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 Paraus 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 a little Town ten Miles distant from Taurin Teurin Anno Dom. 1578 Amb. Paraeus lib. 24. cap. 2. the seventeenth of January about 8 of the clock at Night an honest Matron brought forth a Child having five hornes one against another on his Head like unto Rams hornes Lanfraneus saw a man who came unto him for his advice Lanfraneus tract 3. Doct. 2. cap. 3. Chirur Major who had seven Eminencies in his Head one
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 Ossibus 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 fuliginous 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 to wit The Naturall use of Haire 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 inferior parts and ascending to the top of the Head granting a free and open way unto them And since the Braine is severed so farr from the Fountaine of heat and confining so neer the Bones and under them fenced with no fat these Haires protect and warme it They therefore that cut them wholly away doe not only bring a deformitie upon Nature but affoord an occasion to defluxions Wee must avert then from Nature these calumnies of
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 it 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 Wise 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 espeicially 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 streightswathing 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 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 This Cautions in ordering Infants 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 rewake 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
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-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. de 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 Vice Hath the Holy Scripture it selfe the Wisdome of God as well in the old Law particularly as also in many passages of the New balked this Argument God that created these parts did he not intend their preservation in the state of Nature and can they be preserved so if we know not their naturall perfection Or if the injurious inventions of man have practically depraved these parts can Nature be vindicated or her honesty asserted without knowledge and discovery of the Abuses that have been and are committed in these parts Examples there are of this Concession not only in Latine but in all mother Tongues And the most of my Histories are in English already as appeares by the grave Authours quoted and this hath had an allowance in all Ages and Common-wealths and the opinion of grave and reverend Divines is that such discourses upon fit occasions are not to be intermitted Indeed Yard-Balls it were to be wished that all men would come to the knowledge of these secrets with pure eyes and eares such as they were matched with in their Creation But shall we therefore forfeit our knowledge because some men cannot containe their lewd and inordinate affection Our intention is first and principally to discover the abuses of the parts Secondarily to teach those who are sober minded the naturall use honesty and perfection of parts as well to give glory to him who hath so wonderfully created them as also to explode and detest the mischieves prodigious vanity to which among and above the rest these parts have been notoriously subjected As much as was possible we have endeavoured not frustrating our lawfull scope by honest words and circumlocutions to render the Argument more favourable to the eares of those who are wise indeed and not to discontent any unlesse the Negative ignorance of such who precisely thinke there is no other principle of goodnesse than not to know evill The Inhabitants of Ava in the West-Indies Purch Pilgr 3. lib. 1. weare in their Yards betwixt the skin and flesh Bels of Gold Silver or Brasse of the bignesse of Nuts which they put in when they are of age to use women and in short time cure the place and the men much please themselves to heare the sound of them as they go these Venus-Morris-Dancers frisking often to the tune of their own Codpiece-musique Magin Georgr Ind. orient One Geographer gives in evidence against the Peguans that they are very much given to luxurie and that they in favour of the women weare golden or silver bells hanging at their virile members to the end that they make a sound as they walk through the City Grimston of their manners Another saith the Peguans are wonderfully given to the love of women and for their sakes they weare little bells of Gold and Silver hanging at their members to the end they may make a noise when as they go in the streets Herberts Travels lib. 3. For Siam another Authour reports that to deter these Catamites a late Queene Rectrix commanded that all Male Children should have a bell of Gold in it an Adders Tongue dried put through the prepuce which in short time not only became not contemptible but inway of ornament and for Musique few are now without three or foure so that when they have a mind to marry he hath his choice of what maid he likes but beds her not untill
forth the differences and severall sorts of Hermophradites in these words Differentiae quatuor Leonide Auctore existunt tres quidem in viris una 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 ex pudendo 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 sit 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 Vide 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 virsupinus 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. Hormoph 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 may see what a hand the lust and folly of a man hath in this Hemophraditicall Transformation or Androginall mixture Those who in old time were called by the name of Androgyni were reputed then for prodigious wonders Howbeit as Pliny notes Plin. Nat. Hist lib. 7. cap. 3. Aul. Gel. l 9. c. 4 Isidor lib. 11. cap. 3. Jul. Obseq lib. prodig in his time men tooke delight and pleasure in them M. Messala C. Livius Consuls in Umbria there was a Semi-man almost twelve yeares old by the command of the Aruspices slaine L. Meteblus and Q. Fabius Maximus Consuls there was an Hermophradite borne at Luna Idem by command of the Southsayers cast into the sea P. Africanus C. Fulvius Consuls Idem in the Country of Ferretinnum there was an Hermophradite borne and carried unto the River Gn. Domitius Cajus Fannius Consuls Idem in Foro Vessonum another borne and cast into the Sea L. Aurelius and L. Caecili'us Consuls Idem about Rome there was another Hermophradite some eight yeares old found and carried unto the sea L. Caecilius L. Aurelius Consuls Idem there was another about ten yeares old found at Saturnia and drowned in the Sea Q. Metellus Tullius Didius Consuls Idem another was carried from Rome and drowned in the Sea A course taken to prevent Courses Cn. Cornelius Lentulus P. Licinius Consuls there was an Androgynus found Idem and carried to the Sea Beyond the Nasamones and their neighbours confining upon them the Matchlies there be found ordinarily Hermophradites called Androgyni of a double nature and resembling both Sexes Male and Female who have carnall knowledge one of another interchangeably by turnes as Caliphanes doth report Cited by Pliny Nat. Hist lib. 7. Aristotle saith moreover that on the right side of their breast they have a little teat or nipple like a man but on the left side they have a full pap or dug like a woman Montuus de Med. Thoresi lib. 1. cap. 6. I knew saith Montuus an Hermophradite who was accounted for a woman and was married to a man to whom she bore some sons and daughters notwithstanding he was wont to lye with his maids and get them with child This is remarkable Anno 1461. in a certaine City of Scotland there was an Hermophrodite maid got her Masters Daughter with child who lay in the same bed with her Veinrichius Com. de Monstris pag. 7. facie aversa being accused of the Fact before the Judges she dyed being put into the ground alive The Tovopinambaultian women of Brasill in in America Purch Pilgr 4. lib. 7. never have their Flowers not liking that purgation it is thought they divert that flux by some meanes unknown to us for the Maids of twelve yeares old have their sides cut by their mothers from the armehole down unto the knee with the very sharpe tuske of a certaine beast the young Girles gnashing with their Teeth through the extremity of the paine some conjecture they prevent their monthly flux by this remedy Women affecting streightnesse Concerning the nature of the Menstruall bloud there hath been and yet is hard hold and many opinions among Physicians All agree that this bloud is an excrement for like a superfluity it is every month driven forth the Wombe but many would have it an unprofitable
Art come to such agility as the Nairo's have Turpis Romano Belgicus ore color But the Venetian Dames have the harder taske to please For all bodies may be made leane but it is impossible to fatten where a vehement heat or driness is by nature for one may easily substract from Nature but to adde to Nature is difficult when vertue doth not cooperate among the rest they who have great Livers are very difficultly improved with flesh All other Creatures if they have sufficient and proper food will grow fat and be franked whereas men although they have the best aliment exhibited to them will not in like manner be fat the chiefe cause whereof as to man is imputed to his temperament but there are three causes found which impedes the fatting of man Corpulency where in great esteeme The first is the great variety and dissimilitude of meat to which appertaines that many men observe not a certaine time of repast whence there ariseth unequall concoctions the other cause is immoderate venery or venerious cogitations but the third and chiefest cause is to be attributed to the sollicitous cares of his mind which dry his very bones 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 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
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 doe 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— waâ—â—s both by art and diurnall succession The audacious art of new moulding 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 and they accounted more honorable that have them 146 147 The deformity introduced by the artificiall great Eares 157 The use of the lobe or lower lappet of the Eare. 156 Where the wider the holes are the more noble they esteem themselves to be 146 The prodigious widenesse of their Eare-holes measured ibid. Nations with their Eares bored full of holes 149 Where long Eares are held such a note of Gallantry that they call them Apes that have not their Eares long 145 Where their Gallantry is to weare pegs of wood slender like knitting needles a finger long and make them looke like hedge-hoggs 149 Large Ear'd shee-Gallants 148 Prodigious kind of Earings and Pendants worne by most Nations 148 150 151 152 153 What beauty it was that Nature invented in the outward Ear. 155 Men with Asses Eares 159 Where People have the nether part of their Eares cut into a round circle hanging downe very low upon their Cheeks 151 152 Why man had lesse Eares assigned him then other Animals 157 The naturall proportion symetry and beauty of the Eare. ibid. and 155 The prodigious vanity of Earrings noted and exploded 154 155 The use of the outward Eare. 156 That this horrid affectation of great Eares in this pack of large Ear'd hell-hounds savours of more then the ordinary vanity incident to mankinde 157 Where they affect to have a small Eare standing close to their Head 158 What artifice and industry Nurses use to forme Infants Eares unto their minde ibid. The inconveniences of little Ears and the vanity of man in this supposed beauty and the dammage proceeds hence to the action of the Eare. 158 159 Monsters with very large double and round Eares 160 Nations the holes of whose Ears are much wider then ours ibid. Nations who have no Eares at all and yet heare most exactly ibid. Infants borne without Eares ibid. The sad condition of those who are deprived of the outward Eare. 160 161 Eyes NAtions with one Eye planted in their forehead 101 102 103 104 A Monocular childe born 104. Why man hath naturally two Eyes 101 Children borne without Eyes 104 Nations without Eyes ibid. 240 Men with foure Eyes 105 Men that have Eyes in their Shoulders ibid. 240 A man with two Eyes in the
Humane Fabrique The INTRODVCTION GAlen to convince the errour of Epicurus 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 me saith Mercurialis to judg Insomuch as considering these injurious neglects and the tampering that hath been used among all Nations to alter the mould of their Bodies wee may say as Plato in effect affirms that onely the first men which the world possessed were made by God but the rest were made and born answerable to the discourse of Mans invention The just contemplation of which vanity made that sound more strangly in my eares that in
taken away by the promoting and reviving of this Noble part of Cosmetiques for the better establishing and preservation of the honesty of the Humane Fabrique and the regular beauty of the Body It is a wonderfull thing that is reported of the Honour and esteem that the perfection of the Body hath been in among the Catheans who ever chose the handsomest man to be their King Onescritus cited by Strabo Geographia lib. 15. Onesicritus reports that their boies two months after their birth are publikely examined whether they have a legitimate forme and worthy of life or no and according as judgment is passed upon them by him who is Chiefe Censor in this businesse they are either permitted to live or appointed to die My Lord of Montaigne in one of his Essayes And my Lord of Montaigne thought much to be bound to own Monsters although they were of his own begetting But those things savour too much of the other extreme and are neither to be approved or put in practise by us Wee rather recommend unto you that observation of my Lord Bacon to be well weighed as he would have it which as he saith may teach a meanes to make the persons of Men and Women in many kinds more comely and better featured then otherwise they would be by the forming and shaping them in their Infancy wherein you may see the opinion of that learned Worthy touching helps toward the beauty and good features of persons And withall I would have all possible meanes used to prevent all unnaturall and monstrous Incroachments upon the Humane forme and where there happens any to reduce it to the Naturall State that so the bodies of men might as neere as can be appeare unblemished and accompanied with all the requisites of beauty it enjoyed in its originall perfection MAN TRANSFORM'D OR THE ARTIFICIALL CHANGLING THE FIRST SCENE Certaine Fashions of the Head affected and contrived by the Pragmaticall invention and Artificiall endeavours of many Nations HIppocrates observes Hippocrates lib. de Aere Aquis Locis that the Naturall mould or figure of the Head hath bin tampered with and altered by Art Sennertus de morbis Figurae Sennertus also where he writes De morbis Figurae reckons amongst other causes of the ill Conformation of Mens Heads that they are now and then induced after the Birth Sugar-Loafe-like Heads whilest the tender Heads of Infants are by Midwives and Nurses formed after a divers manner while they are involved in Head-bands and moulded with their hands according to their irregular and varying Phansies The Cilician Atticke Athenaneus and Argive Women were noted of old as the Phoxi were to have high turbinated Heads The Women in Peru Strabo Geograph lib. although they are gracious by their faire Faces Maginus 2 Geograph America yet for the most part the tops of their Heads are absurdly acuminated and run into an acute Cuspis Strabo makes mention of some Indians who he cals 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Capita cunei formia habentes that is having such Piked and Wedg-like Heads This Figure of the Head is in Fashion and Request at this day with some Nations being indeavoured with as much Art as it was of old by the Macrones of Pontus For the Genuensians for the most part have high and copp-crown'd Heads Pine-Apple forme after the condition of a sharp upright Pillar in such manner that the neather part is bigg and round but the upper part sharp Claramont de conject cujusque mor. l. 6. And indeed it is concluded that the Midwives with their Head-bands and other devises are the cause of their Sugar-loafe-like Heads This affected forme of the Head being common and Nationall unto them is reputed so Fashionable that it is held a Note of Gentility and a Gallant Spirit among them Hippoci 6 Ep. 1. Hippocrates notes that an acute Head is alwaies naught and verily this compulsive force of Art is many times very Injurious to Nature and her operations but not alwaies for the Genuensians who delight much in this Figure of the Head and are noted for the most part to have acuminated Heads have at least such an acumen of Wit as makes them excellent for an Active Life and in the opinion of Claramontius the form of the thing gives a suffrage unto it for such a kind of turbinated Figure represents a certaine parvity and therefore the Heat of the Heart is lesse broken by it whereupon Man is rendered more Active Hofman Instit And therefore in this place we must admit what Hofman gives us to know That so long as the Actions of the Braine are not hurt it is only a Naturall or Artificiall fault or imperfection no disease but when they are hurt then it is a disease as it was in Thersites who was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Homer Iliad and withall a Foole and so sick of this Fashion For the truth is as to the signes Diagnostick a vitious Figure of the Head is known by sight which although it doe chiefly declare the Conformation of the skull yet it is likely and agreeable that the Braine which is concluded in the skull should Participate of the same Figure but the discovery of it is made also by certaine effects and it is easie to know the innate folly bred in some Men Scaliger Comm. ad lib. 5. Theophrast de causis Plant. pag. 287. by the vitious Figure of the Head Yet Scaliger gives another Character of these Genuensians which Imports that they pay for their Affectation The Genuensians saith he having received from the Mauritanians their Progenitors this Custome to compresse the Temples of their Infants as soon as they are Borne now without that Compression are Borne with a Thersiticall Head and Heart We read in the Chronicles of the Prodigious Ostents that Nature hath many times mocked Art in producing this Figure of the Head For Lycosthenes chr de prodig ostent Licosthenes writes that in Ploa a Towne of Voitland there was a Monstrous Infant Borne with such an acuminated Head like a Cap that the Kings of Persia and the Priests in the old Law used or like a Tiara or Turkish Tuffe and in Saxonie in the Month of February 1545 there was another Infant borne with a Long Head notably marked as it were with a Turkish Cap. The Samaritans also as I am Informed by a Learned and Observing Traveller have such Sugar-Loafe-like Heads There being a Colledge of Samaritan Secular Priests in Rome founded by Pope Gregory the thirteenth who have all such Heads and this Figure of the Head it seems is so Gentilitiall to a Samaritan that they are apt there to suspect those Collegiates not to be true Samaritans whose Heads are not so exactly moulded to this Figure Nor is this as a private and particular Observation bounded with in the Wals of this Colledge For I have had great discourse with some Merchants that have been
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 that ought not to evert the proper signification received of all Authors The Heads true Figure 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 praeloct 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 fourth wherefore a Brain not perfectly Globous but gently compressed on each side and lightly protended in length was convenient for the Ventricles Antonius Ulmus defin Barbae Hum. s 2. Antonius Vlmus to these true opinions of the Ancients hath thought of another end of this Figure of the Head which is confirmed by the testimony of sence who is of opinion that the Head was laterally compressed for the Eies-sake to wit the better to
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 the Face to maintain their Elegant separations For the Nose is placed in the very middle of the Face as the most worthy and honourable scituation and necessarily placed between the Eyes since not onely a great beauty accrews unto the Face thereby but as some will have it it serves to distinguish the Eyes one from another and is the cause that the visory spirits are not confounded and mixt together and in the interim being annexed on both sides to the bones of the Genae it covers and fils up that horrid den which otherwise would appeare so abominable unto the sight as it doth in their practise who break down the partition wall that Nature had interposed between the Eyes and against the law of Nature remove her bounds and mangle that goodly promontory that runs along to divide the Pasifique Sea of beauty in the Face thereby endeavouring to their owne confusion to joyn those together whom God and Nature had so wisely separated By all which it is too too evident what reall beauties these Nations deprive themselves of for an imaginary and supposed elegancie or rather an affected deformity whereby to the great injurie of Nature not onely the beautifull proportion of the Nose is lost but the officiall elegancy thereof very much impaired For although notwithstanding these fashionable maimes of the Nose they may see and breath and speake and in some sort enjoy the other uses spoken of yet not so well as they otherwise might nor in so absolute a manner as they ought by the constitution of humane Nature Megasthenes reports that there is a Nation among the Indian Nomades having holes onely in the place of the Nostrils and that they are called Syrictae Sr. John Mandevill speakes of some Nations that have no Nose but two small holes whereof one serveth them to breath the other serveth instead of a Mouth Great is the Ornament that the Face receiveth by the Nose that part of the Face which the Nose taketh up being stiled by the ancients the imperiall seat of Majestique beauty that admirall variety of Faces and individuall distinctions being chiefly occasioned by the Nose the very least alteration whereof causing a manifest change in the ayre of the Face If but a little part of the Nose were cut off it were a hard matter to say how deformed the whole Face would prove Virgil. Aeneid 6. a maim in the Nose therefore being justly called by Virgil a dishonest wound Truncas in Honesto vulnere Nares The protuberating or strutting part of the Face carrieth with it saith Laurentius a kind of beauty yea of Majesty The beauty that is added to the Face of Man by the Organ of smelling I meane the Nose Dr. Crooke gives us a pregnant instant thereof Dr. Crooke emiero Cosmograph in an example worth our remembrance a young Man being adjudged to be hanged and the executioner at hand a certaine Maid suborned by his friends and quaintly dressed and set out goes unto the judges The Honour of the Nose maintained and makes supplication for his life requiring him for her husband well shee overcame the Iudges this done the guilty young Man being set at liberty and comming from the Gallowes unto the maid attired and dressed in such costly Ornaments he presently cast his Eye upon her Nose which indeed was very deformed and instantly cries out that he had rather have been hanged then freed upon condition of undergoing so deformed a choise in his Matrimony to this is that of Horace answerable Horat. in Arte Poetica Hunc ego si quid componere curem Non magis esse velim quam pravo vivere Naso
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 certainâ— 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 Women out in 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. mediâ— 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 sinfull nor would have us go about to marre his worke or to do his last work which he hath reserved to himselfe in Heaven here upon earth that is to glorifie our Bodies with such Additions here as though we would need no Glorification there But concerning this kind of transgression against the honesty and truth of Nature or rather the sinfulnesse of it Cajetan is of an opinion that as a woman may conserve her naturall beauty without sin so she may also preserve it by Art by adhibiting the vertues of Fucusses Pigments and other paintings so it do not intend an evill end it is a fiction and vanity somewhat excusable Whereas it is concluded a mortall sin for any to sell such disguising trash to those they know will abuse it for an evill end And in this regard some Divines will not allow so much as palliation of any deformity in the Face which hath proceeded from licentiousnesse and intemperance or that they should be disguised by unnaturall helps to the drawing in of others and the continuation of their former sins The sin it selfe was the Divels act in thee but in the Deformity that follows upon the sin God hath a hand and they that suppresse and smother these by paintings and unnaturall helps to unlawfull ends do not deliver themselves of the plague but they do hide the markes and infect others and wrastle against Gods notifications of their former sins The invention of which Act of Palliation of an ascititious deformity against Gods indigitation of sin is imagined one reason of the invention of black Patches wherein the French shewed their witty pride which could so cunningly turne Botches into Beauty and make uglinesse handsome yet in point of Phantasticalnesse we may excuse that Nation Musitians Face Deformers as having taken up the fashion rather for necessity than novelty in as much as those French Pimples have need of a French Plaister But vocall Musique performed by Instruments which Nature hath invented for delight ought not to be set at naught for the same or peradventure no reason at all as it is by the Stoick morall Philosophers For the Wind-Musique doth not deforme the Visage it reformes yea conformes it and the vocall which is correspondent to the hearing altereth the proportion of the Face to conforme it to the Eye the one requires setlednesse to be well looked upon and the other receives its perfections from motion one unfolds the Beauty of the Visage the other both laies open and accompanies the sweetnesse of the voice where there is a sound Motion hath necessarily proceeded and the motion is with measure if the sound be harmonious Sometimes also it is voluntary accompanied with the Head Eyes and Mouth and with delight though without necessity if it be with proportion That motion which offends produces no harmonious sound or doth not accompany it proportionably SCENE XVI Long-necked Nations Nationall Monstrosities appearing in the Necke PEtrus Damianus Damianus libello de mirac Arch-Bishop of Ravenna and Cardinall relates that Robert King of France married a Kinswoman of his by whom he had a Son with a Gooses neck and head whereupon by a common consent of the French Bishops they were excomunicated the King compelled by these streights takes better Counsell and renouncing his incestuous Bed entred into lawfull marriage with another Beyond the streights of Magellan Pigafetta reports to
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 especially the Ribs of the Breast The naturall proportion of the Breasts 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 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
upon nets instead of Beds they never take them into their Armes or their Laps no not when they give them suck bur 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 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 Causes of Crookednesse outwards or sidewise as they are thrust or forced And in another place speaking of dislocations or luxations and the causes of Bunch-backs and saddle-backs and crookedness 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 Ribt 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 Throats and their bodies use not to 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
long legs broad feet and long toes The Men of Aegypt and Ethiopia have their feet crooked St Austin makes mention of Men borne at Hippo with feet fashioned like a halfe moon Aug. lib. 16. de Civit. Dei c. 8. with two Toes in each foot Many of Canton and Quamsi Province have two nailes upon their little toes as they have generally in Cachin China Concerning these and some other properties of Natitions where I suspect no Artifice I am willing to say with Pliny That no wonder it is that about these Coasts Plin. Nat. Hist lib. 6. there be found men and beasts of strange and wondrous shapes considering the agility of the Suns fierie heat so strong and powerfull in those Countries which is able to frame Bodies artificially of sundry proportions and to imprint and grave in them divers formes Concerning these Monsters which have scarce the Figure of any certaine Species and either are not humane S. Aug Enchir. cap. 87. Epist ad vitalem lib. 22. de Civit. Dei vid. c. 19. Bonavent l. 4. Dist 44. or partly humane and partly mixt of divers S. Augustine with whom Lumbard agrees denies they shall rise againe or we are not saith he to believe they shall appeare so vitiated in the Resurrection but rather with a corrected and amended nature Where they paint their Feet and their deformity be it of what kind soever recalled to the true Figure of a humane Fabrick not that there shall any thing perish in the Body which was naturally in it but only that which is deformed God doing that which an Artificer is wont who can dissolve againe with fire a deformed Statue whether it were made so on purpose or by chance and the errour of Art and introduce a more beautifull Figure So that the same substance shall remaine the first deformity abolished for what was extant expressed or wanting of featnesse to that foule Figure that he either cuts off or fils up or adds that the dishonesty filthinesse ill favourednesse or horriblenesse thereof may be removed In like manner we may suppose it will be done in the Resurrection for these monstrous deformities cannot consist with the future felicity of the Saints the manner of restitution we must leave to the Creator But as for the deformed members of wicked men which were polluted with sin and made the Instruments of iniquity there is no reason why this should be common with them with Innocents and the heires of that life but as the bodies of the damned shall be tormented De his vide Thom. Aquin. 4. Con. gentiles cap. 89. Purch Pilgr 2. lib. 9. so they shall suffer with their deformities yet there is no certainty since nothing is expressely revealed in Scripture of this matter In Candou Island they have a custome to make the Nailes of their Feet red this is the beauty of that Country they make it with the juyce and moisture of a certaine Tree and it endures as long as the Nailes Idem lib. 7. The Abassines also colour their Feet which are bare with the juice of a reddish-barke The Virgins among the Chiribichenses use to wrap the parts of the Calfes of their Legs and Thighs next the Knees with Bottoms of yarne Where they affect great Hips and Thighs Pet. Martyr Decad. 8. and bind them hard to the end that their Calfes and Legs might swell bigger and through this foolish device they thinke they appeare finer to their Lovers their other parts are naked The Cathayans also as it seemes The Authour of the Treasury of Times vol. 1. lib. 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 Herberts Travels Helyn Geogr. both men and women 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 insome 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 Tasso 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
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 〈◊〉 â—â—th the oile of Sesamum which make◠〈…〉 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
any shew of truth saith Bodin which some bring that God hath not given this power to Satan for the Counsell of God cannot be comprehended by men neither can the power given to the Devill be known since in the book of Iob it is said There is not any power in earth that can withstand him But as concerning these Transmutations Creations re-creations transformations and transubstantiations of men into beasts One saies they might put us in doubt that every Asse Wolfe or Cat that we see were a man a woman or child and he marvels that no man useth this distinction in the definition of a man whereas the truth is none can create any thing but God and the Canons and opinions of Divines who hold this position are to be embraced The very words of the Canons are Whosoever beleeveth that any Creature can be made or changed into better or worse or transformed into any other shape or into any other similitude by any other than by God himselfe the Creator of all things without all doubt is an Infidell and worse than a Pagan and therewithall this reason is rendred to wit because they attribute that to a Creature which only belongeth to God the Creator of all things As for that distinction Whether Witches have power to transubstantiate others that the Devill cannot alter the forme of man Non essentialis forma id est ratio sed figura solum permutatur The essentiall forme to wit reason is not changed but the shape or figure Thereby it is proved easie enough to create men or beasts with life so as they remaine without reason howbeit he thinketh an easier matter to turne a mans reason into the reason of an Asse than his body into the shape of a sheep and if the Devill and Witches should have power to transforme or transubstantiate others yet what an easie matter it is to re-substantiate an Asse into a man For Bodin saith upon the word of Apuleius that if the Asse eate new roses annise or bay-leaves out of spring-water it will presently returne him into a man which thing Sprenger saith may be done by washing the Asse in faire water yea he sheweth an instance where by drinking of water an Asse was returned into a man But others declare that no Creature can be made or transmuted into a better or worse or transformed into another species or similitude by man or devill And Saint Augustine believes that the body of man cannot any way by the Art or power of Devils be truly and really converted into the members and lineaments of a beast but only the phantasticall appearance of a man and Martinus Delrio the Jesuit accounts this degeneration of Man into a Beast to be an illusion deceptive and repugnant to Nature for the soule of man cannot informe a beasts body as a soule of a Lion cannot the body of a Horse That the soule of a man cannot informe a beasts body nor the soule of a Horse a humane body because every substantiall forme as it gives suum esse informando requires peculiar properties and dispositions convenient unto it and a proper organization of body therefore the soule is defined to be an act of an organicall body whence it is that a Beasts soule can neither inform a humane body nor a humane a beasts Therefore the soule of man cannot migrate into the body of a beast to informe it As for that which is alleadged that such who are wounded in these bodies when they are restored they find themselves to be wounded in the humane body Bodin grants that this is sometimes done and may be done and Satan may at the same time inflict a wound upon the humane body and sometimes he compasseth about the humane body with a more aeriall effigies of a beast placing about members to members as the similitude requires accommodating head to head mouth to mouth belly to belly foot to foot armes to armes c. And here a fit opportunity offers it selfe with Kornmannus to put the Question Whether Nebuchadnezar was substantially transformed into a beast Nicol. Remig. in Damonol Remigius thinkes he was reduced to the lowest order of Animals for his affecting divine honour yet that he never was deprived of the habit of his Face and Countenance but that only for some yeares using the same pasture and harbour with them through the injury of heaven he contracted such haires and nailes as Nature is wont to cover and arme bruits withall Martin Delrio is of opinion that even the humane figure did in some part degenerate into a ferine Transubstantiation denied And Bodin a man of great judgement thinkes Joan. Bodinus that the humane forme was in very deed taken from him and he demonstrates that he is able to prove it out of the Text it selfe where his Transformation is threatned out of the very words whereof it is easily as he saith collected Dan. 4.5 that he was changed into a beast Spondanus Peuceruâ— Phil. Camerarius and some others thinke that it was a true and reall Metamorphosis And God could worke this miracle upon that wicked King that he should be metamorphosed into a beast as well as he turned Lots wife into a pillar of salt Gen. 19. And least any one should thinke this King was not truly changed into a beast Dorotheus Epiphanius in Synopsi in vita Dan. some of the Ancients teach us that in the fore-part of his body he represented the shape of an Oxe but in his hinder part the forme of a Lion giving thereby to understand that in the former part of his life he was much given to his belly and lust and in the latter part thereof to immane cruelty rapine and man-slaughter Hence it is that an ancient Father said not without cause B. Gre. l. 5. moral cap. 8. Pet. Thyraeus de spirit appar l. 2. cap. 15. in sin that Nebuchadnezar the King was changed into an irrational Animal And Evilmeradach the Son of Nebuchadnezar after his death gave him for food to the foules of the aire lest he should rise againe from the dead who before had returned from a beast unto a man so that it is very likely they did not doubt of his reall metamorphosis A notable smart writer against these acts of transubstantiation Scot. in his discovery of Witchcraft wonders most how they can turne and tosse a mans body so and make it smaller and greater Mans transformation into an Asse questioned to wit like a Mouse or like an Asse c. and the man all this while to feele no paine Danaeus in Dialog cap. 3. neither is he alone in this maze for Danaeus saith that although Augustine and Apuleius do write very credibly of these matters yet he will never believe that Witches can change men into other formes as Asses Apes Wolves Bears Mice Cardan de variet rec 15. c. 80 c. And Cardan saith that how much Augustine