Arcana Microcosmi OR The hid Secrets of MAN's Body discovered In an Anatomical Duel between Aristotle and Galen concerning the Parts thereof As also By a Discovery of the strange and marveilous Diseases Symptomes Accidents of MAN's BODY WITH A Refutation of Doctor Brown's VULGAR ERRORS The Lord BACON's NATURAL HISTORY And Doctor Harvy's Book DE GENERATIONE COMENIVS and Others Whereto is annexed a Letter from Doctor Pr. to the Author and his Answer thereto touching Doctor Harvy's Book de Genetatione By A. R. London Printed by Tho. Newcomb and are to bee sold by Iohn Clark entring into Mercers-Chappel at the lower end of Cheapside 1652. TO THE WORSHIPFUL and my much honored FRIEND EDWARD WATSON ESQUIRE Son and Heir to the Right Honorable the Lord ROCKINGHAME SIR WHen I consider your proficiency in the Schoole of Wisdome your daily exercises in the Temple of Vertue for which you may in time deserve a Shrine in the Temple of Honor your hearty affection to true and solid Philosophy not that which the Apostle calls Vain and deceiving and lastly your sincere love to me I thought good not in way of retaliation but of a thankfull recognition of your favours to present this piece to you wherein you may perceive how many strange wonders and secrets are couched up within the Microcosme of our body and with what admirable artifice the base and infirm materials of this our earthly Tabernacle are united and composed Likewise you may see how much the Dictates and Opinions of the ancient Champions of Learning are sleighted and misconstrued by some modern Innovators whereas we are but children in understanding and ought to be directed by those Fathers of Knowledge we are but Dwarfs and Pigmies compared to those Giants of Wisdom on whose shoulders we stand yet we cannot see so far as they without them I deny not but we may and ought to strive for further knowledge which we shall hardly reach without their supportation I disswade no man from inventing new but I â—ould not have him therefore to forget the old nor to lose the substance whilst he catches the shadow Women and Children love new wine because pleasant to the palat but wise men chuse the old because wholsomer for the stomach As I abridge no man of his liberty to invent new wayes so I hope they will not debar me of the like liberty to keep the old paths so long as I find â—hem more easie and compendious for attaining the end of my journey Sir I will not trouble you with any larger Discourse on this subject I wish an accumulation of all vertueâ— and happinesse on you and withall the continuation of your love to him who professeth himself Your humble servant Alexander Ross. The Contents of each Chapter in these foure Books CHAP. I. 1. The Hearts dignity scituation priority necessity and use 2. The Heart first formed not all the parts together 3. The Galenists Objections answered 4. How the heart is perfect before the other members and how nourished 5. All the temperaments united in the Heart 6. Three â—entricles in som Hearts 7. The Heart nervous 8. No parts more spermatical then others 9. The Liver not the first that is formed 10. The Heart the seat of Bloud and nourishment 11. The heat of the Matrix not generative 12. The right Ventricle nobler then the left 13. The vital and nutritive faculties are the same 14. Heat the cause of the Hearts motion 15. The Heart was first formed and informed 16. There is but one principal member in the body not many CHAP. II. Blood begot in the Heart not in the Liver why 2. The Heart is the original of the Veins and Nerves of nutrition and sense and motion 3. Why the nerves and veins do not beat and the cause of Hydropsies 4. All blood is not elaborated in the heart how it is the original of the veins 5. The arterial blood must waste or else it would infinitely increase 6. Why the blood thickneth not in â—the heart till death 7. The heart is the seat of passion 8. Why the heart a fitter seat for the soul then the liver 9. A double unity to wit of the matter and of the form CHAP. III. 1 Why the heart the originall of sensation and how it feeleth 2 The brains being cold cannot beget sensitive spirits Why the animal spirits most active where is most heat 3. There can be no generation of the animal spirits out of the vitall without the corruption of the vitall which is impossible The animal spirits are not begot of the aire 4. Neither are they concoâ—ted or generated in the ventricles of the brain nor are they wasted 5. The brain is not the originall of sense and motion although these fail upon the hurt of the brain 6. Why upon the distemper of the heart there is no failing of sense and motion 7. The nerves are not from the brain though they be like but indeed they are not like the brain 8. Why the nerve of the heart loseth sense and motion beneath the knot not above it 9. The brain is the coldest of all the parts how void of veins and blood how hot and the cause of hairs 10. The blood and spirits alter not the brains temper Why its coldness is not felâ— the pith in the back bone hor. 11. Why the brain and heart at such aâ—d stance by the spirits they work on each other 12. Why both the brain and lungs were made for refrigeration 13. The mans brain larger then the womans why man hotter then Lions 14. The testicles ignobler then the heart and brain 15. The heart not the testicles the cause of sensation and generation the testicles not chief because necessary or becausâ— they cause an alteration in the body from wheâ—ce is the distinctioâ— of sexes 16. The seed receiveth its specificall form from the heart 17. Why Eunuchs fatter weaker and colder Lib. II. CAP. I. 1. Mans Body fitted onely for mans Soul Tritons are not men 2. How Mans body is more excellent then all others 3. How the Soul is most in the Brain and Heart 4. A twofold heat in us 5. What Creatures nourish most 6. The Womans imagination cannot alter the form CAP. II. 1. The Stomach and Lungs not necessary for life 2 How the limbs are moved the spirits are bodies more required for motion then sensation the spirits are light how they are the souls instruments how the Muscles move 3. Seven properties of the brain 4. Twelve properties of the eye 5. It s substance warrish 6. Why but one sight 7. The eye how an agent and patient 8. It s two lights and its colours Light gives the second act CAP. III. 1. A twofold Heat in living things 2. The Primitive Heat where and how tempered 3. Our spirits are not celestial several Reasons 4. Our natural heat what it is no substance in six Reasons 5. Many excellencies of mans body 6. The Head why the noblest part and highest
as Galen thinks CAP. IV. 1. What the spirits are 2. They differ in seven things 3. The Woman is only passive in generation Her Testicles Arteries c. not spermatical parts the males seed evaporates why the child resembles the parents the bloud may be called seed 4. Adeps how generated Of the Lungs they are hot CAP. V. 1. The prerogative of the heart 2. The actions of our members 3. There are no spermatical parts 4. The bones nerves veins c. why not easily reunited 5. The spermatical parts hotter then the sanguineal 6. The brains and scull bones and teeth compared CAP. VI. 1. Two sorts of bloud the heart first liveth and is nourished and the original of bloud not the liver 2 The hearts action on Vena cava the cause of sanguification 3. Bloud caused by the heart 4. How every part draws 5. Heart the first principle of the nerves 6. Nerves how instruments of sense and motion 7. The same nerves serve for sense and motion CHAP. VII 1. How the spirits pass through the nerves their swift and various motions even in sleep motion and sense not still together 2. Sense and motion in phrensies epilepsies leprosies caros 3. Muscles how when and where the causes of voluntary motion 4. How the fibres and tendons move the muscles 5. The muscles of the tongue abdomen diaphragma ribs bladder 6. The organs of tact its medium CHAP. VIII 1. Bloud milk c. No integral parts 2. How the parts draw their aliment 3. And expel things hurtful 4. Of the intestines and faeces 5. The intestines retentive faculty 6. Of the stomach and its appetite or sense 7. Whether the stomach is nourished by Chylus or bloud CHAP. IX 1. The Livers heat inferiour to that of the Stomachs 2. Of the natural Spirits in the Liver and how it is cherished by air 3. Of the Gall and how it is nourished How the Choler is conveyed to it of its two passages and one membrane CHAP. X. 1. The use of the Gall and Spleen its obstructions its Veins and Arteries without concavity 2. Vas venosum 3. How the Spleen purgeth it self 4. The Veins and its humours 5. Why the stone causeth vomiting and numbness in the thigh 6. The bladder its attraction and expulsion CHAP. XI 1. The Heart and Testieles how the noblest parts Generation without Testicles they corroborate the Heart their sympathy with the breast 2. And with the brain 3. Different vessels in the Male and Female 4. The Matrix sympathizeth with the Head Heart Breasts c. 5. Affected with smells It s twofold motion CHAP. XII 1. Distinction of sexes the male hotter then the female 2. The seed no part nor aliment of the body derived from all parts how 3. The menstruous bloud no excrement how it is The cause of the small pox Its evacuaâ—ion 4. The uses of the matrix 5. It s vitiosity the cause of Monsters Mola what CHAP. XIII 1. The Heart liveth first not the Liver 2. The outward membranes first formed by the heat of the matrix 3. Vrachos what 4 The similitudeâ— of the parents on the children 5. Twins how bâ—got and why like each other 6. Infants how fed in the matrix 7. Supersetation 8. No respiration in the matrix 9. The Childs heart moveth in the matrix CHAP. XIV 1. Child-bearing how caused 2. Why the eight months birth not lively 3. The sensitive Soul how derived and the reasonable introduced when it exerciseth its functions it brings with it all its perfections The Embryo not capable of three specifical forms CHAP. XV. 1. Why about the fourth month milk is engendred and of what 2. The effects of the Diaphragma inflamed 3. Pericardium 4. The Hearts Flesh Fibres and Ventricles 5. The Heart why hot and dry 6. The vital faculty 7. The vital spirits how ingendred 8. Systole and Diastole 9. The Hearts motion 10. How caused CHAP. XVI 1. The Lungs how moved the air is not the spirits nutrimeâ—t 2. Respiration not absolutely necessary 3. The Lungs hot and moist 4. Respiration a mixed motion as that of the bladder and intestins 5. No portion of our drink passeth into the Lungs CHAP. XVII 1. All the senses in the brain 2. How made for refrigeration only how hot cold and moist and why its actions 3. How void of sense and motion 4. The animal spirits what and how begot 5. Why more vital then animal spirits where perfected and prepared the ventricles of the brain CHAP. XVIII 1. The eye both watrish and fiery imperfect vision 2. Why the eye is watrish its action spirits and species 3. Spirits of the eye proved two eyes but one motion why the object appears double sometimes no colours in the eye 4. The optick nerves soft where united and why 5. The Chrystalline and glassy humours and white of the eye CHAP. XIX 1. Five things required to hearing 2. Not the real but intentional sound is heard Hearing fails last in drowned men 3. The innate air no organ of hearing no spirit or part of the body 4. The caus of the sympathy between the ear and the mouth CHAP. XX. 1. How wee excell the beasts in smelling Wee smell realâ— odours 2. Smells nourish not 3. The nose not the brain is the organ of smelling CHAP. XXI 1. Wherein consists the organ of tast The tongue potentially moist no external medium of tast 2. How the skin is the medium of taste The prime qualities both objects and agents No creature without tact It is most exquisite in man Tact and taste different CHAP. XXII 1. The use of the common sense It is but one sense The different judgement of this sense and of the soul. How different from other senses It s in the brain and heart 2. Imagination or fantasie what disturbed compoundeth The Estimative It s work and seat 3. Memory how a sense It is twofold Reminiscence what Old men and childrens memories LIB III. A Refutation of Doctor BROÌ„WNS Vulgar Errors CHAP. I. 1. Of Eels voided by a maid and of other strange generations 2. A woman voided in three days six quarts of milk 3 Of women who have eat mens flesh 4. Of women that have lived some years without food 5 Of one that lived some years without a brainâ— another without a Spleen Of one that lived with a knife in her skull 6. Of some that have swallowed knives glasses c. 7. Of some shot in the forehead and the bullet found in the hinder part of the skull CHAP. II. Of one who wanted the pericardium 2. Of hairy hearts 3. Of one that walked and fought after his heart was wounded 4. Stones found in the heart 5. And worms found there The heart may putrifie while we are alive 6. Worms in the brain CHAP. III. 1. Epilepsie 2. Incubus 3 Vertigo 4. Of a stone in the tongue 5. One of nine years old brought to bed 6. Bodies turned to Stones 7. Sleep-walkers 8. Superfetation Ventriloques 9. A strange
double unity to wit of the matter and of the form The unity of the matter consists in the unity of the parts and temperaments which is to â—e found in the heart onely the unity of the form consisteth â—n the sensitive soul containing in it the vegetive and the parâ—icular forms of each part CHAP. III. â—Why the heart the original of sensation and how it feeleth 2 The brains being cold cannot beget sensative spirits Why the animal spirits most active where is most heat 3. There can be no generation of the animal spirits out of the vitall without the corruption of the vitall which is impossible The animal spirits are not begot of the aire 4. Neither are they concocted or generated in the ventricles of the brain nor are they wasted 5. The brain is not the originall of sense and motion although these fail upon the hurt of the brain 6. Why upon the distemper of the heart there is no failing of sense and motion 7. The nerves are not from the brain though they be like but indeed they are not like the brain 8. Why the nerve of the heart loseth sense and motion beneath the knot not above it 9. The brain is the coldest of all the parts how void of veins and blood how hot and the cause of hairs 10. The blood and spirits alter not the brains temper Why its coldness is not felt the pith in the back bone hot 11. Why the brain and heart at such a distance by the spirits they work on each other 12. Why both the brain and lungs were made for refrigeration 13. The mans brain larger then the womans why man hotter then Lions 14. The testicles ignobler then the heart and brain 15. The heart not the testicles the cause of sensation and generation the testicles not chief because necessary or because they cause an alteration in the body from whence is the distinction of sexes 16. The seed receiveth its specificall form from the heart 17. Why Eunuchs fatter we aker and colder THough the organs offense be in the brain yet the originall of sensation is the heart because it is the originall of the spirits the chief causes of sensation and without which the organs were no organs But the frigidity of the brain is not the cause of sensation nor of the sensitive spirits it only tempers the heat of the heart and vital spirits that they may become animal Neither is softness and hardness any thing to sensation seeing this is no material but a spiritual and perfective quality Now the heart is sensitive not by the animal spirits derived thither from the brain for these spirits in the heart would quickly lose their temper by reason the heat of the heart is a more active quality then the coldness of the brain but it feeleth by its own spirits whether we call them vital or animal or both For the spirits being turned from vital to animall receive only an alteration but not a substantial change For that only is in the aliments which is transubstantiate into our bodies II. The brain being cold and moist useth to convert superfluous vapours into those humours which most resembleth it self in these qualities to wit into watrish Catharrs and cold distillations therefore it is likely that the brain can transform the vital spirits into other more excellent then themselves especially seeing coldness is a quality hurtful to nature which consisteth in heat and moisture and hath no other use in our bodies but to condensat and to temper the activity of our natural heat therefore we finde the animal spirits most active and copious in those creatures that abound most in heat as in Men Lions Birds c. and in young men more then in old men III. If there be a substantial mutation of the vital spirits into the animal the generation of the one must be the corruption of the other and so the vital spirits must die that the animal may receive the essential form But how can the animal spirits subsist without the vital Or how can that be called an animal or sensitive creature whose vital spirits are dead seeing there can be no sense where there is no life nor life where the vital spirits are dead 2. The animal spirits are not generated of the aire which we draw in by breathing for there can be no generation without mixtion nor mixtion but of divers bodies Now the aire is but one simple body which cannot make a perfect mixtion without the other elements If it be objected that the air is impure and not simple I answer Though the aire be not pure yet it is not a mixed body Physically and properly but only by apposition as Wheat and Barley may be said to be mixed when they are joyned together which is no Physical mixtion wherein the elements lose their forms IV. The animal spirits cannot be generated in the â—entricles of the brain because there the excrementitious flegme is concocted Nor can they be said to receive concoction there seeing what is concocted is thickned but the animal spirits are attenuated now the cold brain is not fit to attenuate Again â—eeing there is continual use of the animal spirits they must be continually generated but if they be continually generated and never wasted where will there be room enough for them And that they are not wasted is plain because they are not consumed by nutrition as not being fit to nourish nor by sensation seeing this is a spiritual and perfective not a material or destructive act Nor lastly by transpiration for nothing is exhaled but excrements Lastly how can the brain be without feeling seeing it is full of sensitive spirits by which all other parts of the body feel V. When the brain is hurt and distempered there followes a defect in sensation and motion which is not a sufficient reason to prove that the nerves sense and motion have their original from the brain no more then that the brain should have its beginning from the stomach or other nervous parts for we know that the mouth of the stomach being hurt the brain by consent is made ill affected by reason of the sympathy and union of the nervous parts so motion is hindred upon the ill affection of the brain because of the many nerves united to the brain and back-bone the brain then is not the principal agent of sense and motion but instrumental onely in that by its frigidity it tempers the vital spirits and so makes them apter for sense and motion so upon the defect in the pen followes the faults in writing and yet not the pen but the pen-man is the chief agent in writing VI. The reason why upon the distemper of the heart sensation and motion do not cease as they do upon the distemper of the brain because though the heart be distempered yet it makes spirits which spirits being refrigerate by the brain and conveyed through the nerves cause sensation and motion which could not be if
the brain were hurt this being the immediate agent and instrument without which the heart doth not operate in sensation VII To conclude the nerves to have their originall from the brain becauseâ—of their similitude is a weak argument For 1. Many children are not like their parents from whom they have their originall but like strangers many times to whom they have no relation 2. There is no similitude between the brain and nerves for that is soft and moist these hard and dry 3. Nor is the nerve in its medullary part like the brain for this is cold the marrow is hot 4. If the nerves are from the brain because their inward parts are soft and marrowy then the bones should be derived also from the brain for they have much more marrow in them 5. If the nerves are from the brain because they have two tuniclesâ— as it hath by the same reason let the Arteries also have their beginning from thence for these also are double tunicled 6. All nerves have not this medâ—llary substance within them VIII Though the heart hath but one little nerve which being tied looseth its sense beneath the knot but above retains it though this I say be so yet from hence it cannot be proved that the brain is the originall of the nerves or of sensation but rather the heart for the upper part of the nerve is sensible because it is joyned with other nerves whereas the lower part is joyned to none 2. The spirits in the upper part are tempered by the frigidity of the brain whereas the lower part hath no refrigeration and though the faculty or power of sense is from the heart yet the act of sensation is not exercised without a temperate heat or refrigeration 3. I think this is rather a conjecture of the Galenists then an experiment for who did ever find this nerve in a living creature IX Aristotles reasons for the coldnesse of the brain are to me not improbable or easie to be answered for if the brain were hot we should never sleep seeing coldness causeth sleep 2. There are more moist humors and flegme ingendred in the brain then any where else 3. There is not blood in the brains as in other parts of the body for it is the blood that warms the body I say there are not veins incorporating themselves into the substance of the brain and terminating there as they do in the flesh and skin which is the cause that every part of the flesh or skin being pricked bleeds so doth not the brain whose substance is white and bloodless therefore though there be veins in the brain yet they are distinct from the substance of the brain and not ending in them neither is that heat which is in the brain it s own but adventitious and externall to wit of the arteries and veins as also of fumes and vapours so then the brain is the coldest of all the parts of mans body yea colder then the bones because the bones are dry the brain moist but cold with moisture is greater effectively then with siccity so the water is colder then the earth If it be objected that the brain is hot because the head is more hairy then any other part of the body and because the brain stands continually in need of ventilation by the nostrils and transpiration by the seams of the skul I answer That hairs are ingendred by the adventitious heat of the brain out of the excrementitious humors of the head and fumes which ascend thither and therefore the brain stands in need of ventilation â—ecause of the many hot fumes and vapours continually ascenâ—ing thither X. The blood and spirits which are in the brain alter not â—ts natural temperament which is cold especially seeing the â—lood is sent thither for nutrition but nourishment is to cheâ—â—sh the part nourished being converted into its substance â—nd not to alter its temperament Now the reason why we â—eel the moisture of the brain but not its frigidity is because â—here is nothing to hinder the tact from discerning its moisture â—eing in a soft substance for where the substance is hard there â—he tact is hindred from feeling the moisture though it be â—oist as when we touch ice but the tact is hindred from dicerning the frigidity of the brain because of the veins and â—rteries within it containing warm blood and spirits yet â—hough the brain be cold the pith in the back-bone which is â—oyned to the brain is hot because we finde no flegme aâ—out it as about the brain it is harder then the brain thereâ—ore more apt to receive and to retain heat it is begot of blood which is hot and it was fit that this warm pith should be joyned to the cold brain for moderating the brains frigidity XI The brain was made cold to temper and moderate the â—eat of the heart but not to diminish or destroy it and for the same cause the heart was made hot to temper but not to destroy the brains frigidity therefore nature hath placed them at a proportionable distance for had they been nearer their actions upon each other had been more violent 2. Though the organs of the sense be in the brain yet the original of senâ—ation is not there but in the heart for the brain with its organs are helps and instruments not the efficient causes of sensation 3. The mutuall action of the heart and brain upon each other is not done immediately but by the intercourse of the spirits XII Though nature doth not make two members specifically different in the same body for the same operation therefore fishes want Lungs because they have gills for refrigeration yet she hath made both the brain and lungs too in our bodies for the same end and work namely to refrigerate the heart and yet in this she is not superfluous because the heart stood in need of a double refrigeration as being subject to a double heat the one is natural for tempering of this the brain was made that so the animal spirits might be generated the other is adventitious caused by hot fumes for cleaâ—â— of these and of cooling the heart the lungs were made aâ—â— so were the arteries too As for the two eyes and two ears and other double organs in our bodies they are not specificallâ— different XIII As the male hath a hotter heart then the female 〈◊〉 he hath a larger brain for the most part that there may be the more refrigeration I say for the most part because the work of nature admit divers times exceptions so Lions though hoâ—ter then men yet have lesser brains then men but that heat iâ— the Lion is more terrestriall â— and therefore needs lesseâ— refrigeration then that which is more aerial yet it may be supposed that man abounds more in heat then Lions because he hath a strait body which is caused by the abundance of hot bloud and spirits in mans body more then in other creatures XIV That the testicles are not
sticks and glow-worms or cats eyes are fire or flames and if stars be flames because in colour they are like to flames let us say that the Heaven is water for in colour it is like water IV. It seems saith he Cent. 1.45 that the parts of living creatures that lie more inwards nourish more then the outward flesh except it be the brain which the spirits prey too much upon to leave it any great vertue of nourishment This is not so for experience shews the contrary that the outward flesh of sheep and so of other animals nourish more then the heart lungs liver kidney and spleen Therefore Galen l. de cibis reckoneth these amongst his meats of bad juyce and indeed this stands with reason for that nourisheth most which is easiest of concoction and softest and most abounding in benign and nutritive juyce but such is the outward flesh not the heart kidney c. which are harder and drier and not so apt to be converted into blood It is true the Romans made much of the gooses liver more to please their palate then out of any good nutriment it offorded so they preferred moshromes and such like trash to the best nutrive meates as for the brains they are less nutritive then the flesh not because the spirits prey upon them for the animal spirits in the brain do not prey more upon it then the vital spirits do upon the heart which notwithstanding his lordship acknowledgeth to be more nourishing then the outward flesh because more inward but because the brain is less sanguineal then the flesh for those parts which they call spermatical are less nutritive what is more inward then the Spinalis medulla or pith in the back bone on which the animal spirits do not prey and yet it is little nutritive V. The fift cause of cold saith he Cent. 73. is a quick spirit inclosed in a cold body as in nitre in water colder then oyle which hath a duller spirit so show is colder then water because it hath more spirit so some insects which have the spirit of life as snakes c. are cold to the touch so quick silver is the coldest of all mettals because fullest of spirits Answ. No spirit can be the cause of cold for all spirits in vigitable animals produce heat and are produced of heat therefore we finde that where there are most spirits there is least cold 2. Nitre which is mentioned by the Ancients is hot and not cold and therefore both Dioscorides Pliny and Galen adscribe to it the qualities of heat to cut extennat discuss and purge gross and cold humors and if that nitre which we use at this day be not the same yet it is not much unlike as Mathiolus shews as having divers qualities of the old nitre besides it is a kinde of salt and is begot of hot things as pigeons dung and the urins of animals therefore Brun. Seidelius makres it hot 3. I deny that water is colder then oyl to the outward touching for hot waters as he said before are in this regard cold and if oyl hath a dulâ—er spirit then water how comes it to mount upward and swim above the water sure this ascendant motion cannot produce from the earthy and gross substance but from the quick spirits thereof therefore we finde that water is cold and oyl hot in operation because more full of spirits then water 4. I deny that snow is colder then water because it hath more spirit but because it is more condensed for heat and cold are more active in a dense and solid then in a thin atternated substance so ice is colder then water and yet who will say that there is more spirits in the ice then in water besides the snow is colder then the water because begot of colder winds and in colder clymats 5. I deny that insects are cold to the touch for having in them the spirit of life because they are colder when that spirit is gon as we see in all dead bodies which are colder then when they were alive therefore death is called by the Poets frigida more and gelidum frigus the spirit of life is that which is both begot of heat and begets heat and preserveth it that when that spirit leave suâ— heat also for sakes us caler ossa relinquit saith the Poet It is not therefore the spirit of life but the temperament and constitution of the body of divers earthy and watrish animals which argue cold and we see that for this cause womens bodies are colder then mens and some men of colder constitutions then others because they have fewer spirits and more of earth and water in them We know also how dull and stupid our hands are in cold frosts till the spirits in them be quickned by heat 6. I deny also that quicksilver is the coldest of metals because fullest of spirits for it is much doubted whether Mercury be cold at all for agility proceeds from heat not from cold and such a quality became the messenger of Iupiter by whom all things receive life and vigour Indeed Mercury may be called the Monster of Nature for sometimes it refrigerats sometimes it califieth it cures sometimes cold sometimes hot diseases take it hot it produceth cold take it cold it produceth hot effects and it hath this quality of heat that nothing is more penetrating then it is Christopher Encelius de re metalica makes it hot and moist in the fourth degree Quercitan in his answer to Aubert makes it rather aerial then aquiall we know that heat is one of the qualities of air Renodaeus in Pharmac makes it both hot and cold Keckerman in Sist. Phy. sayth That it is hot as it is full of spirits but cold as these spirits are congealed Croclius in Bas. Cly. prescribes it in defluxions of the head and in hydropsies which shews it is hot And Poterius in Pharm Spagir tells us That by reason of its different operations no man can tell whether heat or cold be most predominant but it is certain saith he that it is both for is known by our senses that it is cold it is known by its effects and operations that it is hot for it cuts atâ—enuates dissolves and purges which are the effects of heat and so his Lordship doth acknowledge in the next following leaf That heat doth attennate and by atenuation sendeth forth the spirit In his following discourses he hath phrases not to be tolerated in Phylosophy as when he saith Cent. 1.80 That tangible bodies have an antipathy with air Belike then the air is no tangible body but experience shews the contrary that air is tangible both actively and passively our bodies are sensible enough of this tangibility both in hot and cold weather Again if by tangible bodies he mean grosse and dense bodies how can air have an antipathy with them seeing air is one of the ingredients of which all mixed bodies are compounded can it â—e contrary or antipatheticall
upper place neither could the eyes be so secure any where as within these concavities of the skull 3. The skull being a bone feeleth not for bones have no other sense but what is in the membrans or Periostium neither can there be sense but where there be nerves but there be none in the bones except in the teeth which therefore feel because the nerves are incorporated in them and communicate the sensitive spirits to all parts of them and the sensitive faculty with them yet they are more sensible of the first then of the second qualities 4. The teeth are still growing because there is continual need of them and are harder then other bones because they were made to bruise hard meats 5. They are more sensible and sooner offended with cold then with heat and yet heat is the more active quality which sheweth that the constitution of the teeth is hot for if they were cold they should not bee so soon troubled with cold being a friendly quality CAP. VI. 1. Two sorts of bloud the heart first liveth and is nourished and the original of bloud not the liver 2. The hearts action on Vena cava the cause of sanguification 3. Bloud caused by the heart 4. How every part draws 5. Heart the first principle of the nerves 6. Nerves how instruments of sense and motion 7. The same nerves serve for sense and motion I. THERE are in our bodies two sorts of blood the one arterial begot in the heart for the exciting of our heat the other venal begot in the liver for nourishing of the body â—o according to Aristotle the heart and according to Galen the liver may be called the fountain of bloud 2. As the heart is the first thing that liveth in us so it must needs be first nourished for life cannot be without nutriment nutriment cannot be without blood therefore there must needs be blood in the heart before there was any in the liver 3. As the heart first liveth so it first operates for life consists in operation but the proper work of the heart is to beget arterial blood and vital spirits therefore the blood was first in the heart 4. Though blood resemble the liver in colour it will not therefore follow that blood hath its first original from the liver but only that it is the receptacle and cystern of blood so the bag in which the gall lieth hath the same colour with the gall and yet this is generated in the liver and onely contained in the bag and it s a question whether the liver coloureth the blood or the blood the liver 5. In fear and sadness the blood retires into the heart which is by means of the spirits recoiling thither with the blood as to their original 6. In the brain we finde four sensible concavities for the animall spirits in the heart two for the blood and vital spirits but in the liver none for the blood in the resticles none for the seed nor in the breast for the milk which makes me doubt whether the blood seed and milk have any concoction in these parts if they have it must be surely in a very small quantity 7. I finde pure blood no where but in the heart and veins by which I gather that there must be a greater commerce between the heart and veins then some doe conceive which appears also by the implantation of the vena cava in the heart which cannot be separated without tearing of the heart or vein and that either the blood is perfected in the heart and prepared in the liver or else prepared in the heart and perfected in the liver besides that the arteries doe all along accompany the veins II. I see no reason why we may not affirm that the heart is continually in its Diastole drawing blood out of the vena cava and in its Systole or contraction refunding blood into the same vein for this continual motion of the blood is no more impossible then the continual motion of the heart and arteries neither is it more absurd for perfect and imperfect blood to bee mingled in this motion then for cholerick melancholick and flegmatick blood to be mingled with pure blood in the veins 2. When the liver is vitiated sanguification faileth and so hydropsies follow which doth not prove that the liver is the sole cause of sanguification but that it is subordinate to the heart so when the Chrystalline humour is vitiated the sight faileth and yet this humour is not the sole cause of fight but is subordinate to the opâ—ick nerve and spirits The heart then by the liver distributes blood to the members 3. The veins have their radication in the liver their office and distribution from the liver and the heart their original from neither in respect of matter but in respect of efficiency from the heart for this first liveth and therefore the fittest place for the formative faculty to reside in III. The Chylus is turned into blood not by the substance of the Liver for the Chylus comes not neer it and there can be no alteration or concoction without contact nor by the veins for their office is to convey and distribute the bloud not to make it So the arteries doe not make the arterial blood which they convey besides thaâ— the form temperament and colour of the blood is far different from that of the veins therfore the blood is made by the power of that celestial heat by which we receive life growth and nutriment for the same heat produceth divers effects in the divers subjects it works upon in the stomach it turns our meat into a white Chylus in the veins into red blood in the â—eminal vessels into seed in the breasts into milk c. IV. The same Meseraick veins which draw the purest pare of the Chylus from the intestins that it might there receive sanguification contain also pure blood which the intestines draw for their nutriment for every part draws that food which it most delights in Thus from the same mass of blood the Spleen draws melancholy the gall choler the kidneys water V. The Peripateticks will have the heart to be the first original of the nerves and of the sensitive motion The Galenists will have the brain but this contention is needless For the heart is the first principle because it is the first that lives and moves whereas the brain moves not but by the heart In a Syncope or swowning fit of the heart all sense and motion suddenly fail which could not be if these had not their original from the heart the brain may be called the secondary or subordinate caus or principle for this by its cold tempers the vital spirits and so they become sensitive or animal Hence it is that in an Apoplexy there is a sudden failing of sense and motion If any say that the body can move after the heart is taken out and that therefore the heart cannot be the first principle of motion I
men in whom this sense is hurt see but perceive it not nor doe they difference the objects which they fee but either confound them or mistake the one for the other So when the sensitive spirits are imployed by the fantasie though we see oftentimes the object yet we perceive it not 2. Though the common sense apprehends diversity of objects yet it is but one sense because its actions in judging or differencing these objects is but one So the eye hath but one action though it seeth many objects 3. The act of judging in the common sense is not that of the soul which extendeth it self to things also spiritual and universal and belongs only to man not to the beasts as the judging of the common sense doth 4. The external senses apprehend their objects onely present but the internal senses apprehend them being absent 5. The common sense is in the brain subjectively for there are the animal spirits and nerves so saith Galen but in the heart originally and in its cause for from thence are the vital spirits which are the matter of the animal and so is Aristotle to be understood II. The second internal sense is the imagination so called from the images or species which it both receiveth from the common sense and frameth to it self If the brain be sound and undisturbed it receiveth species from the common sense only and judgeth more distinctly of them then the common sense doth it compoundeth also and uniteth and in beasts it serves in stead of reason to direct them to their operations in man it is subservient to the intellect in ministring species to it therfore it is called phantasie from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to shine or shew For as the eye discerns its objects by the light so doth the intellect whilest it is in the body work and speculate by the phantasie 2. In disturbed brains by phrensies fevers or inordinate sleep the phantasie makes other objects to its self then were represented to it by the common sense 3. The phantasie compoundeth that which the common sense apprehendeth in a divided way as I see a horse and a man and the common sense apprehendeth the species of both apart but to conceive them united in a Centaure is the work of the phantasie 4. The estimative is not a sense distinct from the phantasie but the very same whose office is to esteem what is good or hurtful to the creature and so to follow or avoid it therefore this sense stirreth up the appetite 5. The common sense doth not work but when the outward senses are working but the fantasie worketh without them to wit in sleep 6. The fore part of the brain in which is the common sense is humid as being fittest for reception which is the common senses work the hinder part is dry as fitâ—est for retention which is the work of the memory but the middle part is temperately humid and dry as fittest for reception and retention both which are performed by the phantasie 7. For a right and orderly phantasie or imagination there are required clear spirits from vapors a temperate organ straight nerves and passages and a moderate heat from the heart if any of these bee deficient the phantasie is disordered III. The third internal sense is the memory not so much to be called a sense as it retaineth the species for in this the nature of sensation consisteth not but as it receiveth them for sensation is properly in reception 2. This sense is the treasury in which are laid up that species of things past which have been apprehended by the external senses For as these consider things present and hope things future so doth the memory things past it is the wax receiving and retaining the stamp of the seal and it is a faculty of the sensitive not of the intellective soul for beasts and birds have memories As for the intellective memory it is all one with the passive intellect which is the keeper of the intelligible species for it belongs to the same faculty to understand and to remember 3. Though in brutes there is memory yet recordaâ—ion or reminiscence is onely in man because it is joined with discourse and deliberation which are operations of the intellect for memory is the retention of the species but reminiscence is a recollecting by discourse and comparing of circumstances the species which he had forgot therefore a nimble wit and reminiscence which consisteth in discourse go together commonly but seldome a good wit and a good memory this requiring a dry organ the other that which is temperately moist 4. Children have bad retentive memories because their brains are moist and old men have had receptive memories because their brains are too dry therefore there is required for memory a brain temperately moist to receive and temperately dry to retain the species Finis Libri Secundi BOOK III. Of mans rare Infirmities or admirable Diseases CHAP. I. 1. Of Eels voided by a maid and of other strange generations 2. A woman voided in three days six quarts of milk 3 Of women who have eat mens flesh 4. Of women that have lived some years without food 5. Of one that lived some years without a brain another without a Spleen Of one that lived with a knife in her skull 6. Of some that have swallowed knives glasses c. 7. Of some shot in the forehead and the bullet found in the hinder part of the skull HAving briefly discoursed upon the fabrick parts and passages of mans body I will as briefly touch some rare and extraordinary infirmities with which the bodies of some men have been molested and will point at such causes as I conceive may stand with the grounds of Divinity and Philosophy As for ordinary diseases with their causes symptomes and cures I leave to Physitians I. I read in Cornelius Gemma in his Divine characterismes l. 2. c. 4. and in Marcel Donatus his admirable Histories l. 2. ca. 1. of a Maid that voided Eels by the stool which I conceive may proceed from a natural cause For if by the heat of the Sun divers forms are educed out of putrified matter as Eels out of mud why may not Eels also be generated in mans body by its heat there being a disposition and preparation in the matter for reception of such a form Thus Bees are begot of Calves flesh Waspes and Hornets of Horses and Asses and divers sorts of Worms in our bodies I have read of a Bird found in an Oyster which was presented to Francis the first of France I will not speak of the Barnecles in the Scottish Seas begot of old rotten planks of ships nor of him that had a golden â—ooth which if it were not perfect gold it might in some qualities resemble it as pins that have been voided in Impostâ—umes For stones begot in the bladder and kidneys and chalk in the joints of gouty bodies are not so rare II. I read in Martin Wienrich in his book
which did abound in him did not presently spend so long as they continued he lived when they failed he fell down dead IV. What Wierus records in his work of Impostures l. 4. ca. 16. concerning some stones found in the heart of Maximilian the second is not incredible for the same heat of the body that breeds stones in the bladder kidney and joynts can also produce stones in the heart if there be the same matter and disposition for such a production and this may be the work of nature alone without sorcery V. Nor is it incredible what is recorded by divers of worms found in the heart which cause consumptions and strange distempers in our bodies which oftentimes deceive Physitians For the heart is no more priviledged from worms then other members save onely that its substance is hard and solid and by reason of its spirits and heat it is not so much subject to putrifaction as parts more soft and loose and consequently not so often infested with worms and imposthumes as other members are yet it is not altogether exempted For I have read of one whose heart being opened there was found in it a white worm with a sharp beck which being placed on a table and a circle of the juice of Garlick made about it died being overcome with that strong smell by which it is plain that the use of Garlick is wholesome and needful for such as are subject to worms as being their destroyer VI. Fernelius is deceived when he saith that the heart doth not putrifie in us whilest we are alive because it is of a solid and hard substance and is the last that dieth in us but it is not more hard and solid then the bones which notwithstanding putrifie whilest we are alive and it is true that it is the last thing that dieth in us for it doth not totally putrifie till we be dead because all the heat motions and functions thereof cease not till then VII And not onely in the heart but in the braines also worms are ingendred as Avicenna Hollerius and others doe witnesse And I have read of black and round worms that by sneezing powder of Castoreum and Pepper have been voided by the nose and of ear-worms also CHAP. III. 1. Epilepsie 2. Incubus 3 Vertigo 4. Of a stone in the tongue 5. One of nine years old brought to bed 6. Bodies turned to Stones 7. Sleep-walkers 8. Superfetation Ventriloques 9. A strange stone found in the matrix THe Epilepsie and malignant feavers oftentimes end in deafness and this is held a good signe of recovery the reason is because nature thrusts out the malignant humor from the brain into the next passages which are the ears II. Some take the night-mare or Incubus for a spirit but indeed it is a feculent humor adhering to the vitall parts and with its black or melancholy fume troubling the Diaphragma Lungs and Brain and distempering the imagination with horrid shapes III. Nature is very skilfull and provident in helping her self when art faileth for many diseases have been cured by nature which the Physitians have been forced to give off Zacutus Obs. 15. mentioneth one who being every month vexed with a terrible Vertigo which for a time made him stupid and senseless was cured by a flux of blood gushing out of his eyes without any inflammation at all or redness of the eyes by those veins that fed the eyes nature found out a way to ease her self which veines were opened by the violent motion of the spirits in the head and the aboundance of blood pressing into those veins which made an eruption IV. And it is no less strange what he records Obs. 72. of one upon the tip of whose tongue was found a stone as big as a filbert nut which grew there within a swelling caused by a great flux doubtless of slimy matter into that part and baked into that consistence by a preternatural heat for he was much subject to Catharrs V. That is not incredible which is recorded by Iaubert in his Vulgar Errors l. 2. c. 2. of young women who have been brought to bed at nine or ten years of age for nature is more pregnant and forward in some then in others this we see in some trees and other vegitables but these women give off child-bearing betimes to wit about one or two and twenty for quod cito sit cito perit and as we say soon ripe soon rotten for such hasty and precipitate works of nature are not permanent hence it is that women who sooner attain to their growth then men decay sooner then men VI. For stones to be bred in the Lungs which are oftentimes the causes of drie coughs is no great wonder for divers times such stones have been voided by coughing but for a mans body to be converted into a stone as is Recorded in the memorials of Lyons in France is more strange yet not impossible and therefore the conversion of Lots wife into a Salt Pillar is not incredible although this was the sole work of God Neither is that incredible which is written of the lake that turns the sticks cast into it into stones nor that Cave in Scotland where the water-drops are turned to stones I have kept an apple til it grew to that hardness that no wood could be harder for scarce could a knife cut it I wil not say this was a perfect stone into which this body was thus turned but it might be as hard and drie as a stone for the bodies that are found in the sands of Egypt are very dry and hard VII Horstius and others record divers examples of sleep-walkers who do strange things in their sleep but this is also the work of nature for I finde that they are most subject to this infirmity whose animal spirits are most active subtil and fiery and whose imagination is strong so that by the strength of their fantasie and agility of their spirits the muscles are moved though the Will doth not then concur to this motion nor reason make any opposition which it would do if they were naked and not suffer them to undergo such dangers VIII I have read divers Stories of women who have had seaven children and more at a birth and likewse of superfetation both which are credible and possible in nature as I have shewed in the former book c. 13. sect 5. 7. But that the infant should crie in the mothers womb as some have done is more strange seeing it doth not breath neither is there any air in the matrix without which there can be no sound therefore either this crie was imaginary in the party that heard it for sometimes we think we hear a sound when we hear none or else this sound might proceed from wind in the mothers womb which might resemble the crying of a child or else these mothers might be ventriloque IX That may seem a miracle which is recorded by Monsieur Iohn Alibaux a Physitian of a woman
perfect in this respect an infant and a man may be called different entities and they have their different operations yet they have the same soule If then we conclude diversities of things from diversities of operations we must inferre that every animall is different from it self because it produceth different operations and that Peter hath not the same soule when he doth different things How many different entities must there be in the Sunne who produceth so many different effects Neither do I allow of the Doctors Assertion in saying The chick is begot of the egges corruption for indeed it is begot of the egges perfection For then is the egge perfected when the chick is procreated If by corruption he understand the abolition of the form of the egge I assent to him that according to the old Peripatetick Maxime The corruption of one thing is the generation of another But if by corruption he understand putrifaction as he seems to doe I say that then a chick is not nor cannot be procreated of a putrified egge which is fitter to breed worms then a Chick IV. Because the soule is a pure and celestiall substance and our bodies are grosse and earthy on which so sublimate an entity cannot operate without a medium that may in some sort participate of both natures therefore God in his wisdom hath interposed the animall and vital spirits as the immediate instruments of the soul to work upon the body But Dr. Harvy Exercit. 70 will have the blood to be this immediat instrument of the soul because it is every where present and runs to and fro with great celerity Answ. Neither can the blood be the immediat instrument of the soul because the spirits being of a purer essence come nearer to the nature of the soule and therefore must be more immediat neither is there any ubiquitary presence or celerity of motion in the blood but by the reason of the spirits which drive it to and fro Besides all animals have not blood some being exanguious yet they have spirits by which they are moved Again he saith That the blood works above the power of the elements being the part first begot and the innate heat doth fabricate the other parts of the body Answ. The blood works not at all much lesse above the elementary powers but by vertue of the spirits which the Doctor immediatly after seems to acknowledg when he faith It is made the immediate instrument of life by the gift of the formative faculty and vegetive soule Now this formative faculty consisteth immediatly in the spirits and so doth the vegitive soule which are even in those parts where there is no blood at all to wit in the spermaticall parts according to the doctrine of Hippocrates and Galen To say then that the blood is the immediat instrument of life by means of the plastick faculty is in effect to say It is not the immediat because there is one more immediat to vvit the plastick faculty in the spirits Neither is the blood the part first begot as the Doctor saith if we will believe the Galenists but the spermatick parts are first begot if we speak of the formation of the child neither can the blood fabricate any part at all being a dull thing in it selfe but the spirits or the plastick faculty in them doe fabricate the blood is onely the materiall cause of the flesh and sanguineall parts as the Galenists affirm And whereas the Doctor saith That the blood is a spirit because Virgil saith Una cademque viâ sanguisque animusque sequuntur He speaks very improperly for blood and a spirit are specifically different and if the Poet had meant that blood and a spirit were the same thing he had used a meer tautologie which is far from his elegancie and therefore his words intimate the contrary that they are different things because he saith Sanguisque animusque though then they had but one passage or vent yet they are not one thing And whereas he saith That the blood is celestiall because the soule lodgeth in it he may say the whole body is celestiall being the house and tabernacle of the soule which lodgeth in each part thereof even where there is no blood as in the bones grisles c. But indeed the spirits are rather to be called celestiall because in them the soul immediatly resides and by them in the blood and other parts The blood then is not celestial at all but by the spirits nor these in respect of their originall but because of theiâ— celestial qualities and operations Again when he distinguisheth the principall agent from the instrumentall in this That the one can never work above its own strength whereas the other doth I say this distinction is needlesse for no agent can work above its own strength much lesse the instrumentall which worketh not at all but as it is moved by the principall agent The instrument then doth not worke above its own strength but the prime agent worketh by it above the strength of the instrument Besides when hee saith That the blood deserves the name of Spirit because it abounds more with radicall moisture then other parts by which it feeds all other parts I answer That the seed deserves rather to be called a Spirit for though in the blood there is more moisture extensively yet in the seed there is more radicall moistureâ— And if that which feeds us immediatly be a spirit then the blood is no spirit for it is not that but a roscid and benigne juice extracted from thence which immediatly nourisheth us Lastly when he saith That the soule with the blood performes all things in us If he understand here as he seemes to doe in all his discourse collaterall efficient causes I deny his saying for the soule by the spirits is the sole efficient cause of all that is acted within us the blood is onely a materiall cause having no more efficiency in it then Bricks and Mortar have towards the building of an house Doctor Harvy de Conciptione will have the Female conceive and be prolificall without any sensible corporeall Agent as Iron touched with the Loadstone draweth other Iron to it Again hee saith That the substance of the womb being ready for conception is very like the constitution of the brain Why then should not their function be alike And what the phantasme or appetite is in the brain the very same or its analogy is excited after copulation in the womb â—for the functions of both are called conceptions And shortly after As when we have conceived a form or Idaea in the brain wee produce the like in our workmanship even so the Idea or species of the Father being existant in the womb by the help of the formative faculty produceth the lik brood Then after divers amplifications to the same purpose he concludes That it is no absurdity if the female that is made pregnant by conceiving the generall Idaea without matter doth generate Answ. In
not drawn in by the Kidneys but sent thither by the veins neither is the liquefaction of the solid parts in a Hectick sent by the veins being weakned nor drawn in by the reins being against nature but of it self is conveyed thither thorough the capacious vessels V. Such a sympathy there is between the stomach and the reins by reason of the nerves common to both and of the outward tunicle of the reins arising from the Peritonaeum which is joyned to the bottom of the stomach that in fits of the stone we are troubled with vomiting 2. By reason of the muscle on which the Kidneys lean which muscle is inserted in the inward part of the thigh and by reason of the nerves inserted in that muscle which nerves are pressed by the hardnesse of the stone in the Kidneys we find a stupidity or numbnesse in the thigh in fits of the stone VI. The Bladder draws the urine to it not to be fed by the urine for it is fed by blood as appears by its veins but that it may retain it till by its quantity or quality it grow offensive and then it is sent away which action both of retention and emission is partly natural partly animal as the urine is retained by the oblique fibres of the bladder it is natural as it is retained by the muscle sphincter it is animal so as it is expelled by the faculty of the bladder this action is natural but as it is expelled by the muscles of the Abdomen the action is animal CHAP. XI 1. The Heart and Testicles how the noblest parts Generation wâ—â—hout Testicles they corroborate the Heart their sympathy with the breast 2. And with the brain 3. Different vessels in the Male and Female 4. The Matrix sympathizeth with the Head Heart Breasts c. 5. Affected with smells It s twofold motion ARistotle will have the Heart Galen the Testicles to be the noblest parts of mans body both are in the right for if we consider the individual person the Heart is the noblest part but if the propagation of the Species the Testicles have the prerogative for without them there can be no generation in perfect creatures 2. The Testicles are not of such absolute necessity for propagation of the Species as the Heart is for conservation of the individuum For divers creatures as Fishes do propagate without Testicles 3. The Testicles as Aristotle affirms truly were not made only or principally for generation but for corroboration of the Heart by a secret sympathy and communication of spermatical spirits and heat therefore Eunuchs lose much of their vigour courage and masculine heat 4. By means of the Nerves Veins and Arteries there is a great communication between the breast and the parts contained in it and the testicles for oftentimes the tumor of the testicles end in a cough and so the cough sometimes ends into the Testicles And hence it is that the voice begins to grow big and hoarse in young men as soon as they begin to have puberty and seed because the heat of the Testicles increasing dilates the passages of the brest and wind-pipe II. As there is a great sympathy between the seminal vessels and the brest so there is between them and the brain hence it is that imagination of venereal objects causeth erection and upon the exuberance of seed there arise lascivious imaginations 2. Erection is partly animal in respect of the muscles the imagination and delight and partly natural in respect of flatulency heat and seminal spirits which cause distension and of the natural end which is procreation III. The vessels of generation in the male and female are not the same as some have thought supposing they differ only in scituation the one being inward the other outward which is not so for they differ in figure number and scituation as may be seen in Anatomies Therefore these stories which tell us of maids turned into boyes are false and ridiculous except they mean Hermaphrodites in which are the vessels of both sexes which are not discerned while they are young because of the weakness of heat in them so at first some young boyes have been taken for maids because the yard and testicles for want of heat have not appeared outward IV. Such a sympathy and combination there is between the matrix and the head by reason of the nerves that when the matrix is ill-affected the head and brains are ill-disposed and oftentimes the sensitive animal and motive faculties are overthrown hence convultions stupidities and strange disturbances of the imagination 2. By reason of the arteries such a sympathy there is between the heart and the matrix that swouning fits and suffocation with a cessation of pulse and respiration follow upon the distemper of the matrix 3. Such a consent there is between the matrix and brests of women that sometimes blood hath flowed from the breasts instead of milk and milk hath been voided downward instead of blood 4. By reason of the consent between the liver and the matrix the veins and matrix the bladder and the matrix the evil disposition of this is the cause of distempers and diseases in them V. The matrix is much affected with smels not that the sense of smelling is there which is in the brain but because of the consent that is between the matrix and the membranes of the brain they being both of the same substance and because with the smell the thin vapors are conveyed thither on which the spirits are fed 2. Sometimes abortions are caused by bad smels because the maternal spirits which the child attracteth by the umbilical arteries are infected 3. Sweet smels do cause in some women histerical passions because they stir up the pernitious vapors that lay lurking in the matrix which vapors are conveyed by the arteries to the diaphragma heart and brain whereas by stinking smels nature is stirred up to the expulsion both of them and withall of the naughty humors in the matrix 4. There is a two-fold motion of the matrix the one is natural by its straight and circular fibres so it is moved downward towards the reception of the seed and expulsion of the childe and secundine the other motion is convulsive proceeding from too much inanition or repletion and sometimes of venomous vapours whence are suffocations and want of respiration the diaphragma being pressed CHAP. XII 1. Distinction of sexes the male hotter then the female 2. The seed no part nor aliment of the body derived from all parts how 3. The menstruous bloud no excrement how it is The cause of the small pox Its evacuation 4. The uses of the matrix 5. It s vitiosity the cause of Monsters Mola what I. AS nature hath appointed generation for continuing of the species so it hath appointed distinction of sexes aiming as well at the female as the male and not at the male alone as some think who would make the female an imperfect thing and
reparation by generation of spirits 5. It differs from the animal motive faculty because it is necessary and perpetual the animal is voluntary and sometimes ceaseth VII The vital spirits are ingendred in the left ventricle of the heart partly of aire prepared in the lungs and conveyed to the heart by the Arteria venosa and partly of the purest blood powred out of the mouth of Vena cava into the right ventricle where it is prepared and attenuated a part whereof is conveyed for nourishing of the lungs by the Vena arteriosa the other part sweats through the partition that divides the heart and in the left ventricle is mingled with the aire and turned into spirits by its excessive heat VIII The Diastole and Systole that is the dilatation and contraction of the heart and arteries is all one and at the same time for the heart and arteries are so united that they make but one body so there is but one pulsifick vertue in both and the end of their motion is the same to wit the vegitation and life of the body the suddenness of the motion in the remotest arteries from the heart and the strong beating of the pulse and heart in Feavers and anger do shew the identity of motion in both 2. The arteries are moved by the spirits of the heart conveyed by their tunicles rather then their cavity for upon the pressing of the tunicles the pulse ceaseth but not when the cavity is stuffed or stopped They are not then moved by their heat and blood but by the heart as may be seen by binding the arteries whose motion beneath the binding saileth the commerce between it and the heart being intercepted 3. The heart is first dilated by receiving the aire then it is contracted by expelling the fuliginous vapours 4. The heart strikes the breast in its dilatation not in its contraction or Systole because the left ventricle which is the originall of the Arteries is distended in the Diastole and so toucheth the breast about the left pap IX The motion of the heart is not voluntary because we cannot command it nor sensitive because it is not performed by the nerves and muscles nor simple because there are two motions nor compounded because they are contrary and of contrary motions can be no compositions nor is it violent because it is not repugnant to its nature nor is it caused by an externall agent as the trembling of the heart is by distempers vapours or humours but the hearts motion is natural yet not caused by the elementary form for so there should be more agents in our bodies then one and its motion should be â—itâ—eâ— upward or downward but it is natural in respect of the soul which is the chief nature that works in animal bodies and in respect of the fibers heat and spirits of the heart which are natural organs and in respect of the natural use or end of this motion for the heart dilates it self to receive aire and blood it contracts it self to be emptied of its fumes and to communicate its spirits to the nerves which ends are naturall X. When Aristotle saith that the motion of the heart is caused by heat and cold he contradicts not the Physitians in affirming the soul or its vital faculty to be the cause of this motion for heat and cold are subordinate instruments to the soul which by the heat of the blood and spirits dilates the heart and by the attraction of the cold air contracteth it as we see water by the heat of the fire swel and dilate it self but upon the breathing of cold air to contract and fall down again CHAP. XVI 1. The Lungs how moved the air is not the spirits nutriment 2. Respiration not absolutely necessary 3. The Lungs hot and moist 4. Respiration a mixed motion as that of the bladder and intestins 5. No portion of our drink passeth into the Lungs ARistotle differs from the Galenists about the motion of the Lungs he will have them moved by the heart whose heat listeth up the Lungs upon which motion the air enters for avoiding vacuity which being entred the Lungs fall The Galenists will have their motion to depend on the motion of the breast but both are in the right For the motion of the Lungs is partly voluntary and so it depends on the moving of the muscles of the breast and partly natural and so it is moved by the heart 2. When Aristotle denies that the air is the nutriment of the spirits which the Galenists affirm his meaning is that the air doth not properly nourish the spirits as meat doth our bodies for there is no assimilation or conversion of the substance of the air into our spirits which are properly nourished by blood but only a commixtion of the air and spirits for refrigeration And indeed if the spirits were properly fed by the air there would not come out the same air that went in For the spirits would not part from their food the air then nourisheth the spirits as it doth the fire by refrigeration and preserving it from suffocation II. Respiration is not so necessary for preservation of life as the motion of the heart for histerical women can live without that but they cannot live without this Neither is the motion of the arteries of absolute necessity for the member is not deprived of life though the arterie be stopped or tied and deprived of its motion 2. The motion of respiration is more noble then the motion of the heart because this is meerly natural that is also animal and voluntary yet as the motion of the Lungs is subservient to the motion of the heart that is more noble then this for the end excels the means III. The Lungs are hot and moist hot that they mighâ— temper and alter the cold air therefore the substance is fleshy light and spongy and fed with hot and spirituous blood from the right ventricle of the heart It is also moist as appears by its soft and loose substance It is also moist accidentally by receiving the flegme and rhumes that fall from the brain 2. The Lungs refrigerate the heart not because their substance is cold but because the air is cold which they attract IV. Respiration is a motion partly voluntary as it is performed by the muscles nerves and diaphragma which are the organs of voluntary motion and as it is in our power to breath or not to breath to hasten or retard it And it is partly natural as it is performed by the Lungs which are organs of natural motion as it is not subject to fatigation as it is performed in our sleep when we have no command over our selves and the sensitive faculties then cease as it is not performed by election or apprehension of the object as voluntary motions are And lastly as in Apoplexies when the senses fail the brains and nerves are hurt yet respiration continues it is then a mixt action as the expulsive actions of the
of Monsters of a woman whose milk did so abound that in the space of two or three days she voided a gallon and an half of which was made very savory Butter and Cheese Though this be rare yet it is no miracle for that woman abounding much in blood must also abound in milk And some Livers are of that constitution and temper that they sanguifie much more then others especially in constitutions that are inclined to cold and moisture for hot and dry bodies have but little blood and therefore little milk and where there is much sweet flegm or rhume it is easily converted into blood III. I read divers stories of women with child who have lusted after and have eat mens flesh and for that end have faln violently upon them and bit them This is also a disâ—ase proceeding of natural causes as that infirmity of eaâ—ing chalk coals dirt tar ashes in maids and some married women called by Physitians Pica or Malacia and is caused by the distemper of the phantasie and soure malignant melancholy humors in the mouth and concavity of the stomach and impacted in the runicles of the ventricle proceeding partly from the suppression of the flowers whereby the appetite is vitiated and the phantasie disturbed and partly from the malignity of the humor coveâ—ing after such things as are like to it in malignity yet contrary to it in some of the prime qualities heat cold humidity and siccity for Nature looks in the contrary quality to finde remedy IV. I read of divers maids one in Colen another in the Palatinate a third in the Diocesse of Spira divers more who have lived without meat and drink two or three years together This indeed may seem strange yet it is not against nature for naturally such bodies as have in them little heat and much humidity can subsist longer without food then hot and dry bodies can as we see in women and old people who can fast longer then men and youths And we know that divers creatures for many moneths together can subsist without food therefore these maids having much adventitious moisture and little heat to waste the radical humidity might continue a long time without food for where there is little deperdition there needs not much reparation besides the moisture of the air is no small help to them V. But that is more strange which Zacutus in his Praxis Admiranda lib. 1. obs 4. mentioneth of a Boy who lived 3 years without a brain if he had brought an example of one who had lived 3 years without an heart I should have subscribed to Galen against Aristotle that the heart in dignity is inferiour to the brain But I suppose that he was not altogether without a brain For that water which was found within the membrans of the skull when his head was dissected was doubtlesse his brain converted into water or else it had some analogy with the brain by which the heat of the heart was for a while â—empered and the animal spirits generated but weakly therefore life could not subsist long in him So I have read in Laurentius or Parry of one who lived many years without a spleen but there were found some kirnels in the place of the spleene which supplied its office As for that woman mentioned by Zacutus Ob. 5. who lived eight years together with the half of a knife in her head between the skull and Dura Mater doâ—btlesse that knife touched not the substance of the brain therefore could be no hindrance to the animal functions VI. It is strange that whereas Anacreon was choaked with a Resin stone yet some as Forestus in his observat recordeth l. 15. obs 24 25 c. have swallowed iron lead long sticks glasse points of knives and of swords and other incredible things without hurt and have voided them by the stool This â—partly impute to the widenesse and capacity of the passages and partly to witchcraft or juggling for the eye in such cases is often deluded although nature sometimes by imposthumes câ—sleth our such stufâ—e for points of knives and pins have been this way ejected and some have perished and have bâ—en choaked whilest they have in their madnesse attempted such things And provident nature hath in some without hurt sent away needles and pinnes by the urine aboâ—t which have been found hard crusty stuffe wâ—ich was the matter or glassy slime that was gathered about these pins and baked by the heat of â—he body VII I have read of a certain Soldier in the Wars of Savoy Anno Dom. â—589 who was shot in the forehead with a Musâ—ueâ— bâ—lleâ— he was cured of the wound but the bullâ—â— remained Afterward falling from a Ladder whilâ—st he was scaling the walls of a Town he was stiffled in the Ditch into which he fell his head being dissected the bullet was found in the hinder part thereof But I believe this removal was by the fall for otherwise it could not have been removed by the heat or spirits of the head CHAP. II. Of one who wanted the pericardium 2. Of hairy hearts 3. Of one that walked and fâ—ught after his heart was wounded 4. Stones found in the heart 5. And worms found there The heart may putrifie white we are alive 6. Worms in the brain COlumbus in his Anatomy l. 16. speaks of a young man in Rome whom he dissected and in this found that his heart had no Pericardium the want of which was doubtlâ—sse the cause of his death and for want of it he fell into divers swouning fiâ—s and was often troubled with the Syncope by reason the heart wanted refrigeration which it hath from the water in the Pericardium For some whose Pericardium hath bâ—â—ne but sleightly touched by the sword in the wound of the breast have fallen into swouning fits cold sweats with a cessation of the pulse so needful is this membran and its water for the heart Yea I have read of some hearts quite dried shrunk to nothing for want of this water such was the heart of Casimire Marquess of Brandenbourge of whom Melancthon speaketh l. 1. de anima II. I have read of divers hairy hearts besâ—des those of Leonidas Aristomenes and Hermogines which is also the work of nature for hairs are produced of â—uliginous and grâ—sser excrements of the humours where the skin is hottest and driest for hairs seldâ—me grow where the skin is cold and moist now if these causâ—s be found in the heart the same effect will be produced there but this is seldome seen and in such onely as are of a fiercâ— truculent and audacious disposition III. Ambrose Parry speaks l. 9. c. 23. of a Gentleman who in a duel being wounded dâ—eply in the very substance of the heart did notwithstanding for a good while lay about him with his sword and walked two hundred paces before he fâ—ll down this is likely enough for though the heart was wounded yet the vital blood and spirits and heat of the heart
eaten Scammony others Opium others Hellebor and of some that without hurt have swallowed quick-silver that must be attributed to their particular tempers and strength of heat by which they mastered these poisons V. As stones are ingendred in the kidneys bladder and other parts so are they also sometimes bred in our intestins for there are some that void stones familiarly by the stool and I have read of one who was killed by a stone that grew stuck fast to his colon the bignesse of a ches-nut this sure must proceed from the extraordinary heat of the intestins and viscous matter impacted there for the heat baked the matter to the consistence and hardnesse of a stone by drying up the watrish moisture thereof VI. I have read of some old men and women that have becom young again that is to say after they had lost their teeth strength and beauty have recovered all at 80 or 100 years of age their veins filled with blood new teeth a fresh colour their white haires turned black and in women their monethly flowers fresh and orderly This is not unlikely for if after a fever or other great sicknesse nature recovers her lost beauty vigour colour and decayed spirits and senses why may not she doe the like in some people seeing there is not in old age a total privation of these perfections there but a decay and we may observe that many who are old weak and sickly when they are young are young lusty and healthy when they grow old VII I have read of men that have had milk in their brests which is likely if they were of a cold moist and feminine complexion abounding in blood of women also who have had four breasts all full of milk which is probable seeing there be many monsters that have superfluous members according to the superabundance of the parents seed and prolifical blood but of all monsters that which is mentioned by Buchanan in his History of Scotland is most wonderful which had beneath the navel one body but above two bodies when it was hurt beneath the navel both bodies felt the pain if hurt above the body felt only that was hurt These two would sometimes differ in opinions and quarrel the one dying before the other this pined away by degrees it lived 28 years could speak divers languages and were by the Kings command taught Musick Doubtlesse nature aimed at twins but failed in the lower part Neither was this one Individuum but two because they were two souls as appears by their different wills and it is the form not the matter that is the cause of individuation CHAP. VIII 1. Of divers and strange spleens 2. Black urine 3. One lived without sleep 4. The Tarentula's effects and cure The force of Musick 5. Serpents begot of dead brains 6. Of Tiberius his sight Alexanders sweat Strabo's eyes FAllopius in his Anatomical Observations l. 1.6 writes that he hath found three Spleens in one man Gemma in his Cosmocritick speaks of two Spleens that he found and hee writes of one who had the Spleen in the right side and the Liver in the left in l. 1. Cyclognomonick p. 75. Some have Spleens of incredible bignesse and weight others have them fastned to their breasts others loose and swimming up and down others again have had no Spleen at all and such have died of the black jaundice for the blood and skin could not but bee infected with that melancholy humour wanting the Spleen which is the proper receptacle of it II. For a man in a burning fever or one that is oppressed with melancholy humours to void black urine is no wonder but for one that is sound all the days of his life to pisse black urine as Petraeus sheweth is somewhat strange Disput. 5. de urinis num 22. But doubtless the constitution of that man was melancholick for the black colour in any thing is caused by the predominancy of earth therefore ater quasi à terra And earth is most predominant in melancholick tempers besides the watrinesse of natural heat may be the cause of black Urine III. Whereas the animal spirits and strength of our bodies are wasted by watching therefore sleep is ordained to repair and refresh the decayed strength and spirits Yet Fernelius in his Pathology lib. 5. c. 2. speaks of one who lived without sleep 14 moneths But this man was possessed with madnesse whose brain being heated with adust melancholy did beget animal spirits without much wasting of them Thus we see that hot and cholerick constitutions can endure longer without sleep then cold and moist complexions IV. The effects of the Tarentula in mens bodies are strange and various and no lesse strange is the cure for their sting and poison cause some to laugh some to weep some drowsie and stupid and some jovial and merry These divers effects must proceed from the diversities of poison that is in them for it seems these venomous creatures are not all of one kind or els these doe proceed from the different constitutions and tempers of those men that are stung with them Thus we see what different effects drunkennesse doth cause in men and so doth musick but whether this poisonable humour be cured by the musick or by their dancing and labour by which the pores are opened and the poison by sweat expelled is questionable but I think by both for even in musick there is great power over the minde and affections and consequently over the diseases and humours which are mitigated or exasperated according to the minde and affections This we see in Sauls melancholy which was cured by Davids Harp Such force there was in Timothy the Milesian that when he pleased he could by the power of his musick make Alexander take up and lay downe Arms. Not to speak of that Dane who by his musick could make men mild sad and merry at his pleasure V. That a Serpent should bee in gendred of a dead mans brain is no more impossible then for Snakes or Eels to be begot of Horse hairs or for divers sorts of beasts to breed in women upon depraved conceptions And doubtlesse as Satan in the form of a Serpent brought mortality upon mankind so he doth sometimes triumph in that shape over mans mortality God in his judgement permitting sometimes that dead brain to be turned into a Serpent which when it was alive did hatch so many Serpentine plots and imaginations VI. I read in Suetonius that Tiberius the Emperour could see perfectly in the dark And Curtius writes that Alexander did smell sweetly when he sweat I have read of men and women who can fascinate and hurt others with their eyes Pliny and Solinus write of one Strabo who from a Promontory in Sicily could see the ships that went out of the Harbour at Carthage which is 55 Leagues These are strange and rare priviledges in which God doth manifest his power and shâ—weth that he is not tied to the Laws of nature Yet
Marius The Leprosie called Elephantiasis appeaâ—ed first in Italy in the time of Pompey He speaks also of other diseases which not long before his time sprung up in Italy A kind of Fever called Coqueluche by the French invaded their country anno 1510. England was plagued with a new sweating sicknesse anno 1529 The French malady appeared first at Naples anno 1492. The Scorbutus is but a new disease in those parts Many strange kinds of vermin have been bred in mens bodies in this last Age not known before in this part of the world Of these and many more new diseases Fernelius Fracostorius Sebizius and others do write Now it is no wonder that there are new diseases seeing there are new sins 2. New sorts of foods and gluttony devised 3. New influences of the Stars 4. New Earthquakes and pestiferous exhalations out of the Earth 5. New temperaments of mens bodies 6 Infections of waters malignant meteors and divers other causes may be alledged for new diseases but none more prevalent then the food which is converted into our substance therefore in eating and drinking wee should regard the quantity quality and seasons II. It is strange to consider the diversitie of colours caused in the same Individual body of man by the same heat the chylus milk sperm and bones are white the blood and liver red the choler yellow the melancholy green the spleen blew a part of the eye black the hairs of divers colours and yet none blew or green And as strange it is that in some the skin is tauny in others white and in others black all which is effected by one and the same Sun which as it produceth all things by its heat so it giveth colour to all things for what giveth the essence giveth also the consequences yet Dr. Brown Book 6. c. 10. will not have the Sun to be the caus of the Negro's blacknesse 1. Because the people on the South-side of the River Senaga are black on the other only tauny 2. Other animals retain their own colours in that clime 3. In Asia and America men are not so black I answer that it will not follow that the Sun is not the cause of blacknesse for he doth work upon each Subject according as it is disposed to receive his impression and accordingly produceth diversity of colours Hence in the same hot climat men are black Parrets and leaves of trees are green the Emmets as some report are white the Gold is yellow and every thing there hath its own peculiar colour and yet all are produced by the same Sun nay the same man that hath a black skin hath white teeth the same Sun at the same time in the same Garden doth cloath the Lily in white the Rose and Cherry in red and divers fruits in black it is observed that the Sun whiteneth those things which are inclined to be hard and blackneth soft things so he makes the Ethiopians teeth white the skin black he makes the green corn turn white and hard with his heat and at the same time makes the plumb black and soft women that blanch or whiten their linnen in the Sun know that he can â—an their skins but whiten their cloth â—gain the air may be more temperate and greater store of refreshing windes and exhalations on the one side of the river Niger then on the other and so the Suns operation may bee hindred which is the cause that in America and Asia under the same parallel men are not so black as in Africk where there is more heat and greater drought For it wants those fresh Winds and great Lakes and Rivers which are in Asia and America The Suns heat then is the cause of blacknesse in such as are capable of it whether the clime be torrid or frigid Hence in cold countries we finde black crowes and in hot white Swans Besides this narration is suspicious for on both sides of the River men have been seâ—n equally black and there be some in Asia as black as in Affrica He objects again That Nigro's transplanted into cold countries continue their hue therefore the Sun is not the sole cause of this blacknesse Ans. The question is not if the Sun be the sole cause but whether a cause at all which the Doctor in his former objections seemed to deny 2. I say that the Sun is the sole primary cause if there be any other causes they are secâ—ndary and subordinate to the Suns heat and influence 3. Hee may as well infer the Sun is not the cause of greennâ—sse in leaves grasse or plants in the Torrid Zone because these being transplanted into cold climats retain their hues Book 6. c. 12 And indeed he seems to make the spirit of Salt peter in the Earth the cause of viridity because in a glasse these spirits project orient greens I should like his reasons well if the verdure of the plant were not more real then that of Salt-peter in the glasse but what will he say to that Earth where is no Salt-peter at all and yet the â—earbs are green Or is there Salt-peter in a glasse of pure water where I have seen green leaves bud out of the stem of an hearb Besides I finde urine out of which Salt-peter is made to spoil the greennesse of the hearbs 4. If the impression of black which the Sun causeth in a hot clime must alter in a cold then may the other qualities also which the Sun by his heat procureth be lost in a cold countrey and so what is hard in Ethiopia must bee soft in England and the heat of Indian spices must here grow cold He objects again that there are Negroes under the Southern Tropick and beyond which are colder countries I answer that these Negroes were colonies out of hotter countries and not Aborigines or Natives at first And he confesseth there be Plantations of Negroes in Asia all which retain their original blacknesse Lastly he objecteth That in the parts where the Negroes possesse there be rivers to moisten the air and in Lybia there are such dry and sandy desarts as there is no water at all but what is brought on camels backs and yet there are no Negroes therefore drinesse cannot cause blacknesse I answer 1. It cannot be proved that the Neâ— groes who dwell neere rivers had their originall there 2. Though there may be some moist exhalations yet it seems they are not so abundant as to qualifie the Suns heat 3. Though the desarts of Lybia be dry yet they are not so hot as under the Line It is the excesse of heat and siccity together that causeth blacknesse and not one of these alone 4. We see men grow tauny here by conversing much in the Sun And further South more tauny and still as the heat increases the degrees of blacknesse increase also to deny this were to deny our senses and we see dead bodies hung in the Sun grow black the same would befall to living bodies if they continued
all bodies at all times alike The means to discriminate the true Unicorns horn from the false are two to wit if it cause the liquor in which it is put to bubble and secondly if it sweat when the poison is near it as Baccius tells us IV. I have read of some who were born blind and dumb and yet have been cured Seidelus de morb incur but in these there could not be a totall privation of the organ or faculty of sight and speech for such cannot be cured by Nature nor Art And so Iohn 6. it was held impossible for one born blind to see In those then was only a privation of the act and so the eye-lids only shut up and agglutinated which by Art might be cut and opened And so the strings by which the tongue is tied are often cut I have also read in Seidelius of one who lived till he was an old man and every year from his birth till his dying day had a fever which took him still upon his birth-day This anniversary Fever held him still fourteen days and at last killed him The seeds of this Fever he got doubtlesse in his mothers womb and what impressions the seed or Embryo receiveth then can never be eradicated such is the force of the formative power upon our first materials Sâ—â—liger speaks of a certain Fish in the Island of Zeilam which if one hold fast in his hands puts him in a shaking fit of an Ague This effect I suppose proceeds from the excessive cold of the Fish which by the hand being communicated to the muscles and nerves causeth shaking and convulsion fits And no lesse strange is that which is mentioned by Libavius of one who hearing his kinsman being in a remote country was dead of the plague fell sick himself of the same disease though the place where he was then dwelling was free from any infection Libavius de veneno c. 8. Corollarii This proceeded from a deep apprehension or sudden fear a weaknesse in nature and an aptitude to fall into that disease and how powerful apprehension fear and fancies are â—pon our bodies may be seen in that story mentioned by Libavius de veneno c. 8. of one who ate a snake in stead of an Eel without any hurt till a good while after he was told it was a Snake and upon this he fell sick and pined away CHAP. VII 1. The diversities and vertues of Bezar stones 2. A woman conceived in a Bath of an Incubus 3. Strange actions performed by sleepers and the causes thereof Lots Incest in his sleep 4. Some Animals live long without food The Camelions food is only air the contrary reasons answered Air turns to water and is the pabulous supply of fire MOnardes in historia Bezoaris speaks of some who were poisoned by drinking out of a puddle where Toads Snakes and other virulent vermin had laid their spawn but were cured by taking Bezar two or three times Bauhinus c. 34.36 speaks of divers diseases cured by this stone and it is known by daily experience that it is used with good successe in pestilential Fevers as Synertus shews Syn. l. 4. de Feb. c. 8. It is also good in divers other maladies both to cure and prevent them Yet Doctor Brown thinks we are daily gulled in the Bezar whereof many are false Book 3. c. 23. I deny not but some adulterat Bezars there are yet we must not think all fals or that we are gulled because we do not see the wished effects For Synertus l. 4. de Feb. c. 8. shews that the best Bezar faileth if the just dose be not given For some out of fearfulness give but a grain or two whereas he hath given eight or ten grains with good successe Again the operation of it is hindred oftentimes by mixing it with other Simples It proves also ineffectual if any thing else be given too soon after or if the stomach be not clear when it is exhibited For as the spirit of Tartar and Vitriol by themselves will work powerfully but being mixed lose their operative qualities and taste so doth Bezar many times mixed with other things Now this stone is bred in a bag under the stomach of some beasts which in form resemble our Goats In the Eâ—st-Indies they have horns but in the West none The Oriental stones are the best a grain whereof hath been sold for four Ducats Some of them are as big as a Goose Egg they have divers forms and divers colours some yellow some green some black the best are bred in those beasts that feed on the hils and on aromatick hearbs which are not found in the valleys they grow like Onions wrapt about with many tunicles or crusts Acosta l. 4. c. 42. sheweth that in the midst of some of them are sound pins straws or sticks about which matter doth gather vvhich by degrees increaseth and hardneth till it come to a just magnitude In the midst of those stones are found sometimes odoriferous hearbs Mathiolus and Renodaeus hold those for the best stones in the midst of which are found dust or gravel The Indians use the pouder of Bezar not only against inward diseases but also with it they cure their wounds and Carbuncles or Boils Acosta l. 4. c. 42. relates the observation of the Peruans vvho say that the best stone is bred in a beast called Vieugne vvhich feeds upon a poisonable hearb by which it preserves it self from the grasse and vvaters that are poisoned by venomous beasts He that will see more of this stone lâ—t him read those above named and likewise Boutius Baccius Toll and others II. That story is strange of the Woman vvhich conceived in a Bath by attracting the mans sperm who bathed in the same place This is affirmed by Averroes Anat. l. 8. quaest 11. but denied by Laurentius del Rio and some others vvhom Doctor Brown in this followeth Hee that denyeth a matter of fact must bring good witnesses to the contrary or else shew the impossibility of the fact which they do not For we shall find this conception possible if either we consider the nature of the Matrix vvhich by a strange instinct and appetite attracteth the sperm to it for which cause Plato calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even as the stomach attracteth meat and drink though in some distance from it Or if wee consider that the seminal spirits in the vvarm vvater might be a vvhile preserved from evaporating and therefore what they say of the longitude of the organ in which the seed is refrigerated is not to the purpose except they could prove it to be so in all But the contrary is found in the long organ of great breasts wherein the sperm is no vvays damaged Besides the heat of the bath might have some proportion to that of the Matrix vvhereas the organ of emission is not so hot as consisting most of nervous and spermatical parts Again vve see that the sperm of Fishes in
from their chiefe Citie Samaria but I understand that table of Nations which Salmanasser brought in to possesse the Israelites lands These with so many of the ancient Samaritans or Israelites as remained in the land retained the ancient Hebrew characters in which the Law was given by Moses and these letters for distinctions sake were named Samaritan and those of Esdras called Hebrew and square from their form Some ancient coins as Sicles have been found with Samaritan characters on them which shew this difference The form of these letters may be seen in the Samaritan Alphabets As these Samaritan retained the ancient characters so they did the ancient Pentateuch of Moses and no more Now that Hebers posterity retained their language without mixture after the Flood is proved by Austin and Ierome out of the Hebrew Names given to the creatures before the Flood It stood also with reason that Hebers family should not be partakers of the worlds punishment in this confusion of tongues seeing they were not guilty of their sins CHAP. XIII 1. There is not heat in the body of the Sun 2. Islands before the Flood proved 3. The seven Ostiaries of Nilus and its greatness The greatness of old Rome divers ways proved Nilus over-flowing how proper to it the Crocodiles of Nilus its inundation regular THe Doctor in his subsequent discourses 6 Book c. 1 2 3 4 5 6 hath many learned Cosmographicall passages collected dextrously out of many approved Authours against which I have nothing to say onely he must give me leave to dissentfrom him in his opinion concerning the Suns heat when he sayes that if the Sunne had been placed in the lowest spheare where the Moon is by this vicinity to the earth its heat had been intollerable What will he say then to that world lately discovered in the Moon by glasses as fallacious as the opinion is erroneous Surely these people must live uncomfortably where the heat is so intollerable or else they must have the bodies of Salamanders or else of those Pyrusâ—ae in the Furnaces of Sicily but indeed though the Sunne work by the Moon upon sublunary bodies yet the Moon is not hot nor capable of it no more then the line is capable of that stupidity which from the Torpedo is conveyed by the line to the Fishers hands No celestiall body is capable of heat because not passive except we will deny that quintessence and put no difference between Celestial and Elementary bodies The Sun then is not the subject but the efficient cause of heat the prime subject of heat is the element of fire the prime efficient cause is the Sun which can produce heat though he be not hot himself And this is no more strange then for him to produce life sense vegetation colours odors and other qualities in sublunary bodies which notwithstanding are not in him though from him Again if the Sun be the subject of heat because he is the original and effector of it then Saturn is the subject of cold the Moon of moisture and Mars of drinesse and so we shall place action and passion and all elementary qualities in the heavens making a Chaos and confusion of celestial and sublunary bodies Moreover if the Suns vicinity causeth the greatest heat why are the tops of the highest mountains perpetually cold and snowy Why doe there blow such cold windes under the Line as Acosta sheweth We conclude then that the Sun is the cause of heat though he be not hot as he is the cause of generation and corruption though he be neither generable nor corruptible Ovid then played the Poet not the Philosopher when he causeth the Suns vicinity to melt Icarus his waxen wings II. He sayes That Islands before the Flood are with probability denied by very learned authors Answ. He doth not alledge any one probable reason out of these Authors in maintenance of this opinion I can give more then probable reasons that there were Islands before the Flood First the whole earth it selfe was made an Island therefore the Sea is rightly called Amphitrite from encompassing the earth For this cause David saith That God hath founded the Earth upon the Waters And though Earth and Sea make but one Globe yet the Earth onely is the Center of the world as Clavius demonstrates 2. The world was in its perfect beauty before the Flood but Islands in the Sea tend no lesse to the beauty and perfection of the world then Lakes upon the Land 3. All the causes of Islands were as well before the Flood as since for there were great Rivers running into the Sea carrying with them mud gravell and weeds which in time become Islands There were also Earthquakes by which divers Islands have been made the vapour or spirit under the bottome of the Sea thrusting up the ground above the superficies of the water and who will say that in the space of 16. hundred years before the Flood there should be no Earth-quakes Again in that time the Sea had the same power over the neighbouring lands which it hath since the Flood But we find that Islands were made by the Sea washing away the soft and lower ground in peninsules at this day there doubtless the Sea wanted not the same force and quality before the Flood for there were as forcible winds and as impetuous waves Lastly Islands are made when the Sea forsakes some Land which it useth to over-flow and this property also we cannot deny to have been in the Sea before the Flood for there were windes to beat off the Sea to drive together heaps of sand into some altitude whereby the water is forced to forsake the land whence hath proceeded divers Isles III. He saith Book 6. c. 4. there were more then seven Ostiaries of Nilus Answ. There were but seven of note the other four were of no account but passed by as inconsiderable Hence they were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 therfore the stream of all waters run upon seven so Virgil septem discurrit in ora And AEn 6. septem gemini turbant trepida ostia Nili Ovid calls the Riâ—er Septemfluus by others it is named Septemplex by Valerius septem amnes Claudius gives it septem cornu Manilius septem fauces Ovid septem portus Statius septem hiemes Dionysius Afer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 These seven mouthes have their particular names given them by Mela and other Geographers and so the Scripture gives it seven streams Isaiah 11.15 at this day there are but foure left two of which are of little use therefore the Doctor needed not to have troubled himselfe so much as he doth because so frequenely this is called the seven-mouthed river for it is usuall to give denominations not from the exact number but from the most eminent and major part of the number He may as wel except against Moses who indivers places reckons but seventy souls which went down into AEgypt and yet Saint Steven in the Acts mentions 75 souls Again he
might sink in such a place and at such a time when and where the boiling was remiss the vapours weak and the water thinner then in other parts of the same Lake But hence it will not follow that in other parts and at oher times the heaviest bodies may not swim there II. That Crassus never laughed but once and that was at an Asse eating Thistles seems strange to the Doctor yet he gives no reason for this but only that the object was unridiculous that laughter is not meerly voluntary But these are no reasons For a more ridiculous â—bject there cannot â—e then to see such a medley oâ— pleasure and pain in the Asses eating of Thistles for whilst he bites them they prick him so that his tongue must needs be pricked though perhaps his lips may be hard and not so easily penâ—trable whence arose the Proverb Like lips like â—â—tice But there was somthing else in this that moved Crassus to laugh For he saw here the vanity both of most men taking pleasure in those things which are accompanied vvith much pain and sorrow Besides he saw here the folly of the Roman rich men who held Thistles such a dainty dish that they would not suffer poor men to eat thereof engrossing them vvith great summes of money to themselves vvhich notwithstanding the Asses did eat on free cost Was it not then a ridiculous thing to see rich men pay so dear for Asses food and to debarre poore men from that meat which they permitted to Asses Pliny could not but laugh at the consideration of this folly 2. When he saith that Laughter is not meerly voluntary he can inferre nothing from hence except this That it was as naturall for Crassus to laugh as for others which I deny For some are more naturally inclined to it then others all have not the like temper and constitution of body some have hard and solid hearts heavie and pensive spirits which no ridiculous object can move to laugh these are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There be others again who can never be moved to weep But he gives us here a lame definition of laughter when he sayes It is a sweet contraction of the Muscles of the face and a pleasant agitation of the vocall organs These are but the effects of laughter the cause is the softnesse and agility of the heart the cheerfulnesse and levity of the spirits moving first the Diaphragma and by them the Muscles Again there is a laughter called Sardonius which is accompanied vvith a contraction of the Muscles but this is not sweet yet it is laughter and in finging vvhich is not laughter there is an agitation of the vocall organs accompanied vvith pleasure Lastly whereas he condemneth Heraclitus who by his weeping made a hell on earth he is deceived For oftentimes there is hell in laughing and a heaven in weeping in tears there is often delight and in laughing pain and as Solomon saith Madnesse Aristotle saith 1. Rhet. That there is in sorrow and tears a certain sense of pleasure and as Prudentius saith Gaudia concipiunt lachrymas dant gaudia fletum This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Teares saith St. Ambrose feed the mind and ease the heart vvhich David found vvhen he said My tears have been my meat day and night Good men therefore found not the uncomfortable attendments of hell in weeping but rather the comfortable enjoyments of heaven III. The Scripture witnesseth that Christ wept thrice but never that he laughed The Doctor thinks there is no danger to affirm the act and performance of that whereof we acknowledge the power and essentiall property and whereby he convinced the doubt of his humanity Answ. We deny not but there was in Christ by reason of his humanity the faculty of risibility yet it will not follow that therefore he did actually laugh For this act is rather a property of levity and folly then of reason and humanity therefore we see women more inclined to laughing then men childhood then old age and fools then wise men Neither needed Christ to prove his humanity by laughing he proved it sufficiently by weeping which is the first demonstrative act of our humanity as soon as we are born onely Zoroastres the author of Magick came like a fool laughing into the World Again he saith We need not fear to adscribe that to the incarnat Sun which is sometimes attributed to the uncarnat Father Answ. From a metaphoricall laughing which is adscribed to the Father to a naturall and reall laughing in the Son can be no consequence God laughs figuratively therefore Christ laughs really is as good a consequence as if I should infer that man flieth naturally because God is said to flie tropically Lastly he saith It is not reasonable to conclude from Scripture negatively in points which are not matters of Faith Answ. It is true vvhere the Scripture speaks superficially and by the way of any thing divers circumstances are omitted in which regard we may not conclude negatively but where the Scripture speaks exactly as it doth of our Saviour vve may reason from the negative For no lesse then four Evangelists write the story of Christ so fully that they mention all his passions and affections as his anger joy sorrow pity hunger thirst feare wearisomnesse c. They speak that he mourned three severall times So when the Prophets describe him they set him out as a man of sorrowes acquainted with griefes smitten of God and afflicted wounded for our transgressions bruised for our iniquities and stricken for our sins It is strange then that neither Prophet Historian Apostle nor Evangelist should speak a word of his laughing and yet so punctually mention to us his griefs sorrows and weeping therefore not without cause did Chrysostome Austin Basil Bernard and others conclude negatively That Christ never laughed and yet he did not for this cease to be a Man For the like is recorded of Crassus Grand-father to that Crassus who was killed in the Parthian war who as is said never laughed but once It is also recorded of Anaxagoras Aristoxenes Socrates Cato Nerva the Emperour and others that they were never seen to laugh Besides seldome or never is laughing in Scripture taken in a good sense it is called madnesse and like the cracking of thorns laughing is threatned to end in sorrow and woe is denounced to those that laugh but a blessing to the mourners As for the priority of the heart above the brain whereof the Doctor speaks here I have already proved out of Aristotle and it is plain that in the Scripture it is of greater account then the brain because this is never mentioned but still the heart let Physitians say what they wil for the brains principality IV. That Fluctus decumanus or the tenth wave is greater or more dangerous then any other c. is evidently false Here the Doctor troubles himself to no purpose in refuting the greatnesse of the tenth wave and tenth egge For
for him to affirm that which he could never prove For neither doth he shew what these fishes be nor what are these instruments nor though there were such can he prove that they breath by them And though some creatures have an humor in stead of blood yet that humor hath not the properties qualities nor office of the blood Object 7. Fishes gape therefore they breath Answ. Here is no sequell for Oysters gape which breath not and many creatures breath which gape not Again if with their gaping there were any breathing we should see saith Aristotle the breathing parts move but there is no motion at all and it is impossible there should be attraction and emission of the air without motion Besides if Fishes breathed we should see some bubbles on the water when their breath went out as in breathing animals when they die in the water It is true that lunged fishes such as Dolphins Whales Seals and Frogges make bubbles because they breath which will not prove that all fishes do so And yet there be other causes of bubbling besides expiration for rains tempests vapours or any agitation of the water will cause bubbling Object 8. The Moon gives increment to shell-fishes therefore their spirits also do increase Answ. It 's true if they speak of the animall and vitall spirits but what is this to breathing the subject whereof is the air and not those innate spirits and if increment of substance doth suppose respiration then trees must breath as they grow in bignesse And although the Moon causeth humid bodies to swell yet she doth not make the air by which we breath being a part of the Universe Object 9. Fishes doe smell and hear therefore they breath because air is the matter of all three Answ. Air indeed may be called the matter of breathing but not of hearing and smelling it is not the air we smell or hear but we smell the odors and hear the sounds in the air which is therefore properly called by Philosophers the Medium not the matâ—er of hearing and smelling And as the air is to us so the water is to fishes the medium of hearing and smelling And if it be the matter of breathing to fishes then it is not air but water which they breath whereas indeed water cannot be the subject or matter of breathing nor can they breath at all which want the organs of breath Object 10. No animall can live without respiration therefore fishes breath Answ. The antecedent is denied for many animals live without respiration onely by transpiration such are insects so doth the child in the matrix so do women in their histericall passions these breath not yet they live Object 11. Pliny tells us that fishes do sleep therefore they breath Answ. Breathing hath no relation to sleep it is neither the effect nor cause nor quality nor part nor property nor consequent of sleep for some animals sleep which breath not all that time as Dormice in Winter the child in the mothers womb breathes not as having in the matrix or membran within which he lieth no air at all but a watrish humor which if he should suck in by the lungs he would be presently suffocated yet at that time the chid sleepeth There is no community at all in the subject or organ of sleep and respiration nor in their natures the one being a rest or cessation the other a motion the one consisting in the senses within the head the other in the lungs breast and Diaphragma Again respiration consists rather in the actions of life and sense which accompany waking then in sleep which resembles death Respiration is for refrigeration of the heart which is more heated by the motions of the body whilst we are awake then by rest when we are asleep therefore men that walk labour run struggle or whose heart is heated by anger or Feavers breath much faster then in sleep as standing more in need of air for refrigeration So children because of their heat breath faster then old men Therefore we concludeâ—with Aristotle that fishes which want lungs throats have gills breath not for what needed lungs to draw in air seeing Nature hath given them gills to let in water for cooling the fishes hear which is but weak because they have little blood II. That some small fishes have been found on hills farre from the Sea is verified by divers as also that sometimes fishes are digged out of the earth which we may call Fossil to distinguish them from aquatile is recorded by grave and ancient Writers But I believe that these are not true fishes but rather terrestriall creatures resembling fishes in their outward shape for as many fishes resemble terrestriall animals which are not therefore properly terrestriall so many terrestriall creatures may resemble fishes which properly are not such or else where these Fossil fishes are found there are subterraneall waters not farre off by which they are conveyed thither Hence sometimes fishes have been found in deep wells and I have read of some fishes found in springs of sulphury and allum water for otherwise fishes can no more live in the earth then earthy creatures in the water seeing nothing can live out of its own element where it hath its originall food and conservation Or lastly these land fishes have been such as have fallen out of the clouds For I have read in good Authors of divers showers or rains of fishes and of Frogs and Mice and such like animals out of the clouds III. That Fishes in Moon-shine nights chiefly when she is in the full delight to play upon the superficies of the water is plain by fishermen who take greatest quantities of them then The cause of this may be the delight that fishes take in the light or else they finde some moderate heat in the superficies of the water when the Moon is full but I rather think it is the pleasure they take in the Moon light which gives a silver brightnesse to the water and Natâ—re hath given them a quick sight and eminent eyes whereas the senses of smelling and hearing are in them yet the organs are so obscure they cannot be found and albeit they have all the senses yet they are dumb for they make no sound at all because they breath not nor have they the organs of sounding such as the throat windpipe and lungs IV. That some fishes resemble men in their faces hands and other parts is no fable for such are not only recorded by the ancients but also have been seen by late Navigators Lerius saw none of them yet relates that an American fisherman cut off the hand from one of those fishes which did offer to get into his boat the hand had five distinct fingers like ours and in his face he resembled a man Scaliger writes that one of those sea-men or men-fishes was seen by Hierom Lord of Noâ—icum which laid hold on the cable of his ship this story he related as a truth
various cures sometimes it proceeds of intemperance in eating and drinking sometimes from the quality of the meat and drink we use sometimes also from the malignity of the medicament we take In some it is caused by choler in the intestine in others by flegme in others by statulency In some upon costivenesse and retention of the seces in others upon fluxes and too much evacuation In others again it is procured by the rupture of the Peritonaeum and lapse of the intestine into the Scrotum Sometimes this disease is procured by the distemper of some adjacent part sometime by stones bred in the intestines sometimes by wormes generated there sometimes by congealed blood in the same place sometimes by a wind in many it is caused by drinking cold water in others by sitting on a cold stone and in some by impure venery sometimes the malady is in the cavitiâ—s of the Colon sometimes in the tunicles and sometimes it iâ— bred by the infection of the air and sometimes by the contraction and shrinking of the intestines Thus wee see of what brittle meterials we are composed how careful we should be of our diet and how many wayes God hath to punish us for sin Like to this disease is the Iliaca passio so called from the Ilium a smaller intestine which is sometimes so violent and the obstructionâ— below so great that the excrements for want of passage downward recoil upward by vomiting Many likewise are the ways by which the Cholick is cured For besides the ordinary ways of curing by purging vomits clysters phlebotomy and outward somentations there be divers extraordinary wayes some are cured by the smoke of Tobacco used downward some have been eased by blowing of wind out of a paire of bellows into the intestine for dilatation thereof some are cured by drinking of urine some by the Wolses excrement dried and powdred and mixt with white Wine some by the Wolfs gut dried powdred and drunk with Canary or Malago others have been cured preserved by carrying about them the Wolfs excrement the flesh of a Lark either boyled or burned into ashes and so taken in three spoonfuls of warm water hath cured some The Thracians used to cure themselves of this disease by carrying about them the heart of a Lark being taken out whilst he was alive A Goats liver is commended by some for a present remedy if it be burned powdred and drunk in wine Some commend the infants navel-string being cut off salted carried in a Box. Others have found good by a hogges blind gut worn about them the decoction of Mints by some and of Horehound by others are held singular remedies so are snakes if they be burned powdred and drunk in wine Some have been eased by drinking snow and suger and by applying of cold snow to the part that was pained A Bulls pizle is commended by some for a present â—â—â—p if it be powdred a scruple whereof in Malago wine will give ease Some have been cured by drinking down quick-silver and experience shews us that swallowing of goldenor leaden bullets are present helps because with their weight they open the passages and make way I have eased my selfe of that pain by drinking white Wine in which onions have been steeped all night Thus as God hath divers ways to punish us so he hath as many wayes to ease us that very strangely for who can give a reason of those occult qualities or antipipathies which are between this malady and most of these remedies now mentioned But of this see Fracastorius Forestus Fernelius Fonseca Zacuta Rondeletius and other Physicians III. That there is the same soule in a subventaneous egge which is in a prolificall may appear by the same properties and effects in both because in both is accretion nutrition attraction retention concoction c. which are the effects of the vegetive soul yet Doctor Harvy Exercit. 25. denies this Because faith he If there were the same soule in the subventaneous which was in the prolificall egge they would both equally produce Chickins Answ. This will not follow except he could prove that the vegitive soule produceth the sensitive soule or the sensitive creature which cannot be for no soule can produce another neither can an inferior faculty produce a superior by reason the effect cannot be more noble then the cause The reason then why the subventaneous egge is not prolificall is not the want of a vegive soule which we know it hath by the effects thereof but because that egge was not animated or fecundated by the prolificall sperm feminall spirit or spermatick vapour of the Cock So the blood in a married woman and a maid hath the same vegitation though both be not prolifical for want of the mans improlificating sperm But the Doctor tells us Exercit 25. That from the male proceeds onely the plastick or formative vertue which fecundateth the egge because the seed or geniture cannot penetrate into the Hens matrix or inward receptacles Answ. The formative vertue being an accident cannot be derived or conveyed from the Cock to the Hens matrix without its proper iubject in which it is inherent And though in a dead Hen those passages or conveyances cannot appear yet in the living Hen they are open for the seminall vapour to passe For this cause in the closure of the Cocks treading there is a nimble and almost imperceptible touch of both their fundaments by which then the seminall spirit is conveyed Again the Doctor faith Exersit 25. That whereas the soule is the act of an organicall body having life potentially it is in credible that it should be in a Chick before any part â— of its body be-organized Answ. The egge is not altogether a body inorganicall actually seeing it hath different parts Besides it is organicall potentially as containing in it all the parts and members the Chick that shall bee So the seed of other animals contains potentially the animall that shall be with all its members therefore the common opinion is that seed is drawn from all parts of the body because it contains in it all the parts As the soul then is in that body which hath life potentially that is a possibility to exercise the functions of life so it is in the body that hath organs potentially or the faculty of producing organs Hence the soule cannot be in a stone which hath not this possibility Of this opinion is the Doctor Exer. 71 when he saith That in the primogeniall humidity of the egge all the parts of the chick are potentially but none actually Again he saith Exer. 25. That in the egge and chick there cannot be the same soule because they are different entities produce different yea contrary operations so that the one may seem to be begot of the others corruption Ans. I deny that the egg chick are different entities otherwise then secundum magis minus as an imperfect thing differs from it selfe when it becomes more
original from eggs which if true then that is no fiction of the Poets concerning Leda's two eggs out of which were procreated Pollux and Helena Castor and Clytemnestra but I conceive the Doctor in this speaks rather tropically then properly for simile non est idem and what may in some sort resemble an egge is not an egge however his book is full of excellent learning and observation yet I have been bold in some thingâ— to dissent from him as may be seen in the former Chapter The other book I lately viewed is my Lord Bacon's Natural History a Piece fraughted with much variety of elegant learning but yet wherein are divers passages that deserve animadversionâ— I never had leasure to run over the book till now though I had seen it before and now my distractions are such that I cannot exactly examine it but onely ut canis è nilo here and there touch a little First then I finde him mistaken in thinking that the French-pox is begot by eating of mans flesh Cent. 1. Sect. 26. His reasons are A story of mans flesh barrelled up like tunny eat at the siege of Naples the other is because the Canibals who feed on mans flesh are subject to that disease 3. Because the blood or fat of mans flesh is mixed with poysons And lastly because Witches feed on mans flesh to aid their imaginations with high and foul vapors Answ. These reasâ—ns are of small validity For 1. it was not the eating of mans flesh at the siege of Naples that brought this disease into Europe but it was procured by some of Columbus his Company who had carnal commerce with soul Indian women which with the pox they brought along with them 2. Mans flesh of all other animals is counted the most temperate therefore cannot produce such a venomous distemper so repugnant to mans body 3. This is a peculiar disease of the Indians both East and West for divers Countries have their divers maladies 4. Neither can this or any disease be counted new in respect of their subjects original causes or seminaries for this disease is as old as mans flesh though in this part of the world it did not break out so generally as of late and who knows but that the ancients had it but under another name being a kind of Leprosie 5. The Canibals among the Indians are not more subject to this disease then others who never tasted of mans flesh for in all ages there have been men eaters yet not tainted mith this malady and millions of latter years among us who are infected with this poyson and yet never eat of mans flesh 6. It is against reason to imagine that the flesh of a man should rather breed this disease then of an ox or a sheep seeing mans flesh is sooner convertible into nutriment then of any other animal because of the greater simpathy and specifical unity 7. Though ignorant Indians do mix mans blood or fat with poyson it will not therefore follow that these are poyâ—â—nable no more then wine can be called poyson because poysonable materials may be mixed with it so we mix sugar and butter with rats bane which we know have no venemous quality in them 8. Witches who are silly fools may eat mans flesh hoping thereby to aid their imaginations but there is no such vetue in mans flesh as they conceive so they use many spels charms and canting words in which there is no more vertue then in a pibble stone or a piece of rotten wood 9. Mans flesh can afford no soul vapors except it befoul it self and putrified and so indeed it may breed loathsome diseases as all other corrupt and putrified meats do which is done as it is corrupted not as it is mans flesh neither can it afford high vapors except it were full of spirits which cannot be in a piece of dead flesh he that will have high vapors must drink sack not eat mans flesh the blood of the vine not of the vein can breed high vapors Indeed the drinking of mans blood and eating of his flesh may inure a man to cruelty which Catelin knew by causing his associates to drink humane blood hence the Judaical law forbids eating of blood at all shewing us hereby how much God abhors cruelty or that which may induce a man to it II. His Lordship calls it A crude and ignorant speculation to make the dilatation of the fire the cause of the expulsion of the pellet out of the Gun but he will have the cause to be the crude and windy spirits of nitre dilated by heat which bloweth abroad the flame as an inward bellows But I would know what difference there is between dilatation and between the flame and spirit of the nitre He affirms dilatation to be the cause of this expulsion therefore his exception against the former opinion was needless and whereas he grants the flame to be the immediate expeller of the pellet he unawares affirms what he rejects neither can I see any difference between the flame of the nitre and the spirit of the nitre inflamed onely he was pleased to make shew of a new reason by altering somewhat the words of the former whereas the sense is one and the same the speculation then is not crude but the spirit of his nitre is crude which without the flame can do nothing 3. From a wax candle burning in a porringer full of spirit of wine set on fire he infers Cent. 1.31 strange conculsions As 1. That the flame of the candle becomes bigger and globular and not in pyramis and consequently that the pyramis of the flame is accidental I answer the flame of the candle becomes bigger and globular accidentally because the air about it is heated by the flame of the wine therefore as in all things like draws to like so one flame dilates it self to enjoy the other as a drop of water will contract it self upon a drie but dilate it self upon a wet table 2. He infers That the flame of itself would be round if it were not for the air that quencheth the sides of it But I say that the air is so far from quenching that it cherisheth and maintaineth the flame without which it would quickly vanish and that the flame would not be round of it self if the air round about were not inflamed for the same cause it rouls and turns not of its own nature but because the ambient flame draws it 3. He â—nfers hence That the celestial bodies are true fires for they are igâ—obular and have rotation and have the colour and splendor of flame These are weak arguments that from common accidents prove specifical identities for if the stars be true fires because globular then we may infer that water drops are fire because round and that every thing which hath rotation is fire and if that be fire which hath the colour of fire or that a flame which hath the splendor of flame we may say that rotten
convert any other metall into gold which were to introduce by Art a specificall form into the matter which is the work ofâ— Nature alone He saith It is a vain opinion to think the starre is the denser part of his Orb. This is spoken both Lordly and maâ—esterially but he had done well to tell us why this opinion is vain and to have delivered an opinion void of vanity which he doth not but his bare word is not sufficient to make this a vain opinion which the learned of so many Ages have approved and stands so much with reason I confesse we know but little of those quintessentiall natures for we are as the Poet saith Curvae in terris animae coelestium inanes Yet of all opinions this is most consonant to reason that the starre is homogeneall with its spheare so that the starre is the heaven contracted and the heaven in which the starre moveth is the starre dilated for otherwise wee must make the heaven an heterogeneall body and consequently organicall which will prove the vainer opinion of the two He tells us That Oyl is almost nothing else but water digested I may say it is any thing else rather then water from which it is so averse that it will not be united or incorporated with it and the effects are clean opposite for water is cold oyle hot in operation water putrifieth oyle resisteth putrifaction water makes Iron rust oyle keeps it from rusting water quencheth the fire oyle kindles and feeds it water is heavy oyle light for it vvill still be uppermost vvater is thin oyle thick water is quickly up by heat and turned into vapours so is not oyle water is the food of plants oyle of men oyle is apt to be inflamed so is not water therefore oyle is rather air or fire then vvater digested He gives us a strange cause of mans indisposition to motion when Southern winds blow The cause saith he is that the humours do melt and wax fluid and so flow into the parts How humours should melt I know not except they were congealed like butter wax or ice and where be the parts into which they flow he tells us not but indeed the true cause is the giving as we call it or relaxation of the muscles nerves and tendons by the warm and moâ—st air which in dry and cold weather are more firm compacted and united and therefore the apter for motion It is saith he commonly seen that more are sick in Summer and more die in Winter This is to me a Riddle for if more die in Winter then in Summer it must follow That more are sick in Winter then in Summer for men usually die not till they be sick and so he contradicts himselfe Much like to this is that saying of his Diseases are bred chiefly by heat the contrary whereof is apparent that multitudes of diseases are bread by cold neither can I yeeld to him in saying That it is a superficiall ground that heat and moisture cause putrifaction because there have been great plagues in dry years But by his Lordships leave the plagues were not bred by the drynesse of the yeare but by the precedent heat and moisture of the Winter or Spring which break out upon the hot and dry Summer or Autumne and this hee acknowledgeth in his next Section where he sheweth That the cause of diseases is falsly imputed to the constitution of the air at that time when they break forth whereas it proceeds from a precedent sequence and series of the seasons of the year and so when he saith That in Barbary their plagues break up in Summer when the weather is hot and dry If this be so then it is no superficial ground to say that heat and moysture cause putrifaction seeing it is resisted by hot and dry weather and indeed it were absurd to think otherways seeing both experience and reason tells us that heat and moysture are â—he breeders of putrifaction and that frigidity and â—â—ccity are its greatest enemies therefore in cold climats and seasons putrifaction is not so frequent as in hot Countries and Summers so he confesseth that the Country about Cap Vorde is pestilent through moysture neither are drie things so apt to putrifie as moist so the flesh putrifieth and not the bones the apple or the pear will putrifie when the seed within remains unputrified whereas those bodies which have little or no moysture resist putrifaction both in themseves and others as Salt Brimstone Myrrhe Aloes and such like He makes Refrigeration of the tongues the cause of stuttering If this were so then old men should stutter more then young men for old men are colder But we know the contrary that not the coldnesse but rather the over-heating of the tongue causeth stuttering and this he acknowledgeth in the same Section that many stutterers are very cholerick men But choler is hot then it seemes that both heat and cold is the cause of stuttering But indeed the true cause in some is a bad habit or custom contracted from their infancy in others eagernesse of disposition for hasty and eager natures usually stutter and whilst they make the more haste they use the lesse speed in others again stuttering proceeds from some infirmity or impedimâ— in the tendon muscles or nerves of the tongue As for drinking of wine moderatly which he saith will cause men stut lesse is a thing I could never yet observe in those stutterers I have bin acquainted with He saith That men and beasts move little after their headss are off but in birds the motion remains longer because the spirit are chiefly in the head brain which in men beasts are large but birds have smal heads therfore the spirits are more dispersed in the sinewes That the spirits are chiefly in the head brain I deny for the vital spirits are chiefly in the heart And if the spirits be chiefly in the head and brain why doth the body separated from the head move more and longer time then the head Again though birds have lesser heads then men and beasts yet they have heads proportioned to their bodies and the spirits proportionably are as much in their heads as in mens or beasts heads Moreover though some men and beasts move little after the head is off yet some move much for I saw one beheaded whose body after it was laid in the coffin and carried a pretty way from the place of execution with a violent fit of motion was like to beat the coffin out of the hands of the bearers therefore the true causes of this difference are these as I conceive 1. The spirits of birds are more aeriall and fervent then of men and beasts and in some more in some lesse therefore the body of a Cock beheaded will flutter more then of a Goose or Turkie and so in beasts a Cat beheaded will move more violently then of many others for this reason some men move
more then others 2. The capacity of the vessels may be the cause of this differance for in men and beasts the veins arteries and nerves wherein the spirits and blood are contained be larger then in birds and therefore in them is a more sudden eruption of the blood spirits and consequently a shorter motion then in birds 3. The weight of the bodies in men and beasts farre exceed the weight of birds bodies and therefore are not so apt to be moved His Lordship is pleased to call The opinions of sympathies and antipathies ignorant and idle conceits and a forsaking of the true indications of causes Felix qui potuit rerum cognosere causas God will have us in some things rather admire his wisdom then know his secrets and because we cannot attain the true reason of many things we are to submit our judgments to a reverend admiration of his goodness who can give the reason of that sympathy between the loadstone and the iron Between the same stone and the pole We see there is a sympathy between some simples and some humors and between some parts of our bodies and some drugs What other reason properly can be given why Faltick draws choler Agaric fleghm Epithymum melancholy Why Selenites as Fernelius observeth being applied to the skin stayeth bleeding Why should Cantharides work onely on the bladder Why doeth Hemlock and Henbane poyson men which nourish birds How do cats come to the knowledge of Nip and dogs of grasse who taught the Chicken to fear the Kite or the Lamb the Wolfe And why have some men strong Antipathies with some meats Why are some sounds some smels some sights grateful to us some again odious If there be no sympathies and antipathies why are water and fire so averse to each other The Vine will not prosper if the Colewort grow near it he gives a reason for this Because the Colewort draweth the fattest juyce of the earth and where two plants draw the same juyce their neighbourhood hurteth This reason may be as well rejected as admitted for otheâ— plants that are set neare and among Cole-worts fare not the worse for their vicinity except it be Rue and not onely doth this Antipathy last between the Vine and Colewort when they are alive but when they are dead and separated from the earth for they write that Coleworts hinder inebriation and suffer not the wine to fume into the head and why is not the vine as strong to draw its nourishment from the earth as the Colewort seeing it hath more spirits and extends it selfe to a greater circuit and height But when he saith That Rue being set by a Figtree becometh stronger because the one draweth juice fit to refult sweet the other bitter I would know how one and the same piece of earth can afford sweet juyce to the one bitter to the other at the same timeâ—punc and how the fetide juice of the earth goeth into the Garlick and the odorate into the Rose when they grow together Sure these are whimzies for no piece of earth can have so many contrary qualities at the same time nor can there be severall juyces in one bud as he saith afterward neither is the earth any thing else but the common matrix of the plants affording them moisture and nourishment which my Lord acknowledgeth proceeds rather from the water then from the earth when he saith That white Satyrion bean flowers c. are very succubent and need to be scanted in their nourishment he contradicts his former assertion when he said That white was a penurious colour and where moisture is scant And yet he saith That white plumbs are the worst because they are over-watry So it seems that white is both a penurious and a super-plentifull colour where moisture is scant and yet over-watry The opinion that an Oke bough put into the earth will put forth wild Vines is rejected by him upon this ground â—t is not the Oke saith hee that turneth into a Vine but the Oke bough putrifying qualifieth the earth to put forth a vine of it selfe If the earth could put forth a vine of it selfe what need it to be qualified by the putrified Oke bough If it be of the putrified Oke bough as doubtlesse it is that the vine is generated then the earth doth not of it selfe send forth the vineIt is naturall for one thing to be generated out of the corruption of another but for plants to be generated of the earth alone without either seed boughes or some putrified materials of other things were miraculous He saith That transmutation of species is in the vulgar Philosophy pronounced impossible but this opinion is to be rejected What he means by vulgar Philosophy I know not but this I know that the Philosophy which is vulgarly received by all learned and wise men hold the transmutation of species impossible not to God who could transform Lots wife into salt Nebuchadnezzar into a beast waters into blood a rod into a serpent and water into wine but to Art or Nature which cannot transform species whether we understand the word in the extent and universality or as it may signifie the individuall nature under such a species For every individual consists of a matter and a forme the whole composition cannot be transformed into another composition nor the form to another specificall form nor the matter into another matter not the first for generation is not the changing of one composition into another but an introduction of a new form into the matter not the second for one form alwayes perisheth by corruption upon the introduction of another by generation not the third for the matter which is the common subject of all mutations must be alwayes the same in substance though it receive some alterations in qualities Transmutation then of species is impossible to Nature not to Chymists who think to transform silver into gold not to the Roman Church which holds a transubstantiation of bread into Christs body not unto Poets who sing of so many metamorphoses and transformations of men into beasts nor of those who think Witches can transform themselves into Cats Hares and other creatures He tells us That Mushroms cause the accident which we call Incubus or the Mare in the stomack If this were true in Italy and Africa where these are ordinarily eaten this disease would reign most but we find that the Northern Countries are more subject to the Incubus then the Southern Many then eat Mushroms who never were troubled with this disease many are troubled with it who never eat them But indeed the Incubus or Mare is no disease of the stomack as he saith but of the Diaphragma and lungs which being oppressed by a thick flegme or melancholy send up gross vapours into the throat by which speech is hindred and into the brain by which the imagination is disturbed It is reported saith he that grain out of the hotter Countries
translated into the colder will be more forward then the ordinary grain of the cold Country This is known to be untrue by divers grains transplanted hither into this cold climat and by the grains translated hence into the Orcades and other cold parts Again he saith That plants are all figurate and determinate which inanimat bodies are not if this be so then inanimat bodies are infinit for certainly vvhatsoever is finit hath its termination and figure is nothing else but the disposition of terminations even water is figurat because it is sinit though it assumeth the figure of the continent body in vvhich it is To say then that a stone is sinit and yet not figurat nor determinat is a plain contradiction a dead carcass is an inanimat body yet retains the same figure termination vvhich it had vvhilst it vvas animat In this same Section he tels us that plants do nourish inanimat bodys do not they have an accretion but no alimentation but how any thing can have an accretion vvithout alimentation is to me a ridle I speak of proper and Physicall accretion which is an extension of all the parts by an internall principle or soule converting the aliment into the substance of the body nourished For that accretion of stones and other inanimate things is an apposition of externall matter not an extension of the parts by an internall agent converting the nutriment into the thing nourished And how can stones or such hard bodies have extension whereas they want humidity which is the cause of extension Besides accretion is a supply of deperdition for where there is diminution of parts by means of the heat exhausting the radicall moisture there must be restauration â—y nutriment and consequently accretion Therefore there maybe an outward agglutination or aggregation of stones without alimentation but an accretion properly so called there cannot be Lastly he tells us in the same Section That Plants have a period of life which inanimate bodies have not If inanimate bodies have a life and no period then they are immortall like the Angels and so the stones we tread on in the dirty streets are in better condition then the great Monarcks of the world Again if plants have a period of life they have life and conquently are living creature and yet shortly after my Lord distinguisheth them from living creatures in divers respects Sugar saith he to the Ancients was scarce known and little used Sugar was both known to and used by the Ancients for that which they called mel arundineum hony of the cane was much used in Physick they called it also Indian salt because it was like salt in colour and consistence when it was harden'd by the Sun the other kinde of Sugar the Ancients knew and used as well as wee only they made it by pressing we by boyling of the canes which kinde of boyling they used not as we do because they sweetned their water by steeping the canes in them and that was their drink of this drink Lucan lib. 3. speaks Quique bibunt tenerâ dulces ab arundine succos And that they used sometimes to boil the Sugar canes is plain by Strabo lib. 35. likewise by Statius l. 1. Syl. Et quas praecoquit eboisa cannas Seeds and Roots saith he are chiefly for nourishment but leaves give no nourishment at all or very little this is not so for the leaves of cabbages coleworts lettice and such like give the nourishment and not the roots there is more nourishment in the leaves of one cabbage then in a hundred cabbage roots He gives us a bad definition of snow when he calls it the froth of the cloudy waters froth is aëreal snow is watrish froth is hot snow cold froth is light snow heavy because more terrestrial indeed in colour snow is like froth hence Scaliger saith that snow is almost froth Poetical Phylosophie discriminates froth from snow in making Venus the daughter of the one not of the other snow then is not the froth of cloudie waters though Pliny so calls it but it is the thin and raâ—ified vapours of the watrish cloudes united into those white flakes we see by cold snow then is not begot immediately of water as froth is but of cold and thin vapours Why he should call putrifaction the subtilest of all motions I cannot conceive for what more subtilty is there in putrifaction that is a kinde of corruption then in generation the one consisting in the deperdation of the old form the other in the acquisition of a new form neither doth he speak Philosophically vvhen he calls it a motion for indeed putrifaction is a mutation and no motion because both the termini à quo and ad quem are not positive as they are in all motions CHAP. VI. The Lord Bacons opinions confuted concerning Snow Ephemera gravitie the sperme of Drunkards putrifaction teeth bones and nails thick and thin mediums Nilus hot Iron brâ—in sudddn dakness drie and moist bodies fish cornes hunger liquifaction hardness moisture accidents light right side spungy bodies stone-walls imagination the cramp hedghog mummy salt Commenus and others refuted concerning motion qualities colours forms the Epilogue MY Lord thinks that there is in snow a secret warmth because the Ancients have observed worms bred in old snow but I am of another opinion though Scaliger seems to favour my Lords tenets that neither the snovv is vvarm nor do these vvorms breed in snovv our senses tell us there is no heat in snovv and vvhere there is no heat there can be no putrifaction nor generation the vvorms then are bred in the ground under the snovv but not of the snovv vvhich is not vvarm but keeps in the vvarmth of the earth and defends it as it vvere a mantle from the piercing air therefore in great snovves sheep vvill live longer under the snow then above in the sharp air And whereas the worm dieth when it comes out of the snow this proceedes not as he saith from the exhaling of the worms spirits which was shut in by the cold but rather from the chilling of that spirit which was kept in by heat for whilst it was under the snow the worm was kept warm from the piercing air which now kilsit He saith That the flies called Ephemerâ— live but a day the cause is the exility of the spirits or perhaps the absence of the Sun But neither of these is the cause not the exility of spirit for we see that among men they that have weak and attenuated spirits live longer then they who have more strong dense and more plenty of spirits and so in other creatures a Horse or Bull are not so long lived as a Crow or Raven which have more exility of spirit The cause therefore of short and long life is the goodnesse or badnesse of the crasis and temperament of the radical moisture and its due or undue proportion with the natural heat
spread it selfe so soon on a dry board as on a wet upon a dry board a drop of vvater vvill contract it self into a globular form and rise into some height rather then joyn itselfe to its enemy whereas upon a vvet board it presently spreads it selfe So dry things will rather swim upon then sink in the vvater except their vveight force them downward He also contradicteth experience when he saith That Fish hating the dry will not approach the air till it grow moist For vve see that fish play most upon the top of the vvaters in hot and dry Summers and in the hottest and driest time of the day when the Sun is in his Meâ—idian So when he saith That Aches and Corns engrieve most towards rain or frost This is not as if they were sensible of future rain but because the extremity of heat and cold doe exasperate these infirmities For the same reason Moals vvork and Fleas bite more eagerly He tells That hunger is an emptinesse But this is not so for there is sometimes hunger without emptinesse and sometimes emptinesse without hunger It is therefore not emptinesse but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Philosopher tells us a desire or appetite of hot and dry things caused by the corrugation and sucking in the mouth of the stomach His Lordship is pleased to call the received opinion That putrifaction is caused by cold or preternaturall heat but nugation But if cold be not the cause of putrifaction how comes it that Apples and Cabbages doe rot in frosty vveather And if peregrine heat be not the cause how comes it that in hot and moist years and places pestilentiall Feavers and other putrid diseases doe reigne Besides abundance of vermin doubtlesse these are procreated of putrifaction and this of heat except we will forfeit our senses and reason of which he being afraid confesseth at last that such a heat tendeth to dissolution He will not have liquifaction to proceed from any of the foure prime qualities that he calls an inutile speculation but from his own phantomes For bodies saith he that are more turgid of spirit or that have their spirits more straitly imprisoned as metals or that hold them better pleased and content as butter are liquifiable How happy then are those spirits which dwell in butter where they have pleasure and content in comparison of those vvretched spirits vvhich are imprisoned in Irons and other metals and yet how these spirits should make the metall turgid I know not Surely these are but crasie fansies vvhereas it is apparent to all ntelligible men that these things are most liquifiable which aboundeth most with congealed moisture whether it be aeriall and oily as in pitch butter wax and grease or watrish alone as in Ice or of a middle nature between both or peculiar as the moisture of metals And to tell us That wood clay free-stone c. are not liquifiable because they are bodies jejune of spirits is ridiculous for there are more spirits in vegitables then in metals and it is plain that clay and stones melt not because they want moysture which is in metals So it is not the dilatation of the spirits as he saith by heat which causeth wax to melt at the fire but the rarefaction of the moysture by heat which was before contracted by the cold For this cause dry wood is more fragile then green stone then metall and fictile earth then crude because there is no moisture in the one comparable to the moisture of the other He tels us that the hardnes of body is caused chiefly by the jejuness of the spirits Indeed this Philosophy is somwhat jejun for I would fain know whether there be not more spirits and less jejune in the hard bodies of Cloves Nutmegs and Cinnamon then in the soft bodies of Wooll Silk and Cotton According to his Philosophy there is a greater quantity of Spirits in a pellet of butter because softer then in a Nutmeg which is harder he that beleeves this let him when he is troubled with flatulencies in his stomack use butter and not hard spices He saith That Moisture doth chiefly colour hair but driness turneth them gray and white In his Philosophy then gray and white are not colours nor indeed blacknes which he saith afterwards is but a privative and consequently hath no entity Aristotle indeed sometimes calls black a privation but there he useth the words in a large sense for if it were properly privative how could other colours be made of black and white seeing of habits and privations nothing can be made He saith That some fishes be greater then any beasts because these have not their moisture drawn by the air and sun-beams Also they rest always in a manner and are supported by the water If these be the reasons of fishes greatness then why are Smelts and other lesser fishes smaller then the beasts Or why are they not as big as Whales seeing neither air nor sun-beams draw away their moisture and are also supported by the water The true cause then of the bigness of fishes above the beasts is the predominance of moisture in them which is easily extendible And indeed it is a frivolous thing to give reasons for the different magnitudes of the creatures seeing Nature hath given to each creature a determinate magnitude and period of duration And whereas he thinks that fish doe rest in a manner when they swim because they are supported by the water he may as well say That beasts and men rest when they walk and run because supported by the earth they that swim find there is no rest but labour and motion Before my Lord told us That by heat in putrifaction the spirits are emitted suppressed and suffocated But now he saith That the spirits in putrifaction gather heat How the spirits at the same time should be destroyed by the heat and yet gather heat is so sublime a fansie that no fansie but his own can reach it Water saith he being contiguous with air cooleth it but moystneth it not except it vapour because heat cold have a virtuall transaction without communication of substance but moysture not He takes it for granted which no Philosophy will grant him to wit that accidents can passe from one subject to another without their substance which is to make accidents subsist by themselves and to be all one with the substance which is repugnant to sense and reason therefore without vapours neither can the water moysten nor cool the air He saith Air is not without some secret degree of heat He needs make no secret of it for it is manifest that the air is hot and moist as the fire is hot and dry but for any secret degree of light in the air I deny For though as he saith Cats and Owles see in the night this is not because there is any degree of light in the air for what light can
there be in a dark dungeon where yet a Cat can see The air is not a light body of it self being diaphanous for the celestiall sphears are not light neither is there any luminous body in the dark Dungeon except the Cats eyes which afford light enough to the Cat to see his object He gives us a reason why the limbs on the right side are stronger Because motion is holpen from the liver How the liver should help motion is not known in Anatomy seeing motion and its Organs are from the brain not from the liver He had better have said that motion is holpen from the heart and so might have inferred that the left side limbs are strongest But indeed the true cause why the right side is stronger then the left is because the right limbs are bigger but why Nature made them bigger or stronger no other reason can be given then that the right side is hotter because there is the fountain of blood He saith That all spongie bodies expell the air and draw in liquor This is not so for why should such a body expell the air and draw in liquor but when the liquor enters into a spongie body the air gives place as a void penetration therefore Sugar expels not the air to suck up the Wine but the wine enters into the Sugar and expels the air so that the Sugar is a meer patient He tells us That stone walls are not so wholsom as wood or bricks This assertion stands neither with experience nor reason for they who have lived with their predecessors within stone walls many hundreths of years never found any unwholsomnesse by the stones and it is against reason that dry stones who as he phraseth it are jejune of spirits should afford any vapours or unwholsom damps It 's true that in moyst weather there be some Sea-stones or such as are taken out of Rivers will sweat but I have seen such drops upon brick-walls This proceeds neither from the stone nor brick but from the air which falling upon the hard stone and being resisted for want of pores from penetrating stayeth there and by the coldness of the stone turns to water-drops even upon Marble It is certain saith he that potions incense perfumes an oyntments do naturally work upon the imaginations The contrary rather is certain to wit that the imagination worketh upon these not they upon it for according to the strength of imagination the physick works and not according to the strength of physick doth the imagination work For sometimes the smell or sight of physick have wrought not upon the imagination but upon the body by the power of imagination so that this is the prime cause why the physick worketh which will not work at all in others whose imagination is weak and dull The cramp saith he cometh of contraction of sinews either by cold or drinesse The cramp cometh by distention as well as by contraction by heat and moistnesse as well as by cold and driness A Lute string wil break as soon in moist weather when it swels as in dry weather when it shrinks And Hippocrates tells us that the cramp proceeds as well fromrepletion as from inanition for gluttony drunkennesse and suppressing of accustomed evacuations procure the cramp as well as fasting watching bleeding burning fevers and vomiting chiefly by Hellebor which I can speak to my grief for I never knew what the cramp was till I was let blood and purged with Hellebor by an unskilfull Physician And indeed the cramp is not so much the affection of the sinews as of the muscles for it is the involuntary contraction of the muscle to its originall or beginning because not the nerve but the muscle is the proper instrument of motion which by the cramp is hurt so that this infirmity hath different names from the different muscles in which it is If it be in the muscles of the eye it is called Stratismus in the yard Satyriasis in the muscle of the jaw-bone Trismus in the muscles of the mouth Spasmus Cynicus or the Dog-cramp In the Epilepsie also or falling sicknesse there is a kind of cramp And many times the cramp proceeds from flatulencies in the muscles which though they be the proper organs of convulsions or cramps yet the cause is many times in the nerves which being contracted by the sharpnesse or fulnesse of humors or by malignant vapours draw the muscles with them Because the Hedg-hog putteth forth many prickles therfore he inferres That the juyce af a Hedg-hog must needs be harsh and dry There is no necessity for this because the harsh dry matter is expelled by nature into the prickles The flesh of some fishes whose shells or skins are full of prickles is neither harsh nor dry The Rose sends forth many prickles and yet it is both pleasant odoriferous cooling and moist So are the Respberries He tells us That Mummy hath a great force in stanching of blood But I wish he could tell us where we may find it For the true Mummy which was found in the Tombes of the AEgyptian Kings which were embalmed vvith divers pretious liquors and spices are spent long agoe so that the Mummy now in use is only the substance of dried Karkasses digged out of the sands being overwhelmed there in which there is no more vertue to stanch blood then in a stick He saith All life hath a sympathy with salt In hogges I think its true for as life is the salt of a living hogge so salt is the life of a dead hogge For both life and sâ—lt keep the body from putrifying otherwise I know little or no sympathy that salt hath with life for it destroyeth the life of many creatures But he is mistaken vvhen he saith That salt draweth blood because being laid to a cut finger healeth it For salt is laid to a cut finger not to draw the blood vvhich cometh too fast of it selfe vvithout drawing but to repell the blood and to stop its running It heals them not by drawing the blood but by abstersion exsiccation astriction and resisting putrifaction Thus I have cursorily run over my Lords new Philosophy vvhich he calls a Wood and so it is indeed for here a young Scholar may quickly lose himselfe and shal encounter with many bryers and brambles I find that Phylosophy is like Wine the older the better to the taste new Wine is pleasant and so are new conscripts to the mind but to the intelligent man oldest is wholsomest and lesse flatulent And indeed that which they call new Philosophy is nothing but the old in a new dressing vvhich is neither so handsome nor so usefull as the other They have found out new terms which are neither so proper nor significant as the former They have metamorphosed the elementary qualities both first and second into spirits so that now this word like a nose of wax serves them for all shapes I find in my Lords book much