CHAP. XV.
The Medicinal Virtue of Iron.93
ot foreign to our present purpose will it
be to treat briefly also of the medicinal virtue of iron: for it is a prime remedial for some diseases of the human body,
and by its virtues, both those that are natural and those acquired by suitable preparation, it works marvellous changes
in the human body, so that we may the more surely recognize its nature through its medicinal virtue and through certain
manifest experiments. So that even those tyros in medicine who abuse this most famous medicament may learn to prescribe
it with better judgment for the healing of the sick, and not, as too often they use it, to their harm. The best iron,
Stomoma, or Chalybs, Acies, or Aciarium, is reduced to a fine powder by a file; the powder is steeped in the sharpest
vinegar, and dried in the sun, and again soused in vinegar, and dried; afterwards it is washed in spring water or other
suitable water, and dried; then for the second time it is pulverized and reduced on porphyry, passed through a very fine
sieve, and put back for use. It is given chiefly in cases of laxity and over-humidity of the liver, in enlargement of the
spleen, after due evacuations; for which reason it restores young girls when pallid, sickly, and lacking colour, to
health and beauty; since it is very siccative, and is astringent without harm. But some who in every internal malady
always talk of obstruction of the liver and spleen, think it beneficial in those cases because
it removes obstructions, mainly trusting to the opinions of certain Arabians94:
wherefore they administer it to the dropsical and to those suffering from tumour of the liver or from chronic jaundice,
and to persons troubled with hypochondrical melancholia or any stomachic disorder, or add it to electuaries, without
doubt to the grievous injury of many of their patients. Fallopius commends it prepared in his own way for tumours of the
spleen, but is much mistaken; for loadstone is pre-eminently good for spleens relaxed with humour, and swollen; but it is
so far from curing spleens thickened into a tumour that it mightily confirms the malady. For those drugs which are strong
siccatives and absorb humour force the viscera when hardened into a tumour more completely into a quasi-stony body. There
are some who roast iron in a closed oven with fierce firing, and burn it strongly, until it turns red, and they call this
Saffron of Mars; which is a powerful siccative, and more quickly penetrates the intestines. Moreover they order violent
exercise, that the drug may enter the viscera while heated and so reach the place affected; wherefore also it is reduced
to a very fine flour; otherwise it only sticks in the stomach and in the chyle and does not penetrate to the intestines.
As a dry and earthy medicament, then, it is shown by the most certain experiments to be, after proper evacuations, a
remedy for diseases arising from humour (when the viscera are charged and overflowing with watery rheum). Prepared steel
is a medicament proper for enlarged spleen. Iron waters too are effectual in reducing the spleen, although as a rule iron
is of a frigid and astringent efficiency, not a laxative; but it effects this neither by heat nor by cold, but from its
own dryness when mixed with a penetrative fluid: it thus disperses the humour, thickens the villi, hardens the tissues,
and contracts them when lax; while the inherent heat in the member thus strengthened, being increased in power,
dissipates what is left. Whereas if the liver be hardened and weakened by old age or a chronic obstruction, or the spleen
be shrivelled and contracted to a schirrus, by which troubles the fleshy parts of the limbs grow flaccid, and water under
the skin invades the body, in the case of these conditions the introduction of iron accelerates the fatal end, and
considerably increases the malady. Amongst recent writers there are some who in cases of drought of the liver prescribe,
as a much lauded and famous remedy, the electuary of iron slag, described by Rhazes95 in his ninth book ad Almansorem, Chap. 63, or prepared filings of steel; an evil and deadly
advice: which if they do not some time understand from our philosophy, at least everyday experience, and the decline and
death of their patients, will convince them, even the sluggish and lazy. Whether iron be warm or cold is variously
contended by many. By Manardus, Curtius, Fallopius and others, many reasons are adduced on both
sides; each settles it according to his own sentiment. Some make it to be cold, saying that iron has the property of
refrigerating, because Aristotle in his Meteorologica would put iron in the class of things which grow concreted
in cold by emission of the whole of their Heat: Galen, too, says that iron has its consistency from cold; also that it is
an earthy and dense body. Further that iron is astringent, also that Chalybeate water quenches thirst: and they adduce
the cooling effect of thermal iron waters. Others, however, maintain that it is Warm, because of Hippocrates making out
that waters are warm which burst forth from places where iron exists. Galen says that in all metals there is considerable
substance, or essence, of fire. Paolo96 affirms that iron waters are warm.
Rhazes will have it that iron is warm and dry in the third degree. The Arabians think that it opens the spleen and liver;
wherefore also that iron is warm. Montagnana recommends it in cold affections of the uterus and stomach. Thus do the
smatterers cross swords together, and puzzle inquiring minds by their vague conjectures, and wrangle for trifles as for
goats' wool, when they philosophize, wrongly allowing and accepting properties: but these matters will appear more
plainly by and by when we begin to discuss the causes of things; the clouds being dispersed that have so darkened all
Philosophy. Filings, scales, and slag of iron are, as Avicenna makes out, not wanting in deleterious power (haply when
they are not well prepared or are taken in larger quantity than is fit), hence they cause violent pain in the bowels,
roughness of the mouth and tongue, marasmus, and shrivelling of the limbs. But Avicenna wrongly97 and old-womanishly makes out that the proper antidote to this iron poison is loadstone to the weight
of a drachm taken as a draught in the juice of mercurialis or of Beet; for loadstone is of a twofold nature, usually
malefiant and pernicious, nor does it resist iron, since it attracts it; nor when drunk in a draught in the form of
powder does it avail to attract or repel, but rather inflicts the same evils.