Another collection of philosophical conferences of the French virtuosi upon questions of all sorts for the improving of natural knowledg made in the assembly of the Beaux Esprits at Paris by the most ingenious persons of that nation / render'd into English by G. Havers, Gent. & J. Davies ..., Gent.

CONFERENCE CLXVIII. What is the cause of the Crisis of Diseases. (Book 168)

CRisis (if you consider its derivation from a word which sig∣nifies either to judge or to separate or to encounter) agrees in some sort to every of those significations; for a Disease is judg'd by it, it separates the good humors from the bad, and that after a combat between Nature and the Disease. But 'tis commonly defin'd a mutation of a Disease either to Health or Death, for better or for worse. We must first consider in it, the term of its commencement, which is the Augmentation of the Malady, whence acute ones have their Crisis sooner then Chronical; the very acute being sometimes judg'd in four days, in which time very malignant Fevers sweep men away, but commonly within seven days; acute Diseases are judg'd by the 14th or 20th day, and sometimes not before the 40th. Chronical Diseases extend to the 120th; after which term they count no longer by days but by moneths and years. The term it ends at,

is either Health or Death, or the change of one Disease into another. The term through which it passes is the space of time employ'd by Nature in the coction, separation and excretion of the peccant Humours. The Agent or Motor is Nature, which must be assisted in imperfect Crises, not in such as are per∣fectly made. Lastly, we must consider what is mov'd, namely the Humors; for Crisis hath place only in humoral Diseases. A perfect Crisis judges the Malady perfect either to Health or Death, and hath had its indices of coction the fourth day for the Crisis on the seventh, the eleventh for that on the four∣teenth, and the seventeenth for that on the twentieth; it must also be manifest either by evacuation or abscess (for those that mend without apparent cause relapse) and fall upon critical days, without any dangerous symptom: and after such evacu∣ation the Patient must be manifestly better, especially if it be universal and sutable to his Nature, Age, and Malady. Long Diseases are judg'd by Abscesses; acute, by Evacuation. In young persons Fevers are judg'd commonly by Haemorrhage or some flux of blood; in old men, by that of the belly. Now besides those Critical and Indicative days there are others call'd Intercidents which judge imperfectly, and others also Medici∣nal, because in them purgatives may be adminished; which days are sometimes Critical, but always unfaithful, and commonly mischievous; which will better appear by this general appli∣cation. The first day is reckon'd from the hour of the first in∣vasion felt by the Patient in acute Diseases, and from the time of his decumbiture in Chronical. Yet in women newly deli∣ver'd we begin not to reckon from the time of parturition, unless it were precipitated, but from the time of the Fever; and this first day judges no other Disease but a Febris Ephemera, or one-day Fever. The second day is vacant and without effect. The third is Intercident, call'd by some Provo∣cant, because it irritates and provokes Nature to make excre∣tions before the time; for being odd, it causes some motion in the morbifick matter, but imperfectly, as not following the order of Nature mention'd hereafter; neverthess tis Critical in very acute Maladies, and such as disorder the Laws of Nature. The fourth is an index of the seventh, and shews what is to be ex∣pected that day by either the Concoction or Crudity of the Urin and other excrements; no laudable Crisis hapning without Con∣coction precedent. Which holds good not only in continual Fevers, but also in the fits or accessions of Intermitting ones: for the fourth day being the middlemost between the first and the seventh, it foreshews the design and strength or weakness of Nature, and what she is able to do on the seventh. The fifth resembles the third, being likewise provocatory in Diseases wherein Nature hath made an unprofitable attempt on the third, which she then endeavours to repair; but unsuccess∣fully too, this Crisis being most commonly imperfect. The

sixth is also Intercident but ordinarily very badly critical: Whence Galen compares it to a cruel and faithless tyrant, which precipitates the Patient into evident danger of life, if it do not kill him. It hath place chiefly in cholerick Diseases, for in san∣guine ones salutiferous Crises happen on this day, which is even; the Blood being observ'd to move on even days. On the con∣trary, the seventh resembles a just and gentle King or Magi∣strate; for neither precipitating nor deferring too long the judgment of the Patient, it gives him time of consideration, judging him after its Indices fully and perfectly, safely, manifest∣ly and without danger. 'Tis call'd Radical, as being the root and foundation of all the other Critical Days, and the end of the first week. The eighth is of kin to the sixth, but not quite so dangerous. The ninth is the greatest Intercident and comes nearest to the nature of the Critical, though it be not of their number. The cause whereof is, its being compos'd of odd numbers, wherein we have said that morbifick humors are com∣monly mov'd; or else because 'tis equally distant from 7 and 11. The tenth resembles the eighth in danger and other circum∣stances. The eleventh is an index of the fourteenth, to which it hath the same reference that the fourth hath to the seventh; saving that the second week is less active then the first, and the third then the second. The twelfth is not of any considerati∣on: and Galen saith, he never observ'd any Crisis, good or bad, on it. The like of the thirteenth. The fourteenth follows the seventh in dignity, and judges those Diseases which the se∣venth did not, being the end of the second week, and in this consideration, odd. The fifteenth and sixteenth are not any∣wise remarkable. The seventeenth is an index of the twentieth, till which the intervening are insignificant, and this twentieth is taken by Physicians for the end of the third week, because they make the same begin from the fourteenth inclusively. From the 20th to the 40th, (which is the end of Crisis in acute diseases) every seventh day is critical. But after the 40th, Diseases are call'd Chronical, and have their Crisis every 20th day to 120, so much the more obscure as they are distant from the beginning. Of all which changes the Moon seems rather to be the cause then the other Planets, or the vertue of Num∣bers, as being more active by reason of her proximity and vari∣ous apparitions.

The Second said, That the reason upon which Astrologers attribute Crisis to the Moon, viz. her moving by quaternaries and septenaries, (her notablest changes hapning every seventh day) is too general. For though she rules over Moistures or Humidities, and a Crisis is only in Humoral Diseases; yet she can∣not introduce any change in the above-mentioned Critical Days rather then in others; because then she must have this power either from her self or from some other, and the several Aspects of the Sun. Not from her self; for then no change would

happen in the Moon her self, nor consequently in us by her means, since things which are of themselves in some subject continue always the same. Not from the Sun; for then these altera∣tions in Diseases should happen onely at certain postures of the Moon and not in all. Now, suppose Alexander fall sick to day, and Aristotle to morrow, yet neither of them shall have a Crisis but on the seventh day. Besides, the opposition of the Moon being less at the seventh then at the thirteenth day; the Crisis should be rather on the latter then on the former. And the same effect of the Septenary in the Conception, Life, Nutrition, and Actions of Animals, which is not observ'd hitherto; the stomach digesting not better on the seventh day, and the seed not being stronger that day in the matrix then on any other: and the eighth day wherein the Moon is further from the first then she was on the seventh, should cause the Crisis, and not the seventh. In brief, the septenaries of diseases rarely agree with the Septenaries of the Quarters of the Moon; whose motions being unequal according to the different elevation of her Epi∣cicle, would render Crisis uncertain. Wherefore Galen not find∣ing his reckoning hit with the Lunar Motion, feign'd a Medici∣nal Moneth consisting of six and twenty days and some hours; but he hath had no followers therein. Fracastorius went a better way, attributing the cause of Crises to the motion of Melancholly, which is on the fourth day: but as the bilious humor moving alone on the third day without melancholly, doth nothing, so melancholly alone produceth not any Crisis on the fourth day. The fifth hath also the motion of Bile alone, and consequently is without effect. The sixth is quiet in reference to these humors, being the day of neithers motion: but on the seventh, these two Biles concurring together make a great critical agitation. But if the matter be not then sufficiently fermented and concocted, the Crisis will not come till the fourteenth, when the same motion of those two humors is again repeated.

The Third said, That this opinion of Fracastorius makes Crises fall upon dayes not critical, as the tenth, thirteenth, sixteenth, ninteenth, and two and twentieth, contrary to all antiquity and daily experience: and is founded in an errour, namely, that one humor cannot putrifie in the body whilst the rest remain pure; seeing Quotidian Fevers are caus'd by Phlegm alone, Ter∣tians by Choler alone, and Quartans by Melancholly alone; and that no other reason can be given of the regular motion of Crisis, but that of the motion of the Heavens.