the City of Zirizea abounds exceedingly well with all things which are usefull and commodious for mans life and no lesse than when it was famous for negotiations with strangers and frequented with goers and commers of all sides For the concourse and merchandise of forraigners and celebrity of a place may sometimes be lost suddenly either by the rising of some war from without or seditions at home or popular tumults for presently all strangers withdraw themselves and take care for their own safety But that negotiation that is performed amongst the Citizens and Inhabitants shutting out all usury and traffique in a compendious way made with strangers or the Inhabitants and is a liberal gain is stable firm solid and not so much subject to envy But if calamity come from some other place then the Citizens and natives Mediocrity of felicity is commendable stand firm and undaunted and do not easily forsake their Country their Churches their houses wives and dear children nor do they go away yeild what they have to strangers to enjoy Yet the men of Zirizea All things are governed by divine providence in so great mutation of humane things and change from one to another which is all wrought by Gods providence seem wisely to have consulted for their own profit and to have exchanged uncertain things for certain For their people being most skilfull Marriners when their trading at Sea did not succeed very well in forraign commodities they altered their course of Trade and began to fall to fishing which is a very great gain and hurts no body and here they fear no shipwrack nor losse of traffique no disgrace for usury or increase upon money and the rest of the Citizens follow saving wayes of gain such as are honest and envied by none out of those things that the earth yeilds abundantly for mans use wherewith they recreate themselves liberally besides a laudable education they provide a very large patrimony for their children and leave them an inheritance to preserve their Parents names by But that strangers may understand in what part of the earth and under what climate the City Zirizea is and under what elevation of the Pole I took the height of the Pole-artick or North-Pole above Zirizea's Horizon and I found the elevation to be 51. degrees 47. Minutes and that was the altitude of that verticall point the longitude is 25. degrees whence it comes that since the Sun is not far from them and departs not very far from the Island but doth moderately shine upon them in the two Equinoctials and two Solstices the Inhabitants by the benefit of the Sun have no dull and stupid wits but they are witty civill merry yet many of them by the reason of the Sea that hath its influence upon them will speak very scurrilous crabbed and brinish language sometimes of which subject I lately held a pleasant discourse with Job Nicolais a discreet man and industrious who carefully labours for the publick good and doth what he can to promote it and desireth that the Citizens should be men of sound and good manners and if they have contracted any fault by the Salt vapours of the Sea that are so near to them that it might be mended with good education CHAP. III. How comes it that such as are old men or far in years do beget children not so strong and oft times such as are froward and of a sad and sowre Countenance and such as are seldome merry THey that marry when their age declines and their youthly heat is abated for the most part beget sorrowfull children and such as are froward sad not amiable silent and of a sowre and frowning countenance Youth is full of juyce because they are not so hot in the act of venery or so lusty as young people that are full of juice For the heat of our age is fittest for to act this Comedy Old men being feeble their spirits small and their body dry and exhausted of bloody humours the natural faculties are weak and that force that comes from them to beget a child is uneffectuall and invalid having very small ability so that they cannot perform the marriage duty so manfully and there wants many things in those they do beget Which is intimated in that dispute that the Angel is said to have had with Esdras Esdras 4. Ask saith he thy Mother and she will tell thee why those she bears now are not like those she bore before thee but are lesse in stature and she will say unto thee that the rest were conceived and born when she was young but these when the Womb decayed hence it is that such as are born in old age are slender small weak Why some are not so strong feeble not tall and have not so much strength because natures forces are decayed with age and the natural and vitall spirits are diminished Why some are dejected in mind whence also the mind is more dejected is not so nimble lively merry and jocant because these have obtain'd all things sparingly and not so largely unlesse perhaps their Parents were pleasing and merry and moderately heated with wine when they were begot For sometimes old people wil shew themselves young and lascivious together to be so wel pleased that in the spring they wil one embrace the other A Proverb from Horses that are worn out For that time of the year serves for Horses also that are decaid and worn out as the Proverb saith for to make them neigh whereby the Hollanders mean that there are none so old but at that pleasant time of the year when nature puts forth all her forces but they will shew some tokens of a mind raised also whereby it falls out that if a woman thus chance to conceive when they are merry The affects of Parents go to the Children after nine months she will bring forth a mild beautifull pleasant flourishing lively generous active Child And if their Parents in their young years were of a clowdy and impleasing disposition as many froward people be when they get their Children all falls to the worst all those affections and tumults that use to arise amongst married people and all their distempers will be derived to their Children so that neither the conception nor time the woman goes with Child nor her delivery not nutrition can be performed decently and according to Natures order and the Children contract many ertours and faults of bodies and mindes from the disturbed motions of their minds of all which the fault is to be imputed to the parents who were the cause and seed plot of all these imperfections of nature The faults of Children to be imputed to the Parents Wherefore such as would take the best care for their Childrens good and would have them tractable and pleasant and sweet of behaviour must take especiall care for this that in matrimoniall embracements all things may be moderately performed that nothing happen
imbred generosity and hence it is that wise men sometimes beget stupid slothful Children Why wise men sometimes beget fools and that are of a feeble mind because they are not much given to these delights But when the Progenitors are hot in venereous actions and do liberally and abundantly employ themselves therein it oft-times happens that the children are of the same manners desires and actions of mind that their Parents are A Simile from Birds For as Birds are of the same Nature with those they are bred from and are of the same colour'd Feathers so Children exactly imitate the manners of their Progenitors and are essentially the same in nature with them And the same native signs that are printed on the Parents are found also commonly upon the Children For Horace Carmin l. 4. od 4. speaks thus Good and strong beget the same Calves and Colts their Sires ' present From stout Eagles never came Birds like Pigeons impotent And because Education perfects the gifts of nature corrects errours and frees from vice he added very fitly Art amends what Nature is Good Manners mend what 's amisse Chremes in Terence concludes from the Mothers Manners what the son is for thus he brawls with Sostrata Heauton-timerum Act. 4. Scen. 3. His manners shew him born of thee In that in all he doth agree He hath thy vices to a hair None but thee then could him bear Ill Crows ill Egs. And truly it is so by nature and we see it fall out most commonly that Children will imitate their Parents conditions and tread upon their heels following dicing whoring tipling yet some by their Parents care and benefit of education come to good manners wherefore every man ought to strive so to moderate his passions and so order his course of life and dyet that he may not hurt himself or infect his posterity For from the fathers seed and the mothers blood many things use to descend to posterity for the same force and vertue that is in the Parents sperm is poured forth into the children as from one vessel into another So saith Catullus Cat will ever follow kind And Children are of Parents mind Parents diseases faults descend to their children Seeing that the seed flowes from the principall parts and contains in it the force and nature of all the members it comes to passe that what disease is in any part descends by right of succession to the Children So the Leprosie Epilepsie feet-gowt hand-gowt and other diseases and defects are hereditary And because the Mothers blood is the chief nutriment for the Child Women derive most part of mischief to the children and the secondary beginning of procreation it oft-times happens that Children take more mischief from the Mother whether you consider their bodies or minds So wicked drunken foolish women commonly with us bring forth just such Children and that are subject to the same vices The Mothers fault doth more wrong to Children if she be unchaste and play the whore than the Fathers fault doth so likewise if she be given to drunkennesse or any other vice For if a man of ripe years or when he is young and unmarried should get a Maid ☞ with child he deserves almost to be commended for it and not to be disgraced For it is commonly said that one may safely marry his daughter to such a man who is not unfruitful and barren but hath proof of his Manhood already in getting of a child But if a woman or a maid that is marriageable should do the like or suffer any such matter to be done when she begins to fall in love she would so lose her reputation and honour that no Cobler nor any mean fellow whatsoever but would scorn to marry her and if one should marry her he would quickly hit her in the teeth with her whoredome So as soon as any maid is overcome and hath lost her maidenhead and those cloysters of Virginity are entred that fault can never be washt away nor can those closets be ever lockt again For so the Poet describes it Virginity once stain'd Can never be regain'd So Plautus in Amphitruo I do not think that to be the dowry which people call so but chastity and bashfulnesse and a moderate desire a fear of the Gods love of Parents and concord with kindred Wherefore besides others Ecclus. that wise Hebrew doth earnestly warn Parents that they should be very careful to look to their daughters chastity and honesty that they may not be polluted with wicked company or be stained by them For women-kind are naturally frail and more subject to be abused Since therefore there are many things that hinder manners and good life as also there are many things that defile the body and the decent frame thereof care must be had that nothing may pollute the mind with ill manners or disgrace the body by any monstrous deformity And because the beauty and decent form of the body is very acceptacle to all Men we should observe exactly by the progresse of natural causes what things will make one beautiful or deformed and ugly since these things principally consist in womens Imagination and in such things as proceed from without care must be had that that Sex may see nothing A woman with child is subject to passions that may move their mind to think absurdly which in framing the child may bring any hurt For if any mischief happen from without if any fear or trembling fall on them when they meet any terrible thing presently all this fright falls upon the child the natural spirits and humours being turn'd thither and all the faculties of the woman are busied in framing such a thing For a vehement and fixed cogitation whilest it doth tosse the vehement species of things and turns them often over it doth imprint that form and figure which it so often thinks on upon the Child For the confluence of the internal spirit and humours paints out the Image of the thing thought on Whence comes deformity of body It is not for nothing and for no cause that some have such ill shapen bodies ill and uncomely cruel countenances swoln blabber'd cheeks wry mouthes wide chaps for these things come to passe because their mothers being great with them thought on such deformed shapes and representations or fastned their eyes too much upon them So I dislike nothing more than lascivious women that use to delight themselves beyond measure with Whelps and Apes and to carry them in their bosoms to foster them to kisse and hug them For by the company and sight of these creatures the imperfect Nature of women may take some strange impressions and they may frame in their minds such forms as may make their children deformed Maka Dogs So the great women of the Low-Countroys love Malta dogs they are commonly called Camusii from their crooked nostrils their bodies are but small they are white as snow their noses are flat
poure in Sea-water boyled with Honey With what things Wines use to be seasoned some mingle Cows Milk with it others strew Quick-lime Sand Powdred Stones that are brought into these parts from Bentimary with some handfulls of Salt added to it or six or seven Eggs and thus they use to correct all the faults of the wine and to restore the taste and colour as they were at first And though some of these are not very hurtfull yet artificiall wines are alwaies worse than naturall wines and are not so wholesome CHAP. XLIX Predictions of Tempests by the touch of Sea-water and what Winter Thunders fore-shew I Oft observed as I passed in a Ship to the farther Shores by putting my hand into the Salt-water that the Sea-water was luke-warm which shews three daies before-hand that a Tempest is comming with strong winds and storms For when in the deep Sea that is far from us whence the floud comes to us there hath been a tempest the Sea-water shaken and tossed grows hot as our hands do clapt together and so the tempests come roling along unto us and the waves rise to a mighty height So when the Spring comes Southern tempests bring forth hearbs and grasse by the motion and agitation of the Ayre that causeth heat Likewise if in Winter it Thunders and Lightens and the Ayre be hot with frequent coruscations it shews that a tempest will follow and Whirl-winds will arise and cause great floods in the Ocean Winter Thunders foreshew Tempests 〈◊〉 Thunâ—â—â—â—â—â—â—shew â—â—â—â—sts For when that distemper of the Ayre is tossed besides the season and contrary to natures order there must needs be some violent cause that moves those tempests for I never observed any such thing but the next day grievous tempests arose and inundations in many places For thunder and lightning are ordinary in Summer as also burning Feavers which if they come in Winter it must proceed from some vehement cause which the contrariety of the season could not hinder To which purpose is that of Hippocrates Those are not so dangerously sick that fall sick of a disease that is suitable to their nature L. â— age custome or to the season of the year as those are that are sick without any of these circumstances CHAP. L. Children are delighted with beautifull things and cannot away with the sight of old wrinkled women and therefore they are not to be put to lye with old women in their beds and much lesse to lye at their feet in the bed THere is no mortall wight that is not allured with beautifull and pleasant things but above all others children and young people who being lively and waggish All men love pleasant things do greedily look on fire-torches lights squibs and all flaming things and catch at all alluring speeches that cheer the mind and make the spirits more active Wherefore froward children are never better made quiet than with songs or when delightfull spectacles are presented unto their eyes which their fiery vigour and aereal and clear substance effects whereupon they fear the dark and cannot away with deformed and horrid spectacles Children cannot endure old Women So when some wrinkled or warty old wife carrieth a young child in her arms and fosters it in her bosome at the very sight of her the child will cry and fly back and if any women that are more beautifull and well adorned stand by the child will lean toward one of them and reach out its arms unto her Wherefore they do unadvisedly that hire crabbed and testy nurses to tend their children or put them forth to old women to bring up who will chew the meat and put it into the childs mouth The breath of old women ill for children For when they commonly have an ill-sented and corrupt stinking breath all this ill savour that comes from them the children partake of and thence they are of a wan dark colour and Weesill colour and contract many ill things from them especially if they lye on the lower side of the bed with them or at their feet CAAP. LI. How it comes to passe that children women with child Priests and such as lead a solitary and sedentary life are of all people first infected with popular diseases and with the Plague I Find by experience that when popular and contagious diseases spread abroad Who first fall sick of contagious diseases such as are wont to wander here and there in Summer and Autumn that those are soonest sick that are very young and weak and of moist constitution As children young people and females and such as live idly and sleep much and so heap up much excrements For these are soonest exposed to danger and soonest take hold of the contagion of diseases For as a very fine well-polished Looking-Glasse A simile taken from a glasse and all clean things are soonest clouded and stained with grosse vapours and as fire soonest takes hold of light straw and chaff and dry fuel for what is solid is longer a burning So tender bodies when popular diseases first begin to reign A simile from Souldiers that are unarmed like Souldiers unarmed are soon slain in war and next of all women with child cannot easily stand out against it because they can hardly bear the burden they carry about them and are ready to faint already whereupon when any light disease invades them not so fierce as the Plague they presently sink under it But Priests and Monks because they are given to sleep and idlenesse and never use exercise or to labour can very hardly resist these diseases But Porters and Carriers and other common people that are deficient in their diet and all the course of their life is irregular and because they live sordidly they are not freed from these diseases though many of them whose bodies are hardned by labour are longer before they fall into them But since children in acute diseases cannot endure the violence of them yet in more mild diseases they can struggle with them as long as lusty young people can and can hold out as long in lingring and wasting sicknesses for Children have in possibility what young men have actually For there is an imbred force and vigour in this age that must be continued to last many years Hence St. Augustine saith children have a kind of perfection De civitat Dei c. 14. for they are conceived and born with it yet they have it in possibility and in their reasonable soul and not in bignesse of their bodies For all the parts are in the seed and they grow forth by degrees and come to their full magnitude and beauty For in time as they grow up the force of reason and other gifts of Nature do shew themselves Whence our Country people use to say when they commend young children and bring them up in hopes This child hath a man within him CHAP. LII Divers documents of Nature and a fit conjunction of several matters
XVIII To what we ought to ascribe amongst such multitudes of men the great dissimilitude of forme and the manifold difference that is between man and man in their faces countenances eyes and other parts so that sometimes Brothers and Sisters are not one like the other AS there is in Nature a wonderful gracious variety so there is the same in the form and shapes of men in their colours contenance eyes lineaments and in their faces there is found an admitable and numberlesse disparity and dissimilitude To What must be ascribed dissimilitude in men Some refer this to the influence of the Starrs but I think to referr it more properly and rationally to the nature of the Seed and the Mothers Imagination For being that the woman in the very conception and all the time she goes with Child The Womans imagination doth many things even for nine months hath divers thoughts in her mind and every moment is drawn this way and that way by thinking on divers things and her eyes being still fixed upon such objects she lights upon it falls out that those things she sees and are fastest rivered in her imagination are communicated to her Child For when the Nature of the woman is carefully intent in framing the Infant and thinks on nothing but a fair and well proportioned Child and all her forces are bent thereunto if any shape or Image be represented to the sight this soon reflects upon the of-spring who participates of it Moreover Mothers so soon as the Child is born do the best they can that the Child may have a decent comely well proportioned body fitly distinguished in all the parts of it The faults of Nature may be amended For Childrens bodies are ductile and pliable as Clay or Wax and may be bended any way Wherefore if the mouth stand awry and is uncomely they forge frame and order it into a decent posture and if the face be frowning and lowring they will make it pleasant and amiable and beautifull they make the eyes very handsome and lovely and of gray eyes or blunket which Infants commonly have by reason of moysture they make them black by abundantly feeding them with milk and chiefly if the Nurse be of a hot temper and the Child be kept in a dark place For a light Chamber where the Sun shines in much or a great fire hurts the render eyes But squint rolling gogle eyes and such as turn the wrong way That the balls of the eyes may grow black are reduced to their right posture by bending the sight the contrary way for the Muscles will be brought to their naturall places by wresting them to the otherside and being turned about will come right they raise and set eaven the nostrills that are crooked and fall down by a gentle way of handling them but they reduce Eagle noses and such as are with beck by pressing them down to a decent figure that the perpendicular of the nose may be stretched forth from the forehead and eybrows unto the hollow part in the upper-lip like a gnomon or right line or style that stands upon Sun Dialls What forme of Nose is comely neither set on bending outward or inward Likewise if the lips be swoln or fat which is usuall with the Aethiopians as also if the nose that is crooked be pressed down they handle these artificially and they often presse them that they may grow lesse and sink down lower by the same way they frame into a comely fashion a chin that sticks out or is drawn in the forehead head cheeks or eybrows that are deformed and decently order by art what is not seemly So if nature limp on any part and is gon off from the best forme and proportion Whence comes deformity of the body as some have wry necks crooked gowty ill favourd legs or bunch backs that makes them ugly all these errours are easily mended in those that are Children and such members as are wrested or disjoynted or out of their places are for right by the care and industry of man So the diligent care of Nurses makes Children grow up handsomely and so are obnoxious to no deformities of their limbs But the negligence of many Mothers and great idlenesse makes Children not onely to grow up unhandsomely and ill favour'dly but they become bunch-backr lame squint eye'd bull-headed and not comely to look on for they are departed from the dignity and excellency that is in man's body Some Nurses are over diligent and too officious who bestow some labour also on the Childrens privy parts that serve them them to make water with and in time shall be usefull for propagation of Children that they may be ripe betimes and not fail of hopes of getting Children and when they come to be marryed they may not be a shamed for ill performing the matrimoniall duty when they observe bitter contentions and quarrels to arise amongst kindred for this very cause that they will threaten to divorce their Sons in Law unlesse they can shew their manhood and please their wives the better yet I use to dislike and discommend this effeminate and lascivious office used by Nurses for young youths by reason of pulling them thus by their yards before their time or that they come to be of age or have mans strength they are prone to venery and so consume those helps and vent out those humours and vitall spirits wherewith afterwards they might be able to procreate lusty and lively Children whereas by unseasonable venery The discommodities of untimly venery they either get no Children or if they beget any they are lither and not so long lived Therefore I think it is good not to let young people marry too soon untill their forces bestrong and confirmed and that they can endure any hardnesse in matrimoniall society which tender years cannot do for they will presently wax faint and effeminate It is then better that the secret parts should swell out of their own accord naturally than that they should be drawn forth by any allurements CHAP. XIX Many kinds of Animals Fishes Birds Insects are bred without Seed as also Pants and many Animals and small Birds by an unusall way without the copulation of Male and Female do conceive DAily examples shew that many things come forth and are propagated by nature of their own accord and withovt any embracings of others or generation onely from filth corruption as Dormice Rats Snails Shell-fish Carterpillers Grass-Worms Wasps Hornets Weevils Froggs Moths Toads Eels Many things breed from corruption In mens bodies Worms though these have seed within them whereby afterwards they propagate abundantly Also many plants grow forth from the muddy moysture of the earth and fatnesse of it no seed being sowed or plants set in the ground before as are Darnel Cockle Nettles wild Olives Weeds and grasse that spring up of themselves Also there are some Crows in the Low-Countries that conceive by their
14th year of their age or somewhat later shew some signes of maturity their courses then running so that they are fit to conceive which force continues with them till 44 yeares of their age and some that are lusty and lively will be fruitfull till 55 as I have observed amongst our Country women When a womans courses stop I know that the flowing of the terms is extended farther in some women of good tempers but that is rare nor doth allwaies that excrementitious humour flow from a naturall cause Wherefore their opinion must be examined who say that as there is no certain time of womens termes to end so neither of their conception nor cannot any set bounds be prefixed for these things For though some have their courses at 60 yeares old yet that proceeds not from a naturall cause but from some affect that is contrary to Nature which also hinders all conception For anger indignation wrath and sudden fear may cause the vessels and passages to open and cleave asunder so by a violent concourse of humours such a thing may run out many by falls and accidents having the fibres of the veins pulled asunder But since women for the most part about the yeare 45 or at the most 50 have their termes stopt and no hopes are to be had of Children by lying with them Old wives should not marry young men they do contrary to the law of Nature that marry young men or men that for greedinesse of mony woe and marry such old women For the labour is lost on both sides just as if a man should cast good seed into dry hungry lean ground It is more tolerable for a full bodied lively old man that he should marry a very young Mayd in her green and tender years For from that society they may hope for some benefit for posterity because a man is never thought to be so old and barren and exhausted but that he may get a Child But what is the Nature of man and how long the force lasts in him to get Children must be shewed by the way For since young men as Hippocrates saith are full of imbred heat about the age of 16. or somewhat more they have much vitall strength and their secrets begin to be hairy How long a man is fruitful and their chins begin to shoot forth with fine decent down which force and heat of procreating Children increaseth daily more and more untill 45 yeares or till 50 and ends at 65. For then for the most part the manhood begins to flag and the seed becomes unfruitfull the naturall spirits being extinguished and the humours drying up out of which by the benefit of heat the seed is wont to be made There are indeed some strong lusty old men who have spent their younger dayes continently and moderately who are fruitfull untill 70 yeares and subsist very manly in performing nuptiall duties examples whereof there are sufficient in Brabant and amongst the Goths and Sweeds A History done so I heard a trusty Pilate relate that when he traficked at Stockholme when Gustavus the Father of the most invincible Ericus who now reigns ruled the Land he was called by the King to be at the marriage of a man that was a hundred years old who married a Bride of 30 years old and he professed sincerely that the old man had many Children by her For he was a man as there are many in that Country who was very green and fresh in his old age that one would hardly think him to be 50 yeares old The Brabanders live very â—old Also amongst the Tungri and Campania in Brabant where the Ayre is wonderfull calme and the Nation is very temperate and frugall it is no new thing but allmost common that men of 80 yeares marry young Mayds and have Children by them wherefore Age doth nothing hinder a man forgetting of Children unlesse he be wholy exhausted by incontinence in his youngest dayes and his genitall parts be withered and barren wherefore the Dutch have a scoffing Proverb against such that are worn out A Proverb against such as are spent A simile from horses exhausted and quite broken by venery Vroech hengst Vroech ghuyle the comparison being taken from horses who if they back Mares often or too soon they will quickly grow old and will never be fit for any warlick service But what difference there is between men and women or what cause or reason there is in it that a woman is sooner barren than a man and ceaseth to eject her seed if any perhaps should require to know I say it is the natural hear wherein a man excells For since a woman is more moyst than a man A man is hotter than a woman as her courses declare and the softnesse of her body a man doth exceed her in native heat Now heat is the chief thing that concocts the humours and changes them into the substance of seed A man is longer fruitfull than a Woman which aliment the woman wanting she grows fat indeed with age but she grows barren sooner than a man doth whose fat melts by his heat and his humours are dissolved but by the benefit thereof they are elaborated into seed Also I ascribe it to this that a woman is not so strong as a man nor so wise and prudent nor hath so much reason nor is so ingenious in contriving her affairs as a man is CHAP. XXV Who chiefly take diseases from others And how it comes about that children grow well when Physick is given to the Nurse SInce contagious diseases infect all that come in the way of them yet they infect no men sooner than such whose Natures are of much affinity one with another as are Parents and Children Sisters Brothers Cousins who are in danger almost on all hand and the disease spreads amongst them And the nearer any man is of bloud and kindred the sooner he catcheth this mischief from others by reason of Sympathy that is consanguinity and agreement in humours and spirits Kindred soonest infected Wherefore when the Plague is hot and contagious diseases rage I use to speak to people of one blood to stay one from another and live something farther from them least the pestilent Ayre should infect them that will sooner lay hold of acquaintance and kindred than strangers and such as are not allyed Nurses infect children though none be free from danger The same reason serves for Nurses and children sucking at their brests for when the Nurse is sick all the force of the disease comes to the child and the Nurse is helped by it and escapes the danger For the force of the disease being diffused through the veins that are the receptacles of bloud and milk useth to be made exactly from bloud the child draws forth the worst and impure aliment whence it falls out that the whole force of the disease rests upon the child because the bloud which is the substance
in Physical businesse is bound to stretch his wits soundly to understand it The consent of Soul and Body For it concerns every man to know and search out these things because a man is conversant in himself and may rest in the contemplation of himself For since a man consists of Soul and Body and the body is the Instrument of the soul whereby she doth her actions who ought not to have care and to observe both these parts who would not wish that both might be preserved the best he could since one cannot subsist without the other and perform its office and functions without offence For both do ask each others help we see Horat. in Art Poet. And by this means most friendly they agree The body for a time is transitory and mortal but since it is the vessel and receptacle of the Soul and useth its Ministery God hath also design'd that for eternity and by the mystery of the resurrection it shall be made partaker of the same gift that is of immortality as it is the will of God CHAP. III. It is most natural to procreate one like himself and men ought to use it reverently as a divine gift and Ordinance of God WHen God had made the Heavens and this sublunary world and framed them with so admirable wisdom and skill that there was nothing wanting for necessary uses commodity and pleasure it seemed good to him to make One that might have the use of them and that might delight in these things and enjoy them Wherefore when all the ornaments of nature were compleat and perfected he brought man into the world as into his own possession and that he might not lead a disconsolate life he gave a woman for an helper and companion Marriage Gods Ordinance and he put into them both force to love and a greedy desire of procreating their like having prepared for that purpose a swelling humour and spirit and organical parts and that the one should not be afraid or decline the society of the other he added allurements and a desire of mutual Embracing that when they did use procreation they should be sweetly affected and pacified wonderfull wayes For unlesse this were natural to all kind of Creatures that they should care for posterity and propagate their like mankind would quickly be lost nor could the affairs of mortalls long endure All men on earth and Beasts and Birds above Georg. 3. And Fishes of the Sea are mad with love What will a young man do whom Cupid burns He swims it 'h dark and tempestous night Ore the rough boyling Seas and nere returns Though Parents cry and billous would one fright Divers spurs to Venery Since this Passion is so forcible and so unruly that it can hardly be subdued and but a few can bridle their passions God granted unto man the use of the matrimonial bed that he might be bounded thereby and not defile themselves with wandring lust Wherefore God appointed Marriage who want the gift of Continency wherefore so soon as copulation is done and the Woman happens to prove with child great is natures cunning in fostering coagulating and framing the seed of both sexes that at the set time when nine moneths are run over Man that Ruler and Ornament of the whole world may come forth Job expressed this doubtful hope and first beginning of Nature Chap. 10. now going about to form a man by a most apposite similitude Hast thou not poured me forth as Milk and Crudled me as Cheese Thou hast compassed me about with skin and flesh thou hast made me with bones and sinews and my life is from thee and thy force hath upheld my breath Like to this is that saying of the wise Hebrew who describes the beginnings of his birth thus Wisd 7. I am also a mortal man like to other men the off spring of the first man on earth and I was made flesh in my mothers womb that came from coagulated blood in ten Moneths from the seed of man and the pleasure that comes with sleep And when I was born I drew in the common Ayre What are Mans beginnings and fell upon the earth which is of like nature and the first voice I uttered was crying as all others do By which we understand that in all other things as also in propagation of Children that all things must be done according to Natures order moderately All things must be done moderately As by the opinion of Hippocrates and Galen let motion or exercise precede meat after meat use venery after Venus sleep which being done the natural faculties do their parts in forming the child and the wearinesse that came by venery is abated by sleep which also helps concoction for sleep is a great help to facilitate concoction But as for that concerns the principles of Generation there is a great question controverted whether a woman afford seed to the generation of the child or whether manly force make any thing to the similitude of the form or difference of the fâ—x I shall first handle that concerning the form and similitude of it and afterwards of the female seed and what help it affords for procreation of the child And I shall do this the more accurately because there are some Bawds in our Countrey that would perswade women that Mothers afford very little to the generation of the child but onely are at the trouble to carry it and must endure the tedious time of nine Moneths Women do much in procteation of Children as if the womb were hired by men as Merchants ships are to be fraited by them and to discharge their burden By this perswasion women grow luke-warm and lose all humane affections toward their children and Love that was wont to be almost peculiar to this sex is quite banished But I think that such deserved to be held infamous and are not fit for honest womens company And would we punish them it should be done openly with all scorn and contempt For these are the cause that some are so cruel and barbarous to their children as to cast them forth and forsake them These are more cruel and savage than Tigers Lions Bears Panthers and other bruit beasts who bestow much labour to feed and bring up their young ones Math. 19. Force of Nature seen by Animals which our Saviour shewed by a Hen a domestick bird for all creatures will fight for their young ones and will venter their lives boldly for them I saw in these spring Moneths a Flock of 300. sheep which followed their bleating young ones that were carried away in a Ship from Land and were pulled from their Dams Udders Their Dams were not frighted with the Seas violence but with incredible desire followed till the Sea flowing up drownd them all An exhortation to humanity from the love of dumb beasts By this example I would have wicked unnatural Parents take heed and be admonished who
love their children very little or but from the lips outward when as poor dumb creatures ordained for the slaughter shew such great love toward their young CHAP. IV. Of the likenesse of Parents and Children whence it is that outward accidents are communicated to the Children and the Mothers Imagination is the cause of the production of many Forms The force of the Seed is a reason of similitude IT is a constant opinion amongst Physitians and confirmed by many reasons that if the Woman afford most seed the child will be like the Mother but if the man afford most then it will be like the Father but if they both afford alike for quantity and force then will the child be like to them both or one part will resemble the Father another part the Mother Lastly if it fall on the right side of the Womb and proceed from the right Testicle by reason of heat it will be a Manchild but if it proceed from the left and incline to the left side by reason of cold and moisture it will be a Girle Libro de opifice Lactantius his mind of the likenesse of the seed Lactantius saith that sometime when the mans seed falls on the left side of the womb a male child is begotten But because the conception is perfected in that part of the womb that is ordain'd for the procreation of females there will be something in it that is but half man and will be fairer and whiter or smoother and lesse hairy than is convenient for a man to be or the voice will be small and sharp or the chin will be bare and bald and the courage will be lesse Whence is the name Virago Again if the seed be cast into the right side of the womb it may be a girle may be begotten but because she is conceived in the place ordained for the male she will be more viraginous than ordinary women as having strong limbs very tall a swart countenance What woman is most imperious a hairy chin a ruder face a strong voyce and a bold and man-like courage whence it falls out that such women will cast off the yoke and rule over men and will take so much power to themselves in governing that men dare not speak or stir for them Though these things and many more might be alledged for the similitude of the form which are very probable and for the most part they so fall out yet the principal cause of this effect seems to me to consist in the tacite Imagination of the woman For if she conceive in her mind or do by chance fasten her eyes upon any object and imprint that in her Mind the child commonly doth represent that in the outward parts The womans Imagination what it doth So whilest the Man and Woman Embrace if the woman think of the mans countenance and look upon him or thinks of any one else that likenesse will the child represent For such is the power of Imagination that when the woman doth intentively behold any thing she will produce something like that she beheld so it falls out that children have the forms of divers things upon them as Warts Spots Moles Dashes which cannot easily be wiped off or taken away So some of our women seeing a Hare bring forth a child with a Hare-lip Hare-lip so some children are born with flat Noses wry mouths great bubber lips and ill shaped of all the body because the woman when she conceived the child and in the time she was big of it had her eyes and mind busied upon some monstrous creature Art can change the shape and colour of Animals Men use to effect the like by art in other creatures setting before them when they are to conceive the colours of divers things Jacob used that stratagem who was afterwards called Israel laying rods he had pilled off the rinds from before them every where Gen. 30. and so he made the greatest part of the flock spotted and party-coloured So we make painted birds dogs and horses dapled and with divers spots Which Artifice of Nature and all the reasons and causes of similitude Pliny exactly comprehended almost in these words Similitude in the mind is a diligent thinking of a thing L. 7. c. 12. Pliny his opinion of the cause of similitude wherein many accidents have great force as sight hearing memory forms taken up at the very instant of conception and a sudden thought rising of any thing is supposed to give the form and similitude hence some are like their Grandfathers others like their Fathers or some other kindred Hence there are more differences in Man than in other Creatures because the quicknesse of his thought and nimblenesse of his mind and variety of his wit imprint divers marks because other creatures have their minds fixed almost and unmoved and all of the same kind are alike Hence it is that a woman may cause her Child to have a strange form and nothing like to the father So a woman that had layn with another besides her husband fearing lest her husband should come in the mean time after 9. moneths she brought forth a Child not like the party that she lay with but like her husband that was absent There is a very witty Epigram written of this Sir Tho More 's witty Epigram by that most ingenious Man Sir Thomas More Those four boys Sabine Which thy Wife brought forth Thou think'st are not thine Unlike thee naught-worth But that Boy alone That she lately bore Like thee for thine own Thou tak'st and no more Four as bastards born Rejected are in scorn Yet wise men suppose That the Mothers mind Doth the Child dispose For likenesse in 's kind Four were begot When that many miles From home thou wert not Feared nor thy wiles This last like to thee Was begot in fear Thy Wife was not free Thou wert then too near This I think was it That thy likenesse hit Hence it followes that the argument is vain to assign the Father from the likenesse of the Child Likenesse can confiâ—m no child to be the Fathers own For neither the Law of Nature nor the publick consent of Mankind will suffer a child to be laid to any man because it is like him But what concerns Wit and Manners and propensions of the mind daily examples teach us that Children which have all force and vital spirits from the faculty of the Seed are commonly of the same condition with their progenitors and of the same nature But there is much in this whether Venery be used with great or weak desire For many are lesse venereous and not so hot and do not with any great desire use copulation but rather decline from it and that they may pacifie their wives they pay their due benevolence as St. Paul calls it very faintly and drowsily 3 Cor. 7. whence it happens that the Child falls short of the Parents nature manners and
of the Husbandman so the Infant receives all things more plentifully from the Mother For first the seed of them both is foster'd and heaped together in the womb then it growes up with the Mothers blood and increaseth by degrees secretly Hence it is that by sympathy Children love their Mothers most Why Children love their Mothers best for it proceeds from heaâ—nesse of Nature and because the Mothers forces were most employed about them Also Mothers are full of love to their Câ—ildren and more indulgent to their young ones than the Farâ—ers be who are oft-times more rigid I think the Evangelist meant so Math. 2. when he brings in Rachel lamenting for her Children who was so wounded in her mind with grief for being deprived of them Jer. 32. that she would by no means be comforted For there is nothing â—yâ— the opinion of Esaias more repugnant to Natures Laws than for a woman to forget her child Ch. 49. and to be cruel against the fruit of her womb laying aside natural affection We see that Fathers have their natural propension to their Children also but it is laâ—er before it appears For Fathers love them best when they are grown up and then they take most care for them when they begin to see some hopes of them But Mothers take more care of them in their Iâ—fancy and because that age stands in need of other's help most they are then the most loving and careful over them and not so curst as the Fathers be Math. 23. Stoâ—ks love their dâ—ms For this cause the Scriptures do so oft inviâ—er us to gratitude which by the example of Storks children do lowe to their Patents and we are commanded to requite them The like love we see in a Hen which loves the chickens A Hens siting she hate bed more dearly and though the Cock was the cause that the Eggs breed chickens yet he takes no care for them when they are hatched But that both yield seed we may prove in hen-eggs A Hen lays egs without a Cock. for a Hen will lay eggs without the Cock but if she sit on them they will sooner corrupt than hatch but the eggs the Hen laid when a Cock â—od her will after 19 dayes be hatched put under a Hen so that the Chickens will peep before the shell break This tedious Câ—ild-bearing time of the Mother in which for 9. moneths she feeds the Child with her purest blood and then her love toward her Child newly born and the usual likenesse of the Child to the Mother do clearly prove Women are not idle in making the child that women afford seed and that women do more toward making the Child than men do who onely injecting their seed are gone and neither further the woman nor help the child any more Yet in so many moneths the woman must do much to frame the child and nourish it Aeneid 6. For it cannot be that it should grow up from that congealed lump but by a wonderfull way CHAP. VII Whence growes the Sex and Kind that is whether of the two Man or Woman is the cause of a male or female Child God the chief cause of fruitfulnesse THough all things are justly ascribed to God that made all yet many things go in order by Natures rules and are carried by their imbred motion God being the Author of all these things he useth to alter many of them and to change the order of things and to bring forth some things in other forms and orders contrary to Natures Lawes For example a woman desiring a Man-child prayes unto God earnestly for it and God hears her prayers For example Sarah being past children Gen. 27. and her courses long since stayd yet she conceived Isaac by Abraham that was a very old man in which child God would have to be placed all hopes of his posterity and that hence all Nations should take the beginning of their happinesse Also Aâ—na being much afflicted with her long barrennesse 1 Reg. 1. by earnest and constant prayer she obtained Samuel from God Also Elisha's officious Landlady 4 Kings 4. by the prayers of the Prophet had a Child given her from God and afterwards he raised this Child that was dead to life again Luc. 1. So Zacharias being old by Gods dispensation had a Child by Elizabeth that was stricken in years and uncurably barren which was John the fore-runner of Christ So many others have pray'd to God for a Child to be their Heir in their Estates and God hath granted them their request None can doubt but this is Gods work and these things have a peculiar effect from the divine Will But we shall speak of things that proceed from natural causes and that nature useth to work by her imbred force For she prepares a body fit for the Souls condition and gives every thing its temper But since there are two principles out of which the body of man is made and which make the Child like the progenitors The force of seed and to be of this or that Sex Seed common to both sexes and Menstrual blood proper to the woman The similitude consists in the force of the male or female feed so that it proves like to the one or the other as the seed is more plentifully afforded by one or the other The force of the menstruall blood which belongs onely to the woman For were that force in the seed since the mans seed is alwaies stronger and hotter than the womans children would be all boyes Wherefore the kind of the creature is attributed to the Temperament of the active qualities which consist in heat and cold and to the substance or nature of the matter under them that is to the flowing of the menstrual blood Now the seed affords both force to beget and form the child and matter for its generation also in the menstrual blood there is both matter and force For as the seed most helps to the material principle so doth the menstrual blood to the potential Seed is saith Galen L. 2. de sem blood well concocted by the vessels that contain it so that blood is not onely the matter of generating the child but it is also seed in possiâ—ility Now that menstrual blood hath both principles that is both matter and faculty of effecting any thing is confessed by all But seed is the strongest efficient the matter of it being very small in quantity but the menstrual blood is much in quantity Menstrual blood affords matter to feed the child but the potential or efficient faculty of it is very feeble Now if the material principle of generation according to which the sex is made were onely in the menstrual blood then should all children be girles as if all the efficient force were in the seed they would all be boys But since both have both principles and in menstrual blood matter predominates in quantity and
forth so by the superfluity of a cold humour the seeds of men are choked that the force and faculty of the womb can make no sex nor form of them Seseli of Marsilea is of the like effect Sage Nutmegs Cinamon Cassia Lignea Zedoary Lignum Aloes Masterwort Calamint Clary Dittany Elecampane Orris root juice of Motherwort and innumerable things of this kind that discuss winds What things purge the watrinesse of the womb and wipe away superfluous moysture and prepare the womb as till'd grounds for to sow the seeds on So other things by other forces cause that the matrix be not so slippery that the seed may stick the faster Of this kind are Amber shavings of Ivory Storax Calamita Harts-horn Sumach Blatta Byzantina Myrtil seed Witwalls Cypresse Nuts Frankincense with the bark Mastick Spoonwort Avens Cinquefoil red Roses whereof some applyed outwardly others taken inwardly strengthen the womb and consume superfluous moysture bind close the gaping of the matrix and make it hold the Seed and because the women on this side the Alps for the most part are subject to fits of the mother and such diseases of the womb they had need use these things before others But if the parts be overdryed and burnt they must use moderately moystning means both Meats and Physick A dry matrix what is good for it But they that would be commended for their wedlock actions and not be without Children they must observe this rule to lie with their Wives at distance of time not too often nor yet too seldome for both these hurt fruitfulnesse alike For to eject immoderately weakens a man and spends his spirits and to forbear longer than it is convenient makes the seed ineffectuall and not manly enough Also we must consider the opportunity of this matter when it is best to copulate and what sex you conceive in your mind to beget Avicenna his Counsel for Copulation Avicenna no base fellow nor an Authour of the lowest rank describes the time and manner of procreating a sex When saith he the terms are spent and the womb is cleansed which is commonly in five dayes or 7. at most if a man lye with his Wife from the first day she is purged to the fifth she will conceive a Male but from the fifth to the eighth day a female Again from the eighth day to the twelfth a male again but after that number of dayes an Hermaphrodite Though he brings no probable cause of these effects yet methinks it seems to be very probable Avicenna his opinion explan'd For the first dayes the womb being cleansed and the fordid humour perfectly purged forth the matrix hath more heat whereby the man and the womans seed stick faster together and is directed to the right side of the womb by the attractive force of the Liver and the right Kidney from which also in those dayes hot blood is derived for nutriment of the Child that shall be For the left parts as being cold and benummed and void of blood cannot contribute any thing so soon as the terms are purged but blood is drawn later and more sparingly from the veins of the left side which are called the Emulgent veins Emulgent veins that creep about the Milt and the left Kidney so that at length after the first day untill the eighth day some blood comes forth of them whereby the Child is to be nourished So that when those parts perform their office and the right side parts do cease by reason of the scituation and cold nutriment a female is begot After the eighth day the parts on the right side do their office again and blood comes from them to nourish a male After this circuit of dayes because the menstrual blood flowes without distinction from all parts and the matrix is made too moyst with cold humours flowing unto it and the seed joyns to neither side but flotes in the midst of the womb betwixt both What begus Hermaphrodites The seed of both Sexes confounded make an Hermaphrodite which conception takes its form and forces sometimes from the left sometimes from the right side and useth the help of them both Hence Hermaphrodites are begot which name is so call'd from Mercury and Venus Irregular copulation is detestable Sometimes this vicious and infamous conception is begot by undecent copulation when the woman besides Natures custome lyes uppermost and the man under her sometimes times to the great hurt of their health for by that copulation turn'd the wrong way they become subject to Ruptures and Herniaes especially if they be full with meats CHAP. X. Whether the Child be nourished with the menstrual excrement and whether Maids may conceive before they have their Terms DAily Experience proves that some have been married at 12. years old and some to their great hurt and damage of their health have had no terms at 19. years old The Courses is an argument of conception Whence many ask Whether when a Maid is fit for a Man and she never had her courses she can conceive some are of opinion it cannot be that one can conceive but after her terms are over and this seems to me to be the truth For when the helps be wanting that further conception and the matrix wants the humour should feed the Child how can a woman conceive A Similitude from flourishishing shrubs But our Matrons especially Midwives reason thus from Trees as no Plant wants fruit that bears flowers and no Tree is barren that yields blossoms but every Tree is unfruitfull that wants flowers so young Maids that have no courses conceive not nor do their wombs swell though they receive the seed When the courses stay then stayes fruitfulnesse But women in years bear Children no longer after their terms are stopt For since the flux of this excrement affords matter to generation of Mankind the seed of man like runnet and leaven heaping this up within it self it follows that a woman cannot conceive either before that humour begins to run nor after that it leaves off to run any longer because the nutriment for the Child is wanting What use of the terms But here ariseth another question whether the menstrual bloud be a profitable Excrement and fit to seed the child or onely a filthy matter which at set times is voided as a sink I know that Pliny and many more think so who suppose that the menstruall bloud is venemous and monstrous and they do wonderfully rayse this opinion So Juvenal taking an argument from hence to speak against women stirs up men to hate them Sat 6. and doth purposely write a whole Satyr against them that despising them they should never marry I know indeed that the flux of the Terms is a fowl thing and what harm may come by it if this sink be stopt longer then it should be and that Moses did well Levit. 18.20 Deut. 29. as God commanded him to forbid all
cure of the Pox. and Confectio Hamech are good or because their urin must be qualified Benedicta Laxativa is good with the decoction of Guaicum which I hold to be a sort of Ebony And unlesse care be had to help the body with such remedies the humours will scatter over all and the Pox will infect the whole body For these two diseases are of kin and near one to the other as a Cancer and the Leprosie For what a Cancer is in one part of the body that is the Leprosy over all So that contagious affection when it is in all the body and spread into all parts causeth that fowl disease which men call the French Pox some the Pox of Naples or that those disgraceful names may be laid aside in favour of such famous countries let it be called the fowl or contagious Pox. But that which is in the groin and secrets may be called pudendagra But since it is the nature of man to be shamelesse and reproachfull in respect of other mens miseries and will insolently insult over those that are oppressed with such calamities the common people when this disease is spread all over the body call it the Mothers Pox A proverb upon those that are sick of the Pox. but if it be but in one part they call it the daughters Pox. And because one grows from the other they speak in a common jeer that The common jeer against those that have sores in their Groin that comely Husband or rather fowl and filthy hath married the mother and her two daughters when as besides the swellings of the groins the body is full of ulcers and boyls CHAP. XXIV When men are sick they grow tall though they eaâ— lesse but they lose in breadth What hinders tallnesse YOung people that eat much do not grow up so comely and so tall and handsome as they should as we find by daily experience For the natural heat is choked and overwhelmed with too much moysture that the bodies cannot grow decently tall But such as feed moderately and sparingly and keep a set time and form of diet do not grow exceeding fat nor doth their fat or flesh increase but the bones grow long and augment So we see that young people and children in long and chronical diseases do grow more slender and lean Why some grow long and others broâ—ll but they shoot forth in length and talnesse Which I should think comes to passe by reason of drinesse For the bones are dry and are nourished by such like nutriment For since the humours and aliments sick people take in grow drie by the heat and drinesse of the body the bones wax long and by reason of dry nutriment they shoot forth in length especially when a man is in that age when his body is moyst and ductil like clay and may be drawn forth in length A Simile from clay that is ductill Yet every one hath a certain bounds of his growth and the limits are set for our just stature and the means and ways whereby by degrees we secretly grow to be handsomely tall or ill favour'd and that force of growing in length is seldome extended beyond twenty five years of age How long time men grow in tallnesse and commonly ceaseth under nineteen years old Whence it is that teeth struck out will not come again after that date of years nor will bones broken and cartilages consolidate because they are made of the seed of the Parents But to grow fat and grosse is not limited to certain times but as we eat or drink in abundance Which may be done when a man is in his standing or declining age For though a man eat abundantly he will not grow tall One force causeth tallnesse another breadth but square and grosse For there is one faculty that nourisheth the body and another that augments it For that consists in the plenty of of nutriment but that about the solid part of the body namely the bones nerves cartilages c. Which if they increase and grow long the body increaseth also though it consume and wast away Wherefore nature in producing of bones whence length comes useth the force of heat whereby she dries the humours a little and fits the aliments to feed the bones For augmentation cannot be made without plenty of nutriment For when a Creature is generated it requires to be augmented till it comes to its full growth and to spread in length and breadth Then to make it continue and last the rest of its life to come nutrition doth its office that what decayes may be restored and what the qualities of the ambient Ayre consume may be repaired yet the body growing nothing bigger thereby or longer Wherefore the augmenting faculty is that that draws forth the bones of men in Feavers like Wax by the heat and vertue of the seminal excrement which in the vigour of years is very forcible and effectuall to do this But if children and young men use to eat milk from their Cradles and to use exercise they grow longer What things make the body increase and more personable For by using to drink Milk the bones are fed because it is very like to seed and good blood well concocted by the use of fruits the Nerves of water the flesh as we may see in Oxen that grow fat where much water is and in moist grounds they augment and grow greater And again in the Low-Countries especially those of Holland who become so fat by their natural beer that their chins will lye upon their breasts Their bellies fat Pers Sat. 2. a foot and half stick out CHAP. XXV Whether it is best to open a Vein when one is fasting or after meat and whether it be lawfull to sleep presently after blood-letting IT is needlesse to relate here what profit it is to man to have a vein opened and what good men find by it in health or sicknesse and who must be let bloud and when For every one may learn this from a faithful and honest Physitian not from that common and triviall custome that some trifling fellows have invented who too rigidly observe the Stars more than the humours But since there use to be infinite questions moved concerning this matter I shall determine all in a few words whether it is expedient to open a vein When men are fasting or full For since I see many tremble and fear when a vein must be opened lest they should swound or faint I think it fit to give them some meat and a little strong wine For I have often observed some frequently to fall down in a swound and not to move and could hardly with smels and pulling them be recovered Meat and drink feed the spirits Add to this that blood runs not together and plentifully when people are fasting but faintly and by degrees and sometimes it will not come forth Because nature greedily keeps back the treasure of
Jaws fumes rise from these and infect the spittle with a contrary quality Whence it is that sometimes we perceive a salt sowre sweet Sweat and spittle have their forces from the humours or sharp taste in our spittle as there is in sweat also Hence it is that when men are fasting their breath stinks exceedingly and the unsavourinesse of the breath offends all near us that talk with us For some foggy ill smells evaporate and boyl forth of the body as out of some muddy lake and these being of a venemous nature infect the fountains of spittle And this moysture that swims in the mouth and moystneth the tongue and waters our meat is nothing else What spittle is than a flegmatique excrement that ariseth from the stomach from the nutrimental juice received in and flees to the brain and so is sent down to the tongue and Jaws Hence it is that those whose stomachs abound with flegme are alwaies full of spittle in their mouths and is overwet with immoderate moisture but such as are hot about the entrals and dry with a feavorous heat their tongues are not wet at all Who have a dry or moist mouth but crack as the earth doth when it is over-dried and parched by the heat of the Sun Since therefore the qualities and effects of Spittle come from the humours for out of them is it drawn by the faculty of nature as fire draws distilled water from hearbs the reason may be easily understood A simile from distilled hearbs why spittle should do such strange things and destroy some creatures And if the spittle of a sound man be effectuall for many uses that it will not onely destroy many creatures but kills Quicksilver also and fixeth it what shall we think of such that are sick of the Leprosy the Pox and many other contagious diseases I know many that have catcht the small Pox and measils by onely putting their mouths to the cups whereon the spittle of those that were infected did stick by reason of the clamminesse of it and venemous mud that fastneth to the teeth so that for the same cause the bitings of all creatures are dangerous by reason of the contagiousnesse of their spittle except the nerves and muscles be not hurt by it CHAP. XLV Of the use of Milk Beestings Creame The dutch call the first Beest the latter Room also what will keep these from cloddering in the Stomach Milk Who it is good for THe use of Milk is not alike wholsome for all people for those that have cold Stomachs it grows soure in them and fills the body with wind and those that are very hot of temper in them it burns and sends forth stinking vapours and offends the Head And since the nature of Milk is so that it will thicken and be condensed by heat Milk is thickned by heat and melts by cold and melted by cold it follows that it is soonest clottered in a hot Stomach and nothing will hinder this more than Honey and Sugar adding a little Salt to it But since I have known many strangled by clottered Milk coagulated in their Stomachs their breath being stopped when they began to vomit I think some wanton young men and lascivious suiters do very ill who at their afternoon meetings use to stuff themselves with Creame and Biestings and other Milk-meats and drink Wine abundantly with them to the great detriment of their health For Wine makes Milk curdle Wine and milk mingled are naught and become like to Cheese wherewith the Stomach being offended and is not able to concoct it all turnes to corruption and these are the foundations and seminaries of great diseases Milk corrupts Fish So fish and Milk and all soure things mingled with Milk and drenched with Wine cause Scabs and the Leprosy For all things cramb'd in thus promiscuously corrupt and are made subject to putrefaction Those gluttons that when a Cow hath new Calved love Beestings Beestings shall find nothing more hurtfull to man so that Children that within three dayes after they are born do suck their Mothers Milk are very ill by it and onely escape Death For it coagulates and clotters in their bodies and stops the Channells of the blood and the Veins so that nutriments cannot passe fitly and without hurt But these things dissolve Milk and Clottered blood also Cummin-seed Oyxmel and Vineger of Squils Angelica Master-wort CHAP. XLVI Why Gouty people are Lascivious and Prone to venery and as many as lye on their backs and on hard beds Gowty people are very lascivious SUch as have the Joynt-Gout are most commonly Lascivious and lust exceedingly partly because they have been used to it by long custome by the immoderate use whereof they came to have that disease partly because their Nerves are grown stiff and stretched out by it and by lying often on their backs the humours flow to the generative parts They also that ride much or lye along on Ship-boards and lye hard on their backs are very Prone and given much to Venery For the Nerves destinated for mans generation that run to the genitall parts grow hot so that by the agitation and influence of humours the loines are provoked and there is erection made thereby By the same reason if any man hurt or bruise his great Toe of his foot immediately from this effect the groin and cods swell that is that wrinkled cover of the Testicles is in pain by it arising from consent and by reason of the interweaving of Nervs and Veins As if any man puts into a fire that is very hot a pair of Tongues or other iron A simile from Smiths not only the part put into the fire will be red hot but also that part which is farr from the fire grows so hot that it cannot be handled so pain is communicated to the parts that are on the same side and the sickly affect is conveighed to the neighbouring part So from the Stomach Intestins Matrix Spleen Liver the head is affected and when the brain is hurt or troubled with any distemper the mischiefe is derived from thence to the parts that are under it And therefore Mid-wives though they know not the cause of it The generative parts are signs of good health or sicknesse use to search and see the Testicles of Children when they are sick and their privy member by the observation whereof they can judge young men also may perceive certain signes of recovery of death of health or sicknesse For if the cases of the Testicles be loose and feeble and the Cods fall down it is a signe that the naturall faculties are fallen The Testicles hanging down or close up what signs they are and the vitall Spirits that are the props of Life But if these secret parts be wrinkled and raised up and the yard stands stiffe it is a signe all will be well But that the event may exactly answer the praediction we
of the Milk is infected and tainted with a feavourish quality Wherefore they must be presently weaned that they suck not in the disease and be polluted with the vicious juice Sick children infect the Nurses Also Nurses sometimes take diseases from sucking children but they are not so dangerous because there proceeds not so great force of the Malignity or contagion from children as from Nurses whose bloud is hotter and more corrupt But in curing diseases in children because that age cannot away with Physick I use this stratagem that I give the Poysick to the Nurses to drink for the force of the Physick soon runs through the bloud that the milk is made of comes into the Brests and the Milk receives the quality of it so if it be a purging medicament it will purge the child if it be astringent it will stop and bind him Likewise if they be naturally subject to a Cough or Asthma I give such things as may dilate and cleanse the brest as Hyfop Horehound Orris root Elecampane Licoris Figs Savory Sometimes I command to bind up in a fine rag such Medicaments as are proper for the child and to give the infusion of them as it is commonly called especially where that age hath learned to drink and can put the cup to the mouth wherefore I study to find an art how to handle young children old men childing-women and such as lye in sick people and such as are in labour with child as the condition of every body requires and the nature of the disease having allwaies in my mind that saying of Hippocrates we must yeeld much to age to the climate l. 1. Aph. 17. to custome And as Marriners as the weather serves and the wind sometimes fold in their sheets sometimes hoise up their sails and make all they can and turn the Rudder now this way now that way as Shoomakers fit our feet with Shooes Some similitudes from common things Taylors make our clothes fit for our bodies as Nurses give children meat chewed when they are very young and do not cram them with solid meat as Masters deal with Schollers according to their age and wit and first teach them their letters then solid learning As we read Saint Paul was very carefull to do in delivering the mysteries of our faith and in teaching the Corinthians 1 Cor. 3. who being not capable of more sublime doctrine he fed yet as children with milk that is he let fall his words according to their capacities so a skillfull and experienced Physitian handles every man according to his disposition and gives such things as may profit and do no hurt at all By these reasons and examples I use to stop the mouthes of some young smatterers in learning who will let no Physick be given to Children old men child-bearing women and to such as are weak by travel in child-birth of which there are none but must be strengthened with the greatest care and a very convenient diet and by a wholesome use of Physick that can do no hurt be brought to their former health So I doubt not within three dayes after they are delivered to open a vein to women in child-bed if they have the Quinsey or a Pleuresy and by giving them a pectoral potion to ripen the flegme Also about Women with child if at any time they are infected with an acute disease great consideration must be had least the woman or the child should be endangered If there be necessity to open a vein or purge L. 1. Aph. 4. I resolve to do it as Hippocrates bids us from the fourth Moneth untill the seventh Moneth and that in the upper parts of her Arms but by no means about the Feet Thighs Ankles or Insteps to which not so much as cupping glasses must be set least there should be danger of abortion Also to young men infected with the Plague or taken with an acute disease I soon apply safe remedies and I do all I can to defend the heart the fountain of life and to drive the disease from the principal parts Moreover in these tender bodies the forces must be carefully maintained and the disease must be vanquished For it is ill Physick where nature suffers any losse Wherefore let the Physitian either do good or else let him do no harm but let him study by Art to profit all he can and this he shall well do if he do all by right reason and rules of Art CHAP. XXVI Of the skin or feather covering of the Vulture that is of great force in strengthening the Ventricle and in getting of a stomach something more effectual than Ginger whose nature is here set down also that every man hath not observed SInce there are many things that laid on outwardly will strengthen the stomach and help concoction nothing is better or more present than a Vultures skin pulled off The Nature of the Vulture being dressed and fitted as other skins are This Bird like the Kite is very greedy and will eat exceedingly that the Dutch call this from its desire of Carrion and because it is alwaies hungry and hunting after its prey Ghier from the nature whereof they call covetous people and such as are never satisfied Ghierich that is Vulture-like But since the nature of this bird is such that it greedily seeks after all things and consumes all without any hurt to it the skin of it is of that force that it will corroborate mans stomach and will strengthen a weak digestion to desire and concoct the meat and it will stop fluxes of the belly and vomiting but applyed to the stomach the contrary way For I know this by experience that if one take of the skin of this Bird and let the same be dressed by the Skinners Art handsomely and fitted if it be laid to a feeble stomach or belly it will stop the flux of it and help the slipperinesse of the Intestines especially if it be so applyed that the feathers may be downwards as we use in Garments that are held up to stroke the skins with the hayre with our hands For it comforts and cherisheth one by its warmth and heat and by its astriction it corroborates the faculties of natural forces wherewith nutriments use to be attracted retained concocted and expelled also it effects that the three nervous tunicles of the stomach and so many fibres the right ones as Galen will have it whose office is to attract the oblique that have the retentive faculty the transverse that thrust all things out shall do their offices But that skin applyed the contrary way with the feathers pointing upwards and looking aloft will stay vomiting the Muscles of the stomach being drawn downwards whereby it takes in and holds the meat And in these kind of diseases wherewith the upper or nether parts use to be affected I practise something not unlike to this For in vomiting I bid that the mouth of the Stomach shall be annointed stroking
the free Ayre In Summer we must go into cool close places and iz Winter it is good to be in the Sun we may do that in the wide fields or upon some eminent and high place But as amongst moderate and wholesome exercises for students and magistrates it is very convenient to read aloud with a clear voice and to speak out orations frequently so for strong and lusty people wrestling is good and to shoot or play at Tennis which Galen approves in a book set forth to that purpose and to play at cudgels or fight on Horseback whereby the natural heat is augmented and the body grows strong the bloud running through all the parts and hence it is that such as use exercise have a good colour and their skin is very handsome and red Yet let those that use these sports remember thus much that they must do all with moderation least violent and winding motions should cause luxations of their lims that is least any part should be dislocated or removed out of his place by their toilsome stirring and turning of their bodies And as our minds are not presently to be wearied with studying so soon as we have eaten our meat that the stomach may more commodiously be employed about concoction that the natural heat may not be dispersed and scattered So when men have eaten freely they must not fall to over-hard labour for violent and uncomposed motions hinder concoction Violent moving hurts concoction and all immoderate agitations of the body carry the raw and undigested meats into the Veins and these become the seminaries of diseases obstructions and putrefaction proceeding from thence Cockal what it is The Antients used to play at Cockall or casting of huckle bones which is done with smooth sheeps bones the Dutch call them Pickelen wherewith our young maids that are not yet ripe use to play for a husband and young married folks despise these so soon as they are married But young men use to contend one with another with a kind of bone taken forth of Oxe feet The Dutch call them Coten Cockall Childrens plays are many and they play with these at a set time of the year as they do also with Nuts and Rattles which childish sports are contemned and rejected by them when they are something elder so that once past fifteen years old they hold it not seemly and not generous to be employed in toyes for as Horace saith after a childish manner L. Serm. 1. l. 3. They build them houses and put Mice to Carts Play at even and odd and use such Arts To ride on sticks but if one with a beard Delights in 't he is mad and to be fear'd Moreover Cockals Dice are different from huckle-bones which the Dutch call Teelings are different from Dice for they are square with four sides and Dice have six the use whereof is so frequent in Europe that many men oft-times by the use of these wast all their patrimonies and when they have spent all they are thus brought to beggery whereas Cockals are used by maids amongst us and do no wayes waste any ones estate For either they passe away the time with them or if they have time to be idle they play for some small matter as for Chestnuts Filberds Pins Buttons and some such juncats Whipping of a Top. But young youth do merrily exercise themselves in whipping the top and to make it run swiftly about that it cannot be seen and will deceive the sight and that in Winter to catch themselves a heat Sat. 3. Persius saith that this kind of exercise was usual amongst the Antients and he and others were exceedingly delighted in it For that by right was most desired thing To know what ere the right sise point might bring And what the worst cast of the Dice might not Not to be cheated by the small mouth'd pot Who had most Art to whip the top about Virgill also makes mention of this childish instrument and he compares in most elegant Verses The pot was of earth as ours is in which stares use to breed in Low-Dutch Spreâ—â— the mind of Lavinia that was agitated by the Furies for the love of Turâ—us to a whirlgigg and that it was turned round like to a top for so it is called in Dutch that is driven about with whips and scourges He prosecutes the matter thus Virg. L. 7. Aeneid The elegant destription of Virgill Then she unhappy by huge monsters chas'd Runs madding through the great City in haste Like to a Top that 's whipt by wanton boyes In open Court amongst their childish toyes Which they admire when it turneth round So shee through Cities ran ' mongst people sound Children are commonly wont to be busied in these sports but when boyes grow to be young men they desire some more decent employments In all exercise whereby the body or mind may receive some benefit we must still have a care of decency and honesty So Salust commends Jugurtha's towardnesse Jugurtha's towardnesse when it was not depraved with ambition and desire of a kingdome For he so soon as he was grown up Exercise of youth being strong and well favoured but most of all abounding in wit he did not give himself over to luxury and idlenesse to be corrupted but as the manner is of that nation to ride shoot run with his equals and when he wan the honour from them all yet he was beloved by all and would do very much and speak little in his own commendation Avoid Dice and Cards Inâ—â—â—ous plays and such other delights of idle people as things most hurtfull and infamous For in these sports Art and skill prevails not but fraud and cogging and cheating reason counsel and Wisedome can do nothing but chance fortune and accident Dice or hazard comprehends all plays subject to chance What a Dy is or fortune as Dice cast out of the hand or out of a Box Tables also every way of casting Dice so that it is not allowed in the smallest matters and childrens games if it be often used or deceitfully or contentiously So Martial speaks wittily Childish pastimes seem to be harmlesse things Yet often such delight great mischief brings Wherefore since in these sports commonly they do all with craving defrauding and wicked intention so much moderation must be used as to seek for recreation therein rather than gain For those that are ignorant are often cousned of their money by cunning Gamesters Gain must not be by fraud And though in such sports some hopes of gain tickleth the minds of men and he that wins is taken with the reward yet we ought to do nothing with too earnest a desire of gain and advantage Exercise and sport is appointed and allowed not for hopes of gain but for recreation and for our health sake and that the minâ— being tired may be refreshed and obtain new forces to fall upon businessse as before