Sulphur also Likewise it must be granted that there is an actual heat abiding in us whilest we live and somewhile after death this is obvious to the sence of feeling it self this is the heat as I conceive joyn'd with the primogenite humour to which Aristotle ascribes life it self But yet Sir I am somewhat doubtfull whether this heat be properly cal'd calor vivens though the great Riverius term it so or an immediate cause of life though an Aristotle himself pronounce it so For certainly Holy Writ ascribes life to the blood the blood is the life thereof and death to a dissolution of the compositum the body returns to the dust and the spirit to God that gave it But of this dissolution I suppose the soul is not ordinarily the cause but the body and what part of the body may more justly be challenged to be the Parent if I may so phrase it of death than the blood which is in a famous sense the parent of life So then most killing distempers must arise from the excessive multiplication consumption or depravation of the blood and the pernicious effects thereof yet mistake me not this hinders not other parts of the body bowels and humours to be often peccant as undoubtedly they are by infecting the blood and receiving infections morbifick from it Moreover this heat continues some hours without life even after the dissolution and as it is without life so is life often found without it as not only in some Vegetables as Lettuce Hemlock Cucumbers c. but in Animals as Frogs and Fish which are said to be actually cold and the Salamander reputed cold in a high degree This heat may possibly be but the effect of matter and motion i. e. of the blood or before it of the seed impregnated with active principles which through their activity and heterogeneity suffer mutual collisions or fermentations whence ebullition and thence this heat which is by circulation not only promoted but also convey'd to all parts of the body and by the same causes preserved which possibly may prove the summe of Riverius's implanted and influent heat These things presupposed 't will not be impossible to guess that this heat is no such Coelestial fire as the most famous Fernelius would have it but only the igneous result of the combinations and commotions of the most active elementary Principles and if there be any other heat it may prove to be according to the conjecture of great Riverius the product of the immateriate soul but of that I understand little only this is unquestionable that the caelestial Soul chooseth for its more immediate organs the most subtiliated spirituous and active parts of matter such as the vital and animal spirits and the heat before mentioned which seems to be of the same Genius and all but the mechanick productions of various fermentations percolations and distillations in the humane Engine Wherefore I shall crave leave to dismiss this fire till we come to discourse of Fermentations And so I pass on the next flame which is the Biolychnium or the actual flame of the blood kindled in the heart asserted both by Antients and Moderns of astonishing titles and tremendous veneration which devouring flame if once kindled will quickly depredate all the oleaginous aliment if not renewed by frequent and plentifull assumptions but therefore 't is greatly suspected to have no existence in our bodyes because in these Jejunants it must needs extinguish for want of Sulphureous supplyes and produce death to those that have liv'd long enough to help to entombe it 'T is strange to me that provident Nature should require such vast supplyes both of meat and drink out of which to extract a small quantity nutritious juice which with divers Ferments Colatures Emunctories and rapid motions it endeavours to exalt and defecate and yet after all should expose what she hath attain'd of purity and activity and consequently of noblest use by her unparallel'd artifices cost and toil to the improvident disposal of wastfull flames for indeed flames are great wasters as appears in the preparation of the Balsom of Sugar c. no less wonderfull it is that a flame should continually burn in the heart and yet the fleshy walls thereof not boiled roasted nor so much as a fuliginous or cineritious colour imparted But lest Sir you should be confident that this perennial slame scorns an extinction by these few drops I therefore commend to your observation those numerous and plentifull buckets that are poured thereupon by the dexterous hand of the very learned and candid Dr. Needham But yet lest you should be so far praepossessed by the determinations of venerable antiquity as to reject this new Doctrine and avowedly maintain this unseen fire I shall therefore adde 1. That this Flame can be but small through the defect of bodily exercise and freer ventilations these fasters being mostly close Prisoners as also of strong fermentations therefore the less the Lamp the less Oyl will sustain it 2. Through the defect of heat the pores are bolted and transpiration restrained whence a scarce credible quantity of moisture is retained which returning both by Veins and Lymphaticks gives no contemptible quantity of food to this fire 3. Through the restraint of Transpiration the igneous particles are secur'd from their excursions to the great increase of intestine heat for in feeders the loss of transpiration often kindles in the blood a feaverish fire 4. The Air as impregnated sometimes especially entring by the mouth the nose and pores in parts passing the various concoctions may be converted into a humour not altogether inept to preserve the lingring life of this dying flame 5. In pituitous bodies the abundance of flegme through the various concoctions which it undergoes in the body may become usefull in the room of more proper aliment to this analogous Lamp in its Table-supplyes which flegme though some reject as excrementitious yet I suppose they do it only when consideration is from home of its usefulness in the mastication of our food wherein as some say lyes the first concoction at least therein lyes the main preparation for the grand concoction in the ventricle the constant mixture of our food with our spittle in the Jaw-mill may enforce some considering men to think that 't is nearer of kin to our natural moisture than hath been formerly acknowledged 6. The colliquation of the parts of these emaciated bodies may yield Oyl to these Lamps as 't is usually affirmed in Hectick feavers besides if fire be nothing but an innumerable host of sulphurous atomes breaking the Prisons of their former compositions with other heterogeneities then certainly all fire is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for nothing of that Sulphur remains it leaves only the heterogenious Principles with which it was combin'd 7. 'T is probable that the moisture of these jejune bodies is much not only condens'd by their cold but also loaded with terrestreities through the
hurt thereby and of another that lived 10 years waking Seneca reports that Maecenas lived three years without sleep and at last was recovered by musick 2. But I affirm not that our Jejunants are Vigilants and therefore adde that though these persons receive no external food yet airy condensations and concretions the flegmatick humours colliquations of the parts c. afford matter for such vapours and so much the more plentifully because they are environ'd with a thick wall whose very â—revises and much more gates and publick out-lets are so close shut up and barricado'd that these troops of Exhalations that were wont to be dispersed are now crouded together which assaulting the brain may do much to bind up her common sense 3. It seems probable by Apoplectical Dormitators that a cold humour lodged in the brain is a great causer of sleep and why such a humour may not lodge in a sufficient proportion in these constipated brains to procure intermitting sleeps I see not 4. 'T is apparent that Narcoticks as Opium and in their measure Wines Tobacco c. provoke sleep not by any cold quality for they are all prov'd to be hot but 't is probable by adding such a ferment to the blood as renders the spirits separated in the brain more torpid ignave and consequently inept to motion and the execution of their offices or which is almost the same thing as renders the blood inept for separation of spirits in the brains Alembick whence the wearied spirits for want of fresh supplies are beâ—almed and quiescent So then if the humours in the bodies of these Abstinents should haply partake of these Narcotick sulphurs they may prove somniferous without the elevation of fumes from digesting food But Sir lest you should be startled at this unphilosophical discourse in representing sleep rather as a non-emission of spirits from the brains than a non-immission of them to the brain from the external sences and consequently as a negation of action rather than of passion I crave leave to minde you that I am not only deficient in the beard but much more in the brain of some very great Philosophers who rank not only the external sences but the first internal or common sence in the predicament of passions which I confess I cannot understand because I know that when devout persons are taken up in divine services though their eyes be wide open and presented with various objects yet they see them not because they mind them not likewise when diligent Students are intent on their books they hear not the Clock that strikes at their ears and sound sleepers with lethargical persons feel not the pulling and haling of their friends that would awake them c. From whence I conjecture that though objects act ad ultimum virium upon the external sences in imprinting their species yet that causeth not sensation except there be an actual attendance of the sensitive spirits upon the sensible objects a framing of their effigies or species and a conveyance thereof to the understanding Can you imagine that Columbus his journey to the Indies his surveying that unknown World and returning a map thereof to his own Countrey-men was a meer passion of his and only the action of a novel Jig of American Atoms or Camden's perambulation through all the Coasts of this Island with his observations thereon which he digested into a valuable volume was meerly his suffering but wholly the doing of subtile spirits and aethereal globules magically charm'd into a once happy combination But to return 5. Cold juices as of Housleek Lettuce Violets c. will conduce to our sleep and 't is not to be doubted but the Juices in these bodies may be cold enough to effect the same 6. The animal spirits in these persons being but languid are the less active and consequently can give the fewer repulses to the insinuating courtships of somniferous causes 7. The spirits of these languishers 't is probable are scant and defective and therefore easily tyred by their constant operations and consequently easily perswaded either by a command of the Heaven-born Soul or an Exhalation from the earthy body to yield to this temporary death 8. Great security of minde pleasing Fancies either from Imagination such as some of these are said to be swell'd withall or from the sences affected by Musick dropping waters gliding Rivers whistling winds c. are usuall promoters of insensation By all which you may perceive that there are more doors 〈◊〉 our Bedchambers than one Thus Sir to satisfie your curiosity I have travel'd somewhat an unbeaten yet not altogether unpleasant path and that I might not return these fruits of my travels as jejune and sterile as the Countrey visited I have therefore taken a slight view of some of the Monuments of Antiquity as also of the stately superstructures of the new modell that occurred in our Journey yet there is one thing remaining that should have been premised and that is an exact history of our Damosell but that you cannot expect because you did not demand and I suppose you did not demand because you knew I was unable to perform yet that I might not seem to build on the sands I shall present you with a short Narrative receiv'd since I began this Discourse from a person of known ingenuity and honesty and therefore most worthy of credit This Abstinent is one Martha Taylor a young Damosell born of mean Parentage inhabiting not far from Bakewell in Darbyshire who receiving a blow on the back from a Milner became a prisoner to her bed for several dayes which being expired she obtained some enlargement for a time but by encreasing distempers was quickly remanded to her bed-prison again where continuing some time she found at last a defect in her Gula and quickly after a dejection of appetite so that about the 22. of December Anno 1667. she began to abstain from all solid food and so hath continued except something so small at the seldome ebbings of her distemper as is altogether inconsiderable till within a fortnight before the date hereof which amounts to thirteen months and upwards as also from all other sorts both of meats and drinks except now and then a few drops of the Syrup of stew'd Prunes Water and Sugar or the juice of a roasted Raisin c. but these repasts are used so seldom and in such very small quantities as are prodigiously insufficient for sustentation she evacuates nothing by urine or stool she spits not that I can hear of but her lips are often dry for which cause she takes water and sugar with a feather or some other Liquids but the palms of her hands are often moist her countenance fresh and lively her voice cleer and audible in discourse she 's free her belly â—â—ap'd to her back-bone so that it may be felt through her Intestines whence a great cavity is admitted from the Gartilago ensiformis to the Navil and though her upper parts be less emaciated
A Discourse upon Prodigious ABSTINENCE OCCASIONED By the Twelve Moneths FASTING OF MARTHA TAYLOR The Famed Derbyshire Damosell Proving That without any Miracle the Texture of Humane Bodies may be so altered that Life may be long Continued without the supplies of MEAT DRINK With an Account of the Heart and how far it is interessed in the Business of Fermentation By Iohn Reynolds Humbly offered to the Royall Society London Printed by R. W. for Nevill Simmons at the Sign of the three Crowns near Holborn-Conduit and for Dorman Newman at the Chyrurgeons Arms in Little Brittain 1669. To the deservedly Famous and my Honoured Friend Walter Needham Doctor of Physick as also a Member of and Curator Elect to the Royal Society SIR IT were a Solaecism of the first magnitude to entertain you with any thing like a Narrative of the Superennial Fast under all the Havooks and depraedations whereof the Derby-shire Damosell hath hitherto been sustained though emaciated thereby into the ghastliness of a Skeleton to the great astonishment of the Vulgus Your correspondencies are so faithful and your Circumstances so advantageous as wholly to supersede the necessity of my engaging in and the possibility of my gratifying you by such a Province However indulge me while bemoaning my self the liberty to tell you that concerning the Phaenomena's attending this prodigeous Abstinence my own thoughts have been so miserably ravel'd and my scanty intellectuals so much overmatcht thereby that I could not with any Complacency look into those nor with any delight consult these A just reverence to Reformed Theologues asserting a total Cessation of Miracles forbad me to immure my self in any such supernatural Asylum and a praejudicate opinion of humane bodies in this Animal State allowed me not to Eurefuge my fluctuating mind in Physical Causes clubbing together by an Anomalous Câ—pulation to engender so great an Heteroclite While thus lost in the Chaos of confused apprehensions and smarting under the Hirricano of my own tumultuary thoughts I hurry away to a very Worthy and Compassionate Friend who with a little deliberation runs through the Diagnosticks of my Malady pitieth my case and after some sharp Conflicts with his own Modesty affords the Relief of a Philosophical Elixir for so I call the ensuing Discourse wholly transferring the right which he had in the happy results of his own contemplations upon me Now Sir what by much importunity I extorted from him for my own private satisfaction I make bold to tender the world a view of under the Countenance and Protection of your great Name which is not only able to secure it from the Critical Pharaphrases of an Envious Age but also to command it the Iustice of an unpraejudicate perusal with such as know your worth To my own grief I have found it much an Anodyne or as a pleasant Lullabie to my whimpering fancy the issue of all hath been rest not knowing but it may minister the like seasonable relief to others who have not Wit and Philosophy enough to start any greater Objections than my self I judged it worthy to travail the World The confidence wherein I seek to entitle you to the Patrociny of it is no less than an assurance of your benign Nature singular Ingenuity and obliging goodness which have begotten and pupil'd in me that perswasion ever since I had the happiness and honour to know you Besides your clearer Intellectuals and your vast acquaintance with Natures Recondite Mysteries made it wholly incongruous to adopt any other the object of this Dedication I do still remember with the deepest resentments of a grateful heart the happy distinction betwixt parts Spermatique and parts Haematique wherewith in pity you relieved me when anxiously enquiring upon a Religious account after the principuum individuationis in humane bodies a Notion as to me it seems more able to rescue the Grand Article of our Creed concerning the Resurrection of the same individual Body from under suspicion and the many gross absurdities that some Phylosophasters and half-witted Atheists would â—ain clogg it with than any offerture of Humane Reason that I ever yet had the happiness to meet with Here methinks I could break forth into an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and congratulate my great though late felicity that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Origen in one sense or other calls it the Principle maintaining a Numerical Identity in Humane Bodies through the whole series of Vicissitudes Changes and Sanctorian Transmutations betwixt the Vterine Formation and the Vltimate Reunition of soul and body should after many a tedious search and frustraneous disquisition at last be suggested by an hand able in the maintenance of it to grapple with any Contradictor In this you have satisfied not only my reason but my curiosity too and therefore Sir so great is my opinion of your skill absit omnis adulationis suspicio that whatever Dogma steps abroad with your name written upon it I could almost surrender up my self as a perfect Captive to it were I not a Man and which is more a Protestant upon an implicit faith But I have I know not well how digressed and stept asidâ— into things heterogeneous to the purport of this Dedicatory Address I therefore return to my ingenious friends Discourse upon which were my judgement in these matters worth any thing I could afford to be liberal in the bestowance of my Encomium's But as 't is shrouded under your Patronage so 't is submitted to your Censure this I am bold to do knowing the Author so much an Admirer of you that he cannot reluctate whether more worthy your pity or your approbation none can better judge than your discerning and deserving self Therefore such as it is I leave it to your Mercy and beg leave to tell you that I should presently fall out with my self did I not upon a faithful Scrutiny find my self in the number of those that really love and honour you Farewell Worthy Sir YOUR requests to take into consideration the so much fam'd prodigious Twelve Moneths Abstinence of the Derby-shire Maid having the force of commands have produced these lean results of the imposed Meditations It cannot be unknown to a Person of your large endowments and hot pursuit after substantial Science that both Divines Medicks Historians yea Poets and Legenders have presented the Learned World with a great variety of wonderful Abâ—tinents some whereof I shall briefly recite as well to reserve your sliding time for more Noble Employments as to manifest that our contemporary Derbâ—â—se is not so singâ—lar as some may imagine Most certain it is that the Learned Moses fasted 40. dayes and as many nights whilst he abode on the Burning Mount the great Elâ—jah went as long in the 〈◊〉 of a meal and no less was the Fast of the holy Jesus Swordâ— Austin reports that in his time one survived 40. dayes fasting but most strange is the Story fathered on Nicephorus of three Brethren affrighted
to these are the presumers that the Fasters are dead and acted by Daemons but this notion is also incongruous not only to their transmigration from feeding to fasting without any shew of a dissolution but also to their regress from fasting to feeding as it hapned to some of these and health again And as for the admirers of occult Philosophy who resolve these phrases into the effects of occult qualities we only repose that though an antipathy to this or that food and possibly to all food may cause abstinence yet without food I cannot understand how it gives sustenance but others attribute all this to the influence of coelestial bodies whose operations I deny not to be great on sublunary wights yet 't is not imaginable that this universal cause diffusing its energy so promiscuously should now and then in a Century here and there in a Countrey produce such stupendious effects without some universal preparation and predisposition of Bodies to determine its general efficiency to the production of such a Prodigy but as the former affect darkness and these an invisible light we leave them to their retirements whilest we hunt the more perceptible prints of natures progress in these anomalous productions By this time Sir I hope you 'l grant that the old inconvenient and tottering building is in a measure demolish'd the rubbish removed and the ground cleared let us now propound the necessities and conveniencies the ends and uses by our new building to be supply'd and attained and then we 'll fall to the architecture it self I mean let us consider what the defect of aliment doth require for the support of humane life 1. The Natural Evacuations by Urine Stool Salivation Terms and Transpiration are so lavish that without reparation by feeding it seems impossible to avoid a sudden dissolution 2dly How shall natural heat be preserved from extinction without a constant feeding on the radical moysture and how shall this Oleaginous humour be secur'd from a nimble consumption if it receive not additions from frequent feeding 3ly How shall Fermentation be continued in the blood without new additions of Chyle and how shall Chyle be added if no food received 4ly How shall there be a supply of vital spirits and consequently of animal without food and fermentation 5ly How can life consist without sleep and how shall we attain sleep without ascending fumes to the brain from ingested food For a foundation I shall premise a few severals 1. The long finger of powerfull Providence is undoubtedly to be observ'd in the production of these wonderfull effects though these be not advanc'd to the Zenith of divine Miracles wrought by the immediate hand of Omnipotency yet the first cause must be acknowledg'd in the proportioning marshalling dividing uniting and actuating of concurrent subordinate second causes for such Heteroclite productions Plato himself could say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the admirable D. Willis acknowledges that Natures Parent orders natural Principles as to their quantity and mixture and consequently as to their operations 2. 'T is very evident that when higher causes shall disjoyn what Nature usually conjoyneth and vice versâ and exalt one Principle and depress another then very astonishing results appear upon the stage of humane bodies such is the stupendious voracity of some Helluo's the monstrous digestion of your Lithophagi the strange metamorphosis of your sanguineans into midnight melancholy and of lucid intellectuals into piceous mopishness c. 1. Now to supply the defect of food in its most usefull restauration of what by daily Evacuations the body is depriv'd of as I need not compute the vast expence of the Microcosme by stool urine spitting and terms these being vulgarly known so neither of the transcendent loss by transpiration reckoned by Sanctorius to preponderate all the rest all which exact constant additions to be made by aliment without which the body would quickly be depopulated But 1. let it be considered that this person as 't is most credibly reported emptyes nothing by urine or stool and 't is probable next to nothing by salivation or transpiration not by salivation through a considerable defect of drinks nor by transpiration because wanting food there 's a partial defect of fermentation in the blood and thence of natural heat and so by the coldness of the parts the pores are precluded and the diaphoresis impeded whence it will follow that where the parts are duely warm and the pores patent there the more active principles are apt to take flight yet where the parts are cold and the pores cork'd up there 't is otherwise as generous Wines and subtile spirits left in open Vessels will quickly bid adieu to their more volatile and brisk Principles yet if shut up in safe Vessels these Fugitives are imprisoned and kept to their daily offices the same is verifi'd ina queous humours which our Kitchens as well as Laboratories experiment quickly evaporate through intense subjacent heats but not without and so 't is here Thus these plentifull evacuations being suppressed restauration by food is rendred less necessary Yet lest you should dread from this hypothesis a suffocating mass of excrementitious humours to assault the heart c. I therefore subjoyn that a defect of nutritious assumptions must needs precede a defect of humours moreover the blood commands much of these remaining humours for its own chariot-use neither may it seem dissonant to reason that the ventricle and some of the intestines are us'd as a receptacle of the more tartarous and terrestrial faeculencies as Embryo's though they receive large quantities of liquid nutriment yet there 's seldom observ'd the least excretion by the fundament but a retention of a quantity of excrementitious terrestreities in the intestines during their whole abode in their maternal cells likewise in fermenting liquours the more active principles do precipitate the more sluggish to the bottoms chinks and walls of their continents further it cannot be denyed that by expiration there is a considerable evacuation as appears both by the heat of our breath and its moisture which is discovered by the reception of it into any concavous Body But 2. admit that there is some waste either by salivation or transpiration yet these being small produce only a lingring consumption which doth often consist for many years with a declining life such as our Virgins is 2. How shall natural heat be preserved if not fed by Oyl continually supply'd and renew'd by aliment There are Sir divers opininos touching humane ignicles and therefore it highly concerns us to proceed cautiously it cannot be deny'd that there is a potential heat more or less in all humane bodyes which is the calor mixti remaining when we are dead and key-cold such as is the heat of Sulphur Arsenick c. though in a great allay this appears from chymical operations on mans blood by which 't is forc'd to acknowledge its endowments with spirits and volatile Salts in great quantities and some
bowels are pass'd by unsaluted in the circulation of Embryo's as also Natures great care to supply the defective passages of those viscera by foramen ovale in the septum of the heart lest the intercourse of the blood with the heart should be impeded which hole is yet afterwards precluded when the Infant is midwiv'd into a new World much of this curiosity of Nature about the heart seems utterly unnecessary if it serv'd only for motion but we are sure that God and Nature do nothing frustraneously Neither am I yet satisfied that the whole of the bloods motion is to be ascribed to the hearts pulsation for Conringius affirms that in live dissections the blood strongly circulates a long time after the left ventricle hath lost its pulse yea though the heart be taken out yet presently is not the motion of the blood destroy'd which seems to be confirm'd by the experiment upon Frogs which leap so nimbly and swim so freely after their hearts are exempted that they cannot be known from unwounded Frogs that exercise in their company the story whereof that most dexterous Anatomist D. Needham hath published moreover if a Ligature be apply'd to a Vein or Artery whereby the pulse is intercepted with the undulation of the blood also yet the blood beyond the bond runs its course towards the heart and which is so much the more strange because 't is the motion of a heavy body contrary to its natural tendency upward Moreover if the pulse of the heart were the only cause of the motion of the blood why then is not the menstrual blood thrust into other parts as well as into the uterine sith the other parts equally with these receive the constant force of the hearts even pulsations and impartial distributions likewise we see that the animal spirits in the nerves with their juice the Lympha in its ducts the Chyle in its thoracicks the Seed in its seminals the Urine in the ureters and the Flegme in its pituitary Vessels are all in motion without the force of any such Engine to give the origen thereto Whereupon I am apt to conjecture that Nature hath furnished several parts with an attractive power the blood with fermentation and several Vessels with a kinde of Vermicular motion of their own no doubt excited by the nerves the Porta with Asinus in the Liver which serves for a Pump and the Cava or one part it with a pulsifick energy by which blood is thrust into the right ventricle as the learned Walaeus asserts by which the motion of humours is promoted and consequently that the rareness of the structure unweariedness of the puâ—sations of the heart c. are designed to some higher ends than meerly and as such to give motion though that it doth with an Emphasis Fourthly How can Spirits both vital and animal be prepared and separated without food and frequent fermentations â— I. Whether there be a flux of animal spirits through the genus nervosum seems yet not fully resolv'd and if no flux then the waste is small and a small reparation may supply a small waste but I confess I understand not how Narcotick fumes nor redundant humours restagnating in the brain can cause an Apoplexy Epilepsie Palsie c. in the whole body if there be no flux of spirits from the brain nor how the hurt from a Coach in the seventh Vertebre of the back mention'd by great Galen could cause a Palsey in three singers nor why we anoint the Vertebres of the back for Palseys in the extreme parts if there be no flux of spirits 2. Supposing a flux of animal spirits through the nervous systeme yet according to the Doctrine of famous Dr. Wharton much of the nervous juice separated by the glandules is returned by the veins and Lymphaticks and so not lost though enseâ—bled by its peregrination and more yet deposited according to Dr. Willis the great Reformer of Physick by the extremity of the nerves in the habit of the body is again retriv'd by the Lymphaticks which serving in our Abstinents little or nothing to assimulation only somewhat to the cherishing of the implanted spirits is the more plentifully return'd and so the loss thus far forth less considerable than ordinary 3. 'T is apparent that there 's a decay of these spirits as well as an obstruction in most of these Abstinents as witnesseth their great inability to motion 4. The fermentations mentioned before though small may contribute something to the encrease of these spirits for Chymists know that there are few juices so 〈◊〉 so sterile but by the help of fermentation may yield a not contemptible spirit 5. Those spirits that pass from the brain to the extremity of the body and thence returned as before by the Lymphaticks and that more forâ—eably and plentifully being reflected by the impervious cold and constipated skin seem rather tyred than exhausted which may by the small ferments aforementioned the contritions mixtions and exaltations of the heart and the perpetual motions of the scarlet liquor be rarifi'd and volatiliz'd to do at a dead lift further good service 6. 'T is notorious that sents do hugely affect the brain as to instance in Apoplexies hysterical passions and in some sort of Syncopes and Cephalalgies common practice doth demonstrate so then if feeding animals perceive such strange alterations by odoriferous exhalations as of Assa faetida Galbanum Verrucae Equinae c. which according to the prodigious invention of the most Philosophical Dr. Willis are able to restrain the most violent explosions like those of Gunpowder than which none more violent of the Nitro-sulphurous atomes with which in spasmodick distempers the nervous juice is impregnated and by which it 's reduc'd to the greatest disorders why may not these Abstinents be reliev'd by such enriched fumes also Fifthly without sleep no long life and without food no sleep for say the Ancients sleep is the binding up of the first Sensorium or common sence caused by the food digesting in the stomach elevating its fumes to the brain which there condensing stop the passages of the animal spirits whereby they are detained from their just visitations whence the senses are disenabled for the execution of their offices R. 1. 'T is not certain that sleep is absolutely necessary to life for we read of many that liv'd waking 'T is said that Ramus studied Philosophy so uncessantly that he became blinde or deaf or both through defect of sleep Bhasis watched so long at his study of Physick till at last he could not sleep at all likewise a Doctor of the Law studyed so indefatigably that he never laid his eye-lids together for four months yet all recovered by the use of Hypnoticks The most inquisitive Galenist Fernelius reports a certain man to have surviv'd 14 moneths waking The grave Heurnius relateth a story from he saith a truly learned man Ierom Montuus of a Noble Matron that lived 35 years without sleep nor