The marrow of physicke, or, A learned discourse of the severall parts of mans body being a medicamentary, teaching the manner and way of making and compounding all such oyles, unguents ... &c. as shall be usefull and necessary in any private house ... : and also an addition of divers experimented medicines which may serve against any disease that shall happen to the body : together with some rare receipts for beauties ... / collected and experimented by the industry of T.B.

CHAP. XIX.

Bleeding. PHlebotomie or bloudletting is an incision artificiall of a v••in evacuating the bloud with the rest of the humors: it was first invented by the river horse inh••biting in Nilus that famous river of Eg••p••, who when he findes himself charged with o∣vermuch bloud, by rubbing his thigh against the sh••rp banke opens a veine, and discharges the s••perfluous bloud, which he stoppeth likewise when he sees conve∣nient time by rowling it in the thicke mud.

Phlebotomie is not used in children before 14, nor in old men after fourscore without great necessi••y; also the strength of the party must be considered that the qu••ntity of bloud evacuated may be according; and if it be only for preserving of health, let it be neither in som∣mer nor winter but in the spring time, and in the mor∣ning before the day grow hot.

The veine in the forehead being opened is good for paine in the hinder part of the head, which place first ought to be fomented with warme water: The veines of the tongue are opened aslant in a squinancy, with∣out any ligatures about the neck; the inner veine of the left arme is opened for disease in the lunges; the liver is purged by the inner veine of the right arme; the wombe by the veine under the ankle; but for the gout, or megrim, it is not amisse to open the veine of the part affected.

Draw bloud from the sanguine, the moone being in Taurus, Virgo, or Capricorne; from the phlegmatick in

Aries, or Sagittarius; from the cholerick in Cancer, or Pisces; from the melancholicke in Libra, or Aquarius, but beware you open not a veine in that part where the signe is, because it hath beene often found very dangerous, unlesse necessitie urge, but by no meanes let it be upon a criticall day; for then it is not good to administer any medicine, purge, or bleed, as I shewed you before. Three daies were observed of the antients wherein they would by no meanes let bloud; the first of August, the fourth of September, the eleventh of March.

Now bloud is let by opening of a veine for five prin∣cipall respects, the first is to lessen the a••undance of bloud as in phlethorick bodies: The second is to divert, as when a veine in the right Arme is op••ned to stay the bleeding of the left nostrill. The third is to allure or drawe downe, as when the s••phona is opened to drawe downe the courses in women: The first is for al••eration or introduction of another quality, as when in sharpe feavers a veine is opened to draw out that bloud which is hot, and coole that which remaines behind: The fifth is to prevent diseases, as in the spring and autumne we open a vein in such as are subject to spitting of bloud, squinancie, plurifie, falling sicknes, apoplexie, madnes, gout, or in such as are wounded to prevent inflamation.

Arteriotomie is the incision of an Artery and is much used now a daies chiefely in the temples, and behind the eares, for catarres, and defluxions in the eyes, breast, and maladies of the head, and inveterate headach.