joyned with their Body Because the Natural Heat is tired whilst it separates and severs the Virtue of the thing from the Body which is hard and earthy And it being tired the Virtue will with greater Difficulty be carried to the Instruments of the Senses so as it may be able to refresh them and destroy the superfluous Moisture and penetrate to the Members of the fourth Concoction that it may strengthen the digestive Power of the Flesh and Skin From the Weakness whereof certain Acâ—idents of Old Age do proceed as is manifest in the Morphew because that the Natural Heat of our Body is not always so sufficiently powerful in all Medicines as to separate the Virtue from its Terrestrial Body But when the Vertue alone is given without the Body the Natural Heat is not tired nor is the Virtue of the Medicine by frequent Digestion destroyed in its journey as it were while it is carried to the Similar Parts and the Instruments of the Senses and so the Virtue of the thing will compleat its Operation while it does not tire the Natural Heat And Galen agrees with this as Isaac testifies in his Canon Of the Leprosie saying I never saw a man so infected cured but one that drank of Wine wherein a Viper had fallen And Iohannes Damascenus in his Aphorisms Therefore it was necessary for the purging of the Humours driven down that the Medicine according to the skill and pleasure of the Physician should be turned into the Likeness of Meat Another hath said That that Physick which should pass to the third Digestion should be greedily received according to some with a thing of easie Assimilation such as Milk and the Broth of a Pullet NOTES on CHAP. II. a These six Causes are called by Physicians Sex Non-naturalia They are 1. The Air 2. Meat and Drink 3. Motion and Rest. 4. Sleep and Watching 5. Excretion and Retention 6. The Passions of the Mind b The Learned are of opinion that this Book was written by our ingenious Author to Pope Nicolas the Fourth to atone his enraged and angry Mind For this Pope kept him in Prison some Years c Gold d Coral e The Viper f Rosemary g See the twelfth Chapter h The Bone of a Stags Heart i Lignum Aloes k Here our incomparably learned Author whether he gives greater encouragement to true Physicians and Chymists or Discouragement to Mountebanks and ignorant knavish Chymicasters is hard to conclude For who greater Violaters of the Divine Law and more Enemies to Mankind than cheating Cut-throats that by their pretended Secrets and their Vniversal Remedies bring an Epidemick Calamity on the deluded Multitude Or whose Wit and Parts more useful than his that can with the Great Mithridates make the strongest Antidote out of the rankest Poyson or with our Author get that Wisdom in whose lest hand are Riches and in her right hand length of Days l Our First Father Adam in the state of Innocence had the absolute knowledge of things natural and gave to every thing its proper Name expressing its inward Nature But this natural Magick of knowing the Vertue by the Signature is by our Author lamented as from the beginning to his Time behind the Curtain Yet it hath been cultivated by some since so that by comparing the Vses of most Simples with their Physiognomick Lineaments you would conclude God and Nature had designed these for Tokens of their Specifick Virtues and admirable Vses And the Earth is such a Store-house that were but the Vertues of all its Stores known nothing would be impossible to the Intelligent m Here is a Pharmaceutice Rationalis so well grounded both as to the Preparatory and Administrative part that it may deserve the Consideration of all Sons of Art and defie the Apprehension of all Block-headed Quacks CHAP. III. Of the Accidents of Old Age and the Causes of them and the Signs of Hurt in the Senses Imagination Reason and Memory THE Accidents of Age and Old Age are Grey Hairs Paleness Wrinkles of the Skin Weakness of Faculties and of natural Strength Diminution of Blood and Spirits Bleareyedness abundance of rotten Phlegm filthy Spitting Shortness of Breath Anger Want of Sleep an unquiet Mind Hurt of the Instruments that is of those wherein the Animal Vertue does operate Now of all these let us see from what causes each Accident derives its Original And in the first place discoursing of Grey Hairs we shall take notice of this namely that some of these Accidents happen even to Young Men before the time of Manhood and then they are not called the Accidents of Age but Infirmities The Accidents of Age begin in some at the time of Manhood In others at the time of Age according to the Power of the Native Moisture and the Government of every Wise Man And in some they use not to come till very Old Age. The Principal Cause of all these is Weakness of the Innate Heat which is caused two ways as was said before Greyness ariseth from putrid Phlegm coming out of the Regions of the Brain and Stomach as Isaac saith and not from Phlegm alone but it proceeds from any other putrid Humour whatever as Avicenna saith in his Chapter Of the Complexions of Ages Now this putrid Humour is generated many ways Sometimes by eating of certain things that breed a putrefying Humour which is the Cause of Old Age as hereafter will appear Sometimes from the Weakness of Natural Heat which rules in the Body and from Abundance of Cold as Aristotle saith For the Implanted Heat being dulled digests not Food as it used Whereupon a Watry Humor a little warmed with strange Heat abounds and causes this Greyness as Haly saith in Galen's Regiment where he treats of the Regiment of Old Age. Sometimes from too great Access of external Heat For in his eleventh Chapter of his History of Animals the Philosopher there saith that Hairs that are covered are sooner grey than those that are seldome covered For the Covering keeps off the Wind and the Wind hinders Putrefaction Sometimes Greyness and Putrefaction of the Humours arises from the Infirmity of the Skin As in the Morphew when through the Weakness of that Member the Nourishment is not concocted For there is in every Member a Digestive Power and Heat which the Soul useth as an Instrument in performing its Operations Hence it is that an evil Constitution happens in some of the external Parts when the inward Parts are not hurt and do perform aright the Offices of Nature But it is to be observed that the Hairs of the Temples wax grey sooner and those of the hind parts later Because in the fore part there is much Moisture therefore it sooner putrefies And when this happens in the Hairs after it is once come it will hardly be removed but it is a thing less difficult to put a stop to it before it come But it often falls out that many men labouring under some Infirmity have their Hairs wax grey in
and expose to open View the most curious Workmanship of the greatest Artist which perhaps hath been before or since Himself g g Take of Rosemary four Drachms of Xyloaloes two Drachms a little Musk and Saffron h h By Amber here our Author intends Amber Gryse For he calls it Ambra and not Succinum which is solid Amber Besides Succinum was never reckoned a Spice as Amber is here And though both Ambra and Succinum be great Restorers of the Animal Spirits yet the former is more efficacious i i Amber Gryse a Bituminous Body found floating on the Sea k k See Chap. XIII l l Take of Gold artificially prepared so that it may easily be powdered four Drachms of Coral two Drachms of the Bone of Stag's Heart one Drachm m m Here is meant Gold calcined or Bezoardicum Solare many Processes whereof are in Chymical Authors n n See Chap. XII FINIS ARBOR VITAE OR A Physical Account OF THE TREE of LIFE In the Garden of Eden BY EDWARD MADEIRA ARRAIS M. D. Physician to IOHN the IV. King of Portugal Translated out of the Latine A Piece useful for Divines as well as Physicians LONDON Printed for Tho. Flesher at the Angel and Crown in S t Pauls Church-yard M DC LXXXIII TO THE READER READER THE Author of this following Treatise is Edward Madeira Arrais of Lisbon Doctor in Physick and Physician to John IV. King of Portugal that King who recovered his Crown out of the Hands of Spain and was Father to her present Majesty of Great Britain This his Physician wrote a Book of Occult Qualities wherein he has explained their Nature so fully that he hath almost altered it for they very far cease to be such and hath taken away from Philosophers the Reproach of Occult Qualities being their Subterfuge He writes in a Philosophical and Scholastick Style You will find in him more Sense than Words more Argument than Rhetorick Before this his Work he hath these Words Disputationem construo de Qualitatibus illius Ligni sive Arboris Vitae Paradisi Terreni ad Vitam aeternam aut saltem diuturnissimè prorogandam quarum Qualitatum nullus Authorum in particulari meminit aut verbum ullum protulit de quibus novam ac nunquam antea auditam Philosophiam proferimus I compose a Discourse concerning the Qualities of that Wood or Tree of Life in the Earthly Paradise which either prolonged Life to Eternity or at least a very long Time of which Qualities no Author hath made mention in particular or spoke one Word About which we produce a Philosophy new and never heard of before And he hath made good his Promise For in declaring the Nature of the Tree of Life beside many excellent things in Physick he also shews the Nature of that Spiritual Body wherewithall we shall be raised at the last Day and makes it appear what we shall be when we shall eat of the Tree of Life in the Midst of the Paradise of GOD by Reason as well as Scripture in the Course of Nature without a Miracle And it is such a Piece of Natural Theology or Scriptural Philosophy that you will be forced to acknowledge there is a Religio Medici without either Atheism or Heresie But to expatiate with me no further enter this Learned Paradise and taste the Tree of Life Richard Browne The Preface § 1. EXpositors of Holy Writ have made the Tree of Life very famous by which our first Parents and all their Posterity had been priviledged against Death and might have spun their Thread of Life to Eternity had they obeyed the Divine Precept Moses mentions this Gen. 2. and 3. And though Divines dispute many things about it yet since it is necessary in many things to have Recourse to the Principles of Physick and also to our Doctrine of Occult Qualities seeing such a Propagation of Life could never be obtain'd but by some Occult Virtues as shall be made evident in the process of this Treatise I cannot be thought to put my Sickle into another Man's Harvest if concerning the Qualities of this Wood or Tree I shall at this time discourse what is worthy a Philosophical Man and his Knowledge especially since never any Philosopher yet disputed of it in Particular nay nor spake one Word about it § 2. Eight Doubts therefore may be moved about this Tree or Wood. First Whether it was proper and true Wood or Metaphorical Secondly Whether the Vertue it had to perpetuate Life was Natural or Supernatural Thirdly Whether its Vertue were such as to preserve Life Time without end Fourthly Whether it sufficed to give Life eternal if it were but once taken Fifthly Whether this Wood of Life were a Cause adaequate to the escaping all Occasions of Death Sixthly By what Qualities in particular it performed this Seventhly After what manner the Resistence of those Qualities might defend that Man's Body who eat of the Tree of Life from all external Causes that could hurt it Eighthly Whether the Cause of the very long Life of the first Men were some other Trees of Paradise or the Tree of Life § 3. And although only the Sixth and Seventh which were never disputed upon or so much as hinted at by any one yet do truly fall under our Cognisance Nevertheless that they may the more clearly be decided it is necessary to resolve the other according to the probable Opinions of Divines most of which notwithstanding the Reader may find adorned and amplified from the Philosophy of Physicians especially from this of ours of Occult Qualities DOUBT I. Whether the Wood of Life were a proper and true Tree or only Metaphorical COncerning this first Doubt it is the common Opinion nay even Matter of Faith as Suarez a asserts that the Wood of Life was a corporeal and true Tree which in Paradise yielded Fruit fit for Food as other Trees that were made to grow there This is manifestly proved from Scripture b And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every Tree that is pleasant to the Sight and good for food the Tree of Life also in the midst of the Garden and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Where the Word made to grow refers to this Wood as well as other Trees which were truly such And the contrary Opinion is ascribed to Origen's Error who makes the History of Paradise Metaphorical And because this Point is sufficiently cleared by Sacred Writers I need not stay longer upon it a Suar. l. 3. De Opere sex Dierum c. 15. b Gen. 2. 9. DOUBT II. Whether the Vertue of the Tree of Life to perpetuate Life were Natural or Supernatural § 1. AS to this second Doubt it is the more common Opinion that the Vertue of this Wood to perpetuate Life was not Supernatural but Natural So think Thomas a Cajetan b Gabriel c Rupertus d Hugo de Sancto Victore e Strabus f Durandus and Scotus g and many others § 2. Some would prove this Opinion from
good that he in twenty Years time expended in Books of Curiosities and in making natural Experiments above two Thousand Pounds a vast Summ of Money in those days He was of that Noble and Publick Spirit that he not only freely imparted all his Secrets but was overjoyed when he light on a Man that was but of any Capacity to understand him He either followed or rather invented such a Method in his Studies as by it he discovered unknown things in Nature and did such Wonders that not only the Vulgar but even some Learned Men thought him a Conjurer Some report he made a Brazen Head that spake and think he did it by the help of the Devil But Albertus Magnus did the same and Boëthius the like without any other Magick than Natural For Cassiodorus writes thus to Boëthius Tuae artis Ingenio metalla mugiunt Diomedes in aere gravius buccinatur aeneus Anguis insibilat Aves simulatae sunt Et quae vocem propriam nesciunt habere dulcedinem Cantilenae probantur emittere i. e. By the Ingenuity of your Art Metals roar Diomede in Brass sounds a hollow Charge the Brazen Serpent hisseth Birds are counterfeited And things that have no Voice of their own are made to sing melodiously And well might so learned a Man as Bacon be then taken for a Magician when in the Dawning of our more learned Day Reuchlin for his skill in the Hebrew and Budaeus in the Greek Tongue were looked upon by the unlearned silly Monks to be Conjurers But such was the stupid Ingratitude of Bacon's Age that it almost repented this Learned Man of his Knowledge For his own Order would scarce admit his Books into their Libraries And great was this poor Mans Vnhappiness For being accused of Magick and Heresy and appealing to Pope Nicolas the fourth the Pope liked not his Learning and by his Authority kept him close Prisoner a great many Years Some say at last through the Mediation of some great Men he obtained his Liberty Others say he died in Prison either through Grief or his hard Vsage However it was he died in the Seventy eighth Year of his Age Ann. Dom. 1292. and was buried in the Franciscan's Church in Oxford Thus did the gross Ignorance and Malice of those Times prevent this knowing Man in making the greatest of his Experiments i. e. in extending the Period of his Days as far beyond the common Age of Man as in Knowledge he surpassed the common Standard an eternal Monument whereof this present Treatise will be He wrote a great many Books on divers Subjects in Divinity Physick Opticks and Philosophy wherein he discovered many Secrets He published a Latin Greek and Hebrew Grammar and wrote much in Chymistry Cosmography Musick Astronomy Astrology Metaphysicks Logick and Moral Philosophy He proposed the Emendation of the Iulian Calendar to Pope Clement the fourth Middleburgensis used Bacon's Arguments to Pope Leo the tenth And Copernicus by the help of Middleburgensis rectified it for the Council of Trent the ninth Year of Gregory the thirteenth Ann. Dom. 1581. He was the greatest Critick of his Age and complained lamentably of the Ignorance of his Cotemporaries For he saith that there were some sawcy Youngsters who were then created sine Arte ulla Artium Magistri and sine Doctrina Doctores amongst whom Ego currit was Grammatical Latin current and Contradictoria possunt esse simul vera true Logick And he spared neither the Ignorance nor the ill Lives of the Clergy no wonder then he was so ill treated by them He highly condemned the Divinity Lectures of his Time as spoiled by the bad words and worse Sense of the Civil Lawyers and complains that not a Man in England besides Grosthead and two or three more of his acquaintance understood the Hebrew or Greek Tongues and that he could not meet with one good Translation of the Scriptures But since he had discovered them to be no Witches they would prove him to be one And it seems on some malicious Pretence they took from him his Books and Writings long before Pope Nicolas cast him in Prison whereupon he complained in these words to the preceding Pope Clement the fourth who was his friend Praelati enim Fratres me jejuniis macerantes tutò custodiebant nec aliquem ad me venire voluerunt veriti ne scripta mea aliis quà m Summo Pontifici sibi ipsis pervenirent For the Prelates and Friers have kept me starving in close Prison nor would they suffer any one to come at me fearing lest my Writings should come to any other than the Pope and themselves Now the true Reason of his great Misfortune was this He had been intimate with that Learned Prelate and true English man Robert Grosthead Bishop of Lincoln This Bishop observing the Popes Tyranny in England for he lived in King John's time who acknowledged this Crown feudatory to the Pope forbore not to admonish that Romish Tyrant by Letters openly and to declare to his Friends that the Pope was Antichrist The Pope excommunicates the Bishop he appeals from the Pope's to Christ's Tribunal and dyes about two Years after Now Bacon knowing all this as well as the Bishop was very like much of Grostheads Opinion This then was the Heresy this the casting of that Figure which made him guilty of Witchcraft Many of Bacon's Works and of Grosthead's also curiously written and well bound were by some ignorant Men that would be accounted Scholars when they could not understand them condemned for Books of the Black Art and so fastened with long Nails to the Boards they either became Food for Worms and Moths or rotted with Mould and Dust. Leland saith he wrote many Books but that it is more easie to make a Collection of Sibylla's Leaves than to get but the Titles of all his Books He complained much of the Neglect of Chymistry and Philosophy in his days In his Book De utilitate Scientiarum he writes thus But by this means Philosophy not only became suspected as if it hindred the Faith of Christ but was condemned by the Iustice of those Laws that were for the Defence of the Commonwealth from the contrary Opinion It seemed by foretelling things to come by discovering Secrets for the time being and by wonderful Work 's above the power of Nature and Art as they work commonly to contend with the Preachers of the Faith whose Property it was not by Nature and Art but by the Power of God to give out their Philosophy of future things to produce Secrets and raise Miracles For that the Power of Philosophy can do wonderful things such as the common sort not only of Laicks but of the Clergy will reckon for Miracles the things following will declare c. But that we may give to God the things that are Gods as well as to his Handmaid hers the Words of Steuchus are considerable How the Visions of the Prophets are made He knows who is Lord of the Prophets◠I think
which is nourished by the Juice of a dunged Earth For that sort of Wine sooner decays than any other and becomes dreggy Whence it fell out that a certain King drunk heartily of the Wine of a certain Husbandman's Vineyard and when this Husbandman heard that the King was delighted with the Pleasantness of his Wine he bethought him of husbanding his Vineyard more wisely and he dunged it After some space of Time the Wine began to be worse and to decay and to have a worse flavor For a good Tast is the truest Mark of good Meat and Drink that breed a natural Moisture as Isaac speaks in his Book Of Diet in the Fifth Tract Of Fish saying That all Meat by how much the more savoury it is by so much the better it nourisheth And things growing in a Soil not dunged do not so easily putrefie as those do which grow in a dunged Soil For which makes for this Purpose I saw a certain Mountain in some part of France where Corn was kept without Damage in Granaries for six or eight Years For that the Nature of the Earth alone is much better than when forced with Dung for bringing forth Fruits I have also seen in some Vineyards propagated as it were of the same Seed and Original and planted but a few Paces Distance this to happen that one produced Wine twice as strong and heady as the other which was from the natural Vertue of the Ground from whence the Vineyard had its nourishment For there was white Marle which is said to be better than any other for to yield good Nourishment by reason it is always fruitful A good Air is also to be observed For Herbs and Trees which grow in a good Air are more remote from Corruption and always are of a more vehement and stronger Vertue And this therefore comes to pass by reason of the Wind that does there more freely pass and blow upon all things drying up Putrefaction Whence it is that Avicenna in his first Canon affirms that Plants growing in Windy and Mountainous Places are of a stronger and more unshaken Vertue I saw a Mountain in the Province of the Romans wherein the Air was so pure and the Plants of so great Goodness that diseased and infected Cattel were in a small space of Time cured by them And the same may be said likewise of Animals living in Mountainous Places Thirdly The Distance of the Sun doth concur in the Generation of Plants For Plants that grow in Places remote from the Sun have their Fruit more crude neither continuing so long without rotting nor growing so hard as to be defended from Putrefaction Therefore they breed a Humour more obnoxious to Corruption As is manifest in Vineyards that are found in some part of the Kingdom of France and in some parts of Germany whose Grapes being laid on the Ground especially in Summer Time are corrupted The Reason is because the Water being made sowre is not all turned into Wine And therefore Isaac lays down this as a Property of Wine namely That mere Wine mixt with Spring-Water which hath no external Vapour any way mixt with it is more powerful and strong than Watrish Wine without Mixture Because in Watrish Wine there is a sowre Water in a Strong and as they call it Vinoâ— Wine the Sowreness is expell'd by the Heat of the Sun But a high and frequenâ— Boyling of Wine while it is new will take away that Defect as also hot Earth or Gravel will help the Heat of the Sun deficient through its great Distance Whence it easily appears that the Presence of the Sun operates much and that its Distance effects much in many things For those Countries that are farther from the Heat and Circumgiration of the Sun want many sorts of Plants as Olives Figs Pomegranates and their Wines also are not so permanent as in hot Countries where sometimes they are kept for ten Years Fourthly We must consider what Kind the Plant is of Because although the three foresaid things concur if the Plant be of a bad Kind they effect or avail nothing Which is made manifest in some Kind of Grapes that seem fairer to the Eye than others yet Wine made thereof is corrupted in a shorter Time nor is it of the like Relish nor of so much Goodness in Breeding good Humours And thus we see the Native Moisture may be restored and when almost lost may be renewed by good Juices produced of Animals and Plants But some among the Chaldean Wise Men have believed that all the Moisture of the whole Body the Old being purged out might easily be changed and a new one be made When to wit The inner Moisture is purged by Medicines The outer in the Skin and Flesh by Sweat Unction and Scarification This Moisture also is restored by things of a good Juice artificially prepared for eating wherewithal Medicines may be likewise mixt that are not subject to Putrefaction And the exteriour Moisture being thus evacuated by Sweat and the interior by Medicines it is requisite that this other Moisture sprung of the aforesaid Meats be long preserved from Corruption And so the Old Moisture being subtracted which was as it were all consumed a new Moisture will be bred the Man renewed and his Life be made the longer Which thing the Ancients did and which even at this Time some Wise Men among the Chaldees know how to do Of whose Way and Wisdom I am not altogether ignorant And this was said to be done to a eertain d German Captive by some Wise Men in Arabia But e Ovid saith that he did this by one Medicine made up of many Medicines although some are of the opinion it is fabulously reported From these and from other things most Excellent Prince it may easily appear to Your Clemency by what means Men of former Time were long-lived namely Because their Way of Living was more temperate Because their Food and Nourishment augmented the Natural Moisture and preserved it long from Corruption And then because there was a greater Purity of Air. Moreover because they better knew the Properties of Things which guarded the State of the Body that it was not presently dissolved The Knowledge of which things came imperfect to the Greeks and so to us After we have seen what Meats and Drink restore the Native Moisture we ought to consider what things they are that defend that Moisture and protect it from Dissolution NOTES on CHAP. VII a The Reasonableness of the due Observance of Diet is most argumentatively inculcated by our Author in his Book Of the Wonderful Power of Art and Nature in words to this purpose The Possibility of Prolongation of Life is confirmed by this that Man is naturally immortal that is able not to dye And even after he had sinned he could live near a Thousand Years afterwards by little and little the Length of his Life was abbreviated Therefore it must needs be that this Abbreviation is Accidental therefore it
might be either wholly repaired or at least in part But if we would but make Enquiry into the Accidental Cause of this Corruption we should find it neither was from Heaven nor from ought but want of a Regiment of Health For in as much as the Fathers are corrupt they beget Children of a corrupt Complexion and Composition and their Children from the same Cause are corrupt themselves And so Corruption is derived from Father to Son till Abbreviation of Life prevails by Succession Yet for all this it does not follow that it shall always be cut shorter and shorter because a Term is set in Humane Kind that Men should at the most of their Years arrive at Fourscore but more is their Pain and Sorrow Now the Remedy against every Mans proper Corruption is if every Man from his Youth would exercise a complete Regiment which consists in these things Meat and Drink Sleep and Watching Motion and Rest Evacuation and Retention Air the Passions of the Mind For if a Man would observe this Regiment from his Nativity he might live as long as his Nature assumed from his Parents would permit and might be led to the utmost Term of Nature lapsed from Original Righteousness which Term nevertheless he could not pass Because this Regiment does not avail in the least against the old Corruption of our Parents But it being in a manner impossible that a Man should be so governed in the Mediocrity of these things as the Regiment of Health requires it must of necessity be that Abbreviation of Life do come from this Cause and not only from the Corruption of our Parents Now the Art of Physick determines this Regiment sufficiently But neither Rich nor Poor neither Wise Men nor Fools nor Physicians themselves how skilful soever are able to perfect this Regiment either in themselves or others as is clear to every Man But Nature is not deficient in Necessaries nor is Art compleat yea it is able to resist and break through all Accidental Passions so as they may be destroyed either all together or in part And in the Beginning when Mens Age began to decline the Remedy had been easie but now after more than five Thousand Years it is difficult to appoint a Remedy Nevertheless Wise Men being moved with the aforesaid Considerations have endeavoured to think of some Ways not only against the Defect of every Mans proper Regiment but against the Corruption of our Parents Not that a Man can be reduced to the Life of Adam or Artefius because of prevailing Corruption but that Life might be prolonged a Century of Years or more beyond the common Age of Men now living in that the Passions of Old Age might be retarded and if they could not altogether be hindred they might be mitigated that Life might usefully be prolonged yet always on this side the utmost Term of Nature For the utmost Term of Nature is that which was placed in the first Men after Sin and there is another Term from the Corruption of every one 's own Parents It is no Mans Hap to pass beyond both these Terms but one may well the Term of his proper Corruption Nor yet do I believe that any Man how Wise soever can attain the first Term though there be the same possibility and aptitude of Humane Nature to that Term which was in the first Men. Nor is it a Wonder since this Aptitude extends it self to Immortality as it was before Sin and will be after the Resurrection But if you say that neither Aristotle nor Plato nor Hippocrates nor Galen arrived at such Prolongation I answer you nor at many mean Truths which were after known to other Students And therefore they might be ignorant of these great things although they made their Assay But they busied themselves too much in other things and they were quickly brought to Old Age while they spent their Lives in worse and common things before they perceived the ways to the greatest of secrets For we know that Aristotle saith in his Praedicaments that the Quadrature of the Circle is possible but not then known And he confesses that all Men were ignorant of it even to his Time But we know that in these our days this Truth is known and therefore well might Aristotle be ignorant of far deeper Secrets of Nature Now also Wise Men are ignorant of many things which in time to come every common Student shall know Therefore this Objection is every way vain b Lessius his Quantity of Diet with the Authors Quality might effect what we scarcely dare expect towards attaining of this Longaevity c Hence it is very observable how in populous Places besides the Infection of the Air mentioned in the first Chapter of this Book the Fields are so forced for Herbage for Cattel which feed Men either with their Milk or Flesh and there are so many hot Beds in Gardens and Orchards which also supply Mens Tables that our Food being of so corrupt an Original it can be no Wonder to see the great Disparity between Burials and Christnings in the Registers And though in such Places fewer grey heads be seen than in the Country yet it is because in populous Places fewer arrive at this infirm Maturity d Our Author in his Book of the Wonderful Power of Art and Nature saith thus It is proved by the Testimony of the Popes Letters that a German who was a Slave among the Saracens took a Medicine whereby he prolonged his Life to five Hundred Years For the King that kept him Prisoner received Embassadors from a great King with this Medicine but because he mistrusted them he made tryal of his Present upon this Slave And Artefius more than doubled the Germans Age. e The Poet having made a Discovery of some odd Ceremonies how Witches cure Agues and what Verse can do sets on the Kettle for Medea to parboil old tough AEson to more tender years Ovid Met. Lib. 7. Mean while in hollow brass the Medicine boils And swelling high in foamy bubbles toils There seeths she what th'AEmonian Vales produce Roots Juices Flowers and seeds of Soveraign use Adds Stones from Oriental Rocks bereft And others by the ebbing Ocean left The Dew collected e're the Dawning springs A Screech-Owls flesh with her ill-boding Wings The intrals of ambiguous Wolves that can Take and forsake the figure of a Man The Liver of a long-liv'd Hart then takes The Skaly skins of small Cyniphian Snakes A Crow's old head and pointed beak was cast Among the Rest which had nine Ages past These and a thousand more without a name Were thus prepared by the barbarous Dame For humane benefit Th' Ingredients now She mingles with a wither'd Olive Bough Lo from the Caldron the dry stick receives First Verdure and a little after Leaves Forthwith with over-burthening Olives deckt The skipping Froth with under-flames eject Upon the Ground descended in a Dew Whence vernal Flowers and springing Pasture grew This seen she cuts the old Mans
Take your Meat prepared as before put it in a glazed Pot in the middle whereof let there stand a wooden Grate or one of any other matter lay your Meat upon it so that the Bottom of the Pot may be empty close the Pot with its Cover well luted with Paste of Meal and Water well kneaded Set it in Balneo Mariae boyling for five Hours You will have a limpid Liquor at the Bottom Two or three Spoonfuls of such a Preparation taken twice or thrice a Day is reckoned a great Restorative c We read in Daniel how Pulse and Water made the four Children fairer in Countenance and fatter in Flesh than they that fared on the Royal Provision Now Daniel having so good skill in the Learning of the Chaldaeans as to be set over all the Wise Men of Babylon who were a sort of Men that by their Skill in natural things could do Wonders I no more question that by the same Skill he knew Pulse would nourish well and give a good Colour than that he understood by Books the number of the Years of the Captivity of his People My Reason is He that would not eat the Kings Meat nor drink of his Wine lest he should be defiled by offering part thereof on an Altar if by or by casting a little into the Fire where there was no Altar which was a Propitiatory Grace to some Heathen Deity this Man sure would never have allowed himself the Enquiry into the Wisdom and Learning of the Chaldees had such Learning been either sinful or useless And it could never be more serviceable than in this Case Neither do I think Pease-Pottage a contemptible Dish among the Iews since it made their Father Jacob an Elder Brother Besides had not Pulse been a Driver out that great Physician Avicenna would not have made so much Vse thereof in the Small Pox and Measles d By Galen Garlick is called Plow-man's Treacle e A merry Heart makes a chearful Countenance and the Circulation of the Blood is so Symmetrous to the Revolution of Man's Thoughts that Men skill'd in Prudentials have reckoned Vultum esse animi Indicem and ever took more notice of an accidental Glance in a Passion than of the most perswasive composed Eloquence Anger glows as a red and lowring Aurora Ioy bespreads the Scene with a serene Hesperial Crimson So Cataline for all his fair shews in Words to the Senate yet discovered that Treason in his very Face as Historians describe him which his Heart was then contriving f Choler is by some reckoned the Salt of the Microcosm which helps to keep the Flood of Humors from Putrefaction And this as well as the Macrocosmick Ocean unless sometimes it have its aestus will be liable to Putrefaction But this and all other Passions must be confin'd within their Banks lest Men be transported to their Ruine For though Grief once turn'd a Queen to Marble yet sudden and excessive Ioy hath often inscribed an Epitaph upon it Thus to some Men hath excess of Happiness prov'd as much of Misery CHAP. XVI Of the Vsefulness of this Epistle Of the Regiment of Old Men and of things that help the outward Senses as also the Imagination Reason and Memory and of the Composition of certain Medicines LET us see what the Regiment of this Epistle doth add to the Regiment of Old Men laid down by the Wise in escaping the Accidents of Old Age and how much it helps Men while it recounts the Meats and Things of good Juice which are of Use to Old Men and those that are stricken in Years Which thing indeed the Regiments of other Men do not fully perform This Epistle therefore shews by what a Meats the Natural Moisture may be restored Then how it may be made more b sincere when it is restored Thirdly by what Means the c Accidents of Old Age which come on apace may commodiously be hindered It also shows how a d foreign Humour and unnatural that is the Fountain and Cause of these Evils may be purged and wasted It likewise opens a Way whereby the e Senses of Man by being recreated with the Virtues of things may be repaired how the f Natural Heat being spent and shaken by some outward Causes may be restored and how g White Hairs shed and new ones come in their Room Sixthly it shows Medicines whereby the h Animal Vertue as it were dying and weary may be excited Motion deficient may be renewed the i Skin deformed with Wrinkles and other ways may be made fair Seventhly It shows how the three k Instruments of the Senses do operate and are governed in every man lest by reason of them any fault should fall upon the Soul and if it should fall how it may be removed And it teacheth many other things which have been treated of in their proper Chapters But the things which are laid down by us in this Epistle differ very much from the things laid down by the Antients First because the Antients Regiment of living defends Mens Bodies from hastening to their End besides the Course of Nature But our Regiment lays open by what Way Old Men and the well stricken in Years may easily be freed and defended from the Accidents of Old Age which are wont to happen not only to Old Men but even to those that are Young Again their Regiment shows how healthy Bodies may be kept so that they may not be disaffected But ours teacheth to take away those Accidents which do come before their Time and to retard these which use to come at their proper Season Thirdly their Regiment is as it were the Beginning Ours as the End For the things which they have taught are as it were the Means to know and use those things which are here expressed Therefore let us now discourse of the Regiment of the Old and Aged that we may see what is added by us to the Labors and Studies of the Antients The summ of the Universal Regiment is this as Avicenna saith namely that such Men use that which heats and moistens as also nourishing things and quick of Digestion and Bathes and much Sleep and long lying in bed and Provocation of Urine and Expulsion of Phlegm from the Stomach and Guts To the end that Kindliness of Nature may endure chafing with Oyl in a moderate Quantity and Quality is very good for Men of decrepit Age and for those that are growing Old But let them ride and walk moderately as their Strength will endure They ought daily to smell to sweet smelling Spices especially to the moderately hot After Sleep let them anoint themselves with Oyl as is said in the Chapter Of things that strengthen the Body But they must use the six kinds of non-natural things according to the equable and temperate way of Physicians as Aristotle saith that a Physician ought in the Regiment of Old Men to consider the Six kinds of Causes which are wont necessarily to alter the Body But above all he must