CHAPTER III. Of Medicines appropriated to the heart.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Culpeper, Nicholas
These are they which are generally given under the notion of Cordials; take them under that name here.
The heart is the seat of the vital spirit, the fountain of life, the original of infused heat, and of the natural affections of man.
So then these two things are proper to the heart.
1. By its heat to cherish life throughout the body.
2. To add vigour to the affections.
And if these be proper to the heart, you will easily grant me, that it is the property of cordials to administer to the heart in these particulars.
Of Cordials, some cheer the mind, some strengthen the heart, and refresh the spirits thereof, being decayed.
Those which cheer the mind, are not one and the same; for as the heart is variously disturbed, either by anger, love, fear, hatred, sadness, &c. So such things as flatter lovers or appease the angry, or comfort the fearful, or please the hateful, may well be called cordials; for the heart, seeing it is placed in the middle between the brain and the liver, is wrought upon by reason, as well as by digestion, yet these, because they are not medicines, are beside my present scope.
And although it is true, that mirth, love, &c. are actions, or motions of the mind, not of the body; yet many have been induced to think such affections may be wrought in the body by medicines.
The heart is chiefly afflicted by too much heat, by poison, and by stinking vapours, and these are remedied by the second sort of cordials, and indeed chiefly belong to our present scope.
According to these three afflictions, viz.
1. Excessive heat.
2. Poison.
3. Melancholy vapours.
Are three kinds of remedies which succour the afflicted heart.
Such as
1. By their cooling nature mitigate the heat of fevers.
2. Resist poison.
3. Cherish the vital spirits when they languish.
All these are called Cordials.
1. Such as cool the heart in fevers, yet is not every thing that cooleth cordial, for lead is colder than gold, yet is not lead cordial as gold is, some hold it cordial by a hidden quality, others by reason.
2. Such as resist poison; there is a two-fold resisting of poison.
1. By an antipathy between the medicine and poison.
2. By a sympathy between the medicine and the heart.
Of the first we shall speak anon, in a chapter by itself. The latter belongs to this chapter, and they are such medicines, whose nature is to strengthen the heart, and fortify it against the poison, as Rue, Angelica, &c. For as the operation of the former is upon the poison, which afflicteth the heart, so the operation of the latter is upon the heart afflicted by the poison.
To this class may be referred all such medicines as strengthen the heart either by astral influence, or by likeness of substance, if there be such a likeness in medicines, for a Bullock’s heart is of like substance to man’s, yet I question whether it be cordial or not.
3. And lastly, Such as refresh the spirits, and make them lively and active, both because they are appropriated to the office, and also because they drive stinking and melancholy vapours from the heart, for as the animal spirit be refreshed by fragrant smells, and the natural spirits by spices, so are the vital spirits refreshed by all such medicines as keep back melancholy vapours from the heart, as Borrage, Bugloss, Rosemary, Citron Pills, the compositions of them, and many others, which this treatise will amply furnish you with.