Chapter 4

Van Helmont related other cures. For example, a laundress who had a "megrim" [migraine] for sixteen years was cured by partaking of some olive oil, into a spoonful of which Butler dipped the stone. Other cures for which van Helmont vouched included a man who was exceedingly fat; he touched the stone every morning with the tip of his tongue and very speedily lost weight. Van Helmont's own wife was cured of a marked edema of the leg. Similarly, a servant maid who had had severe attacks of erysipelas which were "badly cured," and the leg leaden colored and swollen, was cured almost immediately. An abbess, whose arm had been swollen for eighteen years, partly paralyzed, was also cured. Van Helmont, however, indicates that he himself, when he thought he was being poisoned by an enemy, did not secure any benefit from the use of the stone. Later, however, it turned out that, because of the nature of the illness, he should have touched the stone with his tongue, to take its virtue internally, rather than merely anointing the skin with oil into which the stone had been dipped.

Van Helmont makes it very clear that this is not magic or sorcery; there is no diabolic influence, no necromancy. He drew attention to the overwhelming effects which might result from a cause which was so minute that it could not be perceived by the senses. We cannot here go into the theoretical background which underlay van Helmont's conceptions, but we must mention at least briefly his idea of a basic mechanism. Van Helmont considered the action to be that of a ferment, where an extremely minute quantity can produce a tremendous effect. He gives the analogy of the tooth of a mad dog, which, although any saliva has been carefully wiped off, can nevertheless sometimes induce madness. The effect of the stone seems to be comparable. Its power becomes manifest even in enormous dilution and can multiply, for it can import its remedial virtue to a vast quantity of oil. Moreover, the stone had a sort of universal power against all diseases. Such a virtue could not be vegetable in its nature, but was, he thought, connected with metals. He pointed to the well-accepted medicinal virtues which inhered in gems. Metals also had great medicinal potency. Antimony, lead, iron, mercury, were well known, and of special importance was copper, the _Venus_ of the early chemists.

The medicinal virtue which inhered in Butler's stone and in other powerful fermental remedies, van Helmont designated as "drif," which he said means, in the vernacular, virgin sand or earth. This virtue requires a metallic body in which to inhere. The general concept is not unfamiliar, of a virtue or power or ferment which was attached to a material object, and it is this type of explanation which was so preponderant in, for example, Porta's _Natural Magick_. Van Helmont speaks of the "first being," which translates the Latin _Ens_, of Venus or copper. Vitriol is the basic substance, and for purification of the virtue we require a "sequestration of its Venus from the dregs of the vitriol."[62]

This was the background from which Boyle set about to secure a potent remedy. Van Helmont had discussed his experiments whereby he tried to create a medicine which would have the virtues of Butler's stone. Boyle attempted to improve on van Helmont's technique. Copper--Venus--was the basic metal, and Boyle started with vitriol or copper sulfate. He gave fairly explicit directions for the preparation, including calcination, boiling, drying, adding sal armoniack, subliming twice. The resulting chemical represented a purified medicine which he prescribed in variable dosage, from two or three grains, up to twenty or thirty at the maximum. He declared it to be a "potent specifick for the rickets," since he, and others to whom he had given it for use, had "cured" a hundred or more children of that disease. The medicine he also prescribed in fevers and headache, and he thought it "hath done wonders" in obstinate suppressions of the menses. It also improved the appetite. It worked, he declared, through the sweat and, to some extent, the urine.[63] It is noteworthy that Boyle did not claim to have cured the same illnesses than van Helmont reports as having been cured by Butler's stone.

As another example, he gave directions for preparing essence of hartshorn--prepared, literally, from the horn itself. The preparation, strongly alkaline, he prescribed in small doses of eight to ten drops. The medicine "resists malignity, putrefaction, and acid humours," for it destroys the acidity. He used it "in fevers, coughs, pleurisies, obstructions of the spleen, liver, or womb, and principally in affections of the brain...."[64]

While Boyle was a far more skillful chemist than van Helmont, he did not have any greater diagnostic acumen. And clearly, from the standpoint of scientific method, he lacked any sharp criterion of cure. Various patients were ill with various diseases; he gave them one or another preparation; the patients recovered. Controls there were none. Boyle, with great enthusiasm, believed that through natural philosophy we would eventually discover "the true causes and seats of diseases" and also find out effective remedies which would quickly free the patient from the disease.[65] But faith and enthusiasm did not compensate for the _post hoc propter hoc_ attitude.

According to Galenic concepts, if diseases are due to alterations of humors either in their quality or in their proportions, then the suitable remedy will restore the appropriate quality or proportion. In Galenic doctrine, the disturbance of the humors should be perceptible, and a sound Galenic remedy should work by perceptibly changing the nature and proportion of the humors back to normal. However, side by side with the Galenic medical doctrines, there were the other prevalent doctrines, among which I can mention the idea of "specifics." I can emphasize three features: the specific remedy was active against a particular disease, in a quite specific fashion, in the same way that an antidote acted against a specific poison; second, the effectiveness was a matter of direct experience, based on empirical observation; and third, the mode of action remained relatively obscure, but nevertheless the medicines did not seem to behave as did the so-called "Galenicals." Thus, whether they acted by "sympathy," or by a special hidden virtue, or by a peculiar microcosmic energy, we cannot say. But the _fact_ remains that many people asserted the specific effectiveness[66] of this or that remedy against a specific disease--e.g., that snakeweed was an effective cure for the bite of a serpent.

Learned physicians, unfortunately, refused in large part to accept the validity of these alleged cures. Their hesitancy rested not on statistical evidence or on niceties of scientific method, but on the grounds that the alleged mode of operation was quite unintelligible and not at all in accord with accepted doctrine.

Boyle, as a chemist, insisted on keeping an open mind in regard to so-called specifics. He objected strongly to the argument that simply because we cannot account for their mode of action, we should conclude that they were not effective. In a passage of great importance, he declared, "Why should we hastily conclude against the efficacy of specificks, taken into the body, upon the bare account of their not operating by any obvious quality, if they be recommended unto us upon their own experience by sober and faithful persons?" Thus, his chain of reasoning is, first of all, these remedies work, as attested by direct experience; we are not able to explain why or how they work; we must not, however, fly in the face of experience and deny their effectiveness simply because of our inability to explain the workings. He gives the example of a "leaven," which in minute amounts is able to "turn the greatest lump of dow [dough] into leaven."[67]

Boyle strongly supported the well-known quotation of Celsus, that the important thing is not what causes the disease but what removes it. In strong terms he criticized "many learned physicians" who rejected specifics on the ground "that they cannot clearly conceive the distinct manner of the specificks working; and think it utterly improbable, that such a medicine, which must pass through digestions in the body, and be whirled about with the mass of blood to all the parts, should, neglecting the rest, shew it self friendly to the brain (for instance) or the kidneys, and fall upon this or that juice or humour rather than any other."[68] Boyle then went into considerable detail to show how this can take place through the action of ferments, combined with a theoretical exposition of atomistic philosophy, which we do not have time to go into at present. He gave in great detail an exposition of how these specifics _may_ operate, but did not in any way produce cogent evidence that they do in fact operate in such fashion.

As a physician, Boyle insisted on facts over theory. He was constantly pleading for physicians to enlarge their experience, to try new medicines, even though these were not based on traditional doctrine. Where observed fact conflicts with theory, the fact cannot be ignored. Credulity of physicians, he indicated, may do the world "more mischief" than any other profession, but nevertheless he condemned those who would try to "circumscribe, or confine the operations of nature, and not so much as allow themselves or others to try, whether it be possible for nature, excited and managed by art, to perform divers things, which they never yet saw done, or work by divers ways, differing from any, which by the common principles, that are taught in the schools, they are able to give a satisfactory account of."[69] Surely, this is not a model of elegant English style, but the message is clear. Boyle was emphasizing the message taught earlier in the century by Francis Bacon, that we must judge the theory by the fact, and not the facts by the theory. It is the same philosophy that Hamlet expounded, that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy.

We see, thus, that Boyle had taken a mighty step toward modern scientific medicine, but he covered only a small part of the total distance. He insisted that we should accept facts, but he did not realize the difficulties attendant on defining a fact and making it credible. He indicated that when strange results are alleged, "these need good proof to make a wary man believe so strange a thing,"[70] but what constitutes proof was a problem which he was not able to wrestle with and, indeed, a problem which he did not clearly perceive.

I would emphasize that Boyle was in essence a man of great faith. He had great faith in religion, and was a deeply religious man. He was a great supporter of so-called "natural religion" and tried to reconcile the doctrines of natural philosophy with those of traditional religion. Westfall[71] has considered in detail the religious attitudes of late seventeenth-century writers, Robert Boyle in particular. The "proofs" alleged by the proponents of natural religion have, of course, little cogency. As Westfall points out, they examined nature in order to find what they already believed.

Nevertheless, religious faith was only one part of the total faith which Boyle exhibited. He had as much faith in the capabilities, the future progress, and the promise of science as he did in traditional religion. Throughout all his works we see great evidence of his religious piety. But his faith in science, particularly as it affected medicine, we see with utmost clarity in the essay "The Usefulness of Natural Philosophy." He had great vision of the benefits that science would eventually bring to the healing arts. Unlike many of his contemporaries, particularly persons such as Glanvill or Spratt, he realized that many anatomical discoveries, for example, were of little practical value, but he felt that such discoveries would, "in process of time (when the _historia facti_ shall be fully and indisputably made out, and the theories thereby suggested clearly established) highly conduce to the improvement of the therapeutical part of physick...."[72] And with extraordinary perceptiveness he indicated the different ways in which he expected progress to be made through the proper application of mechanical philosophy. He was clear-sighted enough to realize that the discoveries made hitherto were not of great practical value but that the future was indeed bright, and he provided a remarkable blueprint of progress to come.

The measure of progress is, perhaps, the quantity of faith which moves mankind. The study of Robert Boyle emphasizes some divisions among mankind. Some are content to look backward, to be satisfied with the achievements of the past, to rely on accepted systematization, doctrine, and explanation. Others, while dissatisfied with the past, have no guide to lead them anywhere. Still others, however, have a strong faith in the new course which they are pursuing, a faith which can guide them over great difficulties. Boyle was such a man of faith--a word which is really synonymous with "attitude." He marked the transition between the old and the new, and pointed up the difficulties which transition always involves.

_Notes_

[37] Thomas Birch, _The Life of the Honourable Robert Boyle_, in Robert Boyle, _The Works of the Honourable Robert Boyle_, ed. Thomas Birch, London; 1772, I, liv, reprinted Hildesheim, 1965, I, Introduction, viii-ix; Marie Boas Hall, _Robert Boyle on Natural Philosophy: An Essay with Selections from His Writings_, Bloomington, Indiana, 1965, p. 16.

[38] John F. Fulton, _A Bibliography of the Honourable Robert Boyle_, 2nd ed., Oxford, 1961, p. 37.

[39] Hall, _op. cit._, p. 47.

[40] Margaret E. Rowbottom, "The Earliest Published Writing of Robert Boyle," _Annals of Science_, VI (1950), 376-389; R. E. W. Maddison, "The Earliest Published Writing of Robert Boyle," _Annals of Science_, XVII (1961), 165-173.

[41] Lazarus Riverius, _The Universal Body of Physick, in five books,... Exactly translated into English by William Carr_, London, 1657.

[42] Lazari Riverii, _Opera Medica Universa_, Geneva, 1727.

[43] J.-H. Reveillé-Parise, ed., _Lettres de Gui Patin_, Paris, 1846.

[44] Jean Baptiste van Helmont, _Oriatrike or Physick Refined ... faithfully rendered into English by J. C._, London, 1662, and _Ortus Medicinae_, Editio Quarta, Lugduni, 1667.

[45] Giovanni Battista della Porta, _Natural Magick_, London, 1658, reprinted New York, 1957, and _Magiae Naturalis Libri Viginti_, Rothomagi, 1650.

[46] Richard F. Jones, _Ancients and Moderns: A Study of the Rise of the Scientific Movement in Seventeenth-Century England_, 2nd ed., St. Louis, 1961; Richard S. Westfall, _Science and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England_, New Haven, 1958; Marjorie Hope Nicolson, _Pepys' Diary and the New Science_, Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia, 1965; Walter E. Houghton, "The English Virtuoso in the Seventeenth Century," _Journal of the History of Ideas_, III (1942), 51-73, 190-219; and Dorothy Stimson, _Scientists and Amateurs: A History of the Royal Society_, New York, 1948. See also, for an entertaining primary source, Thomas Shadwell, _The Virtuoso_, ed., Marjorie Hope Nicolson and David Stuart Rodes, London, 1966.

[47] Sir George Clark, _A History of the Royal College of Physicians of London_, Oxford, Volume I, 1964, Volume II, 1966.

[48] Boyle, "Memoirs for the Natural History of Human Blood," _Works_, IV, 637.

[49] Boyle, "On the Usefulness of Natural Philosophy," _Works_, II, 169.

[50] Stephen Paget, _John Hunter_, London, 1897, p. 126.

[51] Riverius, _Opera_, trans. Lester S. King, p. 1.

[52] Boyle, "Usefulness," pp. 74-75. See also pp. 115-116.

[53] _Ibid._, p. 87.

[54] _Ibid._, p. 97.

[55] _Ibid._, p. 98. See also "Of the Reconcileableness of Specific Medicines to the Corpuscular Philosophy," _Works_, V, 85-86.

[56] Lester S. King, "The Road to Scientific Therapy: 'Signatures,' 'Sympathy,' and Controlled Experiment," _Journal of the American Medical Association_, CXCVII (1966), 250-256.

[57] Boyle, "Usefulness," p. 115.

[58] _Ibid._, p. 127.

[59] _Ibid._, p. 130.

[60] _Ibid._, p. 131.

[61] Van Helmont, "Butler," _Ortus Medicinae_, pp. 358-365, and _Oriatrike_, pp. 585-596. See also Boyle, "Usefulness," p. 102.

[62] Van Helmont, _Ortus_, p. 365; _Oriatrike_, p. 596.

[63] Boyle, "Usefulness," pp. 135-136.

[64] _Ibid._, p. 138.

[65] _Ibid._, p. 144.

[66] Boyle, "Reconcileableness of Specific Medicines," pp. 80-81.

[67] Boyle, "Usefulness," p. 183.

[68] _Ibid._, p. 190.

[69] _Ibid._, p. 194.

[70] _Ibid._, p. 195.

[71] Westfall, _op. cit._

[72] Boyle, "Usefulness," pp. 163-164.

_Members of the Seminar_

L. R. C. Agnew Theodore Alexander M. Peter Amacher Lawrence Badash Stephen Dow Beckham Charles S. Bodemer Hilda Boheme John G. Burke Seymour L. Chapin Jack H. Clark William E. Conway Louise Darling Edna C. Davis Dr. & Mrs. John Field Waldo H. Furgason Martha Gnudi Doris Haglund Karl Hufbauer Samisa Jadon Dieter Jetter Roy Kidman Irving J. King Lester S. King Leslie Koepplin Elizabeth Lomax Patrick McCloskey Nancy McNeil Edgar Mauer David S. Maxwell Robert Moes C. D. O'Malley Ynez O'Neill Marilyn Paul Ladislao Reti Sally Rutherford Edward Shapiro Hans H. Simmer Ingrid Simmer John E. Smith Joan Starkweather Betsey Starr John M. Steadman Annette Terzian Lelde Trapans Richard F. Trucken Frances Valadez Virginia Weiser Fred N. White Maxine White Virginia Wong Jacob Zeitlin

_William Andrews Clark Memorial Library Seminar Papers_

_Editing Donne and Pope._ 1952.

Problems in the Editing of Donne's Sermons, by George R. Potter.

Editorial Problems in Eighteenth-Century Poetry, by John Butt.

_Music and Literature in England in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries._ 1953.

Poetry and Music in the Seventeenth Century, by James E. Phillips.

Some Aspects of Music and Literature in the Eighteenth Century, by Bertrand H. Bronson.

_Restoration and Augustan Prose._ 1956.

Restoration Prose, by James R. Sutherland.

The Ironic Tradition in Augustan Prose from Swift to Johnson, by Ian Watt.

_Anglo-American Cultural Relations in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries._ 1958.

The Puritans in Old and New England, by Leon Howard.

William Byrd: Citizen of the Enlightenment, by Louis B. Wright.

_The Beginnings of Autobiography in England_, by James M. Osborn. 1959.

_Scientific Literature in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century England._ 1961.

English Medical Literature in the Sixteenth Century, by C. D. O'Malley.

English Scientific Literature in the Seventeenth Century, by Rupert Hall.

_Francis Bacon's Intellectual Milieu._ A Paper delivered by Virgil K. Whitaker at a meeting at the Clark Library, 18 November 1961, celebrating the 400th anniversary of Bacon's birth.

_Methods of Textual Editing_, by Vinton A. Dearing. 1962.

_The Dolphin in History._ 1963.

The History of the Dolphin, by Ashley Montagu.

Modern Whales, Dolphins, and Porpoises, as Challenges to Our Intelligence, by John C. Lilly.

_Thomas Willis as a Physician_, by Kenneth Dewhurst. 1964.

_History of Botany._ 1965.

Herbals, Their History and Significance, by George H. M. Lawrence.

A Plant Pathogen Views History, by Kenneth F. Baker.

_Neo-Latin Poetry of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries._ 1965.

Daniel Rogers: A Neo-Latin Link between the Pléiade and Sidney's 'Areopagus,' by James E. Phillips.

Milton as a Latin Poet, by Don Cameron Allen.

_Milton and Clarendon: Papers on Seventeenth-Century English Historiography._ 1965.

Milton as Historian, by French R. Fogle.

Clarendon and the Practice of History, by H. R. Trevor-Roper.

_Some Aspects of Seventeenth Century English Printing with Special Reference to Joseph Moxon_, by Carey S. Bliss. 1965.

_Homage to Yeats, 1865-1965._ 1966.

Yeats and the Abbey Theatre, by Walter Starkie.

Women in Yeats's Poetry, by A. Norman Jeffares.

_Alchemy and Chemistry in the Seventeenth Century._ 1966.

Renaissance Chemistry and the Work of Robert Fludd, by Allen G. Debus.

Some Nonexistent Chemists of the Seventeenth Century, by Robert P. Multhauf.

_The Uses of Irony._ 1966.

Daniel Defoe, by Maximillian E. Novak.

Jonathan Swift, by Herbert J. Davis.

_Bibliography._ 1966.

Bibliography and Restoration Drama, by Fredson Bowers.

In Pursuit of American Fiction, by Lyle Wright.

_Words to Music._ 1967.

English Song and the Challenge of Italian Monody, by Vincent Duckles.

Sound and Sense in Purcell's 'Single Songs,' by Franklin B. Zimmerman.

_John Dryden._ 1967.

Challenges to Dryden's Biographer, by Charles E. Ward.

Challenges to Dryden's Editor, by H. T. Swedenberg.

_Atoms, Blacksmiths, and Crystals._ 1967.

The Texture of Matter as Viewed by Artisan, Philosopher, and Scientist in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, by Cyril Stanley Smith.

Snowflakes and the Constitution of Crystalline Matter, by John G. Burke.

_Laplace as a Newtonian Scientist_, by Roger Hahn. 1967.

_Modern Fine Printing._ 1967.

The Private Press: Its Essence and Recrudescence, by H. Richard Archer.

Tradition and Southern California Printers, by Ward Ritchie.

Transcriber's Notes:

Passages in italics are indicated by _underscore_.

Additional spacing after some of the quotes is intentional to indicate both the end of a quotation and the beginning of a new paragraph as presented in the original text.

The following misprints have been corrected: "acessible" corrected to "accessible" (page 10) "Futhermore" corrected to "Furthermore" (page 10) "histroy" corrected to "history" (page 14) "wordly" corrected to "worldly" (page 32)