392 
THE COMPLETE HERBAL 
Also they are mixed with other medi- 
cines, that they may the better be brought 
into the form of an emplaster, and may 
stick the better to the members. 
ea saa none mene| 
CHAPTER IX. 
Of suppuring Medicines. 
These have a great affinity with emolients, 
like to them in temperature, only emolients 
are somewhat hotter. 
Yet is there a difference as apparent as 
the sun when he is upon the meridian, and 
the use is manifest. For, 
Emolients are to make hard things soft, 
but what suppures, rather makes a genera- 
tion than an alteration of the humour. 
Natural heat is the efficient cause of 
suppuration, neither can it be done by any 
external means. 
Therefore such things are said to suppure, 
which by a gentle heat cherish the inbred 
heat of man. 
This is done by such medicines which 
are not only temperate in heat, but also by 
a gentle viscosity, fill up or stop the pores, 
that so the heat of the part affected be not 
scattered. 
For although such things as bind hinder 
the dissipation of the spirits, and internal 
heat, yet they retain not the moisture as 
suppuring medicines properly and especial- 
ly do. 
The heat then of suppuring medicines is 
like the internal heat of our bodies. 
As things then very hot, are ingrateful 
either by biting, as Pepper, or bitterness: 
in suppuring medicines, no biting, no bind- 
ing, no nitrous quality is perceived by the 
taste, (I shall give you better satisfaction 
both in this and others by, and by. 
Forreason will tell a man, that such things 
hinder rather than help the work of nature 
in maturation. 
‘Yet it follows not from hence, that all 
Maoh 
ing en ee itd ee 
taste, for many things grateful to the taste 
provokes vomiting, therefore why may not 
the contrary be? 
The most frequent use of suppuration is, 
to ripen Phlegmone, a general term physi- 
cians give to all swellings proceeding of 
blood, because nature is very apt to help 
such cures, and physic is an art to help, 
not to hinder nature. 
The time of use is usually in the height 
of the disease, when the flux is stayed, as 
also to ripen matter that it may be the 
easier purged away. 
sero no 
CHAPTER X. 
Of Medicines provoking urine. 
The causes by which urine is suppressed 
are many. 
1. By too much drying, or sweating, it 
may be consumed. 
2. By heat or inflammation of the reins, 
or passages whereby it passes from the 
reins, it may be stopped by compression. 
Urine is the thinnest part of blood, sepa- 
rated from the thickest part in the reins. 
If then the blood be more thick and vis- 
cous than ordinary, it cannot easily be sepa- 
rated without cutting and cleansing medi- 
cines. 
This is for certain, that blood can neither 
be separated nor distributed without heat. 
Yet amongst diureticks are some cold 
things, as the four greater cold seeds, Win- 
ter-cherries, and the like. 
Although this seem a wonder, yet it may 
be, and doth stand with truth. 
For cool diureticks, though they further 
not the separation of the blood one jot, 
yet they cleanse and purge the passages of 
the urine. 
Diureticks then are of two sorts: 
1. Such as conduce to the separation of 
the blood. 
2. Such as open the urinal passages. 
_ The former are biting (and are known by 
