A compleat practice of physick.: Wherein is plainly described, the nature, causes, differences, and signs, of all diseases in the body of man. VVith the choicest cures for the same. / By John Smith, Doctor in Physick.

APPETITE Wanting: the Cause, Because there is either no sucking, or it is not perceived. 1. When nourish∣ment aboundeth in the whole body. 2. When raw humours & grosse, stick in the stomack. 3. When there is obstru∣ction of the veins. 4. From the use ••f far, sweet and clammy things. Sucking is not perceived. 1. When the brain is hurt. 2 By reason of some disease in the mouth or the stomach, as from distem∣pers which whether it be hot or cold,

exceedingly, causeth want of appetite: Oft times it cometh from drinking of wine, from worms, from the matrix. Some will have the Devil to be the cause of long abstinence, who convey∣eth meat into the body, and yet there are no signs of it; and the same things doth naturally happen to Beasts. Some say, it comes from some hidden quali∣ty: some, they are fed by the aire; but what shall be changed into the nature of the body wasted? Some say, they are fed by vapours that are inherent in the aire: but why then are not all men nourished the same way? Some live by drinking water, but many drink no wa∣ter. Some say that fleame sticketh in the body that cannot be wasted; but many of these were not flegmatick, but rather dry and costive, and so old men would live long without meat. Some will have it that they live by their grease melted and turned into blood; but it is false that their grease is melted and floweth to the stomach, and is changed into blood, and by hunger it is not changed into nourishment, but is discussed, Fort. Liceous saith, that

there is no necessity of nutrition: be∣cause neither the soul, nor the body stand in need of it: so old men are lesse nourished: also generation and aug∣mentation ceaseth. Senn. saith, that the cause is, by reason that nothing (or else, not but in a long time) is consumed, because of a certain proportion of the humour to heat: So Scal. Ex. 328. writes that coals of Juniper will keep fire a whole year unwasted; but that disposition is brought upon the humor, when by diffusion of a melancholy hu∣mour it is fixed, that it cannot receive the activity of heat. Now a peculiar quality is communicated to a melan∣cholick humour from the Matrix; for they were almost all maids, at those years that the Courses are wont to break forth.

Signs Diagnostick. If there be no suck∣ing, the forces cannot fail, and there are signs of repletion; but if it come from obstruction, the Belly is loose. If sucking be not perceived, the forces are cast down. Progn. Aph. 33. s. 2. Respiration, Appetite in the sick is is excellenr. Aph. 6. s. 6. Want of ap∣petite

in children is dangerous; but if want of appetite fall upon the begin∣ning or vigour of the disease, it is not so dangerous; for they want little nourishment, and if they eat well, they are the worse. If it fall upon the decli∣nation, that is ill. If in a disease the appetite be cast down, and it suddenly come again, that is deadly; for the Brain is hurt unlesse a Crisis went be∣fore it.

The Cure. The cause must be taken away: sharp and sowre things cause hunger, as also scowring things, as figs, sauce. If it proceed from the matrix, there are signs of the matrix affected, Symptoms somtimes abate, and there are many symptoms present. How aid shall be given to the matrix; See (con∣cerning Suffocation and distemper of the matrix) Senn. l. 3. p. 1. s. 2. c. 2.