Page:Philosophical Transactions - Volume 002.djvu/155

 Print, giving a brief Account of the Contents of the said Treatise to this effect, viz.

That this Author hath compos'd a System of Natural Philosophy by Observations and Experiments, accommodated to the benefit of Humane Life, and subservient to Physick and other subalternate Arts; which Philosophy he pretends to have raised on Principles that are certain Bodies drawn out of Mixts; which, though in themselves invisible and incoagulable, yet become, according to him, visible by their Contrariety and mutual Operation upon one another, and so do constitute the Temperaments of Concretes, and cause not only their Dissolution, but also their Redintigration.

These Principles he undertakes to prove to be Two Salts, call'd by him Acidum and Salsum; which, as they work more or less on one another, when blended, so they lose more or less of their Volatility, and the degrees of their Contrariety: And from their various Complication (in which he places the whose business and moment of Philosophy) he holds, that that great multiplicity of Concretes, which is in the Universe, does result.

In particular, he deduceth from the said Principles the cause of Ferments and their variety, the nature Of Generations, Concretions, Putrefactions, Precipitations, &c. and sheweth how those Principles run through all Minerals, Vegetables, and Animals, by their manifold Combinations, and various ways of acting on one another.

He explains also the mixtures of Alkaly's, Vitriols, Armoniacks, Sulphurs, Mercuries, and explicateth the properties of Dissolvents; as also Tasts, Odours, Colours, &c. all from the same Principles.

And having raised this Structure of his as far as he judgeth it sufficient for Subordinate Arts, he proceeds to adapt it to the Art of Physick. And applying it to Animal Bodies, he thence draws the diversity of Humours and Tempers, the beginning and duration of Vital Heat, the motion of the Limbs, the faculties of Entrails, the origin, vitality, and properties of the Blood, and the various Fermentations therein; shewing the Distempers of the Ferments and Juices in Animals, the nature of Coagulations, Dissolutions, Feavers, and other Symptoms; as also the original of Poysons in Animal Bodies; concluding with an Indication of the proper Remedies (as he conceives) of many Diseases.

Whether this Philosophy be new, is easie to judge.

is Rest (by Mr. Hook's suggestion) may be render'd more convenient, if, instead of placing the Screw Horizontal, it be so contriv'd, that it may be laid parallel to the Equinoctial, or to the Diurnal Motion of the Earth; for by that means the same thing may be perform'd by the single motion of one Screw, which in the other way cannot be done but by the turning of both Screws: As will easily appear to those that shall consider it.