A new method of chemistry; including the theory and practice of that art: laid down on mechanical principles ... To which is prefix'd a critical history of chemistry and chemists ... / Translated ... by P. Shaw and E. Chambers with additional notes.
- Herman Boerhaave
- Date:
- 1727
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A new method of chemistry; including the theory and practice of that art: laid down on mechanical principles ... To which is prefix'd a critical history of chemistry and chemists ... / Translated ... by P. Shaw and E. Chambers with additional notes. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![Hi(ior) of C h E M I S T R Y. <( (C (( cc At his return home, Helmont told-his wife he had now got her remedy ; and that (he was to be cured by Butler's done. Accordingly, the (tone being fteep'd in oil of olives, and the oil applied on the part affe&ed, (he recover'd to a miracle. Let us now fee how he managed his own body, when out of order. If * neither his fons, daughter, nor wife were dear enough to him, to make him apply his remedy ; yet fure he would not have grudged it on himfelf. In page 3 22 of his works, he writes thus : “ On the 27th of Decembert in the (ixty-third year of my age, I was fuddenly feiz'd with a (light fever, attended with a chilnefs, which fet my teeth a chattering : this was fucceeded b^a pungent pain in my fide, and flernum; a diffi¬ culty of breathing ; and a fpitting of blood.” We have here a perfedl defcription of a genuine peripneumony, with an inflammation of the fide, pleura, and lungs. Hippocrates would here have diredled him to forbear letting blood; and to have immediate recourfe to demulcent remedies. Let us now fee what courfe he really took, and what univerfal remedyhuZ/nfi£eff. was applied on this perillous occafion.: “ I immediately took fcrapings of “ the penis of a goat, reduced to powder ; and the pain vanifti'd [but the difeafe continued.] ft The next day, I drank a drachm of goat's blood ; “ by which, in three days time, the fputum fanguinis difappear'd : but (t there (bill remain'd a little cough [for he was not yet cured, nor the matter of the difeafe carried off.] “ This ftuck fail by me, accompany'd with a difficulty of breathing, a continued fever, and intermitting pulfe. At length, I felt a pain in the fpleen : to remove which, I took a draught of wine with lapis cancror. and the fymptoms all difappear’d. So far was this mighty chemift from applying any chemical arcanum, or univerfal medicine; that, we fee, he took none but the mod: contemptible Galenical ones: the genital of a goat, goat’s blood, and lapides cancrorum: and this in a pleurify, peripneumony, and pain of the fpleen. But let us fee how he died: He was taken ill of an afthma, which Manner of bis prefs’d him fo, that he was obliged to rife at mid-night, and fetch his deatb‘ breath out at the window. This difeafe he could not cure; but let it degenerate into a vomica pulmonis. His fon adds, that he died under a flight fuffccation, and deliquium, perfe&Iy fenfible, and apprehenfive of the approach of death. It were needlefs to ask, what was now become of the tree of life ? and why he died at fixty-feven years of age, with the re¬ medy in his power ? In his treatife de vita longa, he alferts that cedar-wood, reduced into an ens by the alcaheft, is that primum natures, one or two drops whereof ab- fterges the matter of all difeafe, cleanfes the blood, reftores the vital juice, and revivifies a man every moment; fo that with the ufe hereof it were impoffible for him to die. What abfurdity! And does not Helmont rave? The alcaheft he fwears he has;.and cedar-wood is eafily pro¬ cured : What boots it to protraft other peoples days to the longeft period ; and to die young one’s-felf ? <( cc cc](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b30416796_0055.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
