632 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1683. 



the bone, is the genuine producer of those intolerable pains afflicting gouty 

 persons ; and that all the method of cure ought to tend toward the dispelling 

 of the said flatus.* 



He further asserts that head-aches, palpitations of the heart, tooth-ach, pleu- 

 risy, convulsions, numbness, epilepsy, colics, &c. arise from the same cause. 



In treating of the cure of the gout, he recommends burning, though a severe, 

 yet as an adequate cure to so stubborn a disease; showing that fire, either po- 

 tential or actual, is the genuine dispeller of the wind, which he considers to be 

 the cause of this disorder. 



That the eflicacious way of burning has been disused, he ascribes to the soft 

 education of these latter ages, whereby men are rendered averse to a method of 

 cyire too harsh and cruel ; to sense grown tender by luxury, ease, and pleasure : 

 and therefore he wishes a more gentle mode of cautery could be invented than 

 bare fire; yet commends that before some potential cauteries, whose activity 

 often produces unexpected symptoms, as not being so much at the command 

 of the applier. However, the frequent use of cauteries in Japan appeared suf- 

 ficiently to our author, from the numerous scars he saw all over the bodies of 

 many persons among that people, on no other account but burning with moxa ; 

 which he asserts, they use in all ages and sexes, and in all seasons of the year 

 with desired success. 



All the surgery of the Japanese (he remarks) consists in the use of moxa; 

 and pricking with a long sharp needle. They had rather die than implore assist- 

 ance from christians. 



But nature (he continues) is kind in affording great quantities of iomongi, 

 which our author calls broad-leaved mugwort,-j~ growing without culture every 

 where; known to the most ignorant Japanese; and being prepared is called 

 moxa. Our author passing by its other virtues, at present only shows its use 

 in the gout: which, after a digression concerning cauteries, whose efficacy is 

 asserted by Hippocrates, Celsus, and others there quoted, he describes in this 

 manner; the plant dried in the shade, freed from filth and the harder rougher 

 stalks, and rubbed between the hands till it become like cotton, is their moxa. 



medical works, such as Meditationes in Hippocratis Textum, a treatise (in Dutch) on Asiatic diseases, 

 &c. He afforded great assistance to Van Rheede, in the composition of that superb botanical work 

 entitled Hortus Malabaricusj (of which an account has been given at pp. 590-591, of this vol. of 

 these abridgements;) and he transmitted many notices concerning East India plants to Jacob Breyne, 

 who inserted them in his splendid publications on rare exotics. 



* This is a most absurd theory, derived in all probability from the native physicians of the Eastj 

 and adopted by them for the purpose of explaining the manner in which they suppose their favourite 

 remedies, burning with moxa and acupunctura, produce their effect. 



+ A species of Artemisia. 



