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CHAP. XXX. A History of Tartar. (Book 30)

1. That a Treatise of the four feigned humors, is to be joyned in this place, for the integrity of the work. 2. After the rejecting of a quality, being an elementary distemper, we must then also treat of Tartar, and the three first things or principles of the Chymists. 3. The Birth and Life of Paracel∣sus. 4. He first brought Tartar into a disease. 5. Strife unhappily fell out between the Humorists and Paracelsus. 6. They afterwards made use of Remedies borrowed from our fugitive servants. 7. Humours were long ago silenced, which I at length have demonstrated in a particular Book, never to have been in nature. 8. An Epitome or Summary of those things which Paracelsus hath here and there written concerning Tartar.

IT hath seemed to me a meet thing to premise natural things in order to the matter of [unspec 1] Medicine, because I am he who have alwayes thought the knowledge of the whole of na∣ture to have no respect but unto the health or welfare of man: Therefore have I treated of the Elements alone, whereby I may drive away the fictions, of the Schools, touching the composition of four Elements in every single body, which hitherto is reckoned to be mixt: That I might shew I say, that there are no mixtures; nor strifes, nor distempers, or complex∣ions of the same, even as neither that the Catologue of diseases of the feigned temperatures of Elementary qualities can stand with truth: That is, that the Schools have not hitherto known the causes of diseases, all which almost they have ascribed to those qualities. Moreover, now the same labour remains to me concerning the four feigned and false humours, and the wandring corruptions of these; it was to be written & shewn, that such humours were never in nature; therefore also that they have alike perniciously erred hitherto, as well in the Doctrine, knowledge, subscription of d••seasifying causes, as consequently in wandring Remedies, and the universal directions and applications of these: And seeing that thing is already perfor∣med by me in a peculiar book printed in the yeer 1644. at Colonia, by Jodoc Calchove, dire∣cted for a fore-runner of this work: and nigh the same yeer I set forth two other Books, to wit, concerning the disease of the Stone, and the Plague-grave wherein I have shewn••, that hitherto the causes of those diseases are unknown in the Schools: Therefore it is enough here to have attested it: Although those books are to be ••ansferred hither for the integrity or en••ireness of the work. Therefore the causes and essences of diseases, have even unto this day stood neglected by the Schools, and they being neglected, therefore the more weak have been destitute of right Remedies.

Now at length, because Paracelsus hath lately dared to remove the general cause of almost [unspec 2] all diseases into Tartar: And although Paracelsus first, hath rashly made that sufficient; yet he hath remained uncertain and unconstant, whether he might rather determine the three things (which by his own Authority he called The three Principles of all corporall things) to wit, Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury, for the general cause of all diseases, than his own brought in Tartar:

And therefore he hath left both of the aforesaid assertions to strive: Neverthelesse the more famous Physitians have at this day yielded themselves unto Tartar. Wherefore, seeing there is not in either, at this day, the truth of the Causes, and Remedies of Diseases, I have held it worth my labour, and for the good of my neighbour, to brush and sweep away both those er∣rours of Paracelsus out of the Schools; That Physitians, who while they do now incline unto the Doctrine of Tartar, all errours being at length removed, they may betake themselves to the true knowledge of diseases and remedies: And that from thence my neighbour (which thing I onely have wished) may receive profit. For the knowledge of things according to the Principles by me delivered, is drawn by the definition: But a definition is to be taken from a knowledge of the causes: And therefore in so great darkness on every side, and ignorances of Medicine, I will endeavour to bring those that shall succeed; yea and likewise modern young Beginners, into the true knowledge of diseases and remedies. For I have long since lost my hope of the Seniours, who will refuse to learn, being brought to that pass, as well by reason of sluggishness of assenting to the inventions of Pagans already drunk up, and converted into nourishment, and of labouring about Furnaces, as through a bashfulness of learning of me a poor man of lit∣tle esteem, the last of Phylosophers.

The father of Paracelsus being a Bastard of the master of the Teutonick Knights, went for a trivial Physitian, rich in a famous Library; who committed his son Aureolus Philippus Theo∣phrastus [unspec 3] of Bombast to Tritemius of Sphanheime: Whence he being rich in the substance of Secrets, went unto Spagyrick or Alchymistical works under Sigismund Fugger: For he was not there given to Venus (indeed a Sow in a place where three wayes met, had gelded him.) Secondly, not to sloath, nor spent he his life in flattery, being earnestly desirous of knowledge: For he, about the twentieth yeer of his age, searching into the divers Mines of the Minerals of Germany, at length came into Muscovy, in whose borders he being taken by the Tartars, our gelded Physitian is brought to the Cham: from thence, with the Prince the Chams son, he is sent away to Constantinople. At length about the 28th yeer of his age, he obtained the Stone that makes Gold, it being given unto him; for which things sake, he took up his Inn in Basil, where when he now became famous through many cures of diseases, he obtained the Chair of Medicinal Phylosophy, that he might give himself wholly up to Spagyrical labours. Indeed as the stone that makes gold lifted up his mind, and he saw the narrow substance of Physiti∣ans, and wandring errours of the same, he had long since aspired unto the chief-dome of healing: Indeed he taught at Basil full three yeers space, and expounded a Book concern∣ing Tartar, and likewise of degrees, and compositions; surely Both, the work of his ownin∣vention, and burdened with many Anxieties. In the mean time, as every ones own pleasure draws him, he indulging drinkings more than was meet, began to despise the Chair; yea and the Latine, whence, he had almost forgotten it, and he supposed that he ought to speak truth only in the Germane Tongue. Therefore although he was born with a rare wit, yet he was more happy in the gift of the Azoth or Practick, than in the searching out of the Theory.

He I say, first obtruded Tartar on us, into the cause almost of all diseases, and accused us, when he perceived that neither in the Schools of the Antients, as neither in his own three first [unspec 4] things, he was sufficiently credited: To which Patron, the Schools at this day have subscri∣bed. I also at sometime thought my self wholly gratified as it were with a found Treasure, till the Lord otherwise instructed me.

First of all, the pages of Galen, and Paracelsus have disputed, whether the matters of a Tartarous humour and phlegm were not the same, and onely pure Sunonymal things: But at [unspec 5] length, being amazed at coagulations,, or neither daring to ascribe so great a Troop of Disea∣ses unto one onely phlegme, the more learned Galenists admitted of a tartarous humour, and began to use Remedies which they begged from fugitive Servants.

Which things, although they were all poysonous, base, and adulterate, and are at this day as yet more; nevertheless, they have invented a knowledge with pots or Boxes, that they [unspec 6] may be daily drawn forth for uses. Likewise Tartar rising up, the humours have almost failed among the more refined wits.

Therefore the disgrace or reproach of Physitians from the ill success of curing, hath per∣swaded them to look back unto Chymical Remedies, and the grounds of their own Art being [unspec 7] neglected, they began promiscuously to use as well those Chymical Remedies, and most mi∣serable poysons, indifferently, as those which their Dispensatories do describe, as well to abo∣lish heats, as to shave off the phlegms of the stomach; so that the sloath of the Remedies, and speculations of Galen being well perceived, the Galenists do by degrees decline unto Tartarous humours: Therefore what things I have read out of many Books, which Paracelsus writeth concerning Tartarers, I will contract into a brief tract.

Nature being at first a beautiful Virgin, was defiled by sin; not indeed by her own, neither therefore for a punishment to her self; but seeing she was created for the use of ungrateful [unspec 8] man, she was as it were defiled with the fault of her inhabitant, that even by the defect of na∣ture, he might in some sort purge the guilt. It after some sort repented the Creator, that he had commanded nature to obey the disobedient: Therefore he appointed; that the Earth should hence-forward bring forth Thistles and Thorns: under the allegory whereof, the curse and rise of Tartarers are designed unto us; To wit, their matter which should exceeding sharply prick us: For the words do shew the progeny of the Earth, by the use whereof they do signifie, that Diseases should at length be incorporated in us: For first of all, the hostile Tartarers do trayterously enter with meats and drinks, they pierce into the bottom, are ra∣dically co-mingled, and shut up with a hidden Seal: Therefore some of them do even pre∣sently separate themselves within, from the pure noutishment; but others do remain together with the nourishment, which being wasted away, the surviving Tartarers are coagulated under the form of a Muscilage, Clay or Bole, next, of Sand, or a Stone, which then, are not onely uncapable of receiving the breath of life; but moreover, they keeping their wild Thorn, have become as the most inward immediate causes of all Diseases, the daily Nurses of the ca∣lamity of mortals: For as soon as the bloud is converted into the substance of the thing nou∣rished, and afterwards consumed, this off-spring of Thorns doth often remain, surely inconve∣nient through a forreign coagulation, if not also through acrimonies or sharpnesses: For it wax∣eth more hard daily, and bespotteth its own Inn with a 1000 Hostilities: But a Tarterer or tar∣tarous humour, differs from the humane excrements of meats in that, because these do putrifie, but that is coagulated: Therefore that stomach, and Liver is onely happy, which have known how to banish the sweepings of Tartar from the stinking excrements, in the beginning. As these Thorns are procured unto us by our antient Tartarous enemy; So the Stone that adhe∣reth to the Joynts or Ribs of the Wine-Hogs-heads, giving by reason of its manifest Prero∣gative, a name to the other Ranks of coagulable vices, is called Tartar: For truly the Wine in the Vessel is on every side incrusted with a Stony bark, which is Tartar, diverse from the Lees: For this falls down to the bottom, knowing no coagulation; but that being extend∣ed round about, doth arm the Vessel, and preserve it within, for ever from corruption: But that guest being through nourishments, a stranger, is called a forreign Tartar, to distinguish it from that which groweth together within us, with a fatall Spectacle, by a Microcosmical Law: For whereby any violent thing doth rush into us, for that very cause the nourishable humours being destitute of life do appear hostile, are coagulated, and called the Tartar of the venal bloud: whence are Apostemes, stoppages, and other Calamities, according to the delighted property, and pleasure of every Tartarer: And so Tartar insinuating it self from the mouth, even into the ultimate Coasts of the Pipes, is also the principal cause of all Disea∣ses. These are the things which I could collect out of Paracelsus here and there, into one, concerning Tartar.