CHAPTER V. 



AND ENGLISH PHYSICIAN ENLARGED. 38-3 



faculty, give them a little before meat, if | And thus much for the liver, the office of 

 to stay fluxes, a little after meat, if to stay which is to concoct chyle, (which is a white 

 vomiting. substance the stomach digests the food into) 



into blood, and distributes it, by the veins, 

 to every part of the body, whereby the 

 body is nourished, and decaying flesh re- 

 Of Medicines appropriated to the liver. ? stored. 

 Be pleased to take these under the name j ___ ___ 



of Hepatics, for that is the usual namej 



physicians give them, and these also are of \ CHAPTER VI. 



three sorts. Of Medicines appropriated to the spleen. 



1. Some the liver is delighted in. In the breeding of blood, are three ex- 



2. Others strengthen it. jcrements most conspicuous, viz. urine, 



3. Others help its vices. i choler, and melancholy. 



The palate is the seat of taste, and its I The proper seat of choler is in the gall, 

 office is to judge what food is agreeable to | The urine passeth down to the reins or 

 ihe stomach, and what not, by that is both { kidneys, which is all one. 

 the quality and quantity of food for the' The spleen takes the thickest or melan- 

 stomach discerned: the very same office |choly blood to itself, 

 the meseraik veins perform to the liver. j This excrement of blood is twofold : for 



Sometimes such food pleases the palate j either by excessive heat, it is addust, and 

 which the liver likes not (but not often) | this is that the Latins call Atra Bilis: or 

 and therefore the meseraik veins refuse it, j else it is thick and earthly of itself, and this 

 and that is the reason some few men fancy j properly is called melancholy humour. 

 *>uch food as makes them sick after the; Hence then is the nature of splenical 

 eating thereof. j medicines to be found out, and by these 



1. The liver is delighted exceedingly with | two is the spleen usually afflicted for Atra 

 sweet things, draws them greedily, and\bilis, (I know not what distinct English 

 digests them as swiftly, and that is the reason ! name to give it) many times causes mad- 

 honey is so soon turned into choler. jness, and pure melancholy causeth obstruc- 



2. Such medicines strengthen the liver, itions of the bowels, and tumours, whereby 

 as (being appropriated to it) very gently | the concoction of the blood is vitiated, 

 bind, for seeing the office of the liver is to and dropsies many times follow, 

 concoct, it needs some adstriction, that so j Medicines then peculiar to the spleen 

 both the heat and the humour to be con- j must needs be twofold also, some appro- 

 coctcd may be stayed, that so the one slip > priated to Atra bilis, others to pure melan- 

 not away, nor the other be scattered. |choly; but of purging either of them, I 



Yet do not hepatical medicines require j shall omit till I come to treat of purging in 

 so great a binding faculty as stomachicals do, | a chapter by itself. 



because the passages of the stomach are: 1. Such medicines are splenical, which 

 more open than those of the liver by which * by cooling and moistening temper Atra 

 it either takes in chyle, or sends out blood \bilis: let not these medicines be too cold 

 to the rest of the body, therefore medicines \ neither, for there is no such heat in Atru 

 that are very binding are hurtful to thejizVzs as there is in choler, and therefore it 

 liver, and either cause obstructions, or hin-i needs no such excessive cooling : amongst 

 der the distribution of the blood, or both. | the number of these are such as we men- 



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