especially in the month of March Whence comes the Nails Also this Infant that was a Female wanted her nails upon her fingers and the utmost joynts of her fingers upon which from the musculous or cartilaginous matter of the skin nails that are very smooth do come forth and grow hard there appeared hardly any marks or prints of nails and they were not so hard as horn but soft as thin skin But on the joynts of their feet there were not resemblance of nails because those parts are not so hot as the hands and are farther from the heart the Fountain of heat for the joynts of the hands that are fastned to the brest by the Armes by the benefit of the heat that is diffused from the heart have more apparent signes on the fingers than any other parts The judgement of Physitians concerning Child birth with no favour or disfavour unto any Wherefore the Physitians observing many naturall causes and depending on solid reasons with favour or disfavour to neither side but as the matter would beare it if he would be so content that was in question to set his integrity and honesty upon it pronounced before the Judges to whom that tryall was commited by them that amongst the Dutch are the King of Spains vicegerents at Brussels that this Infant was to be taken for a Child not of nine but of seven months birth the time the woman went with Child being 27 weeks and such a Child must be accounted born in seven months though the time was not quite finished and one or two weeks were wanting and some dayes to make the time compleat But in this businesse the Moons circuit must be observed The Moon makes the months for women with Child that is perfect in four weeks that is in lesse than 28. days in which space of her revolution the blood being agitated by the force of the Moon the courses of women flow from them which being spent and the matrix cleansed from the menstruall blood as it useth to be oft times on the fift or seventh day Naturall conception is after the courses if after that time a man lye with a woman the conception proves to be most naturall so that the Infant born after seven or nine months is most healthfull and free from diseases to which Children use to be obnoxious For Children use to be troubled with many diseases by reason of the menstruall blood The Epilepsie is Childrens diseases that stays in the Matrix at the time of conception as are the Measils that is lively eruptions commonly called Measils and small-Pox in low dutch Maeselen ende Pocken and other red or wan Pushes that are contracted by the menstruall foulnesse and in the Spring or Summer thrust themselves forth into the outward parts of the body To this we may add the Epilipsie or Falling-sicknesse the Dutch call it Vallende Siecte which disease because it hath many differences the superstitious Gentiles of old were wont to referr it to certain Gods before the light of the Gospel was revealed to men whereas it proceeds from naturall causes and chiefly from clammy and tenacious flegme Moreover in the mouths of young Children there breed almost so soon as they are born some blisters about their throats and Palates the Araâ—â—ans call them Alcolam the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Dutch dan Sprowe What is Alcola and uâ—der rheir tongues 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 commonly call'd the Frog What the Frog is in low Dutch Spanare which either by incision or with ones naile or rubbing with Salt as I use to do when they fear the iron instrument or Oxymel of Squils is taken away to say nothing of Hydrocephalon A spongy head that is a head swoln with a spongy watry humour and of many other collections of humours that come from vitious milk and menstruall blood which also use to accompany men in yeares and when they seem to be gon they will come oft times again Therfore both in tilling and sowing of ground A simile from tilling of ground as also in copulation with women and manuring that ground and proâ—reation of Children even by Moses law the Moons motion was to be observed by force whereof at set times womens courses run or are stopt The Moons circuit is performed through the Zodiack in 27 dayes and in one third part of a day which dayes comprehending lesse than four weeks make a Lunar month In how many dayes the Moon peâ—fects her course especially if you take away that time that this planet lyeth hid and is not seen for she is three dayes more or lesse in conjunction that is as they say conmonly the time she is invisible See Galen of decretory dayes in which time she doth not exercise her force upon the earth and is not fit to alter them But when she begins to shew her selfe and is new and when she is full that is she is in opposition to the Sun and shews round she hath wonderfull force in conception and many other things for she both augments Corn and fruits and shell-fish and flesh that hangs to the roofs of houses is corrupted by the beams of it shining upon it such as sleep or continue long in the Moon light she makes pale and trembling and heavy headed brings the Epilepse to Children as also stupidnesse and the Palsey and many more things she doth not that she exceeds the other Planets but she doth it by being so neere to us For she being so placed in the lowest Orb The Moon is a Planet next the Earth and next to the earth she doth so guide the beginnings and increase of things that by the effect of her even after conception of the seed the Child in the Mothers Womb by the Mothers blood that nourisheth it is augmented and made to grow The time of carrying the Infant is to be referred to the course of the Moon Also all the time a woman goes with Child whether you please to measure it by dayes or months or weeks as great bellyed women commonly use to reckon must be referred and counted by the age of the Moon But she shews her forces more effectually upon the body either when first she meets with the Sun begins to be enlightned by him or when she is round and full but when she is but a halfe Moon she hath lesse forces and least of all when she is crooked and by degrees fades and is obscured For at that time there is no concourse of waters in the Ocean no abundance of humours in the bodies of men no collection of marrow in the bones so that then it is fit for tender bodies to leave off copulation and to make a League with it But I oft times use to foretell to women great with Child when their travel shall be easie When the birth will be easie and so to raise their minds to hope very well if they chance
imbred generosity and hence it is that wise men sometimes beget stupid slothful Children Why wise men sometimes beget fools and that are of a feeble mind because they are not much given to these delights But when the Progenitors are hot in venereous actions and do liberally and abundantly employ themselves therein it oft-times happens that the children are of the same manners desires and actions of mind that their Parents are A Simile from Birds For as Birds are of the same Nature with those they are bred from and are of the same colour'd Feathers so Children exactly imitate the manners of their Progenitors and are essentially the same in nature with them And the same native signs that are printed on the Parents are found also commonly upon the Children For Horace Carmin l. 4. od 4. speaks thus Good and strong beget the same Calves and Colts their Sires ' present From stout Eagles never came Birds like Pigeons impotent And because Education perfects the gifts of nature corrects errours and frees from vice he added very fitly Art amends what Nature is Good Manners mend what 's amisse Chremes in Terence concludes from the Mothers Manners what the son is for thus he brawls with Sostrata Heauton-timerum Act. 4. Scen. 3. His manners shew him born of thee In that in all he doth agree He hath thy vices to a hair None but thee then could him bear Ill Crows ill Egs. And truly it is so by nature and we see it fall out most commonly that Children will imitate their Parents conditions and tread upon their heels following dicing whoring tipling yet some by their Parents care and benefit of education come to good manners wherefore every man ought to strive so to moderate his passions and so order his course of life and dyet that he may not hurt himself or infect his posterity For from the fathers seed and the mothers blood many things use to descend to posterity for the same force and vertue that is in the Parents sperm is poured forth into the children as from one vessel into another So saith Catullus Cat will ever follow kind And Children are of Parents mind Parents diseases faults descend to their children Seeing that the seed flowes from the principall parts and contains in it the force and nature of all the members it comes to passe that what disease is in any part descends by right of succession to the Children So the Leprosie Epilepsie feet-gowt hand-gowt and other diseases and defects are hereditary And because the Mothers blood is the chief nutriment for the Child Women derive most part of mischief to the children and the secondary beginning of procreation it oft-times happens that Children take more mischief from the Mother whether you consider their bodies or minds So wicked drunken foolish women commonly with us bring forth just such Children and that are subject to the same vices The Mothers fault doth more wrong to Children if she be unchaste and play the whore than the Fathers fault doth so likewise if she be given to drunkennesse or any other vice For if a man of ripe years or when he is young and unmarried should get a Maid ☞ with child he deserves almost to be commended for it and not to be disgraced For it is commonly said that one may safely marry his daughter to such a man who is not unfruitful and barren but hath proof of his Manhood already in getting of a child But if a woman or a maid that is marriageable should do the like or suffer any such matter to be done when she begins to fall in love she would so lose her reputation and honour that no Cobler nor any mean fellow whatsoever but would scorn to marry her and if one should marry her he would quickly hit her in the teeth with her whoredome So as soon as any maid is overcome and hath lost her maidenhead and those cloysters of Virginity are entred that fault can never be washt away nor can those closets be ever lockt again For so the Poet describes it Virginity once stain'd Can never be regain'd So Plautus in Amphitruo I do not think that to be the dowry which people call so but chastity and bashfulnesse and a moderate desire a fear of the Gods love of Parents and concord with kindred Wherefore besides others Ecclus. that wise Hebrew doth earnestly warn Parents that they should be very careful to look to their daughters chastity and honesty that they may not be polluted with wicked company or be stained by them For women-kind are naturally frail and more subject to be abused Since therefore there are many things that hinder manners and good life as also there are many things that defile the body and the decent frame thereof care must be had that nothing may pollute the mind with ill manners or disgrace the body by any monstrous deformity And because the beauty and decent form of the body is very acceptacle to all Men we should observe exactly by the progresse of natural causes what things will make one beautiful or deformed and ugly since these things principally consist in womens Imagination and in such things as proceed from without care must be had that that Sex may see nothing A woman with child is subject to passions that may move their mind to think absurdly which in framing the child may bring any hurt For if any mischief happen from without if any fear or trembling fall on them when they meet any terrible thing presently all this fright falls upon the child the natural spirits and humours being turn'd thither and all the faculties of the woman are busied in framing such a thing For a vehement and fixed cogitation whilest it doth tosse the vehement species of things and turns them often over it doth imprint that form and figure which it so often thinks on upon the Child For the confluence of the internal spirit and humours paints out the Image of the thing thought on Whence comes deformity of body It is not for nothing and for no cause that some have such ill shapen bodies ill and uncomely cruel countenances swoln blabber'd cheeks wry mouthes wide chaps for these things come to passe because their mothers being great with them thought on such deformed shapes and representations or fastned their eyes too much upon them So I dislike nothing more than lascivious women that use to delight themselves beyond measure with Whelps and Apes and to carry them in their bosoms to foster them to kisse and hug them For by the company and sight of these creatures the imperfect Nature of women may take some strange impressions and they may frame in their minds such forms as may make their children deformed Maka Dogs So the great women of the Low-Countroys love Malta dogs they are commonly called Camusii from their crooked nostrils their bodies are but small they are white as snow their noses are flat
to drinking again to expell those vapours of the former wine Crudity hurts Melancholique people and imagination rising from thence as one nail with another since therefore the causes and original of diseases are so and the nature and condition of the humours is such that no reason can be thought on for the accesse and coming on of feavers than from the quantity or quality of the humours Let no man think that evill spirits do raise these tempests or distempers I know Ill spirits offend our minds and bodies and raise winds also and shall easily grant that the Divels or aereal spirits are very knowing and find out all things for their purposes and do not onely mix themselves with the humours but also they entice and urge the minds of men to all wickednesse and that the good Angels help men in all good things and are companions and assistants unto them So Raphael travelled with Tobias his Son So the spirit of the Lord came upon Sampson and he rent the Lion like a Kid. Tob. 14. Also a divine spirit came upon Saul 1 King 10. and he Prophesied with the other Prophets But after wards an evill spirit troubled his mind and stirred him up against David So they thrust themselves into tempests and cause thundrings and lightnings So that with their help we see Towers and Mountains are rent in pieces Corn Cattel and flocks of Sheep are destroyed yet the violence of the winds can do this without them So those winds Saint Luke speaks of are very violent upon Sea and Land Act. 27. and by the breaking and clashing of clowds fire is cast forth that sail-yards and sails are burnt with it A simile from the violence of Guns and Ordinance The like violence is wrought by great Guns upon Ramparts be they never so strong that not onely the ball strikes those that are near but the very wind and noise of them hurts some that are farther off These and many such like things though they may be done by natural reason Job 12. yet the Divell by Gods permission or grant may intermingle with them and make all worse So Satan exasperated Sauls melancholy and provoked him to commit many murders and to lie in wait and to commit many horrible things But because this affect of the mind and errour may be referred to natural causes therefore it appears that the Musick of the Harp took away the fury of him and his mind grew more calm For as when strong winds blow upon the Sea A simile from the flowing of the Sea the waves are more frequent and the Sea rages and as melancholique men grow more sad by losse of their estates and other casualties and cholerick people grow angry by drinking Wine or by being jear'd and mock'd So evill spirits or witches drive on such men headlong to wicked actions that though the will be ready and desires it yet can it not moderate the actions and force of counsels Which our Saviour seems to intimate when he said to Peter by way of reprehension Math. 16. Get thee behind me Sathan For Christ cal'd him so because he was against him and strove to divert him from our redemption that he was about And unlesse the great good God by his singular favour should bridle the fury of the adversary against us 1 Pet. 5. man could not subsist or defend himself against the fury of this Monster For he tryes all waies and searches all passages that he may set upon us and winnow us as Wheat Wherefore as Job saith God sets a sword against him that is Luk. 22. ch 40. A place of Job explained sets him his bounds that he cannot passe and limits Satans rage for he can go no further then God will give him leave and God will let no man be afflicted beyond his strength By which Antidote St. Paul comforts all that are in danger 1 Cor. 10. or in calamity but shews a way to escape from the tentation that the affliction may be no more then we can suffer or that we may be suddenly delivered I have been the longer in this that the Reader may understand that the humours are the cause of diseases principally But the divells the Stars and the quality of the ambient Ayre and other external causes are but accidental For since all passions of the mind are quieted by reason but the diseases of the body are cured by fit remedies who can refer the causes of diseases better than to the quantity and quality of the humours And if a man please to examine the humours of the body What manners come from bodily humours and what force they have he shall find that they do not onely constitute the habit of the body but the manners also of the mind yet so that manners and Religion are set above them in the uppermost place For blood or if you regard the qualities heat and moysture produce men of a flourishing constitution but as for the mind they are lascivious merry truly honest without dissembling and they are something above Fools But yellow chollerbrings forth men of a dry and swartish colour but they are hot deceitful ingenious of a fierce angry constitution wise industrious cunning inconstant false Who naught but a fair countenance reveal Pers sat In a false heart a crafty Fox conceal Melancholy juice makes men stable and constant and that will not easily depart from what they once undertake or forsake their opinion that if they happen to addict themselves to any sect they will hold it tooth and nail and not be easily drawn off This affect is milder in cholerick people for they by reason of their unstable floting humours and thin spirits are quickly transported and though they be very hot and clamorous yet they are soon pleased and not so obstinate Flegme is unprofitable to form mens manners and therefore flegmatique people are dull and unfit for any great matters CHAP. II. Melancholique Mad and Frenzy people and such as are furious from other causes will sometimes speak strange Tongues they never learned and yet not be possessed with the Divell The wonderful force of the humours in stirring the mind A Great force troubles the humours and a great heat troubles the mind for those that are in strong feavers will speak some tongue they never learned sometimes elegantly sometimes im perfectly and confusedly which I do not much wonder to be done by those that are possessed with the Divell because they have the knowledge of all natural things As Wine so humours trouble the mind Now the humours are so violent and forcible where they are inflamed or corrupted that the dark smoak of them ascending unto the brain as we see when men drink too much strong Wine will make men speak languages they understand not should this come from the Divell these diseases would not be cured with purging medicaments nor opiats by procuring of sleep For by
the belly so I find by experience that mans bones grated given for the dysentery in red wine will stop it by a binding quality and drying force which also is excellently performed by artificial Pissaphaltum that is Arabian Mummie if you mingle but a little sea-Amber which is called Sperma Coeti Misselto a Plant what force it hath against the Epilepsie Misselto is next to these if not before them and it is called viscus because there is a clammy humour in the berries which if you rub it with your fingers is like birdlime for by that word is not meant venemous glew and snotty matter called Ixia that will inflame the tongue and glew all the Entrals together But a shrubby plant that the Priests and Druides of France as Caesar calls them held most sacred Comment l. 6. It never growes on the earth but is alwayes green upon the Oke and Holm Tree nor of any seed but from the excrement of the wood pigeon and blackbird I have often seen that shrub a cubit in height green as a leek within brownish without and the leaf like box leafs almost Saffron colour'd Which Virgil the Father of all Learning and who was as well versed in the knowledg of all things as any man sets down in elegant verse Talis erat species auri frondentis opaca â—â—â—id â— Ilice sit leni crepitabant bractea vento Quale solet silvis brumali tempore Viscum Fronde virere nova quod non sua seminat arbos Et croceo foetu teretes circundare truncos Latet arbore opaca Aureus foliis lento vimine ramus Auricomos generans acinos atque arbore soetus Whereby the Poet intimates that the deadly assaults and terrible diseases of the brain will yield to nothing sooner than to the use and medicament made of this golden colour'd shrub For it discusses extenuates and dryes clammy humours and by a wonderful force it cures the Falling-sicknesse if sand or the powder of it be drank in wine The Elk. Now we shall speak of the force of the Elk. Cajus Caesar in his Commentary saith it is a Creature of a Goat kind but greater in bulk Bel. Gal. 6. Deut. 14. In the Bible it is called a stone buck like to the wild Goats that the Jews might seed on The claw of this Beast is a present remedy against the Epilepsie as I have proved by many Experiments though the reason seem hard to me In the Low-Countries there are many subject to this disease because this Country is cold and moyst The South wind raiseth the Epilepsie and the South-wind blowes most commonly which is the most unhealthful of all winds so that you shall see them in the publike wayes and streets miserable spectacles and they fly to this remedy as the cure of it It chanced that in my Entry twice a woman fell down suddenly as if she had been thunder-stricken A true History which when I saw I came near and I put a Ring on her finger next her little finger that had a piece of an Elks claw set in it She presently arose and drank and went merrily on her way Another woman when I was not at home cryed out strangely and fell down on the earth and knockt her head against the ground One of my family laid a piece of the Elks claw on the palm of her hand and so shutting her hand because it was not set in a ring How things applyed outwardly can abate diseases the disease presently left her I think this is done by some special hidden property or because it dryes and discusseth mightily Were it not a solid substance some might say a vapour goes forth of it as from flowers and herbs which yet I think may be done though the spirits that come forth be very thin and dry and not windy so that they are not so sensible and cannot be perceived but by a secret operation So Stones Jewels Gold Iron and all brasen metals breathe forth a hidden force but they must be heated by rubbing for when they are on fire they smell more manifestly and insinuate themselves into the body A Simile from Wheels heated and spakling flints As we see when wheels grow hot with a quick motion or when a horses shoes strike fire on the pavement For presently a smoky burnt sent is raised into the Ayr. And if the cause of this Effect is not evident enough and no probable reason can be thought on yet we may say that these things are effected by that force by which the Unicorns horn put into wine or water dispels the poyson Unicorns horn resists venom and kills spiders by touching them I shall speak of stones taken out of the mawes of Swallowes and by what vertue they cure the Falling-sicknesse in another place CHAP. IV. Whence comes it that diseases are long and Chronical and will not easily be cured Whence come Feavers to revive again and to be with intermission and truce for a time which all men ought to know that they may not easily fall into a disease or being fallen may soon cure it LOng diseases may be well compared to long and tedious voyages that a weak man A simile from a journey that is difficult or one that carries a great burden is forced to go on his feet He by reason of the difficulty of the way and weight of his burden goes forward the more slowly and is more pressed than if he were carried in a Chariot or had some loving partner to help him carry his pack But since there are many causes that lengthen out diseases amongst the rest this seems to me to be the chief because so soon as diseases take hold Withstand in the beginning they neglect to call a skilfull Physitian who by prescribing a wholesome diet and fit remedies in time may help nature and by his Art may underprop her when she fails For the Physitian is Natures servant and takes care for her preservation with all his might The Physitian is Natures servant Whence it comes that they that know not what may do them good or ill feed on naughty meats even when diseases are seizing upon them and make no choice of diet and so stoppings and corruption is augmented and the disease gathers strength and all force of the body fails But if diseases fall in Autumn For diseases are like unto the year Turning about the same way like a sphere Now there riseth together a double cause of duration partly from the abundance of cold clammy matter and partly from the toughnesse and clamminesse of it For Autumn and Winter parts of the year cool and thicken the humours and cause a continuance that diseases are longer for the diseases cannot be discussed because the humours are thick and fast together and the skin is not so full of transpiration For as Wax Pitch Tallow Rosin and all fluxible matter grows hard in winter season
and will not be so easily handled and made pliable A Simile from a fluxible thing so when the weather is cold the humours are hardly melâ—ed and dissolved and it is proved because in winter men sweat lesse wherefore we must give such medicaments as will wipe away forcibly and open the pores For the filth and rubbish of the humours stick no lesse to these mens bodies than the lees and dregs do to vessels which must be soked with salt water or pickle A simile from rubbing of vessels and rub'd with beesoms to make them clean and take away all ill smels from them Otherwise whatsoever is put into them will grow sowre and be spoiled Wherefore Hippocrates seems to me to have spoken very right Impure bodies the more you feed them the more you hurt them L. 2. Aphor. 12. For the food corrupts being mingled with vitious humours and so the disease lasts the longer or if at any time by the Physitians skill or force of nature the disease begins to abate it will grow again by the least occasion For new corruption is bred in the body and a filthy smell accompanies it as we may perceive by the breath and this diffused in the body vitiates the spirits and extinguisheth natural heat for want of transpiration To this belongs that sentence of Hippocrates If there be any remainders in the body or reliques L. 2. Aph. 12. the diseases will grow again for the nutriment taken in doth not strengthen the sick but corrupts by mingling with ill Juice and increaseth the disease as we see in quartans and bastard tertians when the Patients will not be ruled by the Physitian not use a good diet Now these Feavers are with Intermission because the humour is without the veins and farther from the heart Whence comes intermission in Peavers But in continual feavers men are tormented constantly by reason of the sharp biting vapours of blood and choler inflamed within the veines which when they cannot freely get forth and breathe out they immediately offend the heart and liver and do more hurt by their corruption arising from stopping Blood subject to corruption than if they were without the veins For when there is great plenty of humours and the corruption is vehement and the proportion of this is great for putrefaction for blood is of a hot and moist quality and soon corrupts it falls out that these feavers alwaies rage and soon come to their state Whence Hippocrates maintains that such diseases dure not above fourteen daies L. 2. Aph. 23. and sometimes where the matter is surious and swels they end on the fifth seventh ninth or eleventh day The causes of Feavers that come by circuits and at set times are contrary for they come from some force bred in the humour and by reason of place and time whence it happens that they come with intermission that they anted are the time or come slower and later that they are unstable and unconstant and the fits last longer sometimes Feavers grow stronger and come sooner where the humours are increased and more inflamed Anticipating Feavers or where some errour hath been committed or there hath been some intemperance in meat and drink Feavers that come later But Feavers come later and more gently when the matter decreaseth and the stopping and corruption being discussed it abates and decayes sensibly Instable wandring feavers But when one humour takes upon it anothers nature or changeth its place or is mingled and confounded with another the fits come in no order but with uncertain motion and no certain time is observed by them Long Feavers A long fit is made by a plentifull humour and vapour and that is diffused all through the body and that which is clammy and grosse For as moyst green wood is long a lighting and burning A simile from green wood and old flesh and as Ox beef if it be old requires long seething so a clammy humour must be longer a steeping and grow soft by concoction and made fluxible that it may be fit for excretion But since we shew'd before that humours corrupting without the veins and when they are inflamed in any other part of the body Intermitting Feavers cause intermitting feavers than give us time to breathe yet of times we observe that these will more continually though they be without the veins both by reason of plenty of humours and from the sharpnesse of them As we see in parts that are inflamed as in carbuncles bubo's Carbuncles without the body cause continual feavers and all contagious and pestilent Impostumes In which a continual feaver and not an intermitting is kindled though the venome break forth without the veins and be far from the heart for the pestilent venemous force penetrates to the heart and hurts the principal parts infecting both the naturall and viral spirits Whence it is that these diseases are numbred amongst acute diseases because they soon come to their state and the change to health or death is very sudden For the like befalls those bodies as happens to a City besieged A simile taken from a City besieged which is so stormed without intermission by the Enemy with Guns and other engines of war that it can hardly stand out any longer against the violence of the enemy and looks every moment to be subdued unlesse it can with Ordnance and Engines make opposition or can sally out and beat the enemy away For to yeild and to make an agreement for life and safety as they do that fight faintly against an enemy or a disease were ignoble and commonly very hurtfull for the Conquerours of times will not stand to agreements but will break their words so in acute diseases it used to fall out that the sick cannot endure violence of the disease and cannot live above fourteen dayes if they can hold out so long unlesse nature be strong and well assisted by the Physitians art and can conquer the disease which being obtained she can hardly recollect her forces As the assaults of enemies so diseases must be driven off and cannot presently recover what she hath lost by violence but recovers her forces by degrees and to reedifie and fortifie her batter'd walls CHAP. V. Of those that come forth of their Beds and walk in their sleep and go over tops of Towrs and roofs of houses and do many things in their sleep which men that are awake can hardly do by the greatest care and industry IT happens that some in their youth and flourishing years for old men want vital spirits and are to weak too undertake such things Whence it comes that some men walk and cry out in their sleep and are slow in venerious actions will leap out of their beds at mid night or about break of day and do such things that men that are awake can hardly do and to do it with so little danger that all that see it admire
marrow hath taken from them all sense thereof But at first when any strange quality seizeth on the body whereby it corrupts and is changed what parts soever receive sharp biting humours they feel pain But when the disease growes old and is grown up with Nature they feel not much pain because they agree together and the humours wax faint by commerce with the body and keeping company with it and by the mixture of other humours they are weakned as strong Wine is with Water Yet the footsteps of the old disease and reliques of it alwaies remain which if they fall down upon the Lungs they make the sick hoarse and short winded if it fall on the joynts it makes them subject to the Gowt in the feet hands hucklebone and it returns at certain times So all that have pocky sores are gowty But all that have the Gowt in their feet or hips All that have pocky sores have the Gowt but not contrarily have not the symptoms of the Pox. And if the flux of humours is sent to the outward skin their skin is made rugged and crusty their face is deformed with tetters scabs foul sores and scurf and their hair falls For it falls out with them as it doth with Trees and Twigs on which pisse A Simile from Trees that are corrupted or some salt water or filth is cast For when the root is hurt the leafs fall off and the branches wither yet the Tree dyeth not at the root but it decayes and is hardly restored CHAP. XV. How it is that Men dying though they have their mind and understanding firm yet they make a hoarse noise and a sound that returns back which the Low Dutch vulgarly call Den rotel IN the Low-Countries and in all the Countries toward the North those that are dying shew certain arguments of their departure by making a murmuring noise and none of them die but have this mark before How those that dye make a murmuring noise For as death is at hand they make a noise as the water doth when it falls through rough winding crooked places they will sound and murmur like to the noise that Pipes make in Conduits For when the vocal artery happens to be stoped the breath that would fain break forth at once finding a narrow passage and the pipe sunk down comes forth by a certain gargling and makes a hoarse sound in smooth places and springing forth forsakes the dry limbs Wherefore the breath being heaped together and mingled with swelling froth causeth a noise like the ebbing of the Sea which also comes so to passe in some by reason of their pannicles and membranes drawn into wrinkles so that the breath comes forth by a crooked and winding revolution But they that have a strong and great bodies and die of violent deaths sound more and strive longer with death by reason of plenty of humour and grosse and thick spirits But in those that are wasted in their bodies Who dye gently and who with great trouble and that die easily by degrees the breath runs not so violently nor with so great a noise so that they dye by little and little very gently and do even as it were fall asleep CHAP. XVI The death of man and destruction of things that are is against Nature and is very improperly called natural Yet the mind must be resolved not to fear death though not without cause all men are afraid of it THough it be so ordained by nature since that mans rebellion hath drawn this upon him deservedly that we must all tend to destruction and dye Yet I see that by reason this may be proved that death is not natural but contrary to nature In the beginning this was given by nature to all kinds of Creatures to defend themselves their life and body Cic. l. 1. offâ—â— and to decline that may seem to be hurtfull unto them and to be very carefull to look to their own preservation and safety For who doth not observe what great care and diligence men use by the light of reason and brute beasts by the light of nature to defend and keep themselves from danger All men fear death every one strives to keep himself from it for when death comes Nature is extinguished No man but trembles at the fear of death and ceaseth to be any longer So Christ who would shew the imbred weaknesse of mans nature who except sin and diseases was like to us in all things feared death and prayed against it John 21. Also in Peter is expressed the affect of nature and infirmity of the flesh when Christ thrice asked him if he loved him and that he should take great care to feed his flock showing unto him what should befall him and what death he should die When thou wer 't young saith he thou wandredst whither thou wouldest and didst gird thy self but when thou growest old another shall gird thee about and lead the whether thou wouldest not Whereby he shews the desire and weaknesse of man's nature that is stricken with the terrour of death and is very unwilling to come to it yet the mind is willing and ready John 22. Since therefore death is the deprivation and abolition of Nature how can it be said that it is natural and agreeing unto nature that is violent and wholly extinguisheth Nature I know that man by his fall deserved so much and in that he degenerated from the dignity he was created with being disobedient to his creatour to be punished with all pains and vexations diseases hunger and thirst and unquietnesse of mind and at last to undergo the punishment of death Sin brought in diseases and death But it was not the fault of nature that brought in these miseries but sin For since the fall of the first man all things are changed and become contrary so the stars diseases Elements Wild-beasts and Devils are become enemies to man And as Paul saith the whole creation is made subject to vanity and corruption for mans cause Rom. 8. and the whole series of Creatures the Angels not excepted desire an end of their labours But the certain hopes of a better life doth recreate our minds in so great miseries and our confidence in Christ who restores the decayed Nature of man to his former dignity takes away from us all terrour and fear of death also out of our souls Faith in Christ takes from man the fear of death For the remembrance of his death and resurrection doth wholly confirm and strengthen us for we believe that man shall not be annihilated but changed to a better condition and that death is not our ruine but the door and entrance to a more happy life 2 Cor. 5. A simise from the structure of houses For we know as Paul saith that if our earthly house of this Tabernacle were dissolved as houses use to be taken down disjoynted that we have a building from God a house not
the body For it hath been observed in our dayes that a certain woman being dissected some beasts were taken out like to rats and mice that it seems were bred from some foul excrements that came from the food she are For natural heat being busied in digesting that matter could make no other shape of it than such as the matter would bear it had to work upon wherefore the inward force of nature frameth a living creature of that kind and endeavours it that moist substance being fit and ready to obey the efficient cause For it is found by experience that house-creatures as whelps cats mice rats flitter-mice toads and frogs when they wander up and down in Cellars and Butteries do sometimes leave upon meats an excremental seed Creatures bred of filth which when men do not wash clean from filth or do not wipe clean the outsides of fruits or pare them from that moist foul matter that pollutes the meats some such things are bred And if snails and mice breed from corruption and beetles drones and wasps from dung and from dew and moist Aire caterpillars butterflies ants locusts grashoppers who can think it strange that in the bodies of men from such like causes such things should be bred Since here is a more effectuall reason that yeilds a seminary cause for this businesse For those breed of corruption and not from seed though it be answerable thereto for force and vigour and next kind in faculty But those things that are bred alive in the secret parts of mans body Animals bred of their own accord from no seed proceed from a vitall humour and a living Creature Therefore this must not seem against reason or a Paradox of some old women when as we see so many things bred spontaneously without any copulation or incubation of living creatures and that from a humour enlivened by the heat of the outward Ayre For besides those creatures that are bred on the wide earth what an infinite number of fish are thus produced in the vast Seas and waters for mans use and commodity For there is nothing more fruitfull than the Sea Why the sea is fruitfulll with fish because the substance of it is grosse and is full of a vitall heat in all parts In which as many things are bred from seed so a great many of themselves without seed or help of any living creature So all Shell-Fish are first bred from some muddy and slimy moisture and all glib fish as Eels in speciall which afterwards by copulation breed whole sholes Spearing or Groundlins Groundlins very small fish in Holland are bred abundantly from the froth of the Sea when after long drouth rain falls in great quantity For when the Mouths of the Rhine and the Mare are very Salt by the Seas continuall influence especially in Summer those Rivers being supplied with a great deal of rain and watred very much abound excedingly with these small fish who when they grow great do procreate and breed exceedingly Since therefore Nature attempts many strange things whose force by the guift of God is spread every where let no man think it an old Wives dream that some prodigious Creatures are framed in mens bodies since in corrupt rotten wood and many dead things Teredines and many nimble Worms are bred as we see them in Cheese and many other meats in Summer season where Wormes breed in abundance Add to this that from filthy Ulcers and Impostumes pieces of Nails Hair Shels Bones Stones are taken forth that grew from the concretion of putrid humours Impostums send forth rubbish and hair and I have known Worms with tails and little Creatures of strange forms cast up by vomit especially from such as were sick of contagious diseases in whose Urines I have often seen small Creatures to swim like to Ants or especially like to those that in Summer use to role in the dew Goat-worms in Summer bred in dew and none of these persons but was foully peppered with the French Pox. The intent therefore of this discourse is to this purpose that no man should without care cram in foul meats and not well wash'd and cleansed from outward accidents which when Country people neglect they use to be scabby and full of Pushes that itch and to be deformed with many fores and vices of their skins For they are not of so good habit of body and sound constitution nor so comely and ingenious and of such excellent naturall parts nor yet so healthfull generally as some Noble men and Gentlemen are that will suffer no meat to come to their Tables no not the purest White-bread untill the outside and crust of it be finely chipt off and the rest of their provision must be curiously and accurately provided with all decency and cleanlinesse Cleanlinesse in diet is joyn'd to health And this I find no fault with so long as all is done farr from luxury frugally and temperately in respect of diet For great men and Courtiers should have such a manner of diet and Life that all may tend to health comlinesse honesty and unblamable Manners that the splendour of their fortune and prosperity and abundance that God hath given them may not serve for luxury and prodigality but for moderation and temperance The most illustrious Phillip the most powerfull King of Spain and England The prayse of King Phillip and Prince of the Netherlands giveth us an example of this who for his most large endowments of Nature doth represent a divine patterne unto mortalls who hath so many valiant Peers to assist him by whose authority and counsel so many flourishing Kingdoms and so many large Dominions that came to him by succession from his renowned Father Charles the Emperour are governd and preserved CHAP. XLI The force and Nature of the Sun and Moon in causing and raising tempests And next to that what change may be made in the bodies minds and Spirits of men by the outward Ayre By the way whence proceeds the ebbing and flowing of the Sea that is interchangeably twice in the space of a naturall day The effects of the Sun and Moon upon inferiour bodies THe Beams of the Sun and Moon do afford us certain and notdoubtfull signes of fair weather rain and winds and they thereupon represent unto us divers colours either from the scituation of the place and the compasse of the Heavens they are wont to passe or from the Nature of the object or some other matter that staines them which if they would observe well that write Almanacks and deceive the common people and foolish old women with their predictions they would not mistake so often and be deceived nor deceive the credulous people with false hopes For tempests and winds may be undoubtedly foretold by these when they are not farr off and what shall be the condition of the Aire whereby we shall have a plentifull or penurious year and many more rare things which Virgil
14th year of their age or somewhat later shew some signes of maturity their courses then running so that they are fit to conceive which force continues with them till 44 yeares of their age and some that are lusty and lively will be fruitfull till 55 as I have observed amongst our Country women When a womans courses stop I know that the flowing of the terms is extended farther in some women of good tempers but that is rare nor doth allwaies that excrementitious humour flow from a naturall cause Wherefore their opinion must be examined who say that as there is no certain time of womens termes to end so neither of their conception nor cannot any set bounds be prefixed for these things For though some have their courses at 60 yeares old yet that proceeds not from a naturall cause but from some affect that is contrary to Nature which also hinders all conception For anger indignation wrath and sudden fear may cause the vessels and passages to open and cleave asunder so by a violent concourse of humours such a thing may run out many by falls and accidents having the fibres of the veins pulled asunder But since women for the most part about the yeare 45 or at the most 50 have their termes stopt and no hopes are to be had of Children by lying with them Old wives should not marry young men they do contrary to the law of Nature that marry young men or men that for greedinesse of mony woe and marry such old women For the labour is lost on both sides just as if a man should cast good seed into dry hungry lean ground It is more tolerable for a full bodied lively old man that he should marry a very young Mayd in her green and tender years For from that society they may hope for some benefit for posterity because a man is never thought to be so old and barren and exhausted but that he may get a Child But what is the Nature of man and how long the force lasts in him to get Children must be shewed by the way For since young men as Hippocrates saith are full of imbred heat about the age of 16. or somewhat more they have much vitall strength and their secrets begin to be hairy How long a man is fruitful and their chins begin to shoot forth with fine decent down which force and heat of procreating Children increaseth daily more and more untill 45 yeares or till 50 and ends at 65. For then for the most part the manhood begins to flag and the seed becomes unfruitfull the naturall spirits being extinguished and the humours drying up out of which by the benefit of heat the seed is wont to be made There are indeed some strong lusty old men who have spent their younger dayes continently and moderately who are fruitfull untill 70 yeares and subsist very manly in performing nuptiall duties examples whereof there are sufficient in Brabant and amongst the Goths and Sweeds A History done so I heard a trusty Pilate relate that when he traficked at Stockholme when Gustavus the Father of the most invincible Ericus who now reigns ruled the Land he was called by the King to be at the marriage of a man that was a hundred years old who married a Bride of 30 years old and he professed sincerely that the old man had many Children by her For he was a man as there are many in that Country who was very green and fresh in his old age that one would hardly think him to be 50 yeares old The Brabanders live very â—old Also amongst the Tungri and Campania in Brabant where the Ayre is wonderfull calme and the Nation is very temperate and frugall it is no new thing but allmost common that men of 80 yeares marry young Mayds and have Children by them wherefore Age doth nothing hinder a man forgetting of Children unlesse he be wholy exhausted by incontinence in his youngest dayes and his genitall parts be withered and barren wherefore the Dutch have a scoffing Proverb against such that are worn out A Proverb against such as are spent A simile from horses exhausted and quite broken by venery Vroech hengst Vroech ghuyle the comparison being taken from horses who if they back Mares often or too soon they will quickly grow old and will never be fit for any warlick service But what difference there is between men and women or what cause or reason there is in it that a woman is sooner barren than a man and ceaseth to eject her seed if any perhaps should require to know I say it is the natural hear wherein a man excells For since a woman is more moyst than a man A man is hotter than a woman as her courses declare and the softnesse of her body a man doth exceed her in native heat Now heat is the chief thing that concocts the humours and changes them into the substance of seed A man is longer fruitfull than a Woman which aliment the woman wanting she grows fat indeed with age but she grows barren sooner than a man doth whose fat melts by his heat and his humours are dissolved but by the benefit thereof they are elaborated into seed Also I ascribe it to this that a woman is not so strong as a man nor so wise and prudent nor hath so much reason nor is so ingenious in contriving her affairs as a man is CHAP. XXV Who chiefly take diseases from others And how it comes about that children grow well when Physick is given to the Nurse SInce contagious diseases infect all that come in the way of them yet they infect no men sooner than such whose Natures are of much affinity one with another as are Parents and Children Sisters Brothers Cousins who are in danger almost on all hand and the disease spreads amongst them And the nearer any man is of bloud and kindred the sooner he catcheth this mischief from others by reason of Sympathy that is consanguinity and agreement in humours and spirits Kindred soonest infected Wherefore when the Plague is hot and contagious diseases rage I use to speak to people of one blood to stay one from another and live something farther from them least the pestilent Ayre should infect them that will sooner lay hold of acquaintance and kindred than strangers and such as are not allyed Nurses infect children though none be free from danger The same reason serves for Nurses and children sucking at their brests for when the Nurse is sick all the force of the disease comes to the child and the Nurse is helped by it and escapes the danger For the force of the disease being diffused through the veins that are the receptacles of bloud and milk useth to be made exactly from bloud the child draws forth the worst and impure aliment whence it falls out that the whole force of the disease rests upon the child because the bloud which is the substance
the urine vex a man if dimnesse and blear-ey'dnesse hurt the eyes if the hands or feet be held with the Gowt Horace in Art If Scabs or swelling tumours do offend The mind of man cannot so readily perform it's office or functions Wherefore I suppose they do well who take care of their health and keep the body and all its parts free from excrements For so the mind is fit for great matters and more ready for any noble employments The greatest part of men neglecting all ornament and taking no care of their health hunt onely after wealth and is busied in getting of gain Health is better than wealth though health be better than Gold and there is nothing more to be desired than tranquillity of mind Horace confirms it by Verses L. 1. Epist 12. If thou be sound of body feet and hands 'T is better than to have rich Craesus lands For 't is not wealth nor baggs of Gold be sure Can cares of mind or body sicknesse cure And that he might recal men to a frugal and moderate use of things he adds L. 2. Epist 2. He that enjoyes his wealth Must alwaies live in health The wise Hebrew accords with the words of Horace exactly It is better to be poor and well Ecclus 30. than to be rich and sick Health and a sound body is better than any Gold or the greatest riches There is no wealth better than a sound body and no joy greater than the joy of the heart Wisd 4. therefore felicity is not to be measured by wealth or prosperous successe but by the soundnesse of the body and of the mind For he onely lives and is well that perfectly enjoyes the commodity of both these CHAP. XXIX Wholesome precepts are no lesse proper for the mind than they are for the body THere are three things reported to be most wholesome which are fit for every man to observe To feed not to full Not to fly from labour To preserve natural seed To these I oppose as many things most unwholesome which besides diseases bring on old age apace and cause men to die young To eat too much To be idle To use too much venery We must use moderation in natural things For since frugality when we banish gluttony keeps the body sound and exercise when we drive away idlenesse and sluggishnesse makes the same nimble and ready we may take examples from horses for the other Virg. l. 3. Georg. Our minds are strengthened by no industry As by declining love and venery Old age is not proper for venery For intemperate and lustfull youth makes the body feeble in old age Wherefore since we are to use moderation in our desires in our youth we are to do it much more in our age and to stop up all wayes of luxury for as it is naught in youth as Cicero saith so it is most unseemly and foul in old age For as we need strength in war and agility and force to endure labours so in love we need strength to wage war in Venus camps in the night which will consume the tediousnesse of matrimony and make us able to sustain the conditions of a froward Wife Wherefore not War nor love are fit for old men because both these carry with them many troubles and hindrances which old age is not fit nor able to undergo L. 1. Amor. Eleg. 9. Ovid hath expressed this in very elegant Verses Cupid hath Tents and every lover war Believe me Attic every lover war What times are fit for war with love agree Old souldiers are naught so old venery Love is a kind of warfar cowards then For to maintain these Ensigns are no men The Winter nights hard labour and long wayes And every pain is found in Venus frays Who sees not how uncomely it is for an old man that is full of wrinkles and worn out to fall to kissing and embracing like to young people for old folks are unable to perform those duties So Sophocles when he was old being asked by one whether he would use venerious actions answered well that the Gods had order'd it better and that he would with a good will fly from that as he would from a rude and cruel Master CHAP. XXX We must take care of our credit and reputation USe all the means you can that your acquaintance may have an excellent opinion of you We must have care of our credit and may give a laudable testimony and commendation of your worth and may think and speak of you worthily Nor be ashamed to observe what opinion the common people have of you and how they stand affected towards you For to neglect what any man thinks or speaks of a man ◠1. offic is the part saith Cicero not onely of an arrogant man but also of a dissolute man Math. 16. So we read that Christ asked his Apostles what the multitude said of him and what rumours they scattered abroad concerning him lastly what they thought of the Messias not that he sought for glory and was ambitious but that he might make trial whether after they had heard so many saving Sermons and seen so many Miracles from him they thought any better and more honourably of him than the common people did Chaist did not seek for honour amongst men Wherefore he enquired so much of them that he might draw from them a solid profession of their faith and that he might try how much they had profited in the heavenly doctrine that hath no fraud or vanity in it no deceit or impostures as the Pharises did caluminate it but is all saving and sincere delivered unto us by the truth it self and the Son of God who is the Saviour that was expected Whom when Saint Peter by the inspiration of God had openly professed in the name of them all Profession of faith and had undoubtedly proclaimed Jesus to be the Saviour of the World and that by belief in him all mankind obtains redemption Christ praised the profession of Saint Peter that he had by inspiration from above and saith that being it stood on so firm a foundation it should never be conquered or fail We must take care for decency In every action and in every word and deed be mindfull of decency and what is most comely for the reason of honesty requires that Whence it is a handsome saying that it is the chiefest Art to know what is decent that is what is fit for nature and convenient to our wit and manners Dat ù wel voeght ende betaemt How we must affect glory It is a compendious and ready way to solid glory if you shew your selves to be such a one as you would be thought to be which Horace gives us notice of 'T is good to be what men do say thou art L. 1. Epist 27. That is what thou art said to be and which the people testify of thee For if they say thou
THE SECRET MIRACLES OF NATURE In Four Books Learnedly and Moderately treating of Generation and the Parts thereof the SOUL and its Immortality of Plants and living Creatures of Diseases their Symptoms and Cures and many other Rarities not treated of by any Author Extant whereof see more in the TABLE of the CONTENTS Whereunto is added one Book containing Philosophical and Prudential RULES how MAN shall become Excellent in all conditions whether high or low and lead his LIFE with Health of Body and Mind Fit for the use of those that practise Physick and all Others that desire to search into the Hidden Secrets of NATURE for increase of Knowledg Written by that Famous Physitian Laevinus Lemnius LONDON Printed by Jo. Streater and are to be sold by Humphrey Moseley at the Prince's Arms in S. Paul's Church-Yard John Sweeting at the Angel in Popes-Head-Alley John Clark at Mercers-Chappel and George Sawbridge at the Bible on Ludgate-Hill 1658. THE PREFACE OF Laevinus Lemnius A Physitian TO The Friendly Reader Reader THere are two Instruments of Art which are serviceable to the profit and use of men Reason and Experience by which all things are wont to be confirmed and established For by these Physick it self and other Sciences for the most part besides Mathematicall Arts are supported But such things as are to gain credit with men of an exact and searching Judgment ought to be proved by the Line yea to be examined by the Touch-stone But what great thing can a Physitian undertake if he endeavoureth by Reason to convince that hearbs and Medicaments have strong effects unlesse he could prove it by Experience On the contrary with what confidence could he trust a triall which for the most part the undiscreet temerity of practicall Physitians doth declare to be deceitfull and dangerous applyed without Judgment unlesse Reason doth assist him And although he might be accounted a Sophister to try reason by a proof contrary to the declaration of experience and any one of sound Judgment and that doth consider the delight of things will never agree to the tryall or abide to prove it rashly unlesse it be approved and underpropped by reason in every particular Yet I cannot deny or gainsay but there are many hidden and secret things in nature of an hidden and unknown effect that it would be undiscreet to attempt to declare the reason and cause of the effect of such things These very things are called by Dioscorides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Lib. 6. c. 34. destitute of reason and bereft of the knowledge of causes which do not present a manifest demonstration to the sense and understanding Occultae proprietates and therefore are called by Physitians hidden qualities But if they perceive any thing of this kind to interpose us either by the course of the Stars and moving of the glittering signes or by the divine will or by Concretion and mixture of the elements or lastly by the force of the whole substance and the particular form which we cannot attain to by the Reason and Judgment of the mind we cast those things into the hidden essence and secret properties and by such refuge we do escape and deliver our selves out of that Labyrinth But I whereby I might stir up the minds of the learned to search out the demonstrations and causes of things of this nature will to the uttermost of my power endeavour to draw out the reason by a probable and artificial conjecture or as near hand as I can by levelling to hit the mark I confesse there are many things in nature of an unknown original wrapped up in abundance of difficulty whereof notwithstanding a probable reason may be devised and the cause of the effect might be shewed very likely if not apparently and clearly For example The Basilisk doth kill a man by his sight Who that is exercised in the works of nature doth not know it to happen out of the hurtfull breath that proceeds from him which by little and little he breatheth forth secretly to the destruction of man Yet neither the Basilisk onely but almost all kind of Wild beasts is hurtfull to man and doth rejoyce to bring destruction by breath and hissing So the sight of a Woolf if he can but come near a man doth cause hoarsenesse and almost in a manner taketh away his voice by the gaping of his mouth and his venemous breath So the Feminine Sex having their Monthly terms flowing from them do make dusk the brightnesse of Ivory and a Looking-glasse doth blunt the edge of a Sword doth choak the Corn the infecting of the breath doth kill the hearbs of the garden and she doth not onely deform every one that she meets but her own self with spots and blemishes By the same reason the eyes being corrupted with blearey'dnesse and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is rednesse in the eyes or bloud-shot doth happen to corrupt the eyes of others Which Ovid doth expresse in a handsome similitude and Juvenal Satyr 2. When Eyes distinctly view those that are sore The more they look they hurt themselves the more And many things the body do infect By meer transition Soth ' scab of one effects A filthy scurf in the whole flock i' th' field Cattel heards Oxen to the same must yield And so a Grape regarded solemnly Doth draw a colour from a Grape that 's nigh But men do breath forth the greatest infection to men where they stand just opposite for it doth not bring so great evill and infect with so great corruption if the breath doth bend overthwart or if it happen to passe away on the right or left side For as the transverse or oblique sight as it is wont to be with such as have rowling or are dimsighted sometimes do wax dull and dim so these things which flow from the eyes and any other part of the body if they are carried obliquely it hapneth that they are repressed and grow dull and bring lesse evill to those that stand by Which very thing I more diligently observe when I go to assist those that are sick of a contagious disease so that when I talk with them I am alwaies turned away never standing between the Chimney and he that keepeth his bed This breathing and flowing out although it doth not present it self to our eyes and lesse declared to our seeing sense yet it bears it self into our nostrills ears brain vocall artery and the strings of the lungs So I have observed some with such a stinking damp and strong smelling breath that unlesse you stand farther off they would strike every one that they meet with the contagion of their breath and kill them But every one may perceive how largely the breath of living creatures may stretch it self how far a contagious disease may extend it self especially in the Winter season But because of the thicknesse and grossness of the Ayre the breath smoking out of the most inward bowels by a certain retiring
of both Sexes Page 25 Chap. 10. Whether the Child be nourished with the menstrual excrement and whether Maids may conceive before they have their Terms Page 29 Chap. 11. The Soul comes not from the Parents Seed but is infused by God and can neither dye nor corrupt What day of Child bearing it is infused Page 32 Chap. 12. The Soul though it be incorporeal not made of matter or Elements yet is it subject to passions and perturbations and such affections as redound upon the Body Page 36 Chap. 13. That the Souls of Men are not equal in all things nor of the same condition and dignity but one is better than another Page 42 Chap. 14. Of the immortality of the Soul and certainty of the Resurrection Also how that may be done Lastly how much our minds are raysed toward God from so great a benefit and what great confidence we may have when we die that we shall be saved Page 47 Chap. 15. Whether there be a reasonable Soul infused into monstrous births and to abortives and whether they shall rise again to life And by the way from whence Monsters proceed Page 57 Chap. 16. The humours and food do change the habit of the body and state of the mind apparently And hence arise the affections and stings of conscience And by the by what Melancholy can do and how it may be cured Page 59 Chap. 17. Herbs are subject to change and will lose their forces and form unlesse they be dressed continually Page 67 Chap. 18. How manifold difference and variety there is in the nature of grounds Page 79 Chap. 19. Clusters of Grapes augment but grow not ripe by the Moon beams Page 81 Chap. 20. Why Hesiod dislikes soyling Page 81 Chap. 21. How Weezels and other Creatures that hurt Corn may be driven away or killed Page 82 Chap. 22. The cunningnesse of Worms in Mans body and what it portends when they come forth by the Mouth and Nostrils Page 83 The Contents of the Chapters contained in the Second Book Chap. 1. THat humours and not bad Angels cause diseases yet the aereal spirits do mix themselves therewith and increase the diseases by adding fire unto them Page 86 Chap. 2. Melancholique Med and Frenzy people and such as are furious from other causes will sometimes speak strange Tongues they never learned and yet not be possessed with the Divell Page 91 Chap. 3. Of the Epilepsie's violâ—nce which disease the common people both now and formerly ascribe to certain Saints lastly how it may be cured And by the way that such are not to be buried presently that die of the Falling-sicknesse Lethargy or Apoplex Page 93 Chap. 4. Whence comes it that diseases are long and Chronical and will not easily be cured Whence come Feavers to revive again and to be with intermission and truce for a time which all men ought to know that they may not easily fall into a disease or being fallen may soon cure it Page 97 Chap. 5. Of those that come forth of their Beds and walk in their sleep and go over tops of Towrs and roofs of houses and do many things in their sleep which men that are awake can hardly do by the greatest cage and industry Page 99 Chap. 6. Of those that are drown'd mens bodies will flote on their backs and womens will flote on their faces and if their lungs be taken forth they will not swim Page 102 Chap. 7. The bodies of those that are drown'd when they swim up and come to be seen as of those that are murdered when their friends are present or the murderers they bleed at the nose and other parts of their body Page 102 Chap. 8. Of the Helmets of Children newly born or of the thin and soft caul wherewith the face is covered as with a vizard or covering when they come first into the world Page 105 Chap. 9. Why in Holland they say that such as have unconstant and weak brains have been conversant amongst beans Page 106 Chap. 10. Every strong filthy smell is not hurtfull to man For some of these will discusse contagions and resist corrupt diseases By the way whence came the Proverb that horns are burnt there Page 108 Chap. 11. The excellency of the finger of the Left hand that is next the little finger which is last of all troubled with the Gout and when that comes to be affected with it death is not far off By the way wherefore it deserves to wear a Gold Ring better than the rest Page 109 Chap. 12. Some things will not burn but are invincible in the midst of flames and how that comes to passe Page 110 Chap. 13. The native heat of Man is fostered and increaseth by the heat of other Creatures but espâ—cially by the heat of children if they be laid to that part of the body that is weak For this fomentation doth not onely help concoction but easeth all joynt pains but amongst whelps which do it most effectually Page 112 Chap. 14. Why the French-Pox is more gentle now than it was formerly and rageth not so much and into what disease it degenerates Page 113 Chap. 15. How it is that Men dying though they have their mind and understanding firm yet they make a hoarse noise and a sound that returns back which the Low Dutch vulgarly call Den rotel Page 114 Chap. 16. The death of man and destruction of things that are is against Nature and is very improperly called natural Yet the mind must be resolved not to fear death though not without cause all men are afraid of it Page 115 Chap. 17. The Inconveniencies of Tippling and drunkennesse and what things will resist and cure it Page 116 Chap. 18. Intemperance of drink is worse than of meat Page 118 Chap. 19. Wine makes a man drunk otherwise than Beer or Ale doth Page 119 Chap. 20. Men that are tall and grosse bodied are sometimes not so long-lived as those that are slender and cannot so stoutly struggle with diseases But commonly litâ—le men will drink more wine than grosse men and will be longer before they be drunk Page 120 Chap. 21. They that eat a moderate breakfast in the morning will eat more freely at dinner and if they drink much wine it will offend them lesse By the way whether it be wholesome to eat much bread Page 121 Chap. 22. A Nutmeg and a Coral-stone carried about a man will grow the better but about a woman the worse Page 123 Chap. 23. For the most part such are barren and unfruitfull whose seed runs from them of its own accord and they pollute themselves and how that comes to passe Page 124 Chap. 24. When men are sick they grow tall though they eat lesse but they lose in breadth Page 127 Chap. 25. Whether it is best to open a Vein when one is fasting or after meat and whether it be lawful to sleep presently after blood-letting Page 129 Chap. 26. Physiognomy that is the reason how to look
into the Nature and manners of men and with which by the marks and signs of the body we may judge of the motion and propension of the mind is not to be disliked Moreover I shall prove by Testimony of Scripture what is most convenient to be observed hereby Page 130 Chap. 27. Whether it be more wholesome to sleep with open mouth or with the mouth and lips shut close Page 132 Chap. 28. That the curses of Parents and the ill wishes that they wish against their Children and ban them withall do sometimes take effect and fall out so and their good wishes whereby they desire all good to happen to them are a means to make them prosper and to obtain what their Parents desired might happen to them Page 133 Chap. 29. How comes it that according to the common Proverb scarce any man returns better from his long travels or from a long disease and to lead a better life afterwards Page 134 Chap. 30. Stones or Jewels dug forth of the Earth or taken out of the Sea or out of the bodies of living Creatures what vertue they have and by what means they perform their operations Page 138 Chap. 31. Of the events of dreams and how far they ought to be observed and believed Page 140 Chap. 32. Of the Climacterick or graduall year namely the 7. and 9. in which years the bodies of men suffer manifest changes and of old Men especially 63. is the most dangerous Likewise of the reason of Criticall dayes that is of the judgments of diseases whereby Physitians undoubtedly foreshew whether the sick will live or dy Page 142 Chap. 33. How a Looking-glasse represents objects and what good the polished smoothnesse of a Looking-glasse can do to Students and such tire their eyes in reading and how it may restore a dull sight Page 144 Chap. 34. What force and vertue Aqua-vitae hath or the spirit of Wine distill'd and who may safely drink it by the way some admirable effects of this made-wine are set down Page 146 Chap. 35. The prodigious force of Quicksilver and the nature of it the Dutchmen call it so from its quick motion Page 148 Chap. 36. How when we want Salt may flesh and other meats be preserved from corruption By the way Of the wonderful force of Salt and Vineger Page 150 Chap. 27. Pale Women are more lascivious than such as are of a ruddy complexion and lean Women than fat and do more lust after men Page 152 Chap. 38. Whether a man should drink greedily and plentifully or by little and little and sparingly at severall times when he is thirsty or is sat at Table Page 153 Chap. 39. All such things as hastily come to maturity or rise to their full length do the sooner fail and cannot last long as we see it in children and some kind of plants Page 155 Chap. 40. Sometimes our meats are hurt and contract a venemous quality by the siting of some venemous creatures upon them Likewise in mens bodies from filth abounding in them some things are bred as Frogs Toads Mice Rats Bats and an example of this is set down Page 156 Chap. 41. The force and Nature of the Sun and Moon in causing and raising tempests And next to that what change may be made in the Bodies Minds and Spirits of men by the outward Ayre By the way whence proceeds the ebbing and flowing of the Sea that is interchangeably twice in the space of a naturall day Page 158 Chap. 42. Of the force and nature of Lettice and whom it is good or ill for Page 163 Chap. 43. Of Patience commonly call'd or the great Dock Page 164 Chap. 44. Of the operation of Mans spittle Page 164 Chap. 45. Of the use of Milk Beestings Cream The dutch call the first Beest the latter Room also what will keep these from cloddering in the Stomach Page 166 Chap. 46. Why Gouty people are Lascivious and Prone to venery and as many as lye on their backs and on hard beds Page 166 Chap. 47. Whether the Small-Pox and Measils may be cured with red Wine or with Milk that women use to administer when such Pushes shew themselves Page 168 Chap. 48. Wine is spoil'd by Thunder and Lightning and so is Ale and Beer and how this may be hindred and the force of them restored Page 168 Chap. 49. Predictions of Tempests by the touch of Sea-water and what Winter Thunders fore-shew Page 170 Chap. 50. Children are delighted with beautifull things and cannot away with the sight of old wrinkled women and therefore they are not to be put to lye with old women in their beds and much lesse to lye at their feet in the bed Page 171 Chap. 51. How it comes to passe that children women with child Priests and such as lead a solitary and sedentary life are of all people first infected with popular diseases and with the Plague Page 171 Chap. 52 Divers documents of Nature and a fit conjunction of several matters which because I purposed to handle them with a convenient brevity I have bound them up together in one bundle Page 172 The Contents of the Chapters contained in the Third Book Chap. 1. HOw children are forced to endure the reproaches and disgraces of their Parents and the faults and wicked actions of their Progenitors are so far imputed unto these that by reason of them they lose their reputation or substance and goods of fortune or sustain some dammages in their bodies or minds Page 180 Chap. 2. Wherefore when men grow well after a disease do their genitall parts swell and they naturally desire copulation and of this matter here is a safe admonition and wholesome counsel set down Page 184 Chap. 3. Of the effect of the Ayr and gentle blasts and of the names of the winds with their forces and natures to cause diseases and to stir the humours which being agitated sometimes move the mind and molest it Page 187 Chap. 4. Of the Marriners Compasse which Plautus calls Versoria by observation whereof Marriners sail to Sea and by what vertue and for what reason it alwaies points to the North. Page 198 Chap. 5. What it is makes Dogs mad and at what time of the year chiefly and what are the best remedies to cure them Page 201 Chap. 6. Of the Nature and force of Gold and what effect it hath if it be at any time used for the health and defence of Mans Body Page 205 Chap. 7. Of the Meazels of Hogs and other diseases of this Creature that are next kin to the Leprosie and are commonly called Orighans or contagions from the unwholesome and sickly habit of the body And how this disease may be cured in Men. Page 207 Chap. 8. Wherefore do the Low-Dutch when they have had a tumbling and unquiet night that likes them not say they have had Saint John Baptist's night Page 211 Chap. 9. Of a singular new way how to make Salt and of the Nature Effects Force Use and
by an inset faculty propagates and maintains it self there is nothing in so great an Universe that is barren or idle nothing was made rashly or by chance or in vain Every Plant hath its imbred vertue there is given to every living creature it s own disposition and natural inclination In a word whatsoever is contain'd within the compasse of the world and of the Heavens is indued with an imbred force for its peculiar operations and all things are disposed in their places and times and by an admirable viciscitude they all perform their offices and courses Wherefore when God the Efficient and Moderator of so great a gift had view'd all things that he had made in six dayes they seemed to him exceeding good That is Gen. 1. so wrought as art could require as the order and series of things could demand that all things might serve for use and tend to that end they were ordained Whereof Aristotle seems to speak wisely in these very words De part Ani. l. 1. c. 5. There is nothing in Nature so small or contemptible that may not make men in some things to wonder at it And what men report that Hieraclitus Tarentinus said when he turned aside into a Bakers house Enter here are the Gods also the same must we suppose of Natures works For in the smallest works of Nature the Diety shines forth and all things are good and beautifull For this is an adjunct to the works of Nature that nothing is done rashly or by chance but for a certain end And as when we talk of Houses magnificently built we speak not of the Lime or of Bricks or Wood and the other materials but of the form and shape and structure of the Edifices and for what purpose they were built An Example from Buildings so he that searcheth into the works of Nature he discourseth not of the matter but of the form and of the whole substance and finally the use and profit So the body was made for the Soul but the limbs for the offices they are to perform conveniently and to fulfill their functions For what use End Man was Created But Man was brought upon the stage of this world for Gods cause who ought to take pleasure in him and acknowledge his bounty may repose himself in God trust in him and rest upon him In therefore so great multitude and variety of Things existing we must not onely admire the force of Nature and Efficience but his Majesty and Immensity from whom all things are produced and do proceed and by whose bounty the works of Nature subsist and are kept from corruption Which consideration doth somewhat raise our minds otherwise too much fastned to the ground and brings us to know and acknowledge God Natures force must be referred to God Rom. 1. Tusc 1. For though God be invisible yet by the things created as St. Paul testifieth and from the world so wonderfully created and so wisely governed he may be both perceived and understood And as Cicero saith By the memory of things subtilty of Invention and quicknesse of motion and by the exceeding beauty of Vertue we know the force of the Mind though we cannot see it with our eyes so we perceive God and that eternal Mind clearly by the works he hath made How God is known to Man and effectually do we apprehend his force and influence for his vertue is diffused through all things Act. 17. and gives heat spirit and life to all things St. Paul preached learnedly at Athens of this matter from the sentences of Aratus which Lucan expressed elegantly lib. 9. We all are held in God and though no noise Be heard we do his will he needs no voice God is in Sea and Land and Ayr and Sky What would we more all is the Diety What ere we see or where so ere we go We must see God whether we will or no. Who then would not love him whose forces he manifestly perceives with whose benefits he is abundantly replenished If we do most justly honour and admire Emperours and Princes and we esteem them highly and present them with great presents A similitude from the works of Emperours because they do govern those Kingdomes they got without blood in great equity because they have Magistrates unblameable who in executing their offices and publike charges take great care and pains whereby they may hold all men in their duties and all things may be kept peaceably and the Commonwealth not rent by any Civil broils or seditions how much more ought we to admire and adore God who without any care or businesse or pains Governs so vast and large an Empire of the World by his will Of the world To this belongs that of Apuleius a man that was far from our Religion but he drew it from the Hebrew Fountains A Simile from many offices That which the Pilot and Steer-man is in a Galley a Coach-man in his Coach the Choragus in acting Comedies the Precentor in Dances the master of Games at all Games a Consul amongst Citizens a Captain in an Army a Companion in undertaking or repelling dangers that is God in the world but that it seems to be a toilsome thing and full of innumerable cares to be the chief in any office but the care of his Empire is neither troublesome nor burdensome unto God All Natur 's works must be referred to God Yet I would not have Physitians my adversaries or that Philosophers should be offended that in asserting the dignity of Nature I refer her to the Fountain and her first original for by this means all things are reduced to their first being and to the Archetype of all Nature And though the word Nature be of large extent and every man at his pleasure may invent secundary definitions yet they are all reduced to one So by the Physitians Nature is the imbred and inset quality in things Nature is the mixture and temper of the four Elements Nature is the force and propension of every ones mind Nature with Philosophers is the beginning of motion and rest Nature is that which gives the form to every thing with its specificall difference The proper definition of Nature Nature is the force and efficient cause and the conserving imbred cause of the whole World and the parts thereof Nature to speak more neerly is the order and serious of Gods works which obeys his power his words and commands and borrows forces from him The principall cause and original of all these descriptions and as many as learned men may invent proceeds from that eternall mind as from a most plentifull Fountain It behoves all men to know this and much concerns them to observe and to fasten it well in their minds that so the chief Work-master may be better known to us all and his majesty and immensity may be seen by us For the sight of things and contemplation of nature will draw brutish
love their children very little or but from the lips outward when as poor dumb creatures ordained for the slaughter shew such great love toward their young CHAP. IV. Of the likenesse of Parents and Children whence it is that outward accidents are communicated to the Children and the Mothers Imagination is the cause of the production of many Forms The force of the Seed is a reason of similitude IT is a constant opinion amongst Physitians and confirmed by many reasons that if the Woman afford most seed the child will be like the Mother but if the man afford most then it will be like the Father but if they both afford alike for quantity and force then will the child be like to them both or one part will resemble the Father another part the Mother Lastly if it fall on the right side of the Womb and proceed from the right Testicle by reason of heat it will be a Manchild but if it proceed from the left and incline to the left side by reason of cold and moisture it will be a Girle Libro de opifice Lactantius his mind of the likenesse of the seed Lactantius saith that sometime when the mans seed falls on the left side of the womb a male child is begotten But because the conception is perfected in that part of the womb that is ordain'd for the procreation of females there will be something in it that is but half man and will be fairer and whiter or smoother and lesse hairy than is convenient for a man to be or the voice will be small and sharp or the chin will be bare and bald and the courage will be lesse Whence is the name Virago Again if the seed be cast into the right side of the womb it may be a girle may be begotten but because she is conceived in the place ordained for the male she will be more viraginous than ordinary women as having strong limbs very tall a swart countenance What woman is most imperious a hairy chin a ruder face a strong voyce and a bold and man-like courage whence it falls out that such women will cast off the yoke and rule over men and will take so much power to themselves in governing that men dare not speak or stir for them Though these things and many more might be alledged for the similitude of the form which are very probable and for the most part they so fall out yet the principal cause of this effect seems to me to consist in the tacite Imagination of the woman For if she conceive in her mind or do by chance fasten her eyes upon any object and imprint that in her Mind the child commonly doth represent that in the outward parts The womans Imagination what it doth So whilest the Man and Woman Embrace if the woman think of the mans countenance and look upon him or thinks of any one else that likenesse will the child represent For such is the power of Imagination that when the woman doth intentively behold any thing she will produce something like that she beheld so it falls out that children have the forms of divers things upon them as Warts Spots Moles Dashes which cannot easily be wiped off or taken away So some of our women seeing a Hare bring forth a child with a Hare-lip Hare-lip so some children are born with flat Noses wry mouths great bubber lips and ill shaped of all the body because the woman when she conceived the child and in the time she was big of it had her eyes and mind busied upon some monstrous creature Art can change the shape and colour of Animals Men use to effect the like by art in other creatures setting before them when they are to conceive the colours of divers things Jacob used that stratagem who was afterwards called Israel laying rods he had pilled off the rinds from before them every where Gen. 30. and so he made the greatest part of the flock spotted and party-coloured So we make painted birds dogs and horses dapled and with divers spots Which Artifice of Nature and all the reasons and causes of similitude Pliny exactly comprehended almost in these words Similitude in the mind is a diligent thinking of a thing L. 7. c. 12. Pliny his opinion of the cause of similitude wherein many accidents have great force as sight hearing memory forms taken up at the very instant of conception and a sudden thought rising of any thing is supposed to give the form and similitude hence some are like their Grandfathers others like their Fathers or some other kindred Hence there are more differences in Man than in other Creatures because the quicknesse of his thought and nimblenesse of his mind and variety of his wit imprint divers marks because other creatures have their minds fixed almost and unmoved and all of the same kind are alike Hence it is that a woman may cause her Child to have a strange form and nothing like to the father So a woman that had layn with another besides her husband fearing lest her husband should come in the mean time after 9. moneths she brought forth a Child not like the party that she lay with but like her husband that was absent There is a very witty Epigram written of this Sir Tho More 's witty Epigram by that most ingenious Man Sir Thomas More Those four boys Sabine Which thy Wife brought forth Thou think'st are not thine Unlike thee naught-worth But that Boy alone That she lately bore Like thee for thine own Thou tak'st and no more Four as bastards born Rejected are in scorn Yet wise men suppose That the Mothers mind Doth the Child dispose For likenesse in 's kind Four were begot When that many miles From home thou wert not Feared nor thy wiles This last like to thee Was begot in fear Thy Wife was not free Thou wert then too near This I think was it That thy likenesse hit Hence it followes that the argument is vain to assign the Father from the likenesse of the Child Likenesse can confiâ—m no child to be the Fathers own For neither the Law of Nature nor the publick consent of Mankind will suffer a child to be laid to any man because it is like him But what concerns Wit and Manners and propensions of the mind daily examples teach us that Children which have all force and vital spirits from the faculty of the Seed are commonly of the same condition with their progenitors and of the same nature But there is much in this whether Venery be used with great or weak desire For many are lesse venereous and not so hot and do not with any great desire use copulation but rather decline from it and that they may pacifie their wives they pay their due benevolence as St. Paul calls it very faintly and drowsily 3 Cor. 7. whence it happens that the Child falls short of the Parents nature manners and
in the middle and pressed down they have a crestiâ—urining upward their tail doth not turn under their belly as we see it doth in mungrels but it stands upright and bends like a sickle he hath very great eyes and that stick forth and they are both blear eyes weak legs and that are crooked about the joynts but the hinder part of his body is smooth without any hair and their tail is seen very uncomely by those that are present and they will turn their tails on purpose for people to look on This small creature because it is ridiculous for its parts and manners and hath many things that may hurt a woman when she is with child and cause the child within her to be ill formed I think not fit to keep least Women with child should be wronged thereby But this monstrous form and limbs so crooked are not naturall but artificiall Women love dogâ— too well For men shut them up in small Cages and taking their food away they make them grow small as in Terence they took away meat from maids to make them grow small as bulrushes least if any of them should grow corpulent she should seem to be a Champion See your Juglers that passe the Countries use to wrest the limbs of young boyes that they may leap and dance the better Lately A History there was a notable Knave who carried a child to be seen from Town to Town which had a very great head all the other limbs bore no proportion with it This deformity when it is naturall and not by art Physitians call Hydrocephalon Very great heed what disease by reason of the head swoln with a watry humour When a woman great with child had looked on this picture she was so frighted with this unusual sight that when her â—â—â—e came to be delivered she brought forth a child with a spongy vast bead and it had like to have cost her her life And this mischief followed it that it grew greater in the Nurses arms till it became monstrous great The woman a â—e to me and made this complaint bringing the child with hot and when I pressed the head of it with my fingers it would sink down like to a cushions and come forth again These spectacles are not onely to be a â—oided by Women with child but also by all those that may beâ—â—roubled and frighted in their sleep by such frights as it commonly happens to children sick weak old melancholique people Whence Children have ill marks yet monstrous sights will hurt them lesse that they will women with child For they by the sights of such things will frame 〈◊〉 like in their Children For since all their forces and natural faculties are wholly employed to form the child it happens that when the woman is any way offended all the humours and spirits run downwards to the womb And when the imagination of a thing that sticks fast in the mind joyns with these it frames the like fashion on the child that the mind conceives A Proverb from Imagination For it is not said in vain Imagination makes fashion For by the same reason if a Mouse a Cat a Weasel leap suddenly on a Woman or Strawberries Cornel-berries Cherries Grape-stones fall on any part of the body When a Woman doth remove marks from the Face to the Thighs or hinder parts they presently leave their mark and the print of this thing will be printed on that limb unlesse the woman at the same time that these things happen to her body do presently wipe the part and put her hand behind her back or on some remoter part of her body For so the mischief is suddenly cured or the mark is made on that part she touched all her Imagination and natural faculty being turn'd thither CHAP. V. Of the strange longing of Women with child and their insatiable desire of things And if they cannot get them they are in danger of life THe order of the former narration seems to require me to speak something concerning the longing of Women Longing a Disease For they are both all most from the same cause About three Moneths after conception a disease troubles Women which the Greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Latines Pica when by reason of cold vitious humours and sharp â—â—â—gm that lyes in their stomachs they earnestly desire coles parings chalk shels and other things unfit to eat this mischief prevails most when the childs hair first begins to grow and they are with child of a Girle For by reason of want of heat flegmatique humours are lesse concocted Hence it is that winds and often belchings frequently trouble Women Of kin to this is the daintinesse of Women wherewith men and Feavourish people are oft troubled But child-bearing Women that are tempted with this disease are so insatiable in their desire that if they cannot obtain what they long for they bring both themselves and their Child in danger of death Mayst Women long for strong things This disease for the most part troubles the Low Country Women because they are of moyst cold constitutions and feed on ill Nourishment There have been some in our dayes that when they saw a corpulent well â—â—d man they desired to bite at this shoulders A History and there was a man who that he might satisfie a womans longing granted her leave to bite least she might take any hurt whereupon she bâ—t out a part with her teeth and chewd it a little and then she swallowed it raw When she was not yet satisfied she desired to bite again but the man would not endure her But she presently began to languish and to be delivered She brought forth Twins the one living and the other dead for want of a second bite I can see no other reason for it than that the woman grieving in her mind the vitall spirits are lessned A Woman with child suffers if her longing be demed her and the humours appointed to nourish the child turn another way and are not carried to the womb so the child wanting the food which the mother longed for grows feeble and dies For when the passages and receptacles whereby food useth to be derived to the Matrix are stopped it must needs follow that the child will want nutriment and die But if the teeming woman be strong of nature and knows how to moderate her passions the child doth not die but grows sickly By these you may see abundantly what a womans Imagination can do and what outward objects conceived in the mind can print upon the child that is then to be formed When we must please sick people with diet Wherefore I suppose they do not much transgresse the bounds of Art that are not so rigid but do sometimes indulge to sick people such meat as they long for though they are not so proper for them in case they are such as will bring no great hurt to their bodies
no man living shall be justified If thou Lord shouldst observe what is done amisse who might abide it but with thee there is mercy and plenteous redemption Despair must be cast away CHAP. XV. Whether there be a reasonable Soul infused into monstrous births and to abortives and whether they shall rise again to life And by the way from whence Monsters proceeed ALl those that are like men and according to the order of being born received from our first Parents by that way and means proceed from both Sexes though they are monstrous in shape and deformed in body Deformity unmans no man have notwithstanding a reasonable soul and when they have run the race of this short life they shall be made at last partakers of the Resurrection But those that are not from man but by mixing with other Creatures and exercise their Actions otherwise than men do shall neither be immortal nor rise again So the wood-gods Satyrs houshold gods Centaurs Fairies Tritons Sirens Harpies and if fabulous antiquity hath invented any other things of this nature they have neither rational souls nor enjoy the benefit of the Resurrection There are indeed amongst so many millions of men many that are deformed in body and are of an horrid aspect with hogs snowt and uncomely Jaws yet all these though they are far from the natural shape of Man are referred to the number of men For they speak discourse judge remember and perform other offices of the Soul and perfect their actions after the manner of men though they somewhat degenerate from mans dignity and his imbred force of Nature Whence monstrous shapes proceed Now a Monstrous habit of body is contracted divers wayes For fear frights influence of the Stars too much or too little seed Imagination of women with child and divers phantasms which the mind conceives deform the body and cause Children to be of a shape not proper to the Sex Sometimes the whole course of Nature is changed either when the seeds are vitiated or the Instruments be unfit so that the natural faculties to propagate and form the Child cannot perform their offices exactly A Simile from the Industry of an Artificer For as the most Industrious Artist cannot bring to perfection a work happily begun where the matter is naught or the Instruments are dull so Nature wanting the forces of her faculties or not having a fit matter doth all things ill and fails of her end Some there are that by their operation do make some parts of the body otherwise than Nature made them So in Asia as Hippocrates testifies Of Ayr and places there were great heads that the Nurses made their heads to be long figured for that they thought was a sign of a noble and generous spirit as a Hawk nose was amongst the Persians whereby at length it came to passe that though the Midwives ceased to presse the childrens heads yet nature whilest she was forming the child agreed with the ancient custome and what they did by great Industry Nature did of her own accord Also nutriments and the qualities of the outward Ayr make some parts deformed So they that dwell in cold moyst Countries have great heads great bellies fat bodies Countries change the conditions of Soul and Body babber lips swoln cheeks Many Countries produce Pigmies and little men very short Other Countreys produce people with great throats and scrophulous tumours with flat noses crooked legs Yet though many things be wanting in these people and the parts be either ill framed or wrested amisse yet because they are born of women and some force of reason shines in them and they are led by the same Laws of Nature Orthodox Divines say There is a rational soul in them and that they shall rise again The Resurrection will restore bodies deformed to their right shape And by rising again they shall lay aside all deformities of their bodies that were ill favoured to behold and be well formed like as men are and all lame crooked imperfect limbs shall be made perfect And though in some the force of reason shines lesse because of the unaptnesse of the organ as in children old men drunkards mad-men in whom the force of the Soul is hindred or oppressed Yet every one of them hath a reasonable soul and what is defective shall be made up at the resurrection But imperfect and abortive births and all mischances where the limbs are not fashion'd or very imperfectly because these want the reasonable soul they cannot be call'd men nor shall they rise again Difference between abortion and a mischance Physitians make a difference between abortion and a mischance For a running forth of a mischance is when the seeds were for some dayes joyn'd in the womb but by the slipperinesse and smoothnesse of it they run forth again before they come to make a perfect shape so that a rude unframed mass runs out that was the rudiments of a Child that should have been and a shadow of what was begun but it was cast out untimely as seeds and buds from trees that bear not fruit to maturity But Abortion oft-times shews the parts of the Infant perfectly made up which when it is 42 dayes old is endowed with a rational Soul and is alive Whence if it chance to be cast forth by some sudden accident it shall one day rise again For though many things be wanting in it and it is not come to its full magnitude yet in the Resurrection all shall be made up that time would have produced A Simile from children increasing And as children have many things in possibility that with progresse of time and increase of years do shew themselves as teeth nails hair and full stature of body which by faculty of the seed increases by degrees and come to perfection so in the Resurrection all things wanting in the body and parts that are imperfect shall be made perfect Whosoever therefore is born of the seed of man and not from some foul matter or vitious humours concurring though he be of a monstrous body and ill favoured shape yet shall he rise again from death to life all faults being repaired by vertue of the Resurrection and framed decently for that Omnipotent Work-master of all things Makes nothing weak Prudentius who doth the body raise For were there fault it were not for his praise What is by chance or sicknesse or by care Or otherwise decay'd he will repair Nothing is impossible to God For that is easie for him who made all things of nothing For as Augustine saith It is more easie to create men than to raise them when they are dead It is more to give that a being that never was than to repair what was before And the earthly matter never is perished in respect of God who can easily restore to its former nature what is vanished into the Ayr and other Elements or what leannesse or hunger hath consumed or
diseases have wasted or what is burnt to ashes or is passed into the first principles or into the substance of some other body For the flesh shall be restored to that man it was taken from as his Due A Simile from borrowed money that was borrowed from him They that are men shall find this to be true and those mousters that are bred from them and have the same nature with them shall be partakers of this divine gift CHAP. XVI The humours and food do change the habit of the body and state of the mind apparently And hence arise the affections and stings of conscience And by the by what Melancholy can do and how it may be cured THere is no mortal Man that is not led by his passions and perturbations but one is more driven by them than another and is more easily forced by the motions of his mind All men led by Passions Why Socrates was lesse subject to them For they that are of a good bodily temper and lead a temperate life and sober diet are lesse wont to be troubled with passions So Socrates is reported to have been of that constancy and calmnesse of mind that both at home and abroad he was alwaies of the same countenance and alacrity of mind though he had a very scolding Wife to vex him which he obtain'd no otherwise than by his frugall life and great temperance Hence it is that Cicero saith that Intemperance is the fountain of all the passions Tusc 4. which is a departing from the mind and from right reason So that the desires of the mind cannot be ruled or kept in order Temperance As therefore Temperance abates all disorderly desires and makes them submit to right reason and preserves the judgment of the Mind entire so Intemperance that is contrary thereunto inflames and disturbs every condition of the Mind and urgeth it Whence it comes that all diseases of the body and errours of the Mind spring from thence For as when blood and flegme abound or both cholers are increased sicknesses arise in the body so the disturbance of ill opinions and the jarring between them spoyls the Soul of her health The difference of passions amongst themselves and draws the body into mutual destruction For so anger rashnesse fear envy forrow emulation when they seize upon the veins and marrow and are possessed of the inward parts of the mind are hurtfull also to the body and cause many terrible diseases thereof Also the diseases of the body by sympathy and way of company affect the Soul And though objects and many outward causes stir up many troublesome motions in man yet the principall cause and original is from the heart and from the humours and spirits which if they be moderate and not infected with some strange quality the mind is not so hot The original of Passions and is more calm So if the bloud be clean and pure if the temper be equal and the body be well men are slower to be moved nor are they so exceedingly vexed with fear anger or revenge and if they be somewhat in passion as no man is without all passions presently reason being call'd to counsel and Judgment of the mind admitted all heat of stomach abates and is asswaged Examples of moderation are David and Pericies We have examples of this in David and Pericles who when a naughty fellow reviled them and upbraded them they did not revenge or hate him for it but used him with great humanity The heart receives divers motions of the mind from outward objects Yet oftimes when there are no outward objects presented it breaks forth into violent passions and some secret thought entring the mind of a contumely offered or by indignation by reason of some inconvenience received the mind it self grows hot and is disturbed within Wherefore it is of great concernment in the difference of passions to know what temper every man is of what humours are abounding in his body and what is the quality of the spirits that arise from those humours For those that are of a hot and dry temper of them bodies are soonest angry especially short little men who are presently enraged upon some trivial businesse of no value Which anger by reason of the narrownesse of the place wâ—y little men are soâ—â— angry and the small distance of the organs presently seiseth on the mind and fires and burns them as low cottages and sheep coats For the same reason these little men exceed others for wit and judgment of mind because the spirits are gathered together and not so much dispersed and so perform their forces more closely A Simile from fuel on fire and sharply But as some fuel takes fire sooner than other combustible matters do and some are sooner put out than others are so it useth to happen in spirits and humours whereof some breed long and during passions others sudden passions and fading presently whence it falls out that cholerick men are hot and presently angry The 〈◊〉 of cholerick men and as straw and stubble presently takes fire so they by the thinnesse of a hot humour and sudden inflammation are more weakly angry for their anger suddenly grows cold and they are pacified But me lancholique people are slower before they grow angry Melancholique natures but when they are provoked they are ill to be calmed again and they are so mindfull of in juries that they will hardly be friends any more Flegmatique But flegmatique people as they are cold and moist are scarse ever moved with passions of the mind and are never greatly troubled with any thing whence it is that they are slothfull and sluggish and not fit for any noble actions on them the Proverb may be verified He hath no mind that hath no anger A proverb against sluggards Sanguin complexions But sanguin people are of hot and moist constitutions and are held with no waighty or serious businesse of cares but are wholly taken upon with sports tales songs and jears and complements and take care for nothing but pleasures and delights which conditions and differences of men alter according to the quality and mixture of the humours according to the climate and Ayre they live in and they do variously affect the minds of men and therefore I am perswaded that the humours are the causes of Passions For the heart being affected the spirits are raised and the humours boyl and the minds of men by their agitation are more inflamed as if a torch or fire brand were put under For as when the General or Prince is moved in an Army his guard of Souldiers A Simile from a Captain of an Army and all that are to defend him presently make themselves ready to fall on upon the enemy So when any passion ariseth all the humours are suddenly stirred with the heart and the spirits break forth as in anger shame bashfulnesse immoderate joy but in grief sorrow fear
some think they know them not So Calathiana in Autumn Erauthemum blew-Bâ—ttles that grow in corn appear not onely of a blew colour but also white red purple divers colour'd so that yellow Marigold Virgil describes on the several Calends of each moneth with a double row of flowers growing thick together delights our eyes growing in a roundle So Jove's flower and Rose Campion is with a sparkling scarlet colour and died with a thin purple sometimes Oculuâ— Christi and sometimes it recreates our sight with a colour white as snow growing round with a various heap of leaves after the same manner do stock Gelliflowers Daisies Hesperis and all the Winter Gelliflowers bring forth their flowers Virgil shews that in former Ages Gardners did take pains in them Some I have seen their seeds to sowe prepare With Nitre and oyl lees Georg. l. 1. for they by care Will grow far greater and be sooner ripe And though the Industry of the Gardner cease and the art how to sowe them the herbs themselves do naturally change their fashion if you consider their colours form stature forces And that is partly done by the secret force of the Stars partly by length of time that such things as appeared as though they would last alwayes De ration Concionand are turned to another habit as if as Erasmus saith Natures curiosity would not have the fashion of herbs truly known that might passe currant to posterity but would have a continual search to be made for them that we see are changed or renewed daily So Nature sharpens man's Industry and shakes off drowsinesse For the first cause and spring of Husbandry Would not that this Art without Industry Should ere be learnt Virg. l. 2. Georg. thus sharpning mortal hearts And with great pains teaching to find out arts And within furrowes for Plants to enquire And hid in flints for to discover fire To this we may adde the state of the climate and nature of the Ayr Places changeth Plants and Country that will change even the hairs colours and habits of mens bodies For Plants according to the nature and quality of the place and for variety of the ambient ayr grow sometimes more tall sometimes lesse some have many branches others come forth without any stalks at all some as the earth is are watry or milky white 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 â—â—aâ—h of A Simil the stom Children others are very green tending to black For as children that the Nurses keep the breasts from or seldome feed them do grow lean and starved and look pale or not very lively so plants that grow in lean hungry barren ground are ill-favoured and not so pleasant to behold Whence you may see plants that grow on walls and stony grounds scarse a hands breadth in heighth and if the same be set in a fruitful ground they will grow a cubit a half high and will send forth their branches long and broad So Bugloss and great Comfrey are oft-times seen with white flowers so Clove-gelliflowers either by art or fruitfulnesse of the ground will yield a white red various colour'd flower upon the same stem and stalk So the purple violet colour decayes sometimes and turns blew The flowers of herbs are changed into divers colours By the same reason some leafs of Plants are not so jagged and nicked and prickly plants grow more gentle and smooth according as the ground is higher or lower they grow on To this refer what daily experience teacheth that herbs and fruits of Trees do not onely change their shapes if they grow in a place and climate fit for them but will also grow better and be more wholesome when as before they were deadly and not edible 2. de Aliment et 3. de Sympto caus Which Pliny and Galen speak of the Persian plant transplanted into an Egypt and Columella hath writ the Experiment thereof in these words With Damask Prunes their Cups are compass'd round And such as in Armenia are found And Apples which in rude Persia grow Full of their imbred poyson but we know That now they yield a wholesome nourishment And all their venome is consum'd and spent And of their Countrey they the name retain Peaches that on small Trees do grow amain For this kind of Apple unlesse it be exposed to the Sun beams over against the South and is of a cold and moyst juice and therefore corrupts quickly and offends the stomach Galâ—de Alimen facult unlesse it be eaten before meat Wherefore Nature attempts many things which the art of Man perfects and directs For grapes will grow without stones if you cleave the stalk and take out the pith yet so that in taking it forth you hurt not the bud For the sides will quickly grow together again if they be accurately joyn'd How some grow without kernels So Medlars Peaches Dates Cherries Prunes and Cornelion berries that are full of stones grow without stones by the care and Industry of Man if you cut off the young Tree two foot above the ground and then cleave it to the root and take out with a rasp the pith of both parts then straightwayes bind both the parts fast together with a band and cover the top and the partitions of both sides with loam clay or wax and put a wet paper about it when the year is over you shall find that a scar is come upon it and that all is grown fast together graft this Tree with grafts that never bore fruit and they will bring fruit without stones which by Theophrastus's direction I tryed upon a vine and it proved true Also Inoculation Insition Emplastrisation do shew the cunning of Nature and the Industry of Men. For by these means Plants will put off their own nature and get another form and fashion and one will easily change into another Three kinds of Insition A Simile from the Nature of Man and education For as we see men for the variety of their wits and care of their education not onely to grow different in their knowledge and to follow other manners and studies and to obtain other inclinations of mind and one body is more slender than another or taller or more pale and bloodlesse or more rough or hairy yet all of them have the shapes of men though some look more rudely so it useth to fall out in herbs which for the same causes are not of the same shape and vigour alwayes though they be not so changed that their whole kind and species perisheth For they alwayes are like the thing they are called by in some part and they have the effects peculiar to the earth they grow in and fit for the nature of the people of that Countrey For many plants are brought forth of the fortunate Islands which Men call the Canaries which being used in our climate do not hold the same forces in all things nor do they grow of the same form and magnitude yet they
many veins running up and down in them and with many strikes and turnings are very beautifully chamfered as garments made of Goat-skins and Noblemens Robes that are wrought Camelot damast variously woven And many such things that are dug forth of the bowels of the earth wrought so curiously as if some Graver or Carver had wrought them into that form Coral is a shrub So Coral in the bottom of the Ligurian Sea bears leaves and fruit and being drawn forth with nets it presently hardneth like a stone and becomes black or red or if the moisture be lesse digested white So in that part of Gallia Belgica where the Eburones Menapii and Sicambri lived there are stone-cole dug forth Stone-cole that are of the Nature of hardned bitumen with which the inhabitants not onely melt Iron but make good fires in their houses and if they be quenched once and again they will revive if they be put near the fire And whereas all other fires are inflamed with oyle Pit-cole is quenched with Oyle but burnt with water these cole burn more if you cast water on but are quenched with oyle Other Countries have also their mines and minerals under ground some afford Brimstone Lime Gyose Ocre Alum pieces and clods of Gold and Silver through which fountains tun in the secret passages of the Earth and they impart their qualities to the waters and so are made fit to cure diseases So Mines near the Sea are of a bituminous nature For the clods dug forth thence smell so much of brimstone that those that fit by faint and swound away and pit coles and such as are made breed the same inconvenience unlesse you sprinkle salt upon the fire Salt strewed on Fiâ—â— coles abates the stench For by this means the venome that offends the brain is discussed The venome and offensive humour boyleth forth Li. Georg. Some ascribe this generative force of the Earth to the Stars which doubtlesse do effectually operate upon inferiour bodies because we see many things decay The effects of the Stars upon inferiour bodies and new things come in their places never seen before that are far better But as I deny not this so I believe especially concerning plants that many of them fail and degenerate chiefly by reason of the negligence or ignorance of Gardners So Wheat as Theophrastus saith Of the causes plants is changed into Darnel Basil into wild Marjorum water-Mints into Mints in smell but in form into Calamint and many kinds of herbs if care be not taken do commonly not onely change their form but lose also their imbred vertues Which as in many herbs All things better by dressing So I have observed in the Violet called Altilis a most beautifull flower which unlesse it be yearly transplanted it degenerates into a mean low flower that is not so sweet Virgill confirms this I see the best plants will degenerate If not transplanted L. 1. Georg. for all things by fate Decline and fall unto a lower rate On the contrary if you dresse wild Plants they will grow like those of the Gardens and lay aside their wild natures as Virgill also observed All Plants by Nature rise up strong and fair Though barren from the ground L. 2. Georg. yet these by care Transplanted and manured will grow mild And better for our use than they are wild Wherefore Nature brings forth continually new plants unheard of before A simile from base animals and their proceedings and the influence of the Stars produceth many also but the Art of Gardning produceth most of all And as Rats Dormice Eels Lampreys Shell-fish Snails Earth-worms do not alwaies breed from seed but oft-times from slime of the earth and from filth and corruption So in sandy grounds such as are the sandy Mountains in Zealand Theod. de caus plant L.c. 1. which the people call the Dunen many shrubs come forth naturally by the confluence of nutriment and because that place lieth open to the Sun and is fit to breed plants which once bred from the moysture of the Earth do afterwards grow up from their own seed and increase abundantly Wherefore let no man admire that plants are subject to be changed and to lose their forces and figure when as that unlesse it chance that they be confounded by affinity one with another may proceed from the scituation of the place the quality of the ambient Ayre and the Art of the Gardner So Pepper Cardamon large Cummin Rhapontick sowed in our climate are changed something and are not so hot yet let no man say they are other plants Herbs change both their force and form For it is the faint heat of the Sun and the distemper of the climate that makes them weaker and that they grow not so great and come not to so much maturity Wherefore it is clear that plants have a double change For sometimes they change their native forces and keep the same form sometimes their form is changed and their native qualities remain That comes to passe partly by the influence of the Stars and partly by the nature of the ground and the ambient Ayre For since the earth is of divers qualities it happens by reason of the Ayre and the nutriment of the earth that plants are changed and receive other qualities So Hasel-Nut-Trees Cherry Trees Wild-Cherry Trees if they grow near banks that stinking Waters run by or Salt waters wet their fruit will tast salt So men as their food is and the Ayre they live in obtain another temperament of their body other manners and qualities So Danes by long constance and comerce change into Spaniards Germans into French-Men or Italians so you shall see a pleasant and delightsome tree set on salt ground to degenerate by reason of the nutriment it sucks in For Salt and bitter ground is ill for Trees Virgil. Georg. Fruit will grow worse on them and by degrees Decay though drest for Vines and Apples change Their former goodnesse cause the ground is strange If you add to this that there is a fatall change and vicissitude of things you shall find that plants though you do manure them will grow old and feeble Old age makes all things worse or barren and will onely live unlesse you graft and inoculate them or pull of their slips and branches and set them again Which variety of Plants and vicissitude makes many think that this part of Physick is unfruitfull and that Diâ—scorides and many more Herbarists have lost their labour who have studied to write the descriptions of Plants Truly I think that no man hath adorned this art yet as it ought to be and the largenesse of it deserves who hath not known the Plants themselves Iresh as they grow and seen with his eyes their native delineations For there are some men amongst us that having scarce seen the hearbs will pronounce at randome strange things of them De simp Medic. l.
of drives away Caterpillars and it kills Moths and cloathflies as Wormwood Rue wild Mints Southernwood Savory Walnut-leafs Fern Lavender Gith Coriander being green Fleawort Bean trifoly kills fleas and Wiglice either put under the beds or sprinkled upon the bedsteads with the decoction of the vinegar of Squils It is observed that in our times and also in our Ancestors days the seed of Navews that the Low-Countrey factors make so great profit of hath a wonderful force in killing Weezels not by any venomous quality but by the sweetnesse of it For it is sweet and oyly and the Weezels will leave the Corn and eat greedily on this till they be killed with Sweet things sometimes kill Worms And the same thing happens to them when they get into frails of Raisins So I know by experience that eating many Raisins will kill the Worms in Children if they eat them fasting without any thing else eaten with them For as bitter so sweet things taken abundantly will kill worms For they swell and burst with eating too much sweet meats So the stomach of a man will swell and be tortured if he cram in too much sweet things CHAP. XXII The cunningnesse of Worms in Mans body and what it portends when they come forth by the Mouth and Nostrils IT hath been seen sometimes miraculously that long and round Worms especially have crambled upwards and crept forth at the mouth and the nostrils and they do this by an imbred natural motion if a man be long fasting For then they bite the stomach Worms creeping out at the Nostrils and seek for meat and when they find none to satisfie them and preserve their lives they creep upwards and hunt for meat as far as the very throat For they by their natural instinct perceive that the food comes in that way and the nostrils being open to the very throat almost they creep thither and tickle the part or else they are cast forth by sneesing or are pulled forth with ones forefingers I have oft-times observed this in sound people and when I shewed them the cause of it I gave them content I have seen this also happen in sick people but not without some imminent danger foreshew'd by it For so great is the putrefaction and inflammation of humours in such bodies that the Worms cannot endure the deadly force of the disease wherefore they break forth of themselves not urged by any Crisis or naturally but from the malignity of the disease But when the violence of the disease abates and they are carried downwards with other excrements Hippocrates holds that to be healthfull but to come forth of their own accord L. 2. Aph. 18. and not forced by any faculty as we see in people that are dying is ill for the patient for by a sagacity of nature they find the body ready to fail and that they shall want their food and therefore they leave their habitation Mice forsake old houses So it is observed that Rats and Mice will forsake ruinous houses three moneths before they fall For they naturally perceive that the frame of the house begins to part and that the house will shortly fall So Lice and Fleas where they find mens bodies decay and that the blood fails in every part they either leave the body or lay hold on those parts that the blood and naturall heat stay longest in Experience from the sagacity of Lice For it is approved by those that search and bury the dead that they will hide themselves in that pit of the stomach where the breast blade ends or in that grisle that lyes upon the vocal arterie For those parts being next the heart are hot untill the last breath which when some related unto me that were employed about sick people I said presently That it was a certain sign of death and that the Soul was ready to breathe forth But since we formerly made mention of Worms I thought fit to add this That many things will kill all worms and drive them forth But nothing is better than Worms dryed upon a tile at the fire and the powder given to those that are full of worms will presently drive forth all within the body As Pliny and other searchers of Natural things assert that a man being stung by a Scorpion L. 10. c. 2. the remedy is to drink in oyl or wine the ashes of Scorpions So our Countrey-men say that the biting of a mad-dog is cured by the burnt hairs of the same creature drank in wine For it drives forth the venome and keeps off all the danger of it and makes the body that is bit that it is of force to attract and overcome the venome So sometimes two contrary poysons mingled do cure and not kill As Ausonius wittily sets down in an Epigram concerning a woman that would have poysoned her husband with Wolfs-bane A whorish Wife her jealous Husband to Gave poyson yet she fear'd it would not do Wherefore Quicksilver intermingled shee Thought for to hasten death which set him free For if apart these poysons you shall give They kill but joyn'd together make him live Laevinus Lemnius a Physitian of Zirizea CONCERNING Hidden and Natural Questions The Second Book CHAP. I. That humours and not bad Angels cause diseases yet the aereal spirits do mix themselves therewith and increase the diseases by adding fire unto them THere are some amongst us that are but moderately versed in the Works of Nature and know not the causes of diseases their original progresse and symptoms that follow or accidents and because they cannot attain to the reason of them they refer all to evil Angels and say they are bewitcht since the Devils do constantly employ themselves to hurt us Plenty and malignity of humours is the beginning of diseases So they that are sick of a Tertian Ague the humours entring the veins every third day are said to be troubled with an evil spirit and the like is said for quartans and continent feavers as quotidians diurnals and all burning Feavers But how unreasonable and absurd this is any man can tell that is moderately versed in the Secrets of Nature For since man's body consists of the mixture of the four Elements and hath as many humours which from the faculty of the seed partake of four qualities hot moyst cold dry what can be said more than that diseases arise from the distemper of these by defect or excesse and from thence they take their original It is proved because we see they grow mild and quiet by vomit sweat opening a vein cupping-glasses set to the part affected by the opening of the Terms and Emrods also by the giving of Glysters and Suppositaries But God for his inestimable Wisdome hath appointed orderly motions in the nature of things and would have nothing done rashly or by chance but all things in a decent order and continued series So the Stars the Elements the Sea the times of the year
Natures order and progresse and the Skies of Heaven have their motions and changes and move by a certain order The humours are under the like law for they have certain motions and effects and periods in mans body that every humour keeps its turn according to the variety of the four parts of the year and exercises it faculties and forces on mans body so it is that the blood in the spring is in force and breeds feaver and diseases of its own nature so choler every other day in summer with cholerick burning causeth a tertian Flegm The humours keep their times corrupting in the winter quarter causeth a quotidian intermitting and melancholly when Autumn comes makes a quartan So a diary ends in one day or a little more because that consists not in the putrefaction of humours but with an aereal spirit enflamed And all these are effected by the same law as the rising and setting of Stars are as also is the flux and reflux of the Sea and the pleasant change of hearbs and plants springing forth But that is admirable that the four humours make choise of certain hours and times of the day The motion of the four humours in the body and divide the artificial day and night amongst them by twelve temporal hours which to be true I have found by experience for by observing them I use to pronounce certainly when the feaver will come For the blood is vigorous as Soranus Ephesius testifies Math. 20. which like the Evangelists measure the times and spaces of day and night by equal hours from nine at night till three in the morning Mans mind more lively in the morning from the vapour of bloud in which time the blood is concocted and elaborated in the Liver Hence it is that the mind before day break is more chearfull and all people both sound and sick are more light-hearted by reason of the sweet vapour of the blood but yellow choller hath its turn from three in the morning till nine in the morning in which time the natural faculty doth part the choller from the blood and sends it to the Gall bladder hence it is that a man is then more prone to anger and will be easily offended but black choler or melancholique juice doth its office from nine in the morning till three in the afternoon and sits at helm In this time the Liver is cleansed of this grosse humour which is sent to the Milt by nature hence it is that in those hours the understanding of man is clowded and his mind is sad All the humours are vigorous at certain hours by the dark grosse fumes that arise from thence Flegme moves from three at night till nine at night for then supper being ended concoction begins in the stomach to be perfected and the meat to be boyled and turned to juice Hence it is that flegme swimming on the stomach and carried to the brain makes a man sleepy Now if you exactly count the manner of all these you shall find that the very hours that the several humours take their turns Feavers begin to assault the sick and as the spaces are ended that serve for the several humours if they be simple and without mixture the diseases are terminated also So continent Feavers and as many as proceed from blood come upon us in the morning tertians about nout noon that is at the sixth hour which is to us the twelfth hour both of day and night Quartans come about the ninth hour which is to us three in the afternoon The quotidian comes from flegme about the first watch of the night But if the humours overflow and are mingled one with another as they are wont to be then they keep not their lawfull times and orders for they are more sharp A simile from the concours of the Winds and continue longer For as winds coming together raise more grievous tempests When East and West Aeneid 1. and rainy South do roar Roling the mighty billows to the shoar So a disease is more violent by concours of humours and diseases joyned to cruelly torture mans body For in one body Ovid. Metam l. 1. cold hot moist and dry Soft hard light heavy strive for victory It is frivolous to refer the causes of these things to ill spirits For all these things consist in the corruption or inflammation quality or quantity of the humours For it is these things that make the fits shorter or longer Why blood causes continual feavers But when bloud much abounds in the body it causeth but one continual fit because that putrefaction and inflammation is in the receptacles of the veins in which the bloud runs as through Conduit Pipes Wherefore nature like a wise and faithful consul in a Civill and intestine war is alwaies at work and without intermission to cast forth the disease But flegme A simile from the Wisdome of a Consul yellow choller and black because they are not in so great quantities and are without the straightnesse of the veins they do not constantly molest but with intermission and diseases that arise from these humours are not so deadly because they have not so open a passage to the heart and principall parts and therefore cannot easily do so much hurt Yet some of these Feavours last long partly because the humour abounds and partly because of the clamminesse thereof that it can hardly be melted and concocted Wherefore Melancholiqe men are seldome merry Melancholique people not easily drunk unlesse they drink deep and of strong wine for that humour is wonderfull cold and dry Men of this constitution are like Iron that must have a great strong fire to make it hot A simile fit for melancholique people from burning Iron that it may be hammer'd For they want much strong Wine and they can well endure it and when they are well whittled they will play the mimicks and make sport and dance like Camels For being crabbed by nature when they are in drink they desire to seem very merry Melancholique Natures when they are hot with wine and pleasant And as they are hardly overcome with drink so they can as hardly be recovered of drunkennesse For when they drink abundantly and eat excessively it falls out that the thick grosse vapours stick faster to the brain so that the day following melancholique Imaginations grow more upon them For from the Wine the day before not digested and discussed their whole body sends up stinking vapours For it happens to them as it is with houses set on fire which though they are not wholly consumed by fire nor quite burnt up yet a burnt smell affects our nostrils and brain A good Simile from houses on fire so making ill favoured sents and vapours arising from the drink the day before are very offensive unto them and trouble their brain and minds and when they cannot discusse these and that they perceive their phantasms to increase they fall
covered with blood which affect when it passeth to the child that membrane becomes of divers colours and fashions Whence comes beauty or foulnesse This also makes children to have chins and cheeks red as a rose Which then useth to happen when the great bellied women blush or are angry their blood being raised by natural heat and carried aloft For such as are frighted or suddenly put into fear they are the cause of a pale colour and frame the child with an austere and sad countenance CHAP. IX Why in Holland they say that such as have unconstant and weak brains have been conversant amongst beans IF at any time the Low-Countrey people will set forth a man of an unconstant brain The Proverb to wander amongst beans and unsetled mind who in his manners gestures words and deeds and all his actions is like a mad-man they will say he hath been amongst the beans and it is their common Proverb the beans flourish he wandreth amongst beans and this is applied to weak brain'd men that want judgment and reason For we see in the spring-months when bean-stalks begin to flowre that some men will grow mad and speak many ridiculous and absurd things and sometimes they grow so mad that they must be bound in chains For at the begining of the spring the humours begin to overflow and to choke the brain with grosse fumes and vapours which when bean flowrs do exasperate if they smell to them the mind begins to rave and to be troubled with furies For though bean flowrs smell sweet and pleasant Why bean flowers hurt the brain yet they offend the head and will at great distance send forth an offensive smell especially to those that have weak brains and are filled with a cholerick and melancholiqve humour Whereupon some of these are disquieted and wander then they grow clamorous and full of words and others again are pensive and alwaies musing Their head stands stiff Pers sat 3. their eyes sixt on the ground They mumble silently and eat the sound Their lips thrust forth their words they do confound And as some things dissipate fumes and discusse what is hurtfull to the brain and raise the fainting soul and spirits that are sleepy as Vinegar Rose-water wherein Cloves are steeped new bread wet in well sented wine for these breath forth a thin and pleasant ayre so other things cause pain and make the head heavy as Garlick Onions Leeks Elder Worm-wood Rue Southern wood What things cause the headacâ—â—e and many spices that send forth strong heavy fumes and offend the brain violently affecting the Nostrils Which Hippocrates shewd in this Aphorism The smell of spices draws the secrets of women L. 5. Aph. 28. and it is good for many other things but that it offends the head and makes it heavy For all things very odoriferous hurt the head and draw the heat and moysture to the upper parts even the very smels that evaporate from cold plants especially in those that are lean and decayed in their flesh For they cannot endure the smells of their meats and of boil'd flesh and when they faint and swound they will suffer nothing to be put to their nostrils that is of a sharp and piercing nature so that they seem to be suffocated by a grosse thick vapour as those that sit down in a dinining room that is filled with smoak whose breath is stopped and intercepted An example from smoaky houses unlesse the dores be set open and fresh Aire be let in the windows that the house may be Ayr'd and the wind may passe in and our Those that dwell near lakes are of another temper than these tender bodies and such as are made to empty Jakes and make clean sinks For these men reject all sweet smels as offensive unto them So Strabo writes that amongst the Sabaeans L. 6. those that are offended with sweet odours are refreshed with bitumen and the smell of Goats hair on their beards when it is burnt Aridiculous thing of a Countryman A certain Country-man at Antwerp was an example of this who when he came into a shop of sweet smells be began to faint but one presently clapt some fresh smoking warm hors-dung to his nose and fetched him again CHAP. X. Every strong filthy smell is not hurtfull to man For some of these will discusse contagions and resist corrupt diseases By the way whence came the Proverb that horns are burnt there MAny things are of a most filthy smell which yet do no ways hurt the body nor cause any corruption in it and they will resist some diseases and discusse the faulty troublesome Ayre and vapours as Castoreum Galbanum Sagapenum the dregs of Masterwort called Asafaetida Bean Trifoly Brimstone Gunpowder the fumes of burnt horns and skins Ill smells sometimes usefull For these are of a strong filthy sent but they cause no contagion but they represse and strike back the filthy sents and pestilent vapours which lakes and standing waters and the hearb Camarina and stinking earth send forth Also by the smell of these they raise young maids that are in a swound when they are troubled with the strangling of the mother when being fit for marriage they are forced to stay for Husbands But filthy smels that rise from dead carcases and muddy waters cause corrupt diseases and infect the Ayre by reason of heat and moisture but not the vapours of those that tend to drinesse Hence our Country people cast snips of leather horns and wet bones into the fire Ill smells sometime resist the Plague and with those sents they Ayre their houses to dispell the contagion of diseases and keep themselves and their cottages free from pestilent Ayres Hence came the Proverb that Horns are burnt there A Proverb that horns are burnt Whereby they signifie that places infected with contagious diseases must be avoided Such a kind of remedy in former times was used about Tourney when the Plague cruelly raged all the Town over A history that is true done about Tournay For the Souldiers of the Garrison in the Fort fill'd their Guns with Gunpowder without bullets and shot against the Town and they shot them off with a lighted match about the evening and morning whence it hapned that by the great noise and strong smell the contagion of the Ayre was removed Fire dispells contagions of the Ayre and the City delivered from the Plague For this is as powerfull to dispell contagions of the Ayre as Hippocrates remedy by making bon-fires and burning many fagots in the streets could be CHAP. XI The excellency of the finger of the Left hand that is next the little finger which is last of all troubled with the Gout and when that comes to be affected with it death is not far off By the way wherefore it deserves to wear a Gold Ring better than the rest PHysitians grant that all parts of the body that are affected
be abundantly mingled with the paint for the force of the fire cannot penetrate it because the wood is thickned and pressed together and is hardned against fire and water Archilaus the General of Mithridates made proof of this in a woodden Tower which when Sylla strove to fire he could not do it and was forced to depart leaving the businesse undone because it was all over anointed with Allum that binds exceedingly So C. Caesar lost his labour Vitruv. l. 2. c. 8. l. 8. c. 1. when about Po he put fire to a Castle made of the Larch-tree wood For the Larch-Tree like the Pitch-Tree will neither burn nor flame and will not onely remain free from worms and rottennesse but it will not become coals or turn to ashes in the fire being it is harder and more solid than horn which no fire can hurt or overcome Lastly it is so weighty that it will not flote but sink down under water presently like to Box and Ebeny that in the native tongue is called Guaicum a wood that is excellent to cure venereal sores and the French pox Yet a man may well wonder that it should not burn and flame when it sends forth Rosin of a colour like honey For as many Trees as sweat forth Rosin and Pitch quickly take fire But the solid and compacted hardnesse of the wood is the cause of it which hath no pores for the fire to get in to burn it by though Matthiolus asserts that the Larch-Tree about Poe that grows there plentifully will suddenly take fire CHAP. XIII The native heat of Man is fostered and increaseth by the heat of other Creatures but especially by the heat of children if they be laid to that part of the body that is weak For this fomentation doth not onely help concoction but easeth all joyntpains but amongst whelps which do it most effectually TWo things there be that strengthen our body and preserve our life native heat and moysture that is the substance of imbred heat and these stand both in need one of the other Moysture is the food and fuel of heat and heat subsists by it which two By beat moysture spirit the body subsists being full of spirit and united together do passe into the whole body These must be carefully looked to that they may last as long as may be possible For the body once deprived of their help decayes and all natural forces and faculties come to ruine But since many things are to be observed concerning these and they are obvious amongst Physitians every where I shall let passe all superfluous things and speak onely of such things as being applyed outwardly do lend help unto a man Amongst those things that stir up and augment natural heat and ease pains I place Whelps Whelps of one colour not all but those especially that are of one colour'd hair and not spotted with many divers spots on their skins for these not onely foster imbred heat but ease pains also So in all sorts of joynt Gowts of the hands or feet or elsewhere there is nothing more ready to asswage all pains be they never so sharp than such whelps laid to the parts affected Whelps laid to the parts ease pains For by a sweet and warm heat they stir up the faint and decaid native heat in man and by a continual fostering they either attract to themselves the humour that causeth the pains or by a digesting and discussing faculty they cut and consume it For you shall find that when they are taken away and released that their joynts will be weak and feeble and they can hardly stand on their legs the greatest part of the pain being drawn upon themselves But that the skin of one colour all alike is the cause of it and those skins that are of various colours cause not the same effect the reason is the equality of their temper and the uniformity of heat For the diversity of colours is a sign of the distemper and divers mixture of heat and moysturo A simile from grafting For as grafting must answer the nature of the Trees so a man in cherishing his limbs must apply a temperate heat that is all alike wherefore if you would strengthen your stomach or any other part you must necessarily defend the natural temper of it and not increase the heat too much or bring any strange heat into it Thera l. 7. But as Galen saith amongst those things that are outwardly applyed a little boy of a good constitution is best to lie in the bed so that he may alwayes lye near the abdomen There are some saith he that keep young fat whelps for the same purpose not onely when they are sick but when they are well also Such therefore are fit for those that have a weak stomach by reason of drynesse and above all care must be had that the little boy have not a moyst skin For those that sweat much in the night cool more than they heat 3 Kings 1. David got heat by a young Maid lying in his bosome So David when he was old and cold had this remedy that a young Maid lay in his bosome to cherish him not that he desired to lye with her as the Scripture testifies but to recover heat in his limbs by her CHAP. XIV Why the French-Pox is more gentle now than it was formerly and rageth not so much and into what disease it degenerates French Pox Leprosie Scurvy THere are three diseases of kin one to the other yet are not so mortal as foul and contagious and these change one into the other viz. the French-Pox the Leprosie in hogs call'd the Meazels and the Scurvy The black Jaundice is a kind of them These diseases in former years did cruelly torment men now they are grown gentle and not so troublesome This happens Diseases grow gentle by custome partly because the force of the mischief is subdued by the Physitian and the cruelty of the humours is asswaged and partly because Nature by custome is hardned against these pains So I have observed some in their flourishing vigorous youth to have been cruelly tortured but when they grew old they were not so much afflicted with it For either the heating and boyling growes colder and the humours flow not so much together or Nature in time accustomed to the disease and being made familiar and domestick to her she no longer contends with it or else she is nourished with those vitious humours and is not offended For as Sows that wallow in the mud and Coblers A Simile from hogs in the mud and such as cleanse Jakes and publick vaults smell no ill smell so diseased people are fed with filth And because they are hardned against the vices and diseases of their bodies that I may not say it of their minds they no longer perceive the detriment that Nature suffers For the disease being inveterate and fastned in the very bottom of the
13. c. 1. when men drink in expectation of sleep For sleep helps to discusse and to take off the fumes of the wine The use of Bread But since bread is a great part of mans nourishment and all meats without it are unsavoury and not very healthful I think fit to speak something of the use thereof For some maintain that to eat much bread is hurtfull to the stomach and that eating of it immoderately and to repletion doth as much harm as wine drank in too great abundance I think their reason is because it stayes long in the stomach and binds the belly But my opinion is that choyce and a difference should be made For wheaten bread well moulded and made with leaven and well baked is the most commendable and healthful food for sound bodies Wherefore I would have all men perswaded that it is not good to joyn too little bread with their meat They that eat little bread their breath stinks For they that eat bread too sparingly and flesh or fish plentifully their body growes spungy and their flesh loose and their breath stinks and corrupts Wherefore eating of fish because they soonest corrupt requires most bread with them We see that all meats will suddenly corrupt and stink in three days or a little more unlesse you salt them And Egs Fish Flesh and all such meats will be unsavoury But bread never corrupts or smells amisse Being over long kept it will grow mouldy but it putrifies not Wherefore such as cram themselves with meats and eat little or no bread send a stinking smell from their very entralls and offend all that are near them Wherefore those that desire to be of strong and firm constitution of body let them eat bread with moderation at least chiefly when they must exercise and labour hard For unlesse Ditchers Porters Marriners Charriers Fencers Wrestlers should eat bread in abundance they could not subsist and endure such labours But I prescribe the use of bread more sparingly to tender weak sickly constitutions and to such whose stomachs are faint and the passages narrow It is best to refresh them with liquid meats and to restore their strength for these will soon enter the veins For such bodies are too tender and delicate for to receive hard meats And the kingly Prophet David seems to me to have observed and considered all these things very exactly Psalm 103. God the maker of all things causeth the Grasse to grow for the Cattle and hearbs for the service of man both sick and well So that his body anointed with oyle may shine and anointed with ointment may be refreshed That the heart of man may be cheered with Wine and sadnesse being driven away may be made merry and that bread the staffe of life may confirm and strengthen him CHAP. XXII A Nutmeg and a Coral-stone carried about a man will grow the better but about a woman the worse A man excels a woman THat a man excels a woman and that his condition is fat better than hers besides the noble gifts and endowments of his soul and body whereby he abundantly goes beyond her inanimate creatures and such as have left growing and increasing do testify and prove by experience For a Nutmeg if a man carry it about him doth not onely keep its force but will swell and become more full of juice For since among these the best weighs most and is most full of juice and being pressed or pricked with a needle How to try Nutmegs will sweat forth an oyly substance with an excellent sweet smell the heat of man preserves these properties and which is wonderfull will make it more pleasant to behold and to swell more with this oyly juice especially if young lusty men carry it about with them For so pleasant and sweet smell comes forth of such bodies Comment l. 2. Aph. 14. and such excellent vapours by reason of the temper of their natural heat and so gentile and pleasing that the Nutmeg will draw them to it and so it being soked with them grows more clear and sweet sented For it is fed and delights in an aereal vapour and a warmayre inclining to heat and such youthfull bodies do breath it forth as a thing that is most familiar and agreeing with it Why the cloths of Alexander the great smelt sweet So it is written that Alexander the great King of Macedonia had his cloths perfumed not by any external perfume put upon them but from the natural breathing forth of his imbred heat But a woman abounding with excrements and sending out ill smells by reason of her terms makes all things worse and spoils their natural forces and imbred qualities Hence it is that a Nutmeg by her touching of it will grow dry light rotten pale and blackish and so she will corrupt and spoil hearbs destroy seed and take off the Lustre from a Looking Glasse The like reason serves for Coral Coral grows redder if a man wear it for this made into round pieces and polished smooth if a man carry it it will grow more red than if a woman should wear it about her For by being long with a woman it will grow pale and wan A woman makes Coral worse and lose its natural heat partly by reason of the fuliginous thick vapours that breath from her and partly because she hath but a weak heat and is cold and moist of constitution What makes Corall led which qualities can keep and preserve nothing but a man hath a gentle sweet vapour that proceeds from his substance by naturall heat and he is allmost aromatised by it To make mustard seed or Corall red For which cause Mustard-seed will make Coral more red if it be covered with it namely by reason of its heat whereby it grows hot as by a thing that is on fire CHAP. XXIII For the most part such are barren and unfruitfull whose seed runs from them of its own accord and they pollute themselves and how that comes to passe IT is so foul a mischief that amongst the Jews those that were polluted with it Levit. 19. were driven out from the Temple and all mens company The Greeks call it Gonorrhaea the Latines Seminis profluvium both men and women are troubled with it For their seed runs from them against their wills almost without any pleasure or desire or erection and it is watry and thin Wherefore it is unfruitfull and unfit to beget children For as a Willow that loseth its fruit A Simile from unfruitfull Trees casts off his seed for lack of heat before it be ripe So these have their generative humour too cold and moyst and it runs away from them For the natural faculties are not able to perfect the seed and make it prolifical Whence it comes that the humour is altogether excremental and is the rudiment of seed newly begun and imperfect and wants the power of generation But since this disease
as Pome Citrons Oranges Lemmons The juice of Lemmon corrodes for the Lemmon that is commonly Ovall hath a juyce so sharp and corroding naturally that if you put a peice of Gold some hours in a Lemmon you shall find it lighter and not so ponderous when you take it out But as it doth that by its excessive and penetrating cold which burns as well as fire So Spirit of Wine is most effectuall to preserve things Aquavitae for flesh and fish wet in it are safe from putrefaction and will never breed Worms But Commin if there be plenty of it Commin Carway-seed and carway seed next Salt are present remedies to preserve meats if you rub the meats with them and lay them up by reason of their drying quality so that such as use them often wax pale and wan for want of blood because they eat up all the naturall moysture Honey Syrup Also Honey and Strope as they call it from its last like honey though it look somwhat black and sod Wine which the Spaniards call Aroba have a virtue to preserve especially Cherries Prunes Peaches Grapes and all wild fruices Verjuyce which I have tried in sowre Grapes But most effectually if you place in order any kinds of fruits in an earthen-pot and cover the pot well with a cover and smeer the same with Pitch that no Ayre nor Water can enter it and so let it down into the bottom of a Well Fruits laid in a pot and sunk in a Well will last very long after a yeare is over you shall find them all fresh and of an excellent tast For when they are so farr removed from the ambient Ayre and all corrupt vapours they cannot corrupt For moysture makes all things subject to corruption which being removed and driness put in the place things will not easily consume So stock-fish as we call them in Latine Merlucae Stock-fish for Salpa is another kind and many more hardned and dried in the wind may be kept many yeares as also bisquit that will never mold because all the moysture is baked out of it Wherefore extream heat or cold because they both equally cause driness will keep things from Corruption Hence you may collect whence it comes to passe that in Winter and hard frosts Frost is apt to break ones legs a mans leg will break with the least touch almost For the bone will easily grow brittle and break by reaon of the drinesse of the outward Ayre whereas when it is a moist season it is more tough and flexible the which thing also we observe in Candles and such things are made of fat CHAP. XXXVII Pale Women are more lascivious than such as are of a ruddy complexion and lean Women than fat and do more lust after men THose Women are more hot and prone to venery and more mad after pleasure that have more imbred heat which is commonly found in pale lean Women such as are of a brown colour for their genital parts are full of a sharp salt biting humour therefore they require to be more moistned hence it comes to passe that women are more lustfull in Summer more desire mens company Women more salacious in Summer because at that time heat increaseth in them but in men it flags and grows more weak Wherefore Rue and Thime and many very hot things extinguish lust in men and sharpen it in Women For in men they consume and dry up the naturall moisture but they heat the Matrix of Women by consuming the superfluous mixture and so make them Lustfull Wherefore it is that that Sex desires to be filled with strong Wine but fat ruddy Women that are full of moysture and that have their generative seed very wet are of a faint and very sedate appetite in their Lust Wherefore men must make a good choice and not presently take what comes next to hand rashly For he that hath got a lean slender woman of declining years hath such a one as is alwaies itching and will never be satisfied let him know that he hath got a perpetuall torment that is continually lusting and is daily more and more exasperated she will stick to her Husband like a Horseleach and she will never let him rest though he be tired out quite nor give him so much respite as to recover his strength CHAP. XXVIII Whether a man should drink greedily and plentifully or by little and little and sparingly at severall times when he is thirsty or is sat at Table THe principall way of preserving a mans health consists in his temperance and moderation in eating and drinking But because I have spoken elsewhere abundantly of eating dry food and of bread I shall here speak of drink and in what manner and measure it ought to be used First it cannot be prescribed certainly and absolutely to those that are in Health Because some are accustomed to divers wayes or doctrine which no man may presently break off but he will be in danger to fall into some sicknesse The best and safest way of drinking is to be judged of according to the age of people and difference of times as also the customes they have long used and as their strength is and as the Wine is strong or weak So Beere or Wine or other drink must be prescribed to quench a mans thirst and that the meat may not be dry nor flote but be moderately wet Wherefore the body must be refreshed by times and at moderate distances and the meat must be now and then steeped with moisture that it may the more commodiously goe into the veins by concoction and be digested into the body But all drunkennesse Dioscorides detests drunkennesse L. 50. c. 7. especially continuall as Dioscorides saith is pernicious because the nerves being soked continually with much Wine are softned and the whole frame of the body is dissolved Wherefore a man ought to drink moderately all drinks that cause drunkennesse and in that we ought to imitate all Fishmongers and Butchers A simile from Butchers who when they store up their fish or flesh cut into peices they poure in brine upon every row as they lay it and season it with Salt in order So we if we will take care of our health must water our meat in order as we eate it by drinking moderately When digestion begins we must not drink But it is hurtfull to tire the stomach with drink when concoction is begun for it hinders and stops the faculties and functions of Nature that she is about and will not let the meat boil and concoct A simile from the Kitchin For as pots leave off boiling and cool by powring in cold water So the stomach hindred by drink powred in ceaseth to digest what it hath begun and is longer about it nor doth it concoct it so well for so the meat is driven into the narrow veins undigested or into the capacity of the
comprehended in excellent verse Virgils praise for his great knowledge who being he was most versed in the knowledge of things and had so exactly sought out all the works of Nature he did also in some measure subject the 〈◊〉 of men to their forces and effects For men are diversly 〈◊〉 and otherwise constituted according as the time is according as the Starrs set or the Ayre varies The condition of the sky changeth mens minds and the four seasons of the year differ So when the skie is clowdy and dark and the aire grosse and thick men are sad and sour countenanced and sleepy but when the sky is clear and in the spring-time when all things flourish men are cheerfull and lightsome and very much given to mirth For the pleasant aire dissipates all foulnesse of humours and grosse vapours that darken our minds and makes our Spirits cheerfull and our minds quick and lively which Virgil expressed in this elegant verse But when the season and the flitting Ayre Grow moist L. 1. Georg. and Southern-winds begin to blow Things are then thickned that before were rare And a great change is made in things below Mens minds do alter as the times go round When Tempests are they do not hold the same As in fair weather sometimes birds abound And sing beasts skip Crows a hoarse note do frame For the Spirits that were before kept in break forth when the ayre is calme and pleasant A simile from smoky houses and when they are recreated with the West-wind For as Smoke and vapours when the houses are unlockt and the dores set open the ayre and wind entring use to be dissipated and blown away and all Galleries and Chambers that were full of filth begin to be more lightsome so in mens bodies all soul vapours and all stinking sents that were in them and all dullnesse of Spirits are discussed and ventilated Wherefore not onely internall causes and imbred humours are helps to health or diseases but the outward conjunction of the Starrs and constitution of the outward ayre and breathings and qualities of the winds breed divers and sudden mutations in the bodies of men The body is subject to the constitution of the ayre which every man may find true in himself every moment almost of time For who is there to passe over the affections of the mind who when some tempest is at hand or distemper of the Ayre three days also before it comes doth not perceive some pricking in his limbs and some beating pains contractions of the nerves palpitations or some other sensible pains For Watts Corns Horny substances Cicatrices Knots Kernells or if any thing be strain'd or disjoynted or broken torn or dissolved in any part of the body all these will foreshew a tempest coming which doth not use to come but with most bitter torments to such that have any secret touch of the Whores Pox. For these when cold winds begin to blow are soonest sensible of their pains for their Nervs are stretched and their Muscles grow stiffe Sick people perceive the change of the aire and the vitious humours in their bodies being agitated do trouble them grievously For there is under those parts a kind of distemper like to the weather that tortures them strangely in their inward parts But such as are of a sound habit of body and in good health feel no inconvenience or distemper by it For as patcht broken leaking ships are sooner swallow'd up in a tempest A simile from Ships that are shaken so diseased people and such as are of a decai'd and uncertaine health are expossed to all injuries and subject to all inconveniences for upon the least distemper of the Ayre arising they use to feel most terrible pains or when the Sun or Moon cause any mutation in the inferiour bodies For these Planets put forth their forces The force of the Sun and Moon upon inferiour bodies not only upon mens bodies but upon all terrestriall things the force whereof is so great and is extended so wide that all things contained in the circumference of the Heavens have their order Ornament and Glory from them and the whole course of things and times of the yeare are governed by them And though the power of the upper Starrs be not ineffectuall yet by the help of the Sun all things of greatest concernment are brought to passe For the Sun chiefly adorns this World and disposeth and guideth all things very decently For by the Suns operation seeds are propagated and corn grows ripe and all things increase and proceed And thus the year doth trace it self about Georg. 2. Also the works of the Moon appeare very great in the Nature of things but not so great as the effects of the Sun For she enjoyes the benefit of the Sun and borrows her light from him Opposition makes a full◠Moon Conjunction a new Moon that so much of the Moon is light as the Sun shines upon but she fails and hath no light when the earth comes between and causeth an ecclips But then especially she shews her forces upon earthly things when she is full the Sun being right over against her and makes her round or when she is in Conjunction with him for at these times Corn grows and augments shell-fish swell the veines are full of blood and the bones full of marrow whence it is that copulation at those times offends least And because she moisteneth all things flesh that are subjected and exposed to the Moon-beames corrupt and men that are drunk dead asleep allmost Wax pale and are troubled with the Head-ache and are affected with Epilepsie for it looseneth the Nerves She causeth the ebbing and flowing of the Sea and moisteneth the brain over-much and by its chilling force it stupefies the mind Also no man may doubt but that she is the cause of the ebbing and flowing of the Sea For being that we fee that when the Moon is dark and silent or a halfe Moon or crooked with Horns or increaseth or diminisheth the waters do not run much together nor are there any high tides The Moon moves the Sea upon any shores whatsoever but again when she is in Conjunction with the Sun and begins to be a new Moon or to be round and a full Moon the tides are very great and the waves rise exceedingly who then can ascribe the flowing and ebbing of the Sea to any thing than to the motion of the Moon For as the Loadstone draws Iron A simile from the Load-stones forces so this Planet being next the earth moves and draws the Sea For when the Moon riseth the Sea roules about those parts namely the Eastern parts and leaves the Western parts but when she goes to the West and sets the flouds increase in those parts and abate in the Eastern parts and this more abundantly or sparingly as the Moon increaseth or decreaseth in her light that is conveighed by the
is in Capricorn at Berg an hour and half or two hours later at Antwerp and Dort when the Moon inclines to the Equinoctial Westward when the West-winds blow gently about six of the Clock at Mechlin about eight of the clock yet so that the Sea flows in sometimes sooner sometimes later when the weather is calm or the wind blows strongly And when in the space of six hours she moves toward the West she causeth the Sea to ebb and sink down as many hours untill the Moon being gone out of our sight riseth to those that are Antipodes to us for then the Sea flowes again but when the Moon comes to midnight and comes to our hemisphere the flouds fall back again Wherefore the scituation of places must be observed and to what part of the heavens they are inclined and the coasts of the Countries must be regarded and we must fit the course of the Moon rising and setting thereunto For thus it will be easy to know the ebbing and flowing of the water at all places But let no man think the horns of the Moon are to be taken notice of for on that side it hath no operation but we must regard the bunchy and convex part of it which is enlightned by the Sun The aspects of the Moon cause the floud in all places For that part of the Moon that is against the Sun and toward the earth draws the water and fills those Ports and Havens with a flowing water which she directly respects with her beams For the Sea runs that way the light of the Moon drives them Yet let them that are Sailers take notice of this that when the Moon riseth and shews her self first in our hemisphere if the part of the Moon that is enlightned by the Sun send her beams Eastward that in those parts that are Eastward the waters have risen to their height again if the Moon look Southward or Westward in those places the flouds rise and fall in the Eastern parts Wherefore if any man sail from the East or Winter aequinoctial from whence the South-East or East winds blow toward the West countries it will be the time to sail forth at high water when the flouds are greatest to passe into the Lower-Countries As for example From Mechlin Antwerp Dort Berg Breda Bolduc Delph Gand and other places that are scituate farther off it is good to set forth when it is full Sea and the waters begin to fall Again if any man sail from the West Southward or Eastward he must set forth and Sail into the deep at low-water when the Sea is comming in and the flouds begin to come back So that he must alwaies take notice of the Moons motion and to what part of the Heaven she enclines and what Coasts and Ports she respects CHAP. XLII Of the force and nature of Lettice and whom it is good or ill for THose that eat Lettice in sallets often unlesse they eat Rocket or Cresses or Tarragon which is next kind to Snees-wort What corrects the coldnesse of Lettice it will hurt their sight and make them blind for it thickneth and condenseth the visive spirits and troubles the Crystalline humour unlesse you drink wine to correct the force of it The Antients did not eat this at beginning of supper or for the first course but last of all as Martial shews Tell me why Lettice is our first repast In our fore-fathers dayes it was the Last Which I think they did it not without good reason for since it is of a cold and moist nature taken after supper it causeth sleep more effectually and restrains the heat of Wine and hinders drunkennesse by moistning the brain Whether Lettice should be eaten before or after supper But in our daies it is thought best to eat it first at supper For since after a long dinner we have no great stomach to our supper the custome is so soon as we sit down to supper to whet our stomachs with Lettice seasoned with Oyle and Vinegar Also Lettice is good for that if it be carried into the veins before all other meat it cools the heat of the bloud and abates the hot distemper of the Liver and of the Heart so that the immoderate use of it will bridle venereous actions and extinguish the desire of lust as Cucumbers Pompions Purslane and Camphor do Wherefore it must be used more largely by them that would lead a single life and live chastly for this will take away their venereous desires but such as are bound in the bonds of Matrimony may nor totally refuse the use of it because sometimes their brains are dried by too much venery But the coldnesse of it must be corrected with heating hearbs Lettice who it is good for least it weaken the generative seed too much and make it uneffectuall to beget children and altogether unfit for it CHAP. XLIII Of Patience commonly call'd or the great Dock Of the hearb Patience or Monks Rheubarb SInce there are many kinds of Sorrel or Dock two of them specially are fit to be eaten that which is commonly called Sorrel that in Sallets whets the appetite and takes off loathing and that which from its greatnesse is called Horse-dock It is a Pot-hearb with a great top with long broad leaves and the stalk when it is ripe is red and the root is yellow I find this hearb to be of such faculty that if you boyl any flesh or meat with it be they never so old they will be tender and fit to eat For being it is of a slippery moist nature it will soften and temper the hardest Oxe-flesh or old Hens Wherefore the Antients used it often because it will make meats easy of digestion and it loosneth the belly Orage is of the same faculty with it which from the prickly seed is called Spinach and is like to Lampsana Dioscorides speaks of which I think Martial meant when he said Use Lettice and the Mallowes soft And Horace Epod. L. od 3. Fat Olives pulled from the boughs of'th Tree Or sowre Docks that Meadows love Or Mallows that with costive bodies best agree CHAP. XLIV Of the operation of Mans spittle The force and effects of fasting spittle DIvers experiments shew what power and quality there is in Mans fasting spittle when he hath neither eat nor drunk before the use of it For it cures all tetters itch scabs pushes and creeping sores And if venemous little beasts have fastned on any part of the body as hornets beetles toads spiders and such like that by their venome cause tumours and great pains and inflammations do but rub the places with fasting spittle and all those effects will be gone and discussed moreover it kills Scorpions and other venemous creatures or at least hurts them exceedingly For it hath in it a venemous quality and secret poison that it contracts from the foulnesse of the teeth in part and partly from vitious humours For to the mouth and
Jaws fumes rise from these and infect the spittle with a contrary quality Whence it is that sometimes we perceive a salt sowre sweet Sweat and spittle have their forces from the humours or sharp taste in our spittle as there is in sweat also Hence it is that when men are fasting their breath stinks exceedingly and the unsavourinesse of the breath offends all near us that talk with us For some foggy ill smells evaporate and boyl forth of the body as out of some muddy lake and these being of a venemous nature infect the fountains of spittle And this moysture that swims in the mouth and moystneth the tongue and waters our meat is nothing else What spittle is than a flegmatique excrement that ariseth from the stomach from the nutrimental juice received in and flees to the brain and so is sent down to the tongue and Jaws Hence it is that those whose stomachs abound with flegme are alwaies full of spittle in their mouths and is overwet with immoderate moisture but such as are hot about the entrals and dry with a feavorous heat their tongues are not wet at all Who have a dry or moist mouth but crack as the earth doth when it is over-dried and parched by the heat of the Sun Since therefore the qualities and effects of Spittle come from the humours for out of them is it drawn by the faculty of nature as fire draws distilled water from hearbs the reason may be easily understood A simile from distilled hearbs why spittle should do such strange things and destroy some creatures And if the spittle of a sound man be effectuall for many uses that it will not onely destroy many creatures but kills Quicksilver also and fixeth it what shall we think of such that are sick of the Leprosy the Pox and many other contagious diseases I know many that have catcht the small Pox and measils by onely putting their mouths to the cups whereon the spittle of those that were infected did stick by reason of the clamminesse of it and venemous mud that fastneth to the teeth so that for the same cause the bitings of all creatures are dangerous by reason of the contagiousnesse of their spittle except the nerves and muscles be not hurt by it CHAP. XLV Of the use of Milk Beestings Creame The dutch call the first Beest the latter Room also what will keep these from cloddering in the Stomach Milk Who it is good for THe use of Milk is not alike wholsome for all people for those that have cold Stomachs it grows soure in them and fills the body with wind and those that are very hot of temper in them it burns and sends forth stinking vapours and offends the Head And since the nature of Milk is so that it will thicken and be condensed by heat Milk is thickned by heat and melts by cold and melted by cold it follows that it is soonest clottered in a hot Stomach and nothing will hinder this more than Honey and Sugar adding a little Salt to it But since I have known many strangled by clottered Milk coagulated in their Stomachs their breath being stopped when they began to vomit I think some wanton young men and lascivious suiters do very ill who at their afternoon meetings use to stuff themselves with Creame and Biestings and other Milk-meats and drink Wine abundantly with them to the great detriment of their health For Wine makes Milk curdle Wine and milk mingled are naught and become like to Cheese wherewith the Stomach being offended and is not able to concoct it all turnes to corruption and these are the foundations and seminaries of great diseases Milk corrupts Fish So fish and Milk and all soure things mingled with Milk and drenched with Wine cause Scabs and the Leprosy For all things cramb'd in thus promiscuously corrupt and are made subject to putrefaction Those gluttons that when a Cow hath new Calved love Beestings Beestings shall find nothing more hurtfull to man so that Children that within three dayes after they are born do suck their Mothers Milk are very ill by it and onely escape Death For it coagulates and clotters in their bodies and stops the Channells of the blood and the Veins so that nutriments cannot passe fitly and without hurt But these things dissolve Milk and Clottered blood also Cummin-seed Oyxmel and Vineger of Squils Angelica Master-wort CHAP. XLVI Why Gouty people are Lascivious and Prone to venery and as many as lye on their backs and on hard beds Gowty people are very lascivious SUch as have the Joynt-Gout are most commonly Lascivious and lust exceedingly partly because they have been used to it by long custome by the immoderate use whereof they came to have that disease partly because their Nerves are grown stiff and stretched out by it and by lying often on their backs the humours flow to the generative parts They also that ride much or lye along on Ship-boards and lye hard on their backs are very Prone and given much to Venery For the Nerves destinated for mans generation that run to the genitall parts grow hot so that by the agitation and influence of humours the loines are provoked and there is erection made thereby By the same reason if any man hurt or bruise his great Toe of his foot immediately from this effect the groin and cods swell that is that wrinkled cover of the Testicles is in pain by it arising from consent and by reason of the interweaving of Nervs and Veins As if any man puts into a fire that is very hot a pair of Tongues or other iron A simile from Smiths not only the part put into the fire will be red hot but also that part which is farr from the fire grows so hot that it cannot be handled so pain is communicated to the parts that are on the same side and the sickly affect is conveighed to the neighbouring part So from the Stomach Intestins Matrix Spleen Liver the head is affected and when the brain is hurt or troubled with any distemper the mischiefe is derived from thence to the parts that are under it And therefore Mid-wives though they know not the cause of it The generative parts are signs of good health or sicknesse use to search and see the Testicles of Children when they are sick and their privy member by the observation whereof they can judge young men also may perceive certain signes of recovery of death of health or sicknesse For if the cases of the Testicles be loose and feeble and the Cods fall down it is a signe that the naturall faculties are fallen The Testicles hanging down or close up what signs they are and the vitall Spirits that are the props of Life But if these secret parts be wrinkled and raised up and the yard stands stiffe it is a signe all will be well But that the event may exactly answer the praediction we
must mark in what part of the body the disease lyeth For if in diseases of the brain and such as are above the Diaphragma and the Septum Transversum the generative parts hang down and flag it is healthfull as on the contrary it is an ill sign to have them drawn upward for the vitall faculty dies and the nerves are contracted to their first original Prediction of the Brain and Liver affected from the Testicles I have observed this in many that were of sound mind and their reason good that their Testicles and Yard were so run in that they could not feel it to make water by But in all diseases that affect the lower parts it is a good sign to have their Testicles wrinkled and their yard stiff for these are signs that those parts revive that are inservient to the natural faculties and are made fit again to perform their natural actions for no parts of the body sooner recover and become lively after a disease The Genitals after a disease first recover than those that dame nature hath placed in secret CHAP. XLVII Whether the Small-Pox and Measils may be cured with red Wine or with Milk that women use to administer when such Pushes shew themselves IN diseases that proceed from the boyling and inflammation of blood diaphoretiques and discussive remedies should be administred and such as attenuate the humours that they may the better be vented through the pores and passages of the body to breathe them forth and none may doubt of this Wherefore I wonder how our Matrons when such pushes break forth give Claret-Wine to drink which is commonly of a binding quality and thickneth and restrains the humour Wherefore I bid them make a decoction of Marigold flowrs Marigolds Dill Hysop Balm Savoury Figs Anniseed and Fennel-seed this loosneth the skin and dispells collection of humours But I see a reason how it may be safely given without danger so it be done seasonably namely when all the force of the humours is brought to the skin Whether Claret-wine cause urine and sweat for then it drives them forth by the same reason as things that loosen the belly by pressing it as Mirobolans Rhaponticum or that is called Rheubarb in all which there is contained a manifest binding quality wherefore by way of astriction red wine drives forth the smoky vapours and fumes that stay in the middle passages are forced out thereby at the outward skin So I find by some that the black Spaâ—ish wine called Tint from its deep die will loosen the belly yet it is given in dysenteries to stay the flux of it It doth it partly because by reason of its thicknesse it cannot enter the veins and partly by its binding and pressing quality wherewith it moistneth inwardly the Intestines Likewise red wine because it heats hath a discussing quality and provokes swear But I wholly disapprove of giving them milk for it is very ill for feavourish people Milk subject to corrupt and soon corrupts and is subject to contagion for I know by experience that when any one dieth the milk will corrupt and look wan and all the ill ayres flye thither CHAP. XLVIII Wine is spoil'd by thunder and lightning and so is Ale and beer and how this may be hindred and the force of them restored EVery Master of a Family knows by his own losse that thunder and lightning will do great hurt in wine and beer Cellars Thunder and lightning spoil driâ—k For wine grows sowre by thunder and turns red and its natural râ—ste is spoil'd by that fiery penctrating heat Beer by that horrid noise and violent motion is made sowre also and not fit to drink And though the summer heat be the chief cause that drinks grow sowre yet thunder and lightning do suddenly change them though it be winter whereas heat doth it by degrees But if Cellars be underground and vaulted and arched the drinks receive the lesse hurt and not so much as when they are plain with planks alone For the distemper of the Ayre and weather sooner pierceth into the places and falls upon the vessels of Wine and Beer Wherefore I use to fence them before the tempests come How Iron drives off thunder from drinks by laying on the vessels a bar of Iron with Salt or Flints for the Lightning strives with the hardest substance and therein spends most of its force For it leaves thin and tender substances untouched because it finds passage through them and cannot stay there and hence we see it is that Oaks and Holms that are very high and hard trees are most exposed to the injuryes of thunder whereas the Bay-tree that yeilds to it and resists it not is never touched by it So we see it proved by experience rather than by reason Sea-Calves that the skin of a Sea Calf is never touched with thunder I think it is because it is soft and very fine and not very solid also an Eagle and the skin thereof Yet this belongs to all men to know for their health that nutriments spoil'd by thunder are naught and dangerous to eat or drink so that the dogs will not touch them For there is in thunder a pestilent force that is communicated to those things it falls upon Whence it is that such as are burnt by thunder stink exceedingly and filthily Blasted-Corn as we may perceive in rubbing the blasted ears of corn that the lightning hath fal'n upon they will smell like Brimstone And now having shewed what these natural tempests can do and what mischiefs they can bring unto us it remains to shew how things spoil'd by lightning may be restored to their former goodnesse This you shall not easily do unlesse you poure out the liquor into some other vessel which must first be made clean and then seasoned with the decoction of the leaves of Savoury wild-Time Bays Walnuts myrtils both wild and of the Garden which the Brabanders call Gagel Fennel Juniper-berries Clary and when the vessel is dried set it up then when you have occasion to use it it will have a very gallant colour smell and taste Also Beer when it degenerates from its native goodnesse or grows dead is restored with sweet sented Physicall drugs How to restore drinks corrupted and recovers its savoury taste namely by the roots of Orris Ginger Nutmegs Cloves Bay-berries and with the dry leaves of it with sweet Calamus Origanum Betes For as the Coleworts corrupt the nature of wine so Beets restore it Cole-worts corrupt wine Beets restore it because they have a nitrous faculty whereby they hinder that wine cannot thicken and grow clammy as honey which Rocket-seed will do also but not without great hurt to ones health for it hurts the nerves by its caustick burning quality and causeth the joynt pains as some rosiny wines and such as are seasoned with strange Ingredients For our Vintners use to smoke their Cask with Brimstone and they
which because I purposed to handle them with a convenient brevity I have bound them up together in one bundle DIstilled water that we draw from green and fresh hearbs never corrupts because all earthly matter is concocted in them and wasted and there is in it a kind of aereall substance whence it comes that it will endure no boyling For if you set it to the fire to boyl it loseth all its vertue for it being pure and purged there is nothing that can be taken from it and thence it is that it putrefies sooner and grows mouldy on the top than fountain water boyled doth So Ale boyl'd or fountain or pond-water though it be thick and muddy is of a better taste and not so sowre as that which is made of rain and clear water For troubled water being boyled if there be any corruption in it it is boyl'd away and grows better In Corol. Dioscâ—r It is a memorable thing that Hermolaus Barbarus speaks off that water that hath been corrupted seven times and purged again will never corrupt more Because as I think all the earthly substance is taken from it and voided away and it is wholly purged of all its dregs that were the cause of its corrupting So it is observed that that kind of drink the people call spruse Beer at a certain time of the year will grow sowre and afterwards strangely come to its former vigour the same happens in that outlandish wine called Bastard and black Spanish-wine that stains ones hands and napkins and makes all linnen of a deep red colour as the Actian Cherries do which we commonly call Morellen There are two liquours no lesse delightfull than healthfull for mens bodies that is wine within oyle without Wine Oyle the use whereof if it be moderate keeps men in sound health and makes them green in old age But as hard Boots and skins that grow stiff A simile from a skin oyled and are mouldy will grow soft being oyl'd So mens bodies chiefly old men liquoured with wine are made more gentle and not so rigid and froward But oyling and annointing though they are out of use almost with most Nations and the custome is lost yet is it healthfull for the bodies of both young and old people for they will condense bodies that the outward ayr and winds cannot penetrate into them or else they serve to loosen them that they may not be smothered by fumes within Also the skin anointed with oyl resists poyson that if any man set on causticks to eat the skin Oyl resists poyson and first annoint it with oyl he shall lose his labour for corroding medicaments applied will not stick nor penetrate Also taken inwardly it dulls the acrimony of poyson and will not let it enter the veins but casts it forth by vomit Oyl powred on any liquor preserves it Oyl powred on wine or any other liquor doth preserve it that it shall neither grow dead nor corrupt for it drives away the Ayre and shuts out all vapours that might corrupt it Amber draws unto it straw and all dry light matter but if they be anointed with oyl it will not touch them Amber whereupon it doth drive off Basil from it So a Loadstone smeered with Garlick will not draw Iron because there is a fat substance in Garlick that blunts the vertue of it that it will not cleave so much to it Cucumbers desire water but refuse Oyl Cucumbers and Gourds being they are full of moysture and are fed by it they do so avoid and refuse oyl that being put to it they will fall back and contract themselves For all plants sprinkled with oyl will corrupt To make a Vine fruitfull If Vines grow barren and bring forth nothing but leaves and unprofitable boughs if you water it with sharp old urin it will grow fruitfull for being choked with too much moisture it being thus heated and the superfluous moisture consumed it will bear fruit abundantly the same is performed by wine-lees powred to the root of it But our Country-men do very ill who make a great pit about the root of the Vine Soot is very hurtfull and fill it with soot of a Chimney to make it bear fruit for though soot seems to have a fat substance in it yet by its hot burning quality it destroyes the vine and makes it wither by its corroding quality The Apothecaries call Clary Centrum Galli Clary the seed of it hath an attractive vertue and draws forth chaff dust and other things that fall into peoples eyes For that put into the eyes is roled about in them every way and draws the humour to it and discusseth blindnesse and comes out swoln and covered as it were with a thin membrane But the plant it self bruised will draw forth thorns and splinters and will hasten hard and difficult child-bearing when women cannot be delivered in time put into wine it rejoyceth the mind and drives away sorrow and provokes lust yet taken too much by its strong sent it makes the head ake The decoction of Mallows and marsh Mallows will make chapt rugged hands smooth To make the hands smooth but the seeds of fenigreec and Linseed will do it better by their oyly substance With us men make lees of oyl by bruising the Linseed and pressing forth the oyl they are made four-square Cakes that are fit to make Cattell fat and if you steep a piece of this in rain-water and wash your hands with it it will take away sensibly all scabs of the skin and make the parts smooth and delicate also the dregs of Linseed and Lees of oyl will make smooth and comely the flagging breasts and wrinkled forehead To make the forehead and wrinkled breasts smooth and white if you add to it a little Gum Arabick and Tragacanthum and Mastick with a little Camphir that will help also red eyes and such eye lids as are bleared with drinesse and such as are chapt and will restore them to their former comelinesse Why some do not thirst in Feavers It seems a very strange matter to some people to see some men in hot feavers and their whole bodies allmost burnt up with them which yet are not thirsty at all but the cause is because the heat diffuseth it self to the external parts and sticks not in the heart nor in any principall part whereby sweat breaking forth and the heart being ventilated and that vapourous heat being discussed which did possesse the internall bowels they cease to be thirsty but contrarily they whose heat doth not break forth to the outward skin but lies inward secretly they are extream thirsty though outwardly no signs of heat appear and these kind of Feavers are the most dangerous of all The white of an Egg beaten and mingled with quick-lime will sodder broken glasses To sodder and will so glew together all earthen ware that they cannot come assunder by reason of their clammy
and gluttinous substance For since quick-lime mingled with any liquor will harden into a stone so especially when it is mingled with the white of an Egg that is like snot or bird-lime Some plants are contrary to others He that is given to gardning and would fain get profit by it he must observe what plants agree and what are at enmity one with the other For one plant will hinder the growth of another So a vine if it grow near Cabbage will either decay or die For the Vine being full of juice and the colewort greedy of moysture it draws away all the juice and robs the vine The Bay-tree enemy to the Vine Also the Bay-tree and the Ivy are enemies to the Vine and dry it up by their hot drying qualities which Lavander also doth to many hearbs by its great heat as also Radish-root that by its acrimony burns up all plants near it wherefore it 's good against drunkennesse Radish good against drunkennesse and takes off the force of wine Garlick set near Roses makes them smell the more sweet because the acrimony and heat of Garlick draws forth their natural forces and stirs them up for what is faint with cold Roses grow more sweet near Garlick is recreated by heat The nature of the Olive The Olive Tree is a remedy for Chich-Peason for it drives away Caterpillars that eat and spoil them and that by reason of its strong smell and therefore worms will not breed in it But the Olive Tree being bitter it makes Cabbage and other moist hearbs to wither which also Origanum doth and Rue The reason of many things is in-explicable and Sow-bread by their hot drying faculty I know that many things of this kind are done by a secret imbred force and from the property of the whole substance so that a man cannot alwaies give a reason or shew the cause of such an effect Yet it delights a lover of Physick and one that is industrious to seek out natural causes exquisitely to find out probable causes which if he cannot exactly obtain yet he will not derogate from the truth of things manifest nor calumniate the effects but will alwaies admire God in the works of nature made by him There are a multitude of things whereof we may render a probable reason As for example Purslane cures teeth astonished Purslane cures the teeth set on edge which disease comes by eating sharp and sowre things because it is a glutinous clammy plant whereby it asswageth and easeth the teeth that are affected by sowre things and suppleth the nerves that are bound by them and so repairs the inconvenience by its glewy moisture But to rub them with Salt will do it by reason of its heat and astriction or if we do but chew a little green cheese made of sheeps milk For it dryes and makes the astonished teeth firm and fastneth those that are loose by reason of a cold moist or sowre humour Those that have dull noses and have lost their smells or impared them How to restore smelling are effectually restored by the seed of Melanthium which Hierom on Esaias translates Gith by Southernwood and Rue and as many things as are of a sharp and piercing smell For these open the passages and dissolve and discusse the humours and hurtfull vapours But I have found that nothing will sooner do it even for old people than to put Mints into their nostrils Mints restore smelling whose fragrancy they manifestly perceive and it serves for all whose sense of smelling is hardned against the most stinking sents and have wholly lost that faculty of smelling Radish-roots must be eaten first of all for so it provokes the appetite to meat Radish and lesse offends the stomach Therefore our Country-men are to be blamed that eat it when supper or dinner is almost at an end for they think it will help them the better to concoct their meat but it is an enemy to the stomach unlesse it be eaten before meat with water and Salt for otherwise it causeth ill vapours and stinking belchings to rise up And if you cut a little piece of it and put it into wine it will presently contract a filthy stinking smell Tartar oyl will presently take off Iron rust Tartar and make it shine and it will also take spots and freckles from the face and all deformed fowl pushes that are disgracefull to the countenance by its absâ—ergent quality Camphir hinders liquors from corrupting Camphir mingled with rain-water keeps it from corrupting and preserves it in its perfect sweetnesse so also doth Myrrh and Lignum Aloes called Agallochum So the Cyrenean juice called Benzoin and Storax Calamites are very effectuall to keep away putrefaction For they drive off all ill vapours and corrupt Ayres and make the ambient Ayre that is commonly the cause of corruption more pure by their sweet and pleasant vapours proceeding from their dry and hot qualities The force of Tithymals The Tithymals that are of seaven sorts do by the caustick and burning quality of their milky juice take off all warts and callous substances for by the intense heat of it and penetrating force it dries them at the roots and when this is done they fall as some rough-cast How Warts and Corns are cured Likewise Hermodactyls and Savin powdred and mingled with Oximel of Squils or juice of Marigolds will take away all Corns and callous matter even upon the secrets when they are contracted by foul copulation In Summer that wine in Cask may not soon grow sowre and wax hot That Wine may not corrupt but may be cool to drink place your pots in a vessel filled with cold water and then put in Salt-peter and it will so cool the wine that your teeth can hardly endure it Nitre makes liquors cold It is the quality of this which makes such a noise in Guns for take this out and the powder will make no noise nor will it drive the bullet so far If any man desires to mix water with his wine because it is too strong to drink How wine must be mingled with water he must not do that when he eats his meat but an hour and half before he sits down to eat for so these liquors will mingle and not hinder concoction by their repugnant qualities For as they are commonly mingled they trouble the head and cause belchings and wind Also sharp wines are not to be mingled with sweet nor white with red For nutriments of divers qualities trouble the stomach because one digests sooner than the other and goes into the substance of the body Wherefore I would wish men to drink white wine at dinner and red at supper For white wine runs down quickly and opens the veins and urinary passages But red wine if it be strong nourisheth more and is binding But if you drink both at the same meal ever drink white wine first But because
with the greatest presents you can give them Whence Solomon compares their yawning and wide open dores to the Jaws of hell and the grave that are never satisfied Proverb 30. Wherefore if they that are married will take good counsel when they recover of a disease and begin to be well let them not presently fall to lying with their wives to be milked by them but let them moderate their affectiâ—â—s and put reigns on their pleasures that are exorbitant for they have then nothing to spare as young tender trees that must not be lopt nor have their branches cut off from them An example from young Trees For if the disease thus chance to revive and a man fall into a relapse they either dye suddenly or very hardly recover And if lusty and stout men when they first marry can hardly hold out when they too frequently use venerious actions and to speak in Tullyes language enter their wives too often how much more must weak and sickly men be dejected and cast down Immoderate venery spoils beauty And such as are uxorious will make this appear by their Weesil-colour for being too much given to venery they look yellow burnt or like Box or bloudlesse Lead-colour'd their limbs and joynts are feeble and weak whereas others that use this action moderately all fuliginous vapours are discussed by it and they appear fresh in their countenances and lively and their faces so comely red as if they were painted There is indeed in every part an imbred force and vertue as sight to the eyes Eath part hath its imbred faculty hearing to the ears smelling to the Nose to the Tongue taste and savour which is of all the senses the most voluptuous the bladder and its muscles serve to make water and the Intestins to void other excrements the genitals to procreate children and for copulation so other parts have other offices they are designed for and in all of these there must be temperance and moderation used For the eyes with continual poring are toyled and grow dim The Ears with too great noise grow deafe What is to much is alwaies naught as we see that Smiths are thick of hearing The Taste is abolished with immoderate eating or drinking Why Smiths are half deaf and all things become unsavoury and unpleasant so that the stomach loaths and refuseth the meat The Nostrils that have a smelling faculty when they are full of snot cannot swell the most fragrant sents All parts have their distinct offices Also the generative parts that all the parts do service to and if by chance they fail or be exhausted other parts will assist them in their courses for from the whole body humours and spirits flow thither and are derived unto them and if they be tired with immoderate and profuse lust not so much they as the whole body decayes and suffers Wherefore in preserving the forces of nature and corroborating the state of the body all things must be used temperately and with moderation that every man may seasonably and maturely grow old without trouble for lustfull youth will when old age comes leave a froward and peevish mind and a decayed and feeble body CHAP. III. Of the effect of the Ayre and gentle blasts and of the names of the winds with their forces and natures to cause diseases and to stir the humours which being agitated sometimes move the mind and molest it THere are two external accidental things that are no lesse hurtfull than they are healthfull to our bodies Which do support our health and sometimes make us sick The Ayre and winds sometimes make us well and sometimes sick namely nourishments and the Ayre that surrounds us by the agitation and motion whereof there ariseth wind and blasts to which our bodies are exposed every moment and thereby suffer manifest changes But winds and windy vapours breed in our bodies Whence come winds in the body partly by reason of the external beating of the Ayre and partly from meats and drinks that being taken in cause winds and stretch the belly as are Beans Peason raw hearbs Rapes Radishes fruits of Trees sweet wine new beer and Ale and Winds rising from these trouble the stomach and are offensive to the Intestines and the hypochondres and Middriff These To drink greedily fills the body with winds as also those blasts that use to enter when we feed greedily or drink in haste abundantly either come forth by belching or by breaking wind backwards But if they stay over long in the body or fasten upon any part they cause pains and must be excluded by applying hot remedies outwardly and inwardly by such things as dispell winds as Cummin What things expell winds Bay-berries Anniseed Fennel-seed Carway-seed strong Wines as Malmsey and Candey Wine For these will force and make the winds to rore Aeneid And to flye out where they can find a dore But since outward winds are commonly offensive to us and by their penetrating force do us much hurt I shall chiefly speak of them here For they sometimes get secretly into our bodies and sometimes openly and by violence they rush in and do great hurt to men heards of cattle Corn hearbs Trees The original of winds The wind proceeds from the Ayre and small blasts moved and tossed whence it is that sometimes it is gentle easy and pleasant sometimes strong violent and vehement as the Ayre is calm or moved What the wind is Wherefore the wind is nothing else then an effusion and flowing form of the forces of the Ayre troubled which receives strength and nutriment from the exhalations and vapours of the earth Or as Vitruvius saith The wind is the flowing sourge of the Ayre moved by uncertain and unstable motion John 3. A place of the Gospel explained Which when our Saviour speaks of he saith The wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof but canst not tell whence it cometh nor whither it goeth For taking a similitude from the outward blasts he instructs Nicodemus by what force and what secret operation the spirit of God affects the minds of men For as the aereal blast is not quiet nor obedient to any mans command but is restlesse and unquiet and is carried by its own violence and driven here and there so that being diffused all over it shews it self by the effect and noise of it and not by sight sometimes wholesome for the earth Gods spirit compared with the winds and sometimes hurtfull so the Spirit of God by a secret and unspeakable blast beats upon the minds of men drives forces inflames stirs up transforms and makes spiritual of carnal men But as the mind of man subsists and is supported by the spirit of God so this animal living body of ours is no lesse refreshed with the whole some outward Ayre than with meat and drink For the use of Ayre and breath that we draw into our bodies is
as needfull for us as our nourishments for without them mans nature can subsist a while Hunger when hurtful for some have pined away seven or nine dayes for hunger but without the outward Ayre and gentle blasts no man can subsist one moment but he would be strangled Now the purer and the lesse contagious the Ayre is Ill Ayre worse than ill dies the more wholesome it is for the body For if the Ayre be pestilent and contagious it is more hurtfull than venemous and faulty meats for such meats may be vomited up again or digested by the heat of the stomach but pestilent and contagious Ayre cannot be easily conquered or altered when it is once taken into the body for it presently infects the heart and vitall spirits Wherefore this common Ayre that serves us to live in and by help whereof we draw out and put in our breath must be carefully regarded And no lesse respect must be had in preservation of our health unto the winds that proceed and are diffused from the Ayre and that not onely in regard to an open and free Ayre that we are exposed unto but also in building of our Houses Observation in making our dores Galleries Porches Windows Dores and all prospects by which the Winds without may enter into our Chambers and Dining-rooms that we may be refreshed with wholesome blasts and great and unwholesome winds may not offend us Hippocrates counsel in the Plague Which Hippocrates carefully observed in the Plague-time that wasted almost all Asia and Greece and thereby he freed many thousands of them from it Also Marcus Varro when he was at Corcyra Varro's Counsel in the Plague-time and the sick people generally lay to sleep in all sorts of houses he caused them to stop up their Windows that looked toward the South and to make new ones looking to the North and to change their dores and by that means he secured his company and family So in the Low-Countries near the Sea because many Cities and Towns are exposed to the South and South-west Men are sick the greatest part of the year and subject to flegmatique defluxions To this belongs that of Victruvius In the Island of Lesbos there is a Town called Mytilene L. 1. chap. 5. built most sumptuously and bravely but not prudently scituated in which City when the South wind blows the men fall sick for that wind causeth corruption when the North-west that is neighbour to the South-west blows from the Western solstice men are subject to Coughs but when the North-wind blows they are well again Whereby it appears plainly that the unstable moving of the winds bring sicknesses to mens bodies and makes them have their health worse which if we could avoid and shut out every man would lesse fall into diseases or if by any cause a man do fall sick if you bar out ill winds he will recover the sooner Cardinal Winds are sour The Antients because there are four quarters of the world divided the winds into as many and Ovid elegantly described them Metam L. 1. The East wind went where first the morning Sun Doth shine the West where the Sun sets the North Invaded Scythia when they begun The Cloudy South from Southern parts came forth Others that thought to do it more exactly number twelve winds But in our dayes the Art of Navigation by reason of the vast and spacious circumference of the Ocean and the long voiages in the Mediterranean Sea hath found out thirty two winds The Marriners Compasse shews 32. winds and the Pilot and Steerman do continually behold them in Marriners Compasse and in the darkest and most tempestuous night they steer their course by it and come to their desired Haven And this compasse is no new invention for Plautus makes mention of it But do you think that it is lost Trinum act 4. scen 3. Take the compasse But Politick men that are not used to the Sea do not so much regard the number of the winds as the nature of them Of the Ayre and places For every man that would take care of his health by Hippocrates rule must observe the four quarters of the year and also cold and hot winds that we are exposed to The Ayre and winds change our bodies For the concourse of winds and Ayre have great force to preserve health and drive away diseases For not so much the bodies as the minds of men are changed by reason of the Ayre and winds The mind troubled by distemper of the Ayre So that men in health are otherwise affected when the Ayre is tempestuous and troubled and otherwise when the weather is calm and the sky clear otherwise when the West-wind blows otherwise when the South or South-west that not onely mens bodies are more active but their minds are more ready and more tractable all fullennesse and frowardnesse being cast off when the Ayre is pleasant and the calm gentle winds blow as in the Spring of the year But that all things may be done by rule I shall set down the conditions effects forces and Names of all the winds that are known both to learned and ignorant men Whereby every man may decline what seems to be hurtfull and may safely expose himself to such winds that seem to be healthfull and harmlesse The East-wind the High-dutch call it Oost The effect of the East wind that comes from the East the Italians Levante is most commonly wholesome and drives away sorrow of mind but it is cold in the morning before the Sun rise at noon when the Sun is Southward it is moderately warm we call it Luke-warm when our bodies are not troubled with over-great heat but saint with a mean heat that makes them to nauseat L. 1. Cor. Celsus and Ovid call it neither hot nor cold The cold North the Lukewarm South But at Midsummer when the Sun is hot the Eastern wind causeth heat and kindles yellow choller and from the inflammation thereof burning Feavers spring up But in the winter it is somewhat milder and not so sharp and cold as the North-wind The East-wind called Eurus is kind to the true East-wind The place of the East wind and effects and declines a little on the left hand towards the South it is called Eurus from Aura because when the Sun first riseth it causeth gentle blasts they commonly call it East South-East East South-East causeth the Plague sometimes for it is in that point of the world next to the East In Summer it is very hot and causeth burning Feavers And I have oft observed it in the Low-Countries that when any popular disease spreads as it doth when that wind blows it causeth Carbuncles and contagious swellings to rise in the groin and under the Arm-pits and the Measils and small Pox that boil forth to the outmost skin For this wind partaking of a warm beat namely some moisture being mingled with it it affords
choak the seed and Plants if they be not carefully pulled up by the roots Next to these is the North wind Italians call it Tramontano bending a little towards the East North North-East and North-East holds the middle place between the Summer or Solstitial Sun-rising But East North-East is environed by the North-East The nature of the Northern Wind. The North wind is by nature and effect cold and dry commonly clear yet sometimes rainy but it abates the violence of North-West and of vehement Southern winds For when they have raged as much as they can and are almost weary they commonly conclude in a North-wind so that presently the Ayre grows calm and the tempest ends wherefore the Inhabitants desire onely that those winds might be changed into this for if they turn toward the South the Tempest grows more raging and collects new forces whence it is that many great Ships and vessels are endangered The North and South winds cause Catarrhs by a diverse reason and almost in the very havens entrance and fall upon shelves and Quick-sands and fords where they are broken in pieces to the Merchants incredible damage and losse of his Merchandise Wherefore the North wind is not onely more healthfull than the North-West or South-West but also more calm and more mild in raising of tempests though in winter sometimes it be fierce and blow violently whence it causeth Catarrhs Pleuresies The North and South winds cause Catarrhs by a diverse reason Quinses but by a different reason from the South wind For when the South-wind blows the humours are melted and dissolve of themselves and so run from the head to the parts that are under it But when the North wind blows because the Muscles are thereby bound and so are the Membranes flegme is pressed forth as when we crush a sponge of water between our fingers A simile from pressing of a Sponge clinching our hand together to wring it our But what time soever of the year these winds blow they make the body cold they stop the pores they dissipate contagions of the Ayre and keeping in natural heat they help concoction The Southern winds by dissolving the frame of the body and affecting the limbs with faintnesse and idlenesse make men sleepy dull slothfull nauseating and unfit to perform any duties or function But the North winds as Hippocrates saith L. 3. Aph. make men active lightsome merry lively stirring and fit for all employments especially such as are of a more moist temper for they better fulfill the gifts and functions of Nature and all things proceed more healthfully with them as a moist state and condition of the Ayre is most wholesome for dry withered bodies South and North winds the chief in moving the Ayre For so they are the lesse chill'd with cold or burnt with heat Since therefore these two winds North and South and those that border upon them do constitute almost in all Europe the yearly changes I think that these two should be chiefly regarded For no wind through the whole course of the year blows more constantly For one of them having done blowing the other begins and keeps its station yet the other winds I spake of before keep their turns but they sooner leave off and give out Wherefore we must have respect to these two winds not onely for preservation of our health and driving away inconveniencies but when we undertake a voyage by Sea or land exposed to the open Ayre For I have found this by long experience that the North-wind rising in the night will not last long and stand nor keep that point for three dayes together which Aristotle confirms and Homer shews whil'st he taxed the errours of Ulisses The North Wind for three nights doth never blow When the North wind lasts not very long The reason is because it hath but a few exhalations and little plenty of matter for to subsist by and to blow longer For the motion and agitation of the Ayre that makes the wind and receives from it force and augmentation is feeble weak thin small that it wants forces by help whereof it might proceed and endure For as in diseases and Feavers A simile from the fit of an Ague the abundance of humours makes the disease longer and the fit more violent and lasting so a violent agitation of the Ayre and a frequent and thick concourse of exhalations and vapours that come forth of the earth exasperate the winds and make them both violent and long lasting A simile from the fires fuel And as the fire is presently put out where there wants dry iâ—â—l and wood to feed it So the North wind rising in a dark tempestuous night or about the twilight of the evening vanishâ—th presently and leaves its station and thence it is that experienced Marriners will not easily trust the North wind at the first rising and will attempt nothing till three dayes be over Pilots and Ship-Masters are most observant of the winds and yet they will trust the South wind the first day it riseth that it will continue and blow a long time and this the Italian Pilots and Masters of ships make a Proverb of The first South wind the third dayes North wind Andreas ab Aurea an expert Pilot. Andreas ab Aurea being addicted to that opinion who was Admiral of the Caesarian Fleet amongst the Genuenses gave this counsell to Charls the fist who was Emperour to take notice of that For when he intended an expedition into Africa and the Emperour thought at the first appearance of the North wind to go against the Morts Andreas ab Aurea his counsell to Charls the Emperour Andreas admonished them that the Galleys must not stir nor the Fleet adventure to Sea unlesse the North wind had continued blowing three daies but if the South wind blew to Launch forth presently at the first sight without any delay if all things were ready and the Navy fitted to set to sail for there was no fear that the South wind would presently give over and not last long being commonly supported by thick clouds and vapours and compassed with grosse darknesse that give hopes that it will be constant and continue a long time The North-East wind and its nature The North-East is next the East at very little distance on the right hand it is not so violent as the North wind or so loud nor is the cold so piercing and extream because it is nearer the Sun but it heaps and wraps up the Clouds How the North-East draws clouds and draws them to it because they being driven by meeting with some mountains or clouds they flye back again which I have oft observed in Rivers and flouds and flowing of the Ocean it self wherein the floud runs not in a constant channel but on both sides of the shores and banks it turns back and is retorted the course of it being diverted and turned on the right
provide for him a clean sty and wholesome food if you would have the meat of him to be wholesome for you to eat for if you feed this creature with husks and fat him with beastly food he will grow Measly and full of kernels and hard swellings so that his flesh will be unwholesome and naught and infectious to the whole body And this was the principal cause the Jews were forbidden to eat Hogs flesh Levit. 11. Deut. 14. and it was a great wickednesse for them to taste thereof But these hard swellings and kernells come chiefly about their necks because they are greedy and devouring and eat all things upon Dung-hills without making any difference By the name of Measils is meant that disease that pollutes the whole body with a foul matter What is the Measils iâ— Hogs because the flesh and inward parts are tainted with little white knots like hailstones For some kind of whitish swellings are in all parts scattered here and there and the certain tokens thereof are seen under the tongue when Hogheards put Irons into their mouths that they may try whether they be sound to be killed and cut forth for meat Those that have the Leprosy do shew forth some such matter in their faces and all their bodies for the pushes that break forth in the ourward skin grow white from melancholique burnt to ashes The flesh indeed of this creature when it is Measly is sweet and well relished to the taste but it is very unwholesome and next kind to the Leprosy Flesh that partakes of melancholly juice is savoury by reason of the mixture of melancholly juice So flesh next the bones is not unsavoury or of ill taste to the Palate because it partakes of Melancholly juice for bones are made of such juice and grow together of it But what the Leprosy and the French-Pox doth to a man the same doth the Measils and scrophulous tumours to a hog for these diseases are of kin and very near allyed one to the other their names onely are different but the matter is the same What Aetius saith of diseased Hogs as also Aetius the Physitian observed in his chapter de Elephantiasi Wherefore that men might suffer no hurt by the use of eating this unclean creature with us there is a wholesome Law provided by the Senate that no Sow nor Hog shall be killed unlesse his Tongue be first pulled forth and searched whether he be sick of this disease for if warty pushes shew themselves in his Tongue and Jaws and the veins are of a wan colour and blackish these are signs that the internalls are of an ill constitution and therefore it is thought fit not to kill them or if they be killed ignorantly that they must be buried under ground And if no such thing appear they that are appointed Judges of this businesse do pronounce that the Hog is sound and fit for to be eaten But because oft-times this creature may be faulty though he be sound in that respect Wherefore our Countrey people when they kill a Hog The brisly skin of the Hog is to be burnt cover him with straw and burn the hide rather than scald it with water For if there be any defect or ill matter under the skin the fire will draw forth the contagion and consume it which hot water cannot do so well and to purge away all filth This way are polluted Sows cured if the styes wherein they lye be daily made clean and that they may walk up and down in them For those that wander up and down in woods and Copses Hogs wandring in Woods are the most wholesome and feed on Acorns for the most part are more wholesome than those that use no exercise but are shut up in their styes for they are lesse exposed to diseases Moreover they must have abundance of water given them to wash themselves withall and some Salt mingled therewith and when they eat Barly or any solid meat Bay-berries bruised must be put thereto And that kind of shell-fish the Dutch call Mosselen whereof there are abundance on our shores and Sea-coasts Hogs are wonderfully refreshed with if you give them the decoction of them in great quantity Also the Lees and dregs of Wine and the feculent swillings that are left when the juice is pressed forth of the Grapes are a present remedy to expell this disease especially if Bran and the lump fermented commonly called Mout be mingled therewith But our country people neither take care of these creatures nor for the health of those that must eat them for they give their hogs the sowre corrupt Lees of Beer and Ale and stinking wash that is at the bottome of their Tubs and all filthy things as rotten and mouldy Apples and Pears whereby those kernels and Measils and inward contagion is not dissolved but rather increaseth and gathers force For all very sowr things Vineger naught for melancholly people sowr things good for Cholerick people by reason of their cooling and thickning force and because they compact and thicken the humours more and for cholerick people they are as much commended So Vineger will augment a quartan Ague but it appeaseth and corrects a Tertian because it tempers the heat of choler and as water allays Wine The low Dutch fat their Hoggs with fish In the Low-Countries some live where there is abundance of fish and water-Creatures and they feed their Hoggs with fish and as they will grow wonderfull fat with them so is their fat and flesh more flashy and not so firme yet with this food The eating 〈◊〉 Frogs for whâ—â—â— good Hoggs will grow great and tall yet the meat of these Hoggs is unwholsome and the tast very strange and loathsome I know that for men that are sick of the Leprosie that the eating often of Frogs that are in fens hath cured them for this water-Creature mitigates the heat of their blood and tempers the adust melancholly But those that creep on the ground and nest amongst shrubs and bushes and do not leap but goe slowly are venemous our men call these Padden but the Froggs that have green backs and white bellies Toads venemous are called Puyen oft Vorschen they use to cry in the Spring but Toads that creep make very little noyse They therefore that are active and leap frequently are proper for these diseases Things that have shels are healthfull for consumptions and to use them with Capon-broth is principally approved for lean decaid consumed hectick people as also the broth of Turtles which from the form of their shells are called Schelt Padden and crevis Lobsters Shrimps Sea Crabs Mussels Oysters Shell-fish Cockles and all those that have an outward crust do cool and asswage hot adust humours but River-Muscles and Crevish are more effectuall than Sea Shell-fish are River Crabs who good for because these are saltish whereby they cause appetite and please the palate but they dry more
that hectical people that is such as are lean and consumed dry for want of nutriment and old decayd decrepit people will dye when the tide goeth forth and the Moon is hid And the greater or lesse cause there is in the body of fullnesse or want of humours they dye the sooner or laâ—er So they that are swoln with water or have full and fat bodies if they lye sick of a dangerous disease that comes from fullnesse of humours they dye presently when the floods rise and the Moon is either new or in the full some when the waters are in the mid'st between both Sound people so well as sick feel the force of the Moon and others dye when it is full high water On the contrary dry bodies lean stravlings wan bloodlesse wasted people dye easily when the tide goeth out and the Moon hasteth to the West Some of them as they fail in strength dye about the middle of the tide others when the flood is gon and the Haven is empty And not onely sick mens bodies are affected with these externall causes but also those that are sound feel the forces of the Moon 's effects but the more any man declines from a sound temper the more is he subject to pains and to the change of the Ayre and of the Moon especially when in such bodies there are vicious humours So when the Moon is in the first quarter or when she is full and a cold wind blows the Muscles Membranes Nerves Pannicles tendons Wax stiff and being contracted and wrested they endure sharpe pains Thus much of the Moon 's force and efficacy and of the motion of the Sea which let no man think to be vain or old Wives Fables and so reject it for there is nothing more certain than this or more consonant to truth for experience confirms this and reason makes it good even in things inanimate and that want sense For the hairy skins of seal-Calves taken off The Nature of some skins in raysing up hair will grow stiffe and the haire will stand upright when the Sea comes in and when the Sea goes out they fall down againe and this Pliny speaks of We observe the like in some land Creatures that have four feet whereof most of them hunt for their food upon trees for Sabel and Ermins skins if they be layd in the bottom of a Chest and other Cloaths laid thick upon them after three days more or lesse they will come to the top especially the Sabel skins for that Creature being active and restlesse the like motion up and down almost remains in the skin taken off chiefly when it is pulled off the North wind blowing and it is exceeding cold and dry in Winter When skins must be taken off from living Creatures For if you take off any living Creatures skin in Summer as from Coneys Panthers Leopards Lynxes Hienas Cats Foxes Squirrils Weesils Ferrets Pole-Cats and many more of which we make coverings to use in Winter for the most part the hayrs fall off because the roots of them do not stick fast the skins being loose and the pores open hence it comes that Cloaths lined with such skins are sooner spoiled with Moths because they were taken off at an unseasonable time of the year Wherefore they do not wisely who in summer when the South-wind or South-West-wind blow lay forth their Mattresses Coverlids Hangings Tapistry and their best wearing apparel laid up for festival days and for bravery which St. Mathew calls marriage garments to be ayred in a Southern ayre Ch. 21. and not by the North-wind and expose them in a moyst season What will hinder Moths from breeding in Cloths For covers and skins and Cloaths grow hard in a cold dry time and become better because this way are Worms Moths and all Creatures that destroy Cloaths or that eat and wear them abolished and consume For cold and dry is good to preserve things and often shaking and beating of them to shake off all dust and filth from them And whatsoever is kept in Chests or Trunks and is never moved nor ventilated and ayr'd will stink and grow for did and musty and suffer wrong and be much worse continually Heat of the bed makes skins the worse Also they must not at night be laid upon ones bed for the sweat that comes from our warm bodies that are wet with it in the night when we sleep is sucked up by our Cloths and Garments that cover us so that being moystned by this warm exhalation coming forth they receive matter for corruption For hot and moyst is fit to breed filthy vermine What quality breeds Worms hence in Summer when the ayre is warm our Chambers Houses Parlours Dining-rooms Kitchins Chests Cellars Butteries In Summer houses and bodies are troubled with vermine Gardens abound with Snails Worms Wiglice Flyes Gnats Catterpillars Hornets Wasps Beetls and our bodies with Lice and Nits and Fleas which are lesse seen in Winter and do not trouble us so much Wherefore all those ruffe and hairy Beasts and such also as have a tender and soft skin whereof rich skins and coverings are made live rather in cold than in hot Countryes and thereupon their haire sheds the lesse because their skin is more contracted and their hide is more condensed and bound up by the cold so that it holds the hayr 's the faster that they will not soon fall off or flye away Zeland full of Conies So in Zealand in the very entrance all most of the Ocean there are abundance of Coneys to be seen wherewith all Brabant is furnished after the Winter solstice till the beginning of the Spring and there is no small number of Hares of an unusuall bignesse the flesh whereof is sweet and wholesome and as some ridiculously triflle will never take Salt But they run here and there in the small mountains and amongst the sandy hills some part whereof lies opposite to the North or Western Solstice not by Art but naturally so that by reason of the cold Ayre and drinesse of the sand they are most wholesome and very nimble far beyond those that are fed and fatted in coops Conies fed with mans bloud are not wholesome especially if they be fed with mans bloud as I have heard that some Chirurgions have done in divers Nations that when they opened a vein to bleed the sick they gave the bloud to such creatures and this will wonderfully feed them and fat them but they are unwholesome and hurtfull to eat Wherefore wild ones that run up and down as they list wandring here and there are the most wholesome to be eaten and their skins are thicker and their hair grows faster and closer to their hides CHAP. II. Of the Islands in Zeland and of the nature of people there and their Conditions Manners Original and what great benefits the land of this fruitfull Countrey affords to strangers in a short and clear description
in a silent night For since nothing hinders nor Woods nor Groves nor Mountaines nor Rocks as high as Heaven the noyse passeth on the plain of the Sea as in a wide Champion Land farr and broad and is scattered through the Ayre But when all night this miserable slaughter and destruction continued in the morning the Flemings past all hopes became subject to their enemies being killed and scattered by them In that battel were lost above 8000 Flemings and there were taken besides private Souldiers whose number is not easie to be had Guido Earl of Flanders Captivated Guido Dampetra Prince of Flanders and with him innumerable Lords of the Court their Ensignes were taken from them Skins Tents spoils and many rich booties and gallant things were recovered from them and with the Prince and Captives were brought into the City Warr is not rashly to be entred on and the great Fleet they had with all things so well appointed was either shattered to peices or burnt and what they had came all into the Enemies hands Wherefore the Flemings being afflicted with this memorable losse take Counsel to compose the businesse and to redeem their Captives Other mens Countries not to be invaded These things should teach Princes that are covetous of other mens Countries and long after their neighbours Lands that they should not raise Armes against such as live neere unto them where they have no just cause to make a Warr not sufficient reason to induce them to it And if there be a cause they were better first try all means and admitt of any conditions almost for peace than to take up the Sword But now the siege being raised at Zirizea and the Warr ended which fell out Anno Domini 1303 about the Ides of August which was St. Laurence day least so fierce a victory obtain'd after so bloody Warr after some yeares should be forgotten or slip out of the minds of the Citizens they decreed that solemn yearly thanksgiving should be rendred unto the immortal God and the Senate would have this continued year by year for perpetuall memory to shew how these things were done and how the City was delivered and this hath never been neglected by their posterity but also the young boys that frequent publick Schools What things fall amisse are somtime to be remembred and are traind up in learning keep this day holy-day and rest having leave allowed them for to play so is the remembrance of this deed delivered as it were by hand from one generation to another that each Citizen may know and hold fast in mind in what streights and danger of their lives their Ancestors were when they fought with all their might for religion and liberty for their Wives and dear Children and endeavour'd to serve their Prince to their utmost power In the mean while it affords especially this doctrine to posterity and they are warned of it by the yearly commemoration of it that when they are afflicted and in great danger they should lift up their Hearts unto the great and good God and seek for safety from him that their Countrey besieged may be releived that all things may prosper and that they may obtain the victory without shedding of blood which thing alone we read that Abraham Moses David Ezechias Judith and many more did and by these helps they wonn the victory But since the Scheld and Zirizea situate therein hath been often set upon by strangers and shaken with Warr Whence is the Island Suythvelandia so call'd and none of the Islands more than Suythvelandia which is so called onely because it is opposite to the South and stretcheth spatiously being a very pleasant Country toward the Coasts of Flanders and Brabant though some few years it sufferd damage Romersvalla a City and is become narrower than formerly by halfe From this a City of no small note call'd Romersvalla was broken off which having no Land about it The City Gows nor ground about the walls the Sea runs round it that it subsists alone by making of Salt In the Western part of the Island is the City Gows scituate the walls are but a very small compasse but it is pleasantly and handsomely built and the Citizens are very civil and of laudable manners There is besides this another Island joyns to Brabant only a small narrow Sea runs between Tole a City of Zeland Martin â—s City wherein stands Tole so called from the tribute and custome It is an antient little Town from whence the fortresse of Martin is not farr distant it is the free Town that belongs to the Prince of Orange a delightfull place set about with Trees wherein there builds a multitude of birds especially Herons There are besides these some small Islands of no great note as Duveland so called from the frequency of Pigions there Goerede from the good harbour for Ships Platessa and many more not long since won out of the Sea I think it needlesse to stay to describe them since a description of Zealand newly set forth doth exactly represent them all which the curious may look upon at their leasure The originall of the Zelanders As for the original of the Zealanders the report is constant and derived to the Inhabitants by succession that they are derived from the Goths and Vandals especially from that Island of Norway Zeland in Denmark Hafnia Coopmans Haven which the Danes call Zealand wherein there stands that famous place for Merchandice called Hafnia commonly Coopmans-Haven from a Haven much frequented by Merchants who first found this Land void of Inhabitants and reduced it into Islands and first setting up Cottages and small places made it fit for pasture and arable Land Zeland belongs to Holland For in Caesar's time there was a great part of this land which is no other but an Appendix to Holland that is untill'd nor ever was it ploughed to sow upon or dug but full of Lakes and arms of the Sea that hinders it as even to this day Holland hath many Lakes so that the way by land is cut off every where by them and men must passe in boats Aestuaria what which is also used in Zeland in the places overflowed which are nothing else but places without and within the shores that are exposed to the Sea's flouds For when the Mediterranean Sea runs into them they are full of water so that in the Winter there is no foot passage and there is no going to those places but by boats But the ground beyond the ramparts that for many acres far and wide goes as far as the creeks and Sea-coasts is heaped up by the washing of the water and is beaten upon with continual floud and sometimes when the Ocean swels as it doth at the full or new of the Moon it is all overflowed and when the Sea falls back again it comes forth that the places which are somewhat high bear very good pasture to feed cattel
the City of Zirizea abounds exceedingly well with all things which are usefull and commodious for mans life and no lesse than when it was famous for negotiations with strangers and frequented with goers and commers of all sides For the concourse and merchandise of forraigners and celebrity of a place may sometimes be lost suddenly either by the rising of some war from without or seditions at home or popular tumults for presently all strangers withdraw themselves and take care for their own safety But that negotiation that is performed amongst the Citizens and Inhabitants shutting out all usury and traffique in a compendious way made with strangers or the Inhabitants and is a liberal gain is stable firm solid and not so much subject to envy But if calamity come from some other place then the Citizens and natives Mediocrity of felicity is commendable stand firm and undaunted and do not easily forsake their Country their Churches their houses wives and dear children nor do they go away yeild what they have to strangers to enjoy Yet the men of Zirizea All things are governed by divine providence in so great mutation of humane things and change from one to another which is all wrought by Gods providence seem wisely to have consulted for their own profit and to have exchanged uncertain things for certain For their people being most skilfull Marriners when their trading at Sea did not succeed very well in forraign commodities they altered their course of Trade and began to fall to fishing which is a very great gain and hurts no body and here they fear no shipwrack nor losse of traffique no disgrace for usury or increase upon money and the rest of the Citizens follow saving wayes of gain such as are honest and envied by none out of those things that the earth yeilds abundantly for mans use wherewith they recreate themselves liberally besides a laudable education they provide a very large patrimony for their children and leave them an inheritance to preserve their Parents names by But that strangers may understand in what part of the earth and under what climate the City Zirizea is and under what elevation of the Pole I took the height of the Pole-artick or North-Pole above Zirizea's Horizon and I found the elevation to be 51. degrees 47. Minutes and that was the altitude of that verticall point the longitude is 25. degrees whence it comes that since the Sun is not far from them and departs not very far from the Island but doth moderately shine upon them in the two Equinoctials and two Solstices the Inhabitants by the benefit of the Sun have no dull and stupid wits but they are witty civill merry yet many of them by the reason of the Sea that hath its influence upon them will speak very scurrilous crabbed and brinish language sometimes of which subject I lately held a pleasant discourse with Job Nicolais a discreet man and industrious who carefully labours for the publick good and doth what he can to promote it and desireth that the Citizens should be men of sound and good manners and if they have contracted any fault by the Salt vapours of the Sea that are so near to them that it might be mended with good education CHAP. III. How comes it that such as are old men or far in years do beget children not so strong and oft times such as are froward and of a sad and sowre Countenance and such as are seldome merry THey that marry when their age declines and their youthly heat is abated for the most part beget sorrowfull children and such as are froward sad not amiable silent and of a sowre and frowning countenance Youth is full of juyce because they are not so hot in the act of venery or so lusty as young people that are full of juice For the heat of our age is fittest for to act this Comedy Old men being feeble their spirits small and their body dry and exhausted of bloody humours the natural faculties are weak and that force that comes from them to beget a child is uneffectuall and invalid having very small ability so that they cannot perform the marriage duty so manfully and there wants many things in those they do beget Which is intimated in that dispute that the Angel is said to have had with Esdras Esdras 4. Ask saith he thy Mother and she will tell thee why those she bears now are not like those she bore before thee but are lesse in stature and she will say unto thee that the rest were conceived and born when she was young but these when the Womb decayed hence it is that such as are born in old age are slender small weak Why some are not so strong feeble not tall and have not so much strength because natures forces are decayed with age and the natural and vitall spirits are diminished Why some are dejected in mind whence also the mind is more dejected is not so nimble lively merry and jocant because these have obtain'd all things sparingly and not so largely unlesse perhaps their Parents were pleasing and merry and moderately heated with wine when they were begot For sometimes old people wil shew themselves young and lascivious together to be so wel pleased that in the spring they wil one embrace the other A Proverb from Horses that are worn out For that time of the year serves for Horses also that are decaid and worn out as the Proverb saith for to make them neigh whereby the Hollanders mean that there are none so old but at that pleasant time of the year when nature puts forth all her forces but they will shew some tokens of a mind raised also whereby it falls out that if a woman thus chance to conceive when they are merry The affects of Parents go to the Children after nine months she will bring forth a mild beautifull pleasant flourishing lively generous active Child And if their Parents in their young years were of a clowdy and impleasing disposition as many froward people be when they get their Children all falls to the worst all those affections and tumults that use to arise amongst married people and all their distempers will be derived to their Children so that neither the conception nor time the woman goes with Child nor her delivery not nutrition can be performed decently and according to Natures order and the Children contract many ertours and faults of bodies and mindes from the disturbed motions of their minds of all which the fault is to be imputed to the parents who were the cause and seed plot of all these imperfections of nature The faults of Children to be imputed to the Parents Wherefore such as would take the best care for their Childrens good and would have them tractable and pleasant and sweet of behaviour must take especiall care for this that in matrimoniall embracements all things may be moderately performed that nothing happen
parts of this member and order of the small bones wherewith the hands should be clinched or opened were hid and folded up within We call this Stompen Hence I pronounced that that errour and fault of nature proceeded from this that that force and faculty of nature which should be employed in forming the Child and strives to perfect a man in all his parts was hindred by some imped iment that it could not make the joynts compleat and frame them handsomely as a hand should bee for the Mother being subject to the hardnesse of the Spleen and female Children inclining to that side that is the left side from the affection of that part on which those parts leaned as against a hard Rock they became so ill shapen and deformed CHAP. VIII Whether Shirts Sheets Coverings Linnen ought to be changed when men lye sick of Feavors and whether it be sit presently to shave the Beard and cut the Hayre of such as are newly rocovered of diseases also in what diseases it is good to wash the feet IF at any time in contagious and pestilent diseases Carbuncles or Bubo's and other Eruptions or Pushes shew themselves in the outward parts of the body as they use to do somtimes eminent like Warts sometimes flat and plain as the humour is thick or thin sometimes lead colour'd wan black yellow green divers colours which are the worst sometimes red fresh white which are the best and safest â—ll which kinds differences we see in the Smal-Pox Measils in all thâ—se kinds of Blisters Whence Spots come to be of divers colour I advise men to shift their Sheers Blaâ—kets Pillows Coverlids Beds Shirts to lay on fresh to hang their foul chothes that are taken from their bodies in the Ayre to be ventilared whereby the contagion and ill vapours that the Coverings are tainted with from the body infected may be taken off For since many foul and pernicious vapours as smoke come out of such bodies which the clothes that the sick is covered withall draw to them it will be that the sick must needs suck in the Ayre round about them and be infected again every moment with a new contagion for he roles in his corruption as a Sow wallows in the mire In the increase of the disease nothing to be changed which I would have to be observed thus farr when the disease abates and begins to mend and the Concoction and Crisis be past that is when certain and undoubted signes of health shew themselves which signifie that the forces of the body are masters of the disease and that but a few reliques of the disease remain within for then Sheets or Shirts hung in the Sun or before a good fire should be laid under those that are upon recovery or else I bid one of the Servants whose body is well to weare them for two days on his back or else to lay them in his bed to keep them warm and they may not differ from the heat of a mans body least the change might bring some inconvenience to the sick or exasperate the disease in any part for by this reason or rather errour the party that was almost recovered may fall to a relaps Wherefore both to those and to others that are sick of lighter diseases I command severely that the disease may forthwith come to the height and the fit may be lessened at first that they be not unquiet tossing and tumbling nor any way expose themselves to the cold Ayre as there are some Tossing of the body ill for thâ— ficst who in doubtfull and dangerous diseases will lye with their Armes stretched forth and their legs displayed and tosse themselves up and down and so drive back sweat Pushes Impostmes Swellings and tumours and other collections in the body that would break forth For the cold Ayre coming to the body stops all their course drives them back and will not suffer them to ripen but hear and her fomentations Fire draws forth sweat and contagion open the Pores and passages and make way for the filthy vapours to come forth that they may be discussed wherefore I think they do well who first being infected and taken in a contagious Ayre set themselves close to a good fire that they may all run down with sweat yet not beyond their strength or that they should faint by it but that at the same time their body being purged downward and their belly cleansed they may take such things inwardly which shall expell and discusse the venome they have first drawn in before it get root and hath lay'd fast hold of the body and possess it selfe of the heart and principall parts for the mischiefe makes haste to do that A simile from a City besieged As they that lay siege to a City do first assault the Castles and Forts and Commander of the place for the rest will yeild presently and submit when therefore the body begins to be affected with a dangerous and dubious disease if the matter require the opening of a Vein or purging let that be done in time so that at first and before that the belly be purged then open a vein Let puâ—ging bâ— befâ—â—e blood letting then give cordialls to corroborate the Heart and the vitall parts as Theriack and Mithridate with Wine or syrup of Fumiterry Epithime Violets or some other liquor that the nature of the body requires or a skillfull Physitian shall think fit wherein it is fit he should be wonderfull clear-sighted that he misse not the mark But for a decoction the present remedies are Germander that smells like Garlick it grows plentifull in Zealand Marigolds that cause sweat Balm Figs red Onyons the root of Spondylion that is like to Angelica and Master wort in forces Amongst which the root of Zedoary is singular that is not rotten of no valew lost and without smell so it be swallowed with Raysins or Currance or some Liquorish and so chew'd and swallowed For thus they may preserve and defend themselves What things preserve from the Plague and cure it Such as must go to the diseased In a contagious disease sweat must be driven forth who are forced to go to those that are infected with a pestilent disease to comfort them and raise up their hopes for what is better and make them be of good confidence as Ministers of the Church Physitians Chyrurgions Midwives In case of such Eruptions of tumours which it is best to be sent forth be times I think it not fit at the beginning to strew the Chambers or floores with Vine leaves Sedge White-Thorn Roses Myrtils Willow Poplar green Grasse or to sprinkle Vinegar or Water in them unlesse they faint by too much sweating for such things will make the humours fall back and thicken the skin and passages of the body When the Chambers must be strewed with boughs which should rather be opened that the contagious vapours of the body may come out which is
understanding and reason and judgement and upon every small occasion she casts off the bridle of reason Why a woman grows angry suddenly and like a mad dogg forgetting all decency and her selfe without choice she sets uppon all be they known or unknown If any man desires a naturall reason for it I answer him thus that a womans flesh is loose soft and tender so that the choler being kindled presently spreads all the body over and causeth a sudden boyling of the blood about the heart A simile from things on fire A woman is soon hot soon cold For as fire soonest takes hold of light straw and makes a great flame but it is soon at an end and quiet so a woman is quickly angry and flaming hot and rageth strangely but this rage and crying out is soon abated and grows calm in a body that is not so strong and valiant Why a woman will cry when she is angry What men are more subject to weep and that is more moyst and all her heat and fury is quenched by her shedding of teares as if you should throw water upon fire to put it out Which we see also in some effeminate men whose magnanimity and fiercenesse ends almost as Childrens do in weeping when the adversary doth strongly oppose himselfe against them If any man would more neerely have the cause of this thing explain'd Whence do women become furious and desires a more exact reason I can find no neerer cause that can be imagined than the venim and collection of humours that she every month heaps together and purgeth forth by the course of the Moon For when she chanceth to be anry as she will presently be all that sink of humours being stirred fumeth and runs through the body so that the Heart and Brain are affected with the smoky vapours of it and the Spirits both vitall and animal that serve those parts are inflamed and thence it is that women stirred up especially the younger women for the elder that are past childing are more quiet and calme Old women lesse â—â—gry because their terms are ended will bark and brawle like mad doggs and clap their hands and behave themselves very unseemly in their actions and speeches and reason being but weak in them and their judgement feeble and their mind not well order'd they are sharply enraged and cannot rule their passions And the baser any woman is in that sex the more she scolds and rails and is unplacable in her anger hence the vulgar woman and Whores for Noble women and Gentle women will usually observe a decorum though oft times they will be silent and bend their brows and scarse vouchsafe to give their husbands an answer the Dutch call it Proncken because their Bodies are commonly polluted with faulty humours are full of impudence joyn'd with equall malice as if the Divell drove them and they cannot be perswaded by counsell reason shame flattery admonition that will ordinarily make wild beasts quiet and you cannot hold them from their cruelty or make them forbear their mad and lowd exclamations They see not right nor good nor just Terent. Heaut Scen. 1. Act. 4. What may help or hurt them their lust Doth govern all So forgetting themselves they despise their faith honour chastity fame honesty reputation and hazard all To which may be applyed that enquiry of Solomon concerning mans condition Eccles 7. I applyed my heart to know and to search and to seek out wisdome and the reason of things and to know the wickednesse of folly and of foolishnesse and madnesse and I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets and her hands as bands I have laboured to this hour to find a good and cordiall woman and could find none one man amongst a thousand have I found but a woman amongst all those have I not found A good woman is rare Pro. 36. And that enquiry in the Proverbs is not much different from this Who can find a vertuous or good woman as if he should say you shall not easily in any Country no not in the remotest parts of the earth or any corners of it find an honest and well manner'd woman and if by chance you should light upon her Solomons place explained she may be equal'd with the most precious Jewells and no Merchandise be they never so costly can be compared to her But because I have fall'n upon this argument and have begun to examine the condition of women I shall by the way clear the meaning of those words of Solomon the wisest Eccles 25. The iniquity of a man is better than a woman doing good I interpret that sentence thus That a man The wise Hebrew his sentence interpreted be he never so sluggish idle unskillfull and rude in merchandise will do his businesse better than a headlong and rash woman that undertakes any thing with a vain perswasion of wisdome and inconsiderate confidence and thereupon doth all things more uprightly than a woman doth For a man distrusting himselfe doth by leasure and circumspectly all his actions using other mens help that he calls to counsell with him so that the successe is more happy than when the same things are performed by an arrogant woman that is puffed up with a proud opinion of her own wisdome as they commonly are For such a womans endeavours commonly run to the worst and are unsuccessefull A Dutch Proverb against women why a woman is not so ingenious which the Dutch commonly signifie by this Proverb Het quaeste van Een man is better dan het beste van een vrouwe that is If any thing be done and brought to perfection by a woman it deserves lesse praise than what is but yet rude and imperfect begun by a man namely by reason of a woman's want of mind and counsell her dullnesse and blockishnesse for want of naturall heat and because their languishing mind is soked into great moysture so that the faculties of their souls come forth more slowly and are not so fit for action and to do noble things The Roman Law concerning women Wherefore the Romans who took great care to order and to confirm the Common-wealth would have women as Tully saith Pro Murena to be under Guardians by reason of the infirmity of their natures and to bear no civill office Also St. Paul who with indefatigable labour instructed mens minds in the sound faith St. Pauls precept concerning Women and diligently informs us what is godlinesse commands silence unto women in publick solemnities in the Congregation by reason of the impotency of their minds 1 Cor. 14. and want of moderation in their affections and will not suffer a woman to preach or to aske a question in publick meetings or to be present in voting or to give her opinion concerning it Since therefore so great is the frailty and weaknesse and imperfection of womens nature Platoes
XVIII To what we ought to ascribe amongst such multitudes of men the great dissimilitude of forme and the manifold difference that is between man and man in their faces countenances eyes and other parts so that sometimes Brothers and Sisters are not one like the other AS there is in Nature a wonderful gracious variety so there is the same in the form and shapes of men in their colours contenance eyes lineaments and in their faces there is found an admitable and numberlesse disparity and dissimilitude To What must be ascribed dissimilitude in men Some refer this to the influence of the Starrs but I think to referr it more properly and rationally to the nature of the Seed and the Mothers Imagination For being that the woman in the very conception and all the time she goes with Child The Womans imagination doth many things even for nine months hath divers thoughts in her mind and every moment is drawn this way and that way by thinking on divers things and her eyes being still fixed upon such objects she lights upon it falls out that those things she sees and are fastest rivered in her imagination are communicated to her Child For when the Nature of the woman is carefully intent in framing the Infant and thinks on nothing but a fair and well proportioned Child and all her forces are bent thereunto if any shape or Image be represented to the sight this soon reflects upon the of-spring who participates of it Moreover Mothers so soon as the Child is born do the best they can that the Child may have a decent comely well proportioned body fitly distinguished in all the parts of it The faults of Nature may be amended For Childrens bodies are ductile and pliable as Clay or Wax and may be bended any way Wherefore if the mouth stand awry and is uncomely they forge frame and order it into a decent posture and if the face be frowning and lowring they will make it pleasant and amiable and beautifull they make the eyes very handsome and lovely and of gray eyes or blunket which Infants commonly have by reason of moysture they make them black by abundantly feeding them with milk and chiefly if the Nurse be of a hot temper and the Child be kept in a dark place For a light Chamber where the Sun shines in much or a great fire hurts the render eyes But squint rolling gogle eyes and such as turn the wrong way That the balls of the eyes may grow black are reduced to their right posture by bending the sight the contrary way for the Muscles will be brought to their naturall places by wresting them to the otherside and being turned about will come right they raise and set eaven the nostrills that are crooked and fall down by a gentle way of handling them but they reduce Eagle noses and such as are with beck by pressing them down to a decent figure that the perpendicular of the nose may be stretched forth from the forehead and eybrows unto the hollow part in the upper-lip like a gnomon or right line or style that stands upon Sun Dialls What forme of Nose is comely neither set on bending outward or inward Likewise if the lips be swoln or fat which is usuall with the Aethiopians as also if the nose that is crooked be pressed down they handle these artificially and they often presse them that they may grow lesse and sink down lower by the same way they frame into a comely fashion a chin that sticks out or is drawn in the forehead head cheeks or eybrows that are deformed and decently order by art what is not seemly So if nature limp on any part and is gon off from the best forme and proportion Whence comes deformity of the body as some have wry necks crooked gowty ill favourd legs or bunch backs that makes them ugly all these errours are easily mended in those that are Children and such members as are wrested or disjoynted or out of their places are for right by the care and industry of man So the diligent care of Nurses makes Children grow up handsomely and so are obnoxious to no deformities of their limbs But the negligence of many Mothers and great idlenesse makes Children not onely to grow up unhandsomely and ill favour'dly but they become bunch-backr lame squint eye'd bull-headed and not comely to look on for they are departed from the dignity and excellency that is in man's body Some Nurses are over diligent and too officious who bestow some labour also on the Childrens privy parts that serve them them to make water with and in time shall be usefull for propagation of Children that they may be ripe betimes and not fail of hopes of getting Children and when they come to be marryed they may not be a shamed for ill performing the matrimoniall duty when they observe bitter contentions and quarrels to arise amongst kindred for this very cause that they will threaten to divorce their Sons in Law unlesse they can shew their manhood and please their wives the better yet I use to dislike and discommend this effeminate and lascivious office used by Nurses for young youths by reason of pulling them thus by their yards before their time or that they come to be of age or have mans strength they are prone to venery and so consume those helps and vent out those humours and vitall spirits wherewith afterwards they might be able to procreate lusty and lively Children whereas by unseasonable venery The discommodities of untimly venery they either get no Children or if they beget any they are lither and not so long lived Therefore I think it is good not to let young people marry too soon untill their forces bestrong and confirmed and that they can endure any hardnesse in matrimoniall society which tender years cannot do for they will presently wax faint and effeminate It is then better that the secret parts should swell out of their own accord naturally than that they should be drawn forth by any allurements CHAP. XIX Many kinds of Animals Fishes Birds Insects are bred without Seed as also Pants and many Animals and small Birds by an unusall way without the copulation of Male and Female do conceive DAily examples shew that many things come forth and are propagated by nature of their own accord and withovt any embracings of others or generation onely from filth corruption as Dormice Rats Snails Shell-fish Carterpillers Grass-Worms Wasps Hornets Weevils Froggs Moths Toads Eels Many things breed from corruption In mens bodies Worms though these have seed within them whereby afterwards they propagate abundantly Also many plants grow forth from the muddy moysture of the earth and fatnesse of it no seed being sowed or plants set in the ground before as are Darnel Cockle Nettles wild Olives Weeds and grasse that spring up of themselves Also there are some Crows in the Low-Countries that conceive by their
in moving the mind and in raising or stilling the motions of Conscience So Marriners Souldiers Porters Carriers Hucksters Victuallers Hosts Bankers Usurers Bauds and many Factors and petty Merchants Brokers Shopkeepers and Tradesmen are not much moved with any motion of conscience that they have made it large enough and it is become like wide nets that let all things through straining at a Gnat as our Saviour Christ saith and swallowing down a Camell A simile from Nets Math. 23. Others that are addicted to a solitary and melancholique life are too much troubled about it and tremble for fear when there is no cause of fear So the force of Conscience drives superstitious people farther than they ought to go and they will not be quit of their vain perswasions So melancholique people are more anxious than other men but cholerique people by reason of the thinnesse of humours and heat make no regard of conscience and they either cast it off or extenuate it or strive to forget it Sanguine people are not much affected with any such motion in their souls nor do they ever think of their life past Job 15. To this belongs that of Job Thou writest bitter things against me and thou wilt consume me with the sins of my youth ' Jobes place is explained For those things that we did insolently in our youth and were not much perplexed with them the same will in times of diseases calamities danger or old age An clegant simile from such as are oppressed by usury come fresh to our memory like to accounts that are crossed and blotted out Like to those that have borrowed great sums of other mens moneys and have quite forgotten to pay are called upon for it and compelled by Law to make all good But Phlegmatique people are slow sluggish forgetfull carelesse nor do they ever think what conscience is nor doth their mind ever wax hot or can they be stirred up by any meanes to think of goodnesse as being drown'd in too much moysture Wicked men who are sunk into the deep and who are strangers from the word and knowledge of God depise laugh and jeare at all Psa 1. Some between both will palliat excuse deny or charge their faults upon others which thing David prays against and desires not to fall into that sinne Psa 140. Incline not my heart to malitious words that I should excuse my selfe in my sinns Wherefore many things hinder the light of conscience and overshadow it as youth drunkennesse gluttony intemperance love night delights pleasures all which cast off the bridle of conscience shame and modesty so Plautus writes Night Amor. L. 1. Eleg. 6. Woman Wine are most pernicious things For young men and that most destruction brings Ovid is of the same opinion Night Love and Wine all moderation fly Night knows no shame Wine and Love fear defie For these Counsellors are not safe and carry the mind the wrong way Youth neglects conscience and turn us from harkning to good counsell and advice and if Conscience sting wound any of thes and would draw any such people to what is good they contemne neglect deride it cavill and cast a Cloud upon all things they aggravate or extenuate and lay it upon their youthfull yeares that must be spent jovially and without melancholly and that all sad thoughts must be driven far from them and laid aside for old age to think on Thus rejecting the documents of reason and avoiding the instruction of conscience with mirth Eccle. 11. they frame all their thoughts rather by the rule of pleasure than the square of moderation Whence Solomon speaks to the purpose Youth void of counsell Youth is vain rash slippery inconstant mad thoughtlesse improvident inconsiderate and the pleasures that use to accompany it are transitory and soon gon sometimes they are damnable and have a lamentable and miserable event But because commonly the companions of this age are ignorance want of experience want of counsell inconsideration therefore it lesse apprehends what is good for it and may make it prosperous Also some there are that are at their full age who have the government of the Commonwealth and are to take care for the Church and Religion whose consciences are blinded with errour and darknesse so that oft times they do not measure all things out exactly and by rule or call reason into Counsell Men are not led by conscience but by their passions with Judgment and election of things or performe what they do by the right rule of Gods Word and Spirit but oft times either humane passions drive them or else the favour and gratifying of Princes prevails with them which we read that Paul did or else some errour of setling some inveterate superstition or an old vitious custome that is crept in not by the consent and authority of good men but by the misunderstanding of the ignorant common people Old errours are hardly left yet as if it were a rule for men to walk by no man will suffer to be taken away or abolished whence it comes to passe that in the choice of things in the difference of good and bad in setting up and restoring and propagating true Religion and the worship of God they are blind and deceived and wander from the truth John 16. to the great detriment of conscience So the Jews were perswaded that they did God good service when they raged against those that had given up their names unto Christ Paul was stirred up with the same violence and desire to punish the Christians and he persecuted them fiercely Acts. 9. with a zeal of godlinesse but which was wrapt up in errour and as he saith being an Apostle was not according to knowledge Rom. 10. that is it was not done with judgment or reason and with a right unstanding of the cause as Gamaliel did Acts 5. not first knowing and observing what the will of God is not by the instigation and inspiration of the the spirit of God which he will have to be tried and examined by the expresse word of God 1 Joh. 4. whether it proceed from thence Wherefore there is errour committed in the choice of religion not by an affection and propension to godlinesse because they wanted the Spirit of God who puts into mens minds things that are certain and out of all doubt So the wise man saith There is a way seems good unto a man but the last end thereof Prov. 24. tends unto death Paul shews us an example of it who of a persecutour was made a Preacher and a defender and maintainer of the Gospell of Christ who professeth that he obtained mercy 1 Tim. 1. because he did it ignorantly through unbeleife and that thereby in him Christ Jesus had shew'd all clemency to be an example to those that should believe in him unto eternall life Some perchance may say that I have used too many
whereby even in the Low-Countries some Witches and cunning Women do mischief to their neighbours heards and flocks of Cattel Witchcraft is hurtfull and rob them of their milk and butter by the help of the Divel spoyling their Corn and Wine and destroying them Also they take strength from men and as if they were gelded they make them weak and feeble for the Marriage bed of which some strong brawny men have complained to me and that they were become Eunuchs and unable to their great disgrace and losse to their Wives to whom I strove to afford help and to give them amulers applying to them such hearbs that in such cases are present remedies by the gift of God Now for a man to toil his wits in such enchantments is not onely unnecessary and idle but also dangerous and destructive For by laws of God and man they are to be punished with death and tied to a post Deuter. 28. they are to be burnt who exercise any wicked Arts by the help of the wicked spirits But how inchantments may be driven away and repelled I shall shew at the end of the Book where I shall speak of the Majesty of the name Jesus lest we should here interrupt the order and series of this treaty CHAP. XXI We must not lesse take care for our Minds than for our bodies We must adorn both minds and bodies BUt since man is made of Soul and body we must with all providence take care for the safety of them both The Soul is the principal part in man and the body is the house of the Soul We use most the command of the Soul A simile from domestick affairs and the service of the body therefore we must not be slothfull in the consideration of them both For if we be so carefull that our houses stand not in boggy and marish lands that there be no rifts nor open places for the rain and winds to come in and that our cloathes be not mouldy and for want of ayring come not to be eaten by flyes and mothes how much more need have we to look to our bodies the vices whereof will affect the Soul also by consent and law of company and they converse together in all things For Horace Our bodies Faults do fasten on our mind The Soul divine is thus made earthy kind To which agrees that of the Wise man The corruptible body presseth down the Soul and the mind that meditates on many things Wherefore we must take some care of our body upon whose props as Pliny faith the Soul stands Saint Paul observed that who forbad Timothy to use water any longer and prescribed unto him the use of Wine 3 Tim. 5. to comfort his stomach and to make him more cheerful in the propagation of the Gospel For the body being in a sound condition can better serve the Soul and hinders not nor burdens the mind when it is employed in the contemplation of high things But in the first place we ought to take care for out mind and to adorn that which is no way better performed than by a firm and stable confidence in God which raiseth a man into a most certain hope of immortality and takes out of our minds all dread and fear of death And as meat is nutriment for the body The Souls food so is Gods word the food and nourishment of our Souls whereby alone we conceive peace and tranquillity in our minds than which there is nothing more to be desired and sought for in this life But even the external habit of the body shews what disquietnesse and anguish of heart there is and what tortures wicked men endure in their minds The wicked are unquiet For wickednesse is such a revenger of it self that what mind it hath once fastned on it will never suffer it to be at quiet but continually holds it upon the rack with perturbations which Esaias expressed by an elegant similitude taken from the waves of the Sea Esay 57. The heart of the wicked is as the troubled Sea whose waters cast up mire and dirt That is the minds of those men who are stain'd and polluted with sins and wickednesse are tumultuous troublesome Naughty affections hurt the mind and unquiet For what man can take pleasure in his life or enjoy a quiet mind who carrieth a body about with him that is soiled with most foul faults and a Soul polluted with obscene vices wherefore since great part of misery comes from the vicious affects of the mind we must by all means abstain from them that the body may receive no hurt thereby With the like care and industry must the body be freed from diseases least any blemish or contagion might be conveied from the body to the Soul For being that ill and vitious humours communicate ill fumes to the brain Ill humours cloud the mind they drive and provoke the mind to many mischiefs CHAP. XXII How we must help the body that it may subsist in perfect health Frugality is profitable FRugality and temperance in diet defends health and drives off diseases using moderation in those things that are necessary to confirm health and to cause strength Galen calls these conserving causes because they are fit to conserve the habit of the body Art Med. 83. so we use them well and opportunely Things that bring strength The modern Physitians call them things not-natural not that they are besides nature but because being set without the body and are not within us as the humours by use and effect they affect nature and the faculties thereof with some inconvenience if they be employed amisse and not duely as they ought to be Of this kind is the Ayre that is about us meats and drinks sleeping and waking repletion and inanition affections and motions of the mind all of which mans body requires for the preservation and defence thereof But because the principal part of health consists in a sound diet we must diligently observe in that what is good or hurtfull to the body And since gluttony is no lesse loathsome than it is pernicious and hurtfull to the body we must take in so much meat and drink as will serve natures necessity and that the forces of the body may be fed and not oppressed Moderate diet is profitable for students Moderate diet is profitable and necessary in all occupations of study and managing of great affairs to endure watchings in labour and in performing publick duties For it is this that keeps health perfect it makes the spirits both animal and vitall that are ascribed to the brain and heart to be cheerfull and ready so that what a man conceives in his mind he can readily effect and bring to passe without any trouble But daily examples prove that by luxury and intemperance of life diseases are brought on our studies are hindred all honest cogitations fail we cannot proceed in our lucubrations the
that is get a man a good name and to be well esteemed if there be any vertue if there be any praise think on these things that is if there be any thing in vertue that is praise-worthy lay it to your heart and continually remember and think upon it set such things alwaies before your eyes fasten them deeply in your minds and strive with all the force you have to attain thereto and to expresse the same in your lives and manners and the God of peace shall be with you For as the same Apostle speaks Rom. 8. All shall turn to the best for them who love God that is they shall have a good end CHAP. XXXIX Philautia that is a blind love of a mans self must be laid aside and an empty perswasion of knowledge The opinion of Learning must be abolished ouâ— of our minds SInce too sudden an opinion of learning doth not a little hurt to our studies and hinders us in the progresse of them care must be had that nor in humane learning or any Art which thou purposest to attain unto thou conceive such an opinion in thy mind that thou shouldest think that thou hast already obtained it when as thou art far from it and many things are yet unknown to thee and not examined and proved Now there are many who are such lovers of themselves who flatter and applaud themselves for their learning and think that they want nothing to be perfect in knowledg and piety and that they are come to the end of the race when as they have scarce come half way Hence it is that many famous wits designed for highest matters never come to the top Which Fabius finding to be true L. 1. c. 2. he chiefly required this of such as professe themselves to be so that they should either be so indeed or not think themselves to be so Unskillsfull Schoolmasters For there is nothing worse than those men who being got but a little beyond the first Elements of Learning take up a false perswasion of knowledge CHAP. XL. We must make a choice and difference of our friends and familiar companions We must choose our friends DO not rashly make choice of all to be thy familiar friends without choosing or making any difference but choose those who are of a tryed vertue and known honesty and integrity of life The Proverb warns us of it That we do not give the right hand to every man A Proverb taken from dancing Which the Dutch render thus Siet wie ghy bijden hand neempt See whom you take by the hand the similitude being taken from dancing and leaping together For young men when they go to dance will not take every one by the hand but they use to consider amongst maids who are rusticks and who of a gentile bloud which also is chiefly to be observed in the society of our lives and in contracting of friendship For some that are unskilfull in humane affairs and cannot discern false friends from true admit all men even those they never had trial of into their most secret famililiarity which afterwards they find to be false impostors and deceivers Wherefore as you ought to shew your self faithfull to all We must not trust every body so you must rashly trust none unlesse as the Proverb goes you have eaten a Bushel of Salt with him that is you have known him long and had great conversation with him and whose manners and conditions are well tried and understood by thee To which may be applyed that of the Wise Hebrew Commit not thy secrets to a stranger Eccius 2. for you know not what he may bring forth that is what monstrous mind he hath in him Discover not thy intents to every man lest he return thee evil for good Friendship should be immortal and shall afterwards reproach thee But the levity and inconstancy of men is the cause that the covenants of friendship cannot be perpetual and many for this reason are perswaded that friends must be so conversed with as if sometime they might become our enemies also we must so exercise quarrels and hatreds toward our enemies as if in time all enmity being laid aside they might be made our friends L. 12. So Martial deters men from too much familiarity with any If thou wouldest avoid great care And griefs of mind that biting are Be not too much a friend with any Thy joyes and griefs won't be so many Let enmity be mortal Yet their opinion is not contrary to reason or to mans nature who think that quarrels and enmities ought to be mortal but friendship which consists in a faithful consent of mind and will ought to be immortal For they cannor avoid the crime of levity and inconstancy who rashly suffer the bands of friendship to be dissolved Wherefore Cicero is of opinion that such friendships as are not to our minds ought by degrees to be unloosed and not to be cut assunder violently CHAP. XLI Do not rashly become surety for any man DO not inconsiderately and suddenly become surety for any man For there is danger in suretiship It is dangerous to be a surety he that puts himself in trust for another exposeth himself to hazard For if the other sail the surety must stand good and he must pay what he promised for the other Prov. 6. Solomon forbids suretiship Wherefore Solomon deters his Son from being easily entreated to be any mans surety My Son if thou hast promised for thy friend thou hast stricken hands with a stranger thou art ensnared and taken in the words of thy lips and art held by thy own speeches wherefore make haste to be delivered from the hand of thy neighbour Yet that must not be observed too rigidly since in most urgent causes we must pleasure our friends and such as we are bound to by the law of nature and them we must gratify and sometimes expose our goods and credit and our lives also to defend them yet so that no man forsake what is right for their sake nor do any thing contrary to honesty even as the Proverb admonisheth We must observe our friend How far we must observe our friend but that is onely as far as to the Altar that is we must not passe the laws of Religion for it is noâ— lawfull to observe our friend to the damage of our own Conscience or wrong done to Religion CHAP. XLII Flatterers which the Dutch commonly call Pluymstrijckers must be avoided A flatterer is dangerous SInce the Art of cogging and flattering or rather craftinesse which consists in an artificial enticing by words may easily catch a simple man I give thee warning that thou let not thy Ears be open to flatterers and not to suffer thy self to be deluded by their enchanting and fair speeches By these marks shall you discern between a true and faithfull friend The difference betwixt a friend and a flatterer Prov.
their sharp taste they are very good for a nauseating and qualmish Palate David speaks of this plant who in many places brings very apt similitudes to perswade in the point of Religion fetched handsomely from natures works Before saith he Psal 57. your Thorns be grown and become hard as white Thorn the Lord shall break you and take you away and shall make you melt as a Snail A place of David explained and an abortive child Whereby he describes the factions and deeds of wicked men shewing that their Tyranny threats power endeavours and undertakings shall all come to nothing and shall never do the hurt they intended taking a comparison from the Buckthorn that when it is grown up is full of hurtful prickles but in the spring it is tender soft tractable and not so hurtfull Now there are in these Sea-coasts many shrubby plants whereof some growing far from the shore yet receive the Sea Ayre though they be never wet with Sea-water others are moistned by the Sea coming in when the Ocean over-flows as it useth to do in winter at the full or new of the Moon hence it is that all Sea plants are of a wan colour Sea hearbs are ill colour'd and hoary and not so beautifull as Garden plants are nor so gracefull to sight yet some of them transplanted and made tame by cultivation become more beautifull and grow and flourish more delightfully We see the like in Coblers Bakers that stand by the Oven A simile from sordid Artificers Colliars Black-Smiths Gold-Smiths that are gilders which is performed by Quicksilver and in those that forge Pewter Brasse Copper Lead all these are discovered by their Countenance Some works change a mans colour and have not their natural colour but that which is accidental by reason of the vapours and fumes that fly about them so that some of them are Box-colour'd Weesil-colour'd wan like half burnt Brick brown smoky but should these men use some other trade and forsaking their vulgar calling should live as gentlemen they would soon look of another hue far more comely and beautifully and their whole body as well as their faces would be more gracefull to look upon though some of them would allwaies carry some marks of their old vocations that they were before used to and this we observe in Country-maids and men that chance to rise to great fortunes that they commonly will discover something of their former rural and servile life Laevinus Lemnius a Physitian of Zirizee CONCERNING Natures Dignity and Excellence The Fourth Book CHAP. I. Of the force and effect of the Moon by whose motion the Sea is driven and what useth to happen to men that are dying or desperately sick when they are in their agony and are beginning to dye by the flowing and ebbing of the Sea and motion of the Moon whose forces such as live near the Sea perceive more effectually than other men I Shewed before what power this Planet had Gen. 1. which was ordaind to give light by night and is nearer to us and more familiar than the other stars whose force works upon the bodies of Animals and stirs the humours But since it is wonderfull effectual not onely in raising The force of the Moon what diseases it sharpneth and moving of Tempests and inundations of the Sea but in causing and sharpning diseases namely the Apoplex Lethargy Astonishment Epilepsie Palsey Dropsy Catarhs and flegmatique distillations I shall speak a little more accurately concerning the nature of it and the rather because the Inhabitants of the Low-Countries do more strongly feel the force of it by living so near to the Sea than others do that live farther from it for these being so near and when the Moon sets in the West are so nearly shined upon by her and no woods or Mountains keep her from them do manifestly perceive the power of the Moon and are more abundantly moistned by the moist beams of it For as Pliny saith The Moon is a feminine soft and nocturnal light that moves humours L. 2. c. 100. but it draws none as the Sun doth but fills all things with a moist vapour and makes them swell whence it is that such as dwell in moist and cold countries are full of Flegme and excrements and are subject to coughs hoarsnesse Poses and to many other defluxions and Catarhs especially such as are idle Idle persons subject to catarhs Idlâ— people subject to the Moons effects and sit much and seldome labour or exercise upon whom by reason of abundance of humours the Moon doth more forcibly shew her strength So that these above other men are exposed to her motions and effects For Porters Seamen Carriers Husbandmen and many more that labour much and who by native heat augmented and rowsed do consume superfluities if there be any are lesse subject to the inconveniencies of this Star and do not greatly feel the force of it Yet that I may discover what I have proved and observed by long experience I will shew what force the God of nature who makes all things for our use hath given to the Moon besides that clear light she borrows from the Sun to give light to mortals in the night time Moreover I will shew by the way what increase she gives to Shel-fish Oysters Cockles Plants L. 1. Hist c. 98. Corn-Trees Pliny from Aristotle maintains that in the French Seas no living creature dieth but when the Tide goes forth which opinion as I dare not contentiously contradict or disallow yet I do testify to all men that all things do not exactly answer that opinion since I have seen some by the motion and aspect of the Moon when the Sea was coming in to dye but most men when the Sea goes out For in the low Countries those that live by the Sea as I have proved it use to dye after a diverse manner according as the humours abound in them Fat people are in danger when the Sea flows For some by the course of the Moon by whose motion the Sea is driven when the waters flow others when they ebb either recover or dye the humours and Spirits being either tossed or quieted by the motion and aspect of this Starr So in denouncing the Crisis that is in giving judgment of life and death upon all those that I observed to be troubled with diseases from fullnesse of humours or with inflammation of the Lungs Pleuresie Quinseys Apoplexies Lethargies and Flegmatick diseases and Dropsies whose bodies do swell and the moysture chokes them I pronounce that when the Moon is at the full and when the tide comes in those persons will dye or else the most of them according to the condition and nature of the disease will suffer some manifest alteration by sudden breaking forth of sweat or blood or evacuation and flux of humours that abound in some part Dry bodies dye when the Sea goes out then I give my judgment