CHAP. XXXVII. Of spitting, Salivation, Sneesing, Belching, Hicketting, and making of Water.
THat long evacuations may be made by spitting and salivation, you may learne by the example of such as have a plurisie, for the matter of the * 1.1 plurisie being turned into pus, the purulent matter suckt up by the rare and spongeous substance of the lungs, and thence drawn into the Aspera Arteria, is lastly cast out by the mouth.
There is none ignorant, how much such as have the Lues venerea are helped by sa∣livation and spitting. But these shall be procured by Masticatories of the roots of Ire∣os, * 1.2 Pellitory of Spaine, Mastick, and the like, the mucilage of Line seeds held in the mouth will worke the same effect.
That such as have a moist braine may expell their superfluous humours by snee∣sing and blowing their noses, the braine by the strength of the expulsive faculty, be∣ing * 1.3 stirred up to the exclusion of that which is harmefull, may be knowne by the ex∣ample of old people and children which are daily purged by their noses; the braine is stirred up to both kindes of excretion from causes either internall or externall: from the internall, as by a phlegmaticke and vaporous matter, which conteined in the braine, offends it; externally, as by receiving the beames of the sunne in the no∣stri's, or by tickling them with a feather, or blowing into them the powder of Helle∣bore, Euphorbium, Pyrethrum, Mustard seed, and the like sternutamentories. For then the braine is straitened by its owne expulsive faculty, to the excretion of that which is troublous unto it. Sneesing breaketh forth with noise, for that the matter passeth through straits, to wit, by the straining passages of the Os cribrosum, which is seated at the roots of the nostrills. It is not fit to cause sneesing in a body very plethorick, un∣lesse you have first premised generall medicines, lest the humours should bee more powerfully drawne into the braine, and so cause an Apoplexie, Vertigo, or the like symptomes.
By belching the flatulencies conteined in the ventricle, being the off-spring of * 1.4 crudity, or flatulent meats, are expelled, these by their taste and smell, pleasing, stin∣king, sweet, bitter or tart, shew the condition and kinde of crudity of the humours from whence they are raised: now vomiting freeth the stomack of crudities, but the distemper must be corrected by contraries, as altering things to be prescribed by the Physitian.