off Limbes juyce of Hemlocke is used to mitigate the paine by putting the spirits to flight and casting the Patient into a swoone 19. The thickning of the spirits by Flight and driving inwards is a good effect of Poppy-juyce proceeding from a bad Cause being the flight of the spirits 20. Poppey was esteemed by the Graecians to bee a great preserver of Health and prolonger of Life the principall ingredient used by the Arabians called Gods hands was Poppey-juyce the bad qualities thereof being allay'd with other mixtures as Treacle Mithridate and the like 21. All Medicines thickning the Spirits as Poppey doth especially and staying and restrayning the Spirits unruly working and raging in pestilentiall Diseases are good to prolong life 22. A good quantity of Poppy-juyce being found by experience to be comfortable is taken by the Turkes to make them valiant but to us unlesse taken in a small quantity and well allay'd it is deadly poyson 23. Poppy-juyce doth also strengthen the spirits and excite to Venery 24. The distilled waters of wilde Poppy is good for Surfeits Feavers and divers Diseases the spirits being therby thickned and strengthened to resist any diseases 25. The Turkes drinke the powder of an hearbe in warme water to increase their valour and sharpnesse of wit but a greater quantity thereof is of a stupe fying power like Poppey 26. The East Indians refresh themselves before and after labour by holding in their mouths or eating a famous Roote called Betell enabling also their acts of Generation being also of a stupefying power because it blacketh the teeth 27. Tobacco in this age growne so common and yeelding such a secret delight and content that being once taken it can hardly be forsaken doth lighten the body and take off wearinesse opening the pores and voyding humours but thickning the spirits being a kind of Henbane and doth like Poppy buzzell and trouble the braine 28. Some humours of the body as those proceeding from melancholy are like Poppey-juyce and doe cause long life 29. Opium Or Poppy-juyce the Leaves and seeds of both kinds of Poppey also Henbane Mandrake Hemlocke Tobacco Nightshade or Banewort have all a drowsie stupefying power 30. Treacle Mithridate Trifer Paracelsus Gumme Syrrop of Poppey Pills of Hounds tongue are compouded drugs of the sale nature 31. These Presecriptions Prolong life by thickning the spirits by coolers 32. In Youth keepe every yeere a coole dyet about May the spirits in Summer being loose and thinne and no cold humours bred and take a Julip of Poppey and other hot ingredients but not too strong every morning between sleep then keepe a spare diet for fourteene dayes afterward forbearing Wine and hot Spices 33. Smoakes and steames being not too purgative to draw forth humours but having a light operation on the spirits of the braine doe coole the spirits as well as coolers therfore a Suffumigation made of Tobacco wood of Aloes dry Rosemary-leaves and a little Myrrh being in the morning received into the Nostrills is very wholesome 34. But the Water of compound Opiate Drugs the vapor rising in distilling and the heare settling downwards is better to bee taken in youth than the drugs for the vertue of distilled water is in their vapour being in other respects weake 35. Some Drugs being like Poppy but not so strong doe yeeld a drowsie cooling vapour and wholesomer than Poppy not shunn'd by the spirits being thereby gathered together and thickned 36. The drugges like unto Poppy and therewith used are Saffron and Saffron flowers the Indian Leafe AmberGrīse Coriander-seed prepa red Amomum Pseudamomum Rhodianwood water of Orange Blossomes and an infusion of the flowers steeped in Oyle Olive and a Nutmeg dissolved in Rose-water 37. Vse Poppy sparingly at set times but these other Drugs being commonly taken and in dayly dyet are very soveraigne to prolong life Pharmacopaeus in Calecut by using Amber lived to one hundred and sixty yeeres of Age and the Nobility of Barbary by using the same drugge are longer liv'd than the common people And our long-liv'd Ancestors used Saffron very-much in their Cakes and Broths So much of thickning the spirits by Poppy and Other drugges 38. The second way and meanes to thicken the spirits is by cold for cold doth properly thicken and by a safer operation and working than the malignant qualities of Poppey though not so powerfully yet because coolers may be familiarly used in dayly dyet they are better to prolong Life than drowsie Potions or Drugs 39. The spirits are cooled by breathing by vapours or by dyet the first way being best but difficult the second good and easie the third weakeand tedious 40. The cleare pure Ayre which may be taken on the dry tops of mountaines and in open shady fields is good to thicken the spirits 41. Also vapours doe coole and thicken and Nitre hath in this kind a speciall operation grounded on these Reasons 42. Nitre is a kind of cold Spice being so cold that it biteth the tongue as hot Spices doe 43. The spirits of all Drugges Naturally not Accidentally cold are few and weake spirituall Drugges being on the contrary hot Nitre onely having aboundance of spirits is of a vegetable nature and cold For Camphire is spirituall and cold in operation by accident and the thinne quality thereof being without sharpnesse doth lengthen the breath in inflammations 44. Also Nitre mingled with Snow and Ice and put about vessels doth congeale and freeze the liquor within and common Bay-salt doth make Snow colder and more apt to freeze But in hot Countries where no Snow falls Niter is onely used 45. 〈◊〉 and Souldiers to make them valiant doe drinke Gunne-powder before they fight or joyne Battaile as the Turkes doe Poppy 46. Nitre doth allay the destroying he are of burning 〈◊〉 and Pestentiall 〈◊〉 47. The Nitre in Gun-powder shunning the flame when a Peece is fired doth make the crake and report 48. Nitre is the spirit of the earth for any pure earth covered or shaded from the Sun-beames so that nothing doe spring or grow thence will gather store of Nitre the spirit of Nitre being inferiour to the spirit of living creatures and of Vegetables and Plants 49. Cattell drinking of water wherein there is Nitre doe grow fat being a signe that the Nitre is cold 50. Land and Grounds are made ranke and mellow by the fatning quality of the spirit of Nitre which is in dung 51. Therefore the spirit of Nitre will coole thicken and refresh the spirits and abate their heate For as strong Wine and Spices doe enflame the spirits and shorten life so Nitre composing and restrayning the spirits doth lengthen life 52. Nitre may bee used with meate and eaten with Salt to the proportion of a tenth part and put in morning Broaths from three Graines to ten or in drinke and being used in any manner moderately it Prolongs Life 53. As other Drugges besides Poppy being weaker and safer to bee taken in greater quantity and oftner doe
THE HISTORIE of Life and Death With Observations Naturall and Experimentall for the Prolonging of LIFE Written by the Right Honorable Francis Lord Verulam Viscount S. Alban LONDON Printed by I. Okes for Humphrey Mosley at the Princes Armes in Pauls Church-Yard 1638. Academiae Cantabrigiensis Liber TO THE Right Worshipfull Sr. EDWARD MOSLEY Knight his Majesties Atturny General of the Dutchey of Lancaster c. SIR THe Honourable Author of this History was such a miracle of Learning that Fancy striving to comprehend his Worth would be lost in Wonder and Amazement this Work of his retaining an affection to Grayes-Inne where the Author is and shall bee remembred by the Living and Posterity hath an originall ambition before it walk abroad into the World to visit Your Worship being a worthy Ornament of that Society that so Your respective entertainment may instruct the Envious and Ignorant Tribe to reverence rather than udge Honorable Personages and their Labours It will become mee onely to waite on the Imaginations of so great a Genius and while they converse with You in a nearer distance to acknowledge that Your Worships Name dignified with deserved Titles the Seales of vertue agreeing with mine only in Denomination made mee presume of Your Favour in accepting them and my Intention full of Service viceable respects hoping that verbum sat c. a word will bee sufficient to present this Oblation and the humble service Of Your Worships Honourer HUMPHREY MOSLEY TO THE Living and Posterity THE History of Life and Death being the last of sixe Monethly designations seemed worthy to bee preferred to bee the second in Publication because the least losse of time in a matter of so great utility should bee pretious for wee hope and desire that it may redound to the good of many and that noble Physitians raising their minds may not be wholly imployd in uncleane cures nor honoured only for necessity but become also the Stewards of Divine Omnipotency and Clemency in prolonging and renewing the life of Man especially since it may be done by safe convenient civill but untryed new waies and meanes For while 〈◊〉 Christians aspire and labour to come to the Land of Promise it will be a signe of Divine favour if our shoos and the garments of our frail bodies be here little worne in our iourney in the worlds wildernesse THE History of Life and Death The Accesse ANcient is the saying and complaint that Life is short and Art long Therefore our labours intending to perfect Arts should by the assistance of the Author of Truth and Life consider by what meanes the Life of man may be prolonged For long Life being an increasing heape of sinnes and sorrowes lightly esteemed of Christians aspiring to Heaven should not be dispised because it affoords longer opportunity of doing good Workes Moreover Amatus survived the other Disciples and many Fathers especially many holy Monkes and Hermites lived very long whereby it seemes that this blessing of long Life so often repeated in the Law was after our Saviours time lesse diminished then other earthly benedictions But the happinesse of long life is naturally desired although the meanes to attaine it through false opinions and vaine reports be hard to find the generall opinion of Physitians concerning Radicall mosture and Natural heat being deceiveable and the immoderate praise of Chymicall Medicines possessing others with failing hopes That which admits reparation remayning whole and sound in Essence may be eternally preserved as the Vestall Fire whereupon Physitians and Phylosophers perceiving that the bodies of living creatures being nourished repaired and refreshed grew old afterward and speedily perished they sought Death in an irreparable subject supposing Radicall moysture incapable of solid reparation from Infancy there being no just reparation but an unlike Addition sensibly by Age decayed and at last corrupted and dissolved This conceit of theirs was ignorant and vaine for young living creatures being all over and wholly repaired do by their increasing in quantity and growing better in quality shew that if the measure and manner of repairing decayed not the matter of repairing might be eternall But the 〈◊〉 in repairing proceeds from the unequall repairing of some parts sufficiently others hardly and badly in Age the bodies of men beginning thereby to undergoe Mezentius torment living in the embraces of the dead untill they dye and being easily repairable yet through some particular difficulty in restoring doe decay For spirits blood flesh and fatnesse are in the declining estate of Age easily repaired but there is much difficulty and danger in repairing the dry parts and fuller of pores as membranes tunicles nerves arteries veines gristles most of the bowels and all the organicall and instrumentall parts For when those parts that should performe their office to other actually reparable parts cannot being decayed in strength execute their office a generall ruine follows and parts naturally restoreable through defective Organs of Reparation doe decrease and decay For the spirit like a light flame continually feeds on bodies and the Ayre without conspiring therewith doth suck and dry the fabrick and instruments of the body which are thereby decayed and made unfit to performe the office of repairing And these are the true wayes whereby natur all Death approacheth deserving due consideration For how can Natures course if unknowne bee helped or prevented Therefore the meanes whereby the consumption or decay of mans body may be prevented and the repairing and restoring thereof furthered are most precious and worth knowing The spirits and ayre without are the chiefe causes of consumption and the generall progresse of Nourishment is the cause of restoration For the spirit within and the ayre without doe worke on dead bodies striving also to produce in living bodies the same effects though weakened and restrayned by the vitall spirits and partly by them increased For bodies without life doe a long while subsist and endure without Reparation but the life of creatures without due nourishment and reparation suddenly decayes and is extinguished like fire Therefore a two-fold search is required considering mans body as livelesse and unnourished and as living and nourished So much for the Preface proceeding now to the Topicks or common-places of the search Particular Places OR Poynts of Inquiry concerning Life and Death 1. OF Nature durable and lesse durable in liveles bodies and in Vegetables no copious or Legall but a summary briefe inquiry is made 2. Of the Drinesse Withering and Consumption of livelesse bodiesand Vegetables of their manner and progresse in working and also of hindring and staying of Drying Withering and Consumption and the preservation of the state of Bodies and also of Mollifying Softning and Reviving beginning to be affected with Drinesse make diligent inquiry 3. Yet no perfect exact inquiry is needfull concerning these poynts included under their proper Title of Duration and Continuance beeing not principall matters in this Inquiry but such as doe onely affoord light to prolonging and restoring of Life in
my youth I was familiarly acquainted at Poicters in France with an ingenious young Gentleman afterward an eminent man who inveighing against the conditions of Age would usually say that old mens minds being visible would appeare as 〈◊〉 as their Bodies 〈◊〉 afterward comparing the mindes vices in Age to the 〈◊〉 defects saying They 〈◊〉 skinn'd and impudent 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and envious 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 Earth not Heaven being their constant Object 〈◊〉 Limbs wavering and unconstant wooked finger'd greedy and covetous knees 〈◊〉 and fearefull 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 But to make a more serious Comparison Youth is shamefac'd and modest Age is hardened Youth is liberall and mercifull Age is hard youth emulates age envies youth is religious and fervently zealous being unexperienced in the miseries of this World age cold in piety and charity through much experience and incredulity youth is forward in defire age 〈◊〉 youth light and inconstant age grave and constant youth is liberall bountifull and loving age covetous and wisely provident youth confident and 〈◊〉 age distrustfull and 〈◊〉 youth gentle and 〈◊〉 age froward and disdainfull youth sincere and simple age cautelous and close youth haughty in desires age carefull for necessaries youth a Time-pleaser Age a Time-rememberer youth an Adorer of Superiors age a Censurer And by many other Characters impertinent to the present matter the different conditions of youth and age may bee described But the body growing fat in age so the Iudgement not the Fancy growes stronger preferring safe sure courses before shows appearances And lastly Age loves to 〈◊〉 and brag and being defirous to doe least is desirous to talke most Poets therefore feigned that old 〈◊〉 was changed into a chirping Grashopper Canons of the Continuation and Forme of Death CANON 1. DIssolution or Corruption 〈◊〉 by transmigration into another Body The Explication THere is no utter destruction Corruption being a dissolution into Ayre or 〈◊〉 into some other body As the Spider Flye and Ant 〈◊〉 tender 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 falling into Amber 〈◊〉 therein buryed finding therein both a Death and 〈◊〉 preserving them 〈◊〉 from Corruption than a Royall Monument For no Ayre being within there can be no corruption and the 〈◊〉 nature of Amber 〈◊〉 of no Reception from their substance Wood or Roots being put into 〈◊〉 would also remaine 〈◊〉 Waxe Honey and Gumme doe also preserve 〈◊〉 corruption CAN. 2. EVery tangible body hath Spirit covered and encompassed with a thicke body being the cause of consumption and dissolution The Explication NO knowne body on the upper part of the Earth doth want a spirit either by 〈◊〉 and concoction of coelestiall heate or by other meanes for the concavity and hollownesse of bodies admitting no vacuity or emptinesse is fill'd with Ayre or a spirit But this spirit here mentioned is no power efficacy or perfection but onely a 〈◊〉 invisible body yet locall dimensive and reall neither is this spirit Ayre as the juyce 〈◊〉 Grape is not water but a 〈◊〉 body like Ayre yet 〈◊〉 but the thicke parts 〈◊〉 substance being 〈◊〉 slow and almost 〈◊〉 would endure longer 〈◊〉 the working piercing spirit 〈◊〉 not devoure the moysture 〈◊〉 body and all that is 〈◊〉 vertible into a new spirit 〈◊〉 former new made spirits 〈◊〉 by degrees 〈◊〉 together This is evident the decrease of waight in 〈◊〉 bodies by venting of 〈◊〉 not increasing the 〈◊〉 of a body but yet by 〈◊〉 making it grow dry CAN. 3. THE 〈◊〉 of the spiriti is the cause of Drynesse but by inward detaining and warking they doe soften 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quicken The Explication THere are foure workings of the Spirit Drynesse Softning Putrefaction and generation of bodies Drynesse is no proper worke of the Spirit but of the thicker parts after the venting of the Spirits shrinking and uniting together to avoide vacuity or emptinesse as burned Bricks doe Sea-coale cakes stale Bread and Toasts Softnesse is 〈◊〉 worke of the Spirits 〈◊〉 by heate whereby the Spirits enlarging not venting 〈◊〉 pierce into and moysten 〈◊〉 thicker parts making 〈◊〉 soft and limber as Fire 〈◊〉 Mettalls and Waxe for 〈◊〉 and other stiffe 〈◊〉 are of a matter fit to 〈◊〉 the Spirits and keep 〈◊〉 from venting 〈◊〉 is a mixt work of the 〈◊〉 thicker parts for after 〈◊〉 spirit contayning and 〈◊〉 the parts of the 〈◊〉 is vented all the parts 〈◊〉 and returne into their 〈◊〉 Elements because by the spirits of substances gathering 〈◊〉 putrefied bodies stink 〈◊〉 the assembling together of 〈◊〉 becōming light 〈◊〉 the withdrawing of water and earth are dissolved and fall asunder But generation or quickning being a mixt worke of the spirit and thicker parts is performed in another manner the spirit being totally detayn'd swelling and moving locally but the thicker parts being not dissolved but following the motion of the spirit blowing and fashioning them into divers Formes are generated and become bodies therefore the matter quickned is alwayes clammy limber plyant and soft be thereby fit to detayne the spirit and to yeeld to the spirits fashioning of parts such being also the clammy yeelding matter of all Vegetables and living Creatures generated of 〈◊〉 or seed CAN. 4. ALL living Creatures have two Spirits dead Spirits 〈◊〉 those in livelesse Creatures 〈◊〉 the living Spirits The Explication NEcessary is the consideration of Mans body as 〈◊〉 and unnourished or 〈◊〉 and nourished the 〈◊〉 shewing the wayes of 〈◊〉 the latter of 〈◊〉 For there are in the 〈◊〉 Bones Skinnes Organs 〈◊〉 the severall limbes of the 〈◊〉 body such spirits as are 〈◊〉 the Flesh Bone and Skinne 〈◊〉 separated and Dead 〈◊〉 in a Dead 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the vitall spirits governing and agreeing with them is of a different nature integrall and constant They differ in two respects mortuall dead spirits are not continued but disjoyned and inclosed in a thicker body as Ayrein Snow or Froath But the spirit being continuate passing through certaine Channels and totally inclosed is either pervious passing through small pores or continuate and resident in a proportionable quantity to the Body in a hollow seate or Fountaine whence lesser Rivalets are derived This seate is the Ventricles of the Braine being straite and narrow in the baser sort of living creatures whose spirits being spred through the whole body have no particular 〈◊〉 residence as in 〈◊〉 Eeles and Flyes whose 〈◊〉 being cut asunder will 〈◊〉 afterward And Birds their Heads being pluckt off will leape and flutter because their Heads being small their spirits have therein no 〈◊〉 residence But 〈◊〉 have large Ventricles especially Man And besides the vitall spirit is inflameable being compounded of Flame and Ayre as the moysture of Living creatures is of Oyle and Water the 〈◊〉 giving it motion and 〈◊〉 as inflameable smoak before it blaze into a flame 〈◊〉 hot thinne and moveble being when it is a flame 〈◊〉 substance but the 〈◊〉 of the vitall spirits is more gentle than the flame of the spirit of wine beeing compounded of an aiery substance