it selfe vvhatsoever it perceiveth that is too grosse and earthy in the bloud and by little veins sends it again into the entrals and by that means disburdens it selfe of that dreggy humour and last of all the gall attracteth those parts of the bloud that are too sharp and fiery vvhose little bag hangs at the liver and by strings sends them again mixt into the entrals whence the bitternesse and ill sent of dung XXI The vessels of membrification are 1 veins 2 every particular member 3 pores For the veins proceeding from the liver spread themselves over all the parts of the body like boughs and sending forth little branches every way end in strings that are most tenacious from which every member apart sucketh and by a slow agglutination assimilates it to it selfe so that the bloud flowing into the flesh becomes flesh that in the bones turns into bone in a gristle to a gristle in the brain to brains just after the same manner as the juice of a tree is changed into wood bark pith leaves fruits by meer assimilation The excrements of this third most subtle concoction are subtle also namely sweat and vapour which alwayes breaths out through the pores If any more grosse humour remains especially after the first and second concoction not well made it breeds scabs or ulcers or the dropsie XXII For the furthering of nourishment there is a spur added that is appetite or hunger and thirst which are nothing but a vellication of the fibres of the stomack arising from the sharp sucking of the Chylus For the members being destitute of the juice wherewith they are watered solicite the veins of bloud and the veins by the motion of continuity sollicite the liver the liver the Mesenterie that the entrals the entrals the stomack which if it have nothing to afford contracts and wrinkles it selfe and the strings of it are sucked dry from whence proceeds first a certain titillation and that we call appetite simply and afterward pain and this we call hunger and if solid meat be taken but dry because coction or vaporation cannot be made by reason of drinesse there is a desire that moisture should be poured on and this vve call thirst It appears then why motion provokes appetite and why the idle have but little appetite c. XXIII The whole body is nourished at once together by the motion of libration To vvit after the same manner as the root in a plant doth equally nourish both it selfe and the stock and all the boughes Therefore no member nourisheth it selfe alone but others vvith it selfe and so all preserved Otherwise if any member rob the rest of their nourishment or again refuseth it there follows a distemperature of the vvhole body and by and by corruption at length death XXIV A living creature being 〈◊〉 nourished is not onely vegetuted but also as long as his members are soft and extensive augmented the superficies of the members yielding by little and little and extending it selfe but as soon as the members are hardened after youth the living creature ceaseth to grow yet goes forward in solidity and strength so long as the three concoctions are rightly made But when the vessels of the concoctions begin to dry up also the living creatures begins to wither away and life grows feeble till it fail and be extinguished Of the vitall faculty XXV Life in a living creature is such a mixture of the spirits with the bloud and members that they are all warme have sense and move themselves Therefore the life of living creatures consists in heat sense and motion and it is plain for if any creature hath neither motion nor sense nor heat it lives not XXVI Therefore every living creature is full of heat sometimes stronger and sometimes weaker For every living creature is nourished How it appears out of that which went before the nourishment is not made but by concoction but reason teacheth that concoction is not made but by heat and fire It comes therefore to be explained whence a living creature hath heat and fire and by what means it is kindled kept alive and extinguished which the two following Aphorismes shall teach XXVII The heart is the forge of heat in a living creature burning with a perpetuall fire and begetting a little flame called the spirit of life which it communicates also to the whole body Hence the heart is said commonly to be the first that lives the last that dies XXVIII The vitall spirit in the heart hath for its matter bloud for bellowes the lungs for channels by which it communicates it selfe to the whole body the arteries Our hearth fire hath need of three things 1 matter or fuell and that fat 2 of blowing or fanning whereby the force of it is stirred up 3 free transpiration whereby it may diffuse it selfe the same three the maker of all things hath ordeined to be in every living creature For the heart seated a little above the liver drinketh in a most pure portion of bloud by a branch of the veins which being that it is spirituous and oily conceives a most soft flame and left this should be extinguished there lies near to the heart the lungs which like bellowes dilating and contracting it selfe blowes upon and fans that fire of the heart perpetually to prevent suffocation Now being that that inflammation of the heart is not without fume or vapour though very thin the said lungs by the same continuall inspiration exhaleth those vapours through the throat and drawing in cooler air instead thereof doth so temperate the flame of the heat whence the necessity of breathing appears and why a living creature is presently suffocated if respiration be denied it And that flame or attenuated and most hot bloud is called the spirit of life which diffusing it self through the arteries that accompany the veins every way cherisheth the heat both of the bloud that is in the veins and all the members throughout the whole body Now because it were dangerous to have this vitall spirit destroyed the arteries are hid below the veins only in two or three places they stand forth a little that so the beating of that spirit as well as of the heart it selfe when the hand is laid upon the breast may be noted and thence the state of the heart may be known Of the sensitive faculty XXIX Sense in a living creature is the perception of those things that are done within and without the living creature XXX That perception is done by virtue of a living spirit which being that it is most subtle in a living creature is called the Animall spirit XXXI That perceptive virtue consists in the tendernesse of the animall spirit for because it is presently affected with whatsoever thing it be wherewith it is touched For all sensation is by passion as shall appear hereafter XXXII The seat and shop of the animall spirits is the brain For in the brain there is not only greatest store of that spirit residing but
also the whole animall spirit is there progenerated XXXIII The animall spirits are begotten in the brain that is in bloud and vitall spirit 2 purified with the fanning of respiration 3 communicated to the whole body by Nerves The excrements of the brain are cast forth by the nostrils eares and eyes that is by flegme and â—ears For the strings of the veins and arteries running forth into the brains instill bloud and vitall spirit into them And the bloud that turns into the substance of the brains by assimilation but the vitall spirit being condensed by the coldnesse of the brain is turned into the Animall spirit which the air drawn in by inspiration and getting into the brain through the hollownesse of the nostrils and of the palate doth so purifie with fanning every moment that though it be something cold yet it is most moveable and runs through the nerves with inexplicable celerity Now the Nerves are branches or channels descending from the brain through the body For the marrow of the back bone is extended from the brain all along the back of every living creature and from thence divers little branches run forth conveying the animall spirit the architect of sense and motion to all the members in the whole body XXXIV To know the nature of the senses three things are pertinent 1 the things requisite 2 the manner 3 the effect XXXV The things requisite are 1 an object 2 an organ 3 a medium to conjoyn them Or Sensile Sensorium and the Copula XXXVI Objects are sensible qualities inhering in bodies Colour Sound Savour Tangor For nothing is seen touched c. of it selfe but by accidents wherewith it is clothed And if we would be accurate Philosophers N. W. of the three principles of things only light or fire is preceptible For matter and spirit are of themselves insensible the light then tempered with darknesse makes the matter visible Motion which is from light makes a sound but heat which is from motion stirs up and temperates the rest of the qualities odours savours tangors XXXVII The organs of the senses are parts of the body in which the animall spirit receives the objects that present themselves namely the eye the eare the nostrils the tongue and all that is nervie Nothing in all nature acts without organs therefore the animall spirit cannot do it neither XXXVIII The medium of conjoyning them is that which brings the object into the organ in sight the light in hearing the air moved with breaking in smels the air vapouring in taste the water melting in touch the quality it selfe inhering in the matter XXXIX The manner of sensation is the contact of the Organ with the object passion and action There is but one sense to speak generally and that 's the Touch. For nothing can be perceived but what toucheth us either at hand or at a distance There is no sense at all of things absent XL Therefore in every sensation the Animall spirit suffers by the thing sensible That there is no sensation but by passion is too evident For we do not perceive heat or cold unlesse we be hot or cold nor sweet and bitter unlesse we become sweet or bitter nor colour unlesse we be coloured therewith Our spirit I say residing in the organs is touched and affected Therefore those things which are like us are not perceived as heat like our heat doth not affect us But we must observe that the Organs that they may perceive any qualities of the objects want qualities of themselves as the apple of the eye colour the tongue savour c. XLI Yet in every sensation the animall spirit doth reach upon the thing sensible namely in receiving speculating laying up its species For the Animall spirit resident in the brain what ever sensorie it perceives to be affected conveys it selfe thither in a moment to know what it is and having perceived it returns forth with and carries back the image of that thing with it to the center of its work-house and there contemplates it what it is and of what sort and afterward layes it up for future uses hence the Ancients made three inward senses 1 The common sense or attention 2 The Phantasie or imagination 3 The memory or recordation But these are not really distinct but onely three distinct internall operations of the same spirit Now that those inward senses are in brutes it appears 1 Because if they do not give heed many things may and do usually slip by their ears eyes and nostrils 2 Because they are endued with the faculty of imagining or judging For doth not a dog barking at a stranger distinguish betwixt those whom he knowes and strangers yea sometimes a dog or a horse c. starts also out of his sleep which cannot be but by reason of some dream And what is a dream but an imagination 3 Because they remember also for a dog that hath been once beaten with a cudgell fears the like at the sight of every staffe or gesture c. And therefore it is certain that every living creature even flies and worms do imagine But of the inward senses more at large and more distinctly in the Chapter following XLII The effect of sensation is pleasure or grief Pleasure if the sense be affected gently and easily with a thing agreeable thereto with titillation griefe if with a thing that is contrary to it or suddenly with hurt to the Organ XLIII And that the Animall spirit alwayes occupied in the actions of sense may somtimes rest and be refresbed sleep was given to a living creature which is a gathering together of the animall spirits to the center of the brain and a stopping of the Organs in the mean time with the vapours ascending out of the ventricle Hence it appears 1 Why sleep most usually comes upon a man after meat or else after wearinesse when the members being chafed do exhale vapours 2 Why carefull thoughts disturb sleep that is because that when the spirit is stirred to and fro it cannot be gathered together and sit still 3 What it is to watch and how it is done namely when the spirit being strengthened in it selfe scatters the little cloud of vapours already attenuated and betakes it selfe to its Organs 4 Why too much watching is hurtfull because the sprits are too much wearied weakened consumed c. Thus much of the Senses in general somthing is to be said also of every one in particular XLIV The touch hath for its instrument the nervous skin as also all the nervous and membr anaceous parts of the body Therefore haires nailes bones do not feel c. though you cut or burn them because they have no nerves running through them Yet they feel in that part where they adjoyn to the flesh because they have a nervie substance for their gluten Hence the pain under the nailes and membranes of the bones is most acute Now being that the skin of the body is most glutinous and altogether nervie
those bitter and salt waters of the sea namely because they come by distillation to the spring head For they say that the sea water being distilled that is resolved first into vapours then into drops in an Alembick looseth its saltnesse by the same reason then the deep under ground evaporating salt waters sendeth them fresh out of fountains neverthelesse And what need words For clouds gathered of the vapours of the sea send down fresh showers Sâ— how excellently the truth of things agree with it selfe still LIV Medicinall waters are made of the various tinctures of the metals and juices of the earth from which they receive the virtue 〈◊〉 healing and savour For example hot waters or baths aâ— made of bitumen burning within Therefore they exhale sulphur manifestly bâ—â— sharpish waters relish of iron coper vitrioâ—allom c. of which earthly concretes it wilâ— be now time to speak Of earthly concretes which are called Minerals LV Minerals are earthly concretes begotten of subterrane vapours as clods concret juicesî metals and stones These are called minerals from the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if you shonld say from the earth They call them also Fossiles because they are digged that all these are begotten of subterrane vapours and subterrane fire appears by the example of our body wherein bloud choler flegme melanlancholy urine spittle fat flesh veins nerves membranes gristles bone c. yea the stone and gravell are made of the vapours of food concocted and digested as shal be seen hereafter Now as these parts of ours are formed within the body by the heat included so minerals are generated in the bowels of the earth not elsewhere For the earth with its most deep passages and veins winding every way where infinite vapours are generated and perpetually distilled in a thousand fashions is that great work-house of God wherein for the space of so many ages such things are wrought as neither art can imitate nor wit well find out LVI Clods are digged earths infected only with fatnesse or some colour and apt to be soaked as 1 Clay 2 Marle 3 Chalk 4 Red earth 5 Paintings or painters colours as lake vermilion oker azure or blew verdigrease 6 Fullers earth in Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 7 Medicinall earth as sealed earth Lemnian Armenian Samian c. These colours seem to be nothing else but the soot of the subterrane fumes variously distilled and those earths nothing else but a various mixture of liquors distilled also variously and brought to such or such a quality LVII Concrete juices are fossiles indued with a savour or some sharp virtue apt to be dissolved or kindled as sulphur niter salt allome vitriol arsenick which painters call orpiment antimonie or stibium such like N. Those juices seem to be nothing else but the cream of subterrane liquors variously distilled LVIII Metals are watery fossiles apt to be melted cast and hammered as gold silver brasse or copper iron tin lead quick-silver N. 1. That they are progenerated of fire this is enough to testifie that they are oft times taken hot out of the veines so that the touch will not endure them For in winter when all herbs are white with frost those which grow over the veins admit of no frost because of the hot exhalation within hindering concretion so also trees by the blewnesse of their leaves shew the veines of metals 2 Now that metals are made of vapours this is an argument that they are wont also to be procreated in the very clouds For examples are not unknown even in our age of bodies of brasse or iron of no small weight falling from heaven 3 That metals are made of watery vapours their liquabilitie shews now they are coagulated by virtue of salt Therefore the drosse of iron is salt and bitter 4 Quicksilver alone is alwayes liquid never consistent as a perpetuall witnesse of the watery nature of metals Other metals swim upon it because it hath the most compacted substance of all gold only excepted which therefore it receives only into it selfe 5 Whether metals differ in their species or only in degree of purity and hardnesse and in heat we leave now in suspense LIX Stones are earthly fossiles hardly compacted apt only to be broken in pieces That stones are earth coagulated with water and fire bricks and pots teach us for here art imitates nature Yet the severall formes of stones shew that they are not earth simply concrete but a masse concrete of divers most grosse earthly vapours with a various temperature of humours LX Stones are either vulgar or precious LXI A vulgar stone is earth most hardly compacted the principall kinds of which are seven The gravell stone the milstone the pumice-stone the flint to which I refer the Smiris wherewith glasse is cut and iron polished the whetstone and the touch stone or Lapis lydius the marble and the loadstone N. Every kind have their differences again 2 A great stone is called saxum or a rock a little one gravell and sand 3 Most mountains are stony and yield metals because the subterrane fire on the third day of the creation swelling the earth here made it self many channels and passages breathing through which it doth variously exhale melt mix and boile the matter which is not done so copiously under plains LXII Pretious stones are are called gems because they are the gums of stones sweating in the bowels of the earth Hence comes their clearnesse and brightnesse that is to say from their most thinâ— and accurate straining even more then in the gums of trees for wood hath looseâ— pores then stones LXIII All gems are transparent and pellucid but some onely transparant as these three the Diamond the Chrystall the Beryllâ— Others coloured with all and thoseâ— according to the diversity of their colours of sveâ—â— sorts 1 Bright and burning the Carbuncle the Chalcedon the Chrysolite 2 Yellow the Jacinth and Topaze 3 Green the Emerald and the Turquois 4 Red or purple the Rubie and the Granate but the Carnelous and the Onyx are more pale 5 Skie-coloured the Saphir and the Amethyst 6 Black the Morion 7 Changeable as the Jasper the Agat the Chrysoprase N. 1. That Chrystall is never found unlesse it be Hexagonall which is the miracle of nature And that it is growes in arched cels under ground dry and closed where the wind enters not for some years hath been experienced at Kings Itradeck in Bohemia Anno 1618. For elegant chrystals were found hanging from the stones of the arches like Isicles of an exact Hexagonall forme but in the silver mines of Catteberge there are found far more Of other gems we have nothing to say in particular N. 2. Stones that are wont to grow in some living creatures are usually reckoned amongst precious stones as the pearl in sea shell fishes the Bezoar the Chelidonius the Alectorius the Bufonites c. also Corall and Amber But these two are to be
motion bodies were to be framed which might performe a free motion and these are called Animalia or Animantia living creatures from the soul which powerfully evidences life in them 2 Therefore mobility is in all living creatures but after divers manners For some move only by opening and shutting not stirring out of their place as oisters and cockles Others creep by little and little as snailes earth-wormes and other wormes some have a long body which creeps with winding it selfe about as snakes some have feet given them as lizards beasts birds but these last have wings also to flie through the air Which fishes do imitate in the water performing their motion by swimming III The moving principle in a living creature is the vitall soul which is nothing else but the spirit of life thick and strong mightily filling and powerfully governing the bodies which it inhabiteth IV Now because a voluntary and a light motion cannot be performed but in a subtle matter living creatures have bodies given them far more tender then plants but far more compound For they consist of spirit flesh blood membranes veins nerves gristles and lastly bones as it were props and pillars lest the frame should fall Understand this in perfect living creatures For more imperfect living creatures in which we contemplate onely the rudiments of nature have neither bones nor flesh nor bloud nor veins but onely a white humour covered with a skin or crust as it were with a sheath which the spirit included doth stir or move as it appears in worms snails oisters c. But to perfect living creatures 1 That they might have a more subtle spirit bloud and brains were given 2 And that these might not be dissipated they had vessels and channels given them veines arteries nerves 3 That a living creature might be erected bones were given him 4 And left the bones as also the veins arteries nerves should easily be hurt all was covered either with fat or flesh 5 And that the members might move tendons and muscles were interwoven throughout 6 And least in moving the bone the bones should wear one against another cause pain in the living creature a gristle which is a softer substance being as it were halfe flesh was put between the joints 7 And lastly that the frame might hang firmly together in its composure it was compassed with a hide or skin as also all the members with their membranes Therefore a living creature consists of more similar parts then a plant but of far more dissimular parts or members of which it followes V The bodies of living creatures were furnished with many members as with diverse organs for diverse actions The head indeed is the principall member of a living creature wherein the whole spirit hath its residence and shews all its force but because a living creature was intended for divers actions it had need of besides 1 Vivifying organs supplying the living creature with heat life and motion that is brains and heart 2 Moving organs that is feet wings feathers c. 3 And left one thing should run against another or fall into precipices it was necessary to furnish them with sight also with a quick hearing and touch Lastly because the earth was not to supply nutriment immediately to a living creature as to a plant fixed in the earth but it was left them to seek there was need of smelling and tasting that they might know what was convenient to their nature Hence eyes ears nostrils c. 4 Now because a living creature was not to be fixed in the ground with a root because of his free motion more perfect organs of nutrition were requisite for that cause there was given him a mouth teeth a stomack a liver a heart veins c. 5 And because they were not to spring out of the earth as plants by reason of the same motion to and fro Divers Sexes were given them to multiply themselves and distinct genitall members 6 And because living creatures were to be alwayes conversant with others of their own or of a divers kind they had need of some mutuall token even in the dark they had a tongue given them to form sounds 7 Lastly because it could not be but that a living creature should sometimes meet with contraries they had as it were shields and armes given them Hares bristles scales shels feathers likewise horns clawes teeth hoofs c. VI Therefore the whole treatise concerning a living creature is finished in the explication I Of the nutritive faculty II Of the vitall III Of the sensitive IV Of the loco-motive V Of the enuntiative VI Of the defensive VII And lastly of the generative For he that knoweth these seven knowes the whole mysterie of nature in living creatnres For whatsoever is in the body of a living creature serveth those faculties if it do not serve them it is in vain and maketh a monster It is to be observed also that the first three faculties are governed by so many spirits The nutritive faculty by the naturall spirit the vitall by the spirit of life the sensitive by the animall spirit the other four by those three spirits joyntly Of the nutritive Faculty VII Every living creature standeth in need of daily food to repair that which perisheth of the substance every day For life consists in heat And heat being that it is fire wants fuell which is moist spirituous and fat matter Heat in a living creature being destitute of this sets upon the solid parts and feeds on them And hence it is that a living creature as well as a plant without nourishment pines away and dies But if it be sparingly fed it therefore falls away because the heat feeds upon the very substance of the flesh VIII That nourishment is convenient for a living creature which supplies it with a spirit like its own spirit For seeing that life is from the spirit the matter of it selfe doth not nourish life but a spirituous matter And indeed the spirit of the nourishment must needs be like the spirit of the living creature Therefore we are not nourished with the elements as plants are for as much as they have only a naturall not a vitall spirit but we are nourished with plants or with the flesh of other â—iving creatures because those afford a vitall spirit Nay further there is a particular proportion of spirits by reason of which a â—orse chuseth oates a swine barley a wolfe flesh c. Nay an hog hath an appetite to mans excrements also because it yet findeth parts convenient for it IX Nourishment turneth into the substance â—f that which is nourished That appears 1 because he that feeds on dry meats is dry of complexion he that feeds on moist is flegmatick c. 2 because for the most part a man reteins the qualities of those living creatures on whose flesh he feeds as he that feeds on beefe is strong he that feeds on venison is nimble c. If any one have the brains
that either without pain as when it causeth yexing or belching in the ventricle panting in the heart giddinesse in the head when being prohibited to go any further it is carried in a round lazinesse and stretching in the whole body or else with pain as when it causeth aches in the bowels straightning the spirits that lie between in the Fibres and shurp or else blunt prickings in the muscles according as it is more grosse or subtile It is cured 1 by strong exercise that the vapour being attenuated may go out at the pores opened 2 by expurgation of the humours by which they are generated VIII Distillation is the condensation of crude vapours into rheume which is the cause of many evils For crude vapours gettting up to the head when as by reason of the abundance and grossenesse of them they cannot be expurgated by the ordinary passage they become rheume flowing severall wayes and rausing diverse diseases For 1 If they run abundantly and 〈◊〉 at the nose they cause the Murre or Pose 2 If the distillation fall into the jawes it causes the Catarrhe 3 If into the kernels of the jawes the Quinsie 4 If into the lungs difficulty of breathing and the Asthma 5 If the distillation be salt and sharp ulcerating the lungs it causes the Cough 6 Which if it be done oft and the lungs be filled with apostemes it causes the consumption For when the ulcerous lungs cannot with dexterity enough perform their office of cooling the heart the vitall spirit is generated more hot then it should be which doth not cherish but feed upon the flesh and bloud and at length burns out the very workhouse it self of the bloud which is the liver whence for want of bloud which is as it were the food followes the consumption of the whole body 7 If the distillation flow in abundance and grosse down the marrow of the back it causeth the Palsie by hindring the animall spirit that it cannot be distributed by the nerves springing from the back bone 8 If it fill the nerves of the muscles only it becomes the Spasma or Convulsions that is when the nerve is contracted like as a chord being wet and dried again is wont to be contracted and become shorter 9 If it flow subtle and penetrating the nerves it is at length gathered together in the extremities of the members and there raises sharp pains which in the feet are called the Gout in the hands Chiragra or the Hand-gout in any of the joynts of the bones Erthritica the running gout in the hip it is called Ischias or the Hip-gout commonly the Sciatica 10 Lastly if those kind of runnings stay in the head they procure divers diseases as when they are subtle the Head-ach 11 Too raw and flegmatick the Lethargie 12 Salt and cholerick the Phrensie 13 Grosse and mixt with a melancholy humour the Epilepsie or Falling-sickness when as the spirits diffused through the whole body making haste to relieve the spirits befieged in the brain make most vehement stirs and fight till they either overcome and repell the disease or else faint and are extinguished 14 But if the grosse phlegmatick humours have occupied all the vessels of the brain at once it becomes the apoplexie that is a privation of all sense and motion whence also the vitall fire in the heart is soon after extinguished All these diseases are both prevented and also if they go not too farre cured 1 by exercise 2 by rectification of the brain by good smels 3 by a thin hot and sulphury air 4 by thin light meat and drink But the peculiar cure of every disease is committo the physiciaus IX Obstruction is a stopping of the bowels by thickned flegme whence it comes to passe that they cannot execute their office For example when the entrals are stopt that they cannot void it is the Volvuls or wringing of the guts when the liver is stopt the dropsie For the Chylus being not turned into bloud flowes through the veins and members and is not turned into members When the bladder of gall is stopt the Yellow Jaundise when the Spleen the Black Jaundise For in the first the choler in the other the melancholy when it cannot be voided diffuseth it selfe through the bloud But when the urine pipes or the 〈◊〉 or the bladder are stopped that is by reason of the breeding of Tartar which they call the Stone which stopping the passages by its sharpnesse pains the Veins and Nerves The cure is 1 by purgations 2 by medicines attenuating or breaking cutting and driving out the grosse humours which Physicians know X Putrefaction is the corruption of some humour in the body namely either of flegme or of choler or of melancholy which putrifying either in or out of their vessels produce feavers or ulcers The cure is 1 Expurgation of the place affected 2 A good diet 3 Motion XI Inflamation is a burning of the vitall spirit N. vitall or of the bloud caused by too much motion either of the body by wearying it or of the mind by musing and anger or else by putrefaction or else by obstruction For it is known out of the physicks that motion doth heat even unto firing and that by obstruction doth 〈◊〉 an Antiperistasis exasperate the heat included even in these things that are watry and pâ—trid so that at length it breaks out violently hay laid up wet when it cannot get transpiration doth shew When the bloud is kindled within it becomes a feaver when under the skin S. Anthonies fire The generall cure is the opening of a vein and cooling But of feavers being that it is a most common disease and of divers kinds something more is to be said XII The feaver so called from its fervency or heat is of three kinds 1 The Ephemera 2 The Putrid 3 The Hectick The first burns the spirits the second the humours the third the solid parts The first like a raging hot wind scorching all it meets with the second like boiling water poured into a vessell which it heats with it selfe The third like unto a hot vessell heating the water poured into it with it selfe For the Hectick occupies the bones and membranes and eats and consumes them with an unnaturall heat by degrees almost insensibly till at length it causeth death It is very like the Consumption But the putrid or rotten feaver occupies the bloud and humours by which the whole body grows hot The Ephemera is a more subtle flame feeding upon the spirits only and therefore it scarce endures one or two days til the peccant cause be consumed by the spirit it self Hence either health or death usually follows within two or three dayes and therefore it is called the Ephemera or diary Feaver also the Maligne feaver Of which sort also is the pestilentiall infection for it comes after the same manner Putrid feavers are most usuall but with very much difference for when the humours putrifie within their vessels or workhouses especially
of a cat oâ— a wolfe given him to eat he partakes the phantasies of those living creatures c. X Nutriment must needs be assimilated that it may turn into the substance of a living creature For a thing is neither applied well no cohereth commodiously with that which is unlike to it much lesse that one should turn it into the other Therefore flesh 〈◊〉 bone is not immediately made of meat 〈◊〉 drink but by many gradations as it shaâ— appear XI Assimulation is made by the transmitation of the nourishment taken so oft iteratâ— till it come to the liknesse of the substance noâ—â—rished It is well known out of the Metaphysickâ— that all action tends to this that the Paâ—â—â—ent may become like to the Agent whicâ— is every where evident in naturall thingâ— but especially in the nourishment of bodies For whatsoever is taken in of whatsoever colour or quality is wrought soâ—â— length that it becomes like to that which is nourished and is applyed to its substance which should be diligently marked in that which follows XII The principall transmutation of the nourishment is by progeneration of the four vitall humours bloud flegme yellow choler and black For the nourishment received being that it is tempered together as all the bodies of the world are of the four elements is resolved in the body of a living creature into four again the fattest part of it is turned into bloud a part into spittle or flegme a part into yellow choler or choler a part into black choler or melancholy melancholy by its grossenesse represents the earth flegme water bloud air choler fire But they differ in colour and in savour for melancholy is black and bitter flegme white and without taste bloud red and sweet choler yellow and bitter Now it is to be noted that amongst these four bloud is most copiously generated because it conteins the very substance of the nourishment to which yellow choler addes onely a more easie penetrating through all but black choler fixeth it again and applieth it to the members Lastly flegme tempers the acrimony of them both lest they should corrode with penetrating and fixing and gently agglutinates the bloud to the members And hence it is that Physicians also with the vulgar speak oft of the blood as if it were the only food of life XIII The progeneration of vitall humours is done by concoction For concoction doth alter the matter by the force of heat XIV Concoction in a living creature is done after the same manner as distillation in Alembicks namely by heating of the matter and resolution of it into vapours and mixing the said vapours together and by a new coagulation of them again For every living body is a very alembick full of perpetuall heat and vapours For life is heat and heat cannot but boile the matter that is put in and by attenuation turn it into vapours XV Now in every concoction there is a separation of the profitable parts from the unprofitable the first are digested and assimilated the other are voided and streined forth So in Alembicks the more subtle and profitable parts that is the more fat and spirituous being resolved into vapour are gathered again into drops and into a thick substance but the more grosse and impure parts called the dregs and excrements sink down and are afterwards cast out XVI Every concoction leaves behind it unprofitable dregs which are called excrements and drosse Thus we see it come to passe in the decoction of metals Now we must note that plants make little or no excrement because they are nourished with a simple and uniform juice which goes all of it into their nature or if any thing remain it sweats forth in gum But living creatures because they consist of very dissimular parts have need of a compound nutriment that is solid and soft dry and moist hot and cold c. that so the more solid parts may have nutriment also whence by assimulation evey part draws that which will profit its selfe the rest must of necessity be streined out Another reason is because plants are susteined with a little spirit and that which doth not evaporate but living creatures are full of spirit for otherwise so grosse a frame could not be susteined and weilded and that is continually attenuated and spent Therefore they have need of more spirit then matter for their nutriment and when that is extracted out of the spirituous parts they void forth the rest XVII The principall concoction in a living creature is threefold Chylification Sanguification and Membrification The first is made in the stomack the second in the liver and the last in all the members XVIII Every one of these concoctions hath three sorts of vessels 1 of ingestion 2 of digestion 3 of egestion XIX The vessels of Chylification were 1 the mouth and the throat 2 the stomack or ventricle 3 the guts and the arse-hole For the food being received at the mouth is chewed with the teeth or jawes and passed through the throat It is boiled in the stomack as it were in a close Alembick for some houres And from thence by evaporation it passeth into the entrals for the mouth of the ventricle towards the throat is shut up and becometh Chylus that is a certain ferment like pap or white broth For it takes a white colour from the stomack by assimilation The more subtle parts of this Chyle are attracted to the liver as a matter fit for bloud but the excrements of this first concoction are thick dregs which are driven out by the guts and the back part not by the simple motion of Cession but by the motion of Antipathy for the naturall spirits placed in the fibres of the guts sucking forth that which is profitable but turning themselves away from that which is unprofitable and hatefull to them contract the nerves of the guts and thrust forward those burdens towards the passage XX The vessels of Sanguification are 1 the Mesenterie 2 the Liver 3 the Vreteres the spleen and the gall For the Mesenterie encompassing the entrals vvith its strings which they call the Mesaraicall veins sucks the best part of the Chylus out of the entrals and carries them to the liver by the Vena Porta Now the liver concocts and separates that liquour again for it assimilates the sweeter parts in colour to it selfe and turns them to bloud swelling with naturall spirit with which neverthelesse there is flegme and yellow choler and black mixt The excrement of this second concoction is urine namely a wheaie and salt humour which floweth from the liver by the ureteres to the bladder whence by the channell of the genitall member it is sent forth But because the 2 d. concoction ought to be far more subtile then the first it is not sufficient that the bloud is purged from its serosity But both kinds of choler and flegme must of necessity also be purged from redundancy the spleen therefore by sympathie attracts to