Platerus golden practice of physick: fully and plainly discovering, I. All the kinds. II. The several causes of every disease. III. Their most proper cures, in respect to the kinds, and several causes, from whence they come. After a new, easie, and plain method; of knowing, foretelling, preventing, and curing, all diseases incident to the body of man. Full of proper observations and remedies: both of ancient and modern physitians. In three books, and five tomes, or parts. Being the fruits of one and thirty years travel: and fifty years practice of physick. By Felix Plater, chief physitian and professor in ordinary at Basil. Abdiah Cole, doctor of physick, and the liberal arts. Nich. Culpeper, gent. student in physick, and astrology.

The Causes.

The Guts containing the Excrements must needs be afflicted in every Constipation or binding: either pri∣marily when they are stopped, or secondarily when they have lost their expulsive faculty.

When the Guts are straitned, so that the passage of the Excrements is hindered, the Belly is bound. And this straitness may come from astriction or Convolu∣tion.

We call it Astriction when the Guts have lost their slippriness, * 1.1 and are dried and wrinkled; or when they are bound and made straiter. Hence is it that Dri∣ers, Binders, sower and sharp things taken, as they astringe the Gullet and wrinkle the Jaws; so if they be taken imoderately especially fast∣ing, they stop the Guts and their passages, and bind the belly. And this may come from long fasting, and too much evacuation. And from heat that drieth the guts, or rather the Excrements, as we shal shew. Some say that the Guts may be pressed and stopped by a Tumor in the Mesentery: but we think it not to be possible, because when a Woman is with child, that great Tu∣mor dorh not cause constipation without some other accident.

The thin Guts are somtimes so rouled together in the disease cal∣led Convolvulus, * 1.2 so that they are closed and the Excrements can∣not descend: but are vomited up, either with pain called Ileon, when the Guts are inflamed, or with re∣pletion of excrements without, Inflammation, as we shal shew in pains.

But this is most usual in Ruptures when the Guts fal into the Cods, from the breaking of the Peritonaeum; by reason of the evil position of the Guts.

There is an ordinary Consti∣pation from the Obstruction of the Guts with proper Excrements, * 1.3 not only when they abound, but when they are dry, hard, thick, clammy, and hinder the Excre∣ments that follow. This is usually in the Orifice where the thin Guts use to open themselves into the thick, by reason of the straitness there; where they have been so fixed, that the constipation hath been deadly as we have observed in Anatomy. This is often in the Co∣lon, in the great turning thereof before it comes to the Rectum, by the hard dung reteined and stopping and binding the Belly, with the pain of the Colick. And somtimes such hard dung is in the Arse-gut, and not voided without great straining, or help of Art.

The dung grows hard when the meat is too solid and dry; as we see in Dogs that eat bones: especially when they drink little. The same comes from the use of hot and dry meats. And it is in hot natures when the Liver and parts adjacent are too hot; in whom, if they go not every day to stool through long sitting, ri∣ding or lying in the bed (because the excrements fall down better when the body is upright or moved) the Excrements grow hard from their internal heat that drieth them. Hence it is that Senators, Riders, and old Men, complain of costiveness. And as it comes

from moderate heat, so may it come from hot diseases and Feavers. From fasting also, the Guts and excre∣ments that remain may be dried, not only in the time of fasting, but after, if they be very hungry. And that because nature being exhausted draws whatsoever chy∣lus or humor is in the meat, to recruit her by the Mesa∣raicks, and so leaves the Excrements dry and hard. Hence it is that after a long Disease, when the Patient eats much, he complains of a constipation: And though, they who nourish wel have rather a dry than moist belly, the Guts can scarce be so stopped by any thing but Excrements: * 1.4 for things that are swallowed though great and hard if they pass the Gullet, may also pass the Guts, except they stick in the Fundament: And what is writ∣ten of the stone in the Guts it is rare, and can scarce be so big as to stop the Guts, except dung as they say, be turned to a stone.

If the Guts lose their pricking and the expulsive faculty doth not move them, * 1.5 our wil is also at rest being not admonished thereby, and there is no dejection. This is when the Guts either feel not or very little, from the fault of the Nerves of the sixth or seventh conjugation from whence the Nerves of the Guts arise. And in a general stupefaction they suffer with the other Nerves, and there is no dejection, as here in particular. The same may be from the Excrements when they are few, wherefore in want of appetite where little is eaten, lit∣tle is voided, or from great purgings, til more ex∣crements are made, which requireth some daies. Also if acrimony be wanting in the excrements, which na∣turally provoketh the Guts to stool, which is caused of Choller mixed with the excrements for that purpose there is also costiveness: as in obstructions when cho∣ler is not carried to the Guts, but to other parts in the Jaundies and the like, as appears by the excrements which are not tinctur'd, but white or ash-colored.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Driness of Excre∣ments is the cause of Constipation or bin∣ding.
• * 1.2

  Convolution or roul∣ing together of the Guts the cause of Constipation, or Co∣stiveness.
• * 1.3

  Obstruction of the Guts by excrements is the cause of Con∣stipation.
• * 1.4

  Stopping of the Guts by other things be∣sides excrements is the cause of consti∣pation.
• * 1.5

  Loss or Dulness of sense is the cause of Costiveness.