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CHAP. VIII. The usual Remedies are weighed.
1. A censure of distilled waters. 2. Of what condition essential waters may be. 3. A censure of decoctions. 4. The comforting remedies of Gold, and pretious stones are examined. 5. A mechanical demonstration of abuses. 6. Gems are not any thing dissolved in us, hewever they are pawdred. 7. Pearles that are beaten, and dissolved in a sharp spirit, are examined by the way. 8. The Authour testi∣fies his own bashfullnesse. 9. The Pearles which are dissolved in the shops, are not Pearles. 10. Pearles, or Coralls being disssolved in some sharp liquour, re∣maine what they were before. 11. Five remarkeable things taken from thence. 12. The help of an old Cock, an old wives invention. 13. Alkermes is exami∣ned. 14. Comforting remedies are in vain, when as the enemy within tramples even on the strongest sick.
THe internall remedies used by Physitians in Fevers, if they are look't into, will be found to be of the same leaven with the other of their succours: For except that they are brought into one heat, as it were the scope, and hinge of the matter, they are as yet of no worth in themselves, neither do they any way answer unto a putrified matter.
For first of all, distilled waters, as well those which are called cooling ones, such as are those of Succhory, Lettice, Purslane, and Plantaine, as those which are of the or∣der [unspec 1] of the greater alterers, such as are those of Grasse, Dodder, Maidenhair, Carduus-Benedictus, Scorcionera, &c. Or those also which are fetcht from cordial plants, are in very deed, nothing but the sweates of herbs, but not their blood; and I wish they were not adulterated for the perswasion of gain.
For they are the rain waters of green and fresh herbs, but not the essential liquors of [unspec 2] the herbs which shew forth the whole Crasis or constitutive temperature, and savour of the thing. Therefore they cover an imposture in their name, and in the mean time the occasion of well doing slips away.
Moreover, the decoctions of plants, since they conteine the gums, and muscilages of simples, they provide pain or cumbrance for a feverish stomach, loathings, overthrows, [unspec 3] and other troubles; therefore also, they joyn themselves with the excrements, and are sequestred, after that they have procured all those perplexities: nor at least wise, is any thing of them carried inwards unto the places affected, and vitall soiles.
Physitians also, are wont to brag of their exhilarating Cordials; and restoring remedies [unspec 4] prepared of Gold, and gems or pretious stones, surely from a like stupidity with the rest: For although they are broken into a fine powder, they undergo nothing from the fire, and much lesse do they suffer by the digestive virtue.
For they are first made into a light powder in a brassen morter, and the gems shave of a part of the brasse with them, because they are harder than any file. And that thing I [unspec 5] have at some time demonstrated to the shops, while as I steeped that powder of gems in aqua fortis: For a green colour presently bewrayed it self, and the Apothecary confessed that his fortyfying remedies acted most especially, by communicating verdigrease or the rust of brasse unto the sick.
And then, if gems are afterwards the more curiously beaten in a grindstone or marble,