased and quite out of request, held to be poison and no medicine; and is still oppugned to this day by [4225] Crato and some junior physicians. Their reasons are, because Aristotle l. 1. de plant. c. 3. said, henbane and hellebore were poison; and Alexander Aphrodiseus, in the preface of his problems, gave out, that (speaking of hellebore) [4226]Quails fed on that which was poison to men. Galen. l. 6. Epid. com. 5. Text. 35. confirms as much: [4227]Constantine the emperor in his Geoponicks, attributes no other virtue to it, than to kill mice and rats, flies and mouldwarps, and so Mizaldus, Nicander of old, Gervinus, Sckenkius, and some other Neoterics that have written of poisons, speak of hellebore in a chief place. [4228]Nicholas Leonicus hath a story of Solon, that besieging, I know not what city, steeped hellebore in a spring of water, which by pipes was conveyed into the middle of the town, and so either poisoned, or else made them so feeble and weak by purging, that they were not able to bear arms. Notwithstanding all these cavils and objections, most of our late writers do much approve of it. [4229] Gariopontus lib. 1. cap. 13. Codronchus com. de helleb. Fallopius lib. de med. purg. simpl. cap. 69. et consil. 15. Trincavelii, Montanus 239. Frisemelica consil. 14. Hercules de Saxonia, so that it be opportunely given. Jacobus de Dondis, Agg. Amatus, Lucet. cent. 66. Godef. Stegius cap. 13. Hollerius, and all our herbalists subscribe. Fernelius meth. med. lib. 5. cap. 16. confesseth it to be a [4230] terrible purge and hard to take, yet well given to strong men, and such as have able bodies. P. Forestus and Capivaccius forbid it to be taken in substance, but allow it in decoction or infusion, both which ways P. Monavius approves above all others, Epist. 231. Scoltzii, Jacchinus in 9. Rhasis, commends a receipt of his own preparing; Penottus another of his chemically prepared, Evonimus another. Hildesheim spicel. 2. de mel. hath many examples how it should be used, with diversity of receipts. Heurnius lib. 7. prax. med. cap. 14. calls it an [4231]innocent medicine howsoever, if it be well prepared. The root of it is only in use, which may be kept many years, and by some given in substance, as by Fallopius and Brassivola amongst the rest, who [4232]brags that he was the first that restored it again to its use, and tells a story how he cured one Melatasta, a madman, that was thought to be possessed, in the Duke of Ferrara's court, with one purge of black hellebore in substance: the receipt is there to be seen; his excrements were like ink, [4233]he perfectly healed at once; Vidus Vidius, a Dutch physician, will not admit of it in substance, to whom most subscribe, but as before, in the decoction, infusion, or which is all in all, in the extract, which he prefers before the rest, and calls suave medicamentum, a sweet medicine, an easy, that may be securely given to women, children, and weaklings. Baracellus, horto geniali, terms it maximae praestantia medicamentum, a medicine of great worth and note. Quercetan in his Spagir Phar. and many others, tell wonders of the extract. Paracelsus, above all the rest, is the greatest admirer of this plant; and especially the extract, he calls it Theriacum, terrestre Balsamum, another treacle, a terrestrial balm, instar omnium, all in all, the [4234]sole and last refuge to cure this malady, the gout, epilepsy, leprosy, &c. If this will not help, no physic in the world can but mineral, it is the upshot of all. Matthiolus laughs at those that except against it, and though some abhor it out of the authority of Mesue, and dare not adventure to prescribe it, [4235]yet I (saith he) have happily used it six hundred times without offence, and communicated it to divers worthy physicians, who have given me great thanks for it. Look for receipts, dose, preparation, and other cautions concerning this simple, in him, Brassivola, Baracelsus, Codronchus, and the rest.

SUBSECT. III.—_Compound Purgers_.

Compound medicines which purge melancholy, are either taken in the superior or inferior parts: superior at mouth or nostrils. At the mouth swallowed or not swallowed: If swallowed liquid or solid: liquid, as compound wine of hellebore, scilla or sea-onion, senna, Vinum Scilliticum, Helleboratum, which [4236]Quercetan so much applauds for melancholy and madness, either inwardly taken, or outwardly applied to the head, with little pieces of linen dipped warm in it. Oxymel. Scilliticum, Syrupus Helleboratus major and minor in Quercetan, and Syrupus Genistae for hypochondriacal melancholy in the same author, compound syrup of succory, of fumitory, polypody, &c. Heurnius his purging cock-broth. Some except against these syrups, as appears by [4237]Udalrinus Leonoras his epistle to Matthiolus, as most pernicious, and that out of Hippocrates, cocta movere, et medicari, non cruda, no raw things to be used in physic; but this in the following epistle is exploded and soundly confuted by Matthiolus: many juleps, potions, receipts, are composed of these, as you shall find in Hildesheim spicel. 2. Heurnius lib. 2. cap. 14. George Sckenkius Ital. med. prax. &c. Solid purges are confections, electuaries, pills by themselves, or compound with others, as de lapide lazulo, armeno, pil. indae, of fumitory, &c. Confection of Hamech, which though most approve, Solenander sec. 5. consil. 22. bitterly inveighs against, so doth Rondoletius Pharmacop. officina, Fernelius and others; diasena, diapolypodium, diacassia, diacatholicon, Wecker's electuary de Epithymo, Ptolemy's hierologadium, of which divers receipts are daily made. Aetius 22. 23. commends Hieram Ruffi. Trincavelius consil. 12. lib. 4. approves of hiera; non, inquit, invenio melius medicamentum, I find no better medicine, he saith. Heurnius adds pil. aggregat. pills de Epithymo. pil. Ind. Mesue describes in the Florentine Antidotary, Pilulae sine quibus esse nolo, Pilulae, Cochics, cum Helleboro, Pil. Arabicae, Faetida, de quinque generibus mirabolanorum, &c. More proper to melancholy, not excluding in the meantime, turbith, manna, rhubarb, agaric, elescophe, &c. which are not so proper to this humour. For, as Montaltus holds cap. 30. and Montanus cholera etiam purganda, quod atrae, sit pabulum, choler is to be purged because it feeds the other: and some are of an opinion, as Erasistratus and Asclepiades maintained of old, against whom Galen disputes, [4238]that no physic doth purge one humour alone, but all alike or what is next. Most therefore in their receipts and magistrals which are coined here, make a mixture of several simples and compounds to purge all humours in general as well as this. Some rather use potions than pills to purge this humour, because that as Heurnius and Crato observe, hic succus a sicco remedio agre trahitur, this juice is not so easily drawn by dry remedies, and as Montanus adviseth 25 cons. All [4239]drying medicines are to be repelled, as aloe, hiera, and all pills whatsoever, because the disease is dry of itself. I might here insert many receipts of prescribed potions, boles, &c. The doses of these, but that they are common in every good physician, and that I am loath to incur the censure of Forestus, lib. 3. cap. 6. de urinis, [4240]against those that divulge and publish medicines in their mother-tongue, and lest I should give occasion thereby to some ignorant reader to practise on himself, without the consent of a good physician. Such as are not swallowed, but only kept in the mouth, are gargarisms used commonly after a purge, when the body is soluble and loose. Or apophlegmatisms, masticatories, to be held and chewed in the mouth, which are gentle, as hyssop, origan, pennyroyal, thyme, mustard; strong, as pellitory, pepper, ginger, &c. Such as are taken into the nostrils, errhina are liquid or dry, juice of pimpernel, onions, &c., castor, pepper, white hellebore, &c. To these you may add odoraments, perfumes, and suffumigations, &c. Taken into the inferior parts are clysters strong or weak, suppositories of Castilian soap, honey boiled to a consistence; or stronger of scammony, hellebore, &c. These are all used, and prescribed to this malady upon several occasions, as shall be shown in its place.

MEMB. III.

_Chirurgical Remedies_.

In letting of blood three main circumstances are to be considered, [4241] Who, how much, when. That is, that it be done to such a one as may endure it, or to whom it may belong, that he be of a competent age, not too young, nor too old, overweak, fat, or lean, sore laboured, but to such as have need, are full of bad blood, noxious humours, and may be eased by it. The quantity depends upon the party's habit of body, as he is strong or weak, full or empty, may spare more or less. In the morning is the fittest time: some doubt whether it be best fasting, or full, whether the moon's motion or aspect of planets be to be observed; some affirm, some deny, some grant in acute, but not in chronic diseases, whether before or after physic. 'Tis Heurnius' aphorism a phlebotomia auspicandum esse curiationem, non a pharmacia, you must begin with bloodletting and not physic; some except this peculiar malady. But what do I? Horatius Augenius, a physician of Padua, hath lately writ 17 books of this subject, Jobertus, &c. Particular kinds of bloodletting in use [4242]are three, first is that opening a vein in the arm with a sharp knife, or in the head, knees, or any other parts, as shall be thought fit. Cupping-glasses with or without scarification, ocyssime compescunt, saith Fernelius, they work presently, and are applied to several parts, to divert humours, aches, winds, &c. Horseleeches are much used in melancholy, applied especially to the haemorrhoids. Horatius Augenius, lib. 10. cap. 10. Platerus de mentis alienat. cap. 3. Altomarus, Piso, and many others, prefer them before any evacuations in this kind. [4243]Cauteries, or searing with hot irons, combustions, borings, lancings, which, because they are terrible, Dropax and Sinapismus are invented by plasters to raise blisters, and eating medicines of pitch, mustard-seed, and the like. Issues still to be kept open, made as the former, and applied in and to several parts, have their use here on divers occasions, as shall be shown.

SECT. V. MEMB. I.

SUBSECT. I.—_Particular Cure of the three several Kinds; of Head Melancholy_.

The general cures thus briefly examined and discussed, it remains now to apply these medicines to the three particular species or kinds, that, according to the several parts affected, each man may tell in some sort how to help or ease himself. I will treat of head melancholy first, in which, as in all other good cures, we must begin with diet, as a matter of most moment, able oftentimes of itself to work this effect. I have read, saith Laurentius, cap. 8. de Melanch. that in old diseases which have gotten the upper hand or a habit, the manner of living is to more purpose, than whatsoever can be drawn out of the most precious boxes of the apothecaries. This diet, as I have said, is not only in choice of meat and drink, but of all those other non-natural things. Let air be clear and moist most part: diet moistening, of good juice, easy of digestion, and not windy: drink clear, and well brewed, not too strong, nor too small. Make a melancholy man fat, as [4244]Rhasis saith, and thou hast finished the cure. Exercise not too remiss, nor too violent. Sleep a little more than ordinary. [4245]Excrements daily to be voided by art or nature; and which Fernelius enjoins his patient, consil. 44, above the rest, to avoid all passions and perturbations of the mind. Let him not be alone or idle (in any kind of melancholy), but still accompanied with such friends and familiars he most affects, neatly dressed, washed, and combed, according to his ability at least, in clean sweet linen, spruce, handsome, decent, and good apparel; for nothing sooner dejects a man than want, squalor, and nastiness, foul, or old clothes out of fashion. Concerning the medicinal part, he that will satisfy himself at large (in this precedent of diet) and see all at once the whole cure and manner of it in every distinct species, let him consult with Gordonius, Valescus, with Prosper Calenius, lib. de atra bile ad Card. Caesium, Laurentius, cap. 8. et 9. de mela. Aelian Montaltus, de mel. cap. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. Donat. ab Altomari, cap. 7. artis med. Hercules de Saxonia, in Panth. cap. 7. et Tract. ejus peculiar. de melan. per Bolzetam, edit. Venetiis 1620. cap. 17. 18. 19. Savanarola, Rub. 82. Tract. 8. cap. 1. Sckenkius, in prax. curat. Ital. med. Heurnius, cap. 12. de morb. Victorius Faventius, pract. Magn. et Empir. Hildesheim, Spicel. 2. de man. et mel. Fel. Plater, Stockerus, Bruel. P. Baverus, Forestus, Fuchsius, Capivaccius, Rondoletius, Jason Pratensis, Sullust. Salvian. de remed. lib. 2. cap. 1. Jacchinus, in 9. Rhasis, Lod. Mercatus, de Inter. morb. cur. lib. 1. cap. 17. Alexan. Messaria, pract. med. lib. 1. cap. 21. de mel. Piso. Hollerius, &c. that have culled out of those old Greeks, Arabians, and Latins, whatsoever is observable or fit to be used. Or let him read those counsels and consultations of Hugo Senensis, consil. 13. et 14. Reinerus Solenander, consil. 6. sec. 1. et consil. 3. sec. 3. Crato, consil. 16. lib. 1. Montanus 20. 22. and his following counsels, Laelius a Fonte Egubinus, consult. 44. 69. 77. 125. 129. 142. Fernelius, consil. 44. 45. 46. Jul. Caesar Claudinus, Mercurialis, Frambesarius, Sennertus, &c. Wherein he shall find particular receipts, the whole method, preparatives, purgers, correctors, averters, cordials in great variety and abundance: out of which, because every man cannot attend to read or peruse them, I will collect for the benefit of the reader, some few more notable medicines.

SUBSECT. II.—_Bloodletting_.

Phlebotomy is promiscuously used before and after physic, commonly before, and upon occasion is often reiterated, if there be any need at least of it. For Galen, and many others, make a doubt of bleeding at all in this kind of head-melancholy. If the malady, saith Piso, cap. 23. and Altomarus, cap. 7. Fuchsius, cap. 33. [4246]shall proceed primarily from the misaffected brain, the patient in such case shall not need at all to bleed, except the blood otherwise abound, the veins be full, inflamed blood, and the party ready to run mad. In immaterial melancholy, which especially comes from a cold distemperature of spirits, Hercules de Saxonia, cap. 17. will not admit of phlebotomy; Laurentius, cap. 9, approves it out of the authority of the Arabians; but as Mesue, Rhasis, Alexander appoint, [4247]especially in the head, to open the veins of the forehead, nose and ears is good. They commonly set cupping-glasses on the party's shoulders, having first scarified the place, they apply horseleeches on the head, and in all melancholy diseases, whether essential or accidental, they cause the haemorrhoids to be opened, having the eleventh aphorism of the sixth book of Hippocrates for their ground and warrant, which saith, That in melancholy and mad men, the varicose tumour or haemorrhoids appearing doth heal the same. Valescus prescribes bloodletting in all three kinds, whom Sallust. Salvian follows. [4248]If the blood abound, which is discerned by the fullness of the veins, his precedent diet, the party's laughter, age, &c., begin with the median or middle vein of the arm; if the blood be ruddy and clear, stop it, but if black in the spring time, or a good season, or thick, let it run, according to the party's strength: and some eight or twelve days after, open the head vein, and the veins in the forehead, or provoke it out of the nostrils, or cupping-glasses, &c. Trallianus allows of this, [4249]If there have been any suppression or stopping of blood at nose, or haemorrhoids, or women's months, then to open a vein in the head or about the ankles. Yet he doth hardly approve of this course, if melancholy be situated in the head alone, or in any other dotage, [4250]except it primarily proceed from blood, or that the malady be increased by it; for bloodletting refrigerates and dries up, except the body be very full of blood, and a kind of ruddiness in the face. Therefore I conclude with Areteus, [4251]before you let blood, deliberate of it, and well consider all circumstances belonging to it.

SUBSECT. III.—_Preparatives and Purgers_.