X. Both Aristotelians and Galenists affirm that the child at first lives the life of a plant but from hence the Aristotelian concluds that the heart is the first members begot in us because it is answerable to the root in plants which is first generated but the Galenist infers that the liver must be the first member because the child living the life of a plant hath no other faculty but nutritive which is the faculty of the plant the seat whereof is in the liver But here I side with Aristotle because the liver is no more the seat of nutriment then the heart And because the heart is as the root but it is by the root the plant lives and is nourished And if the liver be the seat of nutriment because of the blood thereof I should rather say the heart is this seat because we finde blood there out of the veins as in a cistern but in the liver there is no other Blood then what is in the veins Neither can the liver be the originall of the nutritive power because there is the sense of indigence or want for so the stomack should rather be this originall because there is the most exquisit sense of want XI The liver cannot be generated without heat and spirits But the seat of heat and spirits is the heart therefore this must be first If any will say that the heat of the matrix is sufficient I deny it for that heat is onely conservative not generative it hardeneth and consolidateth the outward parts but doth not produce the inward XII Aristotle will have the right ventricle of the Heart the nobler Galen the left but I subscribe to Aristotle because I finde that the right Ventricle liveth longer then the left 2. That the Pulse in the right side of him that is dying is more valid then in the left side 3. The right ventricle leans upon the lungs as upon a Cushion or supporter Nature shewing as it were a greater care of this then of the other 4. The right parts are nimbler and stronger then the left because they are hotter 5. Though the spirits receive their completion in the left ventricle yet they are prepared and fitted in the right and therefore there needs not so great a heat in the left ventricle as the Galenists speak of for a moderate heat will suffice to perfect that which is already begun 6. The left ventricle is but a servant to the right in finishing that work which was begun by the right and distributing it into the body being finished XIII The Aristotelians make the vital and nutritive faculty the same the Galenists make them distinct but the Peripateticks reason prevails with me which is this That where there are distinct faculties there must be distinct operations because the faculty is for the operation But there are no distinct operations of the vital faculty from that of the nutritve for accretion diminution and generation are actions of the vital or nutritive Sense and motion are actions of the animal faculties 2. Life is the presence of the soul in the body this presence consists in action this action is nutrition for when this action fails life fails because the chief and first action of the living creature is to preserve it self which cannot be without nutrition seeing nutrition is not without tact in the sensitive creature but when tact faileth animality must needs fail XIV The Aristotelians make heat the efficient cause of the hearts publick motion Others will have the soul Others the vegetive faculty but Aristotle is in the right for the soul works by its faculties and these by heat so that heat is the immediate cause of this motion and the souls instrument yet not such an instrument as worketh nothing but by the force of the principal agent for the heat worketh by its own natural force though it be directed and regulated by the soul the heat then of the heart rarifying the blood into vapors which require more room dilate the heart but by expelling some of these vapors into the arteries and receiving also some cold air by the lungs the heart is contracted this is called Systole the other Diastole And as heat is the efficient cause so it is also the end of this motion For therefore doth the heat move the heart that it by this motion might impart heat to the body But I understand not here by heat a bare quality but that which is called Calidum innatum If it be objected that there is in Plants a vegetive faculty and heat but not this pulsifick motion nor yet in effects I answer the reason is because there are not instruments fit for such a motion nor is there any use of it 2. This motion of the heart is local not totally but partially for not the whole heart but the parts thereof change their place or seat and so in this regard augmentation and diminution are local motions XV. That the heart is not only first formed but is also first informed and first exerciseth the action of life is plain by this reason drawn from the Peripateticks the heart was made at first an Organical member but that could not be if it was not first informed by the soul which is the first act of the organical body and if it was made organicall it had been made to no end and nature had been idle to have made an useless member which could no more deserve the name of heart then a blinde eye the name of eye But the soul that I speak of here is the vegetive or sensitive resulting out of the matter which is first prepared in the heart for reception of it and not the reasonable soul which with all its perfections is created and infused by God into the whole body after it is articulated and made capable of such a noble Guest XVI The Aristotelians are more rational in placing but one principall member in the body then they who place either three or four For it is nedless to make so many principals when as one will suffice Nature aimeth always at unity for all the five senses are united in one common sense all the members in one body all the different specificall parts of the world into one common nature so all the members into one heart which hath in it the natures of all or their temperaments Nor could the soul being but one work upon so many different temperaments if they were not united into one temperament Besides we should be forced to run in infinitum if we should hold more principles then one for avoiding of which inconvenience we must stay in one chief principle If it be objected that the nerves veins and arteries are of different temperaments therefore must proceed from different principles I Answer that from one principle in which divers temperaments are united may issue different temperatures 2. I denie that the temperature of the veins nerves and arteries are different otherwise then Secundum magis
flowes from it when it is hurt 2. By the fat which is about it this would consume if the eye were fiery 3. By the watrish humour which is in the cavities of the face in the new formed Embryo 4. By the reception and conservation of the species for the fire can neither receive nor confer any image or species as the water doth VI. Though there be two eyes there is but one sight or one object seen 1. Because the optick nerves are united in one before they reach to the eyes 2. Because there is but one fantasie and one common sens which judgeth of the external object VII The eye in respect of its grosse and solid parts is a patient in seeing by receiving the species or shape not the substance into the chrystalline humor but in respect of the spirits in the eye it is an agent by perception of the species and partly a patient for there is some impression in the spirits or else by them the species could not be conveyed into the common sense and phantasie The spirits then are agents not outwardly upon the object but inwardly upon the spirits received from the object and when they are employed about som other thing in the phantasie the eye seeth not its object though the species be impressed in the chrystalline because there is required for sight not only the impression in the chrystalline but also a perception and apprehension in the spirits in which action properly and formally vision consisteth And though the spirits be no part of the eye as it is a solid substance yet they are part as the eye is the instrument of sight VIII There are in the eye when it seeth two lights the one from without whereof there is greatest quantity in the white of the eye the other from within which is most prevalent in the chrystalline disposing it to receive the species as the outward light disposeth the air The outward light if it bee not proportionable to the inward makes this unfit for vision not by extinguishing or destroying it for one light cannot destroy another but by too much extending or destroying the mean and proportion of the inward light There is besides these two a third light in the eies of owls cats such creatures as live by preying in the dark which light is not immanent in the eye but transient into the air that the medium being illuminate the species of the object might be raised IX The eye hath not such colours as are made by the mixture of the four elements or prime qualities but such only as are made by the mixture of the light and the diaphanous or perspicuous body The first sort of colours are in the dark in respect of their existence or quality the second sort hath no existence at all in the dark And though the light give not the first act or beeing to colours yet it giveth the second act in making them visible and actuating them to work upon the eye by sending their species thither CAP. III. 1. A twofold Heat in living things 2. The Primitive Heat where and how tempered 3. Our spirits are not celestial several Reasons 4. Our natural heat what it is no substance in six Reasons 5. Many excellencies of mans body 6. The Head why the noblest part and highest as Galen thinks THAT there is in living creatures besides the elementary heat another called celestial is manifest because the fire or elementary heat neither in part nor in whole is the cause of generation 2. Because the elementary heat remains after the celestial is gone as may be seen in spices which retain or rather increase their elementary heat as they grow drier being separate from the Tree and yet they want that celestial heat by which they did live and had vegetation for now being dead nutrition attraction vegetation growth and other functions of life cease which were the effects of the celestial heat 3. Because in Mandrakes and other cold herbs there is this celestial heat by which they live and yet no elementary heat at all for they are cold both actually and vertually II. As in living creatures there be divers dissimular parts so there be temperaments and diversity of heat all which are united in the heart the fountain of heat which it communicates to all parts by the bloud and spirits this primitive heat is in perfect creatures compacted within the heart in Trees and Plants within the root in Insects it is diffus'd through all the body without any union in one part more then another which is the cause that when snakes and worms are cut in pieces every piece moves which is not so in the hand or foot of perfect animals if they be cut off so wee see in some twigs of Trees that being set in the ground grow and take root which shews That the original heat and substance of the root is in every part of the Tree and that the primitive heat of the creature might bee brought to a temper refrigeration is required which in terrestrial animals is performed by the air in fishes by the water in herbs by the earth moistned by which they are nourished and refreshed III. The animal and vital spirits in our bodies are not a celestial substance as some have thought For 1. The Heavens are not subject to generation and corruption as these are 2. The Heavens are a quintessence but these are elementary or aerial 3. The Heavens cannot be diminished which they must needs be if our spirits be heavenly bodies for they are as they say pieces of that great body which at last will be quite spent except they be repaired either by a new addition or by the reuniting of the same spirits to it again 4. Seeing the Heavens have but one motion which is circular how can any part therof come down into our bodies except it hath also a strait motion 5. Gravity and levity are elementary qualities whereof the Heaven is not capable and therefore cannot descend 6. Our spirits must either be united to the bodies of the Heavens and so continuated bodies with them or else separated and divided both which are absurdities 7. These spirits did either move them selves downward or else they had some other mover the first we cannot grant except wee make the celestial bodies living creatures for only such move themselves neither can we grant the second except we know what this mover should be it cannot be natural for the motion is violent nor can the mover be violent for the work of generation is natural it remains then that these spirits are aerial in their nature and substance but the instruments of the soul in regard of their function in which regard only we consider them as they are in our bodies for many actions proceed from them as they are the souls instruments which cannot be effected by the air as air IV. The natural or primogenial heat in living creatures is not a substance made up of seed
the heart and not the heart from them the heart must needs be the first that liveth 8. The heart imparts the vitall heat to the other parts it must therefore have existence before the other parts for operation follows the existence 9. The formative power of the seed doth not operate but by the vital heat of the heart therefore this must be first before that can operate 10. The matter cannot be disposed to receive the form of the members nor can the parts be distinguished one from another without the heat and motion of the heart 11. Nature in her operations aims at an end but where there is an end there is order and where there is order there is priority and something that was first II. There are some who hold that the heart is not first generated but that all the members are at the same time begot and formed together But this cannot be so for in the Embryo we see that all the parts are not equally articulated and figured but some sooner some later 2. We see this in art which imitates Nature for the artificer carves and figures one part before another 3. We see the teeth are begot long after the other parts for nature produceth the members as there is 〈◊〉 of them the infant needs no teeth whilst it feeds on milk 4. If all the parts are at the same time framed and articulated then all the body is at the same time perfected but this is not Natures work which proceeds by degrees to perfection having imperfect beginnings III. The Galenists object that Nature had to no purpose made the heart before the rest of the body seeing there is no use of the heart till the body be formed I answer there is a two-fold use namely of Animation and of preparation the heart could not animate the body before it was but it could prepare the matter by its vital heat and motion to receive the impression and influence of the formative power working by the heart on the matter the heart then is usefull not only to the body after it is generated but also whilst it is in Fieri and in generation the heart is the foundation of the whole corporeal Fabrick we cannot say the foundation is needless because it is laid before the house is built for though it doth not support the superstructure before it be yet it is ready and sitted to support it when it shal be Neither will it follow that because the house before it is built needs no foundation therefore the foundation must not be first laid There is need of priority and order the building needs it when it shall be and the builder needs it before it be though the body not yet formed needs not the heart yet the formative power needs it Secondly they object that the formative power is common to all the parts alike having no more relation to one then to another and therefore works upon them all alike and produceth them together I answer God is the common and universal cause of all his creatures yet he did not create them all in one day the universality of the cause excludes not the order of casuality nor is the common relation it hath to the effects any reason of producing them all at one time Again though the formative power hath an equal relation to all parts as they are parts yet it hath a nearer relation to the heart as being its organ by which it works on the other parts IV. If it be asked whether the heart be perfect or imperfect before the other members be articulated I answer It is perfect if it be compared with any other member but imperfect if compared with the whole compositum Again it is imperfect to what it shal be when it shall be fitted with all necessary Organs for animation 2. If again it be asked how the heart can live without nutriment seeing the liver by blood feeds it I answer though the liver be not yet formed yet the heart is nourished by some adjacent matter as the chick is by the yeolk of the egg and this nourishment sufficeth the heart till blood a perfect nutriment be prepared Again the nutritive faculty doth not flow from the liver as the vitall from he heart but it is inherent and implanted into every part as well in the heart as in the liver whereas the vitall is implanted only in the heart and from thence flowing into every member Lastly we may say that the heart needs no food till there be a dependition or wasting of its substance V. The unity of the vegetive soul cannot be preserved in so many different temperaments or the body for there are as many as there are parts if it were not for the common temperament of the heart in which all the others are united receiving from thence heat and spirits It was needfull then that the heart should be first formed as being the common originall of all the other parts all which may be said to have but one common temperament and one soul because there is but one heart VI. Though the Galenists affirm that the heart hath but two ventricles yet the Aristotelians in affirming three in bigger creatures seem to speak more reason For if in bigger animals there is greater store of spirits and a greater elaboration of them then in the lesser it stands with reason that their hearts being bigger should have also more receptacles for containing the vitall blood and spirits then the lesse VII It stands also with reason that the substance of the heart is nervous that it might be the more firm and solid 2. Because the heart is the original of motion which is performed by the nerves 3. Because the substance of the veins and arteries whereof the heart is the originall is nervous VIII The parts which the Galenists call Spermaticall are not made of the Sperma or Seed more then any other parts are but of the dryer and more solid parts of the blood as the Sanguineall are of the thinner parts thereof 2 The males seed is onely active the woman hath no other seed then the menstruous blood which is meerly passive in both which seeds there is a power or potentiality of generation the active in the male the passive in the female both which are from the heart In this also I subscribe to Aristotle IX I cannot assent to the Galenists in affirming the liver rather then the heart to be the first that lives in us and therefore the original of other parts because it is bigger and nearer to the matrix then the heart for the Aristotelians say well that the original of things consisteth not in bulk but in vertue the seeds of trees and plants are least in bulk and yet are the originals of great bodies 2. The vicinity to the matrix is not the cause of priority for the matrix is the place of but not an agent in generation the agent is only the formative faculty in the seed
creature depends on it therefore Nature preserves it longest from diseases and as soon as the heart is ill-affected the body droopeth 6. Sensitive creatures can live some without Lungs some without a Spleen some without Kidneys some without a Gall some without a Bladder but none can live without the Heart or something answering to the Heart as bloudless animals 7. The Heart is admirable in its motions if either we consider the manner or perpetuity thereof or that it is of it self not depending upon our will or pleasure II. The actions of our members depend originally from the temperament of the â—imular parts but in respect of perfection and consummation from the conformity and right situation of the Organ so the temperament of the Chrystalline humor is the efficient cause of sight but the situation and conformity of the parts of the eye is the perfecting or consummating cause For if the Chrystalline or other parts of the eye were otherwise situated we should either not see â—o well or not at all III. That there are no spermatical parts as Nerves Bones Veins c. but sanguineal only is plain by these reasons â— To make more material causes then one is to multiply entities needlesly whereas the menstruous bloud is sufficient matter for all the parts which because it is the matter of our bodies it had an inclination disposition or potentiality to all parts and because the work to be produced was Heterogenious and the form heterogenious therefore the matter had an heterogenious potentiality as well to those parts which the Physitians call spermatical as to the sanguineal 2. I would know which be the spermatical parts of an Egge not the white for of that they grant the whole Chick is formed not the yelk for that is they say the food of the Chick and yet we see the Chick hath bones and other spermatical parts as they call them If then Bones and Nerves are no seminall parts in a Chick neither are they in a Childe the reason being alike in both 3. The spermatical parts are nourished by the blood then doubtless they were generated of blood for iisdem nutrimur ex quibus constamus and there can be no nourishment without transition and transinutation of the blood into the parts nourished Now to say that the blood which nourisheth these parts becomes seed or spermatical is to employ the testicles in continual working of seed for nutrition of the spermatical parts how can so much seed be generated and by what vessels shall they be carried to the upper parts of the body 4. The heart and liver are sanguineal parts then doubtless the nerves arteries and veins which are from them bee sanguineal IV. The Bones Nerves Arteries Veins and Grissles being cut or broke are not so easily re-united as the fleshy parts not because they are spermatical but because they are harder and drier then the fleshy for in children while they are soft and moist they are easily reunited and the Veins which are softer then the Arteries are sooner healed for the hardness thickness and perpetual motion of the Arteries hinder its coalition 2. Likewise where there is defect of natural heat as in old men these are hardly knit together For heat is the chief Artificer or Agent in the body 3. And where there is defect of matter or radicall moisture the cure is difficult as in old men 4. If there be not a sufficient time given the cure will never be effected Thus the heart being wounded is never united because life flieth before the cure can be performed V. The spermatical parts by most are counted colder then the sanguineal which cannot be for we find by experience that there is more heat in the stomach then in the liver for it is a greater heat that turns bones or such hard meats into a liquid substance then this which turns our liquid substance into another to wit the Chylus into blood If it be objected that those creatures whose stomachs are incompassed with flesh concoct best I answer it is true not because the flesh is hotter then the stomach but because it keeps in the heat thus though our cloaths keep in our heat no man will say that they are hotter then we for this cause our bones and nerves are wrapped about with flesh and yet these are hotter then the flesh in their opinion that call them spermatical for they conâ—efs that the seed is hotter then the bloud therefore that which is generated of seed must needs be hotter then that which is begot of blood If it be objected that the seed is hot in respect of its spirits but cold in respect of its matter I answer that if the matter of the seed were not hot it could not so much abound in spirits for by the heat the spirits are begot and not heat by the spirits therefore when the heat fails the spirits fail Hence it is that the animal spirits in the nerves move not the hand when it is benummed with cold but let the hand be warmed and then the spirits have life again 2. Those parts which they call spermatical are more sensible of the cold and sooner offended by it then the sanguineal parts and therefore must needs be hotter for one contrary is most sensible of another thus are we more sensible of a little cold in Summer when we are hot then of a great deal in Winter Southern people whose bloods are hot are sooner offended with cold then the Northern whose constitution is colder 3. The heat of the bladder which they call a spermatical part is so great that it can bake the slimy substance of the urine into a hard stone which argue s its heat above the sanguineal parts Some Physitians answer that this is done not because of the heat but by reason of the long stay and sliminess of the matter but they must know that the slimy matter is meerly passive and that it is the heat which is the agent and artificer of the stone as for the long stay that is but a help for time is no agent 4. That the bones are hot is manifest for they have much fat in them as we see in bones when they are burned and a greater heat was required to bring them to that hardness then the ordinary heat of the sanguineal parts VI. The brain was not made for the skul but the skul for the brain therefore it is like they were formed both together and that the skul was proportioned to the bigness of the brain and not this to the bigness of the skull 2. The brain and skull were placed uppermost for the eyes which were to be neer the brain because of the spirits and optick nervs which by reason of their softness were fittest to be implanted in the eye otherwise they had been too hard for the nerve is harder as it is farther from the brain and no place was so fit for the eyes which were to watch over the body as the
answer so can the body move after the head is off as wee see in Poultry This motion then excludes neither the head nor heart from being originals for it is caused by the remainder of the spirits which are left in the nerves and arteries As for the Apoplexy I take it to bee an affection not of the brains alone but of the nerves also VI. The common opinion is that the nerves are the instruments of sense and motion and yet we see sense and motion where there are no nerves for in every part of the body there are not nerves and yet every part feels and moves this sense and motion must needs proceed from the spirits in the blood which is in every part of the flesh and skin where there are no veins If it be replyed that upon the obstruction or binding of the nerve sense and motion fail I answer the like failing there is of sense and motion when the arteries called Carotides are bound up for as the animal spirits will not work without the vital neither will the spirits in the blood and flesh work if they fail which are in the nâ—rves such is the union amongst them that this failing all action ceaseth VII Seeing the sensitive and motive Spirits differ not specifically there is no need why wee should assign different nerves to sense and motion for the same neve serves to both it is true that there be some hard some soft nerves because some have their original from the soft brain and some from the harder pith of the baek bone and that the soft nerve is fittest fâ—r sense which consisteth in reception for soft things are aptest to receive impressions as the hard nerve is fittest for motion which consisteth in action therefore the same nerve conveyeth sense to all parts capable of sense and motion to the parts apt to be moved Hence the nerves inserted in the muscles move them but the nerves inserted into the mouth of the stomach moves it not bâ—cause the stomach hath no muscles yet it communicates to it an exquisite sense CHAP. VII 1. How the spirits pass through the nerves their swift and various motions even in sleep motion and sense not still together 2. Sense and motion in phrensies epilepsies leprosies caros 3. Muscles how when and where the causes of voluntary motion 4. How the fibres and tendons move the muscles 5. The muscles of the tongue abdomen diaphragma ribs bladder 6. The organs of tact its medium I. ALTHOUGH the nerves are not sensibly pervious as the Veines and Arteries are which were purposely made hollow for the passage of the venal and arterial blood yet the animall spirits being subtil and sublimated bodies can freely passe through the soft and spungy substance thereof as wel as sweat through the pores of the skin 2. Though in the Palsie the animal spirits cannot passe through the thick clammy and glassy flegme which by reson of its coldnesse deads the spirits which without the natural heat have no vigour or motion yet they can freely passe through the nerves by help of the native heat 3. Though the spirits by reason of their specifical form or aeriâ—l nature should only move upward yet as they are instruments of the soul they move which way the soul will have them move 4. Though no grosse body can move in an instant yet their spirits can being moved by the soul immediatly and being such sublimate and subtil bodies that they come neer to the nature of spirits 5. Though in sleep the senses are tied up yet there is ofteâ—times motion as we see in those that walk and talk in their sleep and yet feel not because the fore ventricles of the brain are affected in which is the common sense so is not the pith in the back from which the most of the motory nerves have their original 6. In one and the same nerve oft-times motion faileth and the sense remaineth because more spirits are required and greater force for motion being an action then for sense which consisteth in reception or passion 7. Sense doth sometimes fail the motion remaining sound when the nervous branches which are inserted into the skin are hurt or ill-affected at the same time the nerves inserted into the muscles may be sound II. In phrensies the motion is strong but the sense weak because the braines being inflamed the nerves are heated and dried therefore fitter for motion but the lesse apt for sense which requireth a soft nerve 2. In the falling sickness sense faileth but not motion because the fore ventricles of the brain being ill-affected the common sense is intercepted but the pith of the back bone from whence the most nerves are derived is not hurt therefore motion not hindred 3. In leprosies the sense is dulled but not the motion because the nerves and skin are dried by which sense is hindred but not motion 4. In a deep sleep or Caros there is respiration without sense because the fore-part of the brain is hurt but not the nerves and muscles of the breast 5. Oftentimes the eye loseth its sight but not its motion because the optick nerve by which we see is not the same with the nerves by which the eye is moved III. All spontaneous motions are caused by the spirits in the brains nerves and muscles in the creatures that have them but where these organs are not the animal spirits move the body without them as we see in worms 2. All muscles are not the organs of voluntary motion for the three little muscles within the ears move them not to hear when we please for many times wee hear what wee would not 3. In those parts where there be nerves without muscles there is no voluntary motion because the nerves convey only the spirits which the muscles receive and by them immediately move the body 4. Respiration in sleep is a natural not a voluntary motion caused notwithstanding by the muscles of the breast 5. Sleep-walkers are moved by the muscles which motion then cannot be voluntary for the walker hath not knowledge of his walking or of the end thereof 6. Beasts are moved by their muscles which motion in them cannot be called voluntary but spontaneous onely IV. All muscles have not tendones but such as are appointed for a strong and continual motion hence the muscles of the tongue bladder and anus have no tendones 2. The muscle is moved not onely by the nerves and tendones but also by the fibres within its own fleshy substance and indeed the fibrous flesh is the chief instrument of spontaneous motion and where they are wanting there is no such motion Hence it is that beasts can move their skins which men cannot because beasts skins adhere close to a fibrous substance whereas that of mans is nervous onely the skin of the face in us is movable because musculous and fibrous V. Though the substance of the tongue be not a musculous or fibrous flesh yet it receiveth its divers
reparation by generation of spirits 5. It differs from the animal motive faculty because it is necessary and perpetual the animal is voluntary and sometimes ceaseth VII The vital spirits are ingendred in the left ventricle of the heart partly of aire prepared in the lungs and conveyed to the heart by the Arteria venosa and partly of the purest blood powred out of the mouth of Vena cava into the right ventricle where it is prepared and attenuated a part whereof is conveyed for nourishing of the lungs by the Vena arteriosa the other part sweats through the partition that divides the heart and in the left ventricle is mingled with the aire and turned into spirits by its excessive heat VIII The Diastole and Systole that is the dilatation and contraction of the heart and arteries is all one and at the same time for the heart and arteries are so united that they make but one body so there is but one pulsifick vertue in both and the end of their motion is the same to wit the vegitation and life of the body the suddenness of the motion in the remotest arteries from the heart and the strong beating of the pulse and heart in Feavers and anger do shew the identity of motion in both 2. The arteries are moved by the spirits of the heart conveyed by their tunicles rather then their cavity for upon the pressing of the tunicles the pulse ceaseth but not when the cavity is stuffed or stopped They are not then moved by their heat and blood but by the heart as may be seen by binding the arteries whose motion beneath the binding saileth the commerce between it and the heart being intercepted 3. The heart is first dilated by receiving the aire then it is contracted by expelling the fuliginous vapours 4. The heart strikes the breast in its dilatation not in its contraction or Systole because the left ventricle which is the originall of the Arteries is distended in the Diastole and so toucheth the breast about the left pap IX The motion of the heart is not voluntary because we cannot command it nor sensitive because it is not performed by the nerves and muscles nor simple because there are two motions nor compounded because they are contrary and of contrary motions can be no compositions nor is it violent because it is not repugnant to its nature nor is it caused by an externall agent as the trembling of the heart is by distempers vapours or humours but the hearts motion is natural yet not caused by the elementary form for so there should be more agents in our bodies then one and its motion should be â—itâ—eâ— upward or downward but it is natural in respect of the soul which is the chief nature that works in animal bodies and in respect of the fibers heat and spirits of the heart which are natural organs and in respect of the natural use or end of this motion for the heart dilates it self to receive aire and blood it contracts it self to be emptied of its fumes and to communicate its spirits to the nerves which ends are naturall X. When Aristotle saith that the motion of the heart is caused by heat and cold he contradicts not the Physitians in affirming the soul or its vital faculty to be the cause of this motion for heat and cold are subordinate instruments to the soul which by the heat of the blood and spirits dilates the heart and by the attraction of the cold air contracteth it as we see water by the heat of the fire swel and dilate it self but upon the breathing of cold air to contract and fall down again CHAP. XVI 1. The Lungs how moved the air is not the spirits nutriment 2. Respiration not absolutely necessary 3. The Lungs hot and moist 4. Respiration a mixed motion as that of the bladder and intestins 5. No portion of our drink passeth into the Lungs ARistotle differs from the Galenists about the motion of the Lungs he will have them moved by the heart whose heat listeth up the Lungs upon which motion the air enters for avoiding vacuity which being entred the Lungs fall The Galenists will have their motion to depend on the motion of the breast but both are in the right For the motion of the Lungs is partly voluntary and so it depends on the moving of the muscles of the breast and partly natural and so it is moved by the heart 2. When Aristotle denies that the air is the nutriment of the spirits which the Galenists affirm his meaning is that the air doth not properly nourish the spirits as meat doth our bodies for there is no assimilation or conversion of the substance of the air into our spirits which are properly nourished by blood but only a commixtion of the air and spirits for refrigeration And indeed if the spirits were properly fed by the air there would not come out the same air that went in For the spirits would not part from their food the air then nourisheth the spirits as it doth the fire by refrigeration and preserving it from suffocation II. Respiration is not so necessary for preservation of life as the motion of the heart for histerical women can live without that but they cannot live without this Neither is the motion of the arteries of absolute necessity for the member is not deprived of life though the arterie be stopped or tied and deprived of its motion 2. The motion of respiration is more noble then the motion of the heart because this is meerly natural that is also animal and voluntary yet as the motion of the Lungs is subservient to the motion of the heart that is more noble then this for the end excels the means III. The Lungs are hot and moist hot that they mighâ— temper and alter the cold air therefore the substance is fleshy light and spongy and fed with hot and spirituous blood from the right ventricle of the heart It is also moist as appears by its soft and loose substance It is also moist accidentally by receiving the flegme and rhumes that fall from the brain 2. The Lungs refrigerate the heart not because their substance is cold but because the air is cold which they attract IV. Respiration is a motion partly voluntary as it is performed by the muscles nerves and diaphragma which are the organs of voluntary motion and as it is in our power to breath or not to breath to hasten or retard it And it is partly natural as it is performed by the Lungs which are organs of natural motion as it is not subject to fatigation as it is performed in our sleep when we have no command over our selves and the sensitive faculties then cease as it is not performed by election or apprehension of the object as voluntary motions are And lastly as in Apoplexies when the senses fail the brains and nerves are hurt yet respiration continues it is then a mixt action as the expulsive actions of the
matrix the bad temperature of the seed the perverse inclination of the woman the commixtion of seeds of divers kinds sudden fear bad diet unwholsome air and untimely Venus But we must not think that these Centaurs were men or parts of men for they had not a reasonable soul and therefore not capable of the resurrection Neither must we think that these had two natures and essential forms in one body to wit of a Man and a Horse for as every entity hath but one specifical essence so it hath but one form which giveth that essence so that one and the same thing cannot be under divers species in the predicament of substance And as there cannot be two distinct forms so neither can there be a mixtion of them in the Centaur For the form or essence admits neither intention nor admission Ex duobus entibus per se non fit unum ens per se yet I deny that there were ever a generation of people called Centaurs as they are described by the Poets for by this fiction they understood voluptuous and lascivious men who by Hercules that is men of courage wisdom and strength were subdued and brought to civility as we have shewed elsewhere in Myst. Poetico which fiction was occasioned by the first sight of men on Horseback in Thessaly II. That some men have become speechlesse at the sight of a Wolf is no fable if either we consider the antipathy that is between a Man and a Wolf or the malignity of that vapour which proceeds from the Wolf or the violence of a sudden fear which presently bringeth obmutescency as the Prince of Poets sheweth AEn 2. Obstupui steteruntque comae vox faucibus haesit Camerarius the Father Prob 1. Dec. 7. medit Histor. part 2. Cent. 40. sheweth in his Problems which is confirmed by Philip his son that one who had caught a Wolf in a Gin by comming too neer him was so poisoned by his breath that his hands and face which were naked did swell to a monstrous bigness so that in a long time he could scarce be cured And what wonder is it that the sight of a Wolf should make a man speechlesse when the shadow of the Hyena will make a Dog dumb when a Horse if he smell but the foot-step or the guts of a Wolf will kick and fling as if he were mad and a Mare will cast her Colt as they witness who write the Natures and Histories of beasts therefore the Proverb Lupus in fabula vvas not grounded upon a fable Dr. Brown then did unadvisedly reckon this among his vulgar errors 3 Book c. 8. for I believe he would find this no error if he were suddenly surprised by a Wolf having no means to escape or save himself and yet I do not hold that every one who is seen by a Wolf is dumb becaus some are of undaunted spirits and some have the advantage of the Wolf and some are not apt to be infected by his breath yet it will not follow that it is a vulgar error if I hold a man grows silent at the sight of a Wolf or that he hath an infectious breath For it is no vulgar error to hold the plague an infectious disease and yet all are not infected by it III. That there have been Pigmies in the world that is people of a cubit or two high so called from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a cubit and Troglodits from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an hole for they dwelt in holes as Aristotle sheweth and Spithamei from their small stature scarce exceeding 2 foot and a quarter I say that there have been such I make no question when I consider the multitude of eminent Authours who have vvrit of them and that no reason vvas ever yet alledged to deny them Nay it stands vvith reason there should be such that Gods wisdome might be seen in all sorts of magnitudes For if there have been Giants why not also Pigmies Nature being as propense to the least as to the greatest magnitude Besides the reasonable soulâ— is not extended in the body of a Giant nor contracted in the body of a Pigmiâ— but can inform the one and the other without augmentation and diminution Nicephorus lib. hist. Eccles. c. 37. affirms that in the time of Theodosius was seen in Egypt a Pigmie so small of body that he resembled a Partridg he exercised all the functions of a man and could sing tunably Pliny lib. 7. c. 16. speaks of Coâ—pas whom Iulia the Neece of Augustus kept still by her he was not much above two foot long He also affirms that under Augustus there lived Pusio and Secundilla whose bodies were preserved as miraculous in a monument within the Salustian Garden they were not much above half a foot Cardâ—n relates de subtil that there was in Italy a Pigmie of a cubit long kept in a Parrets Cage Many more of these Pigmies I could alledg but these shall suffice to shew there have been such And that there have been a Nation of Pigmies Aristotle Pliny Pomponius Mela Aulus Gellus Solinus Albertus magnus and many others will witness It is true that Strabo Scaliger and some others have denied them and therefore Dr. Brown reckons the opinion concerning Pigmies among his Vulgar Errors But if the incredulity of two or three Writers be enough to make a Vulgar Errâ—r what a multitude of Errors will there be For what truth is there in the world which by some or other hath not been doubted or denied But they say that the Assertors of this opinion do not agree about the place of the Pigmies abode some placing them in India some in Ethiopia some in Scythia some in Greenland I answer Circumstantial differences cannot overthrow the substance of a truth Much difference there is about Ophir where it stood some placing it in Sumatra or Aurea Chersinesus some in Africa some in Peru. So men cannot agree about Tharsis some making it a Town in Cilicia others Carthage in Africa some Tartasius in Spain shall we hence infer that there were never any such places I am of opinion that because they differ in the place of the Pigmies and not in the thing it self that there were Pigmies in all the forementioned places Buchanan speaking of the Isles of Scotland amongst the rest sets down the Isle of Pigmies in which there is a Church where are yet digged up divers small skuls and bones answering to the report of the Pigmies little bodies so that the inhabitants and neighbours make no question but that Pigmies of old dwelt there Reâ— Scot. l. 1. Now Aristotle is so confident of his Pigmies that he plainly tels us it is no fiction but a manifest truth Hist. animal l. 8. c. 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And it is like that these Pigmies were all one with the Nabae or Nubae a people that dwelt about the Springs of Nilus and so they are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 both these people are said
perfect in this respect an infant and a man may be called different entities and they have their different operations yet they have the same soule If then we conclude diversities of things from diversities of operations we must inferre that every animall is different from it self because it produceth different operations and that Peter hath not the same soule when he doth different things How many different entities must there be in the Sunne who produceth so many different effects Neither do I allow of the Doctors Assertion in saying The chick is begot of the egges corruption for indeed it is begot of the egges perfection For then is the egge perfected when the chick is procreated If by corruption he understand the abolition of the form of the egge I assent to him that according to the old Peripatetick Maxime The corruption of one thing is the generation of another But if by corruption he understand putrifaction as he seems to doe I say that then a chick is not nor cannot be procreated of a putrified egge which is fitter to breed worms then a Chick IV. Because the soule is a pure and celestiall substance and our bodies are grosse and earthy on which so sublimate an entity cannot operate without a medium that may in some sort participate of both natures therefore God in his wisdom hath interposed the animall and vital spirits as the immediate instruments of the soul to work upon the body But Dr. Harvy Exercit. 70 will have the blood to be this immediat instrument of the soul because it is every where present and runs to and fro with great celerity Answ. Neither can the blood be the immediat instrument of the soul because the spirits being of a purer essence come nearer to the nature of the soule and therefore must be more immediat neither is there any ubiquitary presence or celerity of motion in the blood but by the reason of the spirits which drive it to and fro Besides all animals have not blood some being exanguious yet they have spirits by which they are moved Again he saith That the blood works above the power of the elements being the part first begot and the innate heat doth fabricate the other parts of the body Answ. The blood works not at all much lesse above the elementary powers but by vertue of the spirits which the Doctor immediatly after seems to acknowledg when he faith It is made the immediate instrument of life by the gift of the formative faculty and vegetive soule Now this formative faculty consisteth immediatly in the spirits and so doth the vegitive soule which are even in those parts where there is no blood at all to wit in the spermaticall parts according to the doctrine of Hippocrates and Galen To say then that the blood is the immediat instrument of life by means of the plastick faculty is in effect to say It is not the immediat because there is one more immediat to vvit the plastick faculty in the spirits Neither is the blood the part first begot as the Doctor saith if we will believe the Galenists but the spermatick parts are first begot if we speak of the formation of the child neither can the blood fabricate any part at all being a dull thing in it selfe but the spirits or the plastick faculty in them doe fabricate the blood is onely the materiall cause of the flesh and sanguineall parts as the Galenists affirm And whereas the Doctor saith That the blood is a spirit because Virgil saith Una cademque viâ sanguisque animusque sequuntur He speaks very improperly for blood and a spirit are specifically different and if the Poet had meant that blood and a spirit were the same thing he had used a meer tautologie which is far from his elegancie and therefore his words intimate the contrary that they are different things because he saith Sanguisque animusque though then they had but one passage or vent yet they are not one thing And whereas he saith That the blood is celestiall because the soule lodgeth in it he may say the whole body is celestiall being the house and tabernacle of the soule which lodgeth in each part thereof even where there is no blood as in the bones grisles c. But indeed the spirits are rather to be called celestiall because in them the soul immediatly resides and by them in the blood and other parts The blood then is not celestial at all but by the spirits nor these in respect of their originall but because of theiâ— celestial qualities and operations Again when he distinguisheth the principall agent from the instrumentall in this That the one can never work above its own strength whereas the other doth I say this distinction is needlesse for no agent can work above its own strength much lesse the instrumentall which worketh not at all but as it is moved by the principall agent The instrument then doth not worke above its own strength but the prime agent worketh by it above the strength of the instrument Besides when hee saith That the blood deserves the name of Spirit because it abounds more with radicall moisture then other parts by which it feeds all other parts I answer That the seed deserves rather to be called a Spirit for though in the blood there is more moisture extensively yet in the seed there is more radicall moistureâ— And if that which feeds us immediatly be a spirit then the blood is no spirit for it is not that but a roscid and benigne juice extracted from thence which immediatly nourisheth us Lastly when he saith That the soule with the blood performes all things in us If he understand here as he seemes to doe in all his discourse collaterall efficient causes I deny his saying for the soule by the spirits is the sole efficient cause of all that is acted within us the blood is onely a materiall cause having no more efficiency in it then Bricks and Mortar have towards the building of an house Doctor Harvy de Conciptione will have the Female conceive and be prolificall without any sensible corporeall Agent as Iron touched with the Loadstone draweth other Iron to it Again hee saith That the substance of the womb being ready for conception is very like the constitution of the brain Why then should not their function be alike And what the phantasme or appetite is in the brain the very same or its analogy is excited after copulation in the womb â—for the functions of both are called conceptions And shortly after As when we have conceived a form or Idaea in the brain wee produce the like in our workmanship even so the Idea or species of the Father being existant in the womb by the help of the formative faculty produceth the lik brood Then after divers amplifications to the same purpose he concludes That it is no absurdity if the female that is made pregnant by conceiving the generall Idaea without matter doth generate Answ. In
Arcana Microcosmi OR The hid Secrets of MAN's Body discovered In an Anatomical Duel between Aristotle and Galen concerning the Parts thereof As also By a Discovery of the strange and marveilous Diseases Symptomes Accidents of MAN's BODY WITH A Refutation of Doctor Brown's VULGAR ERRORS The Lord BACON's NATURAL HISTORY And Doctor Harvy's Book DE GENERATIONE COMENIVS and Others Whereto is annexed a Letter from Doctor Pr. to the Author and his Answer thereto touching Doctor Harvy's Book de Genetatione By A. R. London Printed by Tho. Newcomb and are to bee sold by Iohn Clark entring into Mercers-Chappel at the lower end of Cheapside 1652. TO THE WORSHIPFUL and my much honored FRIEND EDWARD WATSON ESQUIRE Son and Heir to the Right Honorable the Lord ROCKINGHAME SIR WHen I consider your proficiency in the Schoole of Wisdome your daily exercises in the Temple of Vertue for which you may in time deserve a Shrine in the Temple of Honor your hearty affection to true and solid Philosophy not that which the Apostle calls Vain and deceiving and lastly your sincere love to me I thought good not in way of retaliation but of a thankfull recognition of your favours to present this piece to you wherein you may perceive how many strange wonders and secrets are couched up within the Microcosme of our body and with what admirable artifice the base and infirm materials of this our earthly Tabernacle are united and composed Likewise you may see how much the Dictates and Opinions of the ancient Champions of Learning are sleighted and misconstrued by some modern Innovators whereas we are but children in understanding and ought to be directed by those Fathers of Knowledge we are but Dwarfs and Pigmies compared to those Giants of Wisdom on whose shoulders we stand yet we cannot see so far as they without them I deny not but we may and ought to strive for further knowledge which we shall hardly reach without their supportation I disswade no man from inventing new but I â—ould not have him therefore to forget the old nor to lose the substance whilst he catches the shadow Women and Children love new wine because pleasant to the palat but wise men chuse the old because wholsomer for the stomach As I abridge no man of his liberty to invent new wayes so I hope they will not debar me of the like liberty to keep the old paths so long as I find â—hem more easie and compendious for attaining the end of my journey Sir I will not trouble you with any larger Discourse on this subject I wish an accumulation of all vertueâ— and happinesse on you and withall the continuation of your love to him who professeth himself Your humble servant Alexander Ross. The Contents of each Chapter in these foure Books CHAP. I. 1. The Hearts dignity scituation priority necessity and use 2. The Heart first formed not all the parts together 3. The Galenists Objections answered 4. How the heart is perfect before the other members and how nourished 5. All the temperaments united in the Heart 6. Three â—entricles in som Hearts 7. The Heart nervous 8. No parts more spermatical then others 9. The Liver not the first that is formed 10. The Heart the seat of Bloud and nourishment 11. The heat of the Matrix not generative 12. The right Ventricle nobler then the left 13. The vital and nutritive faculties are the same 14. Heat the cause of the Hearts motion 15. The Heart was first formed and informed 16. There is but one principal member in the body not many CHAP. II. Blood begot in the Heart not in the Liver why 2. The Heart is the original of the Veins and Nerves of nutrition and sense and motion 3. Why the nerves and veins do not beat and the cause of Hydropsies 4. All blood is not elaborated in the heart how it is the original of the veins 5. The arterial blood must waste or else it would infinitely increase 6. Why the blood thickneth not in â—the heart till death 7. The heart is the seat of passion 8. Why the heart a fitter seat for the soul then the liver 9. A double unity to wit of the matter and of the form CHAP. III. 1 Why the heart the originall of sensation and how it feeleth 2 The brains being cold cannot beget sensitive spirits Why the animal spirits most active where is most heat 3. There can be no generation of the animal spirits out of the vitall without the corruption of the vitall which is impossible The animal spirits are not begot of the aire 4. Neither are they concoâ—ted or generated in the ventricles of the brain nor are they wasted 5. The brain is not the originall of sense and motion although these fail upon the hurt of the brain 6. Why upon the distemper of the heart there is no failing of sense and motion 7. The nerves are not from the brain though they be like but indeed they are not like the brain 8. Why the nerve of the heart loseth sense and motion beneath the knot not above it 9. The brain is the coldest of all the parts how void of veins and blood how hot and the cause of hairs 10. The blood and spirits alter not the brains temper Why its coldness is not felâ— the pith in the back bone hor. 11. Why the brain and heart at such aâ—d stance by the spirits they work on each other 12. Why both the brain and lungs were made for refrigeration 13. The mans brain larger then the womans why man hotter then Lions 14. The testicles ignobler then the heart and brain 15. The heart not the testicles the cause of sensation and generation the testicles not chief because necessary or becausâ— they cause an alteration in the body from wheâ—ce is the distinctioâ— of sexes 16. The seed receiveth its specificall form from the heart 17. Why Eunuchs fatter weaker and colder Lib. II. CAP. I. 1. Mans Body fitted onely for mans Soul Tritons are not men 2. How Mans body is more excellent then all others 3. How the Soul is most in the Brain and Heart 4. A twofold heat in us 5. What Creatures nourish most 6. The Womans imagination cannot alter the form CAP. II. 1. The Stomach and Lungs not necessary for life 2 How the limbs are moved the spirits are bodies more required for motion then sensation the spirits are light how they are the souls instruments how the Muscles move 3. Seven properties of the brain 4. Twelve properties of the eye 5. It s substance warrish 6. Why but one sight 7. The eye how an agent and patient 8. It s two lights and its colours Light gives the second act CAP. III. 1. A twofold Heat in living things 2. The Primitive Heat where and how tempered 3. Our spirits are not celestial several Reasons 4. Our natural heat what it is no substance in six Reasons 5. Many excellencies of mans body 6. The Head why the noblest part and highest
double unity to wit of the matter and of the form The unity of the matter consists in the unity of the parts and temperaments which is to â—e found in the heart onely the unity of the form consisteth â—n the sensitive soul containing in it the vegetive and the parâ—icular forms of each part CHAP. III. â—Why the heart the original of sensation and how it feeleth 2 The brains being cold cannot beget sensative spirits Why the animal spirits most active where is most heat 3. There can be no generation of the animal spirits out of the vitall without the corruption of the vitall which is impossible The animal spirits are not begot of the aire 4. Neither are they concocted or generated in the ventricles of the brain nor are they wasted 5. The brain is not the originall of sense and motion although these fail upon the hurt of the brain 6. Why upon the distemper of the heart there is no failing of sense and motion 7. The nerves are not from the brain though they be like but indeed they are not like the brain 8. Why the nerve of the heart loseth sense and motion beneath the knot not above it 9. The brain is the coldest of all the parts how void of veins and blood how hot and the cause of hairs 10. The blood and spirits alter not the brains temper Why its coldness is not felt the pith in the back bone hot 11. Why the brain and heart at such a distance by the spirits they work on each other 12. Why both the brain and lungs were made for refrigeration 13. The mans brain larger then the womans why man hotter then Lions 14. The testicles ignobler then the heart and brain 15. The heart not the testicles the cause of sensation and generation the testicles not chief because necessary or because they cause an alteration in the body from whence is the distinction of sexes 16. The seed receiveth its specificall form from the heart 17. Why Eunuchs fatter we aker and colder THough the organs offense be in the brain yet the originall of sensation is the heart because it is the originall of the spirits the chief causes of sensation and without which the organs were no organs But the frigidity of the brain is not the cause of sensation nor of the sensitive spirits it only tempers the heat of the heart and vital spirits that they may become animal Neither is softness and hardness any thing to sensation seeing this is no material but a spiritual and perfective quality Now the heart is sensitive not by the animal spirits derived thither from the brain for these spirits in the heart would quickly lose their temper by reason the heat of the heart is a more active quality then the coldness of the brain but it feeleth by its own spirits whether we call them vital or animal or both For the spirits being turned from vital to animall receive only an alteration but not a substantial change For that only is in the aliments which is transubstantiate into our bodies II. The brain being cold and moist useth to convert superfluous vapours into those humours which most resembleth it self in these qualities to wit into watrish Catharrs and cold distillations therefore it is likely that the brain can transform the vital spirits into other more excellent then themselves especially seeing coldness is a quality hurtful to nature which consisteth in heat and moisture and hath no other use in our bodies but to condensat and to temper the activity of our natural heat therefore we finde the animal spirits most active and copious in those creatures that abound most in heat as in Men Lions Birds c. and in young men more then in old men III. If there be a substantial mutation of the vital spirits into the animal the generation of the one must be the corruption of the other and so the vital spirits must die that the animal may receive the essential form But how can the animal spirits subsist without the vital Or how can that be called an animal or sensitive creature whose vital spirits are dead seeing there can be no sense where there is no life nor life where the vital spirits are dead 2. The animal spirits are not generated of the aire which we draw in by breathing for there can be no generation without mixtion nor mixtion but of divers bodies Now the aire is but one simple body which cannot make a perfect mixtion without the other elements If it be objected that the air is impure and not simple I answer Though the aire be not pure yet it is not a mixed body Physically and properly but only by apposition as Wheat and Barley may be said to be mixed when they are joyned together which is no Physical mixtion wherein the elements lose their forms IV. The animal spirits cannot be generated in the â—entricles of the brain because there the excrementitious flegme is concocted Nor can they be said to receive concoction there seeing what is concocted is thickned but the animal spirits are attenuated now the cold brain is not fit to attenuate Again â—eeing there is continual use of the animal spirits they must be continually generated but if they be continually generated and never wasted where will there be room enough for them And that they are not wasted is plain because they are not consumed by nutrition as not being fit to nourish nor by sensation seeing this is a spiritual and perfective not a material or destructive act Nor lastly by transpiration for nothing is exhaled but excrements Lastly how can the brain be without feeling seeing it is full of sensitive spirits by which all other parts of the body feel V. When the brain is hurt and distempered there followes a defect in sensation and motion which is not a sufficient reason to prove that the nerves sense and motion have their original from the brain no more then that the brain should have its beginning from the stomach or other nervous parts for we know that the mouth of the stomach being hurt the brain by consent is made ill affected by reason of the sympathy and union of the nervous parts so motion is hindred upon the ill affection of the brain because of the many nerves united to the brain and back-bone the brain then is not the principal agent of sense and motion but instrumental onely in that by its frigidity it tempers the vital spirits and so makes them apter for sense and motion so upon the defect in the pen followes the faults in writing and yet not the pen but the pen-man is the chief agent in writing VI. The reason why upon the distemper of the heart sensation and motion do not cease as they do upon the distemper of the brain because though the heart be distempered yet it makes spirits which spirits being refrigerate by the brain and conveyed through the nerves cause sensation and motion which could not be if
the brain were hurt this being the immediate agent and instrument without which the heart doth not operate in sensation VII To conclude the nerves to have their originall from the brain becauseâ—of their similitude is a weak argument For 1. Many children are not like their parents from whom they have their originall but like strangers many times to whom they have no relation 2. There is no similitude between the brain and nerves for that is soft and moist these hard and dry 3. Nor is the nerve in its medullary part like the brain for this is cold the marrow is hot 4. If the nerves are from the brain because their inward parts are soft and marrowy then the bones should be derived also from the brain for they have much more marrow in them 5. If the nerves are from the brain because they have two tuniclesâ— as it hath by the same reason let the Arteries also have their beginning from thence for these also are double tunicled 6. All nerves have not this medâ—llary substance within them VIII Though the heart hath but one little nerve which being tied looseth its sense beneath the knot but above retains it though this I say be so yet from hence it cannot be proved that the brain is the originall of the nerves or of sensation but rather the heart for the upper part of the nerve is sensible because it is joyned with other nerves whereas the lower part is joyned to none 2. The spirits in the upper part are tempered by the frigidity of the brain whereas the lower part hath no refrigeration and though the faculty or power of sense is from the heart yet the act of sensation is not exercised without a temperate heat or refrigeration 3. I think this is rather a conjecture of the Galenists then an experiment for who did ever find this nerve in a living creature IX Aristotles reasons for the coldnesse of the brain are to me not improbable or easie to be answered for if the brain were hot we should never sleep seeing coldness causeth sleep 2. There are more moist humors and flegme ingendred in the brain then any where else 3. There is not blood in the brains as in other parts of the body for it is the blood that warms the body I say there are not veins incorporating themselves into the substance of the brain and terminating there as they do in the flesh and skin which is the cause that every part of the flesh or skin being pricked bleeds so doth not the brain whose substance is white and bloodless therefore though there be veins in the brain yet they are distinct from the substance of the brain and not ending in them neither is that heat which is in the brain it s own but adventitious and externall to wit of the arteries and veins as also of fumes and vapours so then the brain is the coldest of all the parts of mans body yea colder then the bones because the bones are dry the brain moist but cold with moisture is greater effectively then with siccity so the water is colder then the earth If it be objected that the brain is hot because the head is more hairy then any other part of the body and because the brain stands continually in need of ventilation by the nostrils and transpiration by the seams of the skul I answer That hairs are ingendred by the adventitious heat of the brain out of the excrementitious humors of the head and fumes which ascend thither and therefore the brain stands in need of ventilation â—ecause of the many hot fumes and vapours continually ascenâ—ing thither X. The blood and spirits which are in the brain alter not â—ts natural temperament which is cold especially seeing the â—lood is sent thither for nutrition but nourishment is to cheâ—â—sh the part nourished being converted into its substance â—nd not to alter its temperament Now the reason why we â—eel the moisture of the brain but not its frigidity is because â—here is nothing to hinder the tact from discerning its moisture â—eing in a soft substance for where the substance is hard there â—he tact is hindred from feeling the moisture though it be â—oist as when we touch ice but the tact is hindred from dicerning the frigidity of the brain because of the veins and â—rteries within it containing warm blood and spirits yet â—hough the brain be cold the pith in the back-bone which is â—oyned to the brain is hot because we finde no flegme aâ—out it as about the brain it is harder then the brain thereâ—ore more apt to receive and to retain heat it is begot of blood which is hot and it was fit that this warm pith should be joyned to the cold brain for moderating the brains frigidity XI The brain was made cold to temper and moderate the â—eat of the heart but not to diminish or destroy it and for the same cause the heart was made hot to temper but not to destroy the brains frigidity therefore nature hath placed them at a proportionable distance for had they been nearer their actions upon each other had been more violent 2. Though the organs of the sense be in the brain yet the original of senâ—ation is not there but in the heart for the brain with its organs are helps and instruments not the efficient causes of sensation 3. The mutuall action of the heart and brain upon each other is not done immediately but by the intercourse of the spirits XII Though nature doth not make two members specifically different in the same body for the same operation therefore fishes want Lungs because they have gills for refrigeration yet she hath made both the brain and lungs too in our bodies for the same end and work namely to refrigerate the heart and yet in this she is not superfluous because the heart stood in need of a double refrigeration as being subject to a double heat the one is natural for tempering of this the brain was made that so the animal spirits might be generated the other is adventitious caused by hot fumes for cleaâ—â— of these and of cooling the heart the lungs were made aâ—â— so were the arteries too As for the two eyes and two ears and other double organs in our bodies they are not specificallâ— different XIII As the male hath a hotter heart then the female 〈◊〉 he hath a larger brain for the most part that there may be the more refrigeration I say for the most part because the work of nature admit divers times exceptions so Lions though hoâ—ter then men yet have lesser brains then men but that heat iâ— the Lion is more terrestriall â— and therefore needs lesseâ— refrigeration then that which is more aerial yet it may be supposed that man abounds more in heat then Lions because he hath a strait body which is caused by the abundance of hot bloud and spirits in mans body more then in other creatures XIV That the testicles are not
of such absolute necessity as the heart even in respect of generation is plain because many creatures as plants and insects have the faculty and power of generation without testicles 2. The heart and brain in dignity far exceed the testicles because these doe not communicate to all parts the power of generation as the heart and brain doe impart life and sense 3. Creatures that have lost the testicles can live long without them but no creature can live long without the heart and brain XV. In sensitive creatures that doth originally communicate the generative faculty which imparts the sensitive because this includes that but it is the heart not the testicles which imparts sensation and consequently the heart not the testicles causeth generation If it be answered that the power of sensation is derived from the heart to the testicles and consequently of generation then we must know that this very answer confirms the Aristotelian opinion namely that the heart not the testicles is the original of the generative 2. It is a weak argument to prove the principality of the testicles from their necessity for every part of the body though never so base is necessary and yet there is but one principal member And as weak is it to argue the principality of the testicles from the change that is caused in the body upon the loss of them for so there is upon the losse of any other member and many times death it self 3. The distinction of Sexes proc eeds from the formative power but this hath not its original residence in the testicles but in the heart as being the perfectest member and chief receptacle of heat and bloud and spirits by which the formative power operates XVI The seed receives its specifical form and essence in the heart not in the testicles in which it receives indeed concoction that it might be made fitter for generation but concoction causeth only an alteration in the quality not a mutation in the substance So the fruit receiveth its maturity or ripeness immediately from the bough on which it hangeth but its generative power from the root alone so that the testicles are but the hearts instruments working by its heat and concocting the seed that it may be the fitter for generation XVII The bodies of Eunuchs are fatter weaker and colder then of other men not because the testicles do corroborate the body as the Galenists think but because the seed wanting evacuation is turned into fat and many vapours or excrements which with the seed are evacuated in other men are retained in Eunuchs which oppresse the natural heat and consequently cause debility and because of this coldnesse Eunuchs are lesse hairy for hairs are begot of hot fuliginous vapours Finis Libri Primi BOOK II. GALEN in some things maintained in some things rejected or reconciled to ARISTOTLE CAP. I. 1. Mans Body fitted onely for mans Soul Tritons are not men 2. How Mans body is more excellent then all others 3. How the Soul is most in the Brain and Heart 4. A twofold heat in us 5. What Creatures nourish most 6. The Womans imagination cannot alter the form I. AS GOD hath bestowed upon Man the most excellent Soul of all others so hath he fitted him with a Body answerable to such a Soul of which no other Body is capable and if it were yet for want of fit Organs the Soul could not exercise her functions as we see in that Fiction of Apuleius whose soul being in the body of an Asse could neither speak nor write nor doe any thing but what was proper to an Asse yet I have read of Tritons or Fishes having the face lineaments and shape of mans body One was seen in the days of Tiberius another in the time of Augustus a third under Nero Pliny AElian Theodor Gaza Trapezuntius Alexander ab Alexandro Scaliger and divers others affirm the truth of this yet these Tritons or Nereides cannot be called nor are they men though they have the outward shape for it is not the matter not outward lineaments but the form that gives essence and denomination II. Mans body is of all others the most perfect and excellent though he hath not wings like a bird to fly nor can see so far as an Eagle nor hear so quickly as a Fox nor smell so well as a Dog nor taste so well as Poultry nor hath so quick a tact as Oysters and Spiders yet his hands speech and reason doe countervail all these for celerity and reception his senses yeild to the beasts for variety and judgement they must yeild to him III. Though mans soul in respect of understanding and will be inorganical and therefore not properly resident in any particular member more then in another yet accidentally because the brain is the seat of the fantasie from which the intellect receives its objects and the heart the seat of the affections subservient to the will the brain is the seat of the intellect the heart of the will IV. There is in us a twofold heat the one celestial the other elementary that preserves us this destroys us that concocts our food and turns it into nutriment this corrupts and putrifies it and turns it into noxious humours and excrements as we see in burning Fevers It is not then every heat that chylifieth or sanguifieth or assimulateth but this celestial heat Neither is it the quantity but the quality thereof and affinity it hath with the things concocted For there is more heat in a Lion then in a Pigeon and yet the Pigeon will concoct that which the Lion cannot yet this celestial heat is helped by the elementary heat if it be temperate and by the crasis temperament or constitution if it be sound V. Nothing by way of food can cherish our natural heat and maintain our life but what had life and heat it self and the more perfect life it had the better it nourisheth as having neerer affinity with us Hence animals nourish more then vegitables because the matter of their bodies and spirits are more consonant to ours then of hearbs or fruits which if they bee contrary to us in their nature and qualities they destroy us as poisonable hearbs do Purging medicaments are of a middle nature as having some similitude with the humours of our bodies which they attract as Agary with Flegme Rubarb with Choler c. and some dissimilitude with our bodies upon which they work by weakning them especially if they have any delatory quality VI. Though the woman in conception or afterwards can by the strength of imagination impresse some note or mark upon the seed or Embryo yet she cannot alter the sex or form as she pleaseth because this is not the work of imagination but of a diviner power to wit of the external formative agent for which cause a man cannot beget any other then a man for that his seed is not capable of any other form neither doth the formative agent work otherwise theâ— as the seed
Though the stomach be delighted and satisfied with the meat it receiveth yet it is not thereby immediately and properly nourished but by the blood therefore nature hath furnished it with divers veins neither can the Chylus be fiâ— nutriment till it be turned into blood the cholerick melancholy watrish excrements be separated from it Besides how can the stomach be nourished with Chylus when the body is red only by Clysters which the liver sanguifies or how are those creatures fed with Chylus which eat not but sleep all the Winter Thâ— animal or sensitive hunger therefore of the ventricle is satisfied upon the receiving of meat but its natural hunger is not satisfied till the blood be converted into its substance CHAP. IX 1. The Livers heat inferiour to that of the Stomachs 2. Of the natural Spirits in the Liver and how it is cherished by air 3. Of the Gall and how it is nourished How the Choler is conveyed to it of its two passages and one membrane THough sanguification and the separation of the three excrementitious humours from the blood bee the work of the Liver not of the Stomach yet it will not follow that the Liver is hotter then the Stomach for this work is done not so much by heat as by the temper and constitution of the Liver although I deny not but heat hath in this its action which cannot be so great in separating the parts of the blood which is a liquid substance as that of the stomach and intestins concocting hard and solid substances into liquid and separating the earâ—â—hy excrâ—ments from the purer parts II. The Liver sends by the Veins into all parts of the body these spirits which they call natural for to send up the force of the innate spirits which are in every part of the body these natural spirits are grosser then the vital and animal therfore contained within the thin walls of the veins and they are begot of blood and thin vapours therefore are preserved and cherished by the blood and air which air cannot come to the Liver by inspiration but only by transpiration which is performed in the hollow of the Liver by arteries in the convex or gibbous part of the Liver by the continual motion of the Diaphragma III. Nature hath fastned a little vessel to the Liver for recâ—ption of the choler which because it is noxious to the Liver it is thrust out by it and because of the sympathy it hath with that little vessel it is drawn in by that by a secret instinct as Iron by the Load-stone with which notwithstanding it is not fed being a pure excrement the Lungs indeed are fed with cholerick blood the Spleâ—n with melancholick blood the Kidneys with watrish but not with pure excrementitious choler melancholy and water That Vessel then is fed by blood communicated to it by its two veins called Cisticae which were not placed there in vain And though this humour be pernicious to other parts of the body yet it doth no way hurt this little vessel which argues the great sympathy and familiarity that is between them 2. The obliquity of the passage by which the choler is carried from the Liver to the Gall is no hindrance to its motion seeing this motion follows not its Elementary form but the attractive faculty of this vessel thus the waâ—rish blood which is heavy is drawn upward by the brain 3. The Gall hath two passages one from the Liver by which it draws the choler the other from the DuodenuÌ„ by which it thrufts out the choler into the intestins when it becomes offensive either by its quantity or by its acrimony which it may contract with long stay in each of these 2 passages there is a Valvula or shutter the one is to keep the reflux of the choler from the gall to the Liver the other that it may not recoil from the intestine into the gall 4. They in whom the passage of the gall reacheth to thâ— bottom of the stomach are troubled with often vomiting of choler but they in whom this passage reacheth below the Duâ—denum are troubled with cholerick dejections 5. The Gall as also the Bladder have but one membrane whereas the stomach and inâ—estins have two because these were appointed for concoction whereas the Gall and Bladder were only made to contain for a time the choler and urine CHAP. X. 1. The use of the Gall and Spleen its obstructions its Veins and Arteries without concavity 2. Vas venosum 3. How the Spleen purgeth it self 4. The Veins and its humours 5. Why the stone causeth vomiting and numbness in the thigh 6. The bladder its attraction and expulsion AS nature hath made the Gall to receive the â—holer that the blood may not be there with infected as sometimes it is when the Gall is obstructed whence comes the yellow â—aundise so it hath ordained the Spleen to receive the grosse and melancholy blood that the purer blood may not bee infected with it as it is in the black Jaundise 2. There is no member so much subject to obstructions as the spleen which cannot proceed from its vessels for they are capacious nor yet from its substance for that is spungy therefore it must be caused by the feculency and thicknesse of blood 3. It was fitting that the Spleen should abound in arteries that the grosse blood thereof might receive the vital faculty and that it might bee the more attenuated and purged and the languishing heat ther of excited 4. It was not requisite that there should bee any sensible capacity in the Spleen as there is in the Gall and Kidneys because the melancholy humour is much lesse then the choler or watrish neither was it to be sent away in that plenty as the other are Besides in stead of cavity it abounds in Veins and Arteries II. There is a short vessell called Vas venosum reaching from the Spleen to the bottom of the Stomach and conveying some part of the melancholy blood thither for exciting the appetite and binding of the bottom of the stomach the closer for helping of concoction which it doth being of a cold sowre and stipick quality III. The Spleen oftentimes purgeth it self by the internal Hemorrhoids which arise from the Splenetical vein and somtimes by the urine not through the emulgent veins which are far distant from the Splenetical these having their originall from Vena porta the emulgent from Vena cava but through certain arteries made purposely large not so much for carrying of the spirits as of this humour which is still accompanied with much water for attenuating the thick humour therefore melancholy men are much given to spitting sweating and urine chiefly in a quartan Fever Hence melancholy is called water sometimes IV. The Kidneys were made to draw and contain for some time the serous â—r watrish excrement of the blood which by the Uriters it sends away to the bladder but the crude humours which critically are evacuated by urine are
aberration of nature for the one sex is no less needfull for procreation then the other 2. The male is hotter then the female because begot of hotter seed and in a hotter place to wit the right side and because the male hath larger vessels and members stronger limbs a more porie skin a more active body a stronger concoction a more couragious minde and for the most part a longer life all which are effects of heat Besides that the bodies of males are sooner articulated and conformed to wit by 10 days in the womb then the females are the motions of the male in the womb are quicker and stronger then of the female The fatness softness and laxaâ—ie of the womans body besides the abundance of blood which cannot be concocted and exhaled for want of heat argue that she is of a dol'der temper then the man She indeed hath a swifter pulse because of the narrowness of the arteries and her proneness to anger and venery argue imbecility of minde and strength of imagination not heat 3. The male groweth flower then the female because he was to live longer therefore nature proceeds the flower as we see in trees and plants a Cherry-Tree groweth up sooner then an Oak and decayeth far sooner Besides the soft and loose flesh of the female is sooner extended then the solid and harder flesh of the male We may then conclude that the male is hotter intensively but the female by reason she hath more blood is hotter extensively II. The seed is no part of the body because the body is not more perfect by its presence nor malmed by its loss or absence nor is it the aliment of the body because then the body would not part with it nor is it properly an excrement peccant in the qualitie but it is the purer part of the blood or quintessence of it unuseful for the body when it is peccant in the quantity 2. Because the blood is in every part of the body and the seed is the quintessence of the blood therefore the seed may be said to be derived from all parts of the body for all parts of the body consume upon much evacuation of seed and as it is from all parts in respect of its material and grosseâ— substance so it is principally from the head heart and liver in regard of its more aerial parts III. Though the menstruous blood may receive corruption by its long suppression or by the moisture of some bad humors yet in sound women it is as pure as any other blood in the body For it is appointed by nature for nutriment of the infant whilst it is in the womb and after birth it is converted into milk neither doth it differ from other blood in its material and efficient causes besides that it is as red and coagulates as soon as the purest blood of the body Neither doth nature send it away because it is peccant in the quality but because it is exuberant in the quantity 2. By reason the menstruous blood is infected with ill humours on which the child in the womb feeds hence it is that there are few or none but one time or other are infected with the small pox which as divers other poisons doth not presently shew it self but lieth a long time lurking in the body And if at the first time the venome of this disease is not thoroughly purged out it returns Hence it is that some have this disease divers times 3. The menstruous blood is not the cause of the small pox whilst it remains in the vessels but when it is converted into the substance of the body hence it is that women whose moneths are stopped are not infected with this malady 4. This blood is evacuated once in a moneth ordinarily at such time as the Moon which hath dominion over humid bodies is most prevalent Nature also observes her own periods and times of evacuation of which we can give no reason But this is certain that if the evacuation of this blood were as frequent as of other excrements there would be no conception IV. The chief uses of the matrix are to draw the seed to it to mingle it with the blood to contain it to excite its faculties and spirits for it is not actually animated till now and so the seed by its spirits is made capable of animation and shortly after being incorporated with the blood of articulation These fore-named functions of the matrix are performed not so much by its heat as by its natural temper V. Oftentimes the vitiosity of the matrix is the cause of monstrous births so likewise is the imagination the defect or exuberance of seed the unlawful permistion of seeds the heat of the body and the formative faculty 2. The false conception called Mola is begot when the seed is faulty weak or deficient and the blood predominant which is known from a true conception because there is no milk in the breasts when there is a false conception neither doth it move after the fourth moneth as the child doth sometimes it is moved by the matrix but not by it self as the child besides it remains after the eleventh moneth which is the time prefixed for the birth of the child CHAP. XIII 1. The Heart liveth first not the Liver 2. The outward membrans first formed by the heat of the matrix 3. Vrachos what 4. The similitude of the parents on the children 5. Twins how begot and why like each other 6. Infants how fed in the matrix 7. Superfetation 8. No respiration in the matrix 9. The childs heart moveth in the matrix I. ARISTOTLE will have the heart to be the first member that lives in us Galen the liver but indeed Aristotle is in the right for how can any thing live till the heart which is the fountain of heat and spirits live and how can the soul frame to her self a fit habitation for exercising of her functions â—ill first she hath framed the heart by whose heat and spirits she may work If it be objected that the heart cannot live without nutrition but nutrition is by blood and this by the liver therefore the liver must first live I answer that there needs no nutrition till the body be compleat and perfected for wee see imperfect creatures can live long without food I have kept a Spider nine moneths alive in a glass without food Again there needs no nutriment but when there is deperdition and wasture of the substance which cannot bee of the heart before the body be perfected And although the body live at first the life of a plant it will not therefore follow that the heart is not first framed for even in plants there is a principle of life which is the root and nature worketh methodically by quickning that first which must quicken the rest II. As the heart is the first member that is framed by the formative faculty so the outward membranes are first formed by the heat or natural temperament
of Monsters of a woman whose milk did so abound that in the space of two or three days she voided a gallon and an half of which was made very savory Butter and Cheese Though this be rare yet it is no miracle for that woman abounding much in blood must also abound in milk And some Livers are of that constitution and temper that they sanguifie much more then others especially in constitutions that are inclined to cold and moisture for hot and dry bodies have but little blood and therefore little milk and where there is much sweet flegm or rhume it is easily converted into blood III. I read divers stories of women with child who have lusted after and have eat mens flesh and for that end have faln violently upon them and bit them This is also a disâ—ase proceeding of natural causes as that infirmity of eaâ—ing chalk coals dirt tar ashes in maids and some married women called by Physitians Pica or Malacia and is caused by the distemper of the phantasie and soure malignant melancholy humors in the mouth and concavity of the stomach and impacted in the runicles of the ventricle proceeding partly from the suppression of the flowers whereby the appetite is vitiated and the phantasie disturbed and partly from the malignity of the humor coveâ—ing after such things as are like to it in malignity yet contrary to it in some of the prime qualities heat cold humidity and siccity for Nature looks in the contrary quality to finde remedy IV. I read of divers maids one in Colen another in the Palatinate a third in the Diocesse of Spira divers more who have lived without meat and drink two or three years together This indeed may seem strange yet it is not against nature for naturally such bodies as have in them little heat and much humidity can subsist longer without food then hot and dry bodies can as we see in women and old people who can fast longer then men and youths And we know that divers creatures for many moneths together can subsist without food therefore these maids having much adventitious moisture and little heat to waste the radical humidity might continue a long time without food for where there is little deperdition there needs not much reparation besides the moisture of the air is no small help to them V. But that is more strange which Zacutus in his Praxis Admiranda lib. 1. obs 4. mentioneth of a Boy who lived 3 years without a brain if he had brought an example of one who had lived 3 years without an heart I should have subscribed to Galen against Aristotle that the heart in dignity is inferiour to the brain But I suppose that he was not altogether without a brain For that water which was found within the membrans of the skull when his head was dissected was doubtlesse his brain converted into water or else it had some analogy with the brain by which the heat of the heart was for a while â—empered and the animal spirits generated but weakly therefore life could not subsist long in him So I have read in Laurentius or Parry of one who lived many years without a spleen but there were found some kirnels in the place of the spleene which supplied its office As for that woman mentioned by Zacutus Ob. 5. who lived eight years together with the half of a knife in her head between the skull and Dura Mater doâ—btlesse that knife touched not the substance of the brain therefore could be no hindrance to the animal functions VI. It is strange that whereas Anacreon was choaked with a Resin stone yet some as Forestus in his observat recordeth l. 15. obs 24 25 c. have swallowed iron lead long sticks glasse points of knives and of swords and other incredible things without hurt and have voided them by the stool This â—partly impute to the widenesse and capacity of the passages and partly to witchcraft or juggling for the eye in such cases is often deluded although nature sometimes by imposthumes câ—sleth our such stufâ—e for points of knives and pins have been this way ejected and some have perished and have bâ—en choaked whilest they have in their madnesse attempted such things And provident nature hath in some without hurt sent away needles and pinnes by the urine aboâ—t which have been found hard crusty stuffe wâ—ich was the matter or glassy slime that was gathered about these pins and baked by the heat of â—he body VII I have read of a certain Soldier in the Wars of Savoy Anno Dom. â—589 who was shot in the forehead with a Musâ—ueâ— bâ—lleâ— he was cured of the wound but the bullâ—â— remained Afterward falling from a Ladder whilâ—st he was scaling the walls of a Town he was stiffled in the Ditch into which he fell his head being dissected the bullet was found in the hinder part thereof But I believe this removal was by the fall for otherwise it could not have been removed by the heat or spirits of the head CHAP. II. Of one who wanted the pericardium 2. Of hairy hearts 3. Of one that walked and fâ—ught after his heart was wounded 4. Stones found in the heart 5. And worms found there The heart may putrifie white we are alive 6. Worms in the brain COlumbus in his Anatomy l. 16. speaks of a young man in Rome whom he dissected and in this found that his heart had no Pericardium the want of which was doubtlâ—sse the cause of his death and for want of it he fell into divers swouning fiâ—s and was often troubled with the Syncope by reason the heart wanted refrigeration which it hath from the water in the Pericardium For some whose Pericardium hath bâ—â—ne but sleightly touched by the sword in the wound of the breast have fallen into swouning fits cold sweats with a cessation of the pulse so needful is this membran and its water for the heart Yea I have read of some hearts quite dried shrunk to nothing for want of this water such was the heart of Casimire Marquess of Brandenbourge of whom Melancthon speaketh l. 1. de anima II. I have read of divers hairy hearts besâ—des those of Leonidas Aristomenes and Hermogines which is also the work of nature for hairs are produced of â—uliginous and grâ—sser excrements of the humours where the skin is hottest and driest for hairs seldâ—me grow where the skin is cold and moist now if these causâ—s be found in the heart the same effect will be produced there but this is seldome seen and in such onely as are of a fiercâ— truculent and audacious disposition III. Ambrose Parry speaks l. 9. c. 23. of a Gentleman who in a duel being wounded dâ—eply in the very substance of the heart did notwithstanding for a good while lay about him with his sword and walked two hundred paces before he fâ—ll down this is likely enough for though the heart was wounded yet the vital blood and spirits and heat of the heart
which did abound in him did not presently spend so long as they continued he lived when they failed he fell down dead IV. What Wierus records in his work of Impostures l. 4. ca. 16. concerning some stones found in the heart of Maximilian the second is not incredible for the same heat of the body that breeds stones in the bladder kidney and joynts can also produce stones in the heart if there be the same matter and disposition for such a production and this may be the work of nature alone without sorcery V. Nor is it incredible what is recorded by divers of worms found in the heart which cause consumptions and strange distempers in our bodies which oftentimes deceive Physitians For the heart is no more priviledged from worms then other members save onely that its substance is hard and solid and by reason of its spirits and heat it is not so much subject to putrifaction as parts more soft and loose and consequently not so often infested with worms and imposthumes as other members are yet it is not altogether exempted For I have read of one whose heart being opened there was found in it a white worm with a sharp beck which being placed on a table and a circle of the juice of Garlick made about it died being overcome with that strong smell by which it is plain that the use of Garlick is wholesome and needful for such as are subject to worms as being their destroyer VI. Fernelius is deceived when he saith that the heart doth not putrifie in us whilest we are alive because it is of a solid and hard substance and is the last that dieth in us but it is not more hard and solid then the bones which notwithstanding putrifie whilest we are alive and it is true that it is the last thing that dieth in us for it doth not totally putrifie till we be dead because all the heat motions and functions thereof cease not till then VII And not onely in the heart but in the braines also worms are ingendred as Avicenna Hollerius and others doe witnesse And I have read of black and round worms that by sneezing powder of Castoreum and Pepper have been voided by the nose and of ear-worms also CHAP. III. 1. Epilepsie 2. Incubus 3 Vertigo 4. Of a stone in the tongue 5. One of nine years old brought to bed 6. Bodies turned to Stones 7. Sleep-walkers 8. Superfetation Ventriloques 9. A strange stone found in the matrix THe Epilepsie and malignant feavers oftentimes end in deafness and this is held a good signe of recovery the reason is because nature thrusts out the malignant humor from the brain into the next passages which are the ears II. Some take the night-mare or Incubus for a spirit but indeed it is a feculent humor adhering to the vitall parts and with its black or melancholy fume troubling the Diaphragma Lungs and Brain and distempering the imagination with horrid shapes III. Nature is very skilfull and provident in helping her self when art faileth for many diseases have been cured by nature which the Physitians have been forced to give off Zacutus Obs. 15. mentioneth one who being every month vexed with a terrible Vertigo which for a time made him stupid and senseless was cured by a flux of blood gushing out of his eyes without any inflammation at all or redness of the eyes by those veins that fed the eyes nature found out a way to ease her self which veines were opened by the violent motion of the spirits in the head and the aboundance of blood pressing into those veins which made an eruption IV. And it is no less strange what he records Obs. 72. of one upon the tip of whose tongue was found a stone as big as a filbert nut which grew there within a swelling caused by a great flux doubtless of slimy matter into that part and baked into that consistence by a preternatural heat for he was much subject to Catharrs V. That is not incredible which is recorded by Iaubert in his Vulgar Errors l. 2. c. 2. of young women who have been brought to bed at nine or ten years of age for nature is more pregnant and forward in some then in others this we see in some trees and other vegitables but these women give off child-bearing betimes to wit about one or two and twenty for quod cito sit cito perit and as we say soon ripe soon rotten for such hasty and precipitate works of nature are not permanent hence it is that women who sooner attain to their growth then men decay sooner then men VI. For stones to be bred in the Lungs which are oftentimes the causes of drie coughs is no great wonder for divers times such stones have been voided by coughing but for a mans body to be converted into a stone as is Recorded in the memorials of Lyons in France is more strange yet not impossible and therefore the conversion of Lots wife into a Salt Pillar is not incredible although this was the sole work of God Neither is that incredible which is written of the lake that turns the sticks cast into it into stones nor that Cave in Scotland where the water-drops are turned to stones I have kept an apple til it grew to that hardness that no wood could be harder for scarce could a knife cut it I wil not say this was a perfect stone into which this body was thus turned but it might be as hard and drie as a stone for the bodies that are found in the sands of Egypt are very dry and hard VII Horstius and others record divers examples of sleep-walkers who do strange things in their sleep but this is also the work of nature for I finde that they are most subject to this infirmity whose animal spirits are most active subtil and fiery and whose imagination is strong so that by the strength of their fantasie and agility of their spirits the muscles are moved though the Will doth not then concur to this motion nor reason make any opposition which it would do if they were naked and not suffer them to undergo such dangers VIII I have read divers Stories of women who have had seaven children and more at a birth and likewse of superfetation both which are credible and possible in nature as I have shewed in the former book c. 13. sect 5. 7. But that the infant should crie in the mothers womb as some have done is more strange seeing it doth not breath neither is there any air in the matrix without which there can be no sound therefore either this crie was imaginary in the party that heard it for sometimes we think we hear a sound when we hear none or else this sound might proceed from wind in the mothers womb which might resemble the crying of a child or else these mothers might be ventriloque IX That may seem a miracle which is recorded by Monsieur Iohn Alibaux a Physitian of a woman
of Sens in Bourgundie which went 28 years with a dead child in her womb this woman being dead and her belly opened there was found a stone having all the limbs and proportion of a child of 9 months old This was no miracle but an extraordinary work of nature for the child being dead and the slimie matter of its body having an aptitude by the extraordinary heat of the matrix to be hardned might retain the same lineaments which it had before If any wonder how within the soft and liquid humors of the matrix such a hard substance should be ingendred let him as well wonder at the generation of hard bones within soft flesh of hard stones within soft plums Peaches and other fruits of stones and hard thunder-bolts within watrish clouds CHAP. IV. 1. Some without Lungs 2. Impostumes voided in Vrine 3. Worms the cause of many diseases 4. No change of sexes 5. Giants 6. Some without livers 7. Fleshy bladders 8. Stones haires worms c. Begot in our Vrine 9. A woman without a matrix I Have read of divers bodies of men without lungs and I believe it for oftentimes the lungs are putrified and corroded with corrupt and acrimonious matter and wasted with burning heat but hence it will not follow that a man can live without lungs any time seeing the heart stands in need continually of refrigeration yet some do live a great while with half of the lungs after the other half is putrified and spit out II. I finde that when impostumations and corrupted matter in the breast cannot be evacuated by spitting or coughing or vomiting or by Phlebotomy or the stool it is notwithstanding purged out by urine naturally without the help of art by which we see how cunning and industrious nature is to help her self and that she is more carefull to thrust out noxious then to draw in profitable things hence sick mens expiration is stronger then their inspiration and hence also we see that there are many porous and pervious passages unknown to us which doubtless are in our bodies being alive which cannot be found being dead because shut by the cold III. I finde that many Physitians are mistaken in the causes of divers diseases and therefore their remedies prove oftentimes fruitless or hurtfull For I have known Apâ—plexies Convulsions Coughs Consumptions Feavers Cholicks and other Diseases proceed from Wormes which when they have beene voided either dead or alive the sick partys have recovered Nay I have read of some who have had worms crawle out at their navels and some whose organs of voice and speech having been assaulted and hurt by worms have become speechless how carefull then should we be of our diets not to delight so much as we do in sweet meats sauces and drinks or in such food as breeds slâ—my matter whereof worms are ingendred and Physitians should be as carefull to prescribe such things to their patients as may kill and evacuate these enemies of our health and life IV. That maids have become boyes I have read in divers Stories but I have shewed in the former Book that there is no such change in nature because the organs of generation in the two sexes differ both in number form and situation and that therefore such transformations are meant of Hermaphrodites or of such boyes in whom the vessels of generation have not at first appeared outwardly for want of heat and strength which afterwards have thrust them out Dr. Brown admits the change and yet shews that the vessels are different both in form and situation which is a contradiction V. That there have been Giants and men of stupendious stature in all ages is not to be doubted seeing there are so many witnesses extant and the reason of their bigness can be none else but the aboundance of seed and menstruous blood of which they are begot the quality and pliableness of the matter â—apt to be extended the strength also of the heat and formative power and that these men should have rapacious stomachs to devour incredible quantities of meat and drink is not to be wondred at if we consider the bulk of their bodies the capacity of their stomachs and rapacity of their heat VI. Nature is not deficient in necessaries nor abundant in superfluities there is not any one member in our bodies that can be spared for if there be any one defective our life proves short and miserable I have read of some who have been found without Livers but such had a fleshy lump in stead thereof which not being able to sanguifie or turn the Chylus into blood the parties lived but a short while and died of Tympanies or Hydropsies and others whose Livers have been found full of stones have died of the same disease and so have those whose spleen hath been found stony A woman who died of an Hydropsie I saw dissected whose spleen was full of stones of a blewish and green colour VII Not onely are stones of great bigness bred in the bladder by which the passage of the urine is intercepted and so death and many tortures are procured but also there have been found in some bladders great lumps of flesh yea all the internal side of the bladder filled up with fleshy excrescences that there could be no room for the urine but I doubt whether this were true flesh or not seeing no flesh is begot but of blood I think therefore that this was an excrementitious substance resâ—mbling flesh in colour and shape VIII It is manifest that some with their urine evacuate stones gravel matter hairs little crawling creatures of divers shapes which doubtless are begotten of putrifaction according to the disposition of the matter and heat of the bladder or kidneys if the matter be adust and bâ—rned hairs are begot sometimes as big as hogs brissles and sometimes the stones of the kidneys are so big that they stick in the yard and cannot be evacuated without incision upon the stoppage of the urine by these stones malignant vapours ascend from the corrupted urine into the noble parts that convulsions syncopes and other dangerous effects are procreated IX As a man can live without testicles so can a woman without the matrix these being members given by naturâ— not for conversation of the individuals but for continuation of the species Therefore Zacuâ—uâ— speaks of a woman who lived thirty years after her matrix was cut out which by a fall that she had from a high tree had slipt out of its place and could never be again replaced Obs. 76. l. 2. CHAP. V. 1. Strange but not miraculous births 2. Strange and strong imaginations 3. Poison inward and outward 4. Poison of mad Dogs 5. Câ—ntharides 6. Poison how it worketh 7. Why birds not poisoned as men 8. Amphiam Opium Mandrakes 9. The Plague no Hectick nor putrid Fever 10. Epidemical diseases THat a boy of nine years old should beget a child is rarâ— but much morâ— strange it is that a child should be
born with all his teeth and another with a long beard yet such have been and these are but the effects of nature which though in her ordinary course â—he observes a timâ— for the growth perfection and decay of things yet sometimes she is furthered and hindred according as the matter is disposed the heat proportioned and her instruments fitted Why should not Nature have the same priviledge that Art hath but we see that hearbs and fruits can be produced and perfected before their time by the Art of man therefore such works are meerly natural not miraculous for sublunary bodies are not like the â—elestial which are not suâ—ject to alteration but â—till keep the same constant tenor II. What force the imagination hath in women to make impressions of the things imagined on the tender infant in the womb is known by many Stories and daily Examples Hence it is that so many children are born with such variety of strange shapes and marks Besides we know how forcible the phantasie is both in curing and procuring of diseases yea oftentimes of death Thus one having eat of a Rabbit pie imagining she had eat of a cat fel a vomiting and died Another having passed over a dangerous bridg in the dark and returning the next day to look upon the place was struck with such an horror that he went home and died A third being in jest made believe that he must lose his head swouned and fel down dead Multitudes of such Examples thâ—re are but the imaginatioâ—s which proceed from hypochondriacal melancholy are most strange whereby one supposeth himself to be dead therefore will not eat Another is perswaded that he hath never a head A third that his breech is made of glass therefore will not fit down for fear of breaking Anothâ—r thinks the heaven will fall upon him therefore must have a Target born over him Another wil not piss for fear he should drown the world And many more such strange conceits are some men troubled with by reason of their imaginations which are distorted by the black and malignant fumes that disturb the animal spirits subservient to the phantasie Such are the imaginations of those who think themselves wolves and therefore run into the woods and bite men and cattel they meet with I have read of one who thought himself to be a cock and therefore fel to crowing And doubtless the Lycanthropie so much spoken of is nothing else but the strength of a distemper'd imagination whatsoe'r Bodin writes to the contrary III. The cause of many extraordinary distempers in us is poyson whether inteâ—nal bred within our selves by the corruption or putrefaction of the seed blood or humors of our bodies by which pestilent and venemous fumes assault the heart and brains or external as the biting of mad dogs or cats or other creatures For I have read of some that never were bitten and yet have beene subject to the same kinde of raging and fury that they arâ— who are bit by mad dogâ— but their fits were milder because the constitution of dogs is more melancholy then that of mans therefore their venom more dangerous and who would think there were such poyson in a mad cock who being angred struck one in the hâ—nd with his beck upon which blow the man fell distracted and died neither could any physick cure him IV. The madness that is caused by the biting of mad dogs is not in all men alike buâ— upon some the poyson worketh sooner upon some later â—ccording to the degree of madness in the dog or the deepness of the wound or disposition of the body wounded for foul bodies melancholick and cholerick constitutions are aptest to receive the venom therefore in some the poyson appeareth quickly in others not in a long time to wit not in a year or more for the malignity doth not presently assault the sâ—irits heart and brains And Capivacceus observes that this poyson is of a fiery quality and hot in the fourth degree as he sheweth by one who was thus bit his body being opened there was found no water in his Pericardium but a part of it was burned up and being touched fell into ashes the ventricles also were dried up and had no blood at all V. It is strange that some do piss blood upon the applying of the Flyes called Cantharides to the neck hands or feet so remoâ—e from the bladder by this we see that the malignant vertue of these flies hath a particular influence upon that member This action of the bladder cannot be by the first or second qualities of the Caâ—tharides â—or then they should work first uâ—on the next members therefore this action must be performed by an occult quality of the specifical form of the flie And much more strange is it that the body of this â—lie should be poyson and the wings thereof a counterpoyson which in the living fly are aâ— concord by reason of the specifical form or soul of the fly ruling all the parts and keeping them in unity but when that is gon in the dead fly the one part destroys the other Who can give exact reasons of Natures secrets VI. And no less stranâ—e is it that Euphorbium and Mustard are equally hot to wit in the fourth degree and yet the one is poyson not the other and Treacle which is hot in the first degree heats more then Pepper which is hot in the fourth degree this shews that the form of the one is not so aâ—â—ive as the form of the other and therefore four times so much heat in the one is not so prevalent as one degree of heat in the other which shewes that poysons do not work by their temper which consist of elementary qualities but by their substance or form whose qualities are occult to us VII Why Napelius or Wolfe-bane Hyosciamus or Henbane and other hearbs which are poyson to man are nutriment to birds can have no other reason but that birds have a greater heat in their stomachs to subdue the malignity of these hearbs to send away the noxious and excrementitious part and to convert the rest into their own substance which substance notwithstanding is not poysonable to man because the poyson was consumed by the heat of the bird Now the heat of mans stomack is more temperate and therefore less able to master such malignant hearbs yet Scaliger Exerc. 175.1 speaks of a man who was fed with poyson from his infancy whose flesh at last became so venomous that the flies which sucked his blood swelled and died VIII That Amphiam or Opium should stir up venery and cause a tickling in the skin and yet stupifie the members and cast them into a dead sleep is not without admiration but doubtless either the Amphiam or Opium are different that being made of the white this of the black Poppies or else in the Opium there be different substances the one being very câ—ld which causeth stupidity the other very hot by causing a tickling in
of one who could make pens and write with his toes cut carve and feed himself as well as we with our hands but his toes were longer then ordinaryâ— and proportioned like our fingers Montague in his Essays l. 1. c. 22. writes of another who with his toes could discharge a Pistol take off his hat play at cards and dice and handle his sword as well as we with our hands by which we see how custom becomes another nature VII Though it be rare yet it is natural for a fly to be ingendred in mans body the mater being disposed to receive that form for Zacutus Obse 101. writes of one who being pained in his yard at last voided a sly by his urine VIII As there be some masculin women so there are some feminate men such was he who from twenty to forty five had his monthly vacuation of blood as women have by which it seems his constitution was altogether feminine moist and cold therefore was smooth skinned having no Beard nor hair at all on his body Zacut. Obs. 102. l. 2. prax mir IX Of the many moustrnous shapes which are begot of women We may read in Winrichius Parrie Rumelinus Levinús Lemnius and divers other Physitians Phylosophers and Historians whose Testimonies and Examples I alledge not because I would be brief the cause of these Monsters cannot be the mothers imagination as most think for the imagination makes not impression on the Embryo but of such things as the mother earnestly desires as she that lusted earnestly for a rose which having with much difficulty got for it was not rose time she greedily smelled to it and laid it up in her bosome upon which the impression of a rose was made in the childs skin But what mother will lust to have a child with a dogs head or of any other monstruous shape seeing they abhor such conceptions Therefore such monstruous shapes are the effects of the formative faculty in the seed which if it be peccant either in quantity or quality or if there be any fault in the place of conception or in the menstruous blood of the mother then the formative aiming at the specifical shape but missing of it by reason of these impediments rather then it should be idle and do nothing it brings in the generical form of an animal either perfect or imperfect as the matter is disposed though I denie not the influence of the heavens but this is only a remote and universal cause X. I have read of one who had a horn grew upon his heel a foot long which being cut off did grow again and doubtless would have still renued if the tough and viscous matter which fed it had not been diverted and evacuated by issues purges and phlebotomy for when Nature hath found a passage for evacuation thither she sends the supersluities But more strange it is that children should be born with horns on their heads Of such I have read Hildanus writes that he saw a man on whose head grew a horn crooked like a rams horn in his Chirurgical observations Gent. 2. Obs. 25. The story therefore of Iupiter Amon may not be incredible CHAP. VII 1. The effects of bloud being drunk 2. Some strange diseases 3. Plica Polonica 4. Some eat poison without hurt 5. Stones in the Intestines 6. Old men become young 7. Some strange monsters I Have read of one who was poysoned with drinking bulls blood of another who grew mad by drinking of mans blood of a third who by drinking of his wiâ—es monâ—hly blood was so enamoured with his own wise that he hated in respect of her all other women some from hence have concluded that there is poyson in these creatures blood but I am not of their minde for doubtlesse if the flesh of these creatures be found and wholesome the blood out of which the flesh is made cannot be venomous 2. The blood of a Bull is grosse fibrous stopping and hard of concoction and so to weak stomacks may prove accidentally hurtful or deadly but not to a strong stomack 3. It may kill even a strong body if it be taken in too great a quantity and so may any meat and the best wines in this respect prove poisonable 4. If mans blood were poisonable then Catalin and his companions had been poisoned when they dranke mans blood at the taking of their solemne Covenant against the State as Salust shews Then Polyphemus had been poisoned by Vlisse's fellows Dum visceribus miserorum sanguine vescitur atro What will become of the Canibals 5. The menstruous blood of women is as sound as any other blood in the veins if the body be found but if it be imperfect or corrupted with malignant humours it may be poisonable but I deny that there is any such vertue in blood as to procure love this may be an illusion of Satan who delights in blood II. Strange are the diseases that some bodies are subject too I have heard of one who being troubled with a burning feaver had his veins opened out of which with the blood there slipt out a worm of a foot long another had a red spot which did rise in his foot the bredth and colour of a red rose which did now and then remove from one place to another and in what place soever it was caused an intolerable burning which could be nothing els but a scalding blood carried up and down by hot and fiery spirits of these two Zacutus speaks l. 3. and of a third whose skin grew as hard and rugged as the bark of a Tree III. Some uncouth and strange diseases have appeared in this latter age of the world not heard of heretofore one is mentioned by Rodoric Fonseca cons. 1. in his consultations called Plica Polonica because in Poland it rageth most this diseas suddenly weakneth the body curleth the hairs of the head and intangleth them so that they represent the shape of snakes and being pricked drop with blood and swarm with lice and make a loathsome smell This disease proceeds doubtless from the corruption of the aire the grosseness of the diet their frequenting of close stoves the infection of the blood and the abundance of viscous humours and grosse vapours which nature sends to the skin of the head and to the hairs I will not speak here of the Scurvy the French disease the English sweat and others too well known among us IV. Strange is the variety of tempers and constitutions among men Arnoldus de villa nova in specula c. 77 speaks of a maid who familiarly did eat spiders which sheweth that either spiders are not venomous or else her body was of the same temper that Monkies are who eat spiders But that is more strange which is mentioned by Galen l. 3. c. 18. Simpl. Of an old woman that ate Henbane plentifully without hurt it seems she had the stomach of swallows which feed upon this poisonable weed I have read of some that have
there is no necessity that we should call these miracles for as it is no miracle for a Cat to see in the dark nor for a musk-Cats sweat to smell sweetly nor for a Basilisk to kill with his eye or rather with the poisonsome vapour of his eye or breath of his mouth nor is it a miracle for an Eagle or Raven to see at such a distance these effects flowing from the natural temper and constitution of these creatures of which temper might these men now mentioned be I could alledge many other strange qualities of men as of one who could move his ears like an Horse of another whose spittle was poison and of one who never laughed c. but these are sufficient to let us see the power and wisdome of God and the dexterity of his Handmaid Nature both in the fabrick and divers temperaments of mens bodies FINIS The Second BOOK Of the strange Diseases and Accidents of MANS BODY Wherein divers of Dr. Browns vulgar errors and assertions are refuted and the ancient Tenents maintained CHAP. I. 1. Divers ways to resist burning 2. Locust eaters the lowsie disease the Baptist fed not on Locusts 3. Mans flesh most subject to putrifaction and the causes thereof How putrifaction is resisted Mumia 4. The strength of affection and imagination in dying men Strange presages of death 5. Difference of dead mens skuls and why THAT some mens bodies have endured the fire without pain and burning is not more strange then true which may be done three manner of ways 1. By divine power as the bodies of Shadrach Meshech and Abednego received no hurt or detriment in the fiery furnace 2. By a Diabolick skill so the Idolatrous Priests among the Gentiles used in some solemn sacrifices to walk securely upon burning coals as the Prince of Poets shews AEn lib. 11. Medium freti pietate per ignem Cultores multa premimus vestigia pruna And as the men in the Sacrifices of Apollo so women in the Sacrifices of Diana used to walk upon burning coals as Strabo witnesseth lib. 12. Of this custome Horace also speaks Hâ—r 1. Od. 1. Incedis per ignes suppositos cineri doloso So Propertius Pro. El. 5. l. 1. Et miser ignotos vestigia ferre per ignes And so it was used as a Proverb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to walk upon coals when a man undertook any dangerous businesse The Scripture also sheweth that the Gentiles used to make their sons and daughters passe through the fire They used also in swearing to take a burning Iron in their hands without hurt as Deliro sheweth in his Magick Pliny and Sueton write that Pyrrhus his thumb and Germanicus his heart could not be burned 3. The body is made sometimes to resist fire by natural means as by unguents so those Hirpiae or Hirpini in Italy of whom Pliny Varro and others make mention used to anoint the soles of their feet with this unguent that they might walk on the fire Bushequius Epist. 4. was an eye-witnesse at Constantinople of what was done in this kind by a Turkish Monk who after dinner took an hot burning iron out of the fire held it in his hand and thrust it in his mouth so that his spittle did hisse without any hurt whereas one of Busbequius his men thinking this Monk had onely deluded the eye takes the same iron in his hand which so burned his palm and fingers that he could not be healed again in many days This was done by the Monk saith Busbequius after he had put some thing in his mouth when he went â—orth into the Court pretending it was to seek a stone The same Authour witnesseth that he saw at Venice one who washed his hands in scalding lead and why may not the body be made to resist the fire as well as that kind of Linum called therefore Asbetinum by the Greeks and Linum vivum by the Latines Pancerol de Lin. vivo in which they used to wrap their Emperours bodies when they buried them that their ashes might not be mingled with the ashes of their fire this Linum being incombustible The Salamander also liveth sometime in the fire though not so long as some have thought Pyrausâ—â— are gendred in the fire So Aristotle and Scaliger Nor must we think it fabulous as Dr. Brown too magisterially concludes Of Errors 7. Book c. 18. What is written of the Spartan Lad and of Scaevola the Roman who burned their hands without shrinking he doubts of the truth of this and yet makes no doubt of that which is more unlikely to wit of Saint Iohns beingâ— in the Chaldron of scalding oyl without any hurt at all Book 7. c. 10. he that will question the truth of Scaevola's burning his hand and of Gurtius leaping into the burning gulf may as well question the broiling of Saint Lawrence on the Grediron or the singing and rejoycing of other Martyrs in the midst of their flames II. That in Ethiopia there is a people whose sole food are locusts is witnessed by Diodorus and Sâ—rabo l. 4. c. 16. these from their food are called Acridophagi they are a lean people shorter and blacker then others they are short lived for the longest life among them exceedeth not 40 years Their Countrey affordeth neither fish nor flesh but God provides them locusts every Spring which in multituds are carried to to them from the Desart by the West and South-west winds these they take and salt for their use These wretched people die all of one disease much like our lousie sicknesse A little before their death their bodies grow scabby and itchy so that with scratching bloody matter and ugly lice of divers shapes with wings swarm out of their belly first then from other parts so that they pine away and die in great pain This disease doubtlesse proceeds partly from the corruption of the aire and partly from the unwholesomnesse of their diet which turns to putrid humours in their bodies whence the disease is Epidemical This vermin breeds most in those who are given to sweat to nastinesse and abound with putrified humours between the flesh and skin whose constitutions are hot moist as children and according as either of the four humours are predominant so is the colour of lice some being red some white some brown some black sometimes they burst out of all parts of the body as in Herod and in that Portugal of whom Forestus speaks l. 4. de vitiis capitis out of whose body they swarmed so fast that his two men did nothing else but sweep them off so that they carried out whole baskets full Sometimes they breed but in some parts onely as in the head or arm-pits Zacuta mentioneth one who was troubled nowhere but in his eie-lids out of which they swarmed in great numbers Some have voided them by boils and imposthumes Forestus speaks of one who had them only in his back whom he advised to hold his naked back so close to the
Error is grounded on a false supposition in thinking there is gravity in the spirits themselves because they participate of corporeity as if gravity vâ—ere an essential property of bodies vvhereas there is no gravity in the pure fire nor in the Stars and Heavens and yet these are bodies Besides if the spirits had any gravity in them it must follow that living bodies are heavier then dead carcasses which is absurd to think Again I would know vvhy inebriated Apoplectical and swouning persons are heavier then others is it not because their spirits fail and they resemble dead men And so in sleep the brother of death the body is heavier every Nurse that carrieth her child in her arms will tell him this Why doth a man fall down in his sleep who stood upright when he was awaked If he be not heavier then he was The Scripture acknowledgeth that even the Apostles eyes vvere heavy vvhen they vvere sleepy And vvhereas he proveth the spirits to add vveight to the body becaus a man that holds his breath is weightier while his lungs are full then upon expiration And a bladder blown is heavier then one empty I answer that I could never find this experiment true though I have made trial 2. It seems to be false because the blown bladder vvill swim vvhen the empty one sinks 3. If I should yeild him this yet his sequel is nought except he can prove the animal spirits in a mans body to be as thick and course as the grosse vapour which is blown into the bladder which is neither air in name nor purity much less to bee compared to those subtil spirits vvhich are so pure and apt to vanish that nature vvas forced to inclose them vvithin the thick walls of the nerves So likewise the air retained in the lungs may perhaps add vveight to the body because the longer it stays there the more it degenerates into a thick vapour by reason of the bodies moisture and so may become ponderous III. God is pleased many times to punish whole Nations by extraordinary epidemical diseases for the sins of the people So vvas England visited vvith a sweating sicknesse so vvas Poland with that disease called Plica of vvhich vve have spoken so vvas Ethiopia as is already said visited vvith the Lousie disease Forestus Observ. medic part 3. records that in Syracusa there vvas an universal disease called the hungry sicknesse in vvhich people did continually desire to eat and vvere never satisfied Of this multitudes died at last it vvas observed that this disease proceeded of Worms vvhich vvere expelled by Bolarmenick and Treacle And Hollerius reports that at Beneventum many died of intolerable pains in the head caused by Worms ingendred there vvho also mentions one Italian who by smelling much to the hearb Basil had a Scorpion which bred in his brain and killed him this is not impossible if vvee consider that according to the disposition of the pâ—trified matter and the preparations made for introduction of the form divers shapes of creatures are begot and it seems there is a great sympathy between the Basil and the Scorpion vvhich did facilitate the generation neither are vve ignorant vvhat force there is in smells both to breed and expel diseases and even to prolong and shorten life as appears in divers Histories of some that have died vvith the smell of coals others of new vvort or ale as those two Monks recorded by Forestus Observ. medic part 1. although I suppose it vvas not so much the smell as the smoak of the coals and vapours of the air that suffocated the spirits yet such is the force of smells that som have been purged by passing by or entring into Apothecaries shops vvhilest they vvere preparing purgative medicaments And divers with the smell of the purges vvhich they carried in their hands have been as much purged as if they had taken the whole substance But this I ascribe not so much to the smell vvhich is a meer accident and cannot passe from one substance to another but is in some subjects wherein it is inherent as to the subtile vapours vvhich from the physick being smelled convey the smell to the body The same reason may be given why some are offended with smells which to others are pleasant so I have read of Francis the firsts Secretary who was forced to stop his nosthrils with bread when there were any apples at table and so offensive was the smell thereof to him that if one had held an apple neer his nose he would fall a bleeding Marcel Danat adm hist. l. 6. c. 4. And Cardinal Carafa did so abhor the smell of roses which of all smells is most delightful to man that during the rose time he durst not go out of his doors for fear of encountring with that smell nor did he suffer any to come within his palace that had a rose about him This I adscribe to the phantasie and naturall antiphathy between him and the rose Such power there is in smells that the Ancients ascribed a Divinity to them and because good smells do so chear the spirits hence they were used in Temples both amongst Jews Gentiles and Christians Homer describes his Iuno by the sweetnesse of her smell and so doth Virgil his Venus Ambrosiaeque comae divinum vertice odorem spiravere the like doth Plutarch his Isis and so doth Ovid Mansit odor possis scire fuisse Deam But for the Rose there may be some manifest causes why its smell may bee offensive for some brains are extraordinary cold some extraordinaâ—y dry and whose olfactive passages are wider then usually to such the smell of Roses may be hurtful because the â—ose hath but a weak heat or rather is refrigerative as Dioscorides thinks which may comfort the hot but not the cold brain And if the brain be dry the passages wide the smel doth too suddenly affect it which may procure an aking but why Hysterical women and such as are troubled with the Mother are apt to swoun at the smell of Roses and Lillies and other sweet odours is because the Matrix delighteth in these smells and therefore riseth toward them to the danger of suffocation whereas it is suppressed by strong and unpleasant odours There are indeed in the rose different parts which have different qualities but the predominant are moistning and coldness whence to cold and moist brains the smell is not proper but to hot brains the rose is comfortable therefore the Ancients in their drinking matches used to wear rose garlands and to lie upon beds of rose-leaves for refrigeration Mitte sectari rosa quo locorum sera moretur Horat. l. 1. IV. It is almost incredible what is written of the multitudes divers shapes and length of worms bred in our bodies if we had not the testimony of so many grave Physitians to prove this Forestus out of Hostim Obs. Med. part 1. Obs. 2. shews that at Beneventum in Italy there was a great mortality
formed till it be excluded no Error will arise hence for the plastick faculty which hath its original fâ—om the sperm ceaseth not to operate after the generation of the young animal but continueth working so long as it lives For what else is nutrition but a continual generation of the lost substance though not in whole yet in part and consequently it introduceth still a new form by changing the aliment into flesh As the same Mason can build an house and repair it when decayed so can the same plastick faculty produce the animal by generation and repair it by nutrition I confesse it is not called the Plastick but Omoiastick or assimilating faculty in nutrition yet it is the same still though under different names nay it doth not cease to produce those parts after generation out of the matrix which it could not doe within it as may be seen in the production of teeth in children even in the seventh year of their age which can be nothing else but the effect of the formative faculty We see also how new flesh is generated in wounds not to speak of the nails and hairs which are produced by the same faculty not being properly parts Besides the faculty cannot perish so long as the soul is in the body being an essential property which cannot be separated from the soul. Moreover we see in some creatures that this faculty doth not work at all in the matrix but without For the Chick is not formed of the Egg whilest it is within the Hen but when it is excluded Hence then it appears that if the Ancients had held the young Bears to bee ejected without form which afterward they received by the Plastick faculty had been no Error and though some young Bears have been found perfectly formed in the womb of the Dam it is a question whether all be formed and shaped so CHAP. V. 1 Divers priviledges of Eunuchs The Fibers Testicles 2. Diversities of Aliments and Medicaments the vertuâ— of Peaches Mandrakes the nature of our aliments 3. A strange story of a â—ick Maid discussed and of strange vomitings and Monsters and Imaginations 4. Men long lived the Deers long life asserted 5. That old men may become young again proved THE Testicles were made for propagation of the Species not for conservation of the Individuum for Eunuchs or such as are emasculate have divers priviledges which others want First they are longer lived because they have more radical moisture which is not wasted by Venery Secondly they have taller bodies for the same reason Thirdly they are not troubled with so much hair because they have not much siccity and consequently not so much heat which begets siccity Fourthly they are not subject to baldnesse because their brain is not dried with Venery as others Fifthly they are not afflicted with the Gout which is the daughter of Venus who begets crude humours weaknesse of joints and of them the Gout But Capons are more gouty then Cocks because they have lesse heat and are more voracious saith Scatiger Sixthly they are fitter for spiritual exercises therefore some saith Christ have made themselves Eunuchs for the kingdom of Heaven which words were mis-construed by Origen such as emasculated themselves against whom are both the Canon and Civil Laws Seventhly they are fitter to be Councellors and Chamberlains to Princes for they are wise therefore Eunuchs is as much as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Scaliger hath it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because they had care of the Princes bed-chamber Eightly the flesh of castrated animals is more delicate because there is in them more benigne juice neither is their flesh infected with the ungrateful and rankish relish of the Testicles Ninthly but the greatest priviledge of all is that they are not infected with the venomous vapours of that cave neer Alepo or Hierapolis which as Dio sheweth in the place of Trajan poisons all creatures except Eunuchs Scaliger gives no reason of this nor can I but that it is a secret in nature or else because the Eunuchs bodies have very few bad humours are the lesse apt to be infected with ill vapours Tenthly that as among men so among beasts there be some which castrate themselvs such is the Fibâ—r called Castor á castrandâ— and the Pontick Dog for thâ—re be store of them who makes himself an Eunuch saith Iuvenal Dr. Brown sect 12. checks the Ancients for this opinion but without cause for all agree that they bite off the two bags or bladders which hang from the groin in the same place where the Testicles of most animals are If these bee the true Testicles or not is doubtedâ— bâ—cause there is no passage from them to the yard and that the true Testicles are less and lâ—e inwards towards the back However this can bee no Error because they are a kinde of Testicles both in form and situation and so they are called Testicles by Dióscorides and the best Physitians if then this be an error it is nominal not real II. As our bodies are still decaying and subject to many infirmities so God hath provided for us all sorts of remedies partly by aliments partly by medicaments some whereof are hot some cold some moist some dry some restringent some laâ—ative some diuretick some hypnotick some spâ—rmatick some increasing or diminishing the â—oure humours of our bodies blood choler flegme and melancholy Now those aliments are called Spermatick which either increase blood for of this the Sperm is begot or which convey the Spermatick matter to the Seminal vessels or which adde vigour to the languishing Seminall Spirits such are sharp biting salt aromatick and â—â—atulent meats or lastly such as cause secundity by bringing the matrix and Seminall parts to a temperature by their contrary quality So cooling things correct the heat and hot things the coldnesse of those parts among such the Mandrakes are to be recâ—â—â—ed called by Plutarch Anthropomorphoi and Semihomines by Coluâ—ella because the forked root represents the lower parts of man the upper parts are commonly carved out by circumforaneous Medacasters These Mandrakes are of a narcotick quality therefore a dull heavy or melancholick man of old was said proverbially to have eaten Mandrakes These procure secundity by correcting the hot matrix with their frigidity Now if we say that Rachel finding her barrenneâ—â—e to proceed from excessive heat did coveâ— these Mandrakes to cool 〈◊〉 and make her â—râ—itful this can neither be thought immodesty in her nor an error in us to think so seeing the best and most Interpreters are of this opinion and the Text seems to intimate so much Dr. Browns reasons are not sufficient to prove this a vulgar error Book 7. c. 7. For 1. Though our Mandrakes have not so pleasant a smell as those of Iudea it will not follow they are not the same for plants according to the climat alter their qualities and yet Lemnius saith they have a pleasant smell in Belgium 2. Nor will it follow that Dudaim
all bodies at all times alike The means to discriminate the true Unicorns horn from the false are two to wit if it cause the liquor in which it is put to bubble and secondly if it sweat when the poison is near it as Baccius tells us IV. I have read of some who were born blind and dumb and yet have been cured Seidelus de morb incur but in these there could not be a totall privation of the organ or faculty of sight and speech for such cannot be cured by Nature nor Art And so Iohn 6. it was held impossible for one born blind to see In those then was only a privation of the act and so the eye-lids only shut up and agglutinated which by Art might be cut and opened And so the strings by which the tongue is tied are often cut I have also read in Seidelius of one who lived till he was an old man and every year from his birth till his dying day had a fever which took him still upon his birth-day This anniversary Fever held him still fourteen days and at last killed him The seeds of this Fever he got doubtlesse in his mothers womb and what impressions the seed or Embryo receiveth then can never be eradicated such is the force of the formative power upon our first materials Sâ—â—liger speaks of a certain Fish in the Island of Zeilam which if one hold fast in his hands puts him in a shaking fit of an Ague This effect I suppose proceeds from the excessive cold of the Fish which by the hand being communicated to the muscles and nerves causeth shaking and convulsion fits And no lesse strange is that which is mentioned by Libavius of one who hearing his kinsman being in a remote country was dead of the plague fell sick himself of the same disease though the place where he was then dwelling was free from any infection Libavius de veneno c. 8. Corollarii This proceeded from a deep apprehension or sudden fear a weaknesse in nature and an aptitude to fall into that disease and how powerful apprehension fear and fancies are â—pon our bodies may be seen in that story mentioned by Libavius de veneno c. 8. of one who ate a snake in stead of an Eel without any hurt till a good while after he was told it was a Snake and upon this he fell sick and pined away CHAP. VII 1. The diversities and vertues of Bezar stones 2. A woman conceived in a Bath of an Incubus 3. Strange actions performed by sleepers and the causes thereof Lots Incest in his sleep 4. Some Animals live long without food The Camelions food is only air the contrary reasons answered Air turns to water and is the pabulous supply of fire MOnardes in historia Bezoaris speaks of some who were poisoned by drinking out of a puddle where Toads Snakes and other virulent vermin had laid their spawn but were cured by taking Bezar two or three times Bauhinus c. 34.36 speaks of divers diseases cured by this stone and it is known by daily experience that it is used with good successe in pestilential Fevers as Synertus shews Syn. l. 4. de Feb. c. 8. It is also good in divers other maladies both to cure and prevent them Yet Doctor Brown thinks we are daily gulled in the Bezar whereof many are false Book 3. c. 23. I deny not but some adulterat Bezars there are yet we must not think all fals or that we are gulled because we do not see the wished effects For Synertus l. 4. de Feb. c. 8. shews that the best Bezar faileth if the just dose be not given For some out of fearfulness give but a grain or two whereas he hath given eight or ten grains with good successe Again the operation of it is hindred oftentimes by mixing it with other Simples It proves also ineffectual if any thing else be given too soon after or if the stomach be not clear when it is exhibited For as the spirit of Tartar and Vitriol by themselves will work powerfully but being mixed lose their operative qualities and taste so doth Bezar many times mixed with other things Now this stone is bred in a bag under the stomach of some beasts which in form resemble our Goats In the Eâ—st-Indies they have horns but in the West none The Oriental stones are the best a grain whereof hath been sold for four Ducats Some of them are as big as a Goose Egg they have divers forms and divers colours some yellow some green some black the best are bred in those beasts that feed on the hils and on aromatick hearbs which are not found in the valleys they grow like Onions wrapt about with many tunicles or crusts Acosta l. 4. c. 42. sheweth that in the midst of some of them are sound pins straws or sticks about which matter doth gather vvhich by degrees increaseth and hardneth till it come to a just magnitude In the midst of those stones are found sometimes odoriferous hearbs Mathiolus and Renodaeus hold those for the best stones in the midst of which are found dust or gravel The Indians use the pouder of Bezar not only against inward diseases but also with it they cure their wounds and Carbuncles or Boils Acosta l. 4. c. 42. relates the observation of the Peruans vvho say that the best stone is bred in a beast called Vieugne vvhich feeds upon a poisonable hearb by which it preserves it self from the grasse and vvaters that are poisoned by venomous beasts He that will see more of this stone lâ—t him read those above named and likewise Boutius Baccius Toll and others II. That story is strange of the Woman vvhich conceived in a Bath by attracting the mans sperm who bathed in the same place This is affirmed by Averroes Anat. l. 8. quaest 11. but denied by Laurentius del Rio and some others vvhom Doctor Brown in this followeth Hee that denyeth a matter of fact must bring good witnesses to the contrary or else shew the impossibility of the fact which they do not For we shall find this conception possible if either we consider the nature of the Matrix vvhich by a strange instinct and appetite attracteth the sperm to it for which cause Plato calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even as the stomach attracteth meat and drink though in some distance from it Or if wee consider that the seminal spirits in the vvarm vvater might be a vvhile preserved from evaporating and therefore what they say of the longitude of the organ in which the seed is refrigerated is not to the purpose except they could prove it to be so in all But the contrary is found in the long organ of great breasts wherein the sperm is no vvays damaged Besides the heat of the bath might have some proportion to that of the Matrix vvhereas the organ of emission is not so hot as consisting most of nervous and spermatical parts Again vve see that the sperm of Fishes in
vvhich there are seminal spirits is not prejudiced by the vvater vvhere it is shed but the male fishes cast their seed upon the spawâ— vvhich the females leave in the vvater as Aristotle Pliny AElian Albertus and others do shew Lastly vvee must not think all the stories false vvhich are written of the Incubi vvhich vvere evil spirits conveying the masculine seed to the place of generation of vvhich there have been conceptions For to deny this saith Augustine lib. 15. de Civit. Dei cap. 23. doth argue impudence considering the many testimonies and examples of the same yet I deny not but the imagination is sometimes deluded but not still as Wierus thinks and I know also that Incubus is the same disease with Ephialtes yet it will not follow that there are no evill spirits called Incubi and Succubi For to deny such vvere to accuse the ancient Doctors of the Church and the Ecclesiastick Histories of falshood vvhich affirm that the Catecbumeni vvere much troubled vvith these Incubi This vvere also to contradict the common consent of all Nations and experience There is then a double Incubus the one natural called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vvhich is caused in sleep by a frigid grosse vapour filling the ventricles of the brain and prohibiting the animall spirits to passe through the nerves vvhereby the imagination is hurt so that they think they are oppressed vvith a great vveight This disease is much like the Epilepsia but somwhat milde The other Incubus is Diabolical III. That some men can in their sleep perform those actions which they neither could nor durst do when awaked is known by Histories and experience Marianus cap. ad audientiam witnesseth that he had a Maid vvho in her sleep could rise and make bread as if she had been awaked Francis Mendoza l. 6. de Flor. knew one vvho vvould rise in his sleep and in the night time vvalked out vvith his naked sword vvith vvhich hee struck some of the City guard but at last being vvounded vvas awaked Tirannel in Mendoza speaks of an English man in Paris vvho rose in his sleep vvent down towards the river Sene vvhere having met vvith a Boy he killed him and so returned being all this vvhile asleep to his bed Horstius de noctambulis vvrites of one vvho in his sleep usually vvould arise go up and down the stairs lock and unlock his chests He speaks of another vvho dreamed he vvas to ride a Journy riseth puts on his cloaths boots and spurs gets up into the Window vvhere he sate stradling beating the vvals vvith his spurs till hee vvas awaked And he sheweth that at Helmstad one rose in his sleep vvent down the stairs into a Court from thence toward the Kitchin neer vvhich vvas a deep Wel into this he went down holding fast to the stones by his hands and feet but when hee touched the vvater with the cold thereof he vvas awaked and finding in what danger he was gave a pitiful out-cry which awaked those in the house who having found him got him out and brought him to his bed where he lay many days speechlesse and immoveable being extreamly weakned with fear cold and crying Another story he hath no lesse strange then this of a young Gentleman vvho in his sleep arose naked carrying his shirt in his hand and by the help of a rope clambers up to a high Turret in the Castle where he then was Here he findes a nest of Mag-pies which he robs and puts the young ones in his shirt and so by the same rope comes down again and returns to his bed The next morning being awaked tells his brother how he dreamed that he had robb'd a Pies nest and withal wondring what was become of his shirt riseth and findes it at his beds feet with the young birds wrapt up in it To these examples wee may add that of Lot who in his sleep begot his two daughters with childe This Dr. Brown Book 7. c. 6 will not admit though he hath a direct Text of Scripture against him For there it is said Gen. 19. That Lot neither knew when his daughters lay down nor when they rose up Which words are expounded by Irenaeus c. 51. cont Haeres That Lot had neither pleasure nor consent nor sense nor knowledge of this act Chrysostome affirms the same expounding these words Lot saith he Hom. 44. in Genes was so intoxicated with wine that he knew not at all what he did lest he should be guilty of so great a crime acting in this neither wittingly nor willingly S. Austin is of the same minde Cont. manic l. 22. and other Expositors Now if one ask how sleeping men can do such things I answer it is partly by the strength of Imagination which is more active in sleep then when we are awake 2. All sleepers are not apt for such actions but such whose natures are melancholy or cholerick whose spirits are more fervent subtil and agile then others moving the bmuscles and by them the body though the outward senses be ound up by sleep 3. They catch not that hurt in their sleep which they would do if awaked because their senses are not avocated by other objects they have no apprehension of fear their imagination is more intent in sleep and withal their Genius or good Angel is carefull of them IV. I read of divers both beasts and men which have lived a long time without meat or drink We know that Swallows Cuckows Dormice diuers other animals sast all the Winter The like is recorded of Lizards Serpents Water-Crocodiles Bears and other ravenous beasts whose bodies by reason of their humidity and rapacity are full of crudiâ—les by which they are fed in the Winter Mendosa dâ— Flor. Philos. Probl. 24. speaks of a Hen in his time which lived eighty dayes without food and vvater Cardan de subtil l. 10. writes that the Indian bird called Manucodiata lives only in the aire upon dew as Grashoppers do Rondâ—letius l. 1. de Piscib c. 12. shews that his wife kept a fish three years in a glasse without any other food but water and yet the fish grew so big that the glasse could not at last contain it And I have kept Spiders my self in a glasse which I dismissed after they had fasted nine months The Camelion also liveth upon the air Oscitans vescitur follicans ruminat de vento cibus saith Tertullian in Pallio I have seen a Camelion which was brought hither from Africa by sea and kept in a box which all the while was never seen to feed on any thing else but air Yet D. Brown Book 3 c. 21. will not have air to be his food for these reasons 1. Because Aristotle and AElian speak nothing of this Ans. Neither do they speak any thing against it which likely they would have done if they had thought their feeding on aire had been fabulous They do not speak of what food each animal is sustained and though they doe
deprived of the noblest sense and gives the reason because living still under ground they had no use of sight If then by eyes are meant the perfect organs of sight with all things requisite thereto I deny they have eyes and consequently sight they have neither the organ nor the office except we say that like is the same Now these forms of eyes Nature gave to the Moles rather for ornament the use so wings are given to the Ostrich which never flies and so a long tail to the Rat which serves for no other use but to be catched sometimes by it And to what end hath Nature given tears to men and other males Again Nature in all her works aims at perfection but is oftentimes hindred by some obstacle which is the reason why the Mole wants eyes and the Manucodiata feet but what is defective in the Moles eye is recompensed by the quickness of his hearing 2 He saith That they are not exactly blind for they can discern the light which is one object of vision Ans. I do not believe they can discern the light at all 2. If they could discern the light yet they are blind for I have known men stark blind who yet have discerned light from darknesse when a candle came into the room 3. Light is not the object of vision for we see not light but lucid and coloured we see not light but by it Light is Objectum quo non quod 3. He saith A Mole cannot be properly blind if it want the organs or capacity of seeing for privations presuppose habits Answ. A Moal is as properly blind as he in the ninth of Iohn who was born so for he had no capacity of seeing naturally no more then the Moal yet he is said to be blind from his nativity and that properly because he was a subject capable of sight quatenus an animall or sensitive creature which is capable of sight because of senses whereof the sight is one Moals therefore are capable of sight in the genius of animals though not in the species as a Moal and so an Oyster is capable of sight 2. The Doctor prying too narrowly into the sayings of the Ancients reckoneth them amongst his Vulgar Errors which being rightly understood are no errors at all as when they say the Elephant hath no joynts they mean their joynts were stiffe and not so easily flexible as those of other animals When they write that the Swan sings they meant that with their wings they made a kind of harmonious noyse as the learned Poet expresseth in that Verse Cantantes sublime fernnt ad sidera Cygni Which he explains in another place Vt reduces ludunt illi stridentibus alis When they say the Lampery hath nine eyes they mean so many spots resembling eyes When they write that a Horse and Dove have no gall they mean that these have not baggs of gall annexed to the Liver as other animals When they speak of Griffins that they were animals like Eagles in their fore-parts and behind like Lions they spake mystically shewing by this hieroglyphick the valour magnanimity courage and audacity that ought to be in Princes and Governours And when they write that Toads doe pisse they did not speak properly but onely meant that they squirted out some liquid matter behind When they spoke of the Toads stone they do not mean a true and proper stone but a concretion or induration of their crany When they write that Hares are double Sexes they write no more then what hath been observed in other animals which are Hermophroditicall and in whom sometimes females have been changed into males Hares also make a shew of a double Sex because of the two Tumors representing Testicles and their holes or cavities near the siege in the males by which they seem also to be females And what they write of their superfaetation is true for the like is incident to some other animals even to women When they say that Snails have eyes at the ends of their horns their meaning is that these are like eyes So when they hold that all animals of the land are in their kind in the sea they mean that there was a great resemblance between the sea and land-animals So when they write that the Peacock is ashamed when he looks on his black feet they write symbolically intimating that pride ends in shame when men look upon their deformities and infirmities When they say whelps are blind nine dayes they mean that they are so for the most part though some be blind three or foure dayes longer When they write that Worms have no blood they write properly for how can those have blood which have no liver or other sanguifying organs that red humour in them is not blood properly but analogically II. That there is in man a right and a left side is manifest by Scripture generall consent Experince and Reason which also prove the dignity agility and strength of the right side above the left because on the right side is the Liver the cistern of blood in which consisteth our life vigor strength therefore this side is not so often as the left subject to palsies because it is stronger to resist and repell the matter of that disease into the weaker side Yet Doctor Brown Book 4. c. 5. denies any prepotency in the right side and such as ariseth from the constant root of Nature because he finds not Horses Bulls and Mules are generally stronger on this side Ans. There is great diversity between the conformity situation and parts of mans body and beasts and therefore to reason from the one to the other is absurd We find not that variety of colours in the eyes of Horses Bulls and Mules that are in Mans eyes nor doe we find the Horses gall annexed to his liver shall we hence inferre a deficiency of things in man The weight of the Bodies of Four-footed Beasts lieth equally upon all foure and all foure equally are used in motion and therefore there was no reason why any side or legge should be more preporent then another but it is otherwise in man to whom Nature hath given one side stronger and nimbler then another for uniformity of action Hence the right hand and foot are stronger then the left Neither is it Custome but Nature that hath given this dexterity to the right side For I have known some who have endeavoured by custome to bring their left hand to perform the offices of the right but could never doe it with that ease and dexterity Scaliger and Cardan speak of one who had never a hand yet with his right foot could perform all the offices of the right hand write sew eat drink fling darts 2. He saith that children indifferently use either hand Answ. That is because as yet in the tender infant the heat and strength of the body is equally diffused and not setled in one part more then in another but as he begins to gather strength and the
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and afterward were palces in this 5. He will have the just magnitude of the Sun and Starres to depend upon our senses and to be no bigger then they seem to our eye so that the bignesse of the Sun cannot exceed a foot 6. He tels us that the Sun every night perisheth and every day is generated 7. He acknowledgeth no other happinesse then what consists in the pleasure of tasting smelling seeing hearing feeling or venery as may be seen in Laertius 8. He makes all things to have their existence not by providence but by hap-hazard of Atoms and not the bodies of things onely but the reasonable souls of men also which he makes subject to uncertainty 9. He makes all the Gods 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with humane shapes 10. He reacheth as Plutarch tels us that there is no qualities in things but what the senses apprehend so that the same wine may be both sweet and source according to the palat that tasts it and hot water is not hot but coole if a man conceit it to be so 11. He makes his doctrine fit for all mens humours he commends wealth to the covetous discommends it to the prodigall and riotous he praiseth gormondising to the Glutton dispraiseth it to the abstenious he tells the continent venery is hurtful but to the wanton that it is delightful and pleasant 12. He sheweth himself to be a prophane Atheist in despising Religion making it a tyrant to keep men in aw a pernitious device and a scar-crow to terrifie and enslave the vvorld And now lest any might think that Epicurus is wronged and that these damnable opinions are fathered upon him causlesly I will not alledge Cicero Plutarch Lactantius and others that have professedly written against him but his prime Scholar Lucretius who highly commends him as being the first that freed the World from the bondage and slavery of Religion His words are these Humana ante oculos faede quum vita jaceret In terris oppressa gravi sub relligione Quae caput ◠coeli regionibus ostendeba◠Horribili super adspectu mortalibus instans Primum Graius homo mortales tendere contra Est oculos ausus primusque obsistere contra Quem neque fama Deûm nec fulmina nec minitanti Murmure compressit coelum c. And so he goes on glorying in the conquest and victory that Epicurus had got over religion Quare relligio pedibus subjecta vicissim obteritur nos exaequat victoria coelo His other wicked and absurd opinions you may see mentioned and commended by the same Poet through all his Poem so that the Doctor hath no reason to complain that Epicurus is wronged and much lesse cause hath he to commend and pity so prophane and absurd a Writer to call him vertuous who was the greatest enemy that ever vertue had Neither are his many Writings or long life arguments sufficient to prove him an honest man I shall not need spend time and paper in refuting the senslesse and wicked Dictates of Epicurus being fully refuted already by divers eminent Writers both Christians and Gentiles CHAP. XVII Epicurus his Atomes rejected by nineteen reasons BEcause the Doctor speaks oftentimes in his Book of Epicurean Atomes which first were hatched in the brains of Leucippus then entertained by Democritus and by him recommended to his Scholar Epicurus and because some giddy heads of this age loathing wholsome doctrine desire to embrace any trash like women troubled with the Pica who preferre ashes chalk coals tarre and such like stuffe to nourishing meats I will propose to the Readers view the absurdities of this whimsical opinion concerning Atomes that they may see how little reason there is to fil young brains with such empty phantosms and to reject Aristotles wholsome and approved Doctrine of Principles The inventers of these Atomes at first out of a vain-glory that they might seem singular rejected the common received principles of naturall Bodies obtruding on the World their idle dreams which are greedily embraced by the vain-glorious wits of this age but upon what grounds let us see 1. Either many bodies are made up of one atome or one body of many atomes But neither are true not the first because an atome is indivisible not the second because they cannot unite together in respect of vacuity in which they are distant from each other 2. It is a maxime among them saith Aristotle That there is no passibility but by the means of vacuity Now atomes have no vacuity in them because they make them solid therefore they are not subject to passibility it will follow then that where there is no passion there can be no action for passion is the reception of action and therefore where no patient is there no agent can be because that is wanting on which the agent should act Hence it will follow that where there is no action and passion there can be no generation 3. There can be no action where there is no contrariety but contrary qualities are not in atomes for Leucippus as Aristotle saith placed heat in them but not cold hardnesse but not softnesse gravity but not levity 4. These Atomists contradict themselves for they hold their atomes impassible and yet place in them degrees of qualities making some heavier then others by which it will follow that some atomes are hotter then others and consequently they cannot act one upon another For the greater heat acts upon the lesser as the stronger upon the weaker 5. If compounded bodies are made up of atomes then the qualities which are in these bodies were first in the atomes or were not if not whence have compounded bodies their qualities being they are not in their principles If they are in atomes either they are singly so that in each atome there is but one quality as frigidity in one hardnesse in another or else there be divers qualities in one atome If the first be granted then it will follow that each atome hath a different nature from the other and so no possibility for reception of the quality of another and consequently no action if the second be granted then it will follow that atomes are divisible for there must be one part for reception of one quality and another part for the other quality There must be also besides integrall parts matter and form act and passibility which we call essentiall parts so will it follow that atomes are compounded bodies which cannot be principles 6. The uniting of these atomes must be either by themselves or by another if by another then they are passible which is repugnant to Democritus if by themselves then they are divisible into parts to wit into the parts moving and the parts moved For nothing can move itselfe because contrarieties cannot be in the same thing secundum idem 7. They make some of the atomes to be soft it will follow then that some of them are passive for soft things are apt to receive impressions
the seat of the senses therefore in Aristophanes the word sneezing is used for feeling as when he saith I sneezed not the blow his Interpreter expounds it I felt it not as Caelius observeth But now because the Gentiles abused sneezing superstitiously and wished well to the Sneezer we must not hence inferre That to pray for the safety of him who sneezeth is superstition or Gentilisme as some do for so we may conclude by the same reason that to pray at all is superstition because the Gentiles used to pray It is an ancient custome among Christians to wish well to him that sneezeth taking its originall from the time of St. Gregory when at Rome in a great sicknesse men died with sneezing Doctor Brown out of Fernandes brings some proofes to shew that the original of wishing wel to the sneezer is more ancient then Gregory to whom I answer That it was used among the Gentiles before Gregories time but I deny that it was usuall among Christians till then From this sicknesse therefore at Rome in Gregories dayes in which this wel-wishing was used and not from the Gentiles practice we draw this civill and charitable custome in praying for our friend or neighbour when he sneezeth V. In those that are thunder-struck divers things are remarkable as 1. They keep the same posture of body being dead which they had when they were alive at the time when they were struck as Cardan de rer var. lib. 8 c. 44. instanceth of 8 harvest people in the Isle Lemnes who sitting together under an Oak at supper were all thunder-struck retaining the same posture they had before one with his hand on the cup ready to drink the other with the cup at his mouth a third with meat in his mouth so that they looked like so many statues The reason of this may be the stifnesse of the nerves and muscles being parched and dried up by the hot and sulphury matter of the lightning The like I read of those that are killed with excessive cold which so stiffeneth those parts mentioned that the body retains its posture whether sitting or standing 2. They that are thunder-struck look black because the heat drieth up the radicall moisture The like we see of fire which makes the whitest paper and linnen grow black and the Sun tans mens skins 3. Their bodies do not putrifie by reason their moisture which is the mother of putrifaction is exhausted 4. There is neither wild beasts nor ravenous birds will touch or come neere such bodies because of their sulphury smell which is noisome to them and their drinesse is such that they can afford no nutriment 5. That part which is wounded by the thunder is colder then any other notwithstanding that the lightning or thunder is of a fiery nature because all things which have been heated by the fire grow colder then before by reason the inward heat is drawn out by the fire for in things of the same nature or quality the stronger attracts the weaker 6. The Romans never suffered their bodies to be burned that were thunder-struck but covered them with earth in the same place where they were struck or let them remain unburied nor would they suffer any funeral obsequies to be performed to them perhaps they thought it unfitting to burn those with terrestriall fire who had been scorched already with fire from heaven or to take the shape away or figure of that body with their fire which the celestiall fire had spared nor would they honour him with a a funerall whom they thought execreable and extreamly hated of the gods therefore none would venture to come neer the place till it was expiared by a sacrifice which was called Bidentaâ—l being a sheep of two years old or of two eminent teeth which word also by Persius is given to the party that is thunder-struck whom he calls evitandum Bidentall Sect. 2. because none durst touch or come neer him 7. The thunder seldome or never kills those that are asleep but such onely as are awaked this may proceed from the fear which is in those that are awaked by which the spirits blood suddenly suffocate the heart whereas in sleep there is no fear or apprehension of danger and not only men but cattell also are much afrighted wherefore in thundring times the shepheards use to gather their sheep together that being united they may be the lesle fearfull whereas any creature alone is subject to be fearfull 8. It is a strange quality in the thunder to break the bones to melt the sword to dry up the wine to kill the infant in the womb and yet not touch the skin the scabbard the barrell nor the mother perhaps the skin and leather being pory transmits the sulphury vapour which is resisted by the bones and metall As for the wine exhausted I think Pliny Plutarch and others mean onely the Spirits of the wine evaporated and so the child being more tender and apter to receive the malignant vapour of the thunder then the mother might die and she live CHAP. III. 1. The Female hath no active seed of generation Doctor Harvies and Fernelius reasons refutaed 2. A Discourse of the Cholick 3. The same soul in a subventaneous and prolificall egge Doctor Harvies reasons to the contrary refuted 4. Blood not the immediate instrument of the Soul Doctor Harvies reasons answered 5. Doctor Harvies way of conception refuted WE have proved already l. 1. c. 4. sect 3. that the female hath no active active seed for generation but is meerly passive affording onely blood and the place of conception according to the truth of Aristotles doctrine but because the Physicians are of another opinion that the female hath also seed actively concurring to generation we will examine the solidity of their reasons 1. Doctor Harvy Exercit. 32. proveth That in the female there is an active principle of generation Because of the Horse and Asse is procreated a mixt species to wit the Mule the whole form whereof is made up and mixed of both parents so that the Horse alone was not sufficient to produce this form of the Mule in the matter but as the whole form is mixed therefore the Asse must concurre as an other efficient cause Answ. The Mule is not a compounded species or mixed of the Horse and Asse but rather a third species different from both as having neither in whole nor in part nor separated nor mixed their essentiall forms but hath its own specificall form and properties distinct from those of the parents as we may see in the Mules sterrility which is a property not individuall as in some other animals but specificall of which the species of the Horse and Asse is not capable As for some outward resemblances in the Mule to the parents these are but accidentall and are in animals of farre different species as also in trees and other vegetables Besides the forms or species of things cannot be mixed because essences are impartible and admit
original from eggs which if true then that is no fiction of the Poets concerning Leda's two eggs out of which were procreated Pollux and Helena Castor and Clytemnestra but I conceive the Doctor in this speaks rather tropically then properly for simile non est idem and what may in some sort resemble an egge is not an egge however his book is full of excellent learning and observation yet I have been bold in some thingâ— to dissent from him as may be seen in the former Chapter The other book I lately viewed is my Lord Bacon's Natural History a Piece fraughted with much variety of elegant learning but yet wherein are divers passages that deserve animadversionâ— I never had leasure to run over the book till now though I had seen it before and now my distractions are such that I cannot exactly examine it but onely ut canis è nilo here and there touch a little First then I finde him mistaken in thinking that the French-pox is begot by eating of mans flesh Cent. 1. Sect. 26. His reasons are A story of mans flesh barrelled up like tunny eat at the siege of Naples the other is because the Canibals who feed on mans flesh are subject to that disease 3. Because the blood or fat of mans flesh is mixed with poysons And lastly because Witches feed on mans flesh to aid their imaginations with high and foul vapors Answ. These reasâ—ns are of small validity For 1. it was not the eating of mans flesh at the siege of Naples that brought this disease into Europe but it was procured by some of Columbus his Company who had carnal commerce with soul Indian women which with the pox they brought along with them 2. Mans flesh of all other animals is counted the most temperate therefore cannot produce such a venomous distemper so repugnant to mans body 3. This is a peculiar disease of the Indians both East and West for divers Countries have their divers maladies 4. Neither can this or any disease be counted new in respect of their subjects original causes or seminaries for this disease is as old as mans flesh though in this part of the world it did not break out so generally as of late and who knows but that the ancients had it but under another name being a kind of Leprosie 5. The Canibals among the Indians are not more subject to this disease then others who never tasted of mans flesh for in all ages there have been men eaters yet not tainted mith this malady and millions of latter years among us who are infected with this poyson and yet never eat of mans flesh 6. It is against reason to imagine that the flesh of a man should rather breed this disease then of an ox or a sheep seeing mans flesh is sooner convertible into nutriment then of any other animal because of the greater simpathy and specifical unity 7. Though ignorant Indians do mix mans blood or fat with poyson it will not therefore follow that these are poyâ—â—nable no more then wine can be called poyson because poysonable materials may be mixed with it so we mix sugar and butter with rats bane which we know have no venemous quality in them 8. Witches who are silly fools may eat mans flesh hoping thereby to aid their imaginations but there is no such vetue in mans flesh as they conceive so they use many spels charms and canting words in which there is no more vertue then in a pibble stone or a piece of rotten wood 9. Mans flesh can afford no soul vapors except it befoul it self and putrified and so indeed it may breed loathsome diseases as all other corrupt and putrified meats do which is done as it is corrupted not as it is mans flesh neither can it afford high vapors except it were full of spirits which cannot be in a piece of dead flesh he that will have high vapors must drink sack not eat mans flesh the blood of the vine not of the vein can breed high vapors Indeed the drinking of mans blood and eating of his flesh may inure a man to cruelty which Catelin knew by causing his associates to drink humane blood hence the Judaical law forbids eating of blood at all shewing us hereby how much God abhors cruelty or that which may induce a man to it II. His Lordship calls it A crude and ignorant speculation to make the dilatation of the fire the cause of the expulsion of the pellet out of the Gun but he will have the cause to be the crude and windy spirits of nitre dilated by heat which bloweth abroad the flame as an inward bellows But I would know what difference there is between dilatation and between the flame and spirit of the nitre He affirms dilatation to be the cause of this expulsion therefore his exception against the former opinion was needless and whereas he grants the flame to be the immediate expeller of the pellet he unawares affirms what he rejects neither can I see any difference between the flame of the nitre and the spirit of the nitre inflamed onely he was pleased to make shew of a new reason by altering somewhat the words of the former whereas the sense is one and the same the speculation then is not crude but the spirit of his nitre is crude which without the flame can do nothing 3. From a wax candle burning in a porringer full of spirit of wine set on fire he infers Cent. 1.31 strange conculsions As 1. That the flame of the candle becomes bigger and globular and not in pyramis and consequently that the pyramis of the flame is accidental I answer the flame of the candle becomes bigger and globular accidentally because the air about it is heated by the flame of the wine therefore as in all things like draws to like so one flame dilates it self to enjoy the other as a drop of water will contract it self upon a drie but dilate it self upon a wet table 2. He infers That the flame of itself would be round if it were not for the air that quencheth the sides of it But I say that the air is so far from quenching that it cherisheth and maintaineth the flame without which it would quickly vanish and that the flame would not be round of it self if the air round about were not inflamed for the same cause it rouls and turns not of its own nature but because the ambient flame draws it 3. He â—nfers hence That the celestial bodies are true fires for they are igâ—obular and have rotation and have the colour and splendor of flame These are weak arguments that from common accidents prove specifical identities for if the stars be true fires because globular then we may infer that water drops are fire because round and that every thing which hath rotation is fire and if that be fire which hath the colour of fire or that a flame which hath the splendor of flame we may say that rotten
convert any other metall into gold which were to introduce by Art a specificall form into the matter which is the work ofâ— Nature alone He saith It is a vain opinion to think the starre is the denser part of his Orb. This is spoken both Lordly and maâ—esterially but he had done well to tell us why this opinion is vain and to have delivered an opinion void of vanity which he doth not but his bare word is not sufficient to make this a vain opinion which the learned of so many Ages have approved and stands so much with reason I confesse we know but little of those quintessentiall natures for we are as the Poet saith Curvae in terris animae coelestium inanes Yet of all opinions this is most consonant to reason that the starre is homogeneall with its spheare so that the starre is the heaven contracted and the heaven in which the starre moveth is the starre dilated for otherwise wee must make the heaven an heterogeneall body and consequently organicall which will prove the vainer opinion of the two He tells us That Oyl is almost nothing else but water digested I may say it is any thing else rather then water from which it is so averse that it will not be united or incorporated with it and the effects are clean opposite for water is cold oyle hot in operation water putrifieth oyle resisteth putrifaction water makes Iron rust oyle keeps it from rusting water quencheth the fire oyle kindles and feeds it water is heavy oyle light for it vvill still be uppermost vvater is thin oyle thick water is quickly up by heat and turned into vapours so is not oyle water is the food of plants oyle of men oyle is apt to be inflamed so is not water therefore oyle is rather air or fire then vvater digested He gives us a strange cause of mans indisposition to motion when Southern winds blow The cause saith he is that the humours do melt and wax fluid and so flow into the parts How humours should melt I know not except they were congealed like butter wax or ice and where be the parts into which they flow he tells us not but indeed the true cause is the giving as we call it or relaxation of the muscles nerves and tendons by the warm and moâ—st air which in dry and cold weather are more firm compacted and united and therefore the apter for motion It is saith he commonly seen that more are sick in Summer and more die in Winter This is to me a Riddle for if more die in Winter then in Summer it must follow That more are sick in Winter then in Summer for men usually die not till they be sick and so he contradicts himselfe Much like to this is that saying of his Diseases are bred chiefly by heat the contrary whereof is apparent that multitudes of diseases are bread by cold neither can I yeeld to him in saying That it is a superficiall ground that heat and moisture cause putrifaction because there have been great plagues in dry years But by his Lordships leave the plagues were not bred by the drynesse of the yeare but by the precedent heat and moisture of the Winter or Spring which break out upon the hot and dry Summer or Autumne and this hee acknowledgeth in his next Section where he sheweth That the cause of diseases is falsly imputed to the constitution of the air at that time when they break forth whereas it proceeds from a precedent sequence and series of the seasons of the year and so when he saith That in Barbary their plagues break up in Summer when the weather is hot and dry If this be so then it is no superficial ground to say that heat and moysture cause putrifaction seeing it is resisted by hot and dry weather and indeed it were absurd to think otherways seeing both experience and reason tells us that heat and moysture are â—he breeders of putrifaction and that frigidity and â—â—ccity are its greatest enemies therefore in cold climats and seasons putrifaction is not so frequent as in hot Countries and Summers so he confesseth that the Country about Cap Vorde is pestilent through moysture neither are drie things so apt to putrifie as moist so the flesh putrifieth and not the bones the apple or the pear will putrifie when the seed within remains unputrified whereas those bodies which have little or no moysture resist putrifaction both in themseves and others as Salt Brimstone Myrrhe Aloes and such like He makes Refrigeration of the tongues the cause of stuttering If this were so then old men should stutter more then young men for old men are colder But we know the contrary that not the coldnesse but rather the over-heating of the tongue causeth stuttering and this he acknowledgeth in the same Section that many stutterers are very cholerick men But choler is hot then it seemes that both heat and cold is the cause of stuttering But indeed the true cause in some is a bad habit or custom contracted from their infancy in others eagernesse of disposition for hasty and eager natures usually stutter and whilst they make the more haste they use the lesse speed in others again stuttering proceeds from some infirmity or impedimâ— in the tendon muscles or nerves of the tongue As for drinking of wine moderatly which he saith will cause men stut lesse is a thing I could never yet observe in those stutterers I have bin acquainted with He saith That men and beasts move little after their headss are off but in birds the motion remains longer because the spirit are chiefly in the head brain which in men beasts are large but birds have smal heads therfore the spirits are more dispersed in the sinewes That the spirits are chiefly in the head brain I deny for the vital spirits are chiefly in the heart And if the spirits be chiefly in the head and brain why doth the body separated from the head move more and longer time then the head Again though birds have lesser heads then men and beasts yet they have heads proportioned to their bodies and the spirits proportionably are as much in their heads as in mens or beasts heads Moreover though some men and beasts move little after the head is off yet some move much for I saw one beheaded whose body after it was laid in the coffin and carried a pretty way from the place of execution with a violent fit of motion was like to beat the coffin out of the hands of the bearers therefore the true causes of this difference are these as I conceive 1. The spirits of birds are more aeriall and fervent then of men and beasts and in some more in some lesse therefore the body of a Cock beheaded will flutter more then of a Goose or Turkie and so in beasts a Cat beheaded will move more violently then of many others for this reason some men move
more then others 2. The capacity of the vessels may be the cause of this differance for in men and beasts the veins arteries and nerves wherein the spirits and blood are contained be larger then in birds and therefore in them is a more sudden eruption of the blood spirits and consequently a shorter motion then in birds 3. The weight of the bodies in men and beasts farre exceed the weight of birds bodies and therefore are not so apt to be moved His Lordship is pleased to call The opinions of sympathies and antipathies ignorant and idle conceits and a forsaking of the true indications of causes Felix qui potuit rerum cognosere causas God will have us in some things rather admire his wisdom then know his secrets and because we cannot attain the true reason of many things we are to submit our judgments to a reverend admiration of his goodness who can give the reason of that sympathy between the loadstone and the iron Between the same stone and the pole We see there is a sympathy between some simples and some humors and between some parts of our bodies and some drugs What other reason properly can be given why Faltick draws choler Agaric fleghm Epithymum melancholy Why Selenites as Fernelius observeth being applied to the skin stayeth bleeding Why should Cantharides work onely on the bladder Why doeth Hemlock and Henbane poyson men which nourish birds How do cats come to the knowledge of Nip and dogs of grasse who taught the Chicken to fear the Kite or the Lamb the Wolfe And why have some men strong Antipathies with some meats Why are some sounds some smels some sights grateful to us some again odious If there be no sympathies and antipathies why are water and fire so averse to each other The Vine will not prosper if the Colewort grow near it he gives a reason for this Because the Colewort draweth the fattest juyce of the earth and where two plants draw the same juyce their neighbourhood hurteth This reason may be as well rejected as admitted for otheâ— plants that are set neare and among Cole-worts fare not the worse for their vicinity except it be Rue and not onely doth this Antipathy last between the Vine and Colewort when they are alive but when they are dead and separated from the earth for they write that Coleworts hinder inebriation and suffer not the wine to fume into the head and why is not the vine as strong to draw its nourishment from the earth as the Colewort seeing it hath more spirits and extends it selfe to a greater circuit and height But when he saith That Rue being set by a Figtree becometh stronger because the one draweth juice fit to refult sweet the other bitter I would know how one and the same piece of earth can afford sweet juyce to the one bitter to the other at the same timeâ—punc and how the fetide juice of the earth goeth into the Garlick and the odorate into the Rose when they grow together Sure these are whimzies for no piece of earth can have so many contrary qualities at the same time nor can there be severall juyces in one bud as he saith afterward neither is the earth any thing else but the common matrix of the plants affording them moisture and nourishment which my Lord acknowledgeth proceeds rather from the water then from the earth when he saith That white Satyrion bean flowers c. are very succubent and need to be scanted in their nourishment he contradicts his former assertion when he said That white was a penurious colour and where moisture is scant And yet he saith That white plumbs are the worst because they are over-watry So it seems that white is both a penurious and a super-plentifull colour where moisture is scant and yet over-watry The opinion that an Oke bough put into the earth will put forth wild Vines is rejected by him upon this ground â—t is not the Oke saith hee that turneth into a Vine but the Oke bough putrifying qualifieth the earth to put forth a vine of it selfe If the earth could put forth a vine of it selfe what need it to be qualified by the putrified Oke bough If it be of the putrified Oke bough as doubtlesse it is that the vine is generated then the earth doth not of it selfe send forth the vineIt is naturall for one thing to be generated out of the corruption of another but for plants to be generated of the earth alone without either seed boughes or some putrified materials of other things were miraculous He saith That transmutation of species is in the vulgar Philosophy pronounced impossible but this opinion is to be rejected What he means by vulgar Philosophy I know not but this I know that the Philosophy which is vulgarly received by all learned and wise men hold the transmutation of species impossible not to God who could transform Lots wife into salt Nebuchadnezzar into a beast waters into blood a rod into a serpent and water into wine but to Art or Nature which cannot transform species whether we understand the word in the extent and universality or as it may signifie the individuall nature under such a species For every individual consists of a matter and a forme the whole composition cannot be transformed into another composition nor the form to another specificall form nor the matter into another matter not the first for generation is not the changing of one composition into another but an introduction of a new form into the matter not the second for one form alwayes perisheth by corruption upon the introduction of another by generation not the third for the matter which is the common subject of all mutations must be alwayes the same in substance though it receive some alterations in qualities Transmutation then of species is impossible to Nature not to Chymists who think to transform silver into gold not to the Roman Church which holds a transubstantiation of bread into Christs body not unto Poets who sing of so many metamorphoses and transformations of men into beasts nor of those who think Witches can transform themselves into Cats Hares and other creatures He tells us That Mushroms cause the accident which we call Incubus or the Mare in the stomack If this were true in Italy and Africa where these are ordinarily eaten this disease would reign most but we find that the Northern Countries are more subject to the Incubus then the Southern Many then eat Mushroms who never were troubled with this disease many are troubled with it who never eat them But indeed the Incubus or Mare is no disease of the stomack as he saith but of the Diaphragma and lungs which being oppressed by a thick flegme or melancholy send up gross vapours into the throat by which speech is hindred and into the brain by which the imagination is disturbed It is reported saith he that grain out of the hotter Countries
spread it selfe so soon on a dry board as on a wet upon a dry board a drop of vvater vvill contract it self into a globular form and rise into some height rather then joyn itselfe to its enemy whereas upon a vvet board it presently spreads it selfe So dry things will rather swim upon then sink in the vvater except their vveight force them downward He also contradicteth experience when he saith That Fish hating the dry will not approach the air till it grow moist For vve see that fish play most upon the top of the vvaters in hot and dry Summers and in the hottest and driest time of the day when the Sun is in his Meâ—idian So when he saith That Aches and Corns engrieve most towards rain or frost This is not as if they were sensible of future rain but because the extremity of heat and cold doe exasperate these infirmities For the same reason Moals vvork and Fleas bite more eagerly He tells That hunger is an emptinesse But this is not so for there is sometimes hunger without emptinesse and sometimes emptinesse without hunger It is therefore not emptinesse but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Philosopher tells us a desire or appetite of hot and dry things caused by the corrugation and sucking in the mouth of the stomach His Lordship is pleased to call the received opinion That putrifaction is caused by cold or preternaturall heat but nugation But if cold be not the cause of putrifaction how comes it that Apples and Cabbages doe rot in frosty vveather And if peregrine heat be not the cause how comes it that in hot and moist years and places pestilentiall Feavers and other putrid diseases doe reigne Besides abundance of vermin doubtlesse these are procreated of putrifaction and this of heat except we will forfeit our senses and reason of which he being afraid confesseth at last that such a heat tendeth to dissolution He will not have liquifaction to proceed from any of the foure prime qualities that he calls an inutile speculation but from his own phantomes For bodies saith he that are more turgid of spirit or that have their spirits more straitly imprisoned as metals or that hold them better pleased and content as butter are liquifiable How happy then are those spirits which dwell in butter where they have pleasure and content in comparison of those vvretched spirits vvhich are imprisoned in Irons and other metals and yet how these spirits should make the metall turgid I know not Surely these are but crasie fansies vvhereas it is apparent to all ntelligible men that these things are most liquifiable which aboundeth most with congealed moisture whether it be aeriall and oily as in pitch butter wax and grease or watrish alone as in Ice or of a middle nature between both or peculiar as the moisture of metals And to tell us That wood clay free-stone c. are not liquifiable because they are bodies jejune of spirits is ridiculous for there are more spirits in vegitables then in metals and it is plain that clay and stones melt not because they want moysture which is in metals So it is not the dilatation of the spirits as he saith by heat which causeth wax to melt at the fire but the rarefaction of the moysture by heat which was before contracted by the cold For this cause dry wood is more fragile then green stone then metall and fictile earth then crude because there is no moisture in the one comparable to the moisture of the other He tels us that the hardnes of body is caused chiefly by the jejuness of the spirits Indeed this Philosophy is somwhat jejun for I would fain know whether there be not more spirits and less jejune in the hard bodies of Cloves Nutmegs and Cinnamon then in the soft bodies of Wooll Silk and Cotton According to his Philosophy there is a greater quantity of Spirits in a pellet of butter because softer then in a Nutmeg which is harder he that beleeves this let him when he is troubled with flatulencies in his stomack use butter and not hard spices He saith That Moisture doth chiefly colour hair but driness turneth them gray and white In his Philosophy then gray and white are not colours nor indeed blacknes which he saith afterwards is but a privative and consequently hath no entity Aristotle indeed sometimes calls black a privation but there he useth the words in a large sense for if it were properly privative how could other colours be made of black and white seeing of habits and privations nothing can be made He saith That some fishes be greater then any beasts because these have not their moisture drawn by the air and sun-beams Also they rest always in a manner and are supported by the water If these be the reasons of fishes greatness then why are Smelts and other lesser fishes smaller then the beasts Or why are they not as big as Whales seeing neither air nor sun-beams draw away their moisture and are also supported by the water The true cause then of the bigness of fishes above the beasts is the predominance of moisture in them which is easily extendible And indeed it is a frivolous thing to give reasons for the different magnitudes of the creatures seeing Nature hath given to each creature a determinate magnitude and period of duration And whereas he thinks that fish doe rest in a manner when they swim because they are supported by the water he may as well say That beasts and men rest when they walk and run because supported by the earth they that swim find there is no rest but labour and motion Before my Lord told us That by heat in putrifaction the spirits are emitted suppressed and suffocated But now he saith That the spirits in putrifaction gather heat How the spirits at the same time should be destroyed by the heat and yet gather heat is so sublime a fansie that no fansie but his own can reach it Water saith he being contiguous with air cooleth it but moystneth it not except it vapour because heat cold have a virtuall transaction without communication of substance but moysture not He takes it for granted which no Philosophy will grant him to wit that accidents can passe from one subject to another without their substance which is to make accidents subsist by themselves and to be all one with the substance which is repugnant to sense and reason therefore without vapours neither can the water moysten nor cool the air He saith Air is not without some secret degree of heat He needs make no secret of it for it is manifest that the air is hot and moist as the fire is hot and dry but for any secret degree of light in the air I deny For though as he saith Cats and Owles see in the night this is not because there is any degree of light in the air for what light can
there be in a dark dungeon where yet a Cat can see The air is not a light body of it self being diaphanous for the celestiall sphears are not light neither is there any luminous body in the dark Dungeon except the Cats eyes which afford light enough to the Cat to see his object He gives us a reason why the limbs on the right side are stronger Because motion is holpen from the liver How the liver should help motion is not known in Anatomy seeing motion and its Organs are from the brain not from the liver He had better have said that motion is holpen from the heart and so might have inferred that the left side limbs are strongest But indeed the true cause why the right side is stronger then the left is because the right limbs are bigger but why Nature made them bigger or stronger no other reason can be given then that the right side is hotter because there is the fountain of blood He saith That all spongie bodies expell the air and draw in liquor This is not so for why should such a body expell the air and draw in liquor but when the liquor enters into a spongie body the air gives place as a void penetration therefore Sugar expels not the air to suck up the Wine but the wine enters into the Sugar and expels the air so that the Sugar is a meer patient He tells us That stone walls are not so wholsom as wood or bricks This assertion stands neither with experience nor reason for they who have lived with their predecessors within stone walls many hundreths of years never found any unwholsomnesse by the stones and it is against reason that dry stones who as he phraseth it are jejune of spirits should afford any vapours or unwholsom damps It 's true that in moyst weather there be some Sea-stones or such as are taken out of Rivers will sweat but I have seen such drops upon brick-walls This proceeds neither from the stone nor brick but from the air which falling upon the hard stone and being resisted for want of pores from penetrating stayeth there and by the coldness of the stone turns to water-drops even upon Marble It is certain saith he that potions incense perfumes an oyntments do naturally work upon the imaginations The contrary rather is certain to wit that the imagination worketh upon these not they upon it for according to the strength of imagination the physick works and not according to the strength of physick doth the imagination work For sometimes the smell or sight of physick have wrought not upon the imagination but upon the body by the power of imagination so that this is the prime cause why the physick worketh which will not work at all in others whose imagination is weak and dull The cramp saith he cometh of contraction of sinews either by cold or drinesse The cramp cometh by distention as well as by contraction by heat and moistnesse as well as by cold and driness A Lute string wil break as soon in moist weather when it swels as in dry weather when it shrinks And Hippocrates tells us that the cramp proceeds as well fromrepletion as from inanition for gluttony drunkennesse and suppressing of accustomed evacuations procure the cramp as well as fasting watching bleeding burning fevers and vomiting chiefly by Hellebor which I can speak to my grief for I never knew what the cramp was till I was let blood and purged with Hellebor by an unskilfull Physician And indeed the cramp is not so much the affection of the sinews as of the muscles for it is the involuntary contraction of the muscle to its originall or beginning because not the nerve but the muscle is the proper instrument of motion which by the cramp is hurt so that this infirmity hath different names from the different muscles in which it is If it be in the muscles of the eye it is called Stratismus in the yard Satyriasis in the muscle of the jaw-bone Trismus in the muscles of the mouth Spasmus Cynicus or the Dog-cramp In the Epilepsie also or falling sicknesse there is a kind of cramp And many times the cramp proceeds from flatulencies in the muscles which though they be the proper organs of convulsions or cramps yet the cause is many times in the nerves which being contracted by the sharpnesse or fulnesse of humors or by malignant vapours draw the muscles with them Because the Hedg-hog putteth forth many prickles therfore he inferres That the juyce af a Hedg-hog must needs be harsh and dry There is no necessity for this because the harsh dry matter is expelled by nature into the prickles The flesh of some fishes whose shells or skins are full of prickles is neither harsh nor dry The Rose sends forth many prickles and yet it is both pleasant odoriferous cooling and moist So are the Respberries He tells us That Mummy hath a great force in stanching of blood But I wish he could tell us where we may find it For the true Mummy which was found in the Tombes of the AEgyptian Kings which were embalmed vvith divers pretious liquors and spices are spent long agoe so that the Mummy now in use is only the substance of dried Karkasses digged out of the sands being overwhelmed there in which there is no more vertue to stanch blood then in a stick He saith All life hath a sympathy with salt In hogges I think its true for as life is the salt of a living hogge so salt is the life of a dead hogge For both life and sâ—lt keep the body from putrifying otherwise I know little or no sympathy that salt hath with life for it destroyeth the life of many creatures But he is mistaken vvhen he saith That salt draweth blood because being laid to a cut finger healeth it For salt is laid to a cut finger not to draw the blood vvhich cometh too fast of it selfe vvithout drawing but to repell the blood and to stop its running It heals them not by drawing the blood but by abstersion exsiccation astriction and resisting putrifaction Thus I have cursorily run over my Lords new Philosophy vvhich he calls a Wood and so it is indeed for here a young Scholar may quickly lose himselfe and shal encounter with many bryers and brambles I find that Phylosophy is like Wine the older the better to the taste new Wine is pleasant and so are new conscripts to the mind but to the intelligent man oldest is wholsomest and lesse flatulent And indeed that which they call new Philosophy is nothing but the old in a new dressing vvhich is neither so handsome nor so usefull as the other They have found out new terms which are neither so proper nor significant as the former They have metamorphosed the elementary qualities both first and second into spirits so that now this word like a nose of wax serves them for all shapes I find in my Lords book much