So that ’tis very evident, there may be a good as well as an evil application of this Principle.  And the ingenious Invention of that Excellent person, Doctor Wren of injecting liquors into the veins of an Animal, seems to be reducible to this head:  I cannot stay, nor is this a fit place, to mention the several Experiments made of this kind by the most incomparable Mr. Boyle, the multitudes made by the lately mention’d Physician Doctor Clark, the History whereof, as he has been pleas’d to communicate to the Royal Society, so he may perhaps be prevail’d with to make publique himself:  But I shall rather hint, that certainly, if this Principle were well consider’d, there might, besides the further improving of Bathing and Syringing into the veins, be thought on several ways, whereby several obstinate distempers of a humane body, such as the Gout, Dropsie, Stone, &c. might be master’d, and expell’d; and good men might make as good a use of it, as evil men have made a perverse and Diabolical.

And that the filling of the pores of the skin with some fluid vehicle, is of no small efficacy towards the preparing a passage for several kinds of penetrant juices, and other dissoluble bodies, to insinuate themselves within the skin, and into the sensitive parts of the body, may be, I think, prov’d by an Instance given us by Bellonius, in the 26. Chapter of the second Book of his Observations, which containing a very remarkable Story I have here transcrib’d:  Cum Chamaeleonis nigri radices (says he) apud Pagum quendam Livadochorio nuncupatum erui curaremus, plurimi Graeci & Turcae spectatum venerunt quid erueremus, eas vero frustulatim secabamus, & filo trajiciebamus ut facilius exsiccari possent.  Turcae in eo negotio occupatos nos videntes, similiter eas radices tractare & secare voluerunt:  at cum summus esset aestus, & omnes sudore maderent, quicunque eam radicem manibus tractaverant sudoremque absterserant, aut faciem digitis scalpserant, tantam pruriginem iis locis quos attigerant postea senserunt, ut aduri viderentur.  Chamaeleonis enim nigri radix ea virtute pollet, ut cuti applicata ipsam adeo inflammet, ut nec squillae, nec urticae ullae centesima parte ita adurent:  At prurigo non adeo celeriter sese prodit.  Post unam aut alteram porro horam, singuli variis faciei locis cutem adeo inflammatam habere caepimus ut tota sanguinea videretur, atque quo magis eam confricabamus, tanto magis excitabatur prurigo.  Fonti assidebamus sub platano, atque initio pro ludicro habebamus & ridebamus:  at tandem illi plurimum indignati sunt, & nisi asseverassemus nunquam expertos tali virtute eam plantam pollere, haud dubie male nos multassent, Attamen nostra excusatio fuit ab illis facilitus accepta, cum eodem incommodo nos affectos conspicerent.  Mirum sane quod in tantillo radice tam ingentem efficaciam nostro malo experti sumus.

By which observation of his, it seems manifest, that their being all cover’d with sweat who gather’d and cut this root of the black Chameleon Thistle, was the great reason why they suffer’d that inconvenience, for it seems the like circumstance had not been before that noted, nor do I find any mention of such a property belonging to this Vegetable in any of the Herbals I have at present by me.