Enchiridion medicum: containing the causes, signs, and cures of all those diseases, that do chiefly affect the body of man: divided into three books. With alphabetical tables of such matters as are therein contained. Whereunto is added a treatise, De facultatibus medicamentorum compositorum, & dosibus. / By Robert Bayfield.

CHAP. XVI.

SPƲTƲM SANGƲINIS pro∣ceedeth of divers causes, * 1.1 as fulnesse, and abundance of naughty blood, which by its sharpnesse doth gnaw and erode asunder the veines, and so doth break open the heads of them, sometimes through sharp humours, which do distill from the head to the lungs, or else are ingendred in the lungs themselves, or through some fall, or through great cry∣ing, * 1.2 or immoderate cold, as Hippocrates wit∣nesseth, breaketh the veines.

For the signe, * 1.3 if the spitting of blood, be of blood in abundance, then it cometh out gush∣ing all at once, and after it is out, the sick is bet∣ter; but if it be caused through bursting of a vein, then hot perturbations have gone be∣fore it, and cometh out on heapes, by little and little, with the cough, and they are alwayes worse, also if it be froathy & palish, and cometh forth now and then with the cough, then it is a certain sign, it proceedeth from the lungs, so it be without pain. If phlegmatick blood be spitted out with easie coughings & streachings, then the blood cometh from the Trachaea Ar∣teria. If blood be spitted forth, being black and clodded together, having also the cough and pain in the agrieved place, then it is a token it cometh from the brest, many times it cometh out of the nose from the head.

For the cure; * 1.4 If it be caused of abundance of blood, then open a vein, and use the juyce of

nettles, to snuffe up into the nostrils, or to drink, and minister such things as be altogether of a cooling quality; if it proceed from the lungs, charge them that they do not breathe much, nor make a noyse, * 1.5 but speak as little as may be, use Aqua spermatis Ranarum, which seldome or never fayles, and indeed it is good for either of them. If there be a great faintnesse and danger of Syncope, * 1.6 give a little Claret wine burnt often: also if you see cause, you may give the patient bolus-armeniae, * 1.7 with lofe-sugar in Claret wine: or

℞. Boli armen. sangu. dracon. balaust. ros. rubr. * 1.8 mastic. lapid. haemat. sumach. myrtillor. * 1.9 ana ʒ.ij. misce fiat pulvis, Marq. liq, 2. cap. 12.

Let the patient take one dragm with Rob. deri∣berius, or with Syrrupo myrthino, or conserve of Roses.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Causa.
• * 1.2

  Hippocra∣tes.
• * 1.3

  Signa.
• * 1.4

  Curatio. Venae-sectio
• * 1.5

  Aq. sperm. ranar.
• * 1.6

  Vinum.
• * 1.7

  Pulvis.
• * 1.8

  Aliud.
• * 1.9

  Maquard.