their Originall It is demanded saith he whether Noahs sonnes or rather Adams of whom all Mankind came begot any of those Monstrous Men and he concludes that whatsoever he begot that is Man that is a Mortall reasonable Creature be his forme Voyce or whatever never so different from any ordinarie mans no Faithfull Person ought to doubt that he is of Adams Progeny yet is the Power of Nature shewn and strangely shewn in such God made all and when or how he would forme this or that he knowes best having the perfect skill how to Beautifie the Universe by opposition and diversity of parts but he that cannot contemplate the Beauty of the whole stumbles at the deformity of the part and not knowing the Congruence that it hath with the whole Yet God forbid that any one should be so besotted as to think the Maker erred in these Mens Fabrick though we know not why he made them thus be the diversity never so great he knowes what he doth and none must reprehend him therefore what Nations so e're have shapes differing from that which is in most Men and seem to be exorbitant from the Common forme if they be definable to be reasonable Creatures and Mortall they must bee acknowleged for Adams Issue But St. Austin here speaks more like a Divine then a Philosopher for although the supreame efficient and supernaturall cause of Monsters is God and that when Nature seems to deflect from the common Law established shee is rapt by a Divine force and there is aliquid Divini in the peculiar cause of these transfigurations of the Humane forme and that the finall cause of these prodigious apparitions may be the anger of God who is no way bound to the Law of Nature and who in revenge for some crime committed may transforme a Man as he did Nebuchadnezzar or give over a self-deformed Nation to the vanitie of their own inventions yet it sounds very harsh to the principles of our Philosophie that the God of Nature should be so glorified by such strange apparances that evill and imperfect Creatures should concurre to the perfection of the universe since they have no reference to the Beauty of the World because the Beauty of the universe consists in things perfect and permanent and Monsters quatenus Monsters being nothing but defects and privations can contribute no perfection and so consequently appertaine not to the Beauty of the universe if they did conferr any ornament they should for the most part be produced because the great decorum of the World is sustained by frequent effects but Monsters happen rarely and therefore they ought to be segregated from the Ornaments of the World and if they had come to light to adorne the World they had from the beginning of the World appeared which we read of no where How this Monstrous alienation from the Humane Form was first introduced and continued is not so easie to conjecture St Augustine de civit Dei St Augustine thinks that the same reason may be given for these deformed Nations as there is for those Monstrous productions of Men which sometimes happen among us of which kind of prodigious productions there are many records wherein Nature seems to have upbraided Mans invention and to retaliate his affectations Anno Dom. 1525 at Wittenberg an Infant was borne without a Head Anno 1554 In Misnia an Infant was born without a Head Fincelius de mirac nostri temporis the Effigies of Eyes expressed in his Breast Anno Domini 1562 in the Calends of November at Villafranc in Vasconia a Monster was borne a Female Acephalon the Pourtraiture of which headlesse Monster Fontanus who religiously affirmed that he had seen it having communicated to Johannes Altinus the Physitian Schenchius de monst capit he presented it to Paraeus when he was writing his Commentarie of Monsters Paraeus lib. 24. cap. 6. And reason may perswade us that it is not impossible for it may happen by the constitution of the Climate that the Neck may not be allowed to be eminently advanced above the Shoulders and yet the instruments of Nature may performe their Office in a nearer approach of the Neck unto the Body Kornmannus lib. 1. de vivorum miraculis which is the opinion of Kornmannus But for my own part I much suspect some villanous Artifice and affectation to have been concurrent causes of this non-appearance of the Head and some fantasticall dislike of the Naturall distance between the Head and the Body by the interposition of the Neck which hath been the humour of some other Nations who have in a manner no Neck as appears in this Scene and in the fifteen and sixteenth of this our practicall Metamorphosis where you shall find this very Nation described as if they affected to have their Shoulders higher then their Heads And Sr Walter Rawleigh saith their Heads appeare not above their Shoulders And I conceive that they are not so much headlesse as that their Heads by some Violent and constant Artifice are pressed down between their Shoulders and affecting to have their Shoulders higher then their Heads the Scapula's by the constant endeavour of their Levators grown to a habit hath drowned the Head in the Breast the Head being crowded too close to the Shoulders and as it were growing to them the Neck is quite lost and the Eies seem planted as upon the Shoulders and the Mouth in the Breast a shadow of which resemblance we may sometimes see in very croked short neck'd Men. And consequently all the uses of the Neck in point of circumspection are quite lost by this Artifice and the Donation of Nature therein is made void for they cannot with ease turne their Head about to and fro every way to looke about them the Spondyles or turning round Bones tied and fastened one unto another by joynts and knots cannot possible in this posture accomplish their Motions But this charge and evidence I give in only against them by way of presumption you Gentlemen Readers of the Jury may give up your Verdict according to your judgments and either find Billa Vera or returne Ignoramus Sr. John Mandevils Travels cap. 83. Beyond the Land of Cathay there is a Wildernesse wherein are many wild Men with Hornes on their Heads very hideous and speake not but rout as Swine That men should be so cornuted or have horns grow on their Heads is a thing neither impossible nor incredible for many have been Borne cornuted Amat Lusit cent cur 51. Amatus Lusitanus speaks of a Boy Borne with a little horne on his Head Lycost Chron de prod stent Ann. 1233 In Rathstade a Town in the Norican Alpes which the Inhabitants call Taurus there was an Infant Borne cornuted Jacobus Fincelius de miraculis Anno 1551 in a Village of Marchias call'd Dammenuvald neer Whitstock a Country Mans Wife brought forth a Monster with such a horned Head Among the Subalpians in Quierus
harder and parted with none or few sutures by which temper of their climates and their concurring Artifice they obtaine indeed a notable defence against outward injuries more then the ordinary provision of Nature doth affoord but thereby they become more obnoxious to internall injuries to wit to those diseases which arise from the retention of fuliginous vapours and their thick skuls may render them more indocile and oblivious as the Indians of Hispancola are noted to be Celsus therefore is mistaken where he affirmes their Heads to become thereby more firme and safe from pain but he more derogates from the justice and Wisdome of Nature when he affirmes that the fewer sutures there be the health of the Head is more thereby accommodated both which opinions of Celsus Fallopius very moderately expounds by way of distinction saying Gabr. Fallopius comment in lib. Gal. de Offibus that his opinion is partly true and partly false for if you understand him of those affections that have pain from an internall cause then it is so farr that their Heads should not ake that they rather ake since there are found many affections which arise from vapours and smoak retained but if we understand it of those griefs which may arise from long abode under the Sun or from the coldnesse of the ambient Aire his opinion is most true because since there are no sutures there can be no transpiration of externall aire hot or cold therefore he must be understood of paines which proceed from an extrinsique cause But the other part of his opinion is not to be endured of those who tender the reputation and honour of Nature For Reald. Columb Anat. lib. 1. cap. 5. Columbus from many most certaine arguments drawn from experience and dissections made upon the skuls of many men and which is more strange and scarce credible some Women who have died of incurable Head-aches have been assured finding in their skuls small sutures and those conjoyned close together that their paines have been occasioned from that too close composition of bones and hath hence tooke a just occasion to right Nature by this honourable conclusion That the sutures of the Head doe not only conferre to the defence of the Bodies health but do conferr more unto it by how much the greater and looser they shall be Wherefore saith he I could never approve of the opinion of Cornelius Celsus asserting that Heads without sutures are not only most strong and firme but also free from all manner of griefs such as are to be found in hot and scorching Regions for he only takes notice of causes hurting the Head from without sure if the saying of Celsus were true those Heads should be weaker and more apt to suffer which had remarkable sutures then those which had small or no sutures at all But since it is otherwise and the Braine is more apt to be damnified by internall suliginous recrements then outward injuries we must conclude that those Heads which have more ample sutures are far safer from paine then those that are destitute of them or are intersected with small and very close ones SCENE II. Bald pates Certaine Fashions of Haire affected by divers Nations and their opinions and practise about Haire-rites most derogatory to the Honour of Nature THe Arymphaei who dwell near the Ryphaean Mountaines Ravisius ex Herodoto esteem Haire upon the Head to be a very great shame and reproach and therefore they affect baldnesse and are so from their nativity both men women The Arnupheae as Pliny reports be all shorne and shaven Pliny lib. 6. for both Men and Women count it a shame to have haire on their Heads The Argippaei Jo Bohemus de ritibus gent. lib. 2. that live under the roots of the high mountains in Scythia are bald from their Nativity both Men and Women Lindschoten lib 1. cap. 26. The Japonians account it for a great Beauty to have no Haire wh ch with great care they do pluck out only have a bunch of Haire on the Crown of their Heads which they tye together Grimstone of their manners Another saith some of them pull away their Haire before and others behind and the peasants and meaner sort of People have halfe the Head bald the Nobility and Gentry have few Haires behind and if any one touch them that are left they hold it for a great offence Sr. John Mandevils Travels cap. 54. In the Land of Lombe wher groweth good Wine and Women drinke Wine and Men none the Women shave their Heads and not Men. That the Haire should be as these Nations conceive a most abject excrement an unprofitable burthen and a most unnecessary and uncomely covering and that Nature did never intend that excrement for an Ornament is a piece of Ignorance or rather malicious impiety against Nature How great an Ornament the Haire is to the Head appears by the deformity is introduced by baldnesse If the Haire were an excrement it should be shut quite out of the Body but this remaines in and they have many different accidents of which they ought to give a finall cause and not to tie them to the necessity of matter which is supposed one end of their production Neither doe they proceed from the fuliginous excrements of the Braine as some are pleased to think but rather as Spigelius well notes of Blood attracted by the root of the Haire unto the rest of the Plant and Trunck which may be procured from those things which in other Creatures hold analogy with the Haires of Man And therefore when the Braine is consumed baldnesse ensues the allowed plenty of blood exhausted The Naturall use of Haire to wit that from whence Haires and wherewith the Braine and the circumstant parts are nourished The prime end therefore of the Haire of the Head is to defend the skin the second use is to defend the Braine from injuries from without or from within From without there may happen to fall upon it Aire Raine Haile from within Vapours exhaling from the inferior parts may prove troublesome The Aire may hurt the Head many waies by coldnesse constipating the Pores of the skin whence the regresse of Vapours is exhibited by heat whence the Spirits are dissipated and the Braine as it were sod by moistnesse relaxing the internall parts by drinesse astringing all and consuming the innate humiditie against all these inconveniences which the foolish malice of these Men bring upon their Heads the Haire by covering the Head doth very aptly bring reliefe Raine moistens Haile smites on it the density of the Haire keeps off one the other the ductus or course of the Haire turns away for the thicknesse of the Haire admits not easily of Raine and the turnings of the Haire doe straightway cast off the Haile that fals upon the Head In like manner they abate the force of internall Contingencies for they affoord a passage to Vapours elevated from the
and cartilaginious are easily wrested and drawn out of their naturall scituation which afterwards by degrees harden into an excrescence which he had observed in many Hereupon becomming crook-backt and lame the naturall proportion of the body is depraved and the body made incommensurate for whereas a measure taken from the Crown of mans head to the sole of his foot should answer to the distance between the middle finger of his right hand to the middle finger of his left hand when the Armes are stretched out to the full length this proportion cannot be observed in crook-backt men and hence they are justly accounted unproportioned The providence that is to be used in the swathing of Infants is a thing of high concernment and therefore there cannot be too much said thereof Take therefore what Mercatus hath of this matter Cautions in ordering Infants This saith he ought alwaies to be the care of Nurses Mercat de Infant Educat l. 1. that when they swathe their Children they endeavour to touch and handle every part of their body gently and carefully to divide that lightly which is to be divided and to extend that which is to be extended and depresse that which is to be depressed and to fashion every part according to the innate and more comly proportion of each part yet they must do it with a tender compression and with the very ends of their fingers too But swath-bands being provided for that purpose for the right ordering of the structure of the body if there be need they must gently and softly revoake and rectifie the members but if they be formed according to Nature they ought in no wise inconsiderately to touch them because oftentimes they fall into worse condition through the carelesnesse of those that handle them and for that cause they must not only be very carefull to swathe their Children but also in laying of them down when they are swathed lest some part should chance to remain awry or ill figured They must also gently squeese the bladder that they may the more easily make water Moreover the hands and armes are to be extended to the knees They must lightly bring the feet on both sides backward to the back and before to the head that they may learne to bend every part which ought to be bent yet they ought not to remaine setled upon the belly lest they prejudice the Entralls neither againe ought they to hold them with their face downwards untill they are swathed all over For it is better first to compose the swathbands that being laid they may receive the Infant upon his back yet they must observe this caution lest in swathing them a leg or an arme the backe or the neck be by any meanes distorted Our Custome of swathing children condemned they ought to cleane the Nose and to wipe the eyes with a gentle linnen cloath and thus after they have suckt sufficiently to lull them asleep by very gentle motions of the Cradle for by violent rockings the Epilepsie ariseth And it is better from the third month that they should be carried and in the Nurses armes lull'd asleep also you must take heed that you bind them not too strictly for that oftentimes is the cause of gibbosity and crookednesse neither therefore ought they to be too loose because their members are wont to lose the naturall figure and acquire that which in the relaxed space can be acquired Moreover we ought not to permit them forthwith nor in the Summer time to have their armes at liberty before the space of three months and in the Winter not before foure yet the right hand must for some few daies be first taken out that thereby they may become right-handed indeed their hands are weakned and their fingers for the most part are depraved with crookednesse Also after nine months you may suffer them to put on shooes about which time they will be able to trample on the ground and to hold themselves upright and that they may do twice or thrice in a day and afterwards compell them by little and little and by degrees to go by steps so that by that labour you do not very much enforce them but gently untill they attaining more strength desire it of themselves and may without harme endure it We in England are noted to have a most perverse custome of swathing Children and streightning their Breasts Which narrownesse of Breast occasioned by hard and strict swadling them is the cause of many inconveniences and dangerous consequences For all the bones of new-borne Infants The naturall proportion of the Breasts especially the Ribs of the Breast are very tender and flexible that you may draw them to what figure you please which when they are too strictly swathed with Bands reduce the Breast to so narrow a scantling as is apt to endanger not only the health but the life of Children For hence it is that the greatest part of us are so subject to a Consumption and distillations which shorten our daies and bring us to an untimely Grave For they who have more streight and narrow Breasts are necessarily made opportune to spitting of bloud distillations and the inflamations of the parts of the Breast since the Lungs in such grow very hot for when the rest of the body retaines its proportion and due magnitude and the Breast is made narrower more bloud is collected about the Breast than it can digest or expell from it selfe whence neasting in those cavities especially of the Arterious veines or veine-Arterie degenerates into the causes of many diseases Moreover the Breast it selfe corrected is very much weakned whereupon the bloud flowing thither hotter or sticking there becoming sharpe doth easily erode the vessels neither is Nature now able to defend her selfe any longer The Breast hath an Ovall figure in its naturall magnitude it doth make eight Geometricall inches to wit that which begins at the throat-bone and is terminated in the sword-like cartilage the Back from the first Vertebra of the Breast to the end of the twelfth or reaching to the beginning of the first of the Loines obtaines a Geometricall foot and one inch So that the Breast is shorter than the Back by five Inches the sides run out from the Clavicula to the end of the Breast where the Bastard-Ribs end and have nine inches and a halfe the Perepheria of the Breast is two Geometricall foot and two Inches Swathing a cause of the Rickets If you render your breadth it is narrowed an Inch If you take it in it is dilated two Inches this is the naturall proportion Now when either by Nature or this foolish violence of Art the Breast by compressing is made narrower and unproportioned the Scapulae usually appeare prominent and they become such as Hipocrates calls Alatos and by that figure obnoxious to a Phtysique the back-bone not only being hurt and they made gibbous but the Lungs thereupon cannot preserve their figure the best prescription
Back-bone being very tender soft and moist at that age cannot stay it straite and strongly but being pliant easily permits the Spondels to slip awry inwards outwards or sidewise as they are thrust or forced Causes of Crookednesse And in another place speaking of dislocations or luxations and the causes of Bunch-backs and saddle-backs and crooked ness he saith that fluid and soft bodies such as childrens usually are very subject to generate the internall cause of these mischiefes Defluxions But if externall occasions shall concur with these internall causes the Vertebra will sooner be dislocated Thus Nurses whilst they too streightly lace the Breasts and sides of Girles so to make them slender cause the Breast-bone to cast it selfe forwards or backwards or else the one shoulder to be bigger or fuller the other more spare and leane And if this happen in Infancy the Ribâ— grow little or nothing in Breadth but run outwards before therefore the Chest loseth its naturall Latitude and stands out with a sharpe point hence they become Astmatick the Lungs and Muscles which serve for breathing being pressed together and streightned and that they may the easier breathe they are forced to hold up their heads whence also they seeme to have great Threats and their bodies use unto grow at the Spine and the parts belonging to the Breast and Back become more slender neither is it any wonder for seeing the Veines Arteries and Nerves are not in their places the spirits do neither freely nor the alimentary juyces plenteously flow by these streightned passages whence leannesse must needs ensue The the same errour is committed if they lay Children more frequently along upon their sides than upon their backs or if taking them up when they wake they take them only by the feet or legs and never put their other hand under their backs never so much as thinking that Children grow most towards the Heads And I would to God the vanity and indiscreetnes of Mothers in their Institution Children unborne how disfigured and precise exercise of their Laws and Customes in this matter did only take effect when they endeavour it on set purpose after the Birth of their Children and that their inconsideration and imprudency did not unwittingly many times deprave their Children even whilest they embrace them in the wombe Not to mention those impressions of deformity which depend upon Imagination frights fals or blows and evill Diet from whence much mischiefe many times proceeds to the disfiguring of the Child yet unborne To the causes of mans transformation are justly referred the undecent Session or the ill collocation of the mother in sitting or lying or any other posture of her body during the time she goes with child For hereupon not only the body of the mother but of the Child inclosed in the wombe is perverted and distorted Wherefore they who all the time of their going with Child either sit idle at home or with their legs acrosse or with bodies bowed towards their knees sew or spin or employ themselves in some other action or more streightly constringe their Bellies with long bellied and straight-laced Garments Busks Rollers or Breeches bring forth Children awry or stiffnecked bowed crooked crump-shouldered distorted in their hands feet and all their Limbs because the Child can neither move freely nor commodiously extend his members What should they do with others If they had better they would spoile them Spigelius More cautious and better advised are the Venetian Dames who never lace themselves accounting it an excellency in beauty to be round and full bodied to attaine which comely fulnesse they use all the Art possible and if they be not corpulent by Nature Round and full Bodies affected nor can be really brought to it by Art will yet counterfeit such a Habit of body by the bumbasticall dissimulation of their Garments Purch Pilgr 2. lib. 6. The Egyptian Moorish women discreetly affect the same liberty of Nature who spread their Armes under their Robes to make them shew more corpulent for they thinke it a speciall excellency to be fat and most of them are so in frequenting the Baines for certaine daies together using such frictions and Diet as daily use confirmeth for effectuall And indeed as my Lord Bacon noteth Lord Bacons nat hist cent 9. Frictions make the parts more fleshy and full as we see both in men and in the currying of Horses c. the cause is for that they draw greater quantity of spirits and bloud to the parts And againe because they draw the Aliment more forcibly from within And againe because they relax the Pores and so make better passage for the spirits bloud and aliment Lastly because they dissipate and digest an inutile or excrementitious moisture which lyeth in the flesh all which help assimulation Frictions also do more fill and impinguate the Body than exercise The cause is for that in Frictions the inward parts are at rest How to make a body fleshy and full which in exercise are beaten many times too much and for the same reason Galley-slaves are fat and fleshy because they stir the Limbs more and the inward parts lesse SCENE XXI A modest Apology Strange inventive Contradictions against Nature practically maintained by divers Nations in the ordering of their privy-Privy-parts AFter our Historicall peregrination to discover the use and abuse of Parts being arrived at this place in the Tract of a practicall Metamorphosis I could not see how I should answer it to Nature if I had silently passed by the abuses that have been put upon her in these parts for had I given way to such an unseasonable modesty my designe had proved lame and a great part of my end and aime frustrated it being to make a thorough discovery not only of the pragmaticall vanity of man but of the raging malice of the enemy of mankind who labours to deforme and destroy the worke of Nature while after most wonderfull and strange waies he exerciseth prophane and wicked men by the law of his Tyranny to which he hath enslaved them The cause of frequent Transformations who in the first place hath laid snares for the parts of Generation there being no other part be so deadly hates not only endeavouring as Peucerus rightly notes to encrease the penalty inflicted by God upon Nature but to hinder the propagation of the remaining impression of the Image of the Archetype in man and debar his restitution which is one reason that is given by the learned Bauhinus of the cause of mans so frequent Transformation Bauhin lib. deâ— Hermoph I but some may say this might have been an obstacle to reveale the veile of Nature to prophane her mysteries for a little curious skill pride to ensnare mens minds by sensuall expressions seemeth a thing lyable to heavy constructions But what is this as one saith apollogyzing for himselfe in such a businesse but to arraigne Vertue at the bar of
Porphirius saith that over the Land of Sicilie there happened a great Eclipse Rabbi Moses partic 24 Aphorism and that Yeare the VVomen of that Region brought forth deformed Sonns having two Heads Lycost lib. prodig Anno Domini 1104 there were monstrous Births brought forth Cattell and Men Borne with two Heads Aventinus lib. 5 Annal. Bojorum After Clement the third was driven out of the City among other prodigies there were also Monstrous Births Men Borne with two Heads But wee must know above all things that these apparitions that be contrarie to Nature happen not without the providence of Almighty God but for the punishing and admonishing of Men these things by his just judgment are often permitted not but that Man hath a great hand in these monstrosities for inordinate Lust is drawn in as a Cause of these Events whereby the seed of Man is made weak and unperfect whence the productions thereof must necessarily prove weake and imperfect for from a precedent defect in the seed it is a conseqence that the issue must be defective and on the contrarie if the seed be superfluous out of a superfluous a superfluous is begot as any one may easily collect Amongst the rest Sennertus speaking of the vitious Figures of the Head thinks that all Heads which recede from the Naturall Figure are by Galen generally called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so they are not onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which have capita fastigiata copt-crown'd or acuminate Heads but also those in whom either the fore or hinder or both the emminencies are wanting or jet out more then is meet so that Heads onely backward Phoxi or forward or upward may appeare sharp towards the top For either the Synciput or anterior part of the skull is more emminent then it should be the hinder part of the Head on the other side as it were vanishing away and not extuberant or else the hinder part of the Head is prominent and neither the Anterior nor Posterior eminency protuberates and if it be not depressed on the sides it exhibits as it were a perfect Spheare and if it be depressed in the Temples the Head may run out in the top or crown and be acuminate Hofman saith Hofman Inst med lib. 3. that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the Greeks are those who want the fore and hinder eminency of the Head called in Dutch Spitzkoepf the same also are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he knows not how to call them in Latine yet he will describe them Qui acuminato sunt capite And therefore though Fallopius will have all those who have a preternaturall Figure of the Head to be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Galen and that therefore it ought not to be rendered acutum or acuminatum but depravatum that it might be rightly opposed unto the Naturall Yet Hofmannus is for the first version Hofman comment de usu part for since 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the confession of Fallopius himself is opposed to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word which Galen useth to expresse the very Naturall Figure of the Head who sees not saith he that the Head ceaseth to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 oblongum and thereby to be made acute or acuminate when either or both the Eminencies perish and if Galen extend the word more largely to those who have the Eminencies protuberating beyond the Naturall proportion The Heads true Figure that ought not to evert the proper signification received of all Authors therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is properly he who hath an acuminate Head such a one as he thinks the Latines call Chilonem Bauhin Anat. lib. 3. and which Bauhinus accounts for a fifth Figure of the Head contrived by Art But it appears plainly that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to wit sphera oblonga not prolonga as some interpret it which Galen seems to point to as it were with the Finger where he cals it spheram quasi compressam which you must conceive about the Eares and the Temples is the onely Naturall Figure of the Head which when Columbus denies affirming all Figures of the Head to be equally Naturall he doth nothing for this is Naturall which is for the most part which also is most commodious to the Actions of Nature But such is the Figure which Galen out of Hippocrates sayes does constitute the Naturall Figure a spheare not every where equall but such a one as hath cavities and Eminencies For the best Figure of the Head which is Naturall is assimilated to a spheare gently compressed on each side and which is in the Temples after a manner plaine but in the fore-part and hinder part is more prominent then in a Spheare yet it more protuterates in this then that in the Crown it observes the convexity of a Spheare they therefore who chance to have such a Head with a decent magnitude they enjoy a vigorous alacritie of senses and are endowed with a good strength of Body But why this laterall compression should be the most proper and Naturall Figure of the Head that the fore-part and hinder parts thereby are made more gibbous and the finall cause thereof ought to be enquired Avicens opinion is Avicen that although the skull be round yet it is oblong made in length because the originall of the Nerves are disposed from the Brain in longitude and therefore it was fit they should not be streightned and it hath two Eminencies one before and another behinde that the Nerves might descend which descend to the front and the Nucha Zonardus well notes that the Head hath such a Globous roundnesse Zonardus which on both sides is somwhat plaine in the Anterior part it is somewhat acute and elevated and that to retaine the Ventricle of the Braine in the fore-deck of the Head out of which the Nerves which cause the five Senses proceed and after the same manner it is a little elevated in the hinder part for the reception of the Ventricle in the sterne or hinder deck from whence the spondible Marrow and the Nerves which procure voluntary motion arise Hugo Senensis saith Hugo Senensis this manner of compression was contrived for the better distinguishing of the places from whence it was opportune the Nerves should arise which would not have been well distinguished if the Head had been exactly round Secondly because the former and hinder Ventricle ought to have a greater cavity then the middle and because the middle Ventricle ought to be a way from one to the rest therefore it was necessary that the Anterior and Posterior parts should have an Eminency Archangelus Picholomenus thinks Pichol praelect Anat. lib. 5. the Braine is lightly depressed on each side and a little exporrected in length for the foremost Ventricles sake made hollow in it which appeares to be oblong to whose hinder part the third Ventricle adheares and to the third the
is confessed the temperature of the aire doth very much availe to that purpose and therefore we may allow our Children in Winter-time to be diligently involved and bound up with swath-bands in their Cradles because otherwise they are unfit to endure the Cold of our Climate but in Summer and temperate seasons of the yeare especially when there is no frosty weather with others good leave saith a learned Physitian I should thinke as much as I can attaine by experience that Infants are to be freed from these bands and set at liberty some kind of Couch invented for that purpose out of which they cannot fall and verily saith he I am of that mind that the extraordinary heat doth not a little incommodate wherewith Children in the time of Summer revinct with swath-bands are as it were stew'd Yet it is not to be omitted what our Physitians observe in their late learned Tract of the Rickets That the too early leaving off those swath-bands and blankets wherein Infants are discreetly involved Enquiry after the Causes of the Rickets is conceived to be one cause why Infants when they are new borne are very seldome troubled with the Rickets for Midwives and Nurses order new-borne Infants with such Art that their condition may as neare as can be approach unto that which they lately had in the Wombe For they on every side involve the whole body except the head in one continued inclosure whence the outward parts of the body and the first affected in this disease are defended against the injuries of the externall cold and the hot exhalations breaking out from any part of the Body by that swadling-clout perchance doubled or trebled and rolled about with swath-bands are evenly retained and equally communicated to all parts of the Body that they may be cherished as it were in a common stove with an equall heat Therefore since the chiefe part of the essence of this disease consists in an equall cold distemper no marvell if these muniments of the body do avert it at least for a time But when after some months if not sooner the hands of Infants are freed from that common covering as the Custome is and perchance before they are six months old their feet also in the day time although they are againe swathed at night all the day at least their outward members are destitute of this common nourisher of naturall heat Our Nurses also as they judiciously note often erre while they too soone coat feebler Infants for they unhappily define the time of Coating Children by number of months whereas they ought rather to make their account out of the activity and strength of motion in their feet and hands for when the motion and exercise of those parts may more confer to excite and cherish their heat A strange way of ordering Children and irritate their pulses than the nourishment of swath-bands without doubt then is the mature time for Children to be freed from their primative inrollments having then no other need of this propulsive cause The manner of ordering Infants among the Peruvians is worth the taking notice of for there the Children both of the Nobles and Plebeians are first washed in cold water and in like manner every day before they swathe them neither do they untill the third month let them have their Armes at liberty supposing that conduceth to their strength they lay them in woodden Cradles upon nets instead of Beds they never take them into their Armes or their Laps no not when they give them suck but stooping down reach the Dug unto them that only thrice every day And that which may shame our Ladies of Europe the mothers themselves although they were Queens nurse their Children unlesse they are hindered by a Disease or some other Sontick Cause and then for the most part they abstaine from the company of their husbands lest they should be constrained to weane their Children before the time for they who upon such a Cause are weaned before their time by a propudious name they called Ayusca as much as to say Bastard Joan. de Laet. descript Novi orb occident lib. 11. cap. 21. Another foolish affectation there is in young Virgins though grown big enough to be wiser but that they are led blindfold by Custome to a fashion pernicious beyond imagination who thinking a slender waste a great beauty strive all that they possibly can by streight-lacing themselves to attaine unto a wand-like smalnesse of waste Small Wastes pernitiously affected never thinking themselves fine enough untill they can span their Waste By which deadly Artifice they reduce their Breasts into such streights that they soone purchase a stinking breath and while they ignorantly affect an angust or narrow Breast and to that end by strong compulsion shut up their Wasts in a Whale-bone prison or little-ease they open a doore to Consumptions and a withering rottennesse Hence such are justly derided by Terence Haud similis virgo est virginum nostrarum Terence in Eunucho quas matres student Demissis humeris esse vincto pectore ut graciles fient Si qua est habitior paulò pugilem esse aiunt deducunt cibum Tametsi bona est natura reddunt curvatura junceas So that it seemes this foolish fashion was in request in the time that Terence lived Hoechstetterus in his description of Auspurge the Metropolis of Swevia observes this foolish custome is at this day entertained generally among the Virgins there Streight-lacing a cause of much mischiefe They are saith he describing the Virgins of Auspurge slender streight-laced with demisse shoulders lest being grosse and well made they should be thought to have too athletique bodies Which among other Causes may contribute much mischiefe to that Epidemicall Disease the whites and white Feavour with which they are so frequently annoyed in these times whereof the ancient women boast they never heard of Paraeus where he propounds Instruments for the mending such deformities observes that the Bodies of young Maids or Girles by reason they are more moist and tender than the bodies of Boyes are made crooked in processe of time Especially by the wrenching aside and crookednesse of the back bone the most frequent cause whereof is the unhandsome and undecent scituation of their Bodies when they are young and tender either in carrying sitting or standing and especially when they are taught to go too soone saluting sewing writing or in doing any such like thing In the meane while he omits not the occasion of crookednesse that happens seldome to the Country people but is much incident to the Inhabitants of great Townes and Cities which is by reason of the straitnesse and narrownesse of the garments that are worne by them which is occasioned by the folly of Mothers who while they covet to have their young Daughters bodies so small in the middle as may be possible pluck and draw their bones awry and make them crooked For the Ligaments of the
affirmes that all kind of maids are from the beginning endowed with the birth-right of Virginity not one excepted and that this exists the preserver keeper and muniment of corporall purity Nor is this Hymenean constitution universally established by an ordinary Law but Nature is so solicitous about the safeguard and protection of Virgins that for the more secure straightning of the Virgin Zone as it were with the expansion of a thinner skin doth sometimes draw over another membrane which transversly like a Zone stretched out doth cover the chinke of the Hymen which the most skilfull Dissectors have described in like manner for the Hymen although it be found in few and being found by the rashnesse of the Midwives it is for the most part as an unprofitable covering burst or broke asunder Veslingus who hath visibly exhibited the Hymen to chaste minds as it is observed in marriageable Virgins and Infants hath described the forme also of this extraordinary membrane After all which ocular demonstrations I cannot but wonder at the strange dissention of some other Anatomists who although they allow a Hymen or Virginall flower will have it consist of foure Caruncles placed in the middle of the neck of the Wombe in manner of a Crown Hermophradites and in Virgins by the intervention untill they be forced asunder in devirgination of little Fibres circularly interwoven and wrinkled together yet proforated as the other Among whom Lodovicus Gardinius enters his dissent thus Gardinius Instit To say that any skin placed overthwart in the midst of the neck of the Wombe which should make the neck impervious should be the Hymen is altogether fabulous or at least is so besides the order of Nature as the string is which sometimes against Nature is ingendred under the tongue of Infants to be taken away Hist in Floridae In Florida and Virginia there is a Nation of Hermophrodites which have the generative parts of both Sexes Iacobus de Moyne whose Sirname is de Morgues and who followed Laudonerius in that Navigation makes a description of them in certaine figures reporting that they are hated by the very Indians yet they imploy them because they are strong and able bodied instead of Beasts to carry burdens and all other servile offices In the time of Innocent the third there was a Heresie sprung up which affirmed that Sexes had not been divided if Adam had not sinned therein making the first man an Hermophradite and therefore they would not have Hermophradites accounted Monsters whereas they are the greatest Monsters of all August de Civit. Dei lib. 26. cap. 8. St Augustine confesseth that such Monsters are found but very seldome But lest this foule kind of men should arrogate praise to themselves upon that passage of Genesis wherein the Creation of man is delivered Idem de Genesi ad literam l. 3. cap. 22. he answers thus Let no man thinke that it was so done that in one man both Sexes were expressed after that manner The kinds of Hermophradites as some are borne whom they call Androgyni therefore the plurall number is alwaies added saying Male and Female created He them He made them and blessed them Bauhin lib. 1. Herm. cap. 38. Bauhinus where he propounds what kind of Cure there is for Hermophrodites whose deformity brings a foule shame upon both Sexes sets forth the differences and severall sorts of Hermophradites in these words Differentiae quatuor Leonide Auctore existunt tres quidem in viris unae in mulieribus In viris siquidem alias juxta regionem inter scrotum anum alias in medio scroto forma muliebris pudendi pilis obsiti apparet Tertia verò ad haec accedit in qua nonnulli veluti expudendo quod in scroto est urinam profundunt In mulieribus supra pudendum juxta pubem virile genitale frequenter reperitur quibusdam Corporibus extantibus uno tanquam Cole duobus autem veluti testiculis Sic mero Isaac Israelita Solomonis Arabiae regis filius adoptivus Hoc licet tempore sit naturale in viro tamen turpius In viro muliere fit quatuor modis tribus in viro uno in foemina Viris fit in pectine in testiculis velut vulna vera mulieris pilosa ut in foeminis Tertius modus est gravior quia per virgam vulvam mingunt Mulieribus vulva fit in pectine sub vulva post veretrum maximi testiculi Ei licet in his utriusque sexus genitalia sint eorum unum tamen altero sit luxuriosius potentius etsi sunt alii Hermophroditi qui in utroque sexu omnino impotentes sint Those who are curious to know more of this ugly representation may find satisfaction in the Chapter of Differences of Hermophradites written by the same Author And what Cure this vile deformity admits The causes of Hermophiadites the same Author affords in this place There is a Booke written in French called the Hermophradite V. de licet lib. 1. Hermoph cap. 38. which doth notably set forth the effeminacy and prodigious tendernesse of this Nation But let us a little examine the Causes of their Generation De medicin Com. 1. Dial. 5. Andernacus to Mathetis enquiring why Nature in Humane Bodies doth so mock and laugh man to scorne Answers saies he knows no other cause besides the influx of the stars intempestive copulation and evill diet since at this day there is such corruption of life and manners and so great Lust that it is no wonder if men altogether degenerate into Beasts And although Naturall Philosophers and Physicians partly impute this conjunction of Sexes to the material and efficient Cause and partly to the Cells of the Wombe Yet those causes sound to me most probable which are alleaged à Decubitu and the time of Conception Sunt enim qui velint horum generationem causari à decubituminùs convenienti vel in congressu vel post congressum In congressu quidem monente Lemnino indecenti non nunquam ait vitiosus hic infamisque conceptus ex indecoro concubitu conflatur cùm praeter usum ac comoditatem exercendae veneris vir supinus mulier prona decumbit magno plerunque valetudinis dispendio ut qui ex inverso illo decubitu herniosi efficiuntur praesertim cum distento oppletoque cibis corpore inusitata hac inconcessáve venere utuntur A decubitu supino post congressum sic enim Dominicus Terellius in muliere posteaquam virile semen receperit in utero positura corporis observanda Semper vitanda est quae modo supino fit The reasons are here alleadged Androgyni In Bauhin li. 1. cap. 30. Hermoph Pierius Fenestella Annal. Tertul. advers Valent. c. 33. which appeares by your Lunensian women who taking no care to this supine positure after conception bring forth more Hermophradites many Authors taking notice of store of Hermophradites among the Lunensians By which discourse you
be cut off from the Childs body Aetius prescribes to be foure fingers breadth Aetius lib. 4. c. 3 in his direct to Midwives a woodden direction saith Mr Culpepper because Midwives fingere differ so much in breadth he will imagine it to he meant foure inches and saith the Ancients jumped generally in that opinion This Tortuosity then 〈◊〉 complicated nodosity which we usually call the Naâ—ill occasioned by the Colligation of vessels is a knot contrived by the Midwife and ensuing upon this action being a part after parturition of no profit or â—â—nament And therefore at the Creation or extraordinary formation of Adam who immediately issued from the Artifice of God nor also that of Eve who was not solemnly begotten but suddenly framed and â—namalously proceeded from Adam was any such knot as we now behold in our selves to be seen for it cannot be allowed Dr Brown Pseudodoxia Epid. l. 5. c. 5. as the Ingenious Reformer of popular errours demonstrates except we impute that unto the first cause which we imposed not on the second or what we deny unto Nature we impute unto Nativity it selfe that is that in the first and most accomplished piece the Creator affected superfluities or ordained parts without all use or office Therefore this being a part not precedent but subsequent to Generation Nativity or parturition it cannot as he speakes be well imagined that it appeared in our prototype as in us his offâ—ring for to imagin so were to regulate Creation to Generation the first act of God unto the second of Nature Pinis Longi inconvenientia This we may however affirme in the honour of Nature that whatever augmentation in this or any other part is gained by Art or besides the will and ordinary allowance of Nature it is commonly attended with some inconvenience And there are reasons for it for the magnitude grossenesse and foule and immoderate longitude of the Organ of Generation is a twofold hinderance to fruitfulnesse as Hucherus notes Primùm quidem eo quod muliebre pudendum ut uteri cervix immaniter dilacerantur unde cicatrix relinquitur quae maris semen ante effluere for as sinat quam id ipsum uterus prolectarit sie foeminam unam urinae incontinentia alterum perpetua Diarrhoea laborantem videre illi contigit divulso ab ejusmodi violento concubitu vesicae alvique sphinctere Deinde quia interno uteri osculo graviter impulso percoitum contusoque ita prae dolore Mulieris voluptas interturbatur ut neque proprium semen emittat neque virile admittat excipiatque Est aliud incommodium quod longa mentula secum trahit cum foeminas uterinae suffocationis obnoxias reddat quod ligamenta uteri cervicem nimium in coitu elong ando admodum laxet ut apparet ex observatione Spigelii and you see the inconveniencies after Conception that followes upon the ample furniture of these Ginnie Asinegoes Avicen hath taught a way how to magnifie this Part and indeed when it is lesse than is convenient it is an inequality of figure which may be corrected and the Directions conducing thereto are admitted by Montanus into the corrective part of Medicine Moneanus Med. pars 1. Hae igitur sunt regula docentes per methodum magnificare per attractionem multi alimenti ad locum calefaciendo fricando prius locum sed caute procedendum Men whose members hang down to their shanks ne nimis trahant vel nimis calefaciant qui nutrimentum attractum resolveret volentes membrum magnificare minus ipsum efficerent sicut nimius motus frigiditatem inducit moderatus calorem Eadem res effectos oppositos producit Nimia ergo attractio nimia loci calefactio resolvit dum magnificare quaeritis parvitatem efficietis moderata autem attractione facietis magnitudinem Ars etiam est curativa de elonganda mentula cum pondere plumbeo The Floridians so love the Feminine Sex The Author of the Descrip of Nova Francia lib. 2. that for to please them the more they busie themselves very much about that which is the primary signe of uncleane desires and that they may the better do it they furnish themselves with Ambergreece whereof they have great store which first they melt at the fire then inject it with such paine that it maketh them to gnash their Teeth even so far as to the Os sacrum and with a whip of Nettles or such like thing make that Idoll of Maacha to swell on the other side the women use certaine herbs and endeavour themselves as much as they can to make restrictions for the use of the said Ityphalles and to give either party their due Nescio an revera constat quod diverbio fertur Arvum Genitale in mulieribus Belgicis altiorem in pube scituationem obtinere sed Medicus quidam ex observatione propria mihi communicata affirmat Genitalia in viris Hybernicis alâ—iora in pube apparere In the Isle of Hermes the mens members hang down to their shanks Sr Joh. Mand. Travels cap. 53. insomuch that the men of that Country who knew better manners do bind them streight Pygmaei magno vererro and annoint them with ointments made there for to hold them up wherby they may live more civilly which is supposed to be by reason of the heat of the climate dissolving the body Ctesias Indicus Ionst Thaumatograph Ctesias saith that the Negro Pigmies who dwell in the midst of India who are saddle-nosed and deformed have a veretrum so great and long that it hangs down even unto their Ankles Hinc de Nanis Pygmaeis quaerendum cur majorem penem habeant An quia ut scripsit Aristoteles quemadmodum homo non habens caudam illa materia in nates conversa sit similiter materia quae augmentaioni staturae Nani non est famulata in penem transmutata sit But concerning these and other strange corporall properties of Nations mentioned in this book Quaere Card. Comment in Hip. li. de Aere Aquis locis I wish some Commentator on Hippocrates Book De Aere Aquis locis would arise who supplying the losse of the much desired Comment of Galen upon that Booke might render some account of these matters What Cardan in his Comment upon that Book hath done I can give no account having never after much enquiry had the hap to meet with it That women have been metamorphosed into men is not only confirmed by Pliny and the credit of other ancient Authors but of later times many examples are to be found very evident in moderne Writers Skenck observ med lib. 4. Korn de mirac vivorum fol. 41 Marc. Donat. med Hist mirab Tulp observ Delrio Inquisiâ— Mag. â—â—danus and for all that I perceive there are few that are willing to have it accounted a Fable And the conceit is grounded upon the Authorities of Aristotle and Galen which Anatomists
of this Complexion was an artificiall device and thence induced by imagination having once impregnated the seed found afterwards concurrent productions which were continued by Climes whose constitution advantaged the artificiall into a naturall impression I confesse Pliny speakes of the Anderae Plin. Nat. hist lib. 6. Mathitae Mesagebes and Hipporeae who being all over black and it seemes disliking that colour do therefore colour and paint their bodies with a kind of red Chalke or rudle called Rubrica The Inhabitants of Florida are of a colour Grimston of their manners like Brasse the reason is for that they annoint themselves with a certaine ointment which seconded by the heat of the Sun proves effectuall to their design notwithstanding that they are borne more white Nations that affect the plumage of Birds The great advancer of Learning well observes that generally Barbarous people that go naked do not only paint themselves but they pounce and race their skin that the painting may not be taken off Lord Bacons nat hist Cent. 8. So that it seemes men would have the colour of birds Feathers if they could tell how or at least they will have gay skins instead of gay cloaths But their airy affectation hath mounted higher Mand. Travels cap. 89. even to enjoy the very substantiall plumage of Birds For in an Isle neare the Isle called Pitan the people are feathered all but the face and palmes of their hands In the Island called Ity the Inhabitants Munst Cosm Novar Insul descript who go naked not only paint their bodies with divers colours but they adorne them with divers Feathers of Birds The Brasileans have many hens like unto ours Lindscot lib. 2. from which they pull the small white Feathers which with Irons they hack and make soft which done they annoint their bodies with gum and strew the feathers therein The Cumanans also dresse themselves with feathers as the Brasileans do which my Author saith is no ill sight Laet saies Laet. descript novi orb occident lib. 18. c. 4. that upon festivall daies they dawbe their skins over with a tenatious glew and then befeather themselves with the small plumage of divers little birds insomuch as they look by that emulation like unto birds whereby they look like new hatched birds wherof this opinion hath risen of some men that have first gone into those Countries and seen them thus dressed after this manner that they were so by Nature Which puts me in mind what Aulus Gellius cites out of ancient Authors to wit that there are certain men whose bodies are not rough with hair but plumed after the manner of birds However the practice of these Nations have marred Platoes definition of man that he was Animal bipes implume and hath made good the unhappy Irony of the Peripateticks who threw a live Cock stript of his feathers into his school saying this is Plato's man for in these Countries Plato's definition would be more adequate to cocks and hens than to men women yet if these Nations were stripped of their borrowed feathers wherein they pride themselves Hairy Nations they would looke somewhat like Aesops Jay of whom the Poet Moveat cornicula risum Furtivis nudata coloribus Harecourts voyage to Guiana In the Province of Moreshogoro the Inhabitants have a ruffe skin like unto buffe leather of which kind there be many in those parts of Guiana but is supposed to proceed from some infirmity of body Among other wild men the Cinnaminians are to be admired for their prolix beards Aldrovandus and the hairinesse of their whole bodies the women also being all over hairy These Relations make me wonder at the opinion of Platerus Platerus in Deformatione observ lib. 3. who denies that there are any wild men to be found all over hairy except the tip of their nose their knees and the palmes of the hand and feet as they are usually painted and conceived of by the Vulgar which that it is false we may hence saith he collect that Cosmographers who have described the whole world make no where mention of them when yet notwithstanding they have not omitted the wildest people the Amazons Canibals and Americans and others which go naked The cause of pilosity and yet are not hairy and those haires that naturally breake forth they pluck forth and eradicate It is observable and makes to our purpose that savage men are more hairy than those that are civill degenerating by their Bruitish kind of life into the nature and resemblance of beasts who are more hairy than men Besides the generall examples of all barbarous Nations we have a particular demonstration of this Bruitish Metamorphosis in the transformation of Nebuchadnezzer Dan. 4. and more lately in the storie of Iohn of Leiden mentioned by Sir K. Digby in his Treatise of the soule The cause of the natural smoothness in men is not as my L. Bacon noteth any abundance of heat and moisture Lord Bacons nat hist cent 7. exp 680. though that indeed causeth pilosity but there is requisite to pilosity not so much heat and moisture as excrementitious heat moisture for whatsoever assimilateth goeth not into the haire and excrementitious moisture aboundeth most in Beasts and Men that are more savage The head indeed of man hath haire upon the first birth which no other part of the body hath The cause may be want of perspiration for much of the matter of haire in the other parts of the body goeth forth by insensible perspiration And besides the Skull being of a more solid substance nourisheth and assimilateth lesse and excerneth more and so likewise doth the Chin we see also that haire commeth not upon the Palmes of the Hands nor Soles of the Feet which are parts more perspirable And Children likewise are not hairy for that their skins are more perspirable Many have been born abounding with shagged haire almost like unto water-Spaniels Men borne with shagged haire like a water Spaniel we read first of Esau that he was the first of this Tribe Gen. cap. 27. Majolus in Colloquiis and Majolus recites a story that in the Town of Pisa named Petrosancta there was borne of a smooth woman a Virgin covered all over with long haire whose image Aldrovandus hath exhibited the cause of which effect Authors refer to the Picture of St Iohn Baptist painted after the usuall manner cloathed in Camels haire whose image hanging in her Chamber the mother had wishtly beheld All rugged with haire having pawes like a Beare was that Infant which was borne 1282. Lycosthenes of an illustrious Matron Martin the fourth being then Pope of Rome by whose command all the Pictures of Beares which were found in that Ladies house were blotted out and defaced a manifest argument of the received imagination of the Effigies of the Beares in Conception Peucerus Peucerus seemes to confirme this production by another such like
case declaring that Anno 1549. he saw a Child covered over with a Beares skin Moreover Columbus confesseth Columbus that he saw a certaine Spaniard beset with long haires in all parts of his body except his hands and Face Julius Caesar Scaliger Scaliger remembers a certaine little Spaniard covered with white haires which he reports to have been brought out of India or to have been borne of Indian Parents in Spaine Also Henry the second Boscius King of France at Paris caused a young man who was no lesse hairy than a Dog to be instructed and bred up a Scholler And of late in the Pallace of the Duke of Parma there were hairy men kept Nations that wind their bones like Sinews who were brought from other parts to wit as I conceive Platerus in D format obser lib. 3. from France for Platerus who denieth that there beany hairy Nations yet alloweth that there are many of both Sexes more hairy than others confesseth that he saw at Brasil Anno 1583. being then to be transported into Italy the Children of this hairy man begotten of a smooth woman to wit a boy of nine yeares and a girle of seven yeares old who together with their mother had been sent into Flanders to the Duke of Parma Purch Pilgr 1. lib. 1. Jo. Bohem. de rit gent. lib. 3. Geor. Draud com in Solin Magin in Geog. Indiae orient Maffaeus hist ind lib. 1. In the Island of Iamuli the Inhabitants who exceed us foure Cubits in stature and the holes of whose eares are much wider than ours winde their bones this way and that way as they please like sinewes so do the Nairoes also Maginus and Maffaeus both say that after their seventh yeare they are prepared to an incredible agility and dexterity by often annointing their whole body with the oyle Sesamum whereby their nerves and bones are so suppled and relaxed that they can easily winde and turne their bodie and at pleasure bow it to what part they please afterwards they accustome themselves with all care and diligence in corporall exercises and learne nimbly to handle their Armes The Author of the descript of Nova Francia lib. 2. cap. 10. And the Author of the description of Nova Francia saies that these Nobles and Warriours of the Malabars the Nairoes to make themselves such they help Nature and their sinewes are stretched out even from seven yeares of Age which afterwards are anointed and rubbed with the oile of Sesamum which makes them handle so well their bodies at will that they seeme to have no bones Art used to make maids fat Schenckius thinkes without doubt they have nervous bones Schenck obser de cap. 355. Yet they who should see our Funambuli and Tumblers who have been brought up from their youth to their feats of activity would think as much of them whom we have seen to twist and winde their bodies very strangely as if they had no bones The Mangones Hier. Merc. de decoratione 14. Galen Method cap. 16. that they might make their bodies more fat for sale were wont to whip their buttocks and loines with rods and so by degrees make them more fleshy which is noted by Galen as no contemptible stratagem to attract the nourishment to the outward parts And there be nations out of the Tropicks who by exercise and Art come to such agility as the Nairo's have The Gordians Bruson Facet Exempl l. 7. when they appoint one to be their Chiefe they chuse one of the most corpulent amongst them for corpulency with them contrary to the opinion of Epaminondas the Theban is held a corporall vertue whereas he could not endure a corpulent Souldier saying that three or foure shields would not suffice to cover his belly who had not a long time seene the witnesses of his own Virility The Goths would not elect any man to be their King except he were tall grosse and very corpulent On the contrary the Sarazens would have no King to command over them except he were little leane and low of stature Opinions although opposite yet well considered neither side may be void of reason The Author of the Treasury of Times vol. 1. lib. 3. cap. 17. Jo. Bohem. de morib gent. li. 3. Reasons pro and con you may find in the Treasury of Times which are too long here to insert The ancient Gaules through their assiduous labour and exercise were all leane and spare bodied and their bellies very little set out for they did so abhor a paunch that young men whose bellies exceeded the measure of their Girdles were publikely punished Marcus Aurelius was wont to say that hogs and horses fatnesse did well become them Monstrous fat men but that it was more commendable in men to be leane and slender for that your grosse men are commonly grosse witted besides they have a filthy wallowing gate they are unfit to fight either for themselves or their friends they are a kind of unweildy lump an unprofitable masse of flesh and bone being not able to use any manly exercise whereas we see it is quite otherwise in those that are leane and not laden with fat Among the Lacedemonians fat folkes were not only in disgrace but they did punish them by most severe Laws made against them For Lycurgus appointed a small Diet to the Lacedemonians on purpose that their bodies by that streight diet might grow up more in height for the vitall spirits not being occupied to concoct and digest much meat nor yet kept down nor spread abroad by the quantity or over-burden thereof do enlarge themselves into length and shoot up for their lightsomenesse and for this cause they thought the body did grow in height and length having nothing to let or hinder the rising of the same It seemeth saith Plutarch that the selfe same cause made them fairer also For Over-fed bodies encounter Nature Plut. in the Life of Lycurgus the bodies that are leane and slender do better and more easily yield to Nature which bringeth a better proportion and a forme to every member and contrariwise it seemeth these grosse corpulent and over-fed bodies do encounter Nature and be not so nimble and pliant to her by reason of their heavy substance As we see it by experience the children which women bring before their time and be somewhat cast before they should have been borne be smaller and fairer also and more pure commonly than other that go their time because the matter whereof the body is formed being more supple and pliant is the easier weilded by Nature which giveth them their shape and forme the naturall cause of which effect he gives place to them dispute it who will without farther deciding the same And indeed as Levinus Lemnius observes it is confirmed by daily experience that children who do much Gormandize grow up lesse comely neither shoot up to a just and decent longitude for the Native heat
of old scared off their right Breasts 322 Left handed Amazons who now scare off their left Paps ibid. Their reasons of these Customes 321 322 323 The History of the Amazons no fable 323 These Viragoes taxed for losing the compleate proportion and representation of the Chests Ornament for this unnaturall convenience 324 What penalty they are like to incurre by this mutilation or numericall offence ibid. The Breasts why two and their use 323 The temper of those men who have great Breasts bearing out like women that give suck 324 Where as a singular piece of gallantry the men have their Breasts piersed from one side to another and where they have them both pierced and what they carry therein 325 The absurd Cavill of Momus against Nature for not making a window in the Breast of Man exploded 325 326 The wals of the Breasts depraved by Nurses 327 The inconveniences of straight swathing the Breasts of Children ibid. The Judgement of Physitians against this Custome ibid. The perverse Custome in England of swaithing Children and swathing their Breasts noted 330 The miserable inconveniences occasioned thereby ibid. and 331 That Consumptions and the Rickets wherewith we only are molested proceed from this fond Custome 332 333 334 Cautions in ordering Infants 329 The naturall proportion of the Breasts 331 Those Nations commended who desiring rather a broad then a narrow Breast a full then a slender involve rather then swathe their Infants in a light swath-band 336 The opinion of our modern Physitians touching the too soone leaving off of swaith-bands to be the cause of the Rickets 337 The too early coating of Children conceived to be another ibid. The mature time of coating Children 338 The Judgement of our Physitians in reference to the Rickets touching the constant and foolish Fasciation used to Children 332 333 334 Nationall Examples proving that it is a better way to bring up Children without swadling or binding them up in swaith-bands 335 336 That where there is no swaithing there is no news of the Rickets 335 What kinde of swaithing our Climate cals for 336 The pernicious Custome of straight lacing used by our Virgins 338 The mischiefe that ensues by this deadly artifice of reducing the Breasts to such straights 339 340 That this was a fashion of old ibid. The errours of Nurses in ordering Infants tending to this mischiefe 340 The commendation of those Nations who never lace themselves but affect a round and full wast 342 343 The art they use to this purpose 344 Where the Breasts are accounted shamefull parts 315 The reason in Nature why women should have a modest regard of their Breasts ibid Breech-Gallantry 409 VVHY Man naturally hath no taile ibid. Divers tailed Nations 410 411 412 Tailed Monsters 412 How a tale comes to be monstrously added to a humane offspring 413 Sodomiticall abusers of this part noted and condemned 413 414 415 Body NAtions that embroder their skins with Iron pens and seare race pinke cut and pounce their Bodies 455 457 458 469 466 Where they have skin prints and past Garments for their Bodies 456 Where they paint their Bodies red white black blew tawney and other colours in works such as they devise 457 458 459 460 461 462 463 464 465 469 Enquire about Negroes and how so great a part of man-kinde became blacke 466 467 468 469 Nations that affect the plumage of Birds and dresse their Bodies all over with their feathers 470 471 Hairy Nations 472 The cause of Pilosity 474 Men borne with shagged Haire like a water Spanell 475 Nations that winde their bones like sinews 476 Art used to make maids fat 477 Why all men cannot be franked or made fat 478 Corpulency where in great esteem 479 Monstrous fat men 480 481 Fat folkes where in disgrace 482 overfed-Overfed-bodies encounter Nature 483 Men growing Gyants by a disease 484 The cause of tall stature 485 Meanes to accelerate growth or stature 486 487 Fatnesse when it doth prejudice Nature 488 The naturall magnitude of the Body 489 A way to make men by Art 490 The opinion of learned men touching this Artifice 491 The Pygmies of Paracelsus 492 The Commensuration of Womans Body vindicated 493 The Historyes of Pigmies maintained 494 496 497 488 Nations of little men 495 Pigmies without all question 499 Dwarfes made by art 500 The reason of dwarfish stature 501 That the Divell may make Pigmies 502 503 Histories of Giants 503 504 She Gyants 505 The cause of small stature 506 The cause of tallnesse of stature Nations of Gyants 508 Men of very tall stature 509 Over-tallnesse of stature a deformitie 510 Whether Divels may have to dâ—e That Divels may exercise venerious acts with women 514 That Divels cannot generate upon Women 515 The Originall of Gyants 515 The supposed Originall of Neroes 516 Why the Amazons did lame their Male Children 517 An Art pretending to new make a Man 518 That Nature sometimes workes wonders in this kinde ibid. 519 That Monsters may be made by the Art of naturall Magique 520 alias 516 Mans Metamorphosis 519 alias 521 Whether Men can be transform'd into Beasts 502 alias 522 Whether Witches have power to transubstantiate others 521 alias 523 That the soule of Man cannot informe a Beasts body 522 alias 524 Transubstantiation denied 523 alias 525 Mans transformation into an Asse questioned 524 alias 526 525 alias 527 The inpiety of transubstantiation 526 alias 528 527 alias 529. Changelings and the Legerdemane thereof 527 528 alias 529 530. In the Introduction THE unimitable curiosity and exact perfection of the structure of mans Body maintained against the errour of Epicurus That it doth appeare that the humane forme hath been altered â—â—aâ— waies both by art and diurnall succession The audacious art of new mouldâ—ng the body reprehended and the inconveniences thereof noted Midwives and Nurses by their unskilfulnesse or neglect the causers of the ill figure of the Body That every part of the new-born Infants Body is to be formed according to the most advantage of Nature That this is the end of Cosmeticall Physicke Mercurialis his complaint that this most noble art of Cosmetiques is growne out of use C Cheeke NAtions who bore holes in their Cheeks for a Gallantry 163 164 Where they make lines above their lips upon their Cheeks with certaine Iron Instruments 164 Cheek-markers condemned 165 Inscisions upon the Cheeke of old forbidden E Ears NAtions whose Eares doe reach the ground and who use their Eares for a couch to sleep on 141 142 143 Nations with Eares so large that they cover the rest of their Body with them ibid. An infant borne with such large and great Eares 143 Nations with their Eares hanging down to their shoulders and lower 144 145 146 By what art and industry they attaine unto so great Eares 145 146 147 Nations that bore pierce or slit the lappet of their Eares and load them with ponderous Jewels 145 146 147 148 149 Where the greatest Eares are esteemed the fairest
Where Eunuches who have religious women in keeping because they shall not be loved have also their noses and lips cut off 357 Eunuches by a totall deprivation of their Genitals why first made 359 Where such Eunuches are in great request 360 Stories of many that have castrated themselves 356 357 358 359 This kind of operation very improper for Physitians and why 359 That Castration is high treason against Nature ibid. What deformity Castration introduces upon the body of man 363 In what cases a dispensation may be granted for Eunuches 362 Who was the first that made women Eunuches 363 Whether women may be castrated 364 The manner of operation and danger thereof ibid. A History of a maid spaded in Lincolneshire 364 365 Another History of one spaded a new way ibid. Riolanus his opinion of the ancient way of operation ibid. What Nations Circumcise the Prepuce of their Yard 366 The naturall ends they propounded therein ibid. Where women have the office of excising men 372 The reasons alleadged for the Judaicall Circumcision 368 379 That they who were Circumcised might make themselves uncircumcised ibid. Who was first thought to have practised this 369 The cure of a prepuce made short by Circumcision ibid. The manner of Circumcision with the modern Jewes ibid. Mahometan Circumcision 370 The difference of the Mahometans and Jews Circumcision 371 The manner of Circumcision at Ginney and Binney 372 A History of Circumcision at Ginney 373 Priviledges affected in Circumcision 374 The inconveniences of Circumcision 377 The injury of Circumcision ib. 378 That one may be born circumcised by nature 368 369 The naturall uses of the prepuce according to Anatomists 376 The pretences of those who use circumcision for a naturall end exploded 377 The danger of judaicall circumcision 379 380 That circumcision is directly against the honesty of Nature 379 That if there had not been some figurative meaning in Circumcision it would have been a most absurd and unreasonable thing For if God would have had onely the foreskin cut off he had from the beginning made man without a prepuce 379 Circumcised Christians 367 In what cases for a naturall end circumcision is onely permitted 362 A new way of Circumcising men by way of strangulation 376 Where women are Circumcised 380 The originall and reason of this invention 381 Where women excise themselves not from a notion of religion but as an ornament ibid. The error sin of this custome 380 How this Circumcision of a woman is done ibid. 381 Men with Members like Asses and where they have a great privy member in great esteem 389 399 Supposed to be nourished by art ibid. The just length and magnitude of the virile member when it is conform'd according to the law of Nature 400 Midwives supposed to be the cause either of the length or shortnes of the virile member according as they knit the navell string 400 401 The Anatomicall reason given thereof with the opinion of Spigelius 400 That whatsoever augmentation of parts is gained by Art besides the will and ordinary allowance of Nature it is commonly attended by some inconveniences 401 The reason of the inconveniences which follow the magnitude and the foule immoderate longitude of the Organ of generation 402 403 Where they use to binde up the Fore-skin of their Privities with a little cord and unty it not but to make water or when they use the act of Generation 381 An expostulation of this unnaturall restraint 382 Men whose Members hang down to their shanks 403 Pygmaei magno veretro 404 Where they adorne their Genitals with pretious stones 383 Where they deprive their secret parts of that which nature intended to make them more secret 383 How this is done and upon what pretence 383 384 Where women never have their flowers 390 By what meanes they prevent their monthly Flux ibid. Their ingratitude to Nature taxed for endeavouring to dâ—vert the ordinary course of Nature 391 Nations commended as more respective to nature in this particular 391 Where the women have a most streight and narrow neck of their wombe that they very hardly admit a Man 392 That this happens to them by art not by any benefit of Nature ibid. Where this art is familiarly and commonly practised 392 393 The miserable and dangerous effects of this artifice 393 Where the virgins use art to distend their Muliebria most capaciously 393 Where they to use sew up the private passage of Nature in their Female child leaving a small passage for their urine 394 39â— Where the Midwives are wont to breake that membrane as unprofitable which Anatomists call Hymen 384 How they doe it ibid. The prodigious conceit of Nero who must needs have a boy cut and made forsooth a woman 407 The naturall change of women into men confuted by demonstration of Anatomy and Nature vindicated from being guilty of any such practicall Metamorphosis 405 That men to be changed into women is very rare 407 Nations of Hermophrodites who have the generative parts of both sexes 386 390 Hereticks that thought the first man was an Hermaphrodite 386 Their opinion confuted by Scripture ibid. and 387 The kindes of Hermophrodites ibid. That those who in old time were called by the name of Androgyni were reputed for prodigious Monsters 389 Ancient Records of such Hermaphrodites ibid. The causes of Hermophrodites 390 S Shoulders HIgh-huff Shoulders where in fashion and naturall 280 Where their shoulders are higher then their Heads ibid. Some concurrent affectation suspected in these Nations ibid. Broad shoulders where in request and indeavoured or imitated by art 281 The inconveniences of broad shoulders and why Platonick Men are not affected by women ibid. Narrow and contracted shoulders where affected 282 With what art they of old affected this composure of the Shoulders ibid. This affectation of drawing the shoulder-points too neer noted and condemned ibid. Where the Noble Virgins Right Shoulders are higher and bigger then the left 283 The cause thereof enquired ibid. Crook-back'd Nations 284 T Teeth VVHere red Teeth are accounted a great beauty 217 By what industry they attain unto this Dentall bravery ibid. Where the principall women take a pride in black Teeth 217 218 Black Teeth where a singular beauty 218 219 Where so greatly affected that the blacker they are the more beautifull they are esteemed and worthy of greater honour ibid. How they make them black ibid. Where they polish their black teeth which makes them shew like polish'd Ebony 219 Where they colour their Teeth red and black 217 How they colour them so ibid. Where the men and women in a foolish pride black their Teeth because Dogs Teeth forsooth are white 219 Where the women guild their Teeth 221 White Teeth the true naturall beauty ibid. They condemned that alter the native candor of the Teeth ibid. Nations commended that are carefull to preserve the naturall beauty of the Teeth ibid. Their artifice whereby they make them look like polished Ivory
A VIEVV OF THE PEOPLE OF THE VVHOLE VVORLD OR A short Survey of their Policies Dispositions Naturall Deportments Complexions Ancient and Moderne Customes Manners Habits Fashions A Worke every where adorned with Philosophicall Morall and Historicall Observations on the Occasions of their Mutations Changes throughout all Ages For the Readers greater delight Figures are annexed to most of the Relations Scripsit J.B. Cognomento Chirosophus M. D. LONDON Printed by William Hunt 1654. The INTRODVCTION GAlen to convince the errour of Epicurâ—â— said he would give him an hundred yeares to alter or change the scituation figure or Composition of any one part of the humane Fabrick and he did not doubt but it would come to passe in the end that he would be forced to confesse that the same could by no meanes have beene made after any other or more perfect manner Dr. Crook in his Microcosmographia A modern Anatomist speakes a little more boldly affirming that if all the Angels should have spent a thousand years in the framing and making of man they could not have cast him into so curious a mould or made him like to that he is much lesse could they have set him forth in any better manner For God hath wonderfully and most artificially framed the body of man The excellency wherof is such that the Anthropomorphites held that God had such a Body and that ours was but the Copie of his because they knew God to be most excellent they attributed to him such a Body And the Philosophers were so ravished with the consideration of it that Zoroaster cries out as if Nature had undertaken a bold piece of worke when she made man and Euripides saith that man is a most beautifull Creature framed by a most wise Artisan The Spirit of God speaks admirably of the Body of man in Scripture David Psal 39 ver 15. for David saith that his Body was curiously wrought in his Mothers womb as a piece of Embroidery or Needle-work as the Hebrew word rukkanthi signifies Genebrard renders the word in the Psalme variè contextus sum diversificatus Pelicanus artificiose concinnatus sum that is with singular variety and most artificially fashioned Yet the blind impiety of some hath led them to such a height of presumption as to finde fault with many parts of this curious Fabricke and to question the wisdome of God in the contrivance thereof upon such Blasphemous fancies men have taken upon them an audacious Art to forme and new shape themselves altering the humane Figure and moulding it according to their own will and arbitrement varying it after a wonderfull manner almost every Nation having a perticular whimzy as touching corporall fashions of their own invention In which kind of mutations they do schematize or change the organicall parts of their bodies into diverse depraved Figures Cardan speaking of such outlandish fashion-mongers Cardan de rerum varietate lib. 8. cap. 13. saith it appears that the humane forme hath bin varyed many waies both by Art and Diurnall succession but whatsoever is done against the decree of Nature is noxious and inconvenient for the body yet they who practise this Art conceive that they become thereby more healthfull strong and gallant But the Midwife ought to reduce to the naturall state and not to draw and force the bodies of Infants into fantastick shapes Sennertus therefore where he writes of the diseases of Conformation and those of Figure Sennertus de morbis Conformationis Figurae among other Causes of the ill figures of the body reckons this that those faults which are contracted in the wombe or in the birth are not rightly amended by Midwives and Nurses as they ought And in his Prognosticks there he saith that the default in figure which is induced through evill Conformation or the difficultie of birth or the unskilfulnesse of Midwives if it be recent and not long after the birth may be a little corrected while the bones are yet soft and flexible although in Adults Jacobus Fontanus in Pathologia lib. 3. cap. 14. when the bones are now hardened it is incurable Fontanus where he speaks of the causes of diseases of Conformation reckons the Man or Woman Midwives who draw out the Children with their hands the involutions of the Infant in swathing Bands after the birth or while it is handled with the hands or from immoderate motion while little Children are suffered before a fit time to goe or stand or are exposed to more vehement motions and as Pansa adviseth Pansa in practic part de orrroganda vita every part of the new-borne Infants body is to be formed and those parts that ought to be concave must be pressed in those which should be slender constrained and repressed and those which are naturally prominent rightly drawn out the head also is diligently to be made round and as Sennertus gives the indication and cure if in any part it be emminent above the naturall figure there it is to be depressed which can be done no other way but by working it with the hands to wit that the Midwife or Nurse by often gently handling the head and involving it with headbands abolish that figure which is preternaturall introduce into the head the true shape desired Afterwards as Pansa saith all the body is to be extended remitted and every part to be put in mind of its office And these crimes both of commission omission committed by Midwives and Nurses so frequently in these times against the tender bodies of Infants appear more notorious if we reflect upon the carefull practise of ancient times in this matter of high concernment for it should appeare by a passage of Plato Plato in Alcibiade that the Nutritii of old whilest the bodies of Infants were tender did conform them most to the advantage of Nature which is the office of Cosmeticall Physick not as some falsly suppose only to provide fucus's to disguise the naturall and that way only to palliate the defects of Nature Cosmetique is the exornatorie part of Physick whose Office is that whatsoever is according to Nature that it is to preserve in the Body and so consequently to cherish and maintaine the native Beautie thereof But Commotiques that is the Fucatorie Galen tooke away from the parts of Physick because too curiously affected it exists about false and lying appearances and which endeavours in vaine to introduce and adulterate an ascititious Beauty which in adorning and setting forth the Body differs nothing from the ostentation of Stage-plaies and is no lesse indecent then fiction in manners which damnable portion of Cosmetique Art doth flourish in the opinions and monstrous practises of men and women whereas that of the more Noble part is wanting and grown quite out of use whether by the overflowing luxury of these times or the ignorance of Physitians Mecrurialis in Lib. De Decoratione seu de Arte Cosmetica t is not for
Spaniards call these Albinos Pet. Appian Cosmograph 2. pars that is Whites as they cal the others Blacks These are surely allyed to them of Albania neer the Caspian Sea who see better by night then by day Munster Cosmograph lib. 5. cap. 149. Paulus Venet. lib. 3. Polinus Cardan de rerum variet lib. 18. In Zanziber they have horrible Eyes and the Women are deformed by reason of their prominent and gogle Eyes The Tartars have grosse prominent Eyes yet for the most part they have squint hollow Eyes The Jewish Women for the most part Great Eyes affected Sandys Travels lib. 3. are goggle-ey'd The Cymbrians had horrible great Eyes Steph. Ritter Cosmograph prosomet lib. 3. The Azanaghi of Aethiopia have prominent black Eyes and of a torve aspect The Turkish Women who are small in stature Helin Geogra which they amend with Choppines are accounted most beautifull and amiable which have greatest Eyes and are of the blackest hue And because great Eyes in Turky are esteemed such an excellency therefore Mahomet well knowing their desire promiseth them in his Paradise wenches with great Eyes or Eyes like Saucers Great Eyes also are in principall repute and affected by the Greeks The Peruvians judge those the most beautifull that have great rolling Eyes Ferrand Erotomania The absolute magnitude of the Eye cannot be defined yet this is generally to be noted that the greatest Eyes are not ever the best for as in looking glasses or other little optique pipes the Images of things are perfectly exhibited so it fals out in little Eyes yet the naturall magnitude of the Eye proportionate with that Face wherein it is lodged ought to be such that so much as the semi-circle of the mouth is so much should be the semi-circle of the Eye and the intervall from the middle of the Eyebrows to the end of the externall angle of the Eyes should be so much as is from thence to the roots of the prominency which subsides the Apple of the Eye although Sense cannot very well judge of it by any other way of ratiocination Now the Eye of Man is round and it is naturally observed that the diameter of the Orb or Sphere of the Eie is to answer the length of the Nose One-Ey'd Nations Now Eies that exceed the natural mediocrity being less or greater then the same measure are not to be commended because they become not a Face those Eyes being truly laudable which are neither too great nor too little but of a mean proportion which consists in the abnegation of both the extreams Physiognomists therefore preferre the midling state of the Eye which hath so wel framed and corrected a mediocrity of greatnesse as cannot be bettered or reprehended This affectation then of great Sawcer-like Eyes is a fancy against the rule of Nature For an Eye greater then the proportion of the Face and Body requires cannot be really beautifull in a Natural acceptation although it should have a gallant featnesse and elegancie of apparance annexed unto it Purchas Pilgr 4. lib. 8. Some of the Inhabitants of Malheda are blind and squint Ey'd People Idem eodem Petr. Appian descript Ind. Occid The Brasilians a few of them have but one Eye In the Mountaines of Peruana which are alwaies covered with Snow the Inhabitants are all purblind or blind Lud. Rom. Patr navigat lib. 6. Purchas Pilgr 2. lib. 7. In Sumatra they have Eyes obrotund of green colour The Guineans have white Eyes of a sharp sight and see further then we Steph. Ritterus Grunburgensis Cosmograph Prosometrica lib. 3. The Sarmatians had Eyes like Lizzards and were called Sauromatae ab Oculis lacertarum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 enim est lacerta sicut 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 oculus The Gaules were blew-Ey'd which was noted especially in the Women Ammian Marcel when they were in choller being notable shrews and too hard for their husbands The People of Taprobane as Plinie reports Ocular properties Plin. Nat. Hist have blew Eyes Of which there may some doubt be made considering the climate which is in the 8 9 and 10 degrees onely Lindschot Travels lib. 2. The Cumanans have alwaies spots in their Eyes and are dim-sighted Solinus Draudii The Budini a great and Populous Nation inhabiting the European Scythia neer the River Borosthenes were all grey Eyes like a Cat. Plinie Nat. Hist lib. 7. out of Isogonus the Nicean In Albanie there be a sort of People borne with Eyes like Owles whereof the sight is fire red and can see better by night then by day Man onely hath his Eyes enamel'd round with divers colours the Eyes of all other creatures vary not but keep the constant colour of their kind this variation happening to men and Nations according to the divers tempers of their Braine and Eyes but in respect Nations are much mingled we know not what rarenesse to choose for the beauty of Eyes for many love blew Eyes and some the grey Eye that seems to be all Christalline some love black Eyes esteeming them most amiable and others love them green which were also in ancient time much praised for among the Sonnets of Monseiur de Covei which was in old time so great a Clerk in Love matters Songs were made of it Green Eyes were praised He that would make a new comment upon Hippocrates his Book De Aere Aquis Locis to supply the want of that much desired Comment of Galen upon that Book might perchance among these Ocular distinguishing properties of divers Nations finde matter to furnish his conceptions with Nose-manglers SCENE VII Certaine formes and strange shapes of the Nose much affected and Artificially contrived as matters of singular beauty and Ornament in the esteem of some Nations It is impossible the adulterate wit of women should commit a fouler trespasse against beauty and the majesty of Nature or introduce a more odious alteration in the Face then is done by the contrivance of this fashion for whence the Nose should excite so great a comlinesse and beauty in the Face cannot well be imagined but from its Discrimination it makes of the parts thereof for this discretion of the Nose is so true and necessary to the whole Face Severinus that Severinus should think that this was the cause for which it was made that from this one part very much grace and honour should accrew unto the Face and that the Nose either cut off or vitiously depressed there followeth thereupon so great a deformity Certainly the Face among all the parts is therefore most honourable and most goodly to behold for that it is variously insculpt and distinguished But what doth discriminate and disterminate the two Eyes the two Sun-shine Apples the Cheeks and the two sides of the Face Men with their Nostrils cut off but the Nose alone which as a banck or equall ridge of hils is extended along
haire come forth they pluck it out one from another with certaine little Pinsers they call our men wild Beasts for that they endeavour to preserve their Beards The Inhabitants of the Cape of good Hope eradicate their Beards Munster Cosmograph lib. 6. cap. 55. painting their Chins with divers colours white black red and skie-coloured The Brasilians In the description of Nova Francia lib. 2. cap. 10. and the naturall Inhabitants of Caneda or New France the Beard of the Chin which is generally black and the producing cause cause thereof they take away and the Sagamos for the most part have but little Memmerton hath more than all the others and notwithstanding it is not thick as it is commonly with Frenchmen And although these people weare no beards on their Chins at the least for the most part yet for the inferiour parts they hinder not the growing and encreasing haires there It is said the women have some there also according as they be curious the Frenchmen made them beleeve that the French women have Beards on their Chins and have left them in that good opinion so that they were very desirous to see some of them In Florida the men pull out their Beards Hier. Giravae Cosmograph that they may appeare more beautifull In the Province of Mexico the men are Beardless Idem eadem not that Nature hath denied them the growth of a Beard but because they have a Conceit that they are more comly when the haire of their Beards are eradicated Thin Beards affected Idem eadem In some of the other Provinces of New Spaine although by Nature they have thick long black haire yet they pluck out their Beard anointing their Chin with a certaine Liquor which prohibits the re-encrease of the Beard Peter Mart. Decad. 7. The Chiroranes are beardlesse whether by Nature or by Art applying some kind of Medicine or whether they pluck off the haire like the People of Tenustitan it remaineth doubtfull However it be they are delightfull to shew themselves smooth which affectation smels of the Art of Salvius Otho who herein was allied unto them who because he would never have a Beard used depilatories Helyn China The Chinoyse also have very thin Beards consisting not of above twenty or thirty haires a thing wonderfull to behold and when they would describe a deformed man they paint him with a thick Beard Grimstone of their manners It is true that there are some that have the Beard well fashioned and a pleasing aspect or countenance but the number of these is small in regard of the rest and some thinke that these men came from some strange Country in old time and did mingle with the Chinois when it was lawfull for them to go out of the Realme Pet. Martyr Decad. 6. The Barbarians about the Haven of St Vincent are Beardlesse and in great feare of Bearded men upon which occasion Gonsalves used a pretty policy of twenty five beardlesse youths by reason of their tender yeares he made bearded men by the poling of their heads the haire being orderly composed to the end that the number of bearded might appeare the more to terrifie them if they should be assailed by war Beardlesse Nations as afterwards it fell out The Cathaians and the Cumanans Lindschotens Travels lib. 2. most of them are by Nature beardlesse The People of Carthai Tartano weare their Beards also thin Some of the Broad-faced Tartars are Beardlesse except that in the upper Lip Munst Cosmog Jo. Bohem. de rit gent. lib. 2. and on the Chin they have a few volatile haires In Sumatra the men Diario nautico Baâ—tavorum although they have great Eyebrows have but little Beard insomuch that the haires under their mouth may be numbred In Elizabeths Island Capt. Smiths Hist of Virginia toward the North of Virginia the men have no Beards but counterfeits as they did think our mens also were for which they would have changed with some of our men that had great Beards What a Generation of scoffers of Nature have we here who with their Pincers fight against her sit Companions for the Apostate Iulian who stiled himselfe Mysogopon as much as to say as the hater of a Beard Sure the Beard was form'd and given to man for some end 〈…〉 of the Beard maintained the place and dignity of the place the time it appeares and the species of it shews an ornament For the place no man can deny the face to be one of the outward parts of the body which hath an honest appearance if the Face have dignity and a degree superlative as it were of dignity and there are some Orders This may justly be accounted the most honest of the honest parts and worthiest since there are the chiefest Organs of the Senses the Instruments of the reasonable soule and that in the face as in a Glasse the ineffable majesty of the whole man doth shine In which the Beard hath the chiefest place being planted in the part thereof which the Ancients stiled the Temple of Goodnesse and Honesty The time of its appearance denotes its use it is inchoate and begins to come forth at a certaine definite and specifique time for man is not at once an Individuum and a specifique Individuum the libration of which moments of time is chiefly conspicuous to God and confirmed by his Counsell which dispensation of time is not without a mystery to which all things created are subjected I would we could understand the fulnesse thereof but certainly for some specifiqe end From the species or the kind of haire may another Argument be taken of their reall worth All other haires we see have their use and end and can Nature be so forgetful of her own institutions as to faile in this particular Superficiall Philosophers do much please themselves with this Division saying that of those which are in the body some are the true parts of it and others are not to wit such as proceed from the necessity of matter of which kind are the haires an excrement and not a part and if a part altogether an excrementitious materiarie and of no use The use of the Beard to which account the Beard must be reduced which is all haire a Doctrine popular and altogether erronious for the Beard is an existent part of the body and most necessary and its necessity is from its use and office it hath in the body not from the matter or as they say necessity Nature which is the ordinary power of God and the lively image of his wisdome workes alwaies for an end more especially and most nobly doth she do it in the body of man the most noble of all Creatures Some say the Beard was intended for a manly ornament for man shews more venerable especially if by age his haires be every where fairely and super abundantly circumfused which Nature usually doth leaving no part unpolished
ought to be no manner of way adulterated by yellow tincture black dust or red paint or any other Medicaments which corrupts the native Lineaments And afterwards he saith thoy offer violence to God when they strive to deforme and transfigure that which he hath formed not knowing that every thing that is borne is the worke of God and what ever is changed is the worke of the Devill These phantasticall Correcters of their Naturall formes as another saith seeme to do nothing else then to reprehend the power of their Maker who as a most wise Artificer hath so framed and coloured them A very great rashnesse with such vaine impostures to go about to correct and amend that which he hath made and perfected Aug. Seâ—m 240 For as St Augustin saith his workes should not seeme to be such unto thee as if he transformed Natures or in the Creation of any thing had ever turned white into black or black into white when he said Let us make man according to out Image and Similitude and yet thou desirest to change that Face which God hath made and thou wilt reforme that which God hath formed in thee If as a holy Hermit Petr. Herem à Theod. in vit is sect patr hist nona citat some famous Painter or Limner a cunning Master of his Art had with great care and diligence painted some curious Picture and brought it to its full perfection And another rude Painter should come who should rashly put to his hand and presume to correct and amend it now adding now taking away somewhat now changing the shaddow and transferring those things which were obscure into cleare and lucid appearance contrary to the precept of Limbing He would both distort the countenance and render it void of all Grace Painting a base invention Would you not think when the Master returned and saw what was done he would be most justly angry considering how rude a Painter had put his hand to that Image which he had so elaborately finished In like manner you may judge that God will be angry with such who by vaine invention of Modells and adulterate Sophistications should dare to correct and amend that Image which the Divine Majesty hath so absolutely painted in thee 'T is to be feared as St Cyprian notes that at the last day God will not acknowledge them for his Creatures but will exclude them from his House and Court as strangers and unknown persons unpleasing unto him they may justly feare that when he sees them so deformed he should say they were not the workes of his hands nor Creatures made according to his similitude but to exhibite the Ensignes and markes of the Devill to discover the workes and impressions of his foule hand And indeed a good ground for this protestation had these holy men for this Trade of Painting is reproved in the holy Books and made a reproach by the mouth of the Prophets Jer. 4.3 as when Jeremy threatneth the City of Jerusalem When thou shalt be destroyed saith he what wilt thou do c. though thou paintest thy Face with Colours yet shalt thou trim thy selfe in vaine for thy Lovers will abhor thee and seek thy life The Prophet Ezekiel maketh the like reproach to the Cities of Jerusalem and Samaria which he compareth to two lewd Harlots who having sent to seeke out men comming from far and being come they have washed themselves and have painted their Faces and have put on their faire Ornaments The Queen Jesabel doing the same 2 Kin. 9.30 was for all that cast down out of a window Some Fucus allowable and bare the punishment of her wicked life Yet we cannot say that it is absolutely unlawfull to use any Fucus especially when any foule blemish doth disgrace the forme of modest Virgins or Matrons and we know Physitians are sometimes constrained to satisfie the desires of honourable Ladies and great Persons whom as Galen saith we may not deny And indeed somewhat is to be allowed to women who are studious of their beauty and desire a nitor and certaine splendour of Countenance and therefore either to repaire the injuries of aire or any other losse and dammage that hath happened to the Face or what is wanting to the emendation of the Elegancy of the Epidermis or skin of the Visage is no trespasse against Piety but may be honestly endeavoured by a Physitian since this induceth no Fucus but restores the naturall nitor of the Body upon whatsoever cause it is lost and therefore it is granted to women especially who since they were somewhat inferiour to men in prudence strength of Body and fortitude and other things instead thereof as Anacreon interpreted sings Natura donat illis Decoram habere formam Pro parmulisque cunctis Pro Lanceisque cunctis Nam flamma cedit illis Ferrumque si qua pulchra est And since Plato in Phaedro cals Beauty the most illustrious and amiable of all things and that a faire Face is illustrious with a kind of Divine Forme it is worthy of preservation and a faire restitution 〈…〉 their Cosmetiques And indeed it belongeth to the corrective part of Medicine to reduce a superficies that is preternaturall for an inequality in the superficies belongs to Decoration as when any spot is in the Face from the Nativity it belongs to the Corrector to make this superficies beautifull and to correct it as women who have native spots in their face Mont. medic par 2. which the Moderns call Stercus Daemonum which proceed from a thin and adurent bloud therefore it is the Office of the Corrector to correct those spots in them that have contracted them But the practice of woman in this case is not laudable nor agreeable to the corrective Art of Medicine for your women in your Cosmetique usurpations use only those things which constipate refrigerate repercuss to remove them from the Superficies to the Center whereas they should also use those things which are abstersive and mundifying But because things abstersive and mundifying introduce a scurfe women will not endure this way of Reduction to the naturall state of perfection But as the needlesse assumption and affectation of such Artifice is absurd and no way pleasing to Nature so too much curiosity in such matters is naught and reprovable And to take in what a grave and learned Divine hath Dr Donne Serm. 20. in concurring with the purpose of God in dignifying the Body we may exceed and go beyond Gods purpose God would not have the Face mangled and torne but then he would not have it varnished with forreine Complexions it is ill when it is not our own bloud that appeares in our Cheeks it may do some ill offices of bloud it may tempt but it gives over when it should do a good office of bloud it cannot blush God would not have us disfigure our Face with sad Countenances in fasting and other Disciplines Painting when
Breasts of man and woman is somewhat greater than is ordinarily granted Salmuthus in obs med cent 1. ob 92. although this be somewhat more than that which Salmuthus relates of a Maid servant who having the care of an Infant laid him in the same bed with her selfe and as wenches are sometimes prone to be wanton she often offers him her Breast to suck her Courses stop she hath thereupon milke in her Breast and gives suck Neare the Land of Chalde is the Land of Amazons Sir Joh. Mand. Travels c. 50. which is inhabited by women only who converse with men of neighbouring Countries whom they send for if they have maid Children they keep them and if they be of noble bloud they burne the left Pap away for bearing of a Shield and if they be of a baser degree they burne the right Pap away for shooting There is also report that there is a Nation of them about Guiana And although Sir Walter Rawley in his voyage thither when he was neare the River of Amazons was very inquisitive after them yet could not find them yet the Translator of the report of the Kingdom of Congo hopeth that some good Guianean may hereafter assure us that there is such a Nation For although those relations of Amazons when they first come from the new World were by many accounted a Fable Peter Martyr formerly esteeming it a semi-fable yet afterwards in his seventh Decade his beliefe came more up to it being heightned by the allegations of men of credit contesting that it was true And Eusebius Nierembergensis witnesseth Euseb Niet Hist Nat. that he was assured of the truth herein by a Cassique or Duke of that Region The Breasts by Nature are two even as the whole body alwaies is bipertite that like good handmaids they might serve their Dame the Wombe The Inconveniencies of the Amazonian convenience which seeme as it were parted into two for the Milke the Fucus of Nature as Plato cals it comes not into the Breasts untill the Infant be throughly perfected and that if there be two Infants yet they might both at once have wherewith to satisfie and nourish them But these Amazons discarding the tendernesse of their Sex and desiring to improve themselves Viragoes abreviate Natures provision for an unnaturall conveniency whereby the proportion of the Breast for ornament of the Chest and the compleat representation of it is lost This their institution being destructive to another secondary use of the Paps to wit of their scituation for they were ordained to be a kind of covering and defence for the heart and that themselves having received heat and cherishment from the heart might againe returne unto its warmth such as we get by garments we buckle about us Hence it is that those men who have great breasts bearing out like a woman that gives suck as a Casar in the river Quiliame which we read of had are of a colder temperament as Nature seemes to intimate by a more than ordinary provision of this covering especially this use is manifest in woman in whom these Breasts grow oftentimes into a great masse and weight so as they being far colder than men their entralls under the Hypocondria are warmed by them Hippoc. lib. de Glandulis Another penalty of their crime against the offended Majesty of Nature they must needs incur unlesse with their Breasts they put off the very Nature of woman since another use of the Paps according to Hippocrates was to receive excrementitious moisture For if saith Hippocrates any disease or other event take away a womans Paps her voice becomes shriller she proves a great spitter and is much troubled with the paine in her head Men that pierce their Paps Before this Scene goes off I ought to take notice of a prophane Cavill of Momus against the Fabrique of the Breast of man who found fault that Nature had not made a Window in the Breast of man that one might have seen the motions of his heart and discovered the affections of his mind And amongst other things which King Don Alonso would who was Surnamed the Wife indiscreetly reforme in Nature this was one among the rest that he did blame her that she had not made a Window in mans Breast that he might see that which he was plotting in his heart and whether his manner of proceeding were faire and sincere or whether his words were feigned No need of a window in the Breast or whether like Janus he had two faces under one hood Alas the desired Window in the Breast would have been of little or no use since it stands not with the conveniency of most Nations to go with an open and bare Breast and say that the Breasts were generally exposed to the Eye Are not the Eyes two Casements that looke down into the Heart And hath not the Countenance a sufficient declaration of the Affection The Eyes being two severall Indexes of the same Nature in recompence and analogically to answer the curiosity of these mens Phantsies hath established a certaine Art of Physiognomy whereby a man may attaine unto a sufficient intelligence of the thoughts and affections of others SCENE XX. What mischief by swathing of Infants Dangerous Fashions and desperate Affectations about the Breast and Waste THe Pergamits as it appeares by Galens observation had a great affectation of old instreight swathing of their Children The walls saith he of the Breasts are for the most part depraved by Nurses while they from the first education do over-strictly bind them about with swathing bands especially saith he is this daily done among us to Virgins for while their Nurses are carefull to encrease their Hips and sides that they may exceed the Breast in magnitude they roll them all over with certaine bands and more vehemently restraine and compresse all the parts of the Scapula and Thorax whence it comes to passe sometimes that when all the parts are not equally compressed the Breast is made to bunch out forward or else the hinder parts that belong to the Back-bone are made Gibbous Swathing a cause of crookednesse so that they become crook-backt Another inconvenience also follows that the Back becomes as it were quite broken and brought to one side insomuch indeed as one of the Scapula's is not increased but appeares small and compressed We have the judgement of Frabicius Hildanus and Sennertus both learned men touching this matter In certaine Regions saith Hildanus and Families Hild. lib. de morb puer it is a custome by involving their little Infants as soone as they are born for what cause they know not to pen them up in too streight swathing Bands Whence it often happens that their bodies and limbs protuberate with crooked bunches and other deformities of the Knees Legs and other parts but also by reason of the more strict involution it happens which no man need to doubt of that their bones being yet tender soft
therefore for such who are become this way proclive to a Phtysique is to use such exercises as gently dilate and extend the Breast as shooting vociferation commotion of the Armes and attraction and compressing of much breath which yet must be done with caution and without violence Among such and other the like inconveniences occasioned by this unhappy custome it is very remarkable that the Rickets a disease frequent with us but scarce known where they use not to swath their Children is occasioned as I am perswaded and some good Physitians are of the same opinion only by this perverse custome of swathing it being an observation among some Ladies that I have discoursed with that no Children that are kept with a Belly-bands only and not swathed streight upward are troubled with the Rickets A notion worth the taking notice of by those who would not have their Children grow sick of the Fashions And although Doctor Glisson and the other Doctors his Assistants in that learned Tract which to their great honour they have lately published of this new disease commonly called the Rickets or more properly the Rackets where they speake of the causes of the Curvity of the bones The cause of the Rickets enquired into they do not wholly assent to their opinions who ascribe it to the flexibility of Bones inveighing against Nurses which prematurely commit Infants and Children to their feet thinking that their bones are bent by the weight of the sustained body nor to others likewise accusing the unskilfull way of swathing practised by Nurses yet they partly grant that in so tender an age the bones may perchance be somewhat bent yet they would not remaine bent as Lead or Wax but left to their liberty they would at length returne to the proper position of the parts for they do not consist of a Ductile matter in so much as they would be broken in the bending or would certainly endeavour to recover the former site of parts And as to the unskilfulnesse and carelesnesse of Nurses they do not wholly excuse them yet they thinke they cannot justly impute this Curvity unto them since they see that the Children of poore men are handled with lesse care and sooner committed to their feet than Gentlemens Children are and yet their children are more rarely infested with this infirmity than theirs and they have known Nurses who having used the uttermost diligence both in swathing and other waies of handling Infants that they have given suck unto yet they could not prevent or avoid this Curvity of the bones But where they come to speake of the Causes why in tract of time the Spine or Rack-bone cannot be raised up according to a straight and naturall line here verily say they we cannot at all excuse the negligence and carelesnesse of nurses that they do not attentively enough observe unto which part rather Infants whom they suckle are prone to encline their body to the end they may diligently and carefully endeavour to direct it to the opposite part Where they never swath Children Likewise also when Nurses prematurely and without regard commit weaker Infants to their feet it may fall out that since the Tonique motion of the Muscles is not sufficient for sustentation of the Body they may suffer the Knee or Leg of the Child to be bended into one side whereupon the Ligaments of the joint are extended either on the inner or outward side and by consequence the Ligaments of the adverse sides are contracted whereby the Ioint must necessarily be bended either outward or inward Therefore although they had above denied the Curvity of the Bones to depend upon this yet they grant that the distortion of Ioints in weake Infants may happen through such a carelesnesse of Nurses granting moreover that by their constant and foolish Fasciation the bones which otherwise were streight may be incurvated although they do not esteeme it to be the constant and ordinary cause of this organicall infirmity Plut. in the Life of Licurgus The Spartan Nurses used a certaine and better manner to bring up their Children without swadling or binding them up in cloaths and swathing-bands Grimston of their manners so as they made them nimbler of their Limbs better shaped and goodlier of body And this was the reason why many strangers sought to have Nurses from Sparta to nurse and bring up their Children Purch Pilgr 2. lib. 9. In Candou Island one of the Islands accounted to Asia they never swadle their Children but let them go free yet never any prove deformed So do the Irish and yet none of their Children prove crooked although the women be not slender So they do in the North of England Where they never swaddle Children where the Rickets hath not much prevailed As for the swadling of Children they that dwell in hot Countries and neare the Tropicks Ramutius Narrat of Nova Francia have no care of it but leave them free unbound but drawing towards the North the Mothers have an eeven smooth board like the Covering of a Drawer or Cupboard upon which they lay the Child wrapped in a beaver furre unlesse it be too hot and tyed thereupon with some swadling-band whom they carry on their Backs their Legs hanging downe then being returned into their Cabins they set them in this manner up straight against a stone or something else In Brasile the Children are never swadled Lindscot lib. 2. or lapped in Cloaths but only laid in a little Cotton Bed we would thinke that if our Children should not be wound or swadled that they would grow crooked whereof not any are foundamong them but rather go uprighter than any people in the World The Canarins and Corumbins of the Indies Grimston of their manners who live not far from Goa the women among them are delivered without a midwife and then they presently wash their Children and lay them upon Indian figleaves and so they go presently about their businesse as if they had not been newly delivered the Children are nursed naked and when they are filthy they use no other mystery than to wash them with water so as they grow strong and active and fit for any thing for they are not daintily bred The men of this sort live many times an hundred yeares in perfect health and never lose tooth What swathing our Clymate requires mocking at our delights with the which we wrong our lives and nature Spigelius Anâ—â—m The Venetians therefore have an excellent Custome to involve rather than swathe their Infants in a light swath-band desiring to have rather a broad than a narrow Breast a full than a slender Fond opinion indeed hath obtained this with us that Children unlesse they were diligently involved and constrained in swathing-bands they would have distorted Legs Which the Barbarians take least care of who put their Infants new borne naked and unswathed into their Hamacchos whose Children notwithstanding of all Mortals go most streight 'T
gives all to mens immodest eye denudating those parts which every modest eye most scornes each honest thought most hates to see and thinke upon Which thing it seemes was invented by a Queene to be an occasion that the sight thereof might remove from men that vice against Nature 〈◊〉 â—jects of women to gaine regard which they were greatly given unto which sight should cause them to regard Women the more Yet they of the Kingdome of Benni are it seems Purch Pilgr 2. liâ—b 7 of another opinion concerning the effect of this Invention for there men and women are not ashamed to shew themselves one unto another as they themselves affirme and by reason prove saying that a man more coveteth and desireth a thing that he seeth not or may not have then that he seeth and may borrow and have and for that cause they hide not their privy members And all those Spaniards Portugals Frenchmen Flemmings and English-men that have been conversant in those parts have affirmed that their manner of going naked is neither fightly nor pleasing and that nothing makes a woman more despised and contemned than to behold her ordinarily naked Wherefore they are not to be imitated that so freely discover their parts of shame only thereby to gaine husbands Nor the Africans Indians Caribes or Brasileans who go naked not for ostentation but by custome either in regard of the Countries great heat or by not being acquainted with the use of Garments but rather we ought to cloathe and conceale those parts which Nature her selfe hath placed so far off both from the sight of our selves and others And indeed although it may seeme to be a bait and provocation to lust and lasciviousnesse yet experience shews the contrary for that splendid apparell The Art of Infibulation of the prepâ—ce counterfeit crisped haire is more discommendable than the nakednesse of these Barbarians which might be made good by many reasons Our first Parents after their sin were justly ashamed seeing their nakednesse And we detest the Heresie which violating the Law of Nature not in this point sufficiently observed by our Adamites endeavours to bring in this shamefull Custome Yet we are neverthelesse to be condemned for condemning them for going naked since we offend in the contrary with too much decking our bodies And would we could regard more modesty and necessity of habits and use them rather for honesty than to pride and vanitie which is more hurtfull than their nakednesse Among the Ancients to prevent young effeminate Inamorato's especially Comedians from untimely Venery and cracking their voices they were wont to fasten a Ring or Buckle on the Foreskin of their Yard as Celsus reports and hereto Martiall seemes to allude in that place Mart. Epigr. where he saies Dum ludit mediâ populo spectante Palestrâ Heu cecidit misero fibula verpus erat Juvenal Satyr A practice also noted by the Satyrist Solvitur his magno Comeodi fibula The Patagons a Race of Giants Purch Pilgr 1. lib. 2. in the fortieth Degree of the South Pole trusse their Genitall members so as it is hidden within their body Which is a transgression against the morall Law of Nature established in our members Nature having excluded these parts from out the Continent of the body for the better moderating of Concupiscence They in the Bay of Soldania have but one stone naturally or Ceremonially Idem eodem l. 4. my Author indeed knoweth not yet I find in another that they trusse up their right stone Arrianus Juriscons ff de re militari Haly Comment ad lib. 3. techn Gal. text 177. lib. 49. Pand. Iuris Titul 17. de re militari Herberts Travels which I suppose may be nationall unto them for it is a thing that happens to many as it did to Silla and Cotta Haly also speaks of one who was born but with one Testicle only Semi-Eunuchs and Eunuchs And the Civil Lawyers allow such for men that they may juremilitari make their testament Most of the men of the Cape of good-Hope are Semi-Eunuchs one stone being ever taken away by the Nurse either to distinguish them from ordinary men or that Mistris Venus allure them not from Pallas D. Mat. cap. 19. D. Hieron cont Iovin There are some who are not borne with any stone at all who are Eunuchs from their mothers wombe such a one was Dorothaeus Bishop of Antioch a very learned man and skilful in the Greeke and Hebrew Euseb Hist Eccles in whom Aurelianus the Emperour tooke great delight as Eusebius witnesseth And although these Instruments of Generation are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because for the most part every man hath two yet among other monstrous constitutions of these parts they have been found to be trebled Caelius Rhod. lib. 24. cap. 4. Jacob. Moccius ex advers Joh. Drijandri Scholiograph ad cap. 62. l. 1. de morb intern Holerii Joh. Pontanus de rebus Coelest cap. 6. l. 10. Kornman de vivorum mirac as it is reported of Agathocles the Tyrant of Cicily and of Franciscus Philelphus And Anatomists have observed in their dissections such an unnaturall triplicity in some and this is said to be peculiar to some Families Many fantasticall reasons have been framed and ends propounded to introduce Eunuchisme and this way of degrading men from their manhood Semiramis was the first that caused young Male children to be made Eunuches therein offering violence to Nature and turning her from her appointed course by a tacite Law as it were stopping the primigeniall Fountaines of Seed and those ways which Nature had assigned for the propagation of Posterity that so she might make them have small voices and to be more womanish that conjoyned with her Ends propounded in Eunuchisme she might the better conceale her usurpation and counterfeit manhood Vpon which there ariseth a Physicall question whether the Testicles be required to the forming of the Voice Galen in his book de Semine saith Galen lib. de Semine that they do confer to the formation of the Voice although they are remote from the other Instruments of the Voice the cause is placed in their native heat although it be not the proximate cause but the Antecedent cause for Galen in the same book doth constitute the Testicles to be next the Heart a Fountaine of heat and strength so that the Testicles cut out only not the other Fountaine is destroyed but the heat of the very heart is lessened and debilitated One Fountaine therefore of heat destroyed the others strength is decayed and by consequence there is a necessity the voice should be changed And Castration is so experimentally known to advance the smalnesse and sweetnesse of the voice that as an ingenious Traveller hath lately observed Mr Raymond in his voyage into Italy in Florence they are so given to the musique of the Voice that there the Great ones keep their Castrati whose
3. cap. 5. have the same foolish affectation among them This Nation seemes to be of an opinion somewhat contrary to Momus who misliked the fashion of the Leg of man that the belly thereof or the Calfe which was seated behind in a place out of danger was furnished so with a defence of flesh and the shin-bone exposed to all encounters without any defence at all never noting that the Eyes were placed before to secure the Shins whereas there was none behind to looke to the safety of the Calfe But one would think they were aware of that notion of Physiognomy which pronounceth spine Legs almost destitute of flesh to be an argument of one prompt to venery Men with one Calfe of their Leg bigger than the other as being a sign of a libidinous Nature A fault commonly noted in women for those whose Legs or shankes are leane and have little flesh they call them leacherous and shamefull whores like unto Goates of which this cause may perchance be assigned for that the aliment is retained in the upper parts and passeth into Seed and spirits whereupon the Legs become small and leane which is manifest in them who want a foot or by any other way become lame for to those lower parts the aliment is not transmitted so copiously as before all which persons are therefore very leacherous There was a Calfe-swelling punishment inflicted upon those of Meliopore both men and women Herberts Travels Helyn Geogr for their cruell ingratitude to St Thomas martyred by them Neirembergensis cals them a peculiar Nation among the Mallabars which from a place of S. Thomas have their name and called Pencays and questions whether it be to be imputed to Nature or a Miracle And on the Tribe of Benjamin who were most fierce against our Saviour both which to this day have one leg as big again in the Calfe as the other this doubled upon them in this humour would have been kindly accepted and entertained for a fashion Yet in some parts of America it should seem they have a contrary affectation at least if I understand Appianus rightly where he saith Aetr. Appian 2. pars Cosmog cap. 4. de America Sanguinem quoque in Lumbis Tibiarum pulpis comminuunt Most free from any affectation in that part are Neatherland women who are well proportioned especially in their Legs and Feet Men and Women only have Calves in their Legs and their Legs full of flesh howbeit Pliny saies he hath read in some writers that there was one man in Aegypt had no Calfe at all to his Legs A Crane-leg'd man but was legged like a Crane Torquato Tâ—sso in the comparison he maketh between Italy and France reported to have noted that the French commonly have more spiny and slender Legs than the Italian Gentlemen and he imputeth the cause to the French-mens continuall riding and sitting on Horseback which is the very same from which Suetonius draweth another cleane contrary conclusion for he saith Germanicus who had very small Legs had by the frequent use of this exercise brought his to be very big but he rid without Styrrups after meat the humors descending upon their pendulent instability But the Scythians by their continuall and immoderate use of Horsemanship became the most impotent and Eunuch-like men in the world as Hippocrates affirmeth of them For they being ill at ease in their Legs and Hips by reason of their continuall riding without stirrups their Legs alwaies hanging they become subject to the Sciatica or Hip-Gout and when the Disease grew strong they were lame and their Hipps contracted and crampt whereupon as if they would exhibite a medicine to the Head to restraine the Flux of the Phleagme to the lower parts they cut their veines behind the Eare whereby indeed they cured themselves but became unfruitfull and impotent And that they became impotent by cutting those Arteries Vallesius thinks happened that the Braine was weakened being deprived of the influction of the vitall Spirits wherefore it was no marvell if they became sloathfull effeminate and unable to sustaine the shock of Venus or sufficiently tâ—â—â—â—t out the vehement efforts of that act for the Braine at that time is wont to labour vehemently or else saith he perchance that Nerve is cut with the veines which Andraeas Vesalius 〈…〉 legs to a convenient magnitude a man most expert in dissection reports he hath seen in many to descend from the sixt Conjugation of the Nerves of the Braine into the Testes and seminary vessels of which opinion before him Johannes Langius a learned Physitian of Germany seemes to have been of while he writes that the better portion of the Prolofique Seed flows down from the Braine and spinall marrow by the Veines and the Arteries of the Temple the Parotides Veines behind the Eares to the Loines and the Seminary vessels which appeares to be so in that at the effusion of the Seed the Eyes twinckle and that the Braine is dried with Copulation whence it is that hot and fat humour being consumed in that congression leacherous men do sooner wax bald Where the Legs either by the lapse of Nature or by accident are lesse than the naturall and decent proportion the Corrective part of Physique justly taketh place to encrease them to a due magnitude Gal. lib. 5. de Tuenda sanitat Galen affords us a method in this businesse where he speakes of the correcting and repairing of members and he gives an example of a boy of thirteene yeares of age who had small spindle Shankes who by causing the Aliment to be moderately drawn to that place and the parts indifferently rubb'd and chaf'd and causing him to use baths and convenient aliment by this meanes brought the little Legs of that boy to a convenient magnitude a good notion for Gentlemen Vshers if they have any mind to have the Leg repaired and would save the Charges of Bombasted Artificiall Calfes We justly account a high pitcht Calfe the best proportion and therefore we alwaies stroake up the Calfes of our Legs High pitch'd low-pitch'd Calfes by whom affected Our Lancashire men are noted by Camden to have such cleane and handsome shaped Legs The Irish who are good Footmen as I have heard count a low-pitcht Calfe the best Leg and therefore they stroake down the Calfes of their Legs a high great bellied Leg it may be being found somewhat inconvenient in running of long Races but it is thought by some that they do so The impertinency of tampering with Childrens weake legs because they affect a long full small Many times Children about the second yeare of their Age when they begin to go are wont to vari and go wide and stradling with their Feet their Knees inclining to each other About this feared deformity their mothers being solicitous crave help of Chirurgions who for the most part endeavour with divers Machins to erect and keep straight their Legs and Thighs but in vaine because
coloured with a reddish Tawney all very personable and handsome strong men As for the Floridians Ribaults discovery of Florida the sore-part of their bodies and armes be painted with pretty devised workes of Azure Red and Black so well and so properly as the best Painter of Europe could not amend it the women have their bodies painted with a certaine herb like unto Mosse wherewith the Cedar trees and all other Trees are covered The people of Whitesands Island paint themselves with certaine roane colours In a narration of new France The Margasates in Brasilea paint themselves with black streakes like the Tartarians Lindscot Travels lib. 2. The Inhabitants of the Island La Trinidade paint their bodies red and black with colours made of the juyce of herbs Idem eodem and the filthier it sheweth the fairer they esteeme it to be And in the Gothick warre ferroque notatas Perlegit exanimes Picto moriente figuras Some thinke that the Celtique Poiteveins called by the Latines Pictones though they be not descended of this race yet had their name given them for the same occasion of that of the Picts And as customes once brought in among a people are not lost but by the length of many Ages So in Brunzwich they sometimes grease their faces with painting and make their Vizage all black from whence perchance that word Bronzer may be derived which signifies in Picardy to black And generally it is beleeved that all those Northerly people did use painting when they would make themselves brave for the Gelons Agathyrses Nations of Scythia like the Picts Iohan. Bohem. de rit gent. lib. 3. were of this Fraternity with Iron Instruments did colour their bodies We English men likewise then called Britons by the saying of Tertullian Tert. de veland virg Jornand de bello Gotico Isidor lib. 16. cap. 23. affected the same cruell bravery The Goths besides the Iron Instruments did use Vermilion to make their faces and bodies red Briefely it was a sport in old time to see so many Anticks men and women for there are found yet old pictures which in the Virginia History you may find Painting with faire incisions an old humour of our Auncestors cut in brasse where the Picts of both Sexes are painted out with their faire incisions as Herodian describeth them So that you see this humour of painting hath been generall in these parts There being no cause of mocking if the Indians have done and yet do the like By which things above recited we may know that this hither world hath anciently been as much deformed and savage as any of the Indians and may come about to the same point of cuticular bravery Why some men and they a mighty and considerable part of mankind should first acquire and still retaine the glosse and tincture of blacknesse they who have strictly enquired into the cause Enquity how so great a part of mankind became Black have found no lesse darkenesse in it than blackness in the effect it selfe there arising unto examination no such satisfactory and unquarrellable reasons as may confirme the causes generally received which are but two in number that is the heat and the scorch of the Sun or the curse of God on Cham and his Posterity That the most common imputation to the heat of the Sun in those Climates is false is approved by a most unanswerable argument for there are some Nations of this colour although the Pole Antartique in that place be in the elevation of thirty and five degrees which is a very strange thing yea the rude people that live among the most cold Mountaines of the Moone are black also as Pigafetta relates That Neither of these is the cause the learned Enquirer into vulgar Errours hath evinced or at least made dubious yet how and when this tincture began it was yet a riddle unto him and positively to determine it surpassed his presumption seeing therefore saith he we cannot certainly discover what did effect it it may afford some piece of satisfaction to know what might procure it It may therefore be considered whether the inward use of certaine waters or fountaines of peculiar operations might not at first produce the effect Dr Brownes Pseudodoxia Epidemica lib. 6. cap. 10. since of the like we have records in History Secondly it may be propounded whether it might not fall out the same way that Jacobs Cattle became speckled spotted and ring-streaked that is by the power and efficacy of imagination which produceth effects in the conception correspondent to the phantsie of the Agents in generation If the figure of man hath been changed why not his colour and sometimes assimilates the idea of the Generator into a reality in the thing ingendred whereof there passe for current many undisputable examples Thirdly it is not undisputable whether it might not proceed from such a cause and the like foundation of Tincture as doth the black-Jaundies which meeting with congenerous causes might settle durable inquinations and advance their generations unto that hue which was naturally before but a degree or two below it And this transmission we shall the easier admit in colour if we remember the like hath been effected in organicall parts or figures the Symetry whereof being casually or purposely perverted hath vigourously descended to their Posterities and that in durable deformities This was the beginning of Macrocephali or people with long heads Thus have the Chineses little feet most Negroes great Lips and flat-Noses and thus many Spaniards and Mediterranean Inhabitants which are of the Race of Barbary-Moores although after frequent commixture have not worn out the Camoyse Nose unto this day To omit therefore the other conjectures of our ingenious Author we shall take leave in the Tenour of his own words to say that it may be the seed of Adam might first receive this tincture and became black by an advenient and artificiall way of denigration which at first was a meere affectation arising from some conceit they might have of the beauty of blacknesse and an Apish desire which might move them to change the complexion of their bodies into a new and more fashionable hue Nations of a colour like Brasse which will appeare somewhat more probable by divers affectations of painting in other Nations mentioned in this Treatise and that they take so much content therein that they esteeme deformity by other colours describing the Devill and terrible objects white for they thinke and verily perswade themselves that they are the right colour of men and that we have a false and counterfeit colour And so from this Artifice the Moores might possibly become Negroes receiving atramentitious impression by the power and efficacy of imagination And this complexion first by Art acquired might be evidently maintained by generation and by the tincture of the skin as a spermaticall part traduced from Father to Son For thus perhaps this which at the beginning
is suffocated and over-whelmed with too much moisture that it cannot shape the body to a comely taleness of stature wheras they who are fed moderately and use a sparer diet feed only at certain set times become not very grosse neither increase in flesh or grow fat but their bones thereupon increase in length So we see young men children in long continued sicknesses to grow lean and slender yet their bodies to shoot out in length and to increase in stature which Lemnius should thinke happens by reason of drinesse for the bones since they are dry Men growing Giants by a disease they are nourished with an aliment familiar agreeable unto them seeing that in sick men the humours and aliment received through heat and the drinesse of the body become dry the bones are extended in length and by reason of the somewhat dry nourishment they gaine some advantage in stature especially when man is in such an age wherein his body as soft and ductile Potters clay may be formed and produced in length Remarkable examples of this truth are to be found for they have been seen whom a Quartan-Ague hath raised into a Giant-like bulk and stature Spigelius hath a story of one Anthony of Antwerp who lived in his time who being borne a little and weake Infant of a sudden through a disease became a great Giant Such with the Greeks are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in whom there lies hid the Seminary of a disease which cals forth a prodigious augmentation with an untimely death Salamine the son of Euthemen in three yeares grew up to the height of three cubits as Pliny reports In like manner a son of Cornelius Tacitus the Noble Historian died young Every man hath a certaine and determinate time set to his growth wherein by degrees and tacite augmentations he attaineth either to a legitimate or Dwarfish stature and that power of encreasing whereby the body happens to be enlarged in longitude is seldome produced beyond the five and twentieth yeare but for the greatest part is terminated within one and twenty yeares but to grow fat and corpulent happens not to be done in certaine spaces of time but by reason of nutriment when it is plentifully taken in which may be either in the achma or declination of our age for although one be cram'd The cause of all stature his body is not erected in length but is dilated in bulke and breadth for the faculty whereby the body is nourished is one and that whereby it groweth up is another for truly that is conversant about the plenty of aliment this about the solid parts of the body to wit the Bones Nerves Cartilages c. Which if they increase and are stretched out in length the Creature also attaines unto an increment although it be wasted with leanenesse and consumed away Therefore Nature in producing the bones whence the heighth of man proceeds useth the force of heat whereby she not a little drieth the humours and accommodates the aliment for the nourishment of the Bones Therefore it is the Amplifying force or Faculty which formeth out in length the bones of Febricitants as wax by vertue and heat of the seminall excrement which in the vigour of age is very valid and efficacious for the performance thereof For truly if young men and boyes are accustomed to milke from their very Cradles and given to exercise they will have taller bodies and prove of a more decent and comely stature because by the drinking and use of milk the bones are nourished which is a kin to seed and an elaborate and exactly concocted bloud Moderate feeding and at set times with a discreet allowance of competent food without pinching Salmuthus cent 3. obs 70. may be the cause whence talnesse of body may arise Salmuthus in his observations speakes of a certaine mother rather to be called a Step-dame who chid her daughter who was a married wife for giving her Children too much meat Means to accelerate growth or stature that distended their stomacks and guts whence in processe of age they would grow more greedy and not easie to be satisfied Upon which occasion he cals to remembrance a contention which arose in his presence between some of the Court-women and a Physician whether Children of Princes about the sixth or seventh yeare of their age were to be allowed their Bevers or afternoons Nuncians which he denied they on the contrary were very earnest and importunate with him arguing that the native heat should not be permitted to lye idle at length after much disputation one and the chiefest among them objected to the Physician the abject stature of his body whereas if he had been brought up by his mother with a fuller Diet he had grown up into a just talnesse of Stature But let us heare what the Oracle of Humane Learning saith to this purpose Lord Bacons nat hist cent 5. To accelerate growth or stature it must proceed either from the plenty of the nourishment or from the quickning and exciting of the naturall heat for the first excesse of nourishment is hurtfull for it maketh the child corpulent and growing in breadth rather than height And you may make an experiment from plants which if they spread much are seldome tall As for the nature of nourishment first it may not be too dry And therefore Children in Dary Countries do wax more tall than where they feed more upon bread and flesh There is also a received Tale that boyling of daisie roots in milke which it is certaine are great driers will make dogs little But so much is true that an over-drie nourishment in Children putteth back stature Secondly Meanes of increase of stature the nourishment must be of an opening nature for that attenuateth the juyce and furthereth the motion of the spirits upwards neither is it without cause that Xenophon in the nourture of the Persian Children doth so much commend their feeding upon Cardamomum which he saith made them grow better and be of a more active habit Cardamomum in Latine is Nasturtium and with us water-cresses which it is certaine is an herbe that whilest it is young is friendly to life As for the quickning of naturall heat it must be done chiefly by exercise And therfore no doubt much going to schoole where they fit so much hindreth the growth of Children whereas Country people that go not to Schoole are commonly of better stature And againe men must beware how they give Children any thing that is cold in operation for even long sucking doth hinder both wit and stature this hath been tried that a whelpe that hath been fed with Nitre in milk hath become very little but extreame lively for the spirit of Nitre is cold And although it be an excellent medicine in strength of yeares for prolongation of life yet it is in children and young creatures an enemy to growth and all for the same reason for heat is requisite