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those Salts, upon the contact of one another, or of Mineral Bodies, are the Efficient causes of Heat in those Springs; he thence takes occasion to teach, How Artificial Baths may be made analogical in vertue and operation to the Natural; shewing withal the efficacy of Hot Springs and Baths, whether Natural or Artificial, in curing most of the stubbornest Diseases.
Fourthly, The Author digresses to the Vindication of Chymical Physick describing first, what the Chymical Art is; next, endeavoring to remove the reproach laid on it: and lastly, declaring the great assistances thereby afforded to Nature, above ordinary Shop-preparations, in order to the Cure of Diseases: From which last he takes occasion to exspatiate into the praise of this Art, upon the account also of its great usefulness for improving Experimental Philosophy, and for penetrating into the Principles of all Concretes, whether Vegetable, Animal, or Mineral: inserting withal, by way of digression, his thoughts of an Universal Character; meaning such an one, which, being known in all parts of the World, should signifie the same thing in all Countreys; so that all People skill'd therein should every where read it every one in their own Language.
To all this is annex'd an Appendix concerning the Original of Springs in general, in which the Author admits, that Rain-and-Snow-waters are indeed the proximate Cause of all Land-Springs and sudden Floods, filling the Porosities and Channels of the Earth's surface, and that the remaining part restagnats, till it meet with convenient Currents out of Brooks and Ditches into other Rivolets, and those again, by further passages, swell into Rivers, and thereby cause Inundations of low grounds, till those Rivers empty themselves, by other intermediate ones, into the Sea it self: But that the same should be the cause of the Fontes Perennes, or Living Springs, he positively denies; advancing this Thesis, That there is a Circulation of Water in the Terraqueous Globe, as requisite to its well-being, as the Circulation of Blood in Animals, whereby the water, through subterraneous Channels along the Sabulum bulliens, runs from Sea to Sea, and also from the Sea to the Heads of Springs, and from them into Rivolets, and those into Rivers, and thence into the Ocean, and so circulates round: which, he saith, includes also another Circle of Rain and Snow, which first arising by Exhalations from the Sea and Earth, are carried down again upon the Earth and Sea, and joyning issue with Rivolets from Springs, do swell Rivers, which again discharge themselves into the Sea.
Lastly, The Author concludes, first, with an account he gives of a Ternary of Medicines used by himself, for curing many Diseases; viz. 1. Cathartick, or Solutive; 2. Cordial, or expelling of Wind; 3. Diaphoretick, or Sweating. The first he calls Scorbatick Pills; the Second, Elixir Proprietatis, or Cordial Elixir; the third, Diaphoretick, or Sweating Pills. Which three Preparations, he saith, are composed of the best Vegetables, extracted by Salts, that are graduated to the highest pitch; experienced by himself to be both safe and effectual in the cure of Diseases. Secondly, with a Desription of the Essence, as he calls it, of Scarbrough Spaw which he maketh to be the remainder after divers sabulous separations; viz. a kind of Alumino-nitrous Salt, which, being duly order'd, shoots into long Christalline Stiria's, and branches it self forth in curious shapes in the bottom of the Glais, exposed to a Balneum Maria.
Errat. No 41. p. 826. l. 21. r. ut. fiant, ib. l. 30. r. augentur, p.827. l. 23 r. Tellure, ib. l.ulc. r. quid, p. 832. l. 35. r. notanda.
Errat. No 42. p. 838. l. 15. r. proeced in, p. 844. l. 17. r. albuginea, ib. l. 29. r. videre est.
In the SAVOY,
Printed by T.N. for John Martyn, Printer to the Royal Society, and are to be sold at the Bell a little without Temple-Bar, 1668.
