Page 92
THus far have we handled of the Astronomy of the greater and less World, and of the stars, of diseases of the Element of Heaven, and the Air, and also of the Cu••ing of astral diseases. Now it is convenient that we descend to the Philosophy and diseases of the inferiour Globe, namely of the Element of Earth and VVater.
All the fruits and effects of the Element of Earth and* 1.1 Water have poison admixt, not only medicamental, and extreme hurtful and noxious, but those which are called of Physicians alimental. Wherefore seeing we take aliments for the preservation and nourishing of our bo∣dies, we also receive poison mixt with our aliment; but if all be rightly administred in the frame of the Ventricle, this poison by the admixtion of more benign and whol∣some meats being tempered, resolved and separated, is thereby expelled, or else this poison remains in the ana∣tomy of the belly, and is the cause of many most grie∣vous diseases; for the governour and faculty of the Ven∣tricle, if it have strength and power of working, it sepa∣rates the pure from the impure, and changes the pure in∣to a tincture, and gives the tincture to the body for no∣rishment for the conservation of life of the great Heaven in the little World, but when this Spagyrian or Separa∣tour doth not rightly execute his Functions, and that the poison is separated from the aliment, neither by natural nor artificial concoction of the Ventricle, it comes to pass that the poison and the aliment conspire, and after* 1.2 the conspiration follows putrefaction and digestion, af∣ter digestion comes corruption, which is the breeder of all diseases.