they draw themselves in not without great detriment to ones health so that the blood sometimes forsakes the heart and sometimes by coming too much unto it it strangles it So many have died suddenly by overmuch joy and others by sudden frights and fears Who are fearfull and faint-hearted which happens chiefly to such as cannot regulate their passions by reason as are commonly weak men women infants old men Anchorites who in their youth go from the company of men and lead a solitary life who have but weak heat and a thin slender animal spirit and therefore they have but small courage and are fearfull and faint hearted and cannot be valiant in resisting of dangers Moreover each mans age the temper of the climate influence of the stars education and course of life Many things change the sâ—ate of the body and course of the Country are of great concernment in the differences of the passions and manners For if you regard all nations and their several natures studies and inclinations you shall find their wayes of living to be divers as also their wits affections and manners are Wherefore it is much to be considered what age a man is of of what education under what climate he was born and bred what temper and constitution his body is of lastly whose company he keeps what diet he useth and what is the abundance and quality of the humours The manners arise from the humours at that time For these generally cause mens manners and fashions of their minds So they whose bloud is thick are commonly fierce cruel inhospitable unhumane and never regard the stings of Conscience never fear and are without all Religion they care not for godlinesse or humanity of which kind are Marriners Pipers Carters Potters Carriers and Souldiers who by reason of the thicknesse of their bloud and their grosse troublesome spirits have their Consciences ruff-cast What men are inhumane and their minds darkned with most grosse vices And if any spark of a better mind chance to shine forth or if they have any vertues that are given to these courses of life they either overwhelm them or stain them with great faults For when they have spent their whole time upon all mischief L. 1. Belli Punici their wicked course of life becomes a second nature to them So Livy saith that inhumane cruelty and more than Carthagenian perfidiousnesse was to Hannibal he made no reckoning of truth and holinesse he feared no God made nothing of perjury or Religion For as Lucan hath it Souldiers neither Faith nor truth regard L. 4. All 's venal that 's right where is most reward By which variety of wits manners and affections it seems to me that the passions and propensions of every mans mind are to be referred to many causes For though the objects and the heart it self and the parts ordain'd for nutriment and to ingender spirits are the organs and receptacles of the affections yet the humours within the body What things sharpen the passions immoderate heat influence of the Stars faculties of the Alements qualities of the Ayre about them immoderate use of Wine kindle the fire and are the Seminaries of troubling the mind and stirring the passions Hence consider what hurt may come to reason and to the mind of man where the organs spirits and humours have contracted any vice For so a man falls from his dignity and becomes a beast Which the kingly Prophet complains of Man being in honour is like the beasts that perish Psalm 48. For his reason is extinguished and the light of his mind is overwhelmed with vitious affections For as lights and Candles give lesse light A Simile from a Torch when they are set in a Candlestick that is fowl and dirty so the mind of man darkned by the grossenesse of the body shines lesse and is more slow in putting forth her self It is indeed natural for sanguin people to be merry for melancholique to be sad for flegmatique to be dull and drowsy for cholerique men to be angry When passions are mildest But all these passions are moderate and lesse faulty where the humours are moderate and are vitiated with no strange quality But if their quality or abundance be augmented or overpasse moderation a man is affected many wayes and turn'd off from the use of reason And though the Elementary qualities The Stars and humours are violent yet cause no necessity and humours and spirits impose no necessity upon any man to do this or that nor yet do the aspects of the Stars Yet they have so much force in moving the passions that men though reason strive against it are run upon rocks by the tempests of their passions For as is the distemper of the Ayre and of the Sea and as the violence of Wine drank overmuch is great such is the violence of a melancholique or cholerick humour if it be overmuch augmented All men are subject to passions And what man if he look nearly into himself and search his own nature will not presently perceive turbulent motions and passions so that sometimes he will be more angry more froward more envious more lascivious or more inclin'd to one or another passion according to the distemper of the humours And if the mind of man endure such changes where the humours do but a little degenerate from their natural tempers that in a moment the mind is hurrried with divers affections what shall we think will become of it when they are proceeded to the height of mischief and have seised forcibly on the principal parts Examples and sad spectacles of these things are mad-men lunatick frantick enraged Soul and body are affected with mutual diseases melancholique people and such as their minds are alienated or do dote or are in a delirium for the diseases of their bodies seizing upon their minds do torment them with terrible and fearfull torments Wherefore they that desire to live in good health and to be free from such mischiefs must live temperately least their minds be darkned with the thick smoak of the humours and so disquiered with strange and absurd Imaginations That all Scholers must shake off melancholy and removed from their proper places But this lesson most concerns those that manage publick employments and such as are much given to their studies because these men commonly are troubled with melancholy which humour though it sharpen the mind as Wine doth that is drank moderately yet if it be overmuch increased or vitiated it much offends the mind That Cicero chose rather to be dull of wit than to be witty and melancholique Tusc 1. Some are by nature melancholique and most men have contracted it from divers causes that were by nature free from it Melanchâ—â—y whence it breeds Many have come to this temper by long continued studies and unseasonable watchings Others fall into it by fear care sorrow sadnesse Many from the stoppings
Natures order and progresse and the Skies of Heaven have their motions and changes and move by a certain order The humours are under the like law for they have certain motions and effects and periods in mans body that every humour keeps its turn according to the variety of the four parts of the year and exercises it faculties and forces on mans body so it is that the blood in the spring is in force and breeds feaver and diseases of its own nature so choler every other day in summer with cholerick burning causeth a tertian Flegm The humours keep their times corrupting in the winter quarter causeth a quotidian intermitting and melancholly when Autumn comes makes a quartan So a diary ends in one day or a little more because that consists not in the putrefaction of humours but with an aereal spirit enflamed And all these are effected by the same law as the rising and setting of Stars are as also is the flux and reflux of the Sea and the pleasant change of hearbs and plants springing forth But that is admirable that the four humours make choise of certain hours and times of the day The motion of the four humours in the body and divide the artificial day and night amongst them by twelve temporal hours which to be true I have found by experience for by observing them I use to pronounce certainly when the feaver will come For the blood is vigorous as Soranus Ephesius testifies Math. 20. which like the Evangelists measure the times and spaces of day and night by equal hours from nine at night till three in the morning Mans mind more lively in the morning from the vapour of bloud in which time the blood is concocted and elaborated in the Liver Hence it is that the mind before day break is more chearfull and all people both sound and sick are more light-hearted by reason of the sweet vapour of the blood but yellow choller hath its turn from three in the morning till nine in the morning in which time the natural faculty doth part the choller from the blood and sends it to the Gall bladder hence it is that a man is then more prone to anger and will be easily offended but black choler or melancholique juice doth its office from nine in the morning till three in the afternoon and sits at helm In this time the Liver is cleansed of this grosse humour which is sent to the Milt by nature hence it is that in those hours the understanding of man is clowded and his mind is sad All the humours are vigorous at certain hours by the dark grosse fumes that arise from thence Flegme moves from three at night till nine at night for then supper being ended concoction begins in the stomach to be perfected and the meat to be boyled and turned to juice Hence it is that flegme swimming on the stomach and carried to the brain makes a man sleepy Now if you exactly count the manner of all these you shall find that the very hours that the several humours take their turns Feavers begin to assault the sick and as the spaces are ended that serve for the several humours if they be simple and without mixture the diseases are terminated also So continent Feavers and as many as proceed from blood come upon us in the morning tertians about nout noon that is at the sixth hour which is to us the twelfth hour both of day and night Quartans come about the ninth hour which is to us three in the afternoon The quotidian comes from flegme about the first watch of the night But if the humours overflow and are mingled one with another as they are wont to be then they keep not their lawfull times and orders for they are more sharp A simile from the concours of the Winds and continue longer For as winds coming together raise more grievous tempests When East and West Aeneid 1. and rainy South do roar Roling the mighty billows to the shoar So a disease is more violent by concours of humours and diseases joyned to cruelly torture mans body For in one body Ovid. Metam l. 1. cold hot moist and dry Soft hard light heavy strive for victory It is frivolous to refer the causes of these things to ill spirits For all these things consist in the corruption or inflammation quality or quantity of the humours For it is these things that make the fits shorter or longer Why blood causes continual feavers But when bloud much abounds in the body it causeth but one continual fit because that putrefaction and inflammation is in the receptacles of the veins in which the bloud runs as through Conduit Pipes Wherefore nature like a wise and faithful consul in a Civill and intestine war is alwaies at work and without intermission to cast forth the disease But flegme A simile from the Wisdome of a Consul yellow choller and black because they are not in so great quantities and are without the straightnesse of the veins they do not constantly molest but with intermission and diseases that arise from these humours are not so deadly because they have not so open a passage to the heart and principall parts and therefore cannot easily do so much hurt Yet some of these Feavours last long partly because the humour abounds and partly because of the clamminesse thereof that it can hardly be melted and concocted Wherefore Melancholiqe men are seldome merry Melancholique people not easily drunk unlesse they drink deep and of strong wine for that humour is wonderfull cold and dry Men of this constitution are like Iron that must have a great strong fire to make it hot A simile fit for melancholique people from burning Iron that it may be hammer'd For they want much strong Wine and they can well endure it and when they are well whittled they will play the mimicks and make sport and dance like Camels For being crabbed by nature when they are in drink they desire to seem very merry Melancholique Natures when they are hot with wine and pleasant And as they are hardly overcome with drink so they can as hardly be recovered of drunkennesse For when they drink abundantly and eat excessively it falls out that the thick grosse vapours stick faster to the brain so that the day following melancholique Imaginations grow more upon them For from the Wine the day before not digested and discussed their whole body sends up stinking vapours For it happens to them as it is with houses set on fire which though they are not wholly consumed by fire nor quite burnt up yet a burnt smell affects our nostrils and brain A good Simile from houses on fire so making ill favoured sents and vapours arising from the drink the day before are very offensive unto them and trouble their brain and minds and when they cannot discusse these and that they perceive their phantasms to increase they fall
Jaws fumes rise from these and infect the spittle with a contrary quality Whence it is that sometimes we perceive a salt sowre sweet Sweat and spittle have their forces from the humours or sharp taste in our spittle as there is in sweat also Hence it is that when men are fasting their breath stinks exceedingly and the unsavourinesse of the breath offends all near us that talk with us For some foggy ill smells evaporate and boyl forth of the body as out of some muddy lake and these being of a venemous nature infect the fountains of spittle And this moysture that swims in the mouth and moystneth the tongue and waters our meat is nothing else What spittle is than a flegmatique excrement that ariseth from the stomach from the nutrimental juice received in and flees to the brain and so is sent down to the tongue and Jaws Hence it is that those whose stomachs abound with flegme are alwaies full of spittle in their mouths and is overwet with immoderate moisture but such as are hot about the entrals and dry with a feavorous heat their tongues are not wet at all Who have a dry or moist mouth but crack as the earth doth when it is over-dried and parched by the heat of the Sun Since therefore the qualities and effects of Spittle come from the humours for out of them is it drawn by the faculty of nature as fire draws distilled water from hearbs the reason may be easily understood A simile from distilled hearbs why spittle should do such strange things and destroy some creatures And if the spittle of a sound man be effectuall for many uses that it will not onely destroy many creatures but kills Quicksilver also and fixeth it what shall we think of such that are sick of the Leprosy the Pox and many other contagious diseases I know many that have catcht the small Pox and measils by onely putting their mouths to the cups whereon the spittle of those that were infected did stick by reason of the clamminesse of it and venemous mud that fastneth to the teeth so that for the same cause the bitings of all creatures are dangerous by reason of the contagiousnesse of their spittle except the nerves and muscles be not hurt by it CHAP. XLV Of the use of Milk Beestings Creame The dutch call the first Beest the latter Room also what will keep these from cloddering in the Stomach Milk Who it is good for THe use of Milk is not alike wholsome for all people for those that have cold Stomachs it grows soure in them and fills the body with wind and those that are very hot of temper in them it burns and sends forth stinking vapours and offends the Head And since the nature of Milk is so that it will thicken and be condensed by heat Milk is thickned by heat and melts by cold and melted by cold it follows that it is soonest clottered in a hot Stomach and nothing will hinder this more than Honey and Sugar adding a little Salt to it But since I have known many strangled by clottered Milk coagulated in their Stomachs their breath being stopped when they began to vomit I think some wanton young men and lascivious suiters do very ill who at their afternoon meetings use to stuff themselves with Creame and Biestings and other Milk-meats and drink Wine abundantly with them to the great detriment of their health For Wine makes Milk curdle Wine and milk mingled are naught and become like to Cheese wherewith the Stomach being offended and is not able to concoct it all turnes to corruption and these are the foundations and seminaries of great diseases Milk corrupts Fish So fish and Milk and all soure things mingled with Milk and drenched with Wine cause Scabs and the Leprosy For all things cramb'd in thus promiscuously corrupt and are made subject to putrefaction Those gluttons that when a Cow hath new Calved love Beestings Beestings shall find nothing more hurtfull to man so that Children that within three dayes after they are born do suck their Mothers Milk are very ill by it and onely escape Death For it coagulates and clotters in their bodies and stops the Channells of the blood and the Veins so that nutriments cannot passe fitly and without hurt But these things dissolve Milk and Clottered blood also Cummin-seed Oyxmel and Vineger of Squils Angelica Master-wort CHAP. XLVI Why Gouty people are Lascivious and Prone to venery and as many as lye on their backs and on hard beds Gowty people are very lascivious SUch as have the Joynt-Gout are most commonly Lascivious and lust exceedingly partly because they have been used to it by long custome by the immoderate use whereof they came to have that disease partly because their Nerves are grown stiff and stretched out by it and by lying often on their backs the humours flow to the generative parts They also that ride much or lye along on Ship-boards and lye hard on their backs are very Prone and given much to Venery For the Nerves destinated for mans generation that run to the genitall parts grow hot so that by the agitation and influence of humours the loines are provoked and there is erection made thereby By the same reason if any man hurt or bruise his great Toe of his foot immediately from this effect the groin and cods swell that is that wrinkled cover of the Testicles is in pain by it arising from consent and by reason of the interweaving of Nervs and Veins As if any man puts into a fire that is very hot a pair of Tongues or other iron A simile from Smiths not only the part put into the fire will be red hot but also that part which is farr from the fire grows so hot that it cannot be handled so pain is communicated to the parts that are on the same side and the sickly affect is conveighed to the neighbouring part So from the Stomach Intestins Matrix Spleen Liver the head is affected and when the brain is hurt or troubled with any distemper the mischiefe is derived from thence to the parts that are under it And therefore Mid-wives though they know not the cause of it The generative parts are signs of good health or sicknesse use to search and see the Testicles of Children when they are sick and their privy member by the observation whereof they can judge young men also may perceive certain signes of recovery of death of health or sicknesse For if the cases of the Testicles be loose and feeble and the Cods fall down it is a signe that the naturall faculties are fallen The Testicles hanging down or close up what signs they are and the vitall Spirits that are the props of Life But if these secret parts be wrinkled and raised up and the yard stands stiffe it is a signe all will be well But that the event may exactly answer the praediction we
of both Sexes Page 25 Chap. 10. Whether the Child be nourished with the menstrual excrement and whether Maids may conceive before they have their Terms Page 29 Chap. 11. The Soul comes not from the Parents Seed but is infused by God and can neither dye nor corrupt What day of Child bearing it is infused Page 32 Chap. 12. The Soul though it be incorporeal not made of matter or Elements yet is it subject to passions and perturbations and such affections as redound upon the Body Page 36 Chap. 13. That the Souls of Men are not equal in all things nor of the same condition and dignity but one is better than another Page 42 Chap. 14. Of the immortality of the Soul and certainty of the Resurrection Also how that may be done Lastly how much our minds are raysed toward God from so great a benefit and what great confidence we may have when we die that we shall be saved Page 47 Chap. 15. Whether there be a reasonable Soul infused into monstrous births and to abortives and whether they shall rise again to life And by the way from whence Monsters proceed Page 57 Chap. 16. The humours and food do change the habit of the body and state of the mind apparently And hence arise the affections and stings of conscience And by the by what Melancholy can do and how it may be cured Page 59 Chap. 17. Herbs are subject to change and will lose their forces and form unlesse they be dressed continually Page 67 Chap. 18. How manifold difference and variety there is in the nature of grounds Page 79 Chap. 19. Clusters of Grapes augment but grow not ripe by the Moon beams Page 81 Chap. 20. Why Hesiod dislikes soyling Page 81 Chap. 21. How Weezels and other Creatures that hurt Corn may be driven away or killed Page 82 Chap. 22. The cunningnesse of Worms in Mans body and what it portends when they come forth by the Mouth and Nostrils Page 83 The Contents of the Chapters contained in the Second Book Chap. 1. THat humours and not bad Angels cause diseases yet the aereal spirits do mix themselves therewith and increase the diseases by adding fire unto them Page 86 Chap. 2. Melancholique Med and Frenzy people and such as are furious from other causes will sometimes speak strange Tongues they never learned and yet not be possessed with the Divell Page 91 Chap. 3. Of the Epilepsie's violâ—nce which disease the common people both now and formerly ascribe to certain Saints lastly how it may be cured And by the way that such are not to be buried presently that die of the Falling-sicknesse Lethargy or Apoplex Page 93 Chap. 4. Whence comes it that diseases are long and Chronical and will not easily be cured Whence come Feavers to revive again and to be with intermission and truce for a time which all men ought to know that they may not easily fall into a disease or being fallen may soon cure it Page 97 Chap. 5. Of those that come forth of their Beds and walk in their sleep and go over tops of Towrs and roofs of houses and do many things in their sleep which men that are awake can hardly do by the greatest cage and industry Page 99 Chap. 6. Of those that are drown'd mens bodies will flote on their backs and womens will flote on their faces and if their lungs be taken forth they will not swim Page 102 Chap. 7. The bodies of those that are drown'd when they swim up and come to be seen as of those that are murdered when their friends are present or the murderers they bleed at the nose and other parts of their body Page 102 Chap. 8. Of the Helmets of Children newly born or of the thin and soft caul wherewith the face is covered as with a vizard or covering when they come first into the world Page 105 Chap. 9. Why in Holland they say that such as have unconstant and weak brains have been conversant amongst beans Page 106 Chap. 10. Every strong filthy smell is not hurtfull to man For some of these will discusse contagions and resist corrupt diseases By the way whence came the Proverb that horns are burnt there Page 108 Chap. 11. The excellency of the finger of the Left hand that is next the little finger which is last of all troubled with the Gout and when that comes to be affected with it death is not far off By the way wherefore it deserves to wear a Gold Ring better than the rest Page 109 Chap. 12. Some things will not burn but are invincible in the midst of flames and how that comes to passe Page 110 Chap. 13. The native heat of Man is fostered and increaseth by the heat of other Creatures but espâ—cially by the heat of children if they be laid to that part of the body that is weak For this fomentation doth not onely help concoction but easeth all joynt pains but amongst whelps which do it most effectually Page 112 Chap. 14. Why the French-Pox is more gentle now than it was formerly and rageth not so much and into what disease it degenerates Page 113 Chap. 15. How it is that Men dying though they have their mind and understanding firm yet they make a hoarse noise and a sound that returns back which the Low Dutch vulgarly call Den rotel Page 114 Chap. 16. The death of man and destruction of things that are is against Nature and is very improperly called natural Yet the mind must be resolved not to fear death though not without cause all men are afraid of it Page 115 Chap. 17. The Inconveniencies of Tippling and drunkennesse and what things will resist and cure it Page 116 Chap. 18. Intemperance of drink is worse than of meat Page 118 Chap. 19. Wine makes a man drunk otherwise than Beer or Ale doth Page 119 Chap. 20. Men that are tall and grosse bodied are sometimes not so long-lived as those that are slender and cannot so stoutly struggle with diseases But commonly litâ—le men will drink more wine than grosse men and will be longer before they be drunk Page 120 Chap. 21. They that eat a moderate breakfast in the morning will eat more freely at dinner and if they drink much wine it will offend them lesse By the way whether it be wholesome to eat much bread Page 121 Chap. 22. A Nutmeg and a Coral-stone carried about a man will grow the better but about a woman the worse Page 123 Chap. 23. For the most part such are barren and unfruitfull whose seed runs from them of its own accord and they pollute themselves and how that comes to passe Page 124 Chap. 24. When men are sick they grow tall though they eat lesse but they lose in breadth Page 127 Chap. 25. Whether it is best to open a Vein when one is fasting or after meat and whether it be lawful to sleep presently after blood-letting Page 129 Chap. 26. Physiognomy that is the reason how to look
for sometimes by such manner of diet we dispell Chronical and long diseases So when sick people are vexed with lasting diseases I do not use to be very obstinate or refractory against them in granting to them such meats as they greedily desire and earnestly intreat for when they earnestly ask for them and eat them with a great Appetite For by this means it comes to passe that natural heat is stirred up and the imbred faculties are moved humours that stick in the body are concocted and dissipated the passages being opened And by Hippocrates example sometimes I study to gratify my Patients and to be silent and wink at them if they take what may not greatly hurt their bodies For as he saith Something worse meat and drink so it please L. 2. Aph. 38. is better than that which is better and pleaseth not so well For all those things that relish best in the Palate and are most pleasing to the taste are more easily concocted and nourish more because the stomach takes them in greedily and likes them best Desire makes all sweet So I know some that have cured Quartans and wandring Agues by eating raw Herrings new taken out of the Sea So in desperate diseases that are come to the height of their danger I do not much fear that greedy appetite nor do I contend with or deny to them that desire such things what they would have but using choice and prescribing them the way and manner how to dresse them I let them use their own desire so far as I am confident it will not hurt them and I conjecture the disease may be batter'd by it For by this acrimony and greedinesse of eating them the force of nature is sharpned and set forward that was before asleep and so regaining strength it sets upon the disease afresh So we drive forth one disease with another as one nail with another and for an ill knot we apply an ill wedge Diseases are driven out with desire of some meats which no man may think to be absurd since in some diseases we willingly raise a Feaver for otherwise there were no cure for them So I know some that by the sudden coming on of the enemy and by a great fright have been cured of a quartan Ague So there was an Epidemicall disease amongst us that had destroyed some thousands that by a suddain inundation of the Sea presently ceased for by some outward trouble arising the collections of humours are dissipated and diseases abate and cease by critical evacuation One disease is sometimes cured by another Hence it is that such as are bit by mad-dogs and fear the water we cast them unawares into the deep water and drive away fear by fear When some are troubled with cold diseases we put them into hot Feavers for so naturall heat being raised cold raw humours are concocted and nature is excited to cast out the disease CHAP. VI. That a Woman doth afford seed and is a Companion in the whole Generation It is proved by reason that a woman wants not Seed THough the Seed of Man be the chief efficient and the begining of action motion and generation yet that a woman affords seed and doth effectually lend help to the procreation of the Child is evinced by strong reasons First seminary vessels had been given them in vain and genital testicles if a woman wanted seminal excrement she should afford very little to the child and should have no part in it But since that nature doth nothing in vain it must needs be that they were made for use of seed and for procreation and placed in their proper places both the Testicles and the receptacles of seed whose nature force is to afford fruitfull vertue to the seed And to prove this there needs no stronger Argument than this that if women do not use copulation to cast out their seed they oft-times fall into great diseases and cruel symptoms The danger of seed retain'd For you shall see many Widows for want of husbands and Virgins ready for Marriage when they do not marry in time though their terms keep their orderly seasons yet are they cruelly tormented with fainting fits and strangling of the Mother For all are of opinion that more harm comes to them by the seed being corrupted than by their courses being stopt For the seed growes to be of a venomous quality hence ariseth that swarth weasil colour in Maids when they begin to be in love hence comes their short breathings tremblings and pantings of the heart the expulsive faculty being moved to cast out the swelling humour Maids to be married in time If such lusty Widows or Maids in years happen to be married that their seed by the use of man may be ejected you shall presently see them look fresh as a Rose and to be very amiable and pleasant and not so crabbid and testy especially if their husbands be men for their turn and can give them their due Maids by Marriage grâ—w fresh And though the Society of the lawful bed consists not in these things yet you shall find that this Sex is by no means better won than when the husband often satisfieth them this way Woman is greedy of copulation For so are all things more peaceable in the House and there fall out no wranglings or janglings between them But if the man lye but seldom with his wife or the man be slow in doing his office you shall see the house turn'd upside down for some of this Sex are so greedy of copulation that you may weary them but never satisfie them which seems to me the chief cause why a woman in copulation doth afford seed and hath more pleasure than a man hath For since by nature infinite delight accompanies the ejecting of the seed by the breaking forth of the swelling spirits and the stiffnesse of the nerves and the woman performs a double office The woman desires man as the matter doth the form Why children are most like the Mother and suffers both wayes for she drawes forth the mans seed and casts her own in with it It is very likely that she takes more delight and is more recreated by it Hence it is that the Child is commonly more like the mother than the Father because the Mothers confer most in generation and it is proved because women love the Children best For besides their ejecting of seed all the time they are great with child they nourish the Child with their purest blood I find Galen to be of that mind for he thinks that the child receives something more from the Mother than from the Father Lib. 2. de sem and he refers the difference of Sex to the affluence of menstruall blood but the reason of likenesse to the force of the seed A Simile from Plants and the industrious husbandman For as plants receive more from fruitfull ground than they do from the Industry
them a barren womb and dry breasts their root shall wither and they shall bring forth no fruit and if they do bring forth I will destroy the most dear of their Children Which must teach us all that if God be offended all means are vain and the successe will be unprofitable Ch. 8. Idolatry and super stition causes of barrenness God threatens the like in Ezekiel to superstitious women because they wept for Adonis Venus's Lover who was rent by a Boar about the privities and his Statue was set up and they adored him But if God be not angry with men and lets Nature have her ordinary course we may use outward means and help Natures weaknesse if from any secret cause one be hindred from Children What perfects genetion Wherefore there are two things especially that perfect copulation and that help to beget Children First the genital humour which proceeds partly from the brain and the whole body and partly from the Liver the fountain of blood Then the spirit that comes by the Arteries from the Heart by force whereof the yard is erected and growes stiff and by the force whereof the seed is ejected To this may be added the appetite and desire of copulation which is excited either by Imagination or by sight and feeling of handsome women Whosoever wants these helps or hath them feeble must so soon as may be use means to restore nature and to correct this errour and repair the forces as when there is a luxation or disjoynting in any part A Similitude from Husbandry For as we see barren fields grow fruitfull by tilling and mans industry and unfruitfull Trees and Plants by pruning and dunging grow very plentifull in fruit So in dressing this ground the Physical art is much to be observed that with great skill cures the defects of Nature and restores this barren field to bring forth fruit again as it were by dunging it when the heart of it was almost quite worn out So it restores the faint heat and the weak spirits coldnesse and drinesse of the genital parts and reduceth the weaknesse of the nerves to their temperament and it doth farther do all things that may serve to remove all impediments of procreation of Children But since that dyet may change the Elementary qualities and may alter the unhappy state of the body to a better it is necessary that such people should eat onely such meat as will make them fruitful for propagation What meats cause seed and stir up venery Amongst such things as stir up venery and breed seed for generation are all meats of good juice that nourish well and make the body lively and full of sap of which faculty are all hot and moist meats For the substance of seed as Galen saith is made of the pure concocted and windy superfluity of blood Matter of heaping up seed There is in many things a power to heap up seed and augment it other things are of force to cause erection and drive forth the humour Meats that afford matter are Hen-eggs Pheasants Thrushes Blackbirds Gnat-sappers Wood-cocks young Pigeons Sparrows Partridges Capons Pullets Almonds Pine-Nuts Raisins Currans all strong Wines that are sweet and pleasant especially made of grapes of Italy which they call Muscadel But the genitals are erected and provoked by Satyrium Eryngo's Cresses Erysimum Parsnips Hartichokes Onions Turneps Rapes Asparagus candid Ginger Galanga Acorns Scallions Sea shel-fish And Rocket that is next Priapus set Colum. l. 10. That makes the man his Wife with Child beget A sit Similitude from Guns These as many more will make men lusty For as we see Guns first charged with powder and then with bullets and lastly some fine powder is put in the pan and fire is given with a Linstock and the bullet is forced out with a violent noise so in this work two things must needs concur that our labour be not lost namely that there be plenty of seed and a force of a flatulent spirit whereby the seed may be driven forth into the Matrix But if these Engines be broken or nothing worth or the Gun-powder be adulterated and naught they can have no force to break down walls and Trenches and Ramparts not do they roar horribly but make a small hissing and empty noise as bladders of boys at play do when they are blown up Hence some of our lascivious women will say that such men that trouble their wives to no purpose do thunder The Womans Proverb but there follows no rain they do not water the inward ground of the matrix They have their veins puffed up with wind but there wants seed Wherefore if husbands will win their wives love by especiall service they must be well prepared to enter this conflict for if they fall short How Wives are pleased they shall find their wives so crabbed and touchy that there will be no quiet But when they are well provided they must take the opportunity of doing their businesse well And that is when the monethly terms are over For that sink hinders their seed from coagulating and fermenting and makes the womb unfit to conceive When therefore the Terms are over and the womb is well cleansed they must use no unlawful copulation or violent concussions in begetting children and when the work is over the woman must gently and softly lye down on her right side with her head lying low her body sinking down and so fall to sleep When a Boy is begot For by this means the seed will fall to the right side and a boy will be made Yet the time of the year the Climate the age of both parties the heating dyet are of great concernment here For the Summer if it be not too hot is fittest for the conceiving of boys because the seed and menstruall blood receive more heat from the Ayr about them Also a hot Countrey ripe years and lusty and hairy bodies are fittest to beget boys Also there are many things that by a speciall and hidden quality are fit for this purpose So Mercury What herb Mercury can do that is divided into male and female is held to be most effectuall in producing Children of the same kind with it so that the decoction of juice of the Male drank four dayes from the first day of purgation will give force to the womb to procreate a male Child but the juice of the Female drank for so many dayes and in the same manner will cause a female to be born especially if the man lye with his wife when the Terms are newly over I think it is because the one purgeth the right side of the matrix and the other the left and fosters it with heat So it comes to passe that the cold humour being taken away the woman is made fit for conception A Similitude from the Earth For as in boggy and watry grounds the seeds of Plants are drown'd nor do they easily grow
diseases have wasted or what is burnt to ashes or is passed into the first principles or into the substance of some other body For the flesh shall be restored to that man it was taken from as his Due A Simile from borrowed money that was borrowed from him They that are men shall find this to be true and those mousters that are bred from them and have the same nature with them shall be partakers of this divine gift CHAP. XVI The humours and food do change the habit of the body and state of the mind apparently And hence arise the affections and stings of conscience And by the by what Melancholy can do and how it may be cured THere is no mortal Man that is not led by his passions and perturbations but one is more driven by them than another and is more easily forced by the motions of his mind All men led by Passions Why Socrates was lesse subject to them For they that are of a good bodily temper and lead a temperate life and sober diet are lesse wont to be troubled with passions So Socrates is reported to have been of that constancy and calmnesse of mind that both at home and abroad he was alwaies of the same countenance and alacrity of mind though he had a very scolding Wife to vex him which he obtain'd no otherwise than by his frugall life and great temperance Hence it is that Cicero saith that Intemperance is the fountain of all the passions Tusc 4. which is a departing from the mind and from right reason So that the desires of the mind cannot be ruled or kept in order Temperance As therefore Temperance abates all disorderly desires and makes them submit to right reason and preserves the judgment of the Mind entire so Intemperance that is contrary thereunto inflames and disturbs every condition of the Mind and urgeth it Whence it comes that all diseases of the body and errours of the Mind spring from thence For as when blood and flegme abound or both cholers are increased sicknesses arise in the body so the disturbance of ill opinions and the jarring between them spoyls the Soul of her health The difference of passions amongst themselves and draws the body into mutual destruction For so anger rashnesse fear envy forrow emulation when they seize upon the veins and marrow and are possessed of the inward parts of the mind are hurtfull also to the body and cause many terrible diseases thereof Also the diseases of the body by sympathy and way of company affect the Soul And though objects and many outward causes stir up many troublesome motions in man yet the principall cause and original is from the heart and from the humours and spirits which if they be moderate and not infected with some strange quality the mind is not so hot The original of Passions and is more calm So if the bloud be clean and pure if the temper be equal and the body be well men are slower to be moved nor are they so exceedingly vexed with fear anger or revenge and if they be somewhat in passion as no man is without all passions presently reason being call'd to counsel and Judgment of the mind admitted all heat of stomach abates and is asswaged Examples of moderation are David and Pericies We have examples of this in David and Pericles who when a naughty fellow reviled them and upbraded them they did not revenge or hate him for it but used him with great humanity The heart receives divers motions of the mind from outward objects Yet oftimes when there are no outward objects presented it breaks forth into violent passions and some secret thought entring the mind of a contumely offered or by indignation by reason of some inconvenience received the mind it self grows hot and is disturbed within Wherefore it is of great concernment in the difference of passions to know what temper every man is of what humours are abounding in his body and what is the quality of the spirits that arise from those humours For those that are of a hot and dry temper of them bodies are soonest angry especially short little men who are presently enraged upon some trivial businesse of no value Which anger by reason of the narrownesse of the place wâ—y little men are soâ—â— angry and the small distance of the organs presently seiseth on the mind and fires and burns them as low cottages and sheep coats For the same reason these little men exceed others for wit and judgment of mind because the spirits are gathered together and not so much dispersed and so perform their forces more closely A Simile from fuel on fire and sharply But as some fuel takes fire sooner than other combustible matters do and some are sooner put out than others are so it useth to happen in spirits and humours whereof some breed long and during passions others sudden passions and fading presently whence it falls out that cholerick men are hot and presently angry The 〈◊〉 of cholerick men and as straw and stubble presently takes fire so they by the thinnesse of a hot humour and sudden inflammation are more weakly angry for their anger suddenly grows cold and they are pacified But me lancholique people are slower before they grow angry Melancholique natures but when they are provoked they are ill to be calmed again and they are so mindfull of in juries that they will hardly be friends any more Flegmatique But flegmatique people as they are cold and moist are scarse ever moved with passions of the mind and are never greatly troubled with any thing whence it is that they are slothfull and sluggish and not fit for any noble actions on them the Proverb may be verified He hath no mind that hath no anger A proverb against sluggards Sanguin complexions But sanguin people are of hot and moist constitutions and are held with no waighty or serious businesse of cares but are wholly taken upon with sports tales songs and jears and complements and take care for nothing but pleasures and delights which conditions and differences of men alter according to the quality and mixture of the humours according to the climate and Ayre they live in and they do variously affect the minds of men and therefore I am perswaded that the humours are the causes of Passions For the heart being affected the spirits are raised and the humours boyl and the minds of men by their agitation are more inflamed as if a torch or fire brand were put under For as when the General or Prince is moved in an Army his guard of Souldiers A Simile from a Captain of an Army and all that are to defend him presently make themselves ready to fall on upon the enemy So when any passion ariseth all the humours are suddenly stirred with the heart and the spirits break forth as in anger shame bashfulnesse immoderate joy but in grief sorrow fear
of their Emrods and monthly terms or from some usual evacuation restrain'd who when as their brain is filled with a black and dark smoke their mind is vexed with absurd Imaginations and is so changed and forced that sometimes men of good lives and of great esteem have been brought to fearfull ends thereby That a man would wonder there should be such great force and violence in a melancholique humour that it should overwhelm reason and take away a mans understanding A simile from a dark Cloud But as a thick dark cloud shadows the Suns light so a melancholique humour darkneth the mind and drives it on to many mischiefs The evil spirits also mingle themselves with ill humours and especially with black choler Evill spirits mix with melancholy because that humour when it exceeds Natures bounds is most fit to move us to any wickednesse For men of this constitution conceive grievous and sharp passions and that last long for the contumacy of the humour that will hardly melt and be dissolved Whence it followes that evill thoughts and apprehensions stay long in their minds Whence melancholique people Imagine absurd things which sometimes break forth into action that they fall foul upon those they know and those they know not making no difference and do mischief both to others and sometimes to themselves So the humours do afford fire-brands to cholerick men but when they are angry they hurt others and not themselves But that the cause of these things consists in the humours and not in the wicked spirits though they help to trouble the humours may be collected from hence for that mad melancholique and frantique persons are wont to be cured by opening the emrods that are stopped and so are reduced to better minds those fuliginous smokes of the humours being removed that did vitiate the imagination and animal spirits L. 6. Aph. 21. as may appear by Hippocrates his Aphorism If the melancholique veins or emrods run in those that are mad they are thereby cured nature deriving the ill humours from the principal part to the parts more ignoble Again II. Aph. Ill vapours hurt the brain the Emrods are healthfull for mad people and such as are troubled with diseases of the kidneys For when that humour whether it be in the Hypochondres or the Spleen or be heaped up in the whole body or in any part fills the brain with an ill and filthy exhalation it causeth fear sadnesse sorrow heavy groans astriction of the heart ringings in the ears and reason being oppressed and the light of the mind extinguished they begin to despair sometimes desiring death sometimes fearing and abhorring it How Melancholy may be driven out Wherefore as Galen saith when the Spring and Autumn begin that humour must be gently and by degrees purged out by vomit belching purging downward breaking of wind by opening a vein and by causing the Emrods and courses to run And whosoever is subject to this disease he must earnestly and with great care resist it and must by no means entertain Imaginations that falsly creep into his mind at first pleasing and amiable but afterwards as they grow strong they can hardly be resisted A fault by hiding will the stronger grow Virg. 3. Georg. Physick can cure that onely which we know But if adversities and misfortunes have brought on this mischief you must oppose against it an undaunted courage of your mind and support your self with Gods Word and with confidence in him and so with the lesse labour you shall overthrow those terrible phantasms and representations that assault you The Mind must be underpropt by Gods Word For by these helps the most noble Heroes have stood firm who when all was come to be almost past recovery and they desired to put an end to their miseries by death yet the greatnesse of their griefs could not overcome them 3 Kings c. 19. So Helias in his afflictions desired to die So David so often assaulted by his enemies began to distrust So Job even in despair chose rather to die Ch. 7. and to end his life any way We must not do violence to our life than longer to endure so great miseries Lastly Christ like one in despair and taking our cause upon him complains that he was forsaken by his Father But all these by the hope and assurance of better things cast away all trembling and distrust looking unto God with a steadfast mind In Som. Scip. But this as Cicero saith all men should be perswaded of that the Soul must be kept in the custody and watchfulnesse of the body nor must it leave its station untill God command that gave it lest we should seem to reject so great a gift of God Bel Judaic l. 3. Wherefore Josephus seems to speak excellently that what evil soever comes to us we should bear it with a cheerfull and undaunted courage And let no man think it lawful for him to end his life basely beneath the worthy condition of Man appointment of nature Melancholique people worthy to be pitied But if any man by reason of a disease or alienation of his mind do come to an unhappy end let no man trample on men of such a condition or censure them too severely but let every one rather pity their case and grieve for their mishap for since they were not well in their wits and had lost their reason understanding their mind was turned upside down and they were deceived and blind in the choice of things For when the vertue of imagination is corrupted absurd things present themselves to our minds and we judge confusedly of things and discourse erroneously For the like happens to our minds as doth to our eyes A simile from Glasse where glasses are looked through that are of many colours for through them all things seem to be blew or green or red or yellow or of the same colour alwaies as the Glasse is so that the objects appear in their species otherwise then they are in themselves Why feavourish and drunken men dote Hence men that are drunk or angry think they see double objects when there is but one So those that are doting in Feavers think they see divers Hobgoblins and the corrupt Imagination and organs vitiated present strange fantasmes to the mind by reason of the agitation of ill humours and the spirits that passe here and there and wander up and down in the brain Corporeal spirits stir the mind wherefore the spirits and humours are of great efficacy in troubling the mind and moving the affections and wounding the conscience But if they be sincere and no way defiled men are of a pleasing disposition and not complaining and touchy But if they be once stain'd and troublesome many passions of the mind arise and turbulent affections Since therefore both Soul and body are affected together first care must be taken to sweeten and abate the troubles of
of little stones Clayie Rare Full of great stones Thick Full of Rubbish Strong Chalky Porous or hard from Ash-colour'd Porous stone Bitter Crumbly Sweet Thin Sowr Hungry Meadowie Barren Good for Corn Dry Bearing yearly Forced New dug a little Starved Dug deep Ill-favoured New broken Fertile Turn'd in the Spring in Fruitfull Dutch Bracklandt Salt Rotten Brackish Weak Wheat Land Some places are Rugged Clifty Steip Watry Impassible Moist Desarts Morish Untilled Wet Tilled Full of streams Dry Moystned Withered Inclosed Course Open Empty Sunny Thirsty Daak Copsie Thick Grovy Shadowie Woody Open to the winds Plain Free from winds Champion Open to the Ayr Garden Land Open to the Sun Shrubby Under ground Near the Sea Burnt Far from the Sea Juicelesse High Juicy Clifty upwards Hot Downwards Cold I hil Full of dew Freesing Wholesome Hot Unhealthfull Warm Fenny Thamed Laky Frozen Unseemly Mountainous Wet Clowdy Easterly Dark Southerly Hot Westerly Dewy Northerly CHAP. XIX Clusters of Grapes augment but grow not ripe by the Moon beams The Moons operation in producing Plants THe Moon gives augmentation but the Sun ripeneth For she moves moysture and makes things swell but is too weak to ripen them so we see plants in the day to draw nutriment moved by the Suns heat and in the night they powr it forth again and by the moysture they draw they grow up and increase A Simile from natural faculties For as watching and moderate exercise digest meat and sends it into the body but the concoction is perfected in the night when we sleep As we see in drunkards that their drunkennesse is discussed by sleep so when the Sun enlightens the day all things grow ripe but they grow great when the Moon doth her office in the night and they swell forth with juice So we see that Roses Lillies and all flowers do not open and spread in the day-time but in the night and before Sun-rising Virg. l. 1. Georg. When the Sun sets and evening cold doth calm The Ayr and dewy Moon doth Woods Embalm CHAP. XX. Why Hesiod dislikes soyling Dunging is unwholesome HEsiod that writ diligently of Husbandry is opposed by many because he neglected foiling of the ground For he was not ignorant what he said but rather gives counsel for health than for fruitfulnesse For he thought the Earth should be soiled with other soil than with dung-hills and judged that fields would be made abundantly fruitful if men would seasonably turn up with the plough-share the stalks of Lupins Ciches Peason Beans For all things that grow on grounds that are dunged Whence grain becomes subject to corruption yield more-unhealthful juice so Wheat and other corn are sooner spoil'd with Weezels and all sorts of pulse growing in those fields can neither last long nor be preserved well but they wil either be mouldy or worm-eaten Also Ale Beer in the Low-Countries boyl'd from such Corn will not last a whit but growes sowr Wherefore I think Hesiod said well That those fields are fit for tillage that calm winds ventilate and the sweet Sun beams cherish where are no standing waters and the fields are not fatted with dung but onely come to maturity by their clean native moysture and heat For what growes from thence will last long uncorrupted and yield more healthful nourishment And it cannot be that men should live long healthful in these Countries where the Ayr or their food are naught and subject to corruption Ayr and food hurt or help our health The one comes to passe where Lakes and bogs send forth ill sents the other where the ground growes not fat by its native goodnesse but by dung and soil CHAP. XXI How Weezels and other Creatures that hurt Corn may be driven away or kill'd Nothing is blessed in every respect THere is nothing in this mortal life but hath its inconveniences and is not subject to many mischances For as men are subject to infinite mischiefs and many things are as snares to their lives round about them so corn have their enemies that destroy them as Smut Gnats Pismires Snails shell-snails Locusts Moths Caterpillars Worms Teredines and the Weezel that destroyes whole granaries for this kind of Worm with a sharp pointed proboscis and snout Calanders Weezels eats into the Wheat on one side and so devours all flowr leaving nothing but the bran and empty shell Many of these Teredines breed forth in the Spring where corn are new mowed Whence Corn corrupts when the Moon is in the full and they are mowed and laid up wet before they grow hard and where windowes of granaries stand against the South winds and not toward the North. For drinesse makes all things lesse subject to corruption Some are perswaded and I think they are in the right that the good and great God doth sometimes send this calamity to them that are greedy and covetous of gain who hide their corn or keep it up too long to the great damage of poor people who cannot live without it For Gods good providence hath plentifully given us this food that if all other food fail men can live with bread onely Engrossers of Corn hatefull Wherefore Corn-Engrossers are highly to be blamed who hurt the poor by raising the price of Corn and in the greatest famins will not open their granaries Corenbyters that they make the more profit These are injurious to the Common-wealth and false to the poor whose curse are poured out against them continually For as Solomon saith He that hides his Corn shall have the peoples curse Pro. 11. buc he that brings it forth shall be blessed by them But God oft-times suffers us to be thus afflicted when we are ingratefull to him for the great abundance we have received For by Ezekiel he threateneth to send four Calamities to those that forsake him Ch. 37. Famine Pestilence War and wild Beasts that being afflicted with these God sends four Calamities on men they might come to a better mind and repent But if Natural causes and nor Gods wrath do send this mischief we must consider how little creatures that destroy the Corn may be driven away or else killed How Weazels are driven away There is nothing better to kill Weezels than brine in which Garlick is boyl'd if the pavements and walls be moystned with it for they presently creep out of those granaries and dye with the very vapour of it Also Sagapenum Oyl lees Castorium Savin Brimstone Harts-horn Ivy Galbanum and all things that smell strong for neither will Serpents Snakes nor Bats endure the smell of them Which Virgil the Father of all Learning affirms Burn in your Stalls the smelling Cedar L. 3. Geor. and The smoke of Galbanum doth Snakes withstand So they flee from the strong smelling flowers of Hops which also are offensive to mens brains and cause heavinesse and drunkennesse in the head Also the flowers of Elders the smell where
of drives away Caterpillars and it kills Moths and cloathflies as Wormwood Rue wild Mints Southernwood Savory Walnut-leafs Fern Lavender Gith Coriander being green Fleawort Bean trifoly kills fleas and Wiglice either put under the beds or sprinkled upon the bedsteads with the decoction of the vinegar of Squils It is observed that in our times and also in our Ancestors days the seed of Navews that the Low-Countrey factors make so great profit of hath a wonderful force in killing Weezels not by any venomous quality but by the sweetnesse of it For it is sweet and oyly and the Weezels will leave the Corn and eat greedily on this till they be killed with Sweet things sometimes kill Worms And the same thing happens to them when they get into frails of Raisins So I know by experience that eating many Raisins will kill the Worms in Children if they eat them fasting without any thing else eaten with them For as bitter so sweet things taken abundantly will kill worms For they swell and burst with eating too much sweet meats So the stomach of a man will swell and be tortured if he cram in too much sweet things CHAP. XXII The cunningnesse of Worms in Mans body and what it portends when they come forth by the Mouth and Nostrils IT hath been seen sometimes miraculously that long and round Worms especially have crambled upwards and crept forth at the mouth and the nostrils and they do this by an imbred natural motion if a man be long fasting For then they bite the stomach Worms creeping out at the Nostrils and seek for meat and when they find none to satisfie them and preserve their lives they creep upwards and hunt for meat as far as the very throat For they by their natural instinct perceive that the food comes in that way and the nostrils being open to the very throat almost they creep thither and tickle the part or else they are cast forth by sneesing or are pulled forth with ones forefingers I have oft-times observed this in sound people and when I shewed them the cause of it I gave them content I have seen this also happen in sick people but not without some imminent danger foreshew'd by it For so great is the putrefaction and inflammation of humours in such bodies that the Worms cannot endure the deadly force of the disease wherefore they break forth of themselves not urged by any Crisis or naturally but from the malignity of the disease But when the violence of the disease abates and they are carried downwards with other excrements Hippocrates holds that to be healthfull but to come forth of their own accord L. 2. Aph. 18. and not forced by any faculty as we see in people that are dying is ill for the patient for by a sagacity of nature they find the body ready to fail and that they shall want their food and therefore they leave their habitation Mice forsake old houses So it is observed that Rats and Mice will forsake ruinous houses three moneths before they fall For they naturally perceive that the frame of the house begins to part and that the house will shortly fall So Lice and Fleas where they find mens bodies decay and that the blood fails in every part they either leave the body or lay hold on those parts that the blood and naturall heat stay longest in Experience from the sagacity of Lice For it is approved by those that search and bury the dead that they will hide themselves in that pit of the stomach where the breast blade ends or in that grisle that lyes upon the vocal arterie For those parts being next the heart are hot untill the last breath which when some related unto me that were employed about sick people I said presently That it was a certain sign of death and that the Soul was ready to breathe forth But since we formerly made mention of Worms I thought fit to add this That many things will kill all worms and drive them forth But nothing is better than Worms dryed upon a tile at the fire and the powder given to those that are full of worms will presently drive forth all within the body As Pliny and other searchers of Natural things assert that a man being stung by a Scorpion L. 10. c. 2. the remedy is to drink in oyl or wine the ashes of Scorpions So our Countrey-men say that the biting of a mad-dog is cured by the burnt hairs of the same creature drank in wine For it drives forth the venome and keeps off all the danger of it and makes the body that is bit that it is of force to attract and overcome the venome So sometimes two contrary poysons mingled do cure and not kill As Ausonius wittily sets down in an Epigram concerning a woman that would have poysoned her husband with Wolfs-bane A whorish Wife her jealous Husband to Gave poyson yet she fear'd it would not do Wherefore Quicksilver intermingled shee Thought for to hasten death which set him free For if apart these poysons you shall give They kill but joyn'd together make him live Laevinus Lemnius a Physitian of Zirizea CONCERNING Hidden and Natural Questions The Second Book CHAP. I. That humours and not bad Angels cause diseases yet the aereal spirits do mix themselves therewith and increase the diseases by adding fire unto them THere are some amongst us that are but moderately versed in the Works of Nature and know not the causes of diseases their original progresse and symptoms that follow or accidents and because they cannot attain to the reason of them they refer all to evil Angels and say they are bewitcht since the Devils do constantly employ themselves to hurt us Plenty and malignity of humours is the beginning of diseases So they that are sick of a Tertian Ague the humours entring the veins every third day are said to be troubled with an evil spirit and the like is said for quartans and continent feavers as quotidians diurnals and all burning Feavers But how unreasonable and absurd this is any man can tell that is moderately versed in the Secrets of Nature For since man's body consists of the mixture of the four Elements and hath as many humours which from the faculty of the seed partake of four qualities hot moyst cold dry what can be said more than that diseases arise from the distemper of these by defect or excesse and from thence they take their original It is proved because we see they grow mild and quiet by vomit sweat opening a vein cupping-glasses set to the part affected by the opening of the Terms and Emrods also by the giving of Glysters and Suppositaries But God for his inestimable Wisdome hath appointed orderly motions in the nature of things and would have nothing done rashly or by chance but all things in a decent order and continued series So the Stars the Elements the Sea the times of the year
to drinking again to expell those vapours of the former wine Crudity hurts Melancholique people and imagination rising from thence as one nail with another since therefore the causes and original of diseases are so and the nature and condition of the humours is such that no reason can be thought on for the accesse and coming on of feavers than from the quantity or quality of the humours Let no man think that evill spirits do raise these tempests or distempers I know Ill spirits offend our minds and bodies and raise winds also and shall easily grant that the Divels or aereal spirits are very knowing and find out all things for their purposes and do not onely mix themselves with the humours but also they entice and urge the minds of men to all wickednesse and that the good Angels help men in all good things and are companions and assistants unto them So Raphael travelled with Tobias his Son So the spirit of the Lord came upon Sampson and he rent the Lion like a Kid. Tob. 14. Also a divine spirit came upon Saul 1 King 10. and he Prophesied with the other Prophets But after wards an evill spirit troubled his mind and stirred him up against David So they thrust themselves into tempests and cause thundrings and lightnings So that with their help we see Towers and Mountains are rent in pieces Corn Cattel and flocks of Sheep are destroyed yet the violence of the winds can do this without them So those winds Saint Luke speaks of are very violent upon Sea and Land Act. 27. and by the breaking and clashing of clowds fire is cast forth that sail-yards and sails are burnt with it A simile from the violence of Guns and Ordinance The like violence is wrought by great Guns upon Ramparts be they never so strong that not onely the ball strikes those that are near but the very wind and noise of them hurts some that are farther off These and many such like things though they may be done by natural reason Job 12. yet the Divell by Gods permission or grant may intermingle with them and make all worse So Satan exasperated Sauls melancholy and provoked him to commit many murders and to lie in wait and to commit many horrible things But because this affect of the mind and errour may be referred to natural causes therefore it appears that the Musick of the Harp took away the fury of him and his mind grew more calm For as when strong winds blow upon the Sea A simile from the flowing of the Sea the waves are more frequent and the Sea rages and as melancholique men grow more sad by losse of their estates and other casualties and cholerick people grow angry by drinking Wine or by being jear'd and mock'd So evill spirits or witches drive on such men headlong to wicked actions that though the will be ready and desires it yet can it not moderate the actions and force of counsels Which our Saviour seems to intimate when he said to Peter by way of reprehension Math. 16. Get thee behind me Sathan For Christ cal'd him so because he was against him and strove to divert him from our redemption that he was about And unlesse the great good God by his singular favour should bridle the fury of the adversary against us 1 Pet. 5. man could not subsist or defend himself against the fury of this Monster For he tryes all waies and searches all passages that he may set upon us and winnow us as Wheat Wherefore as Job saith God sets a sword against him that is Luk. 22. ch 40. A place of Job explained sets him his bounds that he cannot passe and limits Satans rage for he can go no further then God will give him leave and God will let no man be afflicted beyond his strength By which Antidote St. Paul comforts all that are in danger 1 Cor. 10. or in calamity but shews a way to escape from the tentation that the affliction may be no more then we can suffer or that we may be suddenly delivered I have been the longer in this that the Reader may understand that the humours are the cause of diseases principally But the divells the Stars and the quality of the ambient Ayre and other external causes are but accidental For since all passions of the mind are quieted by reason but the diseases of the body are cured by fit remedies who can refer the causes of diseases better than to the quantity and quality of the humours And if a man please to examine the humours of the body What manners come from bodily humours and what force they have he shall find that they do not onely constitute the habit of the body but the manners also of the mind yet so that manners and Religion are set above them in the uppermost place For blood or if you regard the qualities heat and moysture produce men of a flourishing constitution but as for the mind they are lascivious merry truly honest without dissembling and they are something above Fools But yellow chollerbrings forth men of a dry and swartish colour but they are hot deceitful ingenious of a fierce angry constitution wise industrious cunning inconstant false Who naught but a fair countenance reveal Pers sat In a false heart a crafty Fox conceal Melancholy juice makes men stable and constant and that will not easily depart from what they once undertake or forsake their opinion that if they happen to addict themselves to any sect they will hold it tooth and nail and not be easily drawn off This affect is milder in cholerick people for they by reason of their unstable floting humours and thin spirits are quickly transported and though they be very hot and clamorous yet they are soon pleased and not so obstinate Flegme is unprofitable to form mens manners and therefore flegmatique people are dull and unfit for any great matters CHAP. II. Melancholique Mad and Frenzy people and such as are furious from other causes will sometimes speak strange Tongues they never learned and yet not be possessed with the Divell The wonderful force of the humours in stirring the mind A Great force troubles the humours and a great heat troubles the mind for those that are in strong feavers will speak some tongue they never learned sometimes elegantly sometimes im perfectly and confusedly which I do not much wonder to be done by those that are possessed with the Divell because they have the knowledge of all natural things As Wine so humours trouble the mind Now the humours are so violent and forcible where they are inflamed or corrupted that the dark smoak of them ascending unto the brain as we see when men drink too much strong Wine will make men speak languages they understand not should this come from the Divell these diseases would not be cured with purging medicaments nor opiats by procuring of sleep For by
it Which if you do not hinder them and call them back they will by degrees go to bed again But when they do these things if you speak to them in a known voice or call them by their christian names You must not call night walkers by their proper names they will fall being frighted thus their spirits being dissipated and their natural force discussed whereby they perform these things Wherefore you must let them go as they will and to retire again at pleasure But they that are troubled with the night-mare The night mare and are toiled in their sleep which happens when smoky fuliginous grosse vapours offend the heart and brain they must be pulled and called by their proper names for they are presently wakened if you speak but low and they come to themselves the fumes being discussed and the blood sinking down which is diffused through the conduits of the veins But for the most part this disease comes at beginning of the spring upon those that have alwaies a crudity on their stomachs Ill to ly upon the back and that lie often on their backs Whence it comes that they ly with open eyes and mouths which is great inconvenience to their health For suddenly as if some great weight came upon them they feel that streightnesse that they cannot cry out but mourn and lament but so soon as one calls them by their names they will presently turn on their side and shake of those hags they thought oppressed them But our night walkers are clean contrary to these for they with their eyes shut walk in the dark and make a great noyse every where and sometimes they are silent and go upward and downward and clamber up to the tops of houses without any help which I believe is done by them by their swelling and frothing blood and by their hot fiery spirit which being carried into the seat of the mind drives on the force and faculties of the soul whereby she perfects her functions and the instrumental parts to these actions and moves them to these effects Hot spirits cause of motion in sleep Whence it comes that the body by the force of the animal spirit which contains the strength of the nervs and muscles that is the office of feeling and moving in the brain and maintains it is carried upwards and by the force thereof in sleep is provoked to such actions Such condition'd men are of fine and loose woven bodies and of little stature but full of active spirits and hot minds whence it is that if they lay hold of any thing with the outmost joynts of their hands or feet they will ballance and stay themselves and stick fast to the planks For it falls out with these bodies as it is with those boys A simile from vessels of boys the sea that are cast into the mouth of the Sea in the Low-countries whereby Marrieners know how to ride safely and sail to their Ports avoiding fords and rocks they cannot see For these though they be covered with plates of Iron and bound with chains and fastned to a mighty great stone yet they flote and swim in the Sea nor do they fall to the bottom unlesse they come asunder because they are filled with winds and blasts bellows being joyn'd to them for that purpose So they because they are swoln with wind and are full of aereal spirit are carried upward A simile from Snails with horns and with a slow pace like snails that want their eyes they try their way their horns thrust forth and creep upon all high places and walk in the night But they do this without danger or hurt to their bodies and fall not because they do it leasurely and without fear or respect unto danger which will sometimes drive men that are awake from earnest businesse dangerous attemps For they go about these things no otherwise than men that are drunk or mad who inconsiderately and with great rashnesse and boldnesse fear not to adventure upon any danger which if the next day or when they come to themselves they think upon and what danger they were in they will really professe they have forgot all and be much frighted at the relation they hear from others And if the humours be not so not in such kind of bodies and the spirits are not so much stirred and troubled they will onely cry out and leap a little but they will stay in their beds for the spirits are not so violent as to raise the body Lib. de Comit. morb For whosoever as Hippocrates saith hath a hot brain as cholerick and not flegmatick persons have these will cry and brawl in the night especially if they do unquietly perform their dayes labour and have care of their businesse having much to do As are some busie-bodies unquiet boasting people that thrust themselves into all businesses and run here and there and use strange gestures and you may know them by their eyes countenance gate cloathing and whole habit of their bodies all which they compose divers wayes and change them taking upon them another person as of a Player Fencer or Mountebank that runs up and down and calls the people together to see idle sports Men quiet in the day are clamorous in the night Hence it comes that they rise in their sleep and make a great noise and clapping of their hands by reason of phantasms that are represented to their sense and that agree with their wills and diurnal actions So all of us when we do any thing seriously in the day-time the species and representations of such things will trouble our minds in the night and make is cry out and tosse up and down Which Lucretius sets down in verse thus We see that many in their sleep will walk Will do what they did waking Lawyers talk And plead their causes strongly and Lawes write And Generals wage war and fiercely fight Saylers will strive with winds and every man Useth the same profession that he can Or what he hath long used or that kind That is most pleasing to his troubled mind For what hath tryed us and employed us all the day when the day is at an end flies to the brain and causeth distempers in the night or at least holds the mind with Employments that the sleep is not sweet but interrupted by dreams CHAP. VI. Of those that are drown'd mens bodies will flote on their backs and womens will flote on their faces and if their lungs be taken forth they will not swim IT is found by experience in the Low-Countries L. 7. c. 17. which Pliny also testifies that mens bodies when they are drown'd lye on their backs with their faces upwards toward Heaven but women lye with their faces groveling downwards and flote with their faces toward the ground In which Nature is thought to take care of their chastity that their secrets may not be seen but be decently concealed But I think it
is because a woman hath a great belly sticking forth and larger receptacles and her belly intestines urinary passages are more open and her breasts more spungy and swoln which because they are fill'd with abundance of humours the belly is made heavy and being thus stretched with the water inclines downwards A Simile from floting bladders Which thing we see in bladders and vessels that are stopped that part of them which contains the Ayr flotes upward but where the water is contain'd that part is downwards The same you may see in an Egg An Egg and Ambergreece put into brine will swim that cast upon salt brine will flote but that part where the weight is will sink but the part filled with Ayr namely that which when the shell is broken is empty when they grow old and rotten it will swim a top But unlesse nature had given larger passages and receptacles to this fex A woman hath larger passages than a man I pray how could copulation be done what could help conception and carrying the child in the womb for secretly by reason of this the matrix swells and the child growes what remedy were there for painful labour in child-birth where the parts must be stretched forth and dilated that the child may come forth with more ease what lastly would serve for the childs nourishment unlesse the womb and entrance of it were so made unlesse the curious and so handsomely swelling forth breasts that are so full of millk were made for that use Since therefore a woman hath all her passages and cavities larger and drinks in much moysture it must be that that part should sink downward that is most loaded with water But a man hath narrow guts streight urinary passages and is more endanger'd by the stone than a woman is hath his abdomen not so much stretched out his hip bones are strong and weighty his arms are strong and his shoulders large his back bone is fast with the spondils joyn'd together his Lungs are hollow and large whence it is that men have a loud and deep voice Why men have a strong voice and women a shrill voice but women have a small shrill voice because their breast is narrow All these things undoubtedly cause a man to swim on his back and a woman on her belly For by nature all heavy things fall downwards and light things upwards And I think that is the cause that men that are drown'd cannot come above water presently For when their bodies are full of water and kept down by the weight of the water they cannot come up because there is no ayr in them Why men drowned do not rise presently and all the spirit is driven forth by the abundance of water But in 7. or 9. dayes the body will flote for it is dissolved and corrupts and the lungs gather much Ayr. Hence it is What day men drown'd will swim that our common people use to say that on the 9th day when a man's gall is broken he will rise above water not that his gall bladder is broken but because the humours run forth of that and other moyst parts that are flagging whence the body when the flesh is rarified flotes and the lungs that are hollow like a spunge taking in a great deal of Ayr raise the body above the water For this part ballances and sustains bodies floting on the water and the larger lungs a man hath and the more holes are in them the longer a man can hold his breath and stay at the bottom of the water a longer time I heard Dr. Vesalius a man of excellent wit and learning relate A memorable thing of a Moor. that a Moor that was a urinator was brought to Ferrat out of a galley that could alone continue his voyce longer and hollow without taking breath than any four of the strongest Men Again he would stop his breath and his nostrils and hold his mouth close and not breathe at all longer than all they could By which gift of nature he won thus much that being oft times taken he still escaped and like a Dydapper he would for half an hour lye at the bottom of the Sea and shake off his yoke of captivity that was more bitter than death Large capacious Lungs will do thus much for a man that he shall soon run a Journey What good comes from large Lungs that if he can swim he can lye longer upon the waters and if he fall into any deep River he will not be so soon drown'd and when he is drown'd he will flote in a few daies And if these bellows of breath be taken out when a man is dead as I hear some Pyrats have done he will stay at bottom and never swim up again because he wants the benefit of the Ayr. CHAP. VII The bodies of those that are drown'd when they swim up and come to be seen as of those that are murdered when their friends are present or the murderers they bleed at the nose and other parts of their body The dead will bleed SInce there are many things in Nature that will make us to wonder I think this is one of the chief that blood will run out of the wounds of one that is slain if he be present that gave the wound and is guilty of the murder and that drowned bodies taken out of the waters will bleed at some parts if any of their friends be nigh and the blood is commonly so red and lively as though the faculties and vital spirits that agitate the humours were not yet defunct For that is observed by the Magistrates and the Rulers of all the Low-Countries who are wont to be present to take notice of dead bodies however they came to die before they be buried But how this should be it is no easie matter for any man to resolve I know that in dead people for a time there remains a vegetable force whereby their hair and nails increase imbred moysture affording nutriment to outward heat So Plants and shrubs cut off will grow green for some dayes and bear flowers if they chance to be moystned with water Plants cut up growing for a time For there is an imbred force in stalks which they have from the root and when that is gone the leafs wither and grow dry and fall off So it may be that the blood lying hid in the veins may break forth when the body is stirred For we see such men carryed up and down by Porters and to be set with their faces sometimes upwards sometimes downwards and tossed to and fro Whence it may be the veins mouths are opened and the blood that hath not yet put off its natural colour may run out But from those that are long dead and late found not red blood but bloody corrupt matter runs forth of the wound of him that is slain But if they dyed by a fall or were lilled by something falling on them
covered with blood which affect when it passeth to the child that membrane becomes of divers colours and fashions Whence comes beauty or foulnesse This also makes children to have chins and cheeks red as a rose Which then useth to happen when the great bellied women blush or are angry their blood being raised by natural heat and carried aloft For such as are frighted or suddenly put into fear they are the cause of a pale colour and frame the child with an austere and sad countenance CHAP. IX Why in Holland they say that such as have unconstant and weak brains have been conversant amongst beans IF at any time the Low-Countrey people will set forth a man of an unconstant brain The Proverb to wander amongst beans and unsetled mind who in his manners gestures words and deeds and all his actions is like a mad-man they will say he hath been amongst the beans and it is their common Proverb the beans flourish he wandreth amongst beans and this is applied to weak brain'd men that want judgment and reason For we see in the spring-months when bean-stalks begin to flowre that some men will grow mad and speak many ridiculous and absurd things and sometimes they grow so mad that they must be bound in chains For at the begining of the spring the humours begin to overflow and to choke the brain with grosse fumes and vapours which when bean flowrs do exasperate if they smell to them the mind begins to rave and to be troubled with furies For though bean flowrs smell sweet and pleasant Why bean flowers hurt the brain yet they offend the head and will at great distance send forth an offensive smell especially to those that have weak brains and are filled with a cholerick and melancholiqve humour Whereupon some of these are disquieted and wander then they grow clamorous and full of words and others again are pensive and alwaies musing Their head stands stiff Pers sat 3. their eyes sixt on the ground They mumble silently and eat the sound Their lips thrust forth their words they do confound And as some things dissipate fumes and discusse what is hurtfull to the brain and raise the fainting soul and spirits that are sleepy as Vinegar Rose-water wherein Cloves are steeped new bread wet in well sented wine for these breath forth a thin and pleasant ayre so other things cause pain and make the head heavy as Garlick Onions Leeks Elder Worm-wood Rue Southern wood What things cause the headacâ—â—e and many spices that send forth strong heavy fumes and offend the brain violently affecting the Nostrils Which Hippocrates shewd in this Aphorism The smell of spices draws the secrets of women L. 5. Aph. 28. and it is good for many other things but that it offends the head and makes it heavy For all things very odoriferous hurt the head and draw the heat and moysture to the upper parts even the very smels that evaporate from cold plants especially in those that are lean and decayed in their flesh For they cannot endure the smells of their meats and of boil'd flesh and when they faint and swound they will suffer nothing to be put to their nostrils that is of a sharp and piercing nature so that they seem to be suffocated by a grosse thick vapour as those that sit down in a dinining room that is filled with smoak whose breath is stopped and intercepted An example from smoaky houses unlesse the dores be set open and fresh Aire be let in the windows that the house may be Ayr'd and the wind may passe in and our Those that dwell near lakes are of another temper than these tender bodies and such as are made to empty Jakes and make clean sinks For these men reject all sweet smels as offensive unto them So Strabo writes that amongst the Sabaeans L. 6. those that are offended with sweet odours are refreshed with bitumen and the smell of Goats hair on their beards when it is burnt Aridiculous thing of a Countryman A certain Country-man at Antwerp was an example of this who when he came into a shop of sweet smells be began to faint but one presently clapt some fresh smoking warm hors-dung to his nose and fetched him again CHAP. X. Every strong filthy smell is not hurtfull to man For some of these will discusse contagions and resist corrupt diseases By the way whence came the Proverb that horns are burnt there MAny things are of a most filthy smell which yet do no ways hurt the body nor cause any corruption in it and they will resist some diseases and discusse the faulty troublesome Ayre and vapours as Castoreum Galbanum Sagapenum the dregs of Masterwort called Asafaetida Bean Trifoly Brimstone Gunpowder the fumes of burnt horns and skins Ill smells sometimes usefull For these are of a strong filthy sent but they cause no contagion but they represse and strike back the filthy sents and pestilent vapours which lakes and standing waters and the hearb Camarina and stinking earth send forth Also by the smell of these they raise young maids that are in a swound when they are troubled with the strangling of the mother when being fit for marriage they are forced to stay for Husbands But filthy smels that rise from dead carcases and muddy waters cause corrupt diseases and infect the Ayre by reason of heat and moisture but not the vapours of those that tend to drinesse Hence our Country people cast snips of leather horns and wet bones into the fire Ill smells sometime resist the Plague and with those sents they Ayre their houses to dispell the contagion of diseases and keep themselves and their cottages free from pestilent Ayres Hence came the Proverb that Horns are burnt there A Proverb that horns are burnt Whereby they signifie that places infected with contagious diseases must be avoided Such a kind of remedy in former times was used about Tourney when the Plague cruelly raged all the Town over A history that is true done about Tournay For the Souldiers of the Garrison in the Fort fill'd their Guns with Gunpowder without bullets and shot against the Town and they shot them off with a lighted match about the evening and morning whence it hapned that by the great noise and strong smell the contagion of the Ayre was removed Fire dispells contagions of the Ayre and the City delivered from the Plague For this is as powerfull to dispell contagions of the Ayre as Hippocrates remedy by making bon-fires and burning many fagots in the streets could be CHAP. XI The excellency of the finger of the Left hand that is next the little finger which is last of all troubled with the Gout and when that comes to be affected with it death is not far off By the way wherefore it deserves to wear a Gold Ring better than the rest PHysitians grant that all parts of the body that are affected
comprehended in excellent verse Virgils praise for his great knowledge who being he was most versed in the knowledge of things and had so exactly sought out all the works of Nature he did also in some measure subject the 〈◊〉 of men to their forces and effects For men are diversly 〈◊〉 and otherwise constituted according as the time is according as the Starrs set or the Ayre varies The condition of the sky changeth mens minds and the four seasons of the year differ So when the skie is clowdy and dark and the aire grosse and thick men are sad and sour countenanced and sleepy but when the sky is clear and in the spring-time when all things flourish men are cheerfull and lightsome and very much given to mirth For the pleasant aire dissipates all foulnesse of humours and grosse vapours that darken our minds and makes our Spirits cheerfull and our minds quick and lively which Virgil expressed in this elegant verse But when the season and the flitting Ayre Grow moist L. 1. Georg. and Southern-winds begin to blow Things are then thickned that before were rare And a great change is made in things below Mens minds do alter as the times go round When Tempests are they do not hold the same As in fair weather sometimes birds abound And sing beasts skip Crows a hoarse note do frame For the Spirits that were before kept in break forth when the ayre is calme and pleasant A simile from smoky houses and when they are recreated with the West-wind For as Smoke and vapours when the houses are unlockt and the dores set open the ayre and wind entring use to be dissipated and blown away and all Galleries and Chambers that were full of filth begin to be more lightsome so in mens bodies all soul vapours and all stinking sents that were in them and all dullnesse of Spirits are discussed and ventilated Wherefore not onely internall causes and imbred humours are helps to health or diseases but the outward conjunction of the Starrs and constitution of the outward ayre and breathings and qualities of the winds breed divers and sudden mutations in the bodies of men The body is subject to the constitution of the ayre which every man may find true in himself every moment almost of time For who is there to passe over the affections of the mind who when some tempest is at hand or distemper of the Ayre three days also before it comes doth not perceive some pricking in his limbs and some beating pains contractions of the nerves palpitations or some other sensible pains For Watts Corns Horny substances Cicatrices Knots Kernells or if any thing be strain'd or disjoynted or broken torn or dissolved in any part of the body all these will foreshew a tempest coming which doth not use to come but with most bitter torments to such that have any secret touch of the Whores Pox. For these when cold winds begin to blow are soonest sensible of their pains for their Nervs are stretched and their Muscles grow stiffe Sick people perceive the change of the aire and the vitious humours in their bodies being agitated do trouble them grievously For there is under those parts a kind of distemper like to the weather that tortures them strangely in their inward parts But such as are of a sound habit of body and in good health feel no inconvenience or distemper by it For as patcht broken leaking ships are sooner swallow'd up in a tempest A simile from Ships that are shaken so diseased people and such as are of a decai'd and uncertaine health are expossed to all injuries and subject to all inconveniences for upon the least distemper of the Ayre arising they use to feel most terrible pains or when the Sun or Moon cause any mutation in the inferiour bodies For these Planets put forth their forces The force of the Sun and Moon upon inferiour bodies not only upon mens bodies but upon all terrestriall things the force whereof is so great and is extended so wide that all things contained in the circumference of the Heavens have their order Ornament and Glory from them and the whole course of things and times of the yeare are governed by them And though the power of the upper Starrs be not ineffectuall yet by the help of the Sun all things of greatest concernment are brought to passe For the Sun chiefly adorns this World and disposeth and guideth all things very decently For by the Suns operation seeds are propagated and corn grows ripe and all things increase and proceed And thus the year doth trace it self about Georg. 2. Also the works of the Moon appeare very great in the Nature of things but not so great as the effects of the Sun For she enjoyes the benefit of the Sun and borrows her light from him Opposition makes a full◠Moon Conjunction a new Moon that so much of the Moon is light as the Sun shines upon but she fails and hath no light when the earth comes between and causeth an ecclips But then especially she shews her forces upon earthly things when she is full the Sun being right over against her and makes her round or when she is in Conjunction with him for at these times Corn grows and augments shell-fish swell the veines are full of blood and the bones full of marrow whence it is that copulation at those times offends least And because she moisteneth all things flesh that are subjected and exposed to the Moon-beames corrupt and men that are drunk dead asleep allmost Wax pale and are troubled with the Head-ache and are affected with Epilepsie for it looseneth the Nerves She causeth the ebbing and flowing of the Sea and moisteneth the brain over-much and by its chilling force it stupefies the mind Also no man may doubt but that she is the cause of the ebbing and flowing of the Sea For being that we fee that when the Moon is dark and silent or a halfe Moon or crooked with Horns or increaseth or diminisheth the waters do not run much together nor are there any high tides The Moon moves the Sea upon any shores whatsoever but again when she is in Conjunction with the Sun and begins to be a new Moon or to be round and a full Moon the tides are very great and the waves rise exceedingly who then can ascribe the flowing and ebbing of the Sea to any thing than to the motion of the Moon For as the Loadstone draws Iron A simile from the Load-stones forces so this Planet being next the earth moves and draws the Sea For when the Moon riseth the Sea roules about those parts namely the Eastern parts and leaves the Western parts but when she goes to the West and sets the flouds increase in those parts and abate in the Eastern parts and this more abundantly or sparingly as the Moon increaseth or decreaseth in her light that is conveighed by the
to his sight and he can see at the first glance but cannot exactly distinguish things for grossenesse hinders sharp sight which may be observed in a cold or moist complexion which is the flegmatique A moyst and small spirit what sight it makes But he that hath a moist and mean animal spirit to serve the organ or sight he can neither see things near hand exactly nor at all things afar off for a few spirits soon vanish and are dispersed but grosse ones hinder the function of sight since the rays that proceed from the sight of the eyes are not carried to the object nor do they receive the species of things that come to the eye from without A thin and rare spirit binders the sight when spectacles are good But a rare thin slender dark spirit such as is in old decayed people and such as are wasted by sicknesse doth make a weak sight and almost none at all wherefore they do well to help their dull sight with spectacles for by them all things seem bigger and the visual spirits are restored and collected into one they do not vanish and disperse so much but I advise no man to use them too soon for when they want them they will be quite blind For that these are dark and grow blind comes from want of spirits Wherefore spectacles refresh the sight because the rays are reflected and retorted by them Spectacles refresh the sight and the spirits gain strength new ones continually coming thither from the brain But there are besides these things spoken of many more that darken the eyes and either hurt or hinder the sight For if the pupil chance to be moved from its place How many things hinder the sight or be dilated too much contorted contracted or diminished or from some stroke or wound fall or contusion be tumefied or inflamed the faculty of seeing is wonderfully offended Eyes that stick out or sink in are dark also eyes that stick out too far or sink in too deep do bring some inconvenience to our sight for prominent eyes are hurt by the external light so that in the clear Ayre and Sun shine they see not their objects well for the immoderate light hinders them but if the skye be dark and clowdy they see the better hence it is that they see perfectly what is near them but things afar off darkly and obscurely again such whose eyes lye hid and deep within and their balls stick lesse without their eye-lids are contrary to the former For these see things hard by not so distinctly but they see things afar off very well Hid eyes and such as stick forth are contrary to seeing wherefore when we would see things afar off we half shut our eyes and wink almost for so the spirits compacted and heaped together do send forth their rayes very far Hence we use to wink with one eye and put a vail before it which may darken the Ayre and hinder the light whereby we can more forcibly and fixedly look upon the object as men do that shoot in Guns and Crosse-bows for they shutting their left eye From Archers a reason for sight is taken the spirits run more plentifully to the right and make the sight stronger therefore Archers ayme thus and so come to hit the mark they shoot at To which we may apply that Ironical speech in Persius He can direct a verse as fine Sat. 1. As winking with one eye hee 'd draw a line But that some men see two things for one is caused by the distraction of their eyes into divers parts Why some men see double For when the rayes of the eyes do not direct themselves to the same point of the object but are carried divers waies and the spirit that uncertainly receives the species of things fluctuates with inordinate and wandring motion here and there we see two for one Why things seem divided But things seem divided cut in sunder full of chinks and holes when part of the pupil is blinded with some humour standing before it also thick fumes and vapours rising from the stomach to the brain do present various sights and images to our eyes so that sometimes all things seem to run round and turn here and there Some think they see straws fleas gnats flyes Beetles spiders Why we see such absurd things Hobgoblins witches fairies and drunkennesse and gluttony cause these effects as also a melancholique humour which cloud the brain with most grosse vapours But that the right eye is duller than the left every man may prove in himself The right eye duller than the est In our perfect age a grosse and thick spirit occasioneth this and because commonly by lying on our right side nocturnal vapours rise and flow thither but in old age the right eye grows drier and the heat of the Liver devours the humours that serve the sight but the left eye is moyster and in that the spirits are not so easily extenuated nor do the humours grow dry But the heart The heart lives first and dies last the fountain of life begins first to live and dieth last and being taken forth of some living creatures will pant a long time after yet the eyes which are thought to be perfected last first cease to move and shew signs of death The eyes dye first and they dye before the rest because the spirits being taken from them when death comes they must vanish or the spirits are drawn back from the eyes to the brain that is the beginning of motion and sight But as for the causes of divers colours that are seen in the eyes I shall speak something here to it They proceed from the humours that are round about Whence come diversity of colours in the eyes whose quality plenty want thinnesse thicknesse mixture make divers colours and species of the eyes as black blew gray Owl or Goats eyes red yellow tawny pale light-red clay-colour green dark-red fiery flaming bloud-red violet-colour saffron-colour golden-colour white as milk whitish But eyes that are all with black colour whose beauty if the eye-lids be of the same colour make a man seem comely proceed from this Whence come black eyes when the visible spirit is weak and the humour plentifull thick dark and shady so that one cannot see through it by reason of the abounding humour and the profundity of it for no light that comes from our eyes is carried into his eyes that stands over against us but the rayes flye back again and are as it were retorted upon us So in Fountains and cisterns Why the water shews black in wells and deep pits the water seems to be black and serves for a Looking glasse the sight of the eyes being beaten back by the thicknesse of the water and reflected upon it self for it forceth back our sight upon us What sight black eyes have But black eyes are of that nature and condition
thin and die The Vine loves the Olive But the Vine loves to grow near the Olive and will be content to have it engrafted into it desiring to joyn with it The Oak hates the Olive But the Oak and Olive Tree are at very great ods and hate one the other so much that if one touch the boughs of the other they will grow crooked and turn to the contrary way The Baytree an enemy to the Vine So the Vine endures not to grow near to the Baytree because this is shady and by its heat hinders the growing of it So is it affected to Coleworts Cabbige hates the Vine that suck up the juice of the earth and the Vine wanting that dries and withers for both these plants cover after moysture So some plants are delighted with the affinity and nearnesse of some other Plants and are refreshed by the mutual embracements of their boughs and tender stalks others are averse and withdraw themselves and will by no means unite Pitch is taken out with Oyl So some things that are rosiny and of a fat substance agree well hence it is that Pitch is washed out with Oyl if the Garments be Silk or Velvet or Fluwel or Skarlet Purple or Chamlet Butter and Oyl take out dirt or the most precious dyes that are stayned by it For all these kinds of stains and filth are taken off and made clean with butter or Oyl so handsomely that it cannot be perceived So soap wherewith linnen is wash't is made of Oyl How Soap is made fat Soot rant Butter and the ashes of the Pitch-Tree And as there is so great Concord between so many kinds of Plants that they will embrace one the other so amongst hearbs of the same species there is observed to be a difference of the Sex Sever in plants For there is a conjunction between them and a kind of matrimonial society so that these plants growing one near the other will grow the more beautifull and both their leaves and fruit will be more gracefull and they will decay and grow lesse and sometimes dy when they are taken asunder And hence it is that some plants are called the Male What plant is the Male and which the Female others the Female the Females are those that have lesse force and vertue and are full of a cold and unfruitfull moysture Whence it comes that they will bear flowers in their season but for want of heat and by reason of their debility they bear no fruit Berries Kernels or seed Wherefore they that after their flowers are fallen yeild no such thing Plants bearing no fruit but some empty and vain rudiment of fruit which for want of heat and impotency of nature they cannot bring to perfection are called Female Plants But those are called Males that are more beautifull and comely and bear great leaves and boughs full of them and grow up very gallantly and bring their fruit and seed to maturity whereby they may be propagated and grow again which thing is denied to the other sex unlesse perhaps by the nearnesse of the Male and gentle embracements it grow fruitfull and being wedded with it swels forth into seed and fruit In plants there is a venereal affection L. 3. c. 4. The natural force of the Palm Tree which Pliny saith is done in the Palm Tree For the Female by the vapour and influence of the Male conceives and brings forth fruit the Female bowing down her top and branches towards the Male and fawning on it and when the Male is cut down she grows barren therefore the Arabians say that the Females will not bear without the Males the flowers and down of them and sometimes the powder and dust being strewed upon the Females For the like happens to these plants A simile from Hens and Females that want the Male. as doth to hens that will lay Egs without the Cock but these Egs will never bring any Chicken though the Hens sit on them never so long The reason is not unlike in women in whose capacities of the Matrix Women will bring forth Lumps without form by a mixture of seed and bloud flowing thither sometimes lumps are heaped together without any mans cooperation but because mans help was wanting and the efficient cause that affords life and form and vertue was not used all that masse and heap is without form and life Wherefore plants that have a vegetative faculty no lesse than animals that are bred of a moist and slippery seed do send a generative force and vital spirit one into the other and enjoy a mutual copulation and that by a secret consent of nature and a hidden inspiration that they have from the heat of the Ayre and the Sun and the generative spirit of the world The spirit of the world makes all things fruitfull whereby plants do flourish are fostered do bud are quickened and enlivened and conceive and bring forth seed and fruit which vertue is infused into the world and all the parts of it whereby all things are continued and subsist in a constant order L. 3. c. 9. Wherefore Theophrastus and other searchers into the natures of plants have wisely divided them into Males and Females by the reason that some are fruitfull and bear seed but others are barren and bring forth none So Piony called the Male the crooked bladders and husks opening by degrees Piony seed very comely to look on is very beautifull here with black shining seeds there with red and Scarlet colour'd and it refresheth the eyes with a present efficacy in curing the Epilepsie the Female wants this comelinesse So the Female Mandragora is either barren or bears very small fruit But the Male bears a lovely pleasant and sweet sented Apple Cantic 7. like to the yelk of a Hens Egg by the enticement whereof Rachel being allured Gen. 30. suffered Leah to lie with the Patriarch Jacob whereby as some Ecclesiastical writers suppose she might be made fruitful Augustine on Genesis But I can see no natural reason for it nor is it likely that Mandragora should cure barrennesse since it cools extreamly unlesse it chance to be good for a hot fiery and torrefied Matrix Whether Mandrugora cause conception which being unfit to conceive as is also the Matrix that is exceeding moist as Hippocrates saith may be helped by and brought to its due temper or else because it is of a sleepy quality it may help the retentive faculty of the womb to hold the seed We observe the same distinction of sex in the Bay-tree Corneil-tree Olive blew Violet Oak and many more whereof such as are called the Males are fruitfull with flowers fruit and seed but the Females are barren and bear nothing Also amongst wild plants and Garden plants that are cultivated by mans industry we alwaies see such a difference yet so as that the wild plants which come up of themselves
in moving the mind and in raising or stilling the motions of Conscience So Marriners Souldiers Porters Carriers Hucksters Victuallers Hosts Bankers Usurers Bauds and many Factors and petty Merchants Brokers Shopkeepers and Tradesmen are not much moved with any motion of conscience that they have made it large enough and it is become like wide nets that let all things through straining at a Gnat as our Saviour Christ saith and swallowing down a Camell A simile from Nets Math. 23. Others that are addicted to a solitary and melancholique life are too much troubled about it and tremble for fear when there is no cause of fear So the force of Conscience drives superstitious people farther than they ought to go and they will not be quit of their vain perswasions So melancholique people are more anxious than other men but cholerique people by reason of the thinnesse of humours and heat make no regard of conscience and they either cast it off or extenuate it or strive to forget it Sanguine people are not much affected with any such motion in their souls nor do they ever think of their life past Job 15. To this belongs that of Job Thou writest bitter things against me and thou wilt consume me with the sins of my youth ' Jobes place is explained For those things that we did insolently in our youth and were not much perplexed with them the same will in times of diseases calamities danger or old age An clegant simile from such as are oppressed by usury come fresh to our memory like to accounts that are crossed and blotted out Like to those that have borrowed great sums of other mens moneys and have quite forgotten to pay are called upon for it and compelled by Law to make all good But Phlegmatique people are slow sluggish forgetfull carelesse nor do they ever think what conscience is nor doth their mind ever wax hot or can they be stirred up by any meanes to think of goodnesse as being drown'd in too much moysture Wicked men who are sunk into the deep and who are strangers from the word and knowledge of God depise laugh and jeare at all Psa 1. Some between both will palliat excuse deny or charge their faults upon others which thing David prays against and desires not to fall into that sinne Psa 140. Incline not my heart to malitious words that I should excuse my selfe in my sinns Wherefore many things hinder the light of conscience and overshadow it as youth drunkennesse gluttony intemperance love night delights pleasures all which cast off the bridle of conscience shame and modesty so Plautus writes Night Amor. L. 1. Eleg. 6. Woman Wine are most pernicious things For young men and that most destruction brings Ovid is of the same opinion Night Love and Wine all moderation fly Night knows no shame Wine and Love fear defie For these Counsellors are not safe and carry the mind the wrong way Youth neglects conscience and turn us from harkning to good counsell and advice and if Conscience sting wound any of thes and would draw any such people to what is good they contemne neglect deride it cavill and cast a Cloud upon all things they aggravate or extenuate and lay it upon their youthfull yeares that must be spent jovially and without melancholly and that all sad thoughts must be driven far from them and laid aside for old age to think on Thus rejecting the documents of reason and avoiding the instruction of conscience with mirth Eccle. 11. they frame all their thoughts rather by the rule of pleasure than the square of moderation Whence Solomon speaks to the purpose Youth void of counsell Youth is vain rash slippery inconstant mad thoughtlesse improvident inconsiderate and the pleasures that use to accompany it are transitory and soon gon sometimes they are damnable and have a lamentable and miserable event But because commonly the companions of this age are ignorance want of experience want of counsell inconsideration therefore it lesse apprehends what is good for it and may make it prosperous Also some there are that are at their full age who have the government of the Commonwealth and are to take care for the Church and Religion whose consciences are blinded with errour and darknesse so that oft times they do not measure all things out exactly and by rule or call reason into Counsell Men are not led by conscience but by their passions with Judgment and election of things or performe what they do by the right rule of Gods Word and Spirit but oft times either humane passions drive them or else the favour and gratifying of Princes prevails with them which we read that Paul did or else some errour of setling some inveterate superstition or an old vitious custome that is crept in not by the consent and authority of good men but by the misunderstanding of the ignorant common people Old errours are hardly left yet as if it were a rule for men to walk by no man will suffer to be taken away or abolished whence it comes to passe that in the choice of things in the difference of good and bad in setting up and restoring and propagating true Religion and the worship of God they are blind and deceived and wander from the truth John 16. to the great detriment of conscience So the Jews were perswaded that they did God good service when they raged against those that had given up their names unto Christ Paul was stirred up with the same violence and desire to punish the Christians and he persecuted them fiercely Acts. 9. with a zeal of godlinesse but which was wrapt up in errour and as he saith being an Apostle was not according to knowledge Rom. 10. that is it was not done with judgment or reason and with a right unstanding of the cause as Gamaliel did Acts 5. not first knowing and observing what the will of God is not by the instigation and inspiration of the the spirit of God which he will have to be tried and examined by the expresse word of God 1 Joh. 4. whether it proceed from thence Wherefore there is errour committed in the choice of religion not by an affection and propension to godlinesse because they wanted the Spirit of God who puts into mens minds things that are certain and out of all doubt So the wise man saith There is a way seems good unto a man but the last end thereof Prov. 24. tends unto death Paul shews us an example of it who of a persecutour was made a Preacher and a defender and maintainer of the Gospell of Christ who professeth that he obtained mercy 1 Tim. 1. because he did it ignorantly through unbeleife and that thereby in him Christ Jesus had shew'd all clemency to be an example to those that should believe in him unto eternall life Some perchance may say that I have used too many
of mischief that long custome procures boldnesse and confidence unto this Sex that if any man begin to grow weary of them and would fain be quit of them it cannot be done but by a tumult For they will mingle heaven and earth together when once they hear of a divorce or when upon any discontent arising they fear they shall be shut out of dores Those Concubines which the Priests keep in their houses to live with them are examples sufficient for these men are forbid lawfull Matrimony and are commanded to lead single lives which is a thing exceeding hard and laborious for lusty men that are full of natural moysture Wherefore they erre as much as can be and are wholly deceived in the choice of humane society Copulation without marriage is a burden to the Conscience who suppose that they live in peace who being free from a wife keep a Concubine in their houses or hunt after one abroad to take their pleasure and whose company they can enjoy when they please when as oft-times besides the unquietnesse of their minds and torture of Conscience there riseth more trouble and molestation by a friend that is so kept for a time and more jealousy and suspition than from a lawfull and laithfull wife which is soleâ—only marryed to live with us so long as welive No slate of life is void of trouble And though in this estate as in many more sweet and fowre are mingled together sadnesse and joy bitter and pleasant cloudy and clear weather nor are there jarrings wanting in this course of life with contentions quarrels and affections of jealousy as there is no kind of life happy in all things yet no fault is to be put upon the order of Matrimony For however many inconveniencies accompany Matrimonial life and these men are busied with many cares great anxieties and disturbances in educating and bringing up of their children 2 Cor. 5. as Saint Paul testifies in providing for their families yet mutual love sweetneth and mitigates all the rest and the procreation of children according to Gods Ordinance Now children are the delights and singular joy of Matrimony for conjugal love increaseth and is fostered thereby Children are the pleasure of Marriage and on both sides thereby is there great comfort taken But if contrary to our will and desire we chance to have no off-spring Want of children must be born patiently and that the hope of posterity is deferred for many years yet must we hold the promise made in wedlock sacred and we must so continue between us a mutual society of life that one may bear up another as fruitfull Trees planted hard by do uphold the Vine by which it is prooped and as it were marryed and taking hold of them by its tendrils it grows very high and spreads very far For as a Vine wanting props and stayes falls down upon the earth A comparison of a Vine and Matrimony so Matrimony and houshold affairs run to ruine unlesse they be upheld by the mutual support of man and wife But if there be any fault in this society if any distempers tumults Mens affections and not nature to be blamed quarrels or suspicions arise we must ascribe them rather to mens affections and ill manners than to this ordinance For they are not the vices of marriage but of depraved nature and of a troublesome mind contracted from the guilt of original sin upon which all the fault must be laid CHAP. LVI How it may be obtained that death may not prove fearfull to a Man that naturally fears it SInce in humane affairs there is nothing firm and constant but all things are transitory frail and uncertain We must not trust in transitory things and the best things are subject to ruine it is not for any man to admire or to love these things too much and be affected with them out of measure But rather let every man lift up his mind and thoughts upward to heaven and there contemplate things that are solid and eternal For whoever with a full confidence in God the Father through Jesus Christ is lead with certain hope and expectation of immortality he need not sear any chances that shall hang over him or inconveniences he hath no cause to be frighted with diseases calamities and dangers or with death it self which they especially fear who are destitute of Gods Spirit and have no true knowledge of God For such as place their trust in God are supported by his holy Spirit and they stand undaunted against all adversities Rom. 8. â— Tim. 1. Galat. 4. â— John 4. with a couragious mind and as Saint Paul saith we have not receiâ—â—â— the Spirt of bondage and fear but the spirit of adoption of power and of love whereby we cry boldly Colos 2. Abba Father For in this saith Saint John is our love made perfect that we may have confidence in the day of Judgment There is no fear in love but perfect love casteth out all fear for fear breeds pain or trembling Wherefore that we may shake off all fear and not be daunted at death or any thing else that may make us tremble let us cast all our hope wishes thoughts confidence upon our most bountifull father through Jesus Christ Christ overcame death who hath purged us with his own bloud and hath set us at liberty from fin and the tyranny of death blotting out and taking away the hand-writing which was against us whereby we were bound to the Devil and were indebted to him A simile from such who are oppressed by bonds The Dutch say In hem ghebonden teghens hem verbonden But that Christ might support fearful and fainting minds and might shew that all hope and confidence must be placed in him he saith Be of good chear I have overcome the World Now the Prince of this world is Judged that is he that brought in death John 16. John 12. is driven away by my death and is condemned to Judgment and is spoiled of all power of doing harm The Prince of this World is come and hath found nothing in me Christ is formidable to Satan By which comfortable words he shews that Satan and all his confederates by reason of sin in this world have no power against Christ or his members that firmly believe in him and are engrafted into him These saving and comfortable words work thus much upon the minds of men that depend upon his help Comfortable sentences that shaking off all fear of death they fortify themselves cheerfully against the greatest tempests that can arise Psalm 19. Psalm 26. Psalm 3. Psalm 22. and become invincible and with great confidence break forth into these sayings My eyes are still toward the Lord for he shall pull my feet our of the snare God is my light and my salvation whom shall I fear The Lord is the upholder of my life of whom shall I be afraid If an army