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. VI. (Book 6)

Of Ass-Doctors, their Milk Diet, Coughs, Consumptions, and He∣ctick Fevers; also of Bulch••r-Doctors. (Book 6)

1. IT is not the least craft in the Ass-Doctors, where they spy a wasting of the Flesh, to term it a Consumption, which hapning to be an attendant almost to every Disease, hastens Patients to flock in numbers to such Physicians; and that direful word carrying a dread in its signification, doth not a little multiply their Ass Practice, espe∣cially when they so highly ad∣vance the Credit of a milk Diet, by noising it to be the sole grand sweetner of the Blood.

2. Sure I am, the Death of hun∣dreds may be justly attributed to their Confidence in Asses Milk, in contempt of all such Remedies, or

Medicines, that were proper for the Cure of their Diseases. These Dietetick Fourbs, or Bonny-Clabber Physicians, are deservedly censu∣red Criminal, for not rightly con∣sidering the nature of Milk, it be∣ing a food the most convertible into any vicious Humor, that's most abounding. In hot cholerick Di∣seases, it's readily assimilated to Choler, renders the heat of Fevers more burning, a Head-ach less sup∣portable, a drought more difficult to be quench'd; in hot Stomachs waxes nidorulent, and in many its very corruptible, coagulable, or curdly. Phlegmatick Diseases re∣ceive from it an addition of slime, the Stone and Gravel derive their nourishment and increase from it. Palsies, Drowsiness, Blindness, Ca∣tarhs and Rhumes have oft follow∣ed a Milk Diet. With a tempe∣rate Constitution it harmonies best. To cure so many various Distem∣pers, as is pretended by a milkie Diet, is as impossible, as by it to

reinstall a dis-joynted Limb, or to cement broken Bones. An Ulcer in the Lungs, with a contemporary Hectick Fever, and Consumption, can no more be cured by an Ass-milkie Diet, than a Capon be roasted in the bottom of the Thames. This may be credited, that many emaciated Persons, in∣commoded with a Cough, have been restored to a plump habit of Body by Asses Milk, diluting the Salts of their blood, that prey'd upon the carnous parts, through the abounding Serum of the Milk, and smoothing the roughness of the said Salts by its butyrous or oyly Particles; and in regard of its soft tender caseous parts, it is easier assimilated, than the stringy or fibrous Juyces of Flesh-meat. In conclusion, he that cannot cure an Ulcer of the Lungs, with an He∣ctick, and Consumption attending, without Asses Milk, in less than two Months, doth not deserve the Name of a Physician. As for the

Hectick Fever, what they general∣ly assert incurable, it certainly goeth off with the consolidation of the Ulcer, without making use of any Anti-Hectick. Whether the Ass-Patient, or the Ass-Doctor be the greater Ass, is easily decided by those, that have met with Athenaeus's Saying, a Graecian Philosopher, translated by Scìopius, exceptis Me∣dicis nihil est Grammaticis stultius, that is, Grammarians are the great∣est Fools of all men, but Physici∣ans are yet greater Fools than Grammarians.

3. The Livery-men of the pre∣numerated five Physick Guilds, are obliged to veil their Bonnets to the sixth of the Bonny-Glabbers, in the milkie Treatment of Consumpti∣ons and Hecticks, that ensue Ul∣cers of the Lungs, also such as are putrid, 〈◊〉〈◊〉 apostemated. The Butchers, to avoid an evident proof of down right Murder, are forced to obrtain from their wonted course of 〈◊〉〈◊〉, in a Distemper where

there is the greatest want of Blood, the substracting of which would probably abbreviate a Months Life, more or less, to a week or a few hours. The T-rd-men, except those that are very far advanc'd in Impudence, do exulate in the use of their Purges, which would extreamly promote a loosness, a Symptom they are commonly in∣cident into; and hapning, soon destroys, by stopping the Cough, and suppressing expectoration, the immediate fore-runner of an in∣stantancous Suffocation. Steel Me∣dicines, and the Jesuits Bark, put∣ting a stop also to Expectoration, as hath been objected before, are a bar to Ferriers, and Jesuitical Do∣ctors. Neither can the Dull-head Physicians come into play, with their Aquarius, being contrary to all Expectoration. So that, as there is an Art of curing by Expectati∣on, there is also an Art of killing by Expectation; for he that is ren∣dered Consumptive through an

Ulcer in his Lungs, by daily and weekly Expectation in vain, of amendment from a Milkie Diet, neglects such means as might other∣wise conduce to his Cure, where∣by at last makes forfeiture of his Life to the Art of Expectation. Syrups, Lohochs, Lozenges, and the like, do under no other noti∣on fallaciously deserve the name of Pectorals, than by their imme∣diate smoothing of the roughness of the oesophagus or Gullet, where∣in by nearness or affinity of parts it doth sympathise with the Wind∣pipe, or aspera arteria. This seem∣ing ease lasteth no longer, than a fresh emanation of saline Rheum, or Slyme out of the Glanduls wipes off the clammy Syrup; where, and in the Stomach the Rheum by its sharp∣ness and a vicious ferment (as they term it) converts that, or any such Saccharaceous Medicine, into a cor∣roding Acid, which is so far from being auxiliary against the Ulcer upon its arrival to the Lungs, that it

excavates the Ulcer, and by sti∣mulation duplicates the Cough. It cannot be contradicted, but that Honey in any pectoral Medicine used instead of Sugar, especially Narbon Honey, may contain a pro∣perty answerable in some small measure the Indications of an Ul∣cer in the Lungs; because it seems to be an extract of the Balsamick Particles of fragrant oleous Flow∣ers, that probably may arrive to the Lungs, without being intirely broken in their Vertues.

4. I am not ignorant, that vul∣nerary Herbs, as ground Ivy, La∣dies Mantle, Bugle, and many others, used in Decoctions, are in high esteem among several Phy∣sick-men, who do very confident∣ly attribute to them the cure of divers Consumptions. But I am also very well assured, that those Vegetables, though supposed to be sufficiently impowred for the cure of Ulcers, must in their passage through the Stomach and Bowels,

and mixture with the Humors, receive such impressions and chan∣ges, as strip them of their facul∣ties, and energy, before they can traverse to the Vessels of the Lungs. What can be most fa∣vourably construed on their be∣half, is, that some who have been much emaciated, and at the same time accompanied with a Cough of an old date, whence they have been erroneously pronounced Con∣sumptives, did receive amend∣ment, or a Cure from them; but then it is to be conceived, here was no Ulcer of the Lungs, nor Hectick Fever, nor little Impo∣sthumes, nor putrid affection of the Lungs, which in a proper fense specifie a Consumption strict∣ly so called. In a putrid affecti∣on of the Lungs, its not to be doubted, but what is expectorated, is slyme mixt with purulent Parti∣cles, generated in the retired Pores of that Entrail, through a long Stagnation, which occasions an

Hectick Fever, and a Consump∣tion, that is so universal to this Island, and which neither Milk Diet, nor vulnerary Decoction, though sufficiently saccharated, or mellified; nor pectoral Syrups, Loho••hs, nor Lozenges, did ever cure, but inevitably kill by Ex∣pectation, there being but one Medicine, far different from the forementioned, that is impowered to answer all the Indications of a proper pulmonick Consumption. From the tonsure Remedy, by cut∣ing off the Hair of the Head, or from Issues in the Arm, no more help can be expected, than from pairing the Nails of the Fingers and Toes in an Ulcerous Consump∣tion; though in some few cases, three or four Cansticks applyed to sutable parts of the Breast, in or∣der to so many sontanels, may prove very advantageous; and it is beyond all objection, that the change of Air is most conducing to recovery, and a causa s••ne qua non.