The art of curing diseases by expectation with remarks on a supposed great case of apoplectick fits : also most useful observations on coughs, consumptions, stone, dropsies, fevers, and small pox : with a confutation of dispensatories, and other various discourses in physick / by Gideon Harvey ...

CHAP. XX. (Book 20)

Detecting the most senseless, gross and absur'd Errors in the Com∣position of Venice Treacle, and Mithridate, also of the other Narcotic Medicines. (Book 20)

1. WHat means such a Troop of Electuaries in Dis. against Winds, weaknesses of the Heart, Stomach, Lungs, Spleen, Kidneys, and Testicles, when under other heads and forms such a train of Physick Artillery hath already been provided against them? Actum agere, entia multiplicare, and per plu∣ra facere must certainly be the de∣light of Physicians. I shall pass most of 'em, the same Reasons and Remarks set down before, serving to confute their necessity, and de∣monstrate their grossest Absurdities. The Autid. Haemagog. is such a one;

that Gog nor Magog can never un∣riddle the Mystery of its Compo∣sition. I perfectly know, that it performs least, what it is intend∣ed for. The Alom, Ginger, Pel∣litory of Spain, Capers bark, Eli∣campane, Pyony, Liquorish, Pep∣per, Lupin flower, and thirty more varieties in it will compound a mash fitter for Infernals, than for Horses, much less for sick men.

2. I do aver, that Diatessaron is a Compos. a million of degrees be∣yond Venice Treacle, or Mithridate, both which Physicians will have to ride Admiral and Vice-Admi∣ral over all their wretched Squa∣drons of Compounds. One mon∣strous Thunder-bolt of a Medicine will not serve turn, there must be a pair. And that they shall be ex∣actly prepared at Paris, their Wis∣doms have thought fit to depute a brace or two of Censorious Cox∣combs to visit the Treacle and Mithridate Pots in the Shops. And doth one Paris Physician in a hun∣dred

know all the Simples when he seeth them? I dare be confident not one in forty is acquainted with the faces of the tenth art of them. But what if the Agaric, Gum Ara∣bic, and seven or eight more, should be left out by the Artist, can you believe, the sight, scent, and tast of those Physicksters could discover it? No more than an Apothecary can tell, what young Doctor made the last addresses to his Wife in her Bed-chamber. The Venetian Magistrates and Phy∣sicians well knowing, that nothing can prevent Fallacies or Counter∣feits of such thrice noble Medicines, unless they see all the Ingredients prepared singly, and renged in se∣veral Classes, they never fail being present at the jumbling of them to∣gether, and affixing their Seal to their true mixture, to serve for a Traffick all Europe over.

3. A Lyon, a Bear, Tyger, Wolf, Cat, Dog, and a hundred wild Beasts more being put toge∣ther,

could not make a greater howling in the Air, than all those untamed Simples in Mithridate and Treacle would do in the Stomach, if the Opium that's among them did not quiet their Fury, and bridle their Enormity. The Experiment of this observe is evident in Ma∣thews's Pill, where the poysonous effort of the white Hellebore upon the Stomach is by the Opium bound up, by clowding the vital and ani∣mal Spirits, until it's passed into the Guts, when and where the Nar∣cotick Vertue being spent, that malignant vegetable is at liberty, to vent the remainder of its force upon the Intestins, in moving of Stools.

4. Give me leave to examine into the merits of these so highly blazon'd Composts, and begin with the greater worthy of the twine, Venice Treacle, preferred above all others, either because prepared with an exactness extra∣ordinary, attested by the Venetian

Seal, as I have observed before, or by reason that the Italian Vipers are reputed of greater force, than those brought hither from New England. The Name of Treacle, or Theriaca it desumes from 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, a wild Beast, either because Vipers are the chief Ingredients, or be∣cause its vertue is most signal in∣curing the bites of wild Beasts. It oweth its Invention to Andromachus, Physician to Nero, whence you may compute its very old Age, and re∣mark how the Tradition of so many hundred years is arrived to Physicians in the most assured re∣port of its infallible prevalence (according to Galen) against the greatest Diseases, particularly a∣gainst the falling Sickness, Stone, Dropsie, Coughs, Phtisick, spitting of Blood, Swooning, Leprosie, Gout, Madness from the bite of a mad Dog, all Poysons, Plague, Colick, plague of the Guts, many Diseases peculiar to Women, and a hundred more. No wonder, if

this mixture was called the Queen regent over all Medicines, and on∣ly worthy to reign in the Closets of Emperors, by whom it was caused to be prepared with the greatest cost and trouble. How little those Vertues can be expected from it, and how so vast a charge of those Emperors in sending for some of the Ingredients over all Asia is expended in vain; and how senseless and empirical the Composition is, will easily appear from the following Considerations. 1. That consisting of very many, if not all, contrary Ingredients, the one must necessarily destroy the other. 2. That Treacle being a Composition within a Compo∣sition of several of the same Ma∣terials, many of them are very foolishly repeated, as in the Tro∣chisci Hedychroi are received Rad. Phu. Pontic. costi, Cinamom. Shaenanth. Opobalsam. Cassia Lign. Malabathrum, Nardus indicus, Myrrh. Crocus, and Amomum; all which are also again

mentioned in the body of the De∣scription. 3. Observe the mixture of Purgatives, as Rhubarb, Agaric, Sem. Thlaspios Sagapenum, Opopanax, Chalcanthum Rubefactum, a vomi∣tive and purgative, &c. with Ad∣stringents, as red Roses, Hypocistis, Acacia, Pentaphyllon; consider fur∣ther these Adstringents joaked with their opposites, Alexipharmacks, Diaphoreticks, and Diureticks; as Vipers, dictamnum cretieum, Petrose∣linum Macedonicum, Sem. dauci cret, Foenic. ses. Ammeos: Therebinth, &c. next here must be Detergers, Ce∣phalicks, Pectorals, Hystericks, Stomachicks and Spleneticks, Gums, Resins, Earths, all sorts of Spices, &c. The Basis is a Spa∣nish Sea Onion, or Squil baked in a crust of Wheat, and consequent∣ly exceding in weight all the other Ingredients singly. But take no∣tice also, that Pepper and Opium together make an equal poize with the forementioned Scallion. Is not Venice Treacle standing on such a

Basis likely to be framed into an incomparable Gallimophory, es∣pecially where old decayed Viper Cakes, and long Pepper are equal∣ly supporters of the mighty Electu∣ary. The ill order, weight, dis∣proportion, and dissonance of such a multiplicity of Ingredients can∣not be parallel'd with any thing but it self, and its Sister Mithridate. Take a mad man out of Bethlehm, who hath the humor of mixing upon him, open all the Drawers, Pots, and Glasses of the Physick Shop unto him, it will not be pos∣sible for him to make a more irra∣tional jumble, and which shall not equal all the Virtues of Venice Trea∣cle, provided a proportionable weight of Opium be added by any of a little more sense than the Bethlemite.

5. Suppose half a score Ingredi∣ents more, as Nut-shells powder'd, Asses bones calcin'd, scraping of Trenchers, and the like, be added to the mixture; or that the same

number of Simples be substracted, be they Pentaphyllon, Calaminth, Vi∣per Cakes, or almost which you please, conditionally, that the Opi∣um be proportioned according to the substraction or addition, will you not believe, the Composition shall be gifted with the same En∣dowments and Qualities; or that it is not possible, for you or any man else not present at the jumble, to know, or conjecture, what is wanting, or what is thrown in?

6. Next examine the nature of the Ingredients. That the Stomach from the corrosive burning and cutting Qualities of the Squils is apt to be ulcerated, is attested by Dioscorides, whereunto the pretend∣ed corrective of Orobus, or bitter vetch flower gives a helping hand, whose violence, according to the same Dioscorides and Galen, consists in an extream bitterness, and a fa∣culty of causing a bloody Urin, and a bloody Flux, with the attendance of Convulsive gripes. These are

the prime Jewels to bedeck the Queen of Medicines, among which the calcined Copperas is not the least, a Mineral fitter for a gall'd horse's back, or the Farsie, a demi-poison promoting suffocating Vomits, and torminous stools. The Rhubarb is asserted by the Vouchers of Treacle to be added to strengthen the Li∣ver, and Agarick to comfort the Brain; an absurdity condemned by the experience of all mankind, that ever purgatives should be cor∣roboratives. But they pretend to excuse the injuries of those perni∣cious Simples by their small pro∣portion, which they insinuate can∣not signifie much to so great a mass as the whole Composition amounts to. The same reason may as just∣ly indemnifie the addition of a dram or two of Arsenic or Rats∣bane, Wolf-bane, and the like. To blow your nose into a man's Por∣ridg can do no hurt, because the quantity is little, is a parallel way of reasoning, and of all men only

peculiar to Physicians. But let me tell you, the proportion is great, if you joyn them together, thus: of Agaric an ounce and half, Rhu∣barb six drams, burn'd Copperas half an ounce, Sagapenum, Opopanax, Gal∣banum &c. all which being purga∣tives, make a strong party. Ima∣gine, that a patient in a malignant Fever had by advice taken a dose of Venice Treacle, to expel the ma∣lignity, which failing in the in∣tended effect, he happens to dye; The Physician, should he by acci∣dent come to the knowledge, that the Treacle wanted an Ingredient or two, as juyce of Liquorish, Or∣rice, or any other of less moment, the Hog would most certainly im∣pute the death of the Patient to the defective Composition. In conclusion, Treacle is no other, than a most confuse, absurd and senseless Opiat, which in all its pretences would be out-done be∣yond comparison, by a mixture of of three or four, as Virg. Serpentary

roots, Scordium, Bole armene, and Opium, reduced with Honey into an Electuary; or Angelica r. Terra sigil. Gentian, and Opium mix'd with Honey. The Extract of Harts∣horn, Dictamnum Cret. and Opium is also an equivalent. Great is the su∣perstition of the Indians in the wor∣ship of their Pagode Devils, defor∣med with monstrous horns, but a million greater is the superstition of Physick Idolaters, that believe it the greatest Sacrilege to diminish the least tittle from a Composition, as Sorrel-seeds, Pepper, and Gin∣ger from Diascordium, or Pellitory of Spain from the Philonia; the pre∣cious fragments and Stags-bone out of Confectio de Hyacintho; the neg∣lect of rejecting of all these parti∣culars doth demonstrate Physicians to have longer Ears then Asses. To roast Saffron in an Egg-shell to im∣prove its virtues, is another Argu∣ment of their Sagess in the descrip∣tion of Elect. de Ovo. The Addita∣ments of Pellitory of Spain, and

Pepper to correct the extream cold∣ness of Opium in the Philonia, is an∣other foolish notion, they cannot be driven from.

7. To what purpose is the de∣scription of so many idle Opiats; as Philonium Persicum, Romanum, Re∣quies Nicholai, Nepenthes, Pil. de Cy∣noglosso &c. when Opium dissolved and digested with Spirit of Wine, with or without Saffron, and used in drops, or evaporated to a Pill, is beyond all the imaginary cor∣rectives, which it doth not stand in need of, since the onely danger it can threaten is oversleeping into a Coma, Lethargy, Carus, or death; and that is no other way to be pre∣vented, than in omitting giving of it to those, that are not judged proper to take it, or to exhibite it to others in less quantity, than it can be presumed to exceed in operation; for tho' you surround Opium with all the spices of the In∣dies, to guard nature from its vio∣lence, if you give too much, it

will not fail to kill, or extreamly to frighten the standers by with a posture of the patient very like un∣to death; and if you judge, that advising very little of it in Phthi∣sicks, or great Weaknesses, be a sufficient warrant, you will find your selves deceived, as those have been, which I mentioned in the Conclave of Physicians. I pass by ta∣king notice of the purgative Electu∣aries, whose Absurdities in Com∣position we shall sufficiently detect in the Pill Boxes.