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
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
X. Both Aristotelians and Galenists affirm that the child at first lives the life of a plant but from hence the Aristotelian concluds that the heart is the first members begot in us because it is answerable to the root in plants which is first generated but the Galenist infers that the liver must be the first member because the child living the life of a plant hath no other faculty but nutritive which is the faculty of the plant the seat whereof is in the liver But here I side with Aristotle because the liver is no more the seat of nutriment then the heart And because the heart is as the root but it is by the root the plant lives and is nourished And if the liver be the seat of nutriment because of the blood thereof I should rather say the heart is this seat because we finde blood there out of the veins as in a cistern but in the liver there is no other Blood then what is in the veins Neither can the liver be the originall of the nutritive power because there is the sense of indigence or want for so the stomack should rather be this originall because there is the most exquisit sense of want XI The liver cannot be generated without heat and spirits But the seat of heat and spirits is the heart therefore this must be first If any will say that the heat of the matrix is sufficient I deny it for that heat is onely conservative not generative it hardeneth and consolidateth the outward parts but doth not produce the inward XII Aristotle will have the right ventricle of the Heart the nobler Galen the left but I subscribe to Aristotle because I finde that the right Ventricle liveth longer then the left 2. That the Pulse in the right side of him that is dying is more valid then in the left side 3. The right ventricle leans upon the lungs as upon a Cushion or supporter Nature shewing as it were a greater care of this then of the other 4. The right parts are nimbler and stronger then the left because they are hotter 5. Though the spirits receive their completion in the left ventricle yet they are prepared and fitted in the right and therefore there needs not so great a heat in the left ventricle as the Galenists speak of for a moderate heat will suffice to perfect that which is already begun 6. The left ventricle is but a servant to the right in finishing that work which was begun by the right and distributing it into the body being finished XIII The Aristotelians make the vital and nutritive faculty the same the Galenists make them distinct but the Peripateticks reason prevails with me which is this That where there are distinct faculties there must be distinct operations because the faculty is for the operation But there are no distinct operations of the vital faculty from that of the nutritve for accretion diminution and generation are actions of the vital or nutritive Sense and motion are actions of the animal faculties 2. Life is the presence of the soul in the body this presence consists in action this action is nutrition for when this action fails life fails because the chief and first action of the living creature is to preserve it self which cannot be without nutrition seeing nutrition is not without tact in the sensitive creature but when tact faileth animality must needs fail XIV The Aristotelians make heat the efficient cause of the hearts publick motion Others will have the soul Others the vegetive faculty but Aristotle is in the right for the soul works by its faculties and these by heat so that heat is the immediate cause of this motion and the souls instrument yet not such an instrument as worketh nothing but by the force of the principal agent for the heat worketh by its own natural force though it be directed and regulated by the soul the heat then of the heart rarifying the blood into vapors which require more room dilate the heart but by expelling some of these vapors into the arteries and receiving also some cold air by the lungs the heart is contracted this is called Systole the other Diastole And as heat is the efficient cause so it is also the end of this motion For therefore doth the heat move the heart that it by this motion might impart heat to the body But I understand not here by heat a bare quality but that which is called Calidum innatum If it be objected that there is in Plants a vegetive faculty and heat but not this pulsifick motion nor yet in effects I answer the reason is because there are not instruments fit for such a motion nor is there any use of it 2. This motion of the heart is local not totally but partially for not the whole heart but the parts thereof change their place or seat and so in this regard augmentation and diminution are local motions XV. That the heart is not only first formed but is also first informed and first exerciseth the action of life is plain by this reason drawn from the Peripateticks the heart was made at first an Organical member but that could not be if it was not first informed by the soul which is the first act of the organical body and if it was made organicall it had been made to no end and nature had been idle to have made an useless member which could no more deserve the name of heart then a blinde eye the name of eye But the soul that I speak of here is the vegetive or sensitive resulting out of the matter which is first prepared in the heart for reception of it and not the reasonable soul which with all its perfections is created and infused by God into the whole body after it is articulated and made capable of such a noble Guest XVI The Aristotelians are more rational in placing but one principall member in the body then they who place either three or four For it is nedless to make so many principals when as one will suffice Nature aimeth always at unity for all the five senses are united in one common sense all the members in one body all the different specificall parts of the world into one common nature so all the members into one heart which hath in it the natures of all or their temperaments Nor could the soul being but one work upon so many different temperaments if they were not united into one temperament Besides we should be forced to run in infinitum if we should hold more principles then one for avoiding of which inconvenience we must stay in one chief principle If it be objected that the nerves veins and arteries are of different temperaments therefore must proceed from different principles I Answer that from one principle in which divers temperaments are united may issue different temperatures 2. I denie that the temperature of the veins nerves and arteries are different otherwise then Secundum magis
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
of such absolute necessity as the heart even in respect of generation is plain because many creatures as plants and insects have the faculty and power of generation without testicles 2. The heart and brain in dignity far exceed the testicles because these doe not communicate to all parts the power of generation as the heart and brain doe impart life and sense 3. Creatures that have lost the testicles can live long without them but no creature can live long without the heart and brain XV. In sensitive creatures that doth originally communicate the generative faculty which imparts the sensitive because this includes that but it is the heart not the testicles which imparts sensation and consequently the heart not the testicles causeth generation If it be answered that the power of sensation is derived from the heart to the testicles and consequently of generation then we must know that this very answer confirms the Aristotelian opinion namely that the heart not the testicles is the original of the generative 2. It is a weak argument to prove the principality of the testicles from their necessity for every part of the body though never so base is necessary and yet there is but one principal member And as weak is it to argue the principality of the testicles from the change that is caused in the body upon the loss of them for so there is upon the losse of any other member and many times death it self 3. The distinction of Sexes proc eeds from the formative power but this hath not its original residence in the testicles but in the heart as being the perfectest member and chief receptacle of heat and bloud and spirits by which the formative power operates XVI The seed receives its specifical form and essence in the heart not in the testicles in which it receives indeed concoction that it might be made fitter for generation but concoction causeth only an alteration in the quality not a mutation in the substance So the fruit receiveth its maturity or ripeness immediately from the bough on which it hangeth but its generative power from the root alone so that the testicles are but the hearts instruments working by its heat and concocting the seed that it may be the fitter for generation XVII The bodies of Eunuchs are fatter weaker and colder then of other men not because the testicles do corroborate the body as the Galenists think but because the seed wanting evacuation is turned into fat and many vapours or excrements which with the seed are evacuated in other men are retained in Eunuchs which oppresse the natural heat and consequently cause debility and because of this coldnesse Eunuchs are lesse hairy for hairs are begot of hot fuliginous vapours Finis Libri Primi BOOK II. GALEN in some things maintained in some things rejected or reconciled to ARISTOTLE 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 I. AS GOD hath bestowed upon Man the most excellent Soul of all others so hath he fitted him with a Body answerable to such a Soul of which no other Body is capable and if it were yet for want of fit Organs the Soul could not exercise her functions as we see in that Fiction of Apuleius whose soul being in the body of an Asse could neither speak nor write nor doe any thing but what was proper to an Asse yet I have read of Tritons or Fishes having the face lineaments and shape of mans body One was seen in the days of Tiberius another in the time of Augustus a third under Nero Pliny AElian Theodor Gaza Trapezuntius Alexander ab Alexandro Scaliger and divers others affirm the truth of this yet these Tritons or Nereides cannot be called nor are they men though they have the outward shape for it is not the matter not outward lineaments but the form that gives essence and denomination II. Mans body is of all others the most perfect and excellent though he hath not wings like a bird to fly nor can see so far as an Eagle nor hear so quickly as a Fox nor smell so well as a Dog nor taste so well as Poultry nor hath so quick a tact as Oysters and Spiders yet his hands speech and reason doe countervail all these for celerity and reception his senses yeild to the beasts for variety and judgement they must yeild to him III. Though mans soul in respect of understanding and will be inorganical and therefore not properly resident in any particular member more then in another yet accidentally because the brain is the seat of the fantasie from which the intellect receives its objects and the heart the seat of the affections subservient to the will the brain is the seat of the intellect the heart of the will IV. There is in us a twofold heat the one celestial the other elementary that preserves us this destroys us that concocts our food and turns it into nutriment this corrupts and putrifies it and turns it into noxious humours and excrements as we see in burning Fevers It is not then every heat that chylifieth or sanguifieth or assimulateth but this celestial heat Neither is it the quantity but the quality thereof and affinity it hath with the things concocted For there is more heat in a Lion then in a Pigeon and yet the Pigeon will concoct that which the Lion cannot yet this celestial heat is helped by the elementary heat if it be temperate and by the crasis temperament or constitution if it be sound V. Nothing by way of food can cherish our natural heat and maintain our life but what had life and heat it self and the more perfect life it had the better it nourisheth as having neerer affinity with us Hence animals nourish more then vegitables because the matter of their bodies and spirits are more consonant to ours then of hearbs or fruits which if they bee contrary to us in their nature and qualities they destroy us as poisonable hearbs do Purging medicaments are of a middle nature as having some similitude with the humours of our bodies which they attract as Agary with Flegme Rubarb with Choler c. and some dissimilitude with our bodies upon which they work by weakning them especially if they have any delatory quality VI. Though the woman in conception or afterwards can by the strength of imagination impresse some note or mark upon the seed or Embryo yet she cannot alter the sex or form as she pleaseth because this is not the work of imagination but of a diviner power to wit of the external formative agent for which cause a man cannot beget any other then a man for that his seed is not capable of any other form neither doth the formative agent work otherwise theâ— as the seed
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
the superfluous moisture of the body by the natural heat be exhausted and the organs made drier 3. The bodies of other creatures are not capable of mans soul because they are not of that fabrick temper and constitution 4. The faculties of the animal soul have not their originall from the gross and earthy part of the seed but from the aereal by means of its celestial heat 5 The rational soul bringing with it all its perfections the former faculties of sense and vegetation which were in the Embryo give place to it so that now it alone works by its faculties 6. The seed brings with it from the parents it s own heat by which the formative faculty worketh the heat of the matrix is not operative but conservative of the other heat 7. The seed consisting of grosser and aereal parts cannot be called uniform and if it were yet it may have divers operations and faculties ad extra so hath the Sun and other uniform bodies 8. The Embryo is not capable of three specificall forms or souls for so it should be a threefold compound specifically distinct but it is capable of divers generical forms and subordinate the superior being preparatives for reception of the inferior and ultimate specificall form which giveth name and entity as the rational soul doth to the child being perfected 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 câ—used AS soon as the child groweth big about the fourth month the menstruous blood flowes upward to the breasts and when the child is born it flowes from thence and being suck'd by the child the veins of the breasts do avoid vacuity draw the blood upward for generation of new milk 2. In the breasts of Virgins and of some men also there is sometimes found a whitish liquor which is not milk because it hath neither the tast nor thickness nor nutritive quality of milk 3. The breasts or paps are glandulous bodies principally ordained for generation of milk and in the second place for reception of excrementitious humors and guarding of the heart 4. The reason why about the fourth month the blood flowes upward into the breasts is that the child growing big and wanting sufficient food might struggle to get out which it would not do having sufficient nutriment 5. It is not fit that the child out of the womb should feed on blood as it did in the womb because then the mouth of the veins being opened the blood would run out and so nature be overthrown neither would God accustom man to blood left he should become cruel and bestial II. Upon the inflammation of the diaphragma follow oftentimes phrensies by reason of the society it hath by the nerves with the brain to which it sendeth fumes and hot vapors which phrensie is known from that of the brain by the shortness of the breath the chief organ of breath being ill-affected so that the breast cannot freely move it self and because the Diaphragma is united to the Pleura and Peritonaeum which containeth all the organs in the inferiour belly hence all these parts are drawn upwards by the motion of the Diaphragma III. The tunicle of the heart called Pericardium hath within it a water for refrigeration and moistning of the heart which is begot of vapours condensate by the coldness of the membrane as some think or else it sweats through the tunicles of the veins and arteries they that have hot hearts have but little of this water and it abounds most where the heart is colder but whether the defect of this water be the cause of the heat in the heart or the heat the cause of this defect it is uncertain as it is with the sea-water which is turned into vapours by the suns heat and these vapours turned into water again by the coldness of the middle Region so the heat of the heart turns this water into vapours and the membrane converts these vapours into water again and so this circulation continues till the heat of the heart be extinguished by death then is found water onely IV. The heart hath a peculiar hard flesh of its own that it might be the better able to undergo its perpetual motion to contain the spirits and life-blood and to resist external injuries 2. This flesh is not musculous because the motion of the muscles is voluntary but the hearts motion is natural 3. The heart hath both straight transverse and circular fibers for attraction and expulsion and oblique fibers also for retension but these fibers are of the same substance with the heart and not of a different as the fibers of the Muscles which are parts of the nerves and Tendons 4. The heart is fed with gross blood answerable to its own gross substance by the vein called Coronaria compassing the Basis of the heart 5. The heart hath two ventricles whereof the right is hottest extensive as Aristotle will have it for it contains the life-blood the left is hottest intensive as containing the vital spirits and so Galen saith 6. If we consider the situation of the right ventricle which is in the right side and the priviledge it hath in living longer then the left we may with Aristotle say that the right ventricle is the more noble of the two but if we consider that the left ventricle contains the vitall spirit which in dignity excels the blood which is in the right we must with Galen give the preheminence to the left and so these two may be reconciled V. The heart is a hot and drie substance that it might be the fitter both to beget and to preserve the vital spirits to attenuate the venal and to procreate the arterial blood And though the spirits be hotter extensively yet the substance of the heart is hotter intensively as burning coles are hotter then flaming straw VI. The vital faculty by which the vital spirits are ingendred for animating the body and preserving the natural heat is an effect of the soul as all faculties are and not of the heart yet here it chiefly resides because of the soul which here exerciseth her chief functions of life 2. This vital faculty differs from the animal because it is not subject to fatigation nor rests in sleep nor doth it accompany the imagination or apprehension of the object as the animal doth 3. It is different from the pulsifick faculty because this is subservient to the vital neither doth the pulsifick beget spirits or is it diffused every where as the vital is 4. The vital differs from the vegitive faculty because the vegitive is in plants and insects but not the vital as it is procreative of spirits for the dull heat of insects is not so soon spent as to need
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
of Sens in Bourgundie which went 28 years with a dead child in her womb this woman being dead and her belly opened there was found a stone having all the limbs and proportion of a child of 9 months old This was no miracle but an extraordinary work of nature for the child being dead and the slimie matter of its body having an aptitude by the extraordinary heat of the matrix to be hardned might retain the same lineaments which it had before If any wonder how within the soft and liquid humors of the matrix such a hard substance should be ingendred let him as well wonder at the generation of hard bones within soft flesh of hard stones within soft plums Peaches and other fruits of stones and hard thunder-bolts within watrish clouds CHAP. IV. 1. Some without Lungs 2. Impostumes voided in Vrine 3. Worms the cause of many diseases 4. No change of sexes 5. Giants 6. Some without livers 7. Fleshy bladders 8. Stones haires worms c. Begot in our Vrine 9. A woman without a matrix I Have read of divers bodies of men without lungs and I believe it for oftentimes the lungs are putrified and corroded with corrupt and acrimonious matter and wasted with burning heat but hence it will not follow that a man can live without lungs any time seeing the heart stands in need continually of refrigeration yet some do live a great while with half of the lungs after the other half is putrified and spit out II. I finde that when impostumations and corrupted matter in the breast cannot be evacuated by spitting or coughing or vomiting or by Phlebotomy or the stool it is notwithstanding purged out by urine naturally without the help of art by which we see how cunning and industrious nature is to help her self and that she is more carefull to thrust out noxious then to draw in profitable things hence sick mens expiration is stronger then their inspiration and hence also we see that there are many porous and pervious passages unknown to us which doubtless are in our bodies being alive which cannot be found being dead because shut by the cold III. I finde that many Physitians are mistaken in the causes of divers diseases and therefore their remedies prove oftentimes fruitless or hurtfull For I have known Apâ—plexies Convulsions Coughs Consumptions Feavers Cholicks and other Diseases proceed from Wormes which when they have beene voided either dead or alive the sick partys have recovered Nay I have read of some who have had worms crawle out at their navels and some whose organs of voice and speech having been assaulted and hurt by worms have become speechless how carefull then should we be of our diets not to delight so much as we do in sweet meats sauces and drinks or in such food as breeds slâ—my matter whereof worms are ingendred and Physitians should be as carefull to prescribe such things to their patients as may kill and evacuate these enemies of our health and life IV. That maids have become boyes I have read in divers Stories but I have shewed in the former Book that there is no such change in nature because the organs of generation in the two sexes differ both in number form and situation and that therefore such transformations are meant of Hermaphrodites or of such boyes in whom the vessels of generation have not at first appeared outwardly for want of heat and strength which afterwards have thrust them out Dr. Brown admits the change and yet shews that the vessels are different both in form and situation which is a contradiction V. That there have been Giants and men of stupendious stature in all ages is not to be doubted seeing there are so many witnesses extant and the reason of their bigness can be none else but the aboundance of seed and menstruous blood of which they are begot the quality and pliableness of the matter â—apt to be extended the strength also of the heat and formative power and that these men should have rapacious stomachs to devour incredible quantities of meat and drink is not to be wondred at if we consider the bulk of their bodies the capacity of their stomachs and rapacity of their heat VI. Nature is not deficient in necessaries nor abundant in superfluities there is not any one member in our bodies that can be spared for if there be any one defective our life proves short and miserable I have read of some who have been found without Livers but such had a fleshy lump in stead thereof which not being able to sanguifie or turn the Chylus into blood the parties lived but a short while and died of Tympanies or Hydropsies and others whose Livers have been found full of stones have died of the same disease and so have those whose spleen hath been found stony A woman who died of an Hydropsie I saw dissected whose spleen was full of stones of a blewish and green colour VII Not onely are stones of great bigness bred in the bladder by which the passage of the urine is intercepted and so death and many tortures are procured but also there have been found in some bladders great lumps of flesh yea all the internal side of the bladder filled up with fleshy excrescences that there could be no room for the urine but I doubt whether this were true flesh or not seeing no flesh is begot but of blood I think therefore that this was an excrementitious substance resâ—mbling flesh in colour and shape VIII It is manifest that some with their urine evacuate stones gravel matter hairs little crawling creatures of divers shapes which doubtless are begotten of putrifaction according to the disposition of the matter and heat of the bladder or kidneys if the matter be adust and bâ—rned hairs are begot sometimes as big as hogs brissles and sometimes the stones of the kidneys are so big that they stick in the yard and cannot be evacuated without incision upon the stoppage of the urine by these stones malignant vapours ascend from the corrupted urine into the noble parts that convulsions syncopes and other dangerous effects are procreated IX As a man can live without testicles so can a woman without the matrix these being members given by naturâ— not for conversation of the individuals but for continuation of the species Therefore Zacuâ—uâ— speaks of a woman who lived thirty years after her matrix was cut out which by a fall that she had from a high tree had slipt out of its place and could never be again replaced Obs. 76. l. 2. CHAP. V. 1. Strange but not miraculous births 2. Strange and strong imaginations 3. Poison inward and outward 4. Poison of mad Dogs 5. Câ—ntharides 6. Poison how it worketh 7. Why birds not poisoned as men 8. Amphiam Opium Mandrakes 9. The Plague no Hectick nor putrid Fever 10. Epidemical diseases THat a boy of nine years old should beget a child is rarâ— but much morâ— strange it is that a child should be
the skin which heat is also perceived by its bitterness but cold is most predominant or else we may say that it exâ—ites venery accidentally by temperating the excessive heat of the body which is an enemy to Venus The like effect is wrought by Mandrakes which perhaps was the cause that Rachel so much desired them Nor must we think it strange that the Opium produceth contrary effects for we know that the same Rose in some part of it hath a stiptick in other parts a laxative quality IX The plague to which our bodies are subject is an occult poyson killing us by the breath or touch and not an Hectick Feaver becaâ—se this drieth and burneth up the heart by degrees the plague kils suddâ—nly 2. The Hectick is not infectious as this 3. In a confirmed Hectick there is no recovery in the Plague divers recover nor is the pestilence a putrid Feaver because 1. the pulse is more remiss the urine clearer the head ach thirst and agitation of the body less in the plague then in a putrid Feaver 2. Because a pestilential feaver followes upon a 〈…〉 this is â—on that begins X. Epidemical diseases whereof pestilential are the most perhitious are conveyed to us by the air which we are continually attracting to the heart and brains 1. either when the air is infected with the impression of malignant and occult qualities from the influence of the Stars or 2. when it is poysoned with putrified corrupt and pernitious vapours exhaled out of pits caves ditches putrified lakes c. Or 3. When the prime qualities of the air to wit heat cold c. are intensive beyond ordinary but we must not think that the substance of the air is at any time putrified for being a simple body it is not subject to putrifaction CHAP. VI. 1. Antipathies to some meats 2. The force of Fear 3. Blood voided by the Gums and Navil 4. Black hairs suddenly gray 5. Violence of passions 6. Defects in nature recoÌ„mpensed 7. A Fly voided by Vrine 8. Monethly bloud in men 9. The causes of Monsters 10. Horns on mens heads and heels AS there are divers temperaments of men so there are divers sympathies and antipathies to certain meats and drinks some cannot indure the sight or smel of Cheese others abhor eggs others flesh others bread some cannot abide wine others abhor piggs and all kinde of swines flesh many cannot endure the smel of apples others detest all kind of sweet meats and which is most strange thaâ— the smel of Roses so pleasing to most men is odious and deadly to others Cardinal Carafa during the time of Roses used to inclose himself in a Chamber not permitting any to come near him that had Roses as Wierus Valerian shews in his Hieroglyphicks the smell of a Rose would cause a certain Jacobin swoun and be like a dead man as Amatus Lusitanus recordeth in his second Centurie the like is written of divers others This must either proceed from an occult quality or from the distemper of the phantasie and prejudicate opinion that some have of such things that they are hurtful to them or else it is in some an hereditary infirmity proceeding from the parents for Forestus writes that in a certain family the sons could not ear Cheâ—se but the daughters could eat it with a good appetite becauâ—â— the mother did love Cheese but the father could not abide it See his Annotations on the fifth Observation lib. 4. II. Fear is more powerfull in curing of diseases then any Physitians in the world for Zacutus l. 2. Obs. 86. speaks of a woman whose matrix had fallen and hung out of its place two years together neither could any Physick or Art replace it again till a sudden fear attracted it she feeling the mice running up her thighes which she had purposely holding them by a thread let run towards the part the matrix suddenly slipt into its own place again III. Nature is more skilfull then any Physitian to cure her self and if she cannot finde a way for evacuation of her superfluities she will with Hannibal make a way though it be through Rocks for he shewes that the ordinary passage of the menstruous blood being stopped in a certain woman Nature made her a passage through the gums out of which monthly for two days together great store of blood was voided He speaks of another who on the like occasion had a vent for the blood through the navel lib. 2. Obs. 91 92. IV. That black hairs should become suddenly white may to some seem incredible yet we have stories of this sudden change Scaliger Exercit. 212. tells us of one Francis Gonzaga who being imprisoned upon suspition of treason in one night his black hair turned white Vives in his Preface on Scipio's Dream and Hadrian Iunius in Comment de Coma. c. 10. speaks of a young Spanish Gentleman who in a night became as white as one of 80 years old Caelius Rodiginus in his 13 Book Antiq. lect speaks of another who searched after young Hawkes upon a high steep Rock and fearing the rope would break with which he was held became instantly white Divers other examples I could alledg but these are sufficient to let us see that the change of our hairs which is perform'd by nature in space of time ordinarily is upon an extraordinary fear effected suddenly in some the roots of the hairs being deprived of that heat and radical moisture between the flesh and skin of the head by which they were fed the spirits and blood flying suddenly to the heart leave the other parts destitute This we see in trees when blasted with a piercing cold wind their leaves suddenly change colour and of green become yellow their naturall heat and moysture being extinguished and dried up V. There is no passion in our bodies more violent then fear which distempers the fantasie troubles the other senses causeth our hairs to stand an end makes us dumb all which the Prince of Poets expressed in one verse Obstupui steteruntque comae vox faucibus haesit and indeed the fear of death hath upon some brought sudden death the spirits heat and blood flying suddenly to the heart by which this is oppressed and the senses left destitute Others by sudden fear have lost their judgement and become distracted strange effects also are produced in us by excessive anger and joy â—o that some have suddenly died with immediate anger and excessive joy the spirits and heat flying suddenly from the heart into the exterior parts by which means syncopes swoundings and death follow As I could instance in many examples VI. I observe that where Nature is defective in one part there is a recompence made for they who are born blind exceed us in memory and they who are born deaf and dumb excell us in apprehension they who are born without hands or arms perform with their feet what we do by our hands Phil. Camerarius in his Historical meditations c. 37. speaks
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
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
read in the first degree of light which is from darknesse but in the other degree which is from lesse light to more I can see to read therefore this degree of lesse light to more light as far greater then the other which was from the privative to the active He tells us 270 That in visibles there are not found objects soÌ„ odious and ingrate to the sense as in audibles thus the grating of a Saw sets the teeth on edge That there are visible objects more ingrate to the eye then audible to the ear is plan by experience in such as have swounded and fallen suddenly dead at the sight of some objects some will sweat and fall into strange passions at the sight of a Cat others at other sights Pompey's wife fell into a swound when she saw her husbands coat be sprinkled with blood Mark Antonies speech did not so forcibly work upon the Romans as the sight of Caesars bloody garment to prosecute his murtherers The phantasie is much more affected by the eye then by the ear As for the grating of a Saw by which some mens teeth are set on edge will not prove what he aimes at but onely that the teeth are thus affected by reason of that nerve of the fifth conjugation which sendeth one branch to the ear and another to the larinx and tongue as likewise there is a cartaligenous passage between the ear and palat by which the air received by the mouth is communicated to the ear Hence we stop our breath when we will hear attentively and violent sounds are evacuated by that passage which are received by the ear But when he saith 276 That there is no effect of deafnesse found in Canoniers and such like he is again mistaken For it is known that divers have lost their hearing by the noyse of Cannous and other violent sounds I knew one who grew deaf by being present at a Muster where many Muskets were discharged Again hee saith 277. That when a Skreen is put between the candle and the eye the light is seen on the paper whereon one writeth where the body of the flame is not seen But indeed neither the flame is seen because of the Skreen nor the light on the paper but the paper by the light for light is not the object which we see but by which we see it actuates the medium and makes the object visible CHAP. V. The Lord Bacons opinions refuted Of holding the breath when wee hearken Of time Of long life Of making gold Of starres Of oyl Of indisposition to motion Of death diseases and putrifaction Of stuttering Of motion after the head is off Of sympathies and antipathies of the Vine and â—olewort the Fig-tree and Rew. Of white colour Of the Oke bough in the earth Of transinutation of species Of Incubus Of grain in cold Countries Of determination and figures Of accretion and alimentation Of the period of life Of sugar leaves roots snow and putrifaction WE have shewed out of Anatomy why we hold our breath when we hearken attentively but my Lord gives a reason no way satisfactory For saith he the cause is for that in all expiration the motion is outward and therefore rather driveth away the voyce then draweth it His Lordship sayes well if we did hear by the mouth but withall he should have considered that in breathing there is inspiration as well as expiration and we hold our breath in hearing attentively that there may be no inspiration as well as expiration And indeed it must be a very weak voyce that our breath in expiration drives away The true cause then as we have shewed is the free passage of the air between the mouth and ear by means of the pipe or chanell we mentioned therefore we stay our breath rather from inspiration then expiration lest the drum in the ear be extended too much with air He saith It conduceth to long life that mens actions be free and voluntary If this were so the absolute Monarchs of the world whose words and commands are laws and who have none to controll them should be longer lived then their subjects who are forced to doe many things against their liking though not against their will for all mens actions otherwise are free and voluntary because they are men but many times we see slaves live longer then Princes He tells us That time and heat are fellows in many effects for they both are airy and liquifie Time and heat cannot be fellows in effects because time is no agent it doth not operate at all quantities work not though all things are produced in time so hony and sugar grow liquid clay and roots grow dry in time but not by time These effects are produced by the heat drinesse and moisture of the aire so that sugar waxeth not more liquid by age but by the air for keep it twenty years it will harden or soften according to the weather So it is not time that hardeneth the crum of bread but the heat of the air by drawing in insensibly its humidity and therfore it is rather Poetically spoken then Philosophically to say that time hardeneth or softnâ—th produceth or destroyeth This indeed is to put the syth into Saturns hand and to make him the father and devourer of his own children He alledgeth one cause why women live longer then men because they stir lesse But I say that men live longer then women because they stir more For by exercise the blood is warmed the pores are opened vapours are expelled concoction is helped the limbs and joynts are strengthened the naturall heat is excited the spirits and humours are refined All ages shew us that no women have ever reached to the age of some men and it stands with reason that men should be longer lived because they abound more in naturall heat which is the cause why the Northern people are longer lived then the Southern And I have observed that in the Northern parts women are more given to exercise then in the countries farther South and therefore are longer lived there then here And my Lord himselfe acknowledgeth That exercise hindreth putrifaction and rest furthers it Therefore it follows that men who exercise live longest because they are furthest from putrifaction He judgeth the work of making gold possible So have all they who have made shipwrack of their estates upon that stone which hath proved no lesse dangerous then the rocks of Malea It is not enough to judge the possibility but it must be proved either by reason or experience neither of which hath been yet done For that factitious or rather fictitious gold the Chymists brag of is as far from true gold as a painted fire is from a reall for neither can it endure the fire nor comfort the heart nor hath it any of the qualities or essentiall properties of true gold I am of Scaligers opinion that it is as easie to change a beast into a man as to
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
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