their several rectifications, all which are comprehended in diet, I am
come now at last to Pharmaceutice, or that kind of physic which cureth
by medicines, which apothecaries most part make, mingle, or sell in
their shops. Many cavil at this kind of physic, and hold it
unnecessary, unprofitable to this or any other disease, because those
countries which use it least, live longest, and are best in health, as
[4079]Hector Boethius relates of the isles of Orcades, the people are
still sound of body and mind, without any use of physic, they live
commonly 120 years, and Ortelius in his itinerary of the inhabitants of
the Forest of Arden, [4080] they are very painful, long-lived, sound,
&c. [4081]Martianus Capella, speaking of the Indians of his time,
saith, they were (much like our western Indians now) bigger than
ordinary men, bred coarsely, very long-lived, insomuch, that he that
died at a hundred years of age, went before his time, &c. Damianus
A-Goes, Saxo Grammaticus, Aubanus Bohemus, say the like of them that
live in Norway, Lapland, Finmark, Biarmia, Corelia, all over Scandia,
and those northern countries, they are most healthful, and very
long-lived, in which places there is no use at all of physic, the name
of it is not once heard. Dithmarus Bleskenius in his accurate
description of Iceland, 1607, makes mention, amongst other matters, of
the inhabitants, and their manner of living, [4082]which is dried fish
instead of bread, butter, cheese, and salt meats, most part they drink
water and whey, and yet without physic or physician, they live many of
them 250 years. I find the same relation by Lerius, and some other
writers, of Indians in America. Paulus Jovius in his description of
Britain, and Levinus Lemnius, observe as much of this our island, that
there was of old no use of [4083]physic amongst us, and but little at
this day, except it be for a few nice idle citizens, surfeiting
courtiers, and stall-fed gentlemen lubbers. The country people use
kitchen physic, and common experience tells vis, that they live freest
from all manner of infirmities, that make least use of apothecaries'
physic. Many are overthrown by preposterous use of it, and thereby get
their bane, that might otherwise have escaped: [4084]some think
physicians kill as many as they save, and who can tell, [4085]Quot
Themison aegros autumno occiderit uno? How many murders they make in a
year, quibus impune licet hominem occidere, that may freely kill folks,
and have a reward for it, and according to the Dutch proverb, a new
physician must have a new churchyard; and who daily observes it not?
Many that did ill under physicians' hands, have happily escaped, when
they have been given over by them, left to God and nature, and
themselves; 'twas Pliny's dilemma of old, [4086]every disease is either
curable or incurable, a man recovers of it or is killed by it; both
ways physic is to be rejected. If it be deadly, it cannot be cured; if
it may be helped, it requires no physician, nature will expel it of
itself. Plato made it a great sign of an intemperate and corrupt
commonwealth, where lawyers and physicians did abound; and the Romans
distasted them so much that they were often banished out of their city,
as Pliny and Celsus relate, for 600 years not admitted. It is no art at
all, as some hold, no not worthy the name of a liberal science (nor law
neither), as [4087]Pet. And. Canonherius a patrician of Rome and a
great doctor himself, one of their own tribe, proves by sixteen
arguments, because it is mercenary as now used, base, and as fiddlers
play for a reward. Juridicis, medicis, fisco, fas vivere rapto, 'tis a
corrupt trade, no science, art, no profession; the beginning, practice,
and progress of it, all is naught, full of imposture, uncertainty, and
doth generally more harm than good. The devil himself was the first
inventor of it: Inventum est medicina meum, said Apollo, and what was
Apollo, but the devil? The Greeks first made an art of it, and they
were all deluded by Apollo's sons, priests, oracles. If we may believe
Varro, Pliny, Columella, most of their best medicines were derived from
his oracles. Aesculapius his son had his temples erected to his deity,
and did many famous cures; but, as Lactantius holds, he was a magician,
a mere impostor, and as his successors, Phaon, Podalirius, Melampius,
Menecrates, (another God), by charms, spells, and ministry of bad
spirits, performed most of their cures. The first that ever wrote in
physic to any purpose, was Hippocrates, and his disciple and
commentator Galen, whom Scaliger calls Fimbriam Hippocratis; but as
[4088]Cardan censures them, both immethodical and obscure, as all those
old ones are, their precepts confused, their medicines obsolete, and
now most part rejected. Those cures which they did, Paracelsus holds,
were rather done out of their patients' confidence, [4089]and good
opinion they had of them, than out of any skill of theirs, which was
very small, he saith, they themselves idiots and infants, as are all
their academical followers. The Arabians received it from the Greeks,
and so the Latins, adding new precepts and medicines of their own, but
so imperfect still, that through ignorance of professors, impostors,
mountebanks, empirics, disagreeing of sectaries, (which are as many
almost as there be diseases) envy, covetousness, and the like, they do
much harm amongst us. They are so different in their consultations,
prescriptions, mistaking many times the parties' constitution,
[4090]disease, and causes of it, they give quite contrary physic;
[4091]one saith this, another that, out of singularity or opposition,
as he said of Adrian, multitudo medicorum principem interfecit, a
multitude of physicians hath killed the emperor; plus a medico quam a
morbo periculi, more danger there is from the physician, than from the
disease. Besides, there is much imposture and malice amongst them. All
arts (saith [4092]Cardan) admit of cozening, physic, amongst the rest,
doth appropriate it to herself; and tells a story of one Curtius, a
physician in Venice: because he was a stranger, and practised amongst
them, the rest of the physicians did still cross him in all his
precepts. If he prescribed hot medicines they would prescribe cold,
miscentes pro calidis frigida, pro frigidis humida, pro purgantibus
astringentia, binders for purgatives, omnia perturbabant. If the party
miscarried, Curtium damnabant, Curtius killed him, that disagreed from
them: if he recovered, then [4093]they cured him themselves. Much
emulation, imposture, malice, there is amongst them: if they be honest
and mean well, yet a knave apothecary that administers the physic, and
makes the medicine, may do infinite harm, by his old obsolete doses,
adulterine drugs, bad mixtures, quid pro quo, &c. See Fuchsius lib. 1.
sect. 1. cap. 8. Cordus' Dispensatory, and Brassivola's Examen simpl.,
&c. But it is their ignorance that doth more harm than rashness, their
art is wholly conjectural, if it be an art, uncertain, imperfect, and
got by killing of men, they are a kind of butchers, leeches,
men-slayers; chirurgeons and apothecaries especially, that are indeed
the physicians' hangman, carnifices, and common executioners; though to
say truth, physicians themselves come not far behind; for according to
that facete epigram of Maximilianus Urentius, what's the difference?
[4094]Chirurgicus medico quo differt? scilicet isto,
Enecat hic succis, enecat ille manu:
Carnifice hoc ambo tantum differre videntur,
Tardius hi faciunt, quod facit ille cito.
But I return to their skill; many diseases they cannot cure at all, as
apoplexy, epilepsy, stone, strangury, gout, Tollere nodosam nescit
medicina Podagram; [4095]quartan agues, a common ague sometimes
stumbles them all, they cannot so much as ease, they know not how to
judge of it. If by pulses, that doctrine, some hold, is wholly
superstitious, and I dare boldly say with [4096]Andrew Dudeth, that
variety of pulses described by Galen, is neither observed nor
understood of any. And for urine, that is meretrix medicorum, the most
deceitful thing of all, as Forestus and some other physicians have
proved at large: I say nothing of critic days, errors in indications,
&c. The most rational of them, and skilful, are so often deceived, that
as [4097]Tholosanus infers, I had rather believe and commit myself to a
mere empiric, than to a mere doctor, and I cannot sufficiently commend
that custom of the Babylonians, that have no professed physicians, but
bring all their patients to the market to be cured: which Herodotus
relates of the Egyptians: Strabo, Sardus, and Aubanus Bohemus of many
other nations. And those that prescribed physic, amongst them, did not
so arrogantly take upon them to cure all diseases, as our professors
do, but some one, some another, as their skill and experience did
serve; [4098] One cured the eyes, a second the teeth, a third the head,
another the lower parts, &c., not for gain, but in charity, to do good,
they made neither art, profession, nor trade of it, which in other
places was accustomed: and therefore Cambyses in [4099]Xenophon told
Cyrus, that to his thinking, physicians were like tailors and cobblers,
the one mended our sick bodies, as the other did our clothes. But I
will urge these cavilling and contumelious arguments no farther, lest
some physician should mistake me, and deny me physic when I am sick:
for my part, I am well persuaded of physic: I can distinguish the abuse
from the use, in this and many other arts and sciences: [4100]Alliud
vinum, aliud ebrietas, wine and drunkenness are two distinct things. I
acknowledge it a most noble and divine science, in so much that Apollo,
Aesculapius, and the first founders of it, merito pro diis habiti, were
worthily counted gods by succeeding ages, for the excellency of their
invention. And whereas Apollo at Delos, Venus at Cyprus, Diana at
Ephesus, and those other gods were confined and adored alone in some
peculiar places: Aesculapius and his temple and altars everywhere, in
Corinth, Lacedaemon, Athens, Thebes, Epidaurus, &c. Pausanius records,
for the latitude of his art, deity, worth, and necessity. With all
virtuous and wise men therefore I honour the name and calling, as I am
enjoined to honour the physician for necessity's sake. The knowledge of
the physician lifteth up his head, and in the sight of great men he
shall be admired. The Lord hath created medicines of the earth, and he
that is wise will not abhor them, Eccles. lviii 1. But of this noble
subject, how many panegyrics are worthily written? For my part, as
Sallust said of Carthage, praestat silere, quam pauca dicere; I have
said, yet one thing I will add, that this kind of physic is very
moderately and advisedly to be used, upon good occasion, when the
former of diet will not take place. And 'tis no other which I say, than
that which Arnoldus prescribes in his 8. Aphoris. [4101]A discreet and
goodly physician doth first endeavour to expel a disease by medicinal
diet, than by pure medicine: and in his ninth, [4102]he that may be
cured by diet, must not meddle with physic. So in 11. Aphoris. [4103]A
modest and wise physician will never hasten to use medicines, but upon
urgent necessity, and that sparingly too: because (as he adds in his
13. Aphoris.) [4104]Whosoever takes much physic in his youth, shall
soon bewail it in his old age: purgative physic especially, which doth
much debilitate nature. For which causes some physicians refrain from
the use of purgatives, or else sparingly use them. [4105]Henricus
Ayrerus in a consultation for a melancholy person, would have him take
as few purges as he could, because there be no such medicines, which do
not steal away some of our strength, and rob the parts of our body,
weaken nature, and cause that cacochymia, which [4106]Celsus and others
observe, or ill digestion, and bad juice through all the parts of it.
Galen himself confesseth, [4107]that purgative physic is contrary to
nature, takes away some of our best spirits, and consumes the very
substance of our bodies: But this, without question, is to be
understood of such purges as are unseasonably or immoderately taken:
they have their excellent use in this, as well as most other
infirmities. Of alteratives and cordials no man doubts, be they simples
or compounds. I will amongst that infinite variety of medicines, which
I find in every pharmacopoeia, every physician, herbalist, &c., single
out some of the chiefest.
SUBSECT. II.—_Simples proper to Melancholy, against Exotic Simples_.
Medicines properly applied to melancholy, are either simple or
compound. Simples are alterative or purgative. Alteratives are such as
correct, strengthen nature, alter, any way hinder or resist the
disease; and they be herbs, stones, minerals, &c. all proper to this
humour. For as there be diverse distinct infirmities continually vexing
us,
[4108]Νοῦσοι δ' ἀνθρὼποισι ἐφ ἠμέρη ἠδ' επι νυκτὶ
Αυτόμaτοι φοιτῶσι κακὰ θνητοῖσι φὲρουσαι
Σιγῆ, ἐπει φωνὴν ἠξείλετο μητίετα Ζεὺς.
Diseases steal both day and night on men,
For Jupiter hath taken voice from them.
So there be several remedies, as [4109]he saith, each disease a
medicine, for every humour; and as some hold, every clime, every
country, and more than that, every private place hath his proper
remedies growing in it, peculiar almost to the domineering and most
frequent maladies of it, As [4110]one discourseth, wormwood grows
sparingly in Italy, because most part there they be misaffected with
hot diseases: but henbane, poppy, and such cold herbs: with us in
Germany and Poland, great store of it in every waste. Baracellus Horto
geniali, and Baptista Porta Physiognomicae, lib. 6. cap. 23, give many
instances and examples of it, and bring many other proofs. For that
cause belike that learned Fuchsius of Nuremberg, [4111]when he came
into a village, considered always what herbs did grow most frequently
about it, and those he distilled in a silver alembic, making use of
others amongst them as occasion served. I know that many are of
opinion, our northern simples are weak, imperfect, not so well
concocted, of such force, as those in the southern parts, not so fit to
be used in physic, and will therefore fetch their drugs afar off:
senna, cassia out of Egypt, rhubarb from Barbary, aloes from Socotra;
turbith, agaric, mirabolanes, hermodactils, from the East Indies,
tobacco from the west, and some as far as China, hellebore from the
Anticyrae, or that of Austria which bears the purple flower, which
Mathiolus so much approves, and so of the rest. In the kingdom of
Valencia, in Spain, [4112]Maginus commends two mountains, Mariola and
Renagolosa, famous for simples; [4113] Leander Albertus, [4114]Baldus a
mountain near the Lake Benacus in the territory of Verona, to which all
the herbalists in the country continually flock; Ortelius one in
Apulia, Munster Mons major in Istria; others Montpelier in France;
Prosper Altinus prefers Egyptian simples, Garcias ab Horto Indian
before the rest, another those of Italy, Crete, &c. Many times they are
over-curious in this kind, whom Fuchsius taxeth, Instit. l. 1. sec. 1.
cap. 1. [4115]that think they do nothing, except they rake all over
India, Arabia, Ethiopia for remedies, and fetch their physic from the
three quarters of the world, and from beyond the Garamantes. Many an
old wife or country woman doth often more good with a few known and
common garden herbs, than our bombast physicians, with all their
prodigious, sumptuous, far-fetched, rare, conjectural medicines:
without all question if we have not these rare exotic simples, we hold
that at home, which is in virtue equivalent unto them, ours will serve
as well as theirs, if they be taken in proportionable quantity, fitted
and qualified aright, if not much better, and more proper to our
constitutions. But so 'tis for the most part, as Pliny writes to
Gallus, [4116]We are careless of that which is near us, and follow that
which is afar off, to know which we will travel and sail beyond the
seas, wholly neglecting that which is under our eyes. Opium in Turkey
doth scarce offend, with us in a small quantity it stupefies; cicuta or
hemlock is a strong poison in Greece, but with us it hath no such
violent effects: I conclude with I. Voschius, who as he much inveighs
against those exotic medicines, so he promiseth by our European, a full
cure and absolute of all diseases; a capite ad calcem, nostrae regionis
herbae nostris corporibus magis conducunt, our own simples agree best
with us. It was a thing that Fernelius much laboured in his French
practice, to reduce all his cure to our proper and domestic physic; so
did [4117]Janus Cornarius, and Martin Rulandus in Germany. T. B. with
us, as appeareth by a treatise of his divulged in our tongue 1615, to
prove the sufficiency of English medicines, to the cure of all manner
of diseases. If our simples be not altogether of such force, or so
apposite, it may be, if like industry were used, those far fetched
drugs would prosper as well with us, as in those countries whence now
we have them, as well as cherries, artichokes, tobacco, and many such.
There have been diverse worthy physicians, which have tried excellent
conclusions in this kind, and many diligent, painful apothecaries, as
Gesner, Besler, Gerard, &c., but amongst the rest those famous public
gardens of Padua in Italy, Nuremberg in Germany, Leyden in Holland,
Montpelier in France, (and ours in Oxford now in fieri, at the cost and
charges for the Right Honourable the Lord Danvers Earl of Danby) are
much to be commended, wherein all exotic plants almost are to be seen,
and liberal allowance yearly made for their better maintenance, that
young students may be the sooner informed in the knowledge of them:
which as [4118]Fuchsius holds, is most necessary for that exquisite
manner of curing, and as great a shame for a physician not to observe
them, as for a workman not to know his axe, saw, square, or any other
tool which he must of necessity use.
SUBSECT. III.—_Alteratives, Herbs, other Vegetables, &c._
Amongst these 800 simples, which Galeottus reckons up, lib. 3. de
promise, doctor, cap. 3, and many exquisite herbalists have written of,
these few following alone I find appropriated to this humour: of which
some be alteratives; [4119]which by a secret force, saith Renodeus, and
special quality expel future diseases, perfectly cure those which are,
and many such incurable effects. This is as well observed in other
plants, stones, minerals, and creatures, as in herbs, in other maladies
as in this. How many things are related of a man's skull? What several
virtues of corns in a horse-leg, [4120]of a wolf's liver, &c. Of
[4121]diverse excrements of beasts, all good against several diseases?
What extraordinary virtues are ascribed unto plants? [4122]Satyrium et
eruca penem erigunt, vitex et nymphea semen extinguunt, [4123]some
herbs provoke lust, some again, as agnus castus, water-lily, quite
extinguisheth seed; poppy causeth sleep, cabbage resisteth drunkenness,
&c., and that which is more to be admired, that such and such plants
should have a peculiar virtue to such particular parts, [4124]as to the
head aniseeds, foalfoot, betony, calamint, eye-bright, lavender, bays,
roses, rue, sage, marjoram, peony, &c. For the lungs calamint,
liquorice, ennula campana, hyssop, horehound, water germander, &c. For
the heart, borage, bugloss, saffron, balm, basil, rosemary, violet,
roses, &c. For the stomach, wormwood, mints, betony, balm, centaury,
sorrel, parslan. For the liver, darthspine or camaepitis, germander,
agrimony, fennel, endive, succory, liverwort, barberries. For the
spleen, maidenhair, finger-fern, dodder of thyme, hop, the rind of ash,
betony. For the kidneys, grumel, parsley, saxifrage, plaintain, mallow.
For the womb, mugwort, pennyroyal, fetherfew, savine, &c. For the
joints, camomile, St. John's wort, organ, rue, cowslips, centaury the
less, &c. And so to peculiar diseases. To this of melancholy you shall
find a catalogue of herbs proper, and that in every part. See more in
Wecker, Renodeus, Heurnius lib. 2. cap. 19. &c. I will briefly speak of
them, as first of alteratives, which Galen, in his third book of
diseased parts, prefers before diminutives, and Trallianus brags, that
he hath done more cures on melancholy men [4125]by moistening, than by
purging of them.
_Borage_.] In this catalogue, borage and bugloss may challenge the
chiefest place, whether in substance, juice, roots, seeds, flowers,
leaves, decoctions, distilled waters, extracts, oils, &c., for such
kind of herbs be diversely varied. Bugloss is hot and moist, and
therefore worthily reckoned up amongst those herbs which expel
melancholy, and [4126] exhilarate the heart, Galen, lib. 6. cap. 80. de
simpl. med. Dioscorides, lib. 4. cap. 123. Pliny much magnifies this
plant. It may be diversely used; as in broth, in [4127]wine, in
conserves, syrups, &c. It is an excellent cordial, and against this
malady most frequently prescribed; a herb indeed of such sovereignty,
that as Diodorus, lib. 7. bibl. Plinius, lib. 25. cap. 2. et lib. 21.
cap. 22. Plutarch, sympos. lib. 1. cap. 1. Dioscorides, lib. 5. cap.
40. Caelius, lib. 19. c. 3. suppose it was that famous Nepenthes of
[4128]Homer, which Polydaenna, Thonis's wife (then king of Thebes in
Egypt), sent Helena for a token, of such rare virtue, that if taken
steeped in wine, if wife and children, father and mother, brother and
sister, and all thy dearest friends should die before thy face, thou
couldst not grieve or shed a tear for them.
Qui semel id patera mistum Nepenthes Iaccho
Hauserit, hic lachrymam, non si suavissima proles,
Si germanus ei charus, materque paterque
Oppetat, ante oculos ferro confossus atroci.