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.

All kinds of Worms or Lice breeds of Juyce or Filth.

Worms breed of Juyce that putrefieth by heat, which is either Chyle, or any putrid Matter.

The Lumbrici of the Guts breed of chyl in the hungry Gut called Jejunum, where any of it, which is not sucked away by the Meseraicks, because it is too thick, or too fat, but is wrought by the heat of the guts, through long continuance into one or more living worms. This Chyle is produced from the eating of certain meats which afford matter for worms. For which cause chiefly Infants that seed too soon upon flesh, and have not milk that is con∣venient, are so troubled with worms. These worms as they breed of this Juyce, so are they nourished there∣by. And when they consume it, they cause a great appe∣tite. And if they creep into the guts, they torment them with tickling, sucking, and pulling, and cause griping and Fluxes. And if they get up to the stomach, whether they may easily go from the smal guts, then by molestation and hindering of concoction, they cause accidents and dis∣eases of the Stomach and Lientery: And if they gnaw the mouth of the Stomach, they produce Symptomes of the Heart and Brain. And if they rise upwards to the Jawes and Nostrils, they trouble them. But they cause the grea∣test accidents when they are killed and putrefied in the small Guts, and send up stinking vapors to the Heart and Brain, which cause Convulsions and Feavers. It is thought that worms a long time retained, can so gnaw the Guts, that they may pass through the Belly about the na∣vel or Groyns. But this is not probable, for they have neither sharp bills nor open, nor teeth, and by sucking, they cannot do it. Therefore if worms come forth there these come from some Imposthume in the outward parts, and are not Lumbrici or long worms, but such as breed in Ulcers. And if they come from the Guts, there was first a wound which made the passage. But if worms come downward from the small Guts with the Excrements, into the Gut Colon, then if they pass presently through they come forth alive at the Fundament. Or if they be mixed with the Excrements and kept long, they are cast forth dead with the Excrements.

Ascarides or little Worms in the Fun∣dament and elsewhere, come from a pu∣trid matter which getting a new heat from putrefaction, produceth divers worms according to the diversity of the matter, which is simple or compound.

Ascarides come from Flegm or Slime long kept in the folds of the thick Guts, and they will lie long there, till they are sent forth by the Excrements. Also from flegm long lodged and putrefied in the cavities of the Nose, may come worms. And that hairy or downy Canker-worm which we reported to be sneesed out from a womans nose was so bred.

From Matter not only ripe, but putrefied in Ulcers of the Nose, and external Ulcers of the Ears. And from that in the Navel, come

worms. And from that in the Lungs ulcerated, come worms which are spit forth. And if they be found in the teeth, they come from the putrefaction in the cavities thereof.

Ascarides or Arse-worms come more usually from Meat that easily putrefi∣eth, as Flesh, Cheese, Fruits, when it sticks in the windings of the thick Guts, then from Flegm. Because we may perceive that such things being out of the Body, produce the same. The same things sticking long in a hollow tooth, may produce worms.

VVe shewed formerly, that some worms bred of cheese were pissed forth, and it is probable, for they are very like mites. And the Patient as we shewed in the Colick, li∣ved long upon Cheese, and voided a quantity of it by the use of a Clyster. Of which Cheese long retained and putrefied in the Guts, it is probable that these worms bred. And were sent by the Meseraicks with the Serum or whey into the hollow Vein, and so into the Kidneys and Bladder. And this is easie, because they are very lit∣tle bodies. And in regard thicker Humors, and bodies do pass the same way. And this is the reason why others have pissed worms from eating Cheese, which had them or bred them after it was eaten. For in another corrup∣tion of Humors, either in or out of the Veins; it is sel∣dom seen that worms are voided by urin. And every cor∣ruption doth not produce worms of this form like mites, but ascarides, or the like. Nor can they be from the ul∣cers of the Reins and Bladder, because they come from Ulcers in another form.

Lice breed from filth sticking to the skin, which filth proceeds from Vapors, Sweating, and the Excrements of the Skin, both under and above it, in Children, and poor peo∣ple, and such as are nasty in certain parts of them where they putrefie. Especially in hairy parts, because filth will stick faster there, and can be less taken off then from the smooth skin. Especially in the Head, where they are most abundant, smal at the first, and sticking to the skin, but being nourished by the nourishment that comes to the skin, they grow great, and march about the Head, and somtimes into the Garments and other parts of the Body.

But if this Filth have any other Infection besides the ex∣crementitial moisture, as about the Privities, where there is a venemous Vapor in unclean persons, it causeth a worse Progeny; and then the Lice are worse stick deeper in the skin, called Crab-lice. These come from Copulation when the hairy parts are united.

From that which causeth Scabs, being retained under the thick skin of the palm of the Hand, and corrupted, proceed those little Lice under the scarfe skin called Chi∣rones, as appears by the Pustles and Scabs that are at the same time there.

And the thickness of the skin in the Palm of the Hand, is the cause why they are rather there, then in another part, which keeps these thin Excrements from being discussed. And the same may be in the Soles of the Feet.

Notes

• Chyle is the cause of long Worms.
• Slime or flegm is the cause of Ars-worms and Nose∣worms.
• Matter is the cause of worms in the Nose, Ears, and Lungs, and Teeth.
• Meat eaten that putrefieth is the cause of Arse∣worms, and teeth∣worms, and such as are pissed forth
• Filth of the skin, is the cause of Lice.
• The Venom of humors, is the cause of Lice in the Hand.