Part 7

Schenkius obser. de ptisi obser. 137. Cornel. Gema. Cosmocr. Hyppocrat. Epidem. 5. expectore obstrepebat. &c.

And these are three principall kindes of this disease wherevnto most of the symptoms which euer do appeare therein may be referred.

Cap. 6.

Of the causes of this disease.

The causes of this disease and of the Symptoms belonging therunto, haue euer bin found hard to be described particularly: and especially in a vulgar tongue, I hold it not meete to discourse to freely of such matters, and therefore I doe craue pardon if I do but slenderly ouerpasse some poynts which might be otherwise more largely stood vpon

The causes of this disease are either internall, or external. The internall causes may be any thing contained within the bodie, as spirit, blood, humors excrements, &c. whereby this part is apt to be offended, but principally they are referred vnto these two, blood, and nature.

Gal. loc. affec. 6. cap. 5. Hollerius, de morbis internis. lib. 1. cap. 59.

Paschalius li. 1. cap. 57.

Altomarus. ca. I 10. Item de vtero gerentibus. cap. 2.

Jacobus Syluius de mensibus.

Hor. Augen^{ius} epist. 6.

Cardanus de causis, &c. morborum. cap. 114.

Blood is that humor wherwith we are nourished: without which the infant in the mothers wombe could neither grow & increase in bignesse, nor yet liue: and therefore it was necessarie that those that were fit for generation, should be supplied with sufficient store of this humor, for the vse of this part wherin the infãt is to be nourished, for which cause there are large vaines & arteries deriued vnto it for the conueyance of bloud thereunto, and there is greater provision thereof made in womens bodies then in mens: least this part should bee forced to withdraw nourishment from other parts of the bodie, and so leave them weake and consuming.

But this prouision of nature is oftentimes defectiue: as when it is cut off by violent causes, and the part left destitute of this familiar humor, which should serue both for the comfort of the infant, and of the part it selfe: which finding offence thereby doth communicate it vnto the other partes with which it hath affinitie according to Hyppocrates doctrine. 1. Morborum muliebrium, and Aristotle, de generat. animal. cap. 11. vteri euacuati sursum ascendunt & præfocationes faciunt. Cordæus giues vs an example of one who by chaunce cutting a vaine in her leg, whereupon she did bleede plentifully, fell into a fit of the Mother, and by moist and nourishing diet was recouered. The reason whereof Hyppocrates referreth to the ouerdrying of those parts through large euacuation of bloud, wherby the matrix doth labour by such motion as it hath to supply it selfe with moysture from other parts of the body: or as Mercurialis doth enterpret it, doth impart by communitie (as is aforesaid) the offensive qualitie vnto the braine, and by that meanes procures convulsions, &c. Gallen refferreth it into the ouercooling of those parts which necessarily must follow a large euacuation of bloud, which coldenesse being very offensive vnto the nerues and neruous partes by consent and compassion offendeth the braine also, and by that meanes may procure the former Symptoms.

Pereda in paschalium lib. 1. cap. 58.

Altomarus.

Syluius.]

And as the want and scarsitie of bloud may procure this griefe, so the abundance & excesse thereof doth more commonly cause it, where the patients do want those monethly euacuatiõs which should discharge their bodies of this superfluitie: as we see in strong and lustie maidens, who hauing ease and good fare inough, haue their vaines filled with plenty of bloud, which wanting sufficient vent distẽdeth them in bulck and thicknes, and so contracteth them in their length, whereby the matrix is drawne vpwards or sidewards, according as the repletion is, whereupon followeth a compression of the neighbour parts, as of the midrif which causeth shortnes of breath, by straightning the instruments of respiration of their due scope.

But if this bloud wanting his proper vse doe degenerate into the nature of an excrement, then it offendeth in qualitie as well as in excesse, and being detayned in the bodie, causeth diuers kinds of Symptoms, according to the qualitie and degree of the distemperature thereof.

Altomarus Corruptio.]

This distemperature is either in manifest qualities, of heate, colde, moisture, drines, according vnto which it is said to be, Melancholicke, Flegmaticke, Choloricke, &c. producing Symptoms of the like nature, or in corruption and putrefactiõ of this bloud which breedeth diuers strange kinds of distẽperatures, according to the diuersity of the humor putrefied, the degree of putrefaction or the condition of the cause or author thereof.

Pereda in pas. et alia.

Valesius de Tarranta. lib. 6.

Valesius testatur se deprehendisse circa vterũ hystericarũ croceum humorem fatidissimũ &c. lib. 5. c. 15.

Mathaus de grad. in 9. Rhasis. ca. 28. Item consilio 84.

Mercatus.

Gal.

Avicen.