CHAP. X. Of Vomiting.
VOmiting is by all the Ancients exceedingly commended, not onely for * 1.1 the prevention, but also for the cure, especially when as the matter floweth from the braine and stomacke; for the phlegmatick, serous and cholericke humours, which usually flow from the joints, are excluded and diverted by vomit, and also there is attenuation of that phlegme, which being more thicke and viscide, adhereth to the roots of the stomack: yet you * 1.2 must consider and see that the patient bee not of too weake a stomacke and braine, for in this case vomiting is to bee suspected. For the time, such as have excremen∣titious humours flowing downe to the stomack through any occasion, as by exercise and motion, must vomit before they eate; on the contrary, such as are overcharged with an old congestion of humours, must vomit after they have eaten something. Certainly it is safer vomiting after meat, then it is before. For the dry stomacke cannot, unlesse with great contention and straining, free it selfe from the viscide humours impact in the coats thereof; and hence there is no small danger of brea∣king a veine or artery in the Chest or Lungs, especially if the patient bee strait che∣sted, and long necked, the season cold, and hee unaccustomed to such evacuation. I remember that with this kind of remedy I cured a certaine Gentleman of Geneva, * 1.3 grievously molested with a cruell pain in his shoulder, and thereby impotent to use his left arme; the Physicians and Surgeons of Lions seemed to omit nothing else for his cure. For they had used purging, phlebotomie, hunger, a Diet drinke of Gudia∣cum and China (although his disease was not occasioned by the Lues Venerea) and divers other to pick medicines, neither yet did they any thing availe. Now learning by him that hee was not apt to vomit, but that it was difficult to him, I wished him * 1.4 to feed more plentifully, & that of many & sundry meats, as fat meat, onions, leeks; with sundry drinks, as beare, ptisan, sweet and sharpe wine, and that hee should as it were overcharge his stomack at this meal, and presently after get him to his bed; for so it would happen, that nature not enduring so great confusion & perturbation of meats & drinks, wherof some were corrupted already in the stomack, & othersome scarce altered at all, nature not enduring this confusion and perturbation, would ea∣sily and of its owne accord provoke the stomack to vomit; which that it might the better succeed, he should helpe forward natures endeavour, by thrusting his finger or a feather into his throat, that so the thick and tenacious phlegme might by the same meanes be evacuated: and not content to doe thus once, I wished him to doe the like the second & third day following, for so it verifieth that saying of Hippocra∣tes: The second and third day exclude the reliques of the first: afterwards, that hee * 1.5 should vomit twice a moneth: chaw mastick fasting: rub his necke and the pained part with aqu•• vitae, stengthened by infusing therein lavender, rosemary, and cloves grosly beaten: confirme his arme by indifferent exercise: hee performed all this, and so became free from his paine, and recovered the use of his arme. Those who do not like such plentifull feeding, shall drink a great quantity of warm water wherein radish roots have been boiled, and they shall have a care lest by using their stomacks to this excretion by vomit they weaken the digestive and retentive faculty thereof. Wherefore such as can naturally, shall thinke it sufficient to vomit twice a moneth.