Page 1154
CHAP. XVII. Hippocrates Revived.
ACertain man being familiar with a happy Angel his keeper, intreated him, that he would beg of God, the remedy whereby Hippocrates cured the popular plague of the Grecians; hoping that it would not be denyed unto the miserable Christians, the which the Almighty in times past granted to the Heathens: The good Angel said, Hiprocrates, used Sulphur, Salt, and Pitch: which answer left behind it the former obscurities: Hence it came to passe, that that man afterwards said, there was enough spoken for these times. Wherefore after a careful diligent search, at length I resolved with my self that Sulphur in the age of Hyppocrates was called Phlogiston, that is, inflameable: By which Etymology, Diascorides soon after said, the best Sulphur was denoted, from its own pro∣perty, to wit, because it was wholly consumed by the fire. But because Hippocrates named the hidden poyson of any diseases whatsoever, a divine thing, in diseases, and because he cured the poyson of the pestilence (which is the chief and standard-defender of poysons, and •••• contagious diseases) therefore he began to call Sulphur [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] that is, a divine thing; so that from hence even unto this day, Sulphur is no otherwise written or named, than with the name of Divine; because it heals the Pest: The which, as it was antiently believed to be sent onely from the Gods, so also it was antiently sup∣posed to contain a divine succour in it.
For all bodies universally, even of remedies against poyson, and the air it self, are subject to a fermental putrefaction, and to the poyson of the plague; and therefore they are a fit occasional matter for the Plague. Truly Authors do batter themselves with a tedi∣ous disputation, whether Salt be capable of a pestilent poyson? whether a Letter that is closed with a linnen thred, be a partaker of contagion, but not that which is tyed with a metallick thred? I have bewailed the ridiculous Fable of the Italians, and their Study of brawling: For truly, paper is no lesse capable of contagion, than flax, from whence it is made. Silver also, Gold, and the most cleansed glasse, and an Antidote it self, may drink in the forreign poyson of the plague: But Sulphur alone, among created bodies, resisteth a fermental putrifaction, and the contagion of the plague; Because Sulphur alone being like unto fire, drives away all putrefaction through continuance, as well in Hogssheads, as in places themselves, and blots out the foot-steps of any touch and odour: For so Sulphur also takes away well nigh every scabbednesse of the skin, because it is an enemy to contagion: Wherefore neither is it a wonder, if the Pest being derived into the skin from an internal Beginning, be also drawn out by Sulphur. For since that in the whole Universe, nothing doth more readily conceive fire than Sulphur, because it is as it were a meer fire; no wonder that Sulphur demonstrates the properties of fire, which are to burn up all things, nor it self to be infected with contagion.
Truly I have seen in the watery tract of Gaunt, a whole legion of Neopolitans to have died of the plague, but there was in the same place a Company of Germans which ••inged their shirts with Gun-powder, that they might excuse their Laundresses, and also the lice: If any of these perished, it was by reason of the bloudy Flux, but not of the plague: Therefore Hippocrates separated 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 (that soundeth Sulphur, or a divine unexpert or crude fire) which is named in the Shops Sulphur Vive, from the su∣perfluous earth, onely by fusion. But it is yellow, which being once enflamed, burns moreover even unto the end, neither doth it contract a skin in its superficies, as neither doth it leave a dreg behind it worthy of note; but being once enflamed, it wholly flies away; and therefore was it named 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or inflameable. For in the age of Hipocra∣tes, the manner of extracting Sulphur out of the Fire-stone and Marcasites, was not yet made known: Wherefore the Sulphur of Italy is better than our Country Sulphur bred at Leydon. For the Fire-stone exspires forth some Arsenical matter in the boyling; for why, the••efore Arsenick is commonly called the fume of metals. Hippocrates there∣fore, at first commanded the houses that were infected with the plague, to be perfumed with Sulphur: For indeed Sulphur while it is burned, and its heterogeneal parts are