A new and needful treatise of spirits and wind offending mans body wherein are discovered their nature, causes and effects / by the learned Dr. Fienns ; and Englished by William Rowland ...

CHAP. IV.

Of the place where Wind is bred.

IN the former Chapter we shewed from Galen and Hippocrates, that those were windy bodies that gathered much wind in their bellies, which

is voided upwards or downwards, or that stretcheth the parts that hold it. Hence it ap∣pears that the stomach and guts are the place of its breeding; otherwise it could not go forth upward or downward. So wind is bred in the Earth, which after rain being warmed, as Ari∣stotle saith, from above and from it self, smoak∣eth; and in this is the force of wind. For when the Earth takes greatest force from water, there must be most forcible vapours, even as green wood burnt affords most smoak. The stomach most resembles the Earth in man. Galen compar∣ing them, saith, that Nature made the stomach in stead of an Earth to Animals, to be a store-house, as the: Earth is to Plants. For the veins that go to the stomach, such Chyle out of it to nourish the whole body, as the roots of Trees do from the Earth: it is a natural action in both. They are alike, but the Earth of it self is dry and sapless; except watered, it produceth no fruit; but being moistned, as Virgil saith, it produceth winds also. So our stomach is membranous and dry, and except it be moderately moistned with meats and drinks, it defrauds the body of its nourishment, and it consumes: If too much drink be taken, there is fluctuation and wind; for too much food oppresseth the natural heat, and makes it weak; but yet it will fall to work, or concoct: but being not able to do it exactly, it raiseth vapours which it cannot discuss. Then

by degrees the first concoction being hindered, there are gross and flegmatick humours, both in the stomach and guts, chiefly the Colon. If the wind be thick, it stretcheth only the sto∣mach and belly; but when by degrees it is made thin by heat of the bowels, that which was shut up begins to move and enlarge it self, and take up more room, and stir about to get forth, and then all is well. But if a costive body by hard excrements or tough flegm in the guts hinder its passage, it runs back and roars, rumbles, and pains the guts, and labours by force to get out. For when the heat of the guts extenuates the vapours, they move readily and of themselves, and so are thinner, and can pierce farther: they run about like Thunder swiftly, and open small passages, and make solution of unity, and cause pain in any solid part by their passage being thin. What Seneca Lib. 6. nat. quaest. c. 8. saith of other wind, agrees with this, that its force is not to be withstood, because a spirit is not to be conquered. They only can judge of this wind who have been troubled with it, Therefore as the other wind is only bred in the Earth, so this is bred only in the stomach and guts, as the ca∣verns of the Earth, and from thence goes to any part: for the body is thin and previous, full of passages for the wind to go through; which when it is much, and gets not forth, shakes the body, causeth chilness, and great Symptoms af∣ter to be mentioned.