Selected quad for the lemma: child_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
child_n	milk_n	mother_n	nurse_n	1,927	5	11.0820	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89219	Healths improvement: or, Rules comprizing and discovering the nature, method, and manner of preparing all sorts of food used in this nation. Written by that ever famous Thomas Muffett, Doctor in Physick: corrected and enlarged by Christopher Bennet, Doctor in Physick, and fellow of the Colledg of Physitians in London.	Moffett, Thomas, 1553-1604.; Bennet, Christopher, 1617-1655.	1655 (1655)	Wing M2382; Thomason E835_16; ESTC R202888	187,851	309

taken with a dissolving heat should rather burn sweet Cipres Lignum Rhodium Sanders sprigs of Tamarisk Gum tragacanth Elemi Cherri-tree gum and a little Camphire Likewise their vaporing perfumes should be of red-rose-leaves Lignum Rhodium and Sanders with rose-water and Vinegar boil'd together So that according to the kind of taking and the season of the year is the air to be corrected in the time of pestilence and not alike at all times with one perfume which Marsilius Ficinus so diligently observeth that he blameth many Physicians for their general preferring of this or that masticatory some extolling the chewing of sage as one goes abroad others the chewing of Setwall roots others of Elecampana Cloves Angelica or Citron pils which indeed are best in a cold season but in the hot time of the year and a hot Plague the chewing of Coriander seeds prepared grains Sanders and the pulpe of Oringes Lemons Citrons or Pearmains is far to be preferred before them The like may be said of sweet Pomanders strong of musk civet ambre and storax which are no doubt good correctors of the pestilent aire but yet in hot seasons and pestilences nothing so good as the smel of a Lemon stickt with lignum Rhodium instead of cloves and inwardly stuffed with a sponge throughly soaked in vinegar of red-roses and violets But here a great question ariseth whether sweet smels correct the pestilent aire or rather be as a guide to bring it the sooner into our hearts To determin which question I call all the dwellers in Bucklers berry in London to give their sentence which only street by reason that it is wholly replenished with Physick Drugs and Spicery and was daily perfumed in the time of the plague with pounding of Spices melting of gums and making perfumes for others escaped that great plague brought from Newhaven whereof there died so many that scarce any house was left unvisited Of variety and change of Aire Hitherto of the correcting and tempering of distempered and infected aire which being clean and purified may yet through ignorance of wilfulness be abused For as Satyrus would needs kiss the glowing cole and children delight to put their fingers in the candle so some know not how to use this general nourishment which is not given as all other nourisments be unto one particular man or Country but equally and universally unto all Now there be two sorts of aire as every man knoweth the one open and wide unto all men the other private shut within the compass of a house or chamber that permitted to any man which is in health this proper to very many and sickly persons who receiving but the least blast of the outward aire upon a suddain fall into great extremities and make the recidival sickness to be worse then the former Many and amongst them my Lord Rich his brother can justifie this who almost recovered of the small pox looked but out of a casement and presently was striken with death So likewise one Harwood of Suffolk a rich Clothier coming suddenly in an extream frost from a very hot fire into the cold aire his blood was presently so corrupted that he became a leaper which is an ordinary cause of the same disease in high Germany as Paracelsus and many other writers have truely noted Again some men tie themselves so to one aire that if they go but a mile from home like to fresh-water soldiers they are presently sick others are so delighted with variety that no one aire or Country can contain them of which humor was Agesilaus Phocion Diogenes Cato yea and Socrates himself who sometimes lay abroad in the fields sometimes at home sometimes travailed one Country and sometimes another that being accustomed to all airs they might if necessity served the better abide all Furthermore in long diseases it is not the worst but the best physick to change airs which few can endure that are tied in conceit or by custom only to one and therefore that of both fantastical humors is the most dangerous Besides this the time of going abroad in the open aire is to be considered for some go out early before the dew be off and the sun up which is very unwholsom others also walk at night after the dew falling which is as perilous for the dew to mans body is as rust unto iron in so much that it blasteth the face and maketh it scabby especially in some months if a man do wash himself with it Furthermore some men delight to travel in tempests and winds which the very hedghog reproveth and the beasts of the field eschue by seeking coverture for strong and violent winds be as Cardan cals them the whales of the aire rowling clouds and meteors where and whether they list beating down trees houses and castles yea shaking otherwhiles the earths foundation Now as some goe abroad too much so others with over-fearfulness take the open aire too little sitting at home like cramb'd Capons in a close room and not daring in a manner to behold the light better it were by degrees to go abroad then with such certainty of danger to stay at home yet so that a calm mild and temperate day be chosen lest we make more haste outward then good speed and bewail the alteration of aire through decrease of health For as contrariety of meats make tumults and rebellions in our stomacks so contrary changes of aire upon the sudden maketh dangerous combats in our bodies Yea though a fenny aire be thick and loathsome yet suddenly to go dwel upon the high mountains in a clear aire is a posting to death rather then a course to life and albeit a Southern Country be pregnant of corruption for all trees lose their leaves first on the Southside and on the Southside houses decay soonest and the Southside of corn is soonest blasted and malt lying in the Southside of a Garner is first tainted with weevels yet suddenly to depart to a Northern soil where the North wind chiefly bloweth is to leave the Sea to be forzen in ice and bringeth imminent peril if not hasty death to the patient yea to them that are otherwise sound of body wherefore use the open aire in his due time season quantity and order else shalt thou be offended with that nourishment which simply of all other is most necessary for as this invisible milk for so Severinus cals the aire in time season and quantity nourisheth these lower and perhaps the upper bodies so being taken out of time and longer and lesser then we should it is both the child the mother and the nurse of infinite mischiefs CHAP. V. 1. Of Meat and the differences thereof in Kind Substance Temperature and Taste PUrposing now to treat of Meats I will keep this method First I will shew their differences then the particular natures of every one of them Last of all in what variety quantity and order they are to be eaten Their differences

about the rump on either side thereof and are as many take it very restorative The Matrix The matrix of beasts yea of a barren Doe so highly esteemed is but a sinewy and hard substance slow of digestion and little nourishment Eyes Eyes of young beasts and young birds are not unwholesome being separated from their skins fat balls and humours for then nothing remaineth but a sweet tender and musculous flesh which is very easie of digestion Ears Snouts and Lips The Ears Snouts and Lips of beasts being bloudless and of a sinewy nature are more watrish viscous and flegmatick then that they may be commended for any good or indifferent nourishment Pinions and Feet The Pinions of birds and the feet of beasts are of like disposition yet the pinions of geese hens capons and chickens are of good nourishment and so are the feet of young hogs pigs Lambs and Calves yea also a tender Cow-heel is counted restorative and Heliogabalus the Emperour amongst his most dainty and lustful dishes made Pies of Cocks-combs Cock-stones Nightingales tongues and Camels heels as Lampridius writeth Galen also for men sick of agues boil'd Piggs-pettitoes in barly water whereby each was bettered by the other the Ptisan making them the more tender they makeing the Ptisan more nourishing and agreeable to the stomack That sodden Geese feet were restorative Messalinus Cotta by trial found out if Pliny may be credited The Tails or Rumps of Beasts are counted by certain unskilful Physitians yea of Dr. Isaac himself to be hard of digestion First because they are so far distant from the fountain of heat Secondly because they are most of a sinewy constitution to which if a third had been added that they are but covers of a close-stool perhaps is arguments would have been of some indifferent weight For indeed the farther any part is from the heart it is fed and nourished with the more fine and temperate blood also the extremities or ends of sinews are of strong wholesome and good nourishment but as for the Tails and Rumps of Beasts it is indifferently mingled of flesh sinews and fat so that the very Anatomy of them shews them to be a meat agreeable to all stomacks and verily whosoever hath eaten of a pye made onely of Mutton Rumps cannot but confess it a light wholesom and good nourishment The Rumps of Birds are correspondent having kernels instead of flesh but when they are too fat they overclog and cloy the stomack Udders The Udders of milch beasts as Kine Ewes Does and She-goats are a laudable taste and better then Tripes because they are of a more fleshy nature Lean Udders must be sod tender in fat broth fat Udders may be sod alone each of them need first a little corning with salt being naturally of a flegmatick and moist substance Stones The Stones of a Bore work marvails saith Pissanellus in decayed bodies stirring up lust through abundance of seed gathered by superfluous and ranck nourishment Indeed when Bucks and Stags are ready for the rut their stones and pisels are taken for the like purpose as for the stones of young Cocks Pheasants Drakes Partridges and Sparrows it were a world to write how highly they are esteemed Averrhois thinks that the stones of a young Cock being kept long in good feeding and separated from his Hens do every day add so much flesh unto our bodies as the stones themselves are in weight Avicen as much esteemeth Cock-sparrowes stones or rather more But the Paduan Doctors but especially Doctor Calves-head giveth that faculty to the stones of Pheasants and Partridges above all others Skin The Skins of Beasts yea of a roasted Pig is so far from nourishing that it can hardly be well digested of a strong stomack Some Birds are sodden or roasted without their skins because they are black and bitter as Rooks Dawes Cootes and Moor-hens and howsoever others are spared yet the skin of no Bird turneth to nourishment but rather to ill humours or filthy excrements Nay the very skin of an egg of a nut an almond a prune a raisen or a corrin and generally of all fruit is so far from nourishing that it cometh out of the strongest mans body either whole or broken as it went in CHAP. XIIII Of Milk FOrasmuch as childrens stomacks and old mens bodies and consumed mens natures be so weak that not onely all flesh and fish but also the fruits of the earth are burdensome to their tender and weak bowels God tendring the growing of the one the preservation of the other and the restoring of the third hath therefore appointed Milk which the youngest child the weariest old man and such as sickness hath consumed may easily digest If we would define or describe what Milk is it seemeth to be nothing but white blood orrather the abundant part of blood whited in the breasts of such creatures as are ordained by nature to give suck appointed properly for children and sucking little ones but accidentally for all men sick either of consuming diseases or old age That womens Milk is fittest for young children it may easily be proved by the course of nature which converteth the superfluity of blood in a woman bearing her child within her to the brests for no other purpose then that she should nourish her own babe For truly nothing is so unperfect defectuous naked deformed and filthy as a man when he is newly born into the world through a straite and outstreatched passage defiled with blood replenished with corruption more like to a slain then a living creature whom no body would vouchsafe to take up and look on much less to wash kiss and embrace it had not nature inspired an inward love in the mother towards her own and in such as be the mothers friends Hence it cometh that mothers yet hot sweating with travail trembling still for their many and extream throws forget not their new-born Babes but smile upon them in their greatest weakness heaping labour upon labour changing the nights trouble with the dayes unquietness suffering it to taste no other milk then that wherewith in their bellies it was maintained This doth a kind and natural mother if she be of a sound and indifferent strong constitution for her child and thus did Eve Sara Rebecca and Rachel yea all women which truely loved their children and were both able and willing to feed their own There be many reasons why mothers should be afraid to commit their children to starnge women First because no Milk can be so natural unto them as their own Secondly because it is to be feared lest their children may draw ill qualities from their Nurses both of body and mind as it fell out in Iupiter whom whilst his Mother committed to Aega Olens daughter and Pans wife to be nursed by her the Country woman living only upon goats milk could not but be of a strong lascivious nature which left such an impression in the child

that growing once to the age of a stripling he was in love with every fair wench lay with his own Sister forced his own Neices left no fair woman unassaulted if either bygold or entreaty or craft and transforming himself he could obtain her love Nay when he was full of womens company he loved boys and abused himself unnaturally in companying with beasts The like also is recorded of Aegysthus who being fed in a Shepheards Cottage only with goats Milk waxed thereupon so goatish and lecherous that he defiled not onely Agamemnons bed but also neighed in a manner at every mans wife Nevertheless if the Mothers weakness be such that she cannot or her frowardness such that she will not nurse her own Child then another must be taken sutable to the Childs constitution for a fine and dainty Child requireth a Nurse like to it self and the Child of strong and clownish Parents must have a Nurse of a strong and clownish Diet. For as Lambs sucking she-goats bear course wool and Kids sucking Ewes bear soft hair so fine Children degenerate by gross womans milk losing or lesning that excellency of nature wit and complexion which from their Parents they first obtained Neither is womens Milk best onely for young and tender infants but also for men and women of riper years fallen by age or by sickness into compositions Best I mean in the way of nourishment for otherwise Asses Milk is best for some Cowes Milk and for others Goats milk because the one cleanses the other loosens and the third strengtheneth more then the rest Goatsmilk is also better for weak stomacks because they feed on boughs more then grass Sheeps-milk is sweeter thicker and more nourishing yet less agreeable to the stomack because it is fatter Cows-milk is most medicinable because with us it looseneth the body though in Arcadia it stayeth the belly and cureth consumptions better then any other milk Finally the milk ofany beast chewing the cud as Goats Sheep and Kine is very ill for rhumes murs coughes fevers headache stoppings and inflamations of any inward part for sore eyes also and shaking of sinews Avicen saith that their Milk is hurtfull to young men because they are cholerick to sore eyes headaches agues and rhumes because it is full of vapors to convulsions and cramps by reason of repletion to resolution or palsies by over moistning to the stone and obstructions because the cheesy part of it is very gross Of Beasts not chewing the Cud Camels milk is the sweetest and thinest of all other Mares milk the next and Asses milk of a middle temper not so thin but that it nourisheth much nor so thick as that easily it will curdle All milk is thinnest in the Spring and thickest in Sommer because then the wheyish part is resolved by sweat and all meats then obtain a dryer faculty Signes of the best Milk There be four wayes in women and beasts to know the most nourishing and substantial milk namely by the colour smell consistence and taste For the best milk is of a pearl-colour neither blue transparent nor gray but white clear and confused the consistence of it is neither thin nor thick hanging like a row of pearls upon ones nail if it be milked on it not overhastily running of In taste it is not soure bitter salt sweet sharp nor strong but sweet yet not in excess and pleasant after an extraordinary kind of pleasantness yet Galen affirmeth that if milk could be tasted when it is first concocted in the veins and breasts it would seem sweeter then hony it self The smell likewise of it is pure and fragrant though proper to it self and void of loathsomness Causes of good Milk Also it is much material to the goodness of milk to have speciall regard to the Diet of those creatures whose milk we use or chuse for our children Galen reporteth that a friends child of his having lost his good Nurse by an untimely death was put out to another who in time of dearth being forced to feed chiefly upon fruit and roots and Acorne bread infected her child as she her self was infected with much grevious and filthy scabs And I pray you what else is the cause that many children nursed in the Country are so subject to frets sharpness of urine and the stone but that their Nurses for the most part eat rye bread strong of the leaven and hard cheese and drink nothing but muddy and new Ale It is also recorded that a young man sick of a Consumption used the milk of a goat to his great good so long as it fed in his own field but afterward feeding in another field where store of Scammony grew and some wild spourge he fell into a deadly scowring and felt no nourishment Furthermore care is to be taken of their health that give us milk for as an unclean and pocky nurse which woful experience dayly proveth infecteth most sound and lively children so likewise a clean sound and healthful nurse recovereth a sickly and impotent child Nay which is more no man can justly doubt that a childs mind is answerable to his nurses milk and manners for what made Iupiter and Aegystus so lecherous but that they were chiefly fed with goats milk What made Romulus and Polyphemus so cruel but that they were nursed by She-wolves What made Pelias Tyrus and Neptunes son so bruitish but that he was nursed by an unhappy mare Is it any marvel also that Giles the Abbot as the Saint-register writeth continued so long the love of a solitary life in woods and deserts when three years together he suckt a Doe What made Dr. Cajus in his last sickness so peevish and so full of frets at Cambridge when he suckt one woman whom I spare to name froward of conditions and of bad diet and contrariwise so quiet and well when he suckt another of contrary disposition verily the diversity of their milks and conditions which being contrary one to the other wrought also in him that sucked them contrary effects Now having shewed what milk is best and how to be chosen let us consider how it is to be taken and used of us First therefore if any naturally loath it as Petrus Aponensis did from the day of his birth it cannot possibly give him any good nourishment but perhaps very much hurt in offending nature If contrariwise any with Philinus love nothing else or with the poor Bizonians can get no other meat or with the Tartarians and Arabians feed most often and willingly on milk let them all remember these three lessons How Milk is to be eaten and used in time of health First that they drink or eat the milk of no horned beast unsodden for so will it not easily curdle nor engender wind but Womens milk Asses milk and Mares milk need no other fire to prepare it for it will never curdle into any hard substance Secondly to be sure that milk shall

through want of milk they are not able to nurse their children Their young men die of consumptions their old men and children of cruel cramps They which dwell upon the tops of hills where every wind blows from under the Sun are for the most part sound strong nimble long-lived and fit for labour Contrariwise the valley people so seated that no wind blows upon them are ever heavy spirited dull and sickly for as a fire of green wood dieth unles the flame be scattered with continual blowing and as a standing water corrupteth in a little space so an idle aire rouled about with no winds soon putrifieth because his dissimilar parts be not separated by winowing as the chaffe is from the wheat But the best situation of a house or city is upon the slaunt of a southwest hill like to this of Ludlow wherein we sojourne for a time neither fully barred of the East North and Southern winds clear and free from the mists of bogs and fens purified from the stinck of common Sinks Vaults and Lestals as also from the unwholesome breathings of Caves Colepits Copper or Brimstone-mines not so cold as to stupifie members not so hot as to burn the skin not so moist as to swell us with rheumes nor so dry as to parch up our natural moisture not to much nor to variable as upon the top of hills not so little nor too standing as in low Vallies neither smelling of nothing as in barren Countries nor smelling of bad things as in the Fens but fragrant without a discerning of smell and sweetest of all in an unknown sweetness For howsoever some men dream that the smell of the spice-trees in Arabia felix make the neighbour inhabitants both healthfull of body and sound of mind which I will not deny if you compare them with the borderers of the Palestine lake Nevertheless as Tully saith of women They smell best which smell of nothing so verily the aire that smells of nothing is best to nourish us in health though otherwise in some sickness a perfumed aire is best and also to expel a loathsome stinck or like to the neighing of Apolloes horses to rouse up dull and sleepy senses In which respect I am of Aristotles opinion that sweet smels were appointed to be in flowers fruits barks roots fields and meddowes not onely for delight but also for medicin Nevertheless as the tastles water makes the best broath so the smelling aire gives the purest I will not say the strongest nourishment to our spirits In Plutarchs time men were grown to this wantoness that every morning and night they perfumed not only their apparrel and gloves but also their bodies with sweet ointments made of most costly spices buying with great charges what shall I say an idle a needless a womanly pleasure nay verily an unnatural and more then bruitish For every beast loveth his own mate only for her own smel whatsoever it be but some men love not their meat nor drink nor the aire nor their wifes nor themselves unless they smel or rather stinck of sweet costly and forreine fumes which being taken without cause do the head more hurt then being taken upon cause they do it good Wherefore if thy brain be temperate and not too moist cold or dull eschew a strong smelling aire such as comes from walflowers stock-gillyflowers pincks roses Hiacynths mead sweet hony suckles jasimin Narcissus musk amber civet and such like contenting thy self with the simplest aire which for sound complexions is simply best Or if for recreation and pleasuresake thou desirest it some time let it not be of a full or strong sent but mingled with sweet and soure as violets with Time and breathing rather a sharpe then a fulsome sweetness And thus much of the choice of aires now come we to the preparation and use of them CHAP. IIII. OF AIRE 1. How it is to be prepared 2. How it is to be used SAtyrus that Goat-bearded God the first time that ever he saw fire would needs kiss it and embrace it in his armes notwithstanding that Prometheus forewarn'd him of coming too nigh for he knew well enough the nature of fire to be such that as in certain distances times and quantities it may be well endured so in others it is harmful and exceeding dangerous The like may I say of heat cold moisture and driness of the aire which in the first or second step towards them may and do preserve life but the nearer you come to their extremities the nearer are you to death So that either you will be burnt with Satyrus or frozen to death with Philostratus or dryed up for lack of moisture with Darius Souldiers when they could get no water or dye as the inhabitants of the lakes in Egypt do with too much moisture Wherefore let every one consider his owne strength and constitution of body for some like to new wax are dissolved with the least heat and frozen with the least cold others with Salamanders think nothing hot enough others like to silk worms can abide no cold others with Smiths and Woodcocks can abide those frosts which even the fishes themselves can hardly tolerate So likewise dry constitutions laugh and sing with the Thrush when rain approacheth when others of the contrary complexion do mourn and lament with the Plouver because it is so wet Which being so I shall no doubt deserve well of every man in teaching him so to prepare the aire that sometimes abroad but alwayes at home it may be tempered according as he most needeth and purified from all infection Concerning the tempering of aire in our houses is it too hot and dry then coul it by sprinkling of Vinegar and Rose water by strewing the floure with green flags rushes newly gathered reed leaves water-lilly leaves violet leaves and such like stick also fresh boughes of willow sallow poplar and ashe for they are the best of all in every corner Is it too cold and moist amend it by fires of clear and dry wood and strew the room and windows with herbs of a strong smell as mints penniroial cammomil balm nep rue rosemary and sage Is it too thick and misty then attenuate and clear it in your chamber first by burning of pine-rosin as the Egyptians were wont to do then presently by burning in a hot fire-shovel some strong white-wine vinegar But their chiefest perfume of all other called Kuphi The great temper was made of sixteen simples namely wine hony raisins of the sun cipres pine-rosin mirrhe the sweet rush calamus aromaticus spike-nard cinamon berries of the great and little juniper lignumaloes saffron figtree buds and cardamoms to which composition in Galens time Democrates added Bdellium and the seed of agnus castus and the Physicians in Plutarchs time the roots of Calamint It were needless to write how wonderfully Apollo I mean our new Apollo Francis Alexander of Vercelles for so like a proud Italian he calleth his

neither are they forbidden in a strait and thin diet did they not nourish oversoon Gesner sheweth a good reason why new white and long eggs be the best of all other First because new eggs are ever full but old eggs lose every day somewhat of their substance and in the end waxing addle stink like urine whereupon they were called of the Latins Ova urinae Secondly the whitest eggs have the palest yolks and most thin fine little bloody strings swiming upon them Thirdly the longest eggs are commonly cock-eggs and therefore of better nourishment Some eggs are almost all yolk and no white yea some have two yolks in them others have in a manner no yolk at all or at the most nothing proportionable the former sort nourish most the other are fittest for hot stomacks The dressing of Eggs. Concerning the preparation of them a rare egg any way drest is lightest of digestion a hard egg is most rebellious an egg betwixt both is of strongest nourishment Brassavola reporteth a Monk to have been made so costiff with hard eggs that no art was available to give him on stool Furthermore all hard eggs especially hardened by frying get from the fire a smoky and hot nature and from the frying-pan and burnt butter a maligne quality not onely as offenssive to the stomack as rotten eggs but also sending up bad vapours to the brain and heart Eggs potcht into water or verjuce are fittest for hot complexions or men distempered with agues sodden rare in the shell they are soonest converted into blood but being rare-roasted in embers they make thickest and strongest blood and are fittest for weak cold and watrish stomachs Thus much of Birds eggs which in a little quantity nourish much and are called of Ficinus the quintescence of flesh because they yeild so speedy and fine nourishment Now it resteth to discourse something of Tortesses eggs which be not poisonable nor hurtful as the eggs of Snakes Lizards and Chamaeleons but very fit to nourish men in hot agues when all birds eggs may be suspected of inflaming the blood for they are of a more flegmatick nature tempering hot humours procuring sleep to the watchful moisture to the dryed person and inspiring as it were a second life to such as seem desperately consumed of hot fevers Sir Wil. Pelham that worthy valiant Knight kept them in his garden at the Minories by the Tower of London where I wondred much at the beast and more at her eggs for contrary to the nature of hens eggs the most spotted were the best and the hardest of shell the best likewise and they are worst when they are newest best when they are three months old Last of all as touching that question made by Plutack and disputed of him more wittily then wisely of either side Whether the Hen or the Egg be first in nature I omit it as a foolish and superfluous doubt sith common sence and reason telleth us that the perfecter creatures were first made and the whole is more ancient then that which is gotten of the whole Of Blood Blood being the charet-man or coacher of life was expresly forbidden the Israelites though it were but the blood of beasts partly because they were naturally given to be revengeful and cruel hearted partly also because no blood is much nourishing out of the body albeit in the body it is the onely matter of true nourishment Nevertheless the Laconians black broth so highly commended of Dionysius was made of kidds blood sodden with water vinegar and salt yea the Bisalta of Scythia make pottage of horses blood milk accounting it their best and strongest meat Also in Aegira Bulls blood is so far from being poisonable as it is in all other places that it is held both delicate and restorative so likewise is the blood of a Mare that was never covered for if she once have taken horse her bloud is dangerous Drusus the Tribune purposing to accuse Quintus Caepio of giving him poison drank Goats blood a good while before whereby he waxed so pale and colourless that many indeed suspected him to have been poisoned by Caepio whereby it is manifest that bloud hath been a very ancient nourishment and not lately devised by our country pudding writes or curious sawce makers as Iason Pratensis and other foolish dietists have imagined Nay which is more not onely the blood of beasts hath been given for meat but also the blood of men and striplings hath been drunk for a restorative yea in Rome the seat and nurse of all inhumanity Physicians did prescribe their patients the blood of Wrestlers causing them to suck it warm breathing and spinning out of their veins drawing into their corrupt bodies a sound mans life and sucking that in with both lips which a dogg is not suffered to lick with his tongue yea they were not ashamed to prescribe them a meat made of mans marrow and infants brains The Grecians afterwards were as bold and impious as the Romans tasting of every inward and outward part of mans body not leaving the nails unprosecuted But of all other I wonder most at Marsilius Ficinus a most famous Scholer and accounted for a good Catholick who hath thus written of the use of mans blood No doubt saith he the milk of a young and sound woman is very restorative for old men but the liquor of mans blood is far better which old women-witches knowing to be true they get young children unto them and prick or wound them and suck their blood to preserve their own health and life And why may not then old men I pray you for a need suck likewise the blood of a young man or maid which is merry lusty sound and willing to spare some of his superfluous blood for another mans life wherefore I advise them to suck an ounce or two of blood fasting out of the veine of the left arm at a little orifice towards the full of the moon drinking presently upon it some wine and sugar c. Which though he protesteth himself to have uttered as a great secret though the Prince of Abohaly writ as much before in his Old-mans diet and to be as lawful as it is helpful in Physicks practise yet by his leave I dare again protest and prove the contrary for it is unlawful to gaze upon a mans carcase and is it lawful to eat or drink his blood what remedy call you that which is more savage and abominable then the grief it self what law what reason nay what conjecture found out this canibals diet well let it proceed from the Americans and Barbarians nay from the Grecians that were counted civil Let Democritus dream and comment that some diseases are best cured with anointing the blood of strangers and malefactors others with the blood of our friends and kinsfolks let Miletus cure sore eyes with mens galls Artemon the falling sickness with dead mens sculls Antheus convulsions with

of blood and wind Surius and Bruyrinus and Schengkius tell of many others who lived long in health though they fed excessively having as it were an Ostriches stomach joined with a Dogs appetite On the contrary side some may as well live with hunger and long abstinence a great while according as I have read in many Authors Hippocrates thinketh that if a man abstain from meat and drink seven dayes he cannot escape death yea when some afterwards were perswaded to eat their meat never passed thorough them because the hungry gut called jejanum intestinum was by abstinence clung together But Pliny saw the contrary and Tinous Aunt lived two months together without meat or drink Albertus Alexander Benedictus and Iacobus Sylvius write yet of more strange and incredible abstinence both of men and women which truely I would have registred amongst the lies of the golden Legend and the Abbot of Ursberg his Chronicles had not William Rondeletius and honest Ioubertus written the like of a French gentlewoman living almost three years without any sustenance of meat bread broth or drink who afterwards was married and conceived a child which she brougth well forth and happily alive By all which amples we may easily gather how absurd the fashion and custome was before Plutarchs time when every man did not carve for himself but was carved unto by another and that after the Colledge fashion so equally that none had more or less then his fellows which order howsoever it pleased Hagias the Sophister because feasts in Greek are called Divisions and the Masters of feasts Great Dividers and Servants Carvers and Moera and Lachesis being the Goddesses of feastings were called so of equality of division and that peace is maintained where equality is kept and that Agamemnons Souldiers as Homer testifieth in sundry places had every one alike measure and weight of victuals yet by his leave neither is humanity therein observed nor geometrical proportion kept nor nature imitated For tell me what humanity can we call it to give a man less then his stomach wanteth what geometrical proportion is that which giveth as much to the half-full as the empty vessel and how dare we prescribe one quantity to all when mens stomachs be as divers in quantity of receit and ability of concoction as their faces be differing in appearance so that it is too little for one which is too much for another and no certain measure nor number nor weight is to be prescribed to any man but every one to feed according as his stomach is able to concoct which to use Hippocrates his phrase though it have no ears yet hath it intelligence to beg his own and wisdome to discern when it hath enough willing us not to eat till we have an appetite nor to eat so long till we have none This rule Galen observing amongst many other he was seldome sick and lived as Sipontinus writeth 140 years Also let us remember that in youth health and winter we may feed more plentifully as also after exercise and at our own own ordinary table But when we are at great feasts or forced to eat upon strange meats be they never so finely dressed let jealousy be our carver after the example of Augustus Caesar and also of Plato who at great feasts fed onely on some known dish I have read somewhere when they of Thasis invited Alexander to a feast that he fed well upon their fat mutton beife and gave away the forced dishes and curious Quelqchoses not to his own Countrimen and Souldiers but to his captives and slaves saying That he would rather they were all dead then that any of his owne by surfeiting upon any unknown meat should be never so little sick And thus much of the just quantity of meats which Physitians may aim at by long experience prescribing a full Diet to them that be sound and strong and accustomed to much feeding a moderate diet to them that be indifferent and a thin diet to such weaklings and sick persons as require neither much nor often feeding CHAP. XXXII Of the quality of Meats HIppocrates and Galen bids every man both in health and sickness beware what kind of meat he most commonly useth for like food like flesh like meat like nourishment And therefore we find that some have Quails stomachs and may eat poyson A Woman by custome drank the juice of Hemlocks usually Gal. lib. 3. simpl medic cap. 18. And a Maid fed usually by custome upon Napellus Spiders and other poysons Caelius lib. A. L. 11. cap. 18. Mithridates the younger used continually a counterpoyson made of poysons in so much that when he would have poysoned himself being by his son Pharnaces vilany betrayed to Lucullus he could not do it and therefore killed himself by the help of a Frenchman Plin. lib. 23. cap. 9. All which cautions are particularly set down by Hippocrates and Galen though scatteringly and by peices in several places that I need not add to his own words which I have aphoristically set down in these sentences following because no man ever did the like 1. Let every man take heed what quality his meat is of for custome begetteth another nature and the whole constitution of body may be changed by Diet. 2. We should take those kinds of meats which are best for our own particular bodys for our own particular age temperature distemperature complexion For as every particular member of the body is nourished with a several juice so labourers and idle persons children and striplings old men and yound men cold and hot bodies phlegmatick and cholerick complexions must have divers Diets 3. Young hot strong and labouring mens stomachs may feed of meats giving both an hard and a gross juice as beife bacon poudred-flesh and fish hard cheese rye-bread and hard egs c. which may nourish slowly and be concocted by degrees for if they should eat things of light nourishment as veal lamb capons chickens poacht-egs partridges pheasants or plovers c. either their meat would be too soon digested or else wholy converted into choler Contrariwise milk is fittest for young children tender flesh for them that are growing and liquid meats for such as be sick of sharpe diseases Furthermore if any mans bowels or body be too dry a moist diet of suppings and boild meats yeelds him a remedy but if it be too moist all his meats and diet must tend to driness 4. Sweet meats are unfit for young children and young men and hot stomachs for they corrupt childrens teeth and turn most into choler in young mens stomachs but they are good for old men and cold complexions yea hony it self agreeth with them 5 Bitter meats engender choler and burn blood giving no general nourishment to the whole howsoever they be acceptable to some one part 6. Sharp spices which I have particularly named before in the fifth Chapter of