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. LXXXV. Of Things Inspired or Breathed into the Body. (Book 85)

AN undistinct novelty of things, hath long detained me in mental Receptions: Now at length I prosecute the third kind of things Received. I call them Things Inspi∣red; for they enter into us from without, and for the most part, together with the Air: To wit out of Dens or Caves, Fens, Mines, Mountains, Windes, Provincial places, Ser∣pents, or Creeping Things, Filths, dead Carcasses, or growing Things. For they are the Exhalations of Things, which do treacherously, and unsensibly filch away our Life: For Illyricum and Dalmatia, being in times past, populous Provinces, and likewise Alexandria sometimes most famous; although they have the Ground of a fertile Soile, are now almost forsaken, by reason of a cruel Poyson, which presently tends unto the conclusion of Life. So an Alchymist daily draws a wild and pernicious Gas out of Coales, Stygian Waters, and fusions of Minerals; and the which being once attracted inwards, doth disturb the Ar∣cheus, according to the disposition proper unto every Poyson. So the Air being infected with the importunate or unseasonable ferments of a place, produceth a Gas, which affords accustomed sicknesses unto places: The which others have rashly referred unto the Tar∣tars of places. For truly any kind of Smoakinesses do, through delay, defile the Walls of their Vessels: To wit, from whence under the sixth Digestion, diverse Excrements are forged, most apt for the putrifying of the last nourishments, and corrupting of the Vessels: because if the smoakinesses of Salts are encompassed with an hurtful mixture, they being presently melted within, do pierce and gnaw the tenderness of the Pipes; Yet they are more mild, than those which are there collected by a dry Smoake or Fume: For if they shall besiege the tender branches of the rough Artery, they stop them up, cut off the hope of dissolving; whereto, if the excrements of the place do grow, so as that they shut up the Air behind, they are made continual guests, and do stuff the part, that they are also cor∣rupted, and become an Imposthume full of matter. But those things which enter together with Vapours, the watery parts being consumed, they are cruelly joyned unto the similar parts: For so many Endemical things have made Provinces unhabitable.

And moreover, the Sea, however it be Salt, yet it is not free from so great Evils. The which, Shoares, by the Scurvy and a various slaughter of Fevers do testifie; and the Equi∣noctial Line most manifestly of all.

In the next place, the Ministers or Servants of the Sick, do inspire or breath in cruel things, being now fermented by a mark of resemblance. So they which Guild, do Melt Lead, Copper, Fire-Stones, &c. the Diggers, and likewise the Seperaters, and Boylers of Minerals: For although they do not presently take away Life, at least-wise they shorten it, and subject it to divers disasters. So they which labour in Sublimed Cinnabar, Arse∣nick, Orpiment, and in Stibium; and they who prepare Minium, Ceruse, Verdigrease, the Azure of Zaffar or Saffron, and which do serve Painters. For things from under the Earth are far more constant, than to hearken unto our heat, than to be tamed or expelled thereby; and much less that they should depart into nourishment: For therefore the Products of these are wont to remain for Life, unless through the ascending brightness of a more bountiful Sulphur, those very enemies are converted into Friends, or do season∣ably depart. For the Diseases of Minerals have been touched by none but Paracelsus; but have been neglected by the Schooles, who have alwayes dreamed of new Illiad's or com∣mendatory Fictions upon the Commentaries of their Ancestors, and therefore have been very like to the Levites passing by in Jericho: Because they have scarce lifted up their head above Heats and Colds. For truly I have sometimes proved, that the Stomack drawes the odours of things in the cup of things given to be drunk: Indeed the places about the short-ribs do tremble, at the offered cups, with however a grateful smell they are masked. therefore also the Air bringing the Odours unto the Stomack, it passeth through the Mid∣riff.

For from hence every Endemical thing is born immediately to affect the hollow bought of the Stomack, and there to imprint Odours, Smoakinesses and Ferments: So as that they being married unto the nourishable liquor, they confound the services of Digestion, and bring forth divers Excrements. For so the Plague, with Endemicks breathed into the Body, do for the most part originally rage about the Stomack: For the passage of the Wind-pipe, seeing it stood subjected unto the Inclemencies of the Air, is to be believed to have received its Armories from the goodness of God, no less than the bladder of the Gaul-Chest have been fenced against the Urine, and its Gaul. But the Membrane of the Stomack being of a great heap, is for the most part busied about its own Digestions, is in∣terrupted with Endemicks, is disturbed by an Endemical Being. Therefore the Cough, Asthma's, Imposthumes full of matter, Heart-beatings, and very many Anguishes do oc∣casionally depend on Endemicks being imprinted upon the hollow bought of the Stomack. There is the same reason of malignant Fevers, of Camp, and other Diseases, which do popularly molest.

Fernelius being not contented with the Doctrine of Galen, seeking the seat of all Fevers beneath the Pylorus, hath not rid himself of feigned Humours; nor hath ever dreamed any thing of the hollow bought of the Stomack, and that a light Endemick being breathed in, should be sufficient for transplanting of the nourishment of the sixth Digestion.

Tell me, what the Air, the tempest of Times or Seasons can concern the equal tem∣perature of Humours? For shall the hot Air of a scorching day, bring forth Choler, or an Excrement, which a more temperate day had transchanged into the venal blood of Life? Shall thus therefore the primary Shop of Humours, be by every prerogative of right, con∣stituted in the Lungs? I have learned, that the Digestions are substantial generations of the transchanging Archeus, not of internal heat, and least of all of the external Air: And that the Digestions are troubled by the drinking in of an hurtful, or at least a trouble∣some Endemick: Also that the errors of Digestions do scarce want a diseasifying Product; because it is proper to a Digestion to produce something in Digesting. I deny not indeed that intense cold, or heat do hurt the tender Lungs, or Brain, seeing they do also scorch the skin: But doth such a kind of dammage consist onely in a degree more superiour than humane Nature? And there is a certain largenesse in every degree, which consisteth be∣neath an hurt. I now have respect unto things Inspired. But Mineral Inspirations do ex∣pect no hope of Remedy from Vegetables. I grant indeed that perfumes do hinder a speedy adhering of Smoaks in our Pipes: But they having gotten possession within, they will not refuse it by Vegetables: For they will scarce receive a healing Medicine, unless by Secrets of the same Monarchy. Wherefore I have not found any help from the Manna of a Nettle, and likewise from Semper-vive boyled in the beestings or first-stroakings of Milk, &c. The which, I with the leave of Paracelsus, do thus maintain; and they who shall be willing to make tryal, I trust will subscribe with me.