CHAP. XLIX. A digression concerning the purgeing of such things as are unprofitable in the whole bodie by the urine.
I Think it not amiss to testifie by the following histories, the providence of nature in expelling by urine such things as are unprofitable in the whole bo∣die.* 1.1 Mounsieur Sarret the King's secretarie was wounded in the right arm with a pistol-bullet; manie and malign symptoms happened thereuppon, but prin∣cipally great inflammations, flowing with much sanies and pus or quitture: it somtimes happened that without anie reason this purulent & sanious efflux of matter was staied in inflammation; whereof while wee sollicitously inquired the caus, wee found both his stools and water commixed with much purulent filth, and this through the whole cours of the diseas, whereof notwithstanding by God's assistance hee recovered, and remain's whole and sound; wee observed that as long as his arm flowed with this filthie matter, so long were his excrements of the bellie and bladder free from the sanious and pu∣rulent matter: as long on the contrarie as the ulcers of the arm were drie, so long were ex∣crements of the guts and bladder sanious and purulent. The same accident befel a Gentle∣man called Mounsieur de la Croix, who received a deadly wound with a sword on the left arm,* 1.2 though German Cheval and Master Rass most expert Surgeons, and others, who together with mee had him in cure, thought it was not so for this reason, becaus the pus cannot run so long a way in the bodie, neither if it were so, could that bee don without the infecti∣on and corruption of the whole mass of blood, whil'st it flow's through the veins; there∣fore to bee more probable that this quantitie of filth, mixed with excrements & urine, flow∣ed out by the default of the liver, or of som other bowel, rather than from the wounded arm: I was of a contrarie opinion for these following reasons.* 1.3 First for that which was ap∣parently seen in the patient; for as long as the excrement and urine were free from this pu∣rulent matter, so long his arm plentifully flowed therewith; this on the contrary being dry, much purulent matter was voided both by stool & urine. Another was, that as our whole bodie is perspirable, so it is also (if I may so term it) confluxible. The third was an exam∣ple taken from the glasses with the French term Monte-vins, (that is, Mount-wines) for if a glass that is full of wine be set under another that is fill'd with water, you may see the wine raise it self out of the lower vessel to the upper through the mid'st of the water, and so the water descends through the mid'st of the wine, yet so, that they do not mix themselvs, but the one take and possess the place of the other. If this may bee don by art, by things one∣ly naturall, and to bee discerned by our eies, what may bee don in our bodies, in which by reason of the presence of a more noble soul, all the works of nature are far more perfect? What is it which wee may dispair to bee don in the like case? For doth not the laudable blood flow to the guts, kidnies, spleen, bladder of the gall, by the impuls of nature together with the excrements, which presently the parts themselvs separate from their nutriment? Doth not milk from the brests flow somtimes forth of the wombs of women lately dilive∣red? Yet that cannot bee carried down thither, unless by the passages of the mammillary veins and arteries; which meet with the mouths of the vessels of the womb in the middle of the straight muscles of the Epigastrium. Therefore no marvel, if according to Galen,* 1.4 the pus unmix't with the blood flowing from the whole body by the veins & arteries into the kid∣nies and bladder, bee cast forth together with the urine. These and the like things are don by nature, not taught by anie counsel or reason, but onely assisted by the strength of the segre∣gateing and expulsive facultie; and certainly wee presently dissecting the dead bodie, obser∣ved that it all, as also all the bowels thereof, were free from inflammation and ulceration, neither was there anie sign of impression of anie purulent matter in anie part thereof.