CHYMIATRIC PRACTICE

Chymiatry is the historical practice of combining chemistry/alchemy with medicine, a precursor to modern pharmacology.

BRAIN FEVER original: "PHRENITIS"; refers to an acute inflammation of the brain or its membranes accompanied by high fever and delirium.

In cases of Brain Fever and inflammation of the brain and its membranes joined with acute fever, common or standard medications have their place. Therefore, the treatment—which should not be delayed as this is a most acute disease—rightly begins with bloodletting. This is done to divert and evacuate the blood, regardless of the time, hour, or whether the stomach is full. If there is a great "fullness of humors" plethora; an excess of bodily fluids, especially blood, the bloodletting should be repeated the following day. Because of the urgent necessity, this must be administered immediately and in a large amount (if the patient's strength allows and the blood is excessive), even without first administering an emollient or cooling enema original: "clystere" and even if the stomach is full. However, if age or a loss of strength prevents this, cupping glasses with scarring should be applied to the shoulder blades and the neck. Care must be taken that the patient rests and does not lose strength by tossing and turning. For those with Brain Fever, the juice of comfrey original: "consolidæ" mixed with honey and poured into the nostrils is beneficial. Immediately at the start, the head should also be moistened with a rose-vinegar mixture original: "Oxyrhodino"; this truly drives away the humor and alters the condition. An irrigation should be made over the coronal suture the joint between the frontal and parietal bones of the skull after shaving the hair, using 3 ounces of oil of roses, 1 ounce of chamomile, and 1.5 ounces of rose vinegar; let it be applied warm. If the restlessness is particularly troublesome—especially if, in the first few days, a very painful lack of sleep has attacked the patient's strength and increased the fever—a dose of Opium Laudanum original: "Laudani Opiati"; a potent alcohol-based opium tincture should be given immediately. It should be repeated after 8 hours until the patient has taken half a scruple a scruple is an apothecaries' weight equal to about 1.3 grams. Indeed, if Opium Laudanum is lacking, simply dry the opium until it can be reduced to a powder, and dissolve 6 grains of it in 3 ounces of water-lily water, milk, or a cooling decoction, adding 1 ounce of syrup of poppies. If, as always happens, the patient desires a drink, let them use a mixture of 4 ounces of water-lily water, 6 ounces each of rose and bugloss water, 2.5 ounces of syrup of currants or lemon, and 1 or 1.5 drams of salt of prunella sal prunellæ; a purified form of potassium nitrate used to cool fevers. For the sleeplessness, it will not be unsuitable to apply a liquid compress original: "Epithema" to the forehead, to be renewed often with dried linens.

Take: nightshade water
and lettuce water, 2 ounces each,
rose vinegar, half an ounce,
Opium Laudanum, 1 scruple,
Camphor, 6 grains.

Mix. The nostrils can also be anointed with the following ointment:

Take: Poplar ointment original: "Unguenti populei", 1 ounce,
Essence of opium, 3 grains.

Mix. Or: Take: oil of nutmeg expressed by pressure, 1 scruple.

Opium Laudanum, half a scruple.

Mix to encourage sleep.

To temper the heat of the bile, 10 grains of "salt of pearls" likely pearls dissolved in acid and then precipitated should often be given with borage or bugloss water. The legs and arms can also be washed with the following decoction:

Take: stonecrop original: "sedi",
water-lily,
white vine,
strong wine,
and roses, as much as you like.
White poppy heads,
and lettuce seeds, as much as desired.

Make a decoction. Cooling compresses should also be applied to the heart, to which it is useful to mix 1.5 scruples of essence or extract of saffron, or the saffron itself, and a few grains of camphor. We also apply a compress to the testicles, to which a little wine vinegar is added for penetration. The face should be washed often with rose vinegar. Then the body must be purged with Extract of Rhubarb or an infusion of it in chicory water. Finally, if the disease does not subside, it is better to apply a warm puppy a common, though jarring, folk-medical practice of the era, split open from the back with the intestines removed, to the top of the head, sloping toward the front. In its place, one might use the warm lung of an animal or a chicken split from the back. If you feel these have cooled, they should be reheated by dipping them in hot water in which poppy heads and water-lily flowers have been boiled, then wiped with a sponge and reapplied. For that mild, moist external heat tempers the internal heat by moisturizing it; indeed, being similar to the degree of our own natural heat, they mitigate the cause of the pain, "ripen" it original: "concoquunt"; a medical term for processing morbid humors, and make it balanced,

and they dissipate the unnatural heat by gently thinning it. Therefore, let everyone hold this as a primary remedy among those mentioned. In other matters, proceed according to the prescriptions of practitioners, always adding some solution of pearls to the medicines, and during the decline of the illness, a few drops of "potable gold" auri potabilis; gold leaf dissolved in a volatile oil or acid, thought to be a universal tonic, because this, once nature is strengthened, usually expels the remnants of the disease through sweat.

A Caution.

IT SHOULD ALSO BE NOTED that the use of stupefying drugs narcotics should not be continuous, lest the patient pass from brain fever into a lethargy coma. They should also be applied cautiously in those whose strength is already weak—especially external applications—lest the matter in the head coagulate, which, because of the weakness of the patient, cannot afterwards be dissipated or resolved.

Brain Fever and Delirium.

In the same way, "Paraphrenitis" inflammation near the diaphragm, then believed to affect the mind and simple Delirium and their symptoms are mitigated and removed once the disease that caused them is cured.

A Caution.

However, let it be noted that if there are signs of a "crisis" the turning point of a disease or symptomatic changes, or if "rheum" excessive fluid or discharge is present, no stupefying drugs should be used, but only a dose of Opium Laudanum should be offered once or twice.

Mania.

The same medicines are exhibited in their own way, observing the rules and methods of practitioners, in cases of Mania severe madness or insanity. In such cases, it is beneficial to frequently give flowers of antimony and other antimonial preparations mixed with purgatives. Likewise, prepared Extract of Black Hellebore a classic, potent treatment for insanity since antiquity mixed with its "correctors" and other purgatives.

The final refuge in this disease, if it does not yield to other medicines, is to apply a "potential cautery" a chemical substance that burns the skin to the head between the coronal and sagittal sutures, which is left until enough erosion has occurred that the bare bone appears. Then let the skull be opened with a trepan a surgical drill for the skull, and let the place remain open for a month, and the patient will be cured of Mania. Then let the wound be healed according to the art.

EPILEPSY IN CHILDREN.

Epilepsy and similar diseases, which are infamous for the violence and danger of their seizures, have a double treatment goal: 1. that which regards the seizure itself, and 2. that which regards the roots of the disease.

I. "Women's Water of Life" original: "Aqua vitæ Mulierum"; also called "Embryonated Balsam"—see the Augsburg Pharmacopoeia—given to a pregnant woman in the measure of 1 spoonful with 3 or 4 drops of our Anti-epileptic Spirit, once every month during the New Moon from the fourth month until birth, preserves the fetus from Epilepsy. For greater security, this powder is given:

Preservative Powder.

Take: the spine of a living weasel (not cooked, but raw), thoroughly cleaned from head to tail and dried; powder it. Take of this powder and of prepared "magistery" of Coral and Pearls, 2 drams each. Mix. The dose is as much as the tip of a knife can hold, given in the pulp of a roasted apple.

II. Children are preserved from Epilepsy, or entirely freed so they are never seized by such a passion in later life, if—when newly born, before they suck milk or eat food—they are given fresh oil of sweet almonds mixed with fine sugar, from half a dram to 1 or 3 drams. For when they have rested a little after taking this cleansing dose:

Take: Dung of a black cow, still warm; put it in a new jar and calcine it burn it to ash. Give 1 scruple or half a dram of this to the newborn infant (this is a Secret of the Elector of Saxony). Finally, they vomit a very large quantity of pituitous mucoid impurities collected in the mother's womb before birth (especially if they inhaled any menstrual blood during their first breath). These impurities are the causes of many diseases in children, specifically Epilepsy. If they do not vomit, they are purged through the bowels. Afterwards, when they are bathed for a while—especially during the weeks following birth—boil fresh willow bark in the bathwater. In this way, they are preserved not only from Epilepsy but also from "wasting" original: "tabe"; a specific for "dryness" or atrophy in children.