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CHAP. 5. Of Medicines apropriated to the Liver.
BE pleased to take these under the name of Hepa∣ticks, for that is the usual name Physitians give them, and these also are of Three sorts.
- 1. Some the Liver is delighted in.
- 2. Others strehgthen it.
- 3. Others help its vices.
The Pallat is the Seat of tast, and its Office is to judg what Food is agreeable to the Stomach, and what not, by that is both the Quality and Quantity of Food fit for the Stomach discerned: the very same Office the Meseraick Veins perform to the Liver.
Sometimes such Food pleaseth the Pallat which the Liver likes not (but not often) and therefore the Meseraick Veins resuse it, and that's thereason some few men fancy such food as makes them sick after the eating thereof.
- 1. The Liver is delighted exceedingly with sweet things, draws them greedily, and digesteth them as swiftly, and that's the reason Honey is so soon turned into Choller.
- 2. Such Medicines strengthen the Liver, as (being apropriated to it) very gently bind, for seeing the Office of the Liver is to concoct, it needs some ad∣striction, that so both the heat and the humor to be concocted may be staied that so the one slip not away, nor the other be scattered.
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Yet do not Hepatical Medicines require so great a binding faculty as Stomachicals do, because the passa∣ges of the Stomach are more open than those of the Liver, by which it either takes in Chyle, or sends out Blood to the rest of the Body, therefore Medi∣cines which are very binding are hurtful to the Liver, and either cause obstructions, or hinder the distri∣bution of the Blood, or both.
- 3. The Liver being very subject to obstructions, Medicines which withstand obstructions, or open them being made, are truly Hepatical, and they are such as cut and extenuate without any vehement heat (to these we shall speak in their proper places) and yet they retain a faculty both gently binding, and clen∣sing.
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Sometimes Inflamation follows the obstruction, and then must you use Hepatical Medicines, which cool, clense, and extinuate.
In using these have a special care that your cooling Medicines be so tempered with heat, that the dige∣stive faculty of the Liver be not spoiled, and that the Diaphragma (which is very neer unto it) be not so cooled that it hinder the fetching of breath.
And thus much for the Liver, the Office of which is to concoct Chyle (which is a white substance the Stomach digests the food into) into Blood, and di∣stribute it by the Veins to every part of the body, whereby the Body is nourished, and decaying flesh restored.