‘The hearths and altars for the vital fire’

Abstract

Chapter 15, ‘The hearths and altars for the vital fire: medical chemistry and disease’ is based on a close reading of De fermentatione, De febribus, De urinis (1659), De scorbuto (1667), and De sanguinis accensione (1670) in explaining Willis’s concept of how living bodies function. His explanation that the nutritive products of digestion are distributed as chyle, interact with an unknown property of air leading to fermentation, with circulation of the heated blood to body parts where it is further altered, recirculation for refreshment in the lungs, and excretion of residues in several body fluids, is described. An account is given of Willis’s focus on the action of five principles (sulphur, spirit, salt, water, and earth), which heat the blood when inflamed. His description of disorders characterized by fever is described. The chapter ends with a summary of Willis’s treatise on the study of urine in detecting healthy and impaired fermentation. {149 words}