_MADAM,_
Concerning those parts and chapters of your _Authors_ Works, which
treat of Physick; before I begin to examine them, I beg leave of you
in this present, to make some reflections first upon his Opinions
concerning the Nature of Health and Diseases: As for _Health_, he is
pleased to say,[1] That _it consists not in a just Temperature of the
body, but in a sound and intire Life; for otherwise, a Temperature of
body is as yet in a dead Carcass newly kill'd, where notwithstanding
there is now death, but not life, not health_: Also he says,[2] _That
no disease is in a dead carcass._ To which I answer, That, in my
opinion, Life is in a dead Carcass, as well as in a living Animal,
although not such a Life as that Creature had before it became a
Carcass, and the Temperature of that Creature is altered with the
alteration of its particular life; for the temperature of that
particular life, which was before in the Animal, doth not remain in
the Carcass, in such a manner as it was when it had the life of such
or such an Animal; nevertheless, a dead Carcass hath life, and such a
temperature of life, as is proper, and belonging to its own figure: for
there are as many different lives, as there be different creatures,
and each creature has its particular life and soul, as partaking of
sensitive and rational Matter. And if a dead Carcass hath life, and
such a temperature of motions as belong to its own life, then there
is no question, but these motions may move sometimes irregularly in
a dead Carcass as well, as in any other Creature; and since health
and diseases are nothing else but the regularity or irregularity of
sensitive corporeal Motions, a dead Carcass having Irregular motions,
may be said as well to have diseases, as a living body, as they name
it, although it is no proper or usual term for other Creatures, but
onely for Animals. However, if there were no such thing as a disease
(or term it what you will, I will call it Irregularity of sensitive
motions) in a dead Carcass, How comes it that the infection of a
disease proceeds often from dead Carcasses into living Animals? For,
certainly, it is not meerly the odour or stink of a dead body, for
then all stinking Carcasses would produce an Infection; wherefore this
Infection must necessarily be inherent in the Carcass, and proceed
from the Irregularity of its motions. Next I'le ask you, Whether a
Consumption be a disease, or not? If it be, then a dead Carcass might
be said to have a disease, as well as a living body; and the Ægyptians
knew a soveraign remedy against this disease, which would keep a dead
Carcass intire and undissolved many ages; but as I said above, a dead
Carcass is not that which it was being a living Animal, wherefore
their effects cannot be the same, having not the same causes. Next,
your _Author_ is pleased to call, with _Hippocrates, Nature the onely
Physicianess of Diseases._ I affirm it; and say moreover, that as
she is the onely Physicianess, so she is also the onely Destroyeress
and Murtheress of all particular Creatures, and their particular
lives; for she dissolves and transforms as well as she frames and
creates; and acts according to her pleasure, either for the increase
or decrease, augmentation or destruction, sickness or health, life
or death of Particular Creatures. But concerning Diseases, your
_Authors_ opinion is, That _a Disease is as Natural as Health._ I
answer; 'tis true, Diseases are natural; but if we could find out the
art of healing, as well as the art of killing and destroying; and the
art of uniting and composing, as well as the art of separating and
dividing, it would be very beneficial to man; but this may easier be
wished for, then obtained; for Nature being a corporeal substance, has
infinite parts, as well as an infinite body; and Art, which is onely
the playing action of Nature, and a particular Creature, can easier
divide and separate parts, then unite and make parts; for Art cannot
match, unite, and joyn parts so as Nature doth; for Nature is not
onely dividable and composeable, being a corporeal substance, but she
is also full of curiosity and variety, being partly self-moving: and
there is great difference between forced actions, and natural actions;
for the one sort is regular, the other irregular. But you may say,
Irregularities are as natural as Regularities. I grant it; but Nature
leaves the irregular part most commonly to her daughter or creature
Art, that is, she makes irregularities for varieties sake, but she
her self orders the regular part, that is, she is more careful of her
regular actions; and thus Nature taking delight in variety suffers
irregularities; for otherwise, if there were onely regularities, there
could not be so much variety. Again your _Author_ says,[3] That _a
disease doth not consist but in living bodies._ I answer, there is
not any body that has not life; for if life is general, then all
figures or parts have life; but though all bodies have life, yet all
bodies have not diseases; for diseases are but accidental to bodies,
and are nothing else but irregular motions in particular Creatures,
which may be not onely in Animals, but generally in all Creatures;
for there may be Irregularities in all sorts of Creatures, which may
cause untimely dissolutions; but yet all dissolutions are not made by
irregular motions, for many creatures dissolve regularly, but onely
those which are untimely. In the same place your _Author_ mentions,
That _a Disease consists immediately in Life it self, but not in the
dregs and filthinesses, which are erroneous forreigners and strangers
to the life._ I grant, that a Disease is made by the motions of Life,
but not such a life as your _Author_ describes, which doth go out like
the snuff of a Candle, or as one of _Lucian's_ Poetical Lights; but
by the life of Nature, which cannot go out without the destruction of
Infinite Nature: and as the Motions of Nature's life make diseases or
irregularities, so they make that which man names dregs and filths;
which dregs, filths, sickness, and death, are nothing but changes
of corporeal motions, different from those motions or actions that
are proper to the health, perfection and consistence of such or such
a figure or creature. But, to conclude, there is no such thing as
corruption, sickness, or death, properly in Nature, for they are
made by natural actions, and are onely varieties in Nature, but not
obstructions or destructions of Nature, or annihilations of particular
Creatures; and so is that we name Superfluities, which bear onely a
relation to a particular Creature, which hath more Motion and Matter
then is proper for the nature of its figure. And thus much of this
subject for the present, from,
Madam,
_Your faithful Friend_
_and humble Servant._
[1] _Ch._ Call'd the Authors answers.
[2] _Ch._ Of the subject of inhering of diseases.
[3] _Ch._ The subject of inhering of diseases is in the point of life.
_It. Ch._ Of the knowledg of diseases.