_MADAM,_
Your _Author_ speaking of the _Gout_, and of that kind of Gout which
is called _Hereditary_, says, _It consists immediately in the Spirit
of Life._ First, as for that which is called an Hereditary Disease,
propagated from Parents upon their Children; my opinion is, That it
is nothing else but the same actions of the animate matter, producing
the same effect in the Child as they did in the Parent: For example;
the same motions which made the Gout in the Parent, may make the same
disease in the Child; but every Child has not his Parents diseases, and
many Children have such diseases as their Parents never had; neither is
any disease tied to a particular Family by Generation, but they proceed
from irregular motions, and are generally in all Mankind; and therefore
properly there is no such thing as an hereditary propagation of
diseases; for one and the same kind of disease may be made in different
persons, never a kin to one another, by the like motions; but because
Children have such a neer relation to their Parents by Generation, if
they chance to have the same diseases with their Parents, men are apt
to conclude it comes by inheritance; but we may as well say, that all
diseases are hereditary; for there is not any disease in Nature but is
produced by the actions of Nature's substance; and if we receive life
and all our bodily substance by Generation from our Parents, we may be
said to receive diseases too; for diseases are inherent in the matter
or substance of Nature, which every Creature is a part of, and are real
beings made by the corporeal motions of the animate matter, although
irregular to us; for as this matter moves, so is Life or Death,
Sickness or Health, and all natural effects; and we consisting of the
same natural matter, are naturally subject as well to diseases as to
health, according as the Matter moves. Thus all diseases are hereditary
in Nature; nay, the Scripture it self confirms it, informing us, that
diseases, as well as death, are by an hereditary propagation derived
from _Adam_ upon all Posterity. But as for the Gout, your _Authors_
doctrine is,[1] _That Life is not a body, nor proper to a body, nor the
off-spring of corporeal Proprieties_,[2] but a _meer No-thing_; and
that _the Spirit of Life is a real being, to wit, the arterial blood
resolved by the Ferment of the heart into salt air, and enlightned by
life_,[3] and that the Gout doth immediately consist in this spirit of
life. All which how it doth agree, I cannot conceive; for that a real
being should be enlightned by Nothing, and be a spirit of Nothing, is
not imaginable, nor how the Gout should inhabit in the spirit of life;
for then it would follow, that a Child, as soon as it is brought forth
into the world, would be troubled with the Gout, if it be as natural
to him as life, or have its habitation in the Spirit of Life. Also
your _Author_ is speaking of _an Appoplexy in the head, which takes
away all sense and motion._ But surely, in my opinion, it is impossible
that all sense and motion should be out of the head; onely that sense
and motion, which is proper to the head, and to the nature of that
Creature, is altered to some other sensitive and rational motions,
which are proper to some other figure; for there is no part or particle
of matter that has not motion and sense. I pray consider, _Madam_,
is there any thing in Nature that is without motion? Perchance you
will say, Minerals; but that is proved otherwise; as for example, by
the sympathetical motion between the Loadstone and Iron, and between
the Needle and the North, as also by the operation of Mercury, and
several others; Wherefore there is no doubt, but all kinds, sorts and
particulars of Creatures have their natural motions, although they are
not all visible to us, but not such motions as are made by Gas, or
Blas, or Ideas, &c. but corporeal sensitive and rational motions, which
are the actions of Natural Matter. You may say, Some are of opinion,
that Sympathy and Antipathy are not Corporeal motions. Truly, whosoever
says so, speaks no reason; for Sympathy and Antipathy are nothing else
but the actions of bodies, and are made in bodies; the Sympathy betwixt
Iron and the Loadstone is in bodies; the Sympathy between the Needle
and the North is in bodies; the Sympathy of the Magnetic powder is in
bodies. The truth is, there is no motion without a body, nor no body
without motion. Neither doth Sympathy and Antipathy work at distance
by the power of Immaterial Spirits, or rays, issuing out of their
bodies, but by agreeable or disagreeable corporeal motions; for if
the motions be agreeable, there is Sympathy; if disagreeable, there
is Antipathy; and if they be equally found in two bodies, then there
is a mutual Sympathy or Antipathy; but if in one body onely, and not
in the other, there is but Sympathy or Antipathy on one side, or in
one Creature. Lastly, concerning _swoonings or fainting fits_, your
_Authors_ opinion is, that they _proceed from the stomack_: Which I
can hardly believe; for many will swoon upon the sight of some object,
others at a sound, or report, others at the smell of some disagreeable
odour, others at the taste of some or other thing that is not agreeable
to their nature, and so forth: also some will swoon at the apprehension
or conceit of something, and some by a disorder or irregularity of
motions in exterior parts. Wherefore, my opinion is, that swoonings
may proceed from any part of the body, and not onely from the stomack.
But, _Madam_, I being no Physicianess may perhaps be in an error,
and therefore I will leave this discourse to those that are thorowly
learned and practised in this Art, and rest satisfied that I am,
Madam,
_Your Ladiships_
_humble Servant._
[1] Of the disease of the Stone, _c._ 9.
[2] Of the subject of inhering of diseases in the point of life.
[3] Of the Spirit of Life.