" He, however, admits, that he
sometimes added a little theriaca (treacle) and wine to it; which last,
he says, "is not only a great cordial, but as a vehicle, is a proper
messenger to be sent on such an errand, as it knows the road, is well
received wherever it goes, and readily admitted into the most private
apartments of the human body." Hence we believe that wine is not only a
good natured, but an intelligent being; though it sometimes deprives men
of their senses for a time, when they take too much of it: and hence we
see also a specimen of our author's method of reasoning and writing.
Van Helmont, like his great master, also boasted, that he could cure all
inflammatory and other fevers, and even a pleurisy, without either
bleeding, vomiting, purging, clysters, or blisters; and he quarrelled
so much with the two last, that he calls clysters "a beastly remedy,"
and says that blisters were invented by a wicked spirit, whom he calls
Moloz, though Beelzebub might have been as good a name, since Dr.
Baynard wittily observed, that he believed he was only a great
cantharid.
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