ENMagnetismus Medicinalium p. 698
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6 revisions | Stephen at Jan 07, 2024 03:57 PM | |
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Magnetismus Medicinalium p. 698spiritus sulphuris, similiaque inter venena & deleteria numerari non {Varia venenorum genera.} Translationspirit of sulphur and the like could not be counted as poisonous and destructive. For water is very cold and pepper very hot, and yet they are not poisons; therefore, besides heat and cold, dampness and dryness, another quality is required to bring about those extreme symptoms which we observe in those who have drunk poison. For as Aristotle rightly says (Generation of Animals bk 2, ch 3): There is in seeds a certain faculty of seminal fecundity, and it is heat not fire, and there is no other such faculty; but a spirit is contained in the seed and the spumous body, and the nature which is in that spirit corresponds in proportion to the element of the stars. Thus no poisons kill by cold or by heat, but by some completely amazing cold and heat, which are either bestowed from the stars or rooted in the essence of the universal body; and although there are some poisons, such as narcotics, which appear to kill by cold alone, like Opium, Mandragora, Henbane, Nightshade and Monkshood, yet they do not do it without another additional poisonous quality specific for destruction; of which those rare and wonderful symptoms of the poisoned, which cannot be ascribed to the primary qualities or to cold alone, provide fatal proof. Moreover we observe that poison kills much more quickly than that disproportion of the humours could be induced; Cornelius Gemma reports that this happens in epidemics; thus a certain Ordelalphus, according to Mercuriale, killed those who even came close to him, with a poison with which he was smeared; but I do not deny that the primary qualities contribute, as it were by way of predisposing, to the operation of a poison, and more in one case, less in another: for in order that Scammony taken internally may rarefy, thin and sever, it requires heat; because it does indeed draw to itself the offending humour from all around, nobody will deny the need for another quality of outpouring from inside. Moreover, as with curatives, so in some proportion there is a varied and manifold abundance of destructives; these I divide into two classes, insofar as some are natural, others artificial. The natural poisons are again variously divided, for some come from minerals, like arsenic, orpiment, antimony, quicksilver and the like: others from plants, like all kinds of Aconite, and narcotics, which are by their whole substance poisonous; others so only in part, such as root, seed or flower. Then there are others derived from animals, comprised of all animals which are poisonous either wholly or in part, which inasmuch as they are countless vary also in the reason for their activity; to these are added poisons which originate from putrefaction or from celestial influx (like epidemic plagues and pestilences), | Magnetismus Medicinalium p. 698spiritus sulphuris, similiaque inter venena & deleteria numerari non {Varia venenorum genera.} Translationspirit of sulphur and the like could not be counted as poisonous and destructive. For water is very cold and pepper very hot, and yet they are not poisons; therefore, besides heat and cold, dampness and dryness, another quality is required to bring about those extreme symptoms which we observe in those who have drunk poison. For as Aristotle rightly says (Generation of Animals bk 2, ch 3): There is in seeds a certain faculty of seminal fecundity, and it is heat not fire, and there is no other such faculty; but a spirit is contained in the seed and the spumous body, and the nature which is in that spirit corresponds in proportion to the element of the stars. Thus no poisons kill by cold or by heat, but by some completely amazing cold and heat, which are either bestowed from the stars or rooted in the essence of the universal body; and although there are some poisons, such as narcotics, which appear to kill by cold alone, like Opium, Mandragora, Henbane, Nightshade and Monkshood, yet they do not do it without another additional poisonous quality specific for destruction; of which those rare and wonderful symptoms of the poisoned, which cannot be ascribed to the primary qualities or to cold alone, provide fatal proof. Moreover we observe that poison kills much more quickly than that disproportion of the humours could be induced; Cornelius Gemma reports that this happens in epidemics; thus a certain Ordelalphus, according to Mercuriale, killed those who even came close to him, with a poison with which he was smeared; but I do not deny that the primary qualities contribute, as it were by way of predisposing, to the operation of a poison, and more in one case, less in another: for in order that Scammony taken internally may rarefy, thin and sever, it requires heat; because it does indeed draw to itself the offending humour from all around, nobody will deny the need for another quality of outpouring from inside. |
