Van Helmont's works containing his most excellent philosophy, physick, chirurgery, anatomy : wherein the philosophy of the schools is examined, their errors refuted, and the whole body of physick reformed and rectified : being a new rise and progresse of philosophy and medicine, for the cure of diseases, and lengthening of life / made English by J.C. ...

CHAP. LXVI. A Treatise of Diseases. A Diagnostical or Discernable Introduction. (Book 66)

1. A Re-sumption of the whole work. 2. Why the Author useth so great austereness in repressing. 3. He invokes God, while he perceives himself deprived of humane aid. 4. The poverty, and false 〈…〉〈…〉 of Logick were discovered. 5. The na∣kednesse of hearkening to the natural Phylosophy of Aristotle. 6. An unheard-of method of searching into a Disease. 7. Why the Schooles have wanted the knowledge of Diseases. 8. A Disease hath flown from departing out of the right way. 9. An entrance into the knowledge of Diseases. 10. A Scheme of Dis∣eases out of Hippocrates. 11. The Schools being fed with Lotus, have for∣saken their own Hippocrates. 12. A pithy contemplation of Diseases.

IT hath seemed necessary to have begun from Elements, Qualities, Mixtures, Comple∣xions, Contrarieties, Humors, and Catarrhes, that I might demonstrate, the Schooles [unspec 1] never to have heeded the Nature of Diseases; and therefore that they have been igno∣rant of the true Scopes of Medicinal Affaires, or the Principles, Theorems, Manners of making, Causes of suiting, Allyances, Agreements, interchangable Courses, and properties of Diseases; likewise of the Inventions, Choyces, Preparations, Exaltations, Appropriati∣ons of Remedies: That is not to have known a Scientifical or Knowldegable Curing of the Sick. For I have believed, that I must proceed by the same Beginnings: Because they referred all sicknesses (a few perhaps being excepted) into Elementary qualities, and the inbred discords of Nature, into Humours, Catarrhes, Flatus's, Smoaks or Fumes: So that the knowledge of the Schooles being withdrawn into a Fume, and Vapours, doth vanish into Smoak. At length, through the Errors of Tartar, it descends unto Tartarers, that they might shew, that they being involved in darkness, have stumbled in their wayes: For it hath behoved me diligently to detect those things, if Young beginners must hereaf∣ter repent. But it hath not been sufficient to have shewn their Errors, Unskilfulness, Slug∣gishness, and stubborn and constant Ignorance, unless I shall restore true Doctrine in the room of Triffles: For the abuses of Maxims, had remained suspected by me for very many Years (the which in the Book of Fevers I have deciphered to the Life) before that I came unto a sound Knowledge of the Truth: And I had a long while thorowly viewed the truth

of the Theorie, before that in seeking I had found some right Medicines which were suf∣ficient for those that had made a Beginning.

Wherefore seeing I was about to speak of Diseases, under so great a Paradox and weight of things, and sound none among the Antients and Modern Juniors to be my assistant, I [unspec 3] seriously invoked God, and I found him also favourable.

Therefore I determined before I wrote, to call upon Logick, that by its Definitions it might demonstrate unto me the Essences of Diseases; indeed by their Divisions, Species, [unspec 4] and interchangable courses or mutual respects; and at length, that by Augmentation, it might suggest the Causes, Properties, Meanes, and Remedies of knowing and curing them. But at my acclamations made even into its mouth, it was deaf, stood amazed, heard no∣thing, remained dumb, and helped not me miserable man in the least: Because it was wholly impotent, without sense.

Afterwards therefore, I called the Auricular Precepts of the natural Philosophy of the Schools, unto my aid: To wit, their three (boasted of) Principles, four causes, fortune, [unspec 5] chance, time, infinite, vacuum, motion, yea and monster. Whence at length, I disco∣vered, that their whole natural Philosophy, was truly monstrous, having feigned, false, mocking Beginnings, not principiating, and much less vital, in the sight of the King by whom all things live: likewise Causes, not causing. Also adding or obtruding the phan∣tastick Beings of Reason, and opinions beset with a thousand absurdities, wherein I as yet found not any footstep of Nature entire; and much less the defects of the same, or the in∣terchangable courses of faculties, or vital functions: But least of all, from such a structure of Principles, was the knowledge of Causes Natural, Vital, of Diseases, Remedies, and Cures to be fetched: Whither notwithstanding I supposed the knowledge of Nature had respect, as unto its objected scope. For whatsoever I sought for from the Schooles, and attempted to handle by their Theorie, that thing wholly Nature presently derided in the Practise, and it was accounted for a blast of Wind: She derided me, I say, (to speak more dictinctly) together with the Schooles, as ridiculous: And at length, she, together with my self, complained of so unvanquished stupidity Then also, Logick bewailed with me her impotent nakedness, and the vain boasting of the Schooles: Because she being that, which even hitherto was saluted the Inventer, and Searcher of Meanes, Causes, Tearms, and Sciences, grieved that she ought to confesse, that she was dumb no lesse in Diseases, than in the whole compact of Nature and also that she ought to desert her own professors, in so great a necessity of miseries 〈…〉〈…〉 she, by one loud laughter had derided also the natural Philosophies of Aristotle, and the blockish credulities of the World, and of so many Ages, if she her self had not been a non-being fiction, swollen only with the blast of pride.

Wherefore seeing Nature doth no where exist, or is seen, but in Individuals; there is need that I who am about to write of Diseases, have exactly known the Causes of particu∣lar [unspec 6] things, even as also it is of necessity for a Physitian, to have thorowly viewed those Causes individually, under the guilt of infernal punishment. Therefore it hath seemed to me, that the quiddities or essences, as well of things entire, as of those that are hurt, were to be searched into after the manner delivered, concerning the searching out of Sci∣ences. But seeing the Knowledge thus drank, may be unfolded, I have confirmed unto the Young Beginner, that an essential definition is to be explained by the Causes, and pro∣perties of these; which is nothing else besides a connexion of Causes, but not the Genus or general kind, and difference of the thing defined. But this is an unheard of Method of explaining, even as Logick the Inventress or finder out of Sciences hath feigned: And also seeing all that faculty is readily serviceable unto a discursive Philosophy, (for they do vainly run back unto the Genus of the thing defined, and the constitutive differences of the Species, for the Diseases which have never, and no where been known:) There∣fore, seeing it hath been hitherto unknown, that things themselves are nothing without or besides a connexion of the matter, and efficient Cause; By consequence also the Schools [unspec 7] have wanted a true Definition: That is, a right knowledge of Diseases. If therefore the Essence or thingliness of Diseases, and the condition of Diseasie properties, do issue out of their own immediate essential Causes; of necessity also, the knowledge of the aforesaid Diseases, and properties, is to be drawn out of the same Causes: Because the considerati∣on of Causes, is before the consideration of Diseases. Therefore I have already shewn, even unto a tiresomness, That the Essences of Natural things, are the matter, and efficient Cause connexed in acting: Therefore also, the Essence of every Disease, doth by a just definition, consist of those two Causes, and its knowledge is to be fetched out of the same.

First of all, a Disease is a certain evil in respect of Life, and although it arose from sin, yet it is not an evil like sin, from a Cause of deficiency, whereunto a Species, Manner, [unspec 8] and Order is wanting: But a Disease is from an efficient seminal Cause, positive, actual, and real, with a Seed, Manner, Species, and Order. And although in the beholding of Life, it be evil; yet it hath from its simple Being, the nature of Good: For that which in its self is good, doth produce something by accident; at the position whereof, the facul∣ties inbred in the parts, are occasionally hurt, and do perish by an indivisible con∣junction.

Defects therefore there are, which from an external Cause, do make an assault be∣yond or besides the faculties of Life concealed in the parts; and they are from strange [unspec 9] guests, received within, and endowed with a more powerful or able Archeus: And from hence they are the more exceeding in the importunity of times or seasons, quantities, and strength.

In the next place, there are occasional defects, which (seeing Good doth bring forth Evil by accident, and doth oft-times proceed from our own vital powers) are endowed with properties of their own, as it were their seminal Beginnings, therefore they immediately tend unto the vanquishing of our powers as their end: The which therefore, I elsewhere call, Diseases Potestative or belonging to our Powers. But neither is that a Potestative Being, which the Schooles do call A Disease by consent, and do think to be made by a collection or conjunction of Vapours: But a Potestative Being contains the government of a constrain∣ed faculty, as well in respect of the authority of Life, as of the diseasie Being it self; the which indeed is born by a proper motion, to stir up a Potestative Disease of its own order: Just as a Cantharides doth stir up a Strangury: And that also is done through a power of internal authority, and by the force of parts on parts. So an Apoplectical, or Epileptical Being, being as yet present in the Stomack, or Womb, shakes the Soul, yea and from thence transports the Brain, together with its attending powers, will they nill they, into its own service.

A Potestative Being therefore, doth not only denote a hurting of the Functions, but also a government of the part, and an occasioning force of a Diseasifying Being prorogued or continued on the subordinate faculties, as on the vassals of an Empire: It being all one also, whether the parts are at a far distance from each other, or whether they are near: For they are the due Tributes of Properties.

Yea truly, Hippocrates first insinuated, that Diseases are to be distinguished by their Inns, and Savours: And I wish his Successors had kept this tenor. But that Old Man [unspec 10] being as it were swollen with fury, presaged of the future rashnesses of the succeeding Schools, and precisely admonished them, That they should not believe, that Heats, Colds, Moistures, Sharpnesses, or Bitternesses, were Diseases: But Bitter, Sharp, Salt, Brack∣ish, &c. it self. But he sung these things before deaf or bored ears: For truly, the long [unspec 11] since fore-past Ages, being inclined unto a sluggishness of enquiring, and an easie credu∣lity, snatched up the scabbed Theorems of Heats and Colds, and subscribed unto them by reason of a plausible easiness, and bid Adieu to their Master; who having supposed that Diseases were to be divided according to their Innes, divided our body into three ranks; to wit, into the solid part containing, or the vessel it self; into the thing contained, or liquid part; and into the Spirit, which he said was the maker of the as∣sault. The which indeed is an Airy or Skiey, and Vital Gas, and doth stir up in us every Blas, for whether of the two ends you will. Which division of Diseases, although he hath not expressly dictated, yet he hath sufficiently insinuated the same: For he wrote onely a few things, and all things almost which are born about, are supposed to be his. And therefore I wish that posterity had directed the sharpnesses of their Wits, according to the [unspec 12] mind of that Old Man; Peradventure, through Gods permission, they had extracted the understanding of the Causes of Diseases: But they afterwards so subscribed unto the Au∣thority of one Galen, that they, as it were slept themselves into a drousie Evil, being afright∣ned while they are awakened by me. But in the Title of Causes, I understand, in the very inward or pithy integrity of Diseases, the matter being instructed by its own proper efficient Cause, to be indeed the inward, immediate Cause, and to arise from a vital Be∣ginning.

Wherefore also, I name those, external and occasional Causes, as many as do not flow from the root of Life it self: And therefore I treat of Causes; which are the Disease it self. For Bread being chewed and swallowed, is as yet external, because it may be rejected or cast up again: So also, the Chyle thereof, being cocted in the Stomack, is as yet external: Yea and which more is, after that it is become domestical,

and although it be made a more inward citizen of our family administration; Yet while it is separated from that which is living, and rusheth into the Kitchin of Diseases, for that very Cause, as it is become hostile; so also it is to be accounted External in respect of Life: So also a pestilent Air being attracted inward, although it hath spread its poyson within, and in respect of the Body, be internal; yet it is not yet internal in respect of Life: And so, neither yet is it the Disease it self: to wit, whereof it contains only an oc∣casion in it self, neither shall it ever lay aside that same occasionality: But the Plague is, while the Archeus, (the contagion being applyed unto himself, doth separate a part of himself, it being infected) from the whole: For the banishment whereof, the remaining part of the Archeus doth Co-laborate and is earnestly careful, that it may not be pierced by the Symbole or Impression, and perish. A co-like thing happens almost in the rest of Diseases. For truly, the Life is not immediately hurt, but by a certain poyson of its own, and proper to it, which it hath suffered to be applyed unto it self.