auxiliary for a reduction to the best state at least prevent what may succeed worse and stop the increase And herein it will be no small advantage to know what is assisting and helpful to Nature is this case and what is injurious Meats agreeable and convenient for this condition of body are such as be light and digest well because the Stomachs ferment is not so acute yet if the Stomach covets what is not of facil digestion let it be made savoury and seasoned And then a Phlegmatick raw stomach may better venture upon such But Brawn Pig Goose Duck Water-fowl and such like are not agreeable to a Phlegmatick Stomach Also Eeles fresh Herrings Makerel Lobster fresh Salmon Sturgeon are injurious and difficult to be digested But if you must please your palate drink Wine with these meats for a corrective Let your dyet be warm Meats oftner roast than boyled Butter Oyl and Honey is good for you Mustard Salt and Spices are necessary for your use especially with meats of slow digestion and that abound with much moisture and are apt to clog the Stomach Refuse Milk and Milk Meats Curds new Cheese Butter-milk and Whey Olives Capers Broom buds Sampire are good Sauce also Garlick Onions Leeks in Broths seasonings or Sauces for a relish but not raw Refrain cold Herbs and Sallads as Lettuce Purslan Violet-leaves c. except Sorrel which although cold yet a sharpner of the appetite but freely use Mint Sage Rosemary Time Marjerome Parsley Penny-royal and such hot Herbs Abstain from raw Fruits Apples Pears Plums Cucumbers Mellons Pumptions c. But you may eat new Wall-nuts Filberds Almonds blanched Ches-nuts Fistick-nuts Dates Figs Rasins Drink strong Beer more frequently than small and sometimes Sack Not French Wine if you be Rheumatick Indulge not your self in lying long in Bed or Afternoon-sleeps and too much Rest and Ease they dull the spirits increase flegm and superfluous moisture But frequent Exercise and moderate abstinence in Meat and Drink are great preservatives of your Health Chuse a warm Air and dry Soil remote from Waters the best place for your Abode Hot Baths are profitable seasonable and moderate Venus a friend the former cherisheth the spirits opens the pores for a transpiration and emission of superfluous moisture the latter suscitates and raiseth the spirits alleviates nature and helps Concoction SECT XX. The Cholerick Constitution altered and allayed THE Cholerick Person is more hot and dry than the Phlegmatick eager and precipitate in action froward hasty and angry lean of body and slender the Veins big a hard Pulse and quick of colour pale or swarthy propense to waking and short sleeps subject to Feavers or febrile aestuation upon small occasions That some bodies are in this state and condition is apparent and certain but whether by innate Principles so disposed or otherwise procured and adventitious we will not controvert here but shall proceed as granted that a Diaetetick Regiment well or ill managed shall make this person or condition of body better or worse Wherefore I advise such to these observations Use a cool and moistning dyet most frequently boyled meats rather than rost or baked but fryed or broiled meats never Eat Broths often made with cooling Herbs Rice-milk Cock-broth or Barly-broths with Rasins Currans and Prunes For flesh chuse young tender and juicy as young Beef Veal Mutton Lamb Kid Pork Green-geese Turkie Capon Chickens and such like Observe fish dayes as good dyet and then you may eat fresh Salmon Lobster fresh Herrings Crabs Prauns fresh Cod Thornback Soles Plaise Whiting Smelt Oisters Pike Trout Tench and other fresh fish Eeles not excepted which are unwholesom to others But refrain salt Meats and dryed as Bacon old Ling Haberdine salt Cod pickled or red Herrings pickled Scalops Oisters Anchoves Sturgeon hang'd Beef dryed Tongues and such like Milk and Milk meats are pleasant and good as Custard White-pots new Cheese fresh Cheese and Cream For your Sauces use Verjuce Sorrel Orange Lemmon Apples Gooseberries Currans Prunes pickled Cucumbers as boyled Veal and Greene-sauce rost Veal and Orange boyled Mutton with Verjuce and its own juice rost Mutton and Cucumbers green-Geese and Gooseberries Stubble Goose and Apples Pig and Currants Pork and green-sauce boiled Chickens with Gooseberries or Sorrel-sops Calves feet stewed with Currans and Prunes And your meat thus Cook'd is both food and Physick Take a lawful freedom and please your self with these Fruits Citrons Pomegranats Oranges Lemmons quince Pearmains Pippins Cherries Mulberries Grapes Damsins Bullaces Prunellaes Respass Currans Barberries Strawberries they cool and quench thirst contemperate and asswage hot cholerick humours and give a great refreshment to the parched spirits Eat Sallads of Lettuce Sorrel Purslane Spinage and Violet-leaves they are medicamental aliment but be sparing in Mustard Salt and Spices Butter-milk Whey and Cider allay preternatural heat check the effrenation of Choler and are refreshing to you Refuse the fat and brown out-side of meat also the crust of Bread and be sparing in Butter and Oyl Drink Wine Spirits and strong Liquors but as Physick to refresh and assist a weak stomach and not otherwise Fast not but satisfie the Stomach when it vellicates and calls for meat biting choler must have something to feed on or it will disturb the body Cherish and indulge sleep it cools and moistens but let it not exceed in length which puts Nature by her due times for necessary evacuations Be not too eager and constant in study nor use late sitting up both exasperate this condition of body and make it worse Use very gentle Exercise and be not laborious or toyling but take your ease avoid violent motion for it fires the spirits and heats the body which is very injurious to this Constitution Frequent Venus is most pernicious Cold Baths are profitable and refresh much by cooling the blood allaying the spirits and concentring them Banish anger immoderate care peevishness and fretting which discompose the spirits heat and waste them augment Choler dry the body and hasten old Age. Refrain Tabaco as a very injurious custom it exasperates Choler by heating drying and evacuating dulcid Phlegm which contemperates bridles and checks the fury of acrid bilious humours SECT XXI The Melancholy Constitution directed and governed BY Melancholy Constitution I here understand such a condition of body as is procured and most commonly is the consequent of habituated Melancholy or a melancholy heavy Soul and a discrasied Spleen To pass by the controversies that might arise here from the distinction of melancholy by the Galenists as one of the four constituent humours I shall take for granted on both sides as well Chymists as them that the aforesaid causes do beget such a constitution or condition of body as may well require a peculiar Diaetetick Regiment as an allay or mitigation of those preternatural Symptoms that necessarily follow such Causes at least that they may not be aggravated by an injurious course of living A melancholy studious and sedentary life does much
abate and suspend the emanative vigour and activity of the Soul equally distributed geometricè amongst the several faculties as the spring of their motion and actions from which abatement and depression of their power the functions are not discharged so exactly vigorously and unblamably but more or less according to the aggravation or intention and remission of those Causes Now as the Spleen is more eminently the seat of that passion and commonly a part most apparently injured leading the rest into disorder We shall appoint such a government or prudent election and modification of such things comprised in the Diaetetick part of Physick as may best sute with such a condition of body The melancholy splenetick person whose digestive faculties are debilitated must feed more tenderly and nicely than another else that flatulency and oppression which commonly does attend this condition of body will be aggravated and much more molesting For by a gross and plentiful feeding are those evils increased Let not your common dyet be of such Meats as are hard and difficult to digest that lie long upon the stomach and require a strong incising ferment for separation and transmutation as Meats long salted dryed fryed or broyled c. but keep to such as are light and of facil digestion that soon yield in fermentation and are transmuted without great labour and trouble Meats thus distinguished you will find set down in the 54 55 and 56. pages preceding where you may make Election If you have a hot and dry costive body use Barley-broths with Prunes Rasins and Currans and you may eat sometimes Pippins Pearmains Cherries Respas Strawberries and such like good fruits to cool and moisten Take not a full meal at Supper nor late but eat sparingly And if that be too much as may easily be discovered then forbear Suppers wholly Capers Broom-buds and Sampire are good Sauce they please the Palate quicken the Appetite open Obstructions and help Digestion all which are profitable for this condition of body Also Borrage Bugloss Endive Cichory Baum Fumitory Mary-gold-flowers Violets Clove-gilliflowers and Saffron are of good use Drink Cider sometimes and small White-Wine also Whey if your stomach agrees with it Keep the body soluble your Head will be more free from pains fumes and heaviness Also the lower Region of the Body will not so frequently be disturbed with flatulent rumblings distention and windy eruptions Cherish Sleep it refresheth the spirits pacifies a troubled mind banisheth cares and strengthens all the faculties but tiresome waking in the night is a great Enemy to a melancholy person Fly Idleness the Nurse of Melancholy but exercise often and follow business or recreations Walk in the green Fields Orchards Gardens Parks by Rivers and variety of places Change of Air is very good Avoid solitariness and keep merry Company Be frequent at Musick Sports and Games Recreate the spirits with sweet fragrant and delightful smells Banish all passions as much as in you lies fear grief despair revenge desire jealousie emulation and such like Opus est te Animo valere ut Corpore possis Give not your self to much study nor night-watchings two great Enemies to a melancholy person Refrain Tabacco though a seeming pleasant Companion the phancy is pleased but for a short time and the ill effects are durable SECT XXII Diseases and Passions of the Soul in general MAN is made up of two grand parts Soul and Body the one Active ruling and governing the other Passive obeying and instrumental The one hath its ferenity tranquillity and placidness The other due organization and fabrication But both Soul and Body are subject to disorder discomposure and inaptitude for the regular performance of their Actions and Offices Great discoveries have been made of that Part of Man which presents it self to the eye We have viewed his Fabrick and I may say exactly Witness the excellent Anatomical pieces that are extant wherein are discovered and laid open all the contrivances of this rare Machine But the Spring that sets all on work the intrinsick mover the Soul lies much in darkness and acts as it were behind the Curtain Whose deficiencies and aberrations are little taken notice of except in the irregularities of passion and then only in relation to divine and moral rectitude And therefore in our Physical Discourses I find the Body to be accused of infirmity and failing throughout the Catalogue of Diseases and that the indisposition of Organs to act is the sole or main cause of the irregularity and deficiency of the Functions And that the hability of the Soul to act ad extra does depend wholly upon the capacity and aptitude of the instrumental parts But I am otherwise perswaded to believe and from no small reasons That as there is great difference of Souls in divine and moral goodness why not then in natural abilities and integrity relating to health and sickness And therefore it is very rational to assert that many defects or disorders in the Functions and ruinous decays of the Body does arise and spring forth from the pravity and debility of the Soul by its lapsid nature And that the first motions ab intra or emanations of the Soul are and may be infirm and vitious when the Organs are in their rectitude and aptitude for regular motions But to clear this out and prosecute it to the full I must ravel into the whole Doctrine de Anima and assert contrary to the old Philosophy which will be found very erroneous but that will take up a whole Tract too big for this place and must be the work of another time Therefore I pass on Passions of mind may be considered either in relation to what is divine moral or natural Passions respecting the two first are either good or evil as their object does distinguish them but in the latter they are ill and produce bad effects as they are in degree more or less turbulent violent and durable What concerns the Passions in the two former respects is not our business in hand but as they stand in relation to Health and Sickness what disorders they produce in the regular oeconomy of the Body how the Functions are depraved debilitated or suspended by them is our task now The Diseases or infirmities of the Soul most visible are the perturbations and passions wherein the Soul is put by her genuine state of sanity placidness and serenity and that aequanimous distribution of her energy into the Members and Parts of the Body and from thence much altered disordered and disproportioned Passions draw off the Soul from exercising and executing the functions of the Body For whereas the power of the Soul is equally or proportionably divided into all the faculties in her natural placid state of government On the contrary when Passion is predominant much of that power is drawn away and expended in the prosecution and support of this Passion Passions put the spirits upon several motions sometimes contract them as in Grief Fear or Despair
pilled off but being long gathered the kernell old dry hard and the skin not to be separated they are then heavy upon the stomach stopping and unwholesom They are accounted by some Physicians Alexipharmacal resisting poisons and pestilential malignity and have been used by the Ancients in compositions for that purpose but I am not apt to credit their virtues of that kind The green nuts preserved are both pleasant and wholesom Haselnuts are hard of digestion and injurious to the stomach and Lungs especially such as are weak and infirm in those parts will soon find the prejudice and are fit only for robustick strong Bodies When they are new gathered they are not half so bad as when they be old and dry and the skin will not peel off for then they are very stopping and cause shortness of breath and obstructions in other parts Filberds are better than the Haselnuts yet are not very easy to be digested and must be eaten new gathered for being old they become hurtful But if your nuts be not so new as they ought to be you may correct them and prevent much of the prejudice that follows upon these or the former nuts if you eat them with good raisins of the Sun Chestnuts are a strong food and may agree well enough with strong Bodies and may prove wholesom for they afford much solid nourishment but to the weaker sort and infirm persons they are not to be allowed being heavy of digestion to such obstructing and windy and make the body costive They are not to be eaten raw Almonds are pleasant they yield a wholesom juice which is restaurative and may well be eaten by lean and consumptive persons The newer they are the better but if they be old and hard they must be blanched for the husky skin is obstructing and unwholesom and then you are to eat raisins with them Pistaches are both alimental and medicinal temperate in heat and moisture good in pectoral infirmities Coughs and shortness of breath they lenify digest and open obstructions of the Breast they afford much and good nourishment being restaurative proper for aged consumptive and lean people Pinenuts are much like to the Pistach in virtues and goodness and may be used for all the purposes there mentioned SECT XIII Of Drink The several sorts and properties declared with Rules and Cautions in drinking HAving in the preceding Sections gone through the several kinds of Food therein distinguished and appointed the wholesom use thereof it remains we come in order to set forth the nature and qualities of Drink and to establish such laws in drinking as may most conduce to Health and a vigorous long life for which Drink in the kind and circumstances in drinking are of great importance The intention and use of Drink is first to extinguish and satisfy thirst Secondly To help digestion by macerating of solid food in the stomach Thirdly To promote the distribution of meat and to supply the body with convenient moisture Now to answer these designs the choice of Drink is to be made most suteable and wholesom the Quantity proportioned convenient the manner and order regulated as may best conduce to the purposes aforesaid Concerning the first for choice of Drink I shall propose to you the chiefest and most usual with my opinion of them which are these Water Wine Beer Ale Cyder Perry Meath or Meatheglin Mum Brandy Aquavitae Coffee Tea Water was the Drink created for Man and was so used by Adam and his Posterity and until after the deluge there was no other but then Noah brought in the use of Wine and after that by latter Ages other liquors have been invented That Water is a wholesom Drink and rather the most wholesom I plead first the institution Water being appointed for Man in his best state does strongly argue that to be the most suteable for humane nature Secondly From the nature and quality of it Water answering all the intentions of a common Drink it cools moistens and quencheth thirst 't is clear thin fit to convey aliment and be conveyed through the angust passages and small Vessels of the Body Thirdly From its ready compliance with and obedience to transmutation and assimilation for nutrition being simple pure and void of aliene heterogeneous parts not apt to resist nor to tincture and pervert the digestive ferment but freely yielding and easily transmutable Fourthly From its concomitant approximate effects those which drink Water are more airy brisk and pleasant Water not being apt to sume cloud nor disturb the Brain like stronger liquors which procure drowziness and indisposition to action both of Body and mind Fifthly From the experiment and proof of it in the primitive Age of the World the Water Drinkers were the longest Livers by some hundreds of years and doubtless they were not infested with so many Diseases nor so often sick and complaining as we are These arguments considered we need not to doubt but Water is a wholesom and the natural Drink for Man and a Drink of that sort which is a Rule to it self and requires little caution in the use of it to them that are bred to it since none is tempted to intemperance by drinking thereof But Custom hath naturalized other liquors and it is difficult to desert them but such as would make an experiment of the primitive Drink much might be said and cautions given necessary to guide them in such a new course of life which cannot well be done but by examination and inquiry into the state and condition of the Person else you may receive a prejudice and defame innocent pure water therefore I pass it by Water is not all alike in goodness but much difference there is in this and that sort which we may distinguish thus Spring Water River Rain Water Well and Pump Water besides standing Water of Lakes Ponds Pits and such like Spring Water if it rise from a high place out of good ground pure in tast clear and thin is the best Water for Aliment but if it be in low ground or tinctured by any mineral earth through which it passeth not having the former properties then it is not so good for Drink or other alimentary uses River Water running clear upon gravelly or stony ground not near Cities or great Towns or otherwise that might occasion filth or carrion to be thrown in such I say is good else not Rain Water in the Spring and Summer may be accounted very good and wholesom but at other seasons and when the Air is more thick and dark from impure vapours stormy blasts hail or thunder then not so good Well Water having no motion nor Sun upon it is not so good as the former Waters but if it be in an open place and having a good gravelly or stony bottom it is much the better for that Pump Water being close shut up from the Air and brought up through decaying wooden pipe contracting foulness is rather worse than Well water Waters conveyed through
properties of several bodies one thing will not agree with all Therefore he that cannot drink warm let him take it cold and it is well to him but he that drinks it warm does better And this is to be understood in frosty Winter when the extremity of cold hath congelated and fixed the spirits of the Liquor in a torpid inactivity which by a gentle warmth are unfettered volatile and brisk whereby the drink is more agreeable and grateful to the stomachs fermenting heat being so prepated than to be made so by it Having set forth the several sorts of Drink used and therein shewed their nature and qualities and qualifications I come now to regulate the Quantity as most conducing to Health and Longevity There are three sorts of Drinkers one drinks to satisfie Nature and to support his body without which he cannot well subsist and requires it as necessary to his Being Another drinks a degree beyond this man and takes a larger dose with this intention to exhilarate and chear his mind to banish cares and trouble and help him to sleep the better and these two are lawful drinkers A third drinks neither for the good of the body or the mind but to stupifie and drown both by exceeding the former bounds and running into excess frustrating those ends for which drink was appointed by Nature converting this support of life and health making it a procurer of sickness and untimely death Some to excuse this intemperance hold it as good Physick to be drunk once a month and plead for that liberty as a wholesom custom and quote the authority of a famous Physician for it But whether this Opinion be allowable and to be admitted in the due Regiment for preservation of health is fit to be examined It is a Canon established upon good reason That every thing exceeding its just bounds and golden mediocrity is hurtful to Nature The best of things are not excepted in this general rule but are restrained and limited here to a due proportion The necessary supports of life may prove the procurers of death if not qualified and made wholesom by this corrective Drink exceeding its measure to excess is no longer a refreshment to irrigate and water the thirsty body nor a preservative but makes an inundation to drown and suffocate the vital powers and is the cause of sickness It puts a man out of the state of health and represents him in such a degenerate condition both in respect of body and mind that we may look upon the man as going out of the World because he is already gone out of himself and strangely metamorphosed from what he was I never knew sickness or a Disease to be good preventing Physick and to be drunk is no other than an unsound state and the whole body out of frame by this great change What difference is there between sickness and drunkenness Truly I cannot distinguish them otherwise than as genus and species Drunkenness being a raging Distemper denominated and distinguished from other sicknesses by its procatartick or procuring cause Drink That Drunkenness is a Disease or sickness will appear in that it hath all the requisites to constitute a Disease and is far distant from a state of health for if Health be the free and regular discharge of all the functions of the body and mind and sickness when the functions are not performed or weakly and depravedly then Ebriety may properly be said to be a Disease or Sickness because it hath the symptoms and diagnostick signs of an acute and great Disease for during the time of drunkenness and some time after few of the faculties perform their offices rightly but very depravedly and preternaturally If we examine the intellectual faculties we shall find the reason gone the memory lost or much abated and the will strangely perverted If we look into the sensitive faculties they are disordered and their functions impedited or performed very deficiently the eyes do not see well nor the ears hear well nor the palate rellish c. The speech faulters and is imperfect the stomach perhaps vomits or nauseates the legs fail Indeed if we look through the whole man we shall see all the faculties depraved and their functions either not executed or very disorderly and with much deficiency Now according to these symptoms in other sicknesses we judge a man not likely to live long and that it is very hard he should recover the danger is so great from the many threatning symptoms that attend this sickness and prognosticate a bad event here is nothing appears salutary but from head to foot the Disease is prevalent in every part which being collated the syndrom is lethal and judgment to be given so Surely then Drunkenness is a very great Disease for the time but because it is not usually mortal nor lasts long therefore it is slighted and lookt upon as a trivial matter that will cure it self But now the question may be asked Why is not Drunkenness usually mortal since the same signs in other Diseases are accounted mortal and the event proves it so To which I answer All the hopes we have that a man drunk should live is First From common experience that it is not deadly Secondly From the nature of the primitive or procuring Cause strong Drink or Wine which although it rage and strangely discompose the man for a time yet it lasts not long nor is commonly mortal The inebriating spirits of the liquor flowing in so fast and joining with the spirits of mans body make so high a tide that overflows all the banks and bounds of order For the spirits of mans body those agents in each faculty act smoothly regularly and constantly with a moderate supply but being over-charged and forced out of their natural course and exercise of their duty by the large addition of furious spirits spurs the functions into strange disorders as if Nature were conflicting with death and dissolution but yet it proves not mortal And this first because these adventitious spirits are amicable and friendly to our bodies in their own nature and therefore not so deadly injurious as that which is not so familiar or noxious Secondly Because they are very volatile light and active Nature therefore does much sooner recover her self transpires and sends forth the overplus received than if the morbifick matter were more solid ponderous and fixed the gravamen from thence would be much worse and longer in removing as an over-charge of Meat Bread Fruit or such like substances not spirituous but dull and heavy comparativè is therefore of more difficult digestion and layes a greater and more dangerous load upon the faculties having not such volatile brisk spirits to assist Nature nor of so liquid a fine substance of quick and easy digestion as strong drink So that the symptoms from such food are much more dangerous than those peracute distempers arising from Liquors And farther those bad symptoms in other Diseases are more to be feared and
accounted mortal than the like arising from drunkenness because those perhaps depend upon malignant causes or such as by time are radicated in the body or from the defection of some principal part but the storm and discomposure arising from drunkenness as it is suddenly raised so commonly it soon falls depending upon benign causes if the drink be sound and a spirituous matter that lays not so great an oppression but inebriates the spirits so that they act very disorderly and unwontedly or by their soporiferous vertue stupefies them for a time until they recover their agility and regularity again But all this while I do not see that to be drunk once a month should prove good Physick all I think that can be said in this behalf is that by over-charging the stomach vomiting is procured and so carries off something that was lodged there which might breed Diseases This is a bad excuse for good fellows and a poor plea for drunkenness that for the gaining of one supposed benefit which might be obtained otherwise introduceth twenty inconveniences by it I do not like the preventing of one Disease that may be by procuring of one at the present certainly and many hereafter most probably Indeed if the Disease feared or that may be could be prevented no otherwise but by this drunken means then that might tolerate and allow it but there are other ways better and safer to cleanse the body either upwards or downwards than by over-charging it with strong drink and making the man to unman himself the evil consequents of which are many and the benefit hoped for but pretended or if any but very small and inconsiderable And although as I said before the drunken fit is not mortal and the danger perhaps not great for the present yet those drunken bouts being repeated the relicts do accumulate do debilitate Nature and lay the foundation of many chronick diseases Nor can it be expected otherwise but you may justly conclude from the manifest irregular actions which appear to us externally that the functions within also and their motions are strangely disordered for the outward madness and unwonted actions proceed from the internal impulses and disordered motions of the faculties which general disturbance and discomposure being frequent must needs subvert the oeconomy and government of humane Nature and consequently ruine the Fabrick of mans body The ill effects and more eminent products of ebriety are first A changing of the natural tone of the stomach and alienating the digestive faculty That instead of a good transmutation of food a degenerate Chyle is produced Common experience tells that after a drunken debauch the stomach loseth its appetite and acuteness of digestion and this belching thirst disrelish nauseating do certainly testifie yet to support nature as supposed and continue the custom of eating some food is received but we cannot expect from such a stomach that a good digestion should follow and it will be some days before the stomach recover its eucrasy again and perform its office well And if these miscarriages happen but seldom the injury is the less and sooner recompenced but by the frequent repetition of these ruinous practices the stomach is overthrown and alienated from its integrity Secondly An unwholsom corpulency and cachectick plenitude of body does follow or a degenerate macilency and a decayed consumptive constitution Great Drinkers that continue it long few of them escape but fall into one of these conditions and habit of body A Cacotrophy or Atrophy for if the Stomach discharge not its office aright the subsequent digestions will also be defective So great a consent and dependence is there upon the stomach that other parts cannot perform their duty if this leading principal part be perverted and debauched nor can it be expected otherwise for from this Laboratory and prime office of digestion all the parts must receive their supply which being not suteable but depraved are drawn into debauchery also and a degenerate state and the whole body fed with a vitious alimentary succus Now that different products or habits of body should arise from the same kind of debauchery happens upon this score As there are different properties and conditions of bodies so the result from the same procuring causes shall be much different and various Quicquid recipitur recipitur per modum recipientis One puffs up fills and grows hydropical another pines away and falls Consumptive from excess in drinking and this proceeds from the different disposition of parts for in some persons although the stomach be vitiated yet the strength of the subsequent digestions is so great from the integrity and vigour of those parts destinated to such offices that they act strenuously though their object matter be transmitted to them imperfect and degenerate and therefore do keep the body plump and full although the juices be foul and of a depraved nature Others ê contra whose parts are not so firm and vigorous that will not act upon any score but with their proper object does not endeavour a transmutation of such aliene matter but receiving it with a nice reluctance does transmit it to be evacuated and sent forth by the next convenient ducture or emunctory and from hence the body is frustrated of nutrition and falls away So that the pouring in of much liquor although it be good in sua natura does not beget much aliment but washeth through the body and is not assimilated But here some may object and think That washing of the body through with good Liquor should cleanse the body and make it fit for nourishment and be like good Physick for a foul body But the effect proves the contrary and it is but reason it should be so for suppose the Liquor whether Wine or other be pure and good yet when the spirit is drawn off from it the remainder is but dead flat thick and a muddy flegm As we find in the destillation of Wine or other Liquors so it is in mans body the spirit is drawn off first and all the parts of mans body are ready Receivers and do imbibe that limpid congenerous enlivener freely and readily but the remainder of greatest proportion that heavy dull phlegmy part and of a narcotick quality lies long fluctuating upon the digestions and passeth but slowly turns sowr and vitiates the Crases of the parts So that this great inundation and supposed washing of the body does but drown the faculties stupefie or choak the spirits and defile all the parts not purifie and cleanse And although the more subtile and thinner portion passeth away in some persons pretty freely by Vrine yet the grosser and worse part stays behind and clogs in the percolation A third injury and common manifest prejudice from intemperate drinking is An imbecillity of the Nerves which is procured from the disorderly motions of the Animal Spirits being impulsed and agitated preternaturally by the inebriating spirits of strong Liquors which vibration being frequent begets a habit and causeth a
not purified by Air or Fire they will contract an ill scent and are then unwholesom to lie in But if every one ought to be thus careful of their own Beds they constantly lie in themselves you may easily then imagine how Travellers are exposed to the injuries of noysom Beds Your Chamber also ought to be kept clean and sweet which is conducing to your Health I do not mean often washing it for that brings an unwholesom damp and ill scent into a room especially a Bed Chamber and the Bed-Cloths do imbibe and receive in the moist vapour which must do some prejudice except it be in the heat of Summer hot dry and clear weather and the Windows opened to dry it soon and very well again but to do this in Winter in cold wet or foggy weather is an unwholesom ill custom but some Women are so tyed up to their old usage and fashions that no reason will prevail nothing but a sic volo and sic jubeo will keep off the washing Sweeping brushing and rubbing and searching often all the holes and Corners will keep a House but chiefly Bedchambers in such order for decency and cleanness as will answer all the intentions of washing and is not so offensive nor troublesome But air your Chamber daily by opening the Windows if the weather be dry and not thick or foggy As for the manner of posture or decumbiture the body must lie easie or sleep will be disturbed the head elevated a foot and half or two foot higher than at the Beds feet and from Head to feet the Bed to lie smooth and even and not a fall below the Pillow and hollow under the back as commonly Compose the other parts as best likes every person but lie not upon the back or constantly upon one side but by turns and first on the left side and be covered according to the Climate and Season of the Year The mind also must be in a good posture for sleep well composed and setled when you are in Bed or that will break off your sleep before due time and defraud you of your nights rest if you lie down with roving troubled thoughts they commonly will call you up before it is fit to rise and your sleep will not be so placid and refreshing Therefore when you lay by your cloaths lay aside also your business care and thoughts and let not a wandring phancy prevent your rest or awake you before due time SECT XVI Evacuations and Retentions bounded for preservation of Health ALL that the body receives is not fit to be retained our food though choicely pickt and temperately used yet all does not turn into the substance of the body but some part is to be separated and sent forth the rest to supply nourish and be assimilated This regular course being continued the body thrives and is in good order but if that which should be evacuated and sent forth be retained or that which ought to be retained be prodigally wasted and injuriously emitted then the body suffers and decays when the regular oeconomy thereof is thus subverted Hinc ingens morborum turba And here we are to consider of the various excretions that Nature does require and is beneficial and of such retentions as are injurious Under this Head is comprised excretions by Stool by Vrine menstrual Purgations Spermatick issuing transpiration by the Pores evacuation by the Nose and Ears of which the former are of the greatest concernment and special care to be had of them Excremental evacuations are various proceeding from the several digestions conveyed out by several Channels and Vents of Natures fabrication which duly evacuated are no small helps to the conservation of health and are the effects of a temperate and regular body The retention of them beyond due time argues discrasy of parts or irregular living and brings much detriment to the body by their noxious impressions and putrid vapours that infect and disturb the body If the Belly be costive and bound up if the Urine be supprest the monthly Courses stopt the Pores occluded and shut up the Soul will be stifled in the Body and the Body polluted and corrupted with its own Excrements and as these are so more or less in degree swerving from rectitude so it fares with the body better or worse And on the contrary if the Belly let pass too soon and forceably before the alimentary part be separated sweeping down both together if the Vrine flows too freely and drains the body If the Female Courses be immoderately current and exhaust the vital stream If the Sperme be involuntarily issuing and daily wasting If the Texture be too lax and pervious the Pores patent and evaporating the damage is as great as the former and as much to be feared as these evacuations are more or less enormous So that nothing but moderation and an even course between these two extreams are conservative of Health and longaevity And that this may be so all your actions and necessary customs must be bounded by mediocrity this is the Golden Chain that ties all together one Link whereof being broken the whole is broken and disunited having a dependence and mutual tye upon each other As the discharging of Nature moderately and seasonably in all her requisite evacuations preserves the body in health and strength so contrarily Immoderate evacuations cause weakness debility of Nature by exhaustion and procure several Diseases Cachexies Consumptions Dropsies c. To keep the body soluble is very good that at least once a day you may not miss to have a stool else the Faeces are hardned the body heated the stomach molested the appetite not so good the head heavy dull and sometimes pained some grosser matter which should go away by siege is brought by the Urinary passage occasioning obstructions all which are very injurious and destructive to Health Seasonable and moderate Venus alleviates Nature and helps digestion but immoderate exhausts the strength by effusion of spirits exsiccates and dries the Body hurts the Brain and Nerves causeth tremblings dulls the sight debilitates all the faculties hastens old Age and shortens Life But of this more at large in my Treatise of Spermatick Consumptions Cibo vel potu repletis superfluè evacuatis sive exercitatis coitus interdicitur Tempus optimum est manè post dormias Hyeme Vere frequentius permittitur Aestate parciús Juvenes sanguinei pituitosi liberalius parcius Melancholici parcissimè biliosi Senes emaciati Menstrual evacuations are proper to the Female Sex and come to them at certain years to some at fourteen or fifteen to others at sixteen or seventeen and then Nature challengeth them monthly as her due except she hath conceived nurseth or being grown old Nature does not require this evacuation And this is of such concernment with them that if this menstrual Flux be not right in the several requisites according to times quantity and quality the whole body oftentimes is disturbed but always some
neglect the spring from whence they do arise and where the greatest stress of Cures do lie Morbi in initiis vitalibus radicem habent And although I have distinguished food for several constitutions or conditions of body as most proper and fit for them and commonly most agreeable and appetible yet I do not thereby strictly enjoin or restrain any one of a dissenting appetite from some things greatly coveted and suteable by experience although appointed for another person of a different constitution but that every person seeing the general Rule may something be guided thereby and examining his peculiar propriety of Body undiscernable to others whether it will comply freely or with reluctance In such case where there is a refusal of this or that as not suting but disgustful you are not to impose upon your Nature forcibly though injoined by the general Rule But where you are at a stand in things indifferent what to chuse when either will comply and sute your appetite then follow the Rule as advantagious Moreover the strong robust bodies active and laborious are not so strictly enjoined to observance as tender weak bodies which soon are discomposed and altered by ill diet or that is incongruous for their condition of body If a person have a cold waterish Phlegmatick Stomach those Meats and Drinks and Sauces are not so agreeable and requisite for him as will well agree and sute with a Cholerick hot and dry parching Stomach A Phlegmatick man most commonly takes no delight in Milk and Whey cold Meats and cooling Drinks or cooling Sauces but he loves seasoned hot Meats strong Drinks Spices and hot Herbs to make his Meat savoury and acceptable to his Stomach But the Cholerick Man shall delight in the other and they shall sute best with him being temperately and discreetly used So that a Diaetetick Regiment well appointed and observed is physical to discrasyed and distempered bodies to contemperate and allay the luxuriance of some predominant Humour and something dispose the faculties to produce the alimentary Juices of another nature which by time will alter and change the constitution or condition of Body from what it was and reduce it nearer to what it ought to be SECT XVIII The sanguine Constitution or purest state of Body how generated and preserved THis Constitution does result from the integrity of the faculties and due Crases of the Parts performing their offices rightly When Food is well elaborated and transmuted in such manner as is proper for each digestion then a good constitution and good habit of body is established The Mass of blood then hath its pure tincture and all the liquors of the body their peculiar properties suteable to the intentions of Nature But if the Crases of the Parts be perverted by a spontaneous defection and imbecillity of the faculties or otherwise procured to irregularity by bad food intemperance and the Diaetetick Rules not observed then the alimentary Juices do degenerate from their purity the mass of Blood and nervous liquor are depraved the constitution and whole habit of body altered and changed for the worse The sanguine person enjoys the best state and condition of body does not abound or is molested with crude Phlegmatick or acrid Cholerick Juices or otherwise degenerate but hath the succulencies of body in their right and proper natures as is most fit for every Vessel and part of the body hence it is that this person is more fresh temperate lively and florid of a more pleasant mind and good disposition having pure blood and other good Juices to supply the Body from whence the spirits are generated both plentifully and of a good extraction This State and Constitution of Body is best preserved and continued so from degeneration by a good Diaetetick Regiment disposing all the requisite supports of Life Customs and Actions whatsoever that they be moderate seasonable and suteable to such Natures contributing their assistance wholly and not being any ways detrimental by their ill management The Sanguine Person will continue long in that condition and good state of Body by a due observance of Dyet Exercise and Rest Sleep and Watching Excretions and Retentions passions of Mind For any of these irregular and unsuteable will alter and change the best tempered body into some other depraved condition answerable to their Causes as the intemperate Air of a hot Climate or sudden change of Weather not regarded violent and unseasonable Exercise night-watchings ill-dyet c. introduce a depraved alteration and degeneration of the blood and therefore most commonly sickness soon follows such injurious Courses I might here forbid the smoaking of Tabaco the common Purgatives falsly denominated but rather and more properly Corruptives which stamp an ill impression upon the parts and vitiate alimentary Juyces of the Body but the injuries procured from Tabaco and these Drugs are declared at large in my Tract of the Scurvy Therefore I need not repeat here For the Election and Choice of Food for quantities and due times in Eating and Drinking for the choice of Air and place of Abode for Exercise Sleep c. consonant and most agreeable to this constitution and best state of Body are to be sought in the general Hygiastick Rules before-mentioned which are most proper and applicable to this state and condition of Body as being the Rule or Standard to measure others by And by how much others vary from this temperature and good condition of Body by so much are they to be accounted intemperate and deviating from integrity and do therefore require some particular Rules or Exemptions from the general to regulate them apart because bodies in a right and good state are not to be governed by the same strictness of Law but must have some allowance and exceptions which shall be observed in the particular constitutions following SECT XIX The Phlegmatick Constitution managed for a reduction THE Phlegmatick Person is such whose nature is not so vigorous and acute in the digestive faculties and makes a transmutation of food not so perfect as the Sanguine but something crude and raw This Constitution abounding with superfluous moisture and being cooler in temperature except upon occasions distempered and the Archeus disturbed commonly hath a slower Pulse not so lively active and brisk as the Sanguine person prone to sleep and ease of colour paler by hot things benefited by cold things prejudiced And thus it is by reason the vital powers are remiss and sluggish or perverted and the several functions of the body not performed vigorously and compleatly which ariseth from an innate disability or irregularity and disregard to the Diaetetick rules Now this Constitution of body being fallen a degree from the integrity of Nature and swerving from the best condition and state of body which is the Sanguine and finding by these Characters how Nature is defective and which way declining You ought so to order all your actions and customs as may tend to the rectifying of this deficiency and be
Sometimes dilate them as in Joy Love and Desire Sometimes drives them furiously as in Anger wherein also the humours are fluctuating sometimes this way and sometimes that way according to the nature of the Passion which hath its peculiar motion and current And as other Diseases have their Diagnostick Signs to distinguish them and whereby they may be known So likewise the Passions have their peculiar Characters of distinction that it is not difficult to know under what passion a man labours We judge of other sicknesses very much by the Face what alteration there So by the Countenance we may know what Passion is predominant each putting on a different aspect and presenting it self in another shape and visage Passion in excess although it be the perturbation and sickness of the mind yet it is not confined there but is communicated to the Body which partakes and shares in the morbous effect If the Mind be distempered and discomposed the Body cannot continue in health The Soul and Body are so interwoven with each other and conjunct in their Operations that they act together enjoy and suffer together They are so linked and conjoined as Partners of each others ill and welfare that the one is not affected but the other is drawn into consent mutually acting enjoying and suffering until death Hence it is a diseased Body makes a heavy drooping mind and a wounded disturbed or restless mind makes a youthful healthy body to decay and languish Who therefore desires the health and welfare of the body must procure Ease Rest and Tranquillity of mind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That you may the better know and rightly understand how passions of the mind redound and reflect upon the body to the decay and ruine of it and abbreviating mans life First Consider that the Body without the Souls energy is dead and moves not at all by vertue of the Souls conjunction with it and informing power the Body acts with various motions and operations and according to the activity of the Soul with organical aptitude and fitness of the Body is the exquisiteness and perfection of their operations The Soul then is Agent the Body passive receiving the influx virtue and power from the Soul who is Rectrix and Gubernatrix to whom the Rule and Government belong It is evident therefore since the Body cannot act any thing of it self for its conservation without the energy and assistance from the Soul whose care is for the regulating and moderating the Body in all actions external and internal than the distractions inactivity wandrings and neglects of the Soul do tend to the subversion of this due order and government and consequently the ruine and dissolution of the body which requires a constant supply of daily reparation and a regular tuition for its support and maintenance Now the Soul transported by passion from its genuine order and mode of placidness and tranquillity and reduced into a turbulent unquiet and distempered state is a condition of incapacity and unfitness for government for that time being and many damages arise thereby as in each passion particularly hereafter will appear In a threefold manner the Soul is put besides her self in the regularity of rectory and is incurious of the welfare of the Body First The Soul is either carried away by some delightful object as for something vehemently desired and deserting as it were the body to follow after that thing desired and coveted extending her power and strength out of the body to lay hold if possibly to obtain and bring within the Sphere and Circle of her enjoyment as in the Passion of Love Or secondly The Soul is in fury and disquieted within by the apprehension of something assaulting and disturbing to which the Soul hath a contrariety and antipathy against as in the passions of Fear Hatred Revenge Anger And this disquietude and disturbance is continued by representations of their causes in the phantasie which still present themselves to the Soul by way of a fresh assault which feeds the Passion and continues the Distemper Or thirdly The Soul is languishing heavy and inactive altogether indisposed to the government and tuition of the body and perhaps desirous to be discharged and shake it off being weary of the burthen taking no delight in their partnership and society as in melancholy despair and grief In all which cases you shall find the Body to suffer great prejudice and detriment In the first Case When the Soul alienates her self wanders away with a vehement desire to procure and obtain any thing most agreeable and delightful the Soul as it were contracts her self and unites all her force stands at full bent after this beloved dischargeth all her thoughts upon it and spends her strength in desire and longing until at last she pines away with a tedious and starving expectation if the beloved thing be not obtained In the interim the oeconomy and government of her own mansion the Body is neglected the spirits which are accounted the Souls immediate Instruments in every Faculty at least a considerable part are inticed away and called off from their proper and peculiar works and duty perhaps to enlarge and increase the vigour of some other faculty more immediately subvervient and attending the Souls new design and business preferred far before a good digestion due excretion nutrition seasonable rest or what else and those spirits remaining which have the burthen of these duties incumbent on them have so small and inconsiderable support and supply of influence from the Soul to direct and back them in their performance that the functions are executed weakly and depravedly to the great prejudice and damage of the Body Digestion now is not so good nor the Appetite so quick the stomach calls not for a new supply as yet not being well discharged and quit of yesterdays provision the stomach now is weary of dressing and preparing long Dinners for the Body Lenten and fasting days are its vacation from trouble Separation now is not so good the excrementitious and nutritious part walk hand in hand together and pass without contradiction or due examination the watch now is not so strict at the Ports and privy passages to discern what is fit to pass this way and what the other or what to reject and keep out but promiscuously receive what presents it self Distribution now is not so good Aliment tires by the way wanting spirits to convey and bring it to its journeys end and exercise to jog it on through the angust Meanders and more difficult passages Sanguification is now degenerated and vitiated the preceding requisites and fit praevious dispositions in order thereto being wanting Membrification or Assimilation is now changed for a Cachectick and depraved habit Excretion and Evacuation of what is superfluous and unfit longer to be retained in the body is not sent away in due time but stays for a Pass the Governess is now taken up with other matters neglects due orders
the extremity and strength of passion debilitate and suppress Reason the chief contriver and manager of your design puts you upon inconsiderate immature and rash attempts and makes you more unfit incapable and unable to effect your purpose for Passion is always spurring but Reason hath its stops and pauses keeps due times for onsets and progress Thirdly That prudent and vigorous action not inane hungry volition or thirsty desire though ever so great can acquire the satisfaction of your hopes Fourthly That the ardency and heighth of desire will not imbetter sweeten or add to the heighth of your enjoyment but rather abate and lessen it in your account and esteem for what thing soever you purchase and are mistaken and deceived in you will not value at that rate you first prized it but at the worth you now find it Vehement and lofty desires screws you up to such a heighth of expectation mountain high but you must descend into fruition that 's low as the valley and when you find your self in a bottom and your Sails not so filled and puft out as formerly by the fresh gails and blasts of a strong desire your top sails then begin to flap and flag when you come in to the still calm of fruition and your lofty spirits and high thoughts will lowre amain when you Anchor in the Harbour of Enjoyment for in appearance it was great when at a distance and seemingly but now you are come nearer it is much less and inconsiderable really and what swelled you full in the prosecution of attaining will not fill you now with satisfaction but prove aery when you grasp it and soon emptied in enjoyment Non ea jam mens res habenti quae desideranti erat Fifthly That statutum est it is appointed you must or you must not obtain the thing desired which to a rational creature is sufficient without other Arguments to qualifie moderate and blunt the keen edge of desire and curb the violence of an impetuous affection but not to cowardise daunt or stop a laudable active prosecution to attain a noble vertuous and lawful end with a moderate submssiive desire Quisquis in primo obstitit Repulitque amorem tutus ac victor fuit Sen. Melancholly Grief and Despair These Passions being near allied we may rank them together as the Companions and Attendants upon adversity and misfortunes whose properties are to rob and steal away from the Soul that vivacious enlivening power which roborates and quickens all the faculties in the Body When these Passions are predominant the energy of the Soul is abated and all the functions insufficiently weakly and depravedly performed A dark Cloud of Melancholy over-spreading the Soul suffocates and choaks the Spirits retards their motion and agility darkens their purity and light these instruments in each faculty being thus disabled their offices in every part of the body are faintly executed whereby the whole body decays and languisheth witness the common symptoms of a dejected sad condition a pale thin face heavy dead eyes a slow weak pulse loss of appetite weakness faintness restlesness a weight or compression about the region of the heart with continual sighing or palpitation these are the effects wrought in the Body by Melancholy and Grief which are to be avoided as great decayers of Nature Enemies to Beauty Health and Strength Hope and Joy But these are the recreations of the Soul and are as sanative and wholesom as exercise is for the Body for the Soul plays and danceth in hope and joy Embrace therefore and cherish these as the supports of your life which raise the Soul to the highest pitch and extend her energy to the utmost These enlivening affections of the mind are the greatest friends to and preservatives of Health and strength for in this serene state of gladness all the faculties and endowments of soul are advanced and invigorated both rational sensitive and natural which implies a vigorous performance in all the members of the Body and therefore contribute mainly to the keeping or acquiring of Health and consequently the prolongation of life Content and joy prolong youth and preserve beauty make the countenance fresh the Body plump and fat for pleasantness and delight of the soul put all the spirits upon activity quicken their operations and duty in all the functions conveigh nutriment to repair and replenish the utmost borders and confines of the microcosm therefore dum fata sinunt vivite laeti FINIS Advertisement PAins afflicting humane Bodies their various difference Causes Parts affected Signals of danger or safety Shewing their tendency to Inflammations Tumors Apostems Vlcers Cancers Gangrenes and Mortifications for a seasonable prevention of such fatal Events With a Tract of Fontinels or Issues and Setons By E. Maynwaringe Doctor in Physick Printed for Henry Bonwick in St. Pauls Church Yard Bookseller Morbus Polyrhizos Polymorphaeus A Treatise of the Scurvey Examining the different Opinions and Practice of the most solid and grave Writers concerning the nature and Cure of this Disease With instructions for prevention and Cure thereof By the same Author The fourth Edition Tabidorum Narratio A Treatise of Consumptions Scorbutick Atrophies Tabes Anglica Hectick Feavers Phthises Spermatick and Venereous wastings radically demonstrating their nature and Cures from vital and morbifick Causes By the same Author The Mystery of the Venereal Lues Gonorrhaea's c. disclosed comparing the dissenting judgments of most eminent Physicians hereupon and the various methods of Cure practised in Foreign Countries Resolving the doubts and fears of such as are surprized with this secret perplexing Malady By the same Author desperati ne desperent assiduè tentando deploratos saepè curando certiùs tutiusque sanamus Medicus Absolutus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Compleat Physician qualified and dignified the rise and progress of Physick Historically Chronologically and Philosophically illustrated Physicians of different Sects and Judgments distinguished the abuse of Medicines imposture of Empericks detected c. By the same Author Praxis Medicorum antiqua nova The Ancient and Modern Practice of Physick examined stated and compared the Preparation and Custody of Medicines as it was the primitive custom with the Princes and great Patrons of Physick asserted and proved to be the proper charge and grand duty of every Physician successively c. By the same Author