the fly penetrate the whole animal machine, become a glandular lymphatic purge, and perform the fame thing in all the fmall ftraining conveying pipes, that common purgatives effect in the inteftines: and as by this means, all the fluices and outlets of the glandular fecretions are opened, the cantharides must be cooling, diluting, and refrigerating in their effects to the greatest degree, though fo very hot, cauftic, and pungent in themfelves. So wonderfully has the great Creator provided for his creature, man; in giving him not only a variety of the most pleasing food; but fo fine a medicine, (among a thoufand others) as the Spanish fly, to fave him from the defroying fever, and restore him to health again. It is not by a difcharge of ferum, as too many doctors imagine, that a blifter relieves, for five times the quantity may be brought off by bleeding, vomiting, or purging; but the benefit is intirely owing to that beating, attenuating, and pungent falt of this fly, (and this fly only,) which the divine power and goodness has made a lym phatic purgative, or glandular cathartic for the relief of man, in this fatal and tormenting malady. Vaft is our obligation to God for all his providential bleffings. Great are the wonders that he doth for the children of menta §. 4. Here Dr. Stanvil's fudden death, and the caufe of it. S. 4. Here the Doctor. dropt off his chair, just as had he pronounced the word men, and in a moment became a lifeless fordid body. His death was occafioned by the blowing of his ftomach, as I found upon openup ing his body, at the requeft of his lady.When the blood which is confined within the vessels of the human body, is agitated with a due motion, it maintains life; but if there be a stagnation of it in an artery, it makes an aneurism; in a vein, a varix; under the fkin, a bruife; in the nose, it may excite an hemorrhage, in the veffels of the brain, an apoplexy; in the lungs, an bemoptoe; in the cavity of the thorax, an empyema; and when it perfectly ftagnates there, immediate death. An animal (obferve me Reader) muft live fo long as this fluid circulates through the conical pipes in his body, from the lef fer base in the centre, the heart, to the greater in the extreme parts; and from the capillary evanefcent arteries, by the nafcent returning veins to the heart again; but when this fluid ceafes to flow through the incurved canals, and the velocities are no langer in the inverfe duplicate ratio of the inflated pipes, then it dies. The animal amla. has has done for ever with food and fex; the two great principles which move this world, and produce not only fo much honeft industry, but fo many wars and fightings, fuch cruel oppreffions, and that variety of woes we read of in the tragical history of the world. Even one of them does wonders. Cunnus teterrima belli caufa. And when united, the force is irresistible. But as I was faying, when this fluid ceafes. to flow, the man has done with luft and bunger. The pope, the warriour, and the maid, are ftill. The machine is at abfolute reft, that is, in perfect infenfibility: And the foul of it is removed to the vefti bulum or porch of the highest holy place; in a vehicle, (fays Wollafton, and Burnet of the Charter-boufe,) as needful to our contact with the material fyftem;-as it must exist with a Spiritual body to be fure, (fays the Rev. Mr. Caleb Fleming, in his furvey of the search after fouls,) because of its being prefent with its Saviour, beholding his glory, who is in human form and figure, which requires fome fimilitude in the vehicle, in order to the more easy and familiar fociety and enjoyment. Or, as the learned Master of Peter-boufe, Dr. Edmund Law, and Dr. Sherlock, Bishop of London, informs us, it remains infenfible for ages, till the confum mation of all things-from the diffolution of the body, is ftupid, fenfelefs, and dead afleep till the refurrection. Such was the cafe of my friend, Dr. Stanvil; he dropt down dead at once. A rarefaction in his stomach, by the heat and fermentation of what he had taken the night before at fupper, destroyed him. That concave vifcus, or bowel, which is feated in the abdomen below the diaphragm, I mean the stomach, was inflamed, and as the defcending trunk of the aorta paffes down between it and the fpine, that is, between the stomach and back part of the ribs, the inflation and diftention of the bowel compreffed and conftringed the tranfverfe fection of the artery aorta, in its defcending branch, and by leffening it, impeded the defcent of the blood from the heart, and obliged it to ascend in greater quantity than ufual to the head. By this means, the parts of the head were distended and ftretched with blood, which brought on an apoplexy, and the operation upward being violent, the equilibrium was intirely broken, and the vital tide could flow no more. This I found on opening the body. I likewife obferved that, exclufive of the compreffure of the defcending trunk of the artery aorta, the muscular coats of the fto mach mach were ftretched, inflated, and diftended; and of confequence, the blood-veffels which enter into the conftitution of those muscles, were ftretched, dilated, and turgid with blood, and therefore the blood could not be driven forward in the course of its circulation with its natural and due velocity, but must prove an obftacle to the defcent of the blood from the heart, and oblige almost the whole tide to move upThis, and the conftringing the aorta, at its orifice or tranfverfe fection, between the coftæ and the bowel called the ftomach, is enough, I affure you, Reader, to knock up the head of a giant, and put a ftop to all the operations of nature. Thus fell this gentleman in the 32d year of his age. The character of (25) N. B. Dr. Law is ftill master of Peter-house, Cambridge, and not only one of the most learned men of the age, but as fine a gentleman and as good à man as lives. His merits, I am fure, as a fcholar and a chrifian, intitled him to the maftership of St. John's, on the death of Dr. Newcomb; tho' he loft it, as often the beft men do in refpect of things temporal. But notwithstanding all the fine learning of Dr. Law, I think he is mistaken in many of his notions, and efpecially 112 |