Schola medicinae; or, the new universal history and school of medicine / translated into English from the original Latin and Greek edition, by William Rowley.

  • Rowley, William, 1742-1806.
Date:
1803
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Schola medicinae; or, the new universal history and school of medicine / translated into English from the original Latin and Greek edition, by William Rowley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    strains himself to the two principal, which are the bile, and the phlegm ; and he acknowledges,, that these two juices, by their mixture with the blood, are the causes of all disorders. When the bile evaporates outwards^or discharges itself upon the skin, it causes divers sorts of humours, attended with in- flammation, which the Greeks called phlegmons ; but when it is confined within, it produces all sorts of burning diseases, (gj The bile is especially hurtful, when it is mixed with the blood ; it breaks the orders of the fibres, which are, according to him, small threads scattered through the blood, (h) that it might be neither too clear, nor too thick, to the end, that on the one side it should not evaporate, and on the other, might always move easily in the veins. This bile continuing its havock, after having broken the fibres of the blood, pierces to the spinal marrow, and destroys the links of the soul, before spoken of; unless the body, that is to say, all the flesh, melting or dissolving, breaks its force. When this happens, the bile being over- come, and obliged to depart the body, throws itself through the veins, upon the lower belly, and stomach, (i) from whence it is discharged by stool, and vomiting, like those who fly out of the town in an uproar, and cause in their passage diarrhoeas and dysenteries, and other discharges, which prove often healthful. The sweet, or insipid phlegm, occasions tumors, and some impurities of the skin ; and when it mixes with some little blad- ders of the air, it is then called white phlegm, (k) If this phlegm should mix with the black bile, and penetrate into the recepticles of the brain, it causes the epilepsy. 1 The sour, or salt phlegm, is the cause of all diseases, comprehended under the name of cartarrh’s; and brings disorders, I and pain, on what part soever it falls. ' The matrix, says he, is an animal, which longs impatiently to conceive; (1) and if it be long disappointed of bearing I fruit, it is enraged, and runs up and down the whole body, and stopping the passages of the air, it takes away respiration, and I causes great uneasiness, and an infinite number of diseases. ARISTOTLE. I THIS philosopher, who was preceptor to Alexander the Great, and lived in the sun shine of court favour, had greater op- portunities of acquiring natural knowledge, than perhaps any other, either before his time, or after. He received from hiS j prince the enormous sum of eight hundred talents, to pursue these studies, (m) with the assistance of men in different parts of the world, who were, by the royal order, directed to give him every necessary information, of cither the natural curiosities or pecuharities of the different animals that each country produced. With regard to his history of animals, it has been clearly proved, that he delivered the greatest falsehoods ; (n) and what relates to the human body, as advanced by this great philosopher, as he was called, is in general erroneous, and in many in- stances highly superstitious, and irrationaL The principles of natural bodies, says Aristotle, are not one, as Parmenides, (o) and Melissus held; nor Homoiomeria’s, ' as Anaxagoras; nor atoms,as Leucippus and Democritus ; nor sensible elements, as Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Empedocles ; nor numbers, nor figures, as the Pythagorians ; nor ideas, as Plato. There are three principles of natural bodies; two contrary, privation, and form ; (p) and one common subject of both, matter. The constitutive principles, are matter and form ; of privation, bodies consist not, but accidently, as it is competent to matter. Things are made of that which is ens potentially, materia prima, not of that which is ens actually; nor of that which is non ens potentially, which is pure nothing, (q) Matter is neither generated nor corrupted, (r.) It is the first entire subject of every thing, whereof it is framed primarily in itself, and not by accident; and into which it at last resolveth. To treat of form in general, is proper to metaphysics. But, as it would be tedious, and rather foreign to our subject, to give ; iu this work more than is necessary, concerning the Aristotelian philosophy, it may be improper to jnention any thing more jof opinions, which have been so fully refuted by the moderns; and, therefore, we arc to consider his notions in general con- cerning the animal body. He (g) Tlvfiy.avTct (ft) The injury of the bile to the blood, decomposing its fibres. (i) The bile discharged by vomiting and purging.. (ft) A sort of dropsy, in Hippocrates (1) Uterus singular notion. Pliny, lib.VIII. 16. (n) By Borrichius. (o) Physic; lib; cap; III. 4. (p) Cap. 7. < (,) q^p^ 3., (r) Cap. I .».]■■■■
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