Culpeper's complete herbal ... To which are ... annexed his English physician enlarged, and Key to [Galen's Method of] physic ... to which is also added ... receipts selected from the author's Last legacy / Nicholas Culpeper.

Nicholas Culpeper

Date:: 1814

Credit: Culpeper's complete herbal ... To which are ... annexed his English physician enlarged, and Key to [Galen's Method of] physic ... to which is also added ... receipts selected from the author's Last legacy / Nicholas Culpeper. Source: Wellcome Collection.

471/500 (page 377)

$1. Of Atedicines temperate. 2. Of ALedicines hot. 3. Of Aledicines cold. 4. Of Medicines moist. 5. Of Aledicines dry. Of Medicines Temperate. If the world be composed of extremes, then it acts by extremes, for as the man is, so is his work: therefore it is impossible that any medicine can be temperate, but may he reduced to heat, cold, dryness, or moisture, and must operate, (I mean such as operate by manifest quality) by one of these, because there is no other to operate by, and that there should be such a temperate mix- ture, so exo|uisitely of these qualities in any medicine, that one of them should not manifestly excel the other, I doubt it is a system too rare to find. Thus then I conclude the matter to be, those Medicines are called temperate (not because they have excess of temperature at all in them) which can neither be said, to heat nor cool so much as will amount to the first degree of excess, for daily expe- rience witnesses that they being added to medicines, change not their qualities, they make them neither hotter nor colder. Their use. They are used in such dis- eases where there is no manifest distemper of the first qualities, viz. heat and cold, for example ; In obstruction of the bowels, where cold medicines might make the ob- struction greater, and hot medicines cause a fever. In fevers of flegm, where the cause is cold and moist, and the effect hot and dry; in such, use temperate medicines which may neither encrease the fever by their heat, nor condensate the flegm by their coldness. Besides, because contraries are taken away by their contraries, and every like maintained by its like, they are of great use, to preserve the constitution of the body emperate, and the body itself in strength I and vigour, and may be used without dan- ;ger, or fear of danger, by considering whch j part of the body is weak, and using such \ temperate medicines as arc appropriated to \ that part. 5 Of Medicines hot. \ The care of the ancient Physicians was I such that they did not labour to hide from, I but impart to posterity, not only the tem- I perature of medicines in general, but also ; their degrees in temperature, that so the 1 distempered part may be brought to its i temperature, and no further; for all things j which are of a contrary temperature, con- j duce not to cure, but the strength of the I contrariety must be observed, that so the I medicine may be neither weaker nor strong- ier, than just to take away the distemper; i for if the distemper be but meanly hot, and I you apply a medicine cold in the fourth i degree, it is true, you may soon remove that I distemper of heat, and bring another of j cold twice as bad. Galen, de simp, med.facttl. : lib. 3. cap. 12. ; Then, secondly. Not only the distemper I itself, but also the part of the body dis- j tempered must be heeded; for if the head i be distempered by heat, and you give such i medicines as cool the heart or liver, you will I bring another disease, and not cure the ] former. J The degrees then of temperature are to 5 be diligently heeded, which antient physi- i cians have concluded to be four in the quali- ; ties, viz. heat and cold, of each we shall i speak a word or two severally. I 'Of Aledicines hot in the first degree. I Those are said to be hot in the first cle- ; gree, which induce a moderate and natural 1 heat to the body, and to the parts thereof; either cold by nature, or cooled by accident, j by which natural heat is cherished when 5 weak, or restored when wanting, j Efi'ect 1. The first effect then of medi- j cines hot in the first degree, is, by their 'sweat and temperate heat to reduce the$