violent but naturall by defect of Nature doth enter at certaine common doores The History 1. THE living spirit subsists by due motion temperate cooling and fit nourishment A flame needs onely motion and Nourishment being a simple substance the Spirit a compounded substance destroyed by approaching neerer to the nature of flame 2. A flame as Aristotle well no ted is by a greater stronger flame extinguished much more the spirit 3. The flame of a Candle being put into a Glasse and kept very close is extinguished by the Ayre enlarged by heate and thrusting the flame together And fewell lying too close in a Chimney burnes not with a bright flame 4. Fire also by thrusting pressing together is extinguished and a coale of fire being trodden Or crush'd with the Tongs 5. But concerning the spirits blood or fleame getting into the Ventricles of the Braine doe cause suddaine Death the spirit having no place of residence or motion Also violent Fractures and beating of the head doe cause suddain Death by straightning the spirits in the ventricles of the Braine 7. Opium and other strong Drugs procuring unsensiblenesse doe by thickning the spirits deprive them of motion 8. Venemous vapours beeing hateful to the spirits are deadly poysons by whose malignant quality the spirits are opprest deprived of their motion and made unable to resist so strong an enemy 9. Extreame Drunkennesse and Gluttony have caused sudaine Death the spirits not with thicke or malignant vapours proceeding from Opium or poyson but with aboundance of Vapors being opprest 10. With the suddain apprehension of Griefe and Feare conceived at the relation of unexpected bad tidings some have suddainly Dyed 11. The Excessive compression and inlarging of the Spirits are both deadly 12. Great and suddaine ioyes have deprived many of their life 13. Greater Evacuations of water by Dissections for the Dropsie or violent and suddaine Fluxes of Blood are Deadly the Blood and spirits doe avoyde vacuity or emptinesse and fill up the emptie places repaying hither slower Fluxes of Blood procuring want of nourishment but no powring backe of the spirits So much of the compression and effusion of the spirits causing Death 14. Stopping the breath is through defect of cooling deadly by choaking and strangling the motions of the spirits being not hindred but cooling defective for excessive hot Ayre drawne in for breath doth choake as soone as stopping of the Breath As by burning charcoale or by the smell of new whited walles in a close chamber Iustinian and others have beene choaked Fausta the wife of Constantine the great was strangled by the steame of an exceeding hot Bath 15. For breath is drawne in by the Lungs and breathed forth againe every third part of a minute 16. The beating of the Pulse and of the Heart both by the systole or backward motion or Dyastole or forward motion is thrice as swift as breathing for the beating of the Heart could it be without stopping being stayd would cause Death sooner than strangling 17. Delian Dyvers and PearleFishers through continuall use will hold their Breath tenne times longer than another 18. Living Creatures having Lungs hold their breath a shorter or longer time as they neede more or lesse cooling 19. Fishes neede lesse cooling than other creatures cooling and breathing themselves at their Gills And as other creatures cannot endure a hot close ayre so Fish in water quite frozen over and long covered with Ice are choaked and strangled 20. The naturall heate of the Spirits is by another more violent heate oppressed being unable to endure them both without cooling as may bee seene in burning-feavers naturall heate being extinguished and Dissipared by hot putrified Humors 21. Want of Sleepe is a want of cooling For motion doth rarifie make thinne sharpen and encrease the heat of the Spirits But by sleep their motion is allayd and their wandring restrayn'd For sleepe doth strengthen and excite the working of the inward parts and Spirits and all outward motion but maketh the living spirit rest from motion Every 24. houres nature requires 5. or 6. houres sleepe Thogh some have miraculously refrained from sleepe for Mecaenas slept not a great while before hee dyed 22. Nourishment is a third want of Nature suffered by the parts of the Body not the living spirit subsisting in Idenity and Beeing without succession or renewing And the reasonable Soule proceeding not from Generation needs no reparation beeing not subject to Death as the Animall and Vegative soule differing both in Essence and Forme from the reasonable Soule For their confusion without distinction was the Originall of transmigration and many heathen hereticall opinions 23. A healthfull body doth every day require food enduring not to fast three dayes together unlesse enabled by custome but sicke folkes can easily fast and sleepe doth nourish as Exercise makes the body require nourishment And some miracles of Nature have lived a long time without meate or drinke 24. Dead bodies being kept from putrefaction will not a long time decay But living bodies cannot above three dayes subsist this speedy consumption being the worke of the living spirit repairing it selfe or making the parts neede repairing and therefore living creatures by sleeping endure longer without food sleepe being the reception and collection of the living Spirit 25. A continuall Flux or voyding of blood by the Piles or by vomiting of Blood some veyne within being opened or broken or by wounds doth cause speedy Death For the Blood of the veines doth supply and feed the blood of the Arteries and the blood of the Arteries doth feed the spirits 26. Meate and Drinke received twice daily is not all voyded by Extrements vrine or sweating the rest being converted into the moysture substance of the body the body growing not bigger as the repaired spirits are not in quantity increased 27. Nourishment must be so prepared and Dressed that the spirits may worke thereon For the flame of a Torch is not maintayned and kept burning by the staffe unlesse it bee covered with waxe lights and hearbs alone are no nourishing flood This doth cause the decay in Age the Spirits cloathed with Flesh and Blood being few and thinne and the moysture and blood old and hard are unable to nourish 28. The ordinary necessities of Nature are these continuall motion of the Spirits in the ventrieles of the Braine beating of the heart every third part of a moment Breathing every moment Sleepe and Food within three Dayes the decaying after fourscore years of age of the faculties of Digestion these Defects beeing not seasonably supply'd Death will ensue So that Death hath three Doores the spirits fayling in motion cooling and nourishing The living spirit is not like a flame continually lighted and extinguished without certaine duration and continuance A flame doth live in a flame being by contrary qualities only extinguished But all parts of the Body beeing to the living Spirit friends and servants are also comfortable and serviceable Therfore the living Spirit
and a mysterious Vnion of a flaming and aiery nature CANON 5. THe particular parts have naturall proper Actions excited and quickned by the vitall Spirit The Explication THe several parts have severall Actions and Functions as Attraction Retention Digestion Assimulation Sepration Ejection and Sensibility suteable to the proper Organs in the Stomack Liver Heart Spleene Gal Braine Eyes 〈◊〉 and the rest and their 〈◊〉 are actuated by the vigour and presence of the vitall spirits and by the heate thereof as Iron drawes Iron beeing touched by a Loadstone and an Egge brings a Chickin beeing actuated by the Cocks treading the Hen. CAN. 6. MOrtuall dead spirits are consubstantiall or like in substance to Ayre but the vital spirits are more like a flame The Explication THe explication of the former fourth Canon declares the meaning of this present Canon which sheweth also that fat oyly substances do long retaine their essence being neither consumed much by the 〈◊〉 nor very desirous to 〈◊〉 into Ayre Therefore Flame is not enflamed Ayre for Flame and Ayre 〈◊〉 as Oyle and Water 〈◊〉 and by the Canon that 〈◊〉 the vitall spirits are like 〈◊〉 substance is to be understood that they are more enflaming than the mortuall dead spirits not more flame-like or ayrie CAN. 7. THE Spirits desire to multiply or depart and congregate with their connaturalls or like in substance The Explication BY this Canon the mortual dead spirits are understood for the vitall spirits abhorre 〈◊〉 parting out of the body because they find in a neere 〈◊〉 no connaturalls or like 〈◊〉 sometimes happily flying forth to the 〈◊〉 parts of the Body to 〈◊〉 some desired object 〈◊〉 shunning departure But the mortuall dead spirits desire both for the spirit finding no happy residence in thicke 〈◊〉 nor its like being alone doth create and make another by endeavouring to multiply and increase in quantity And it desireth also to depart and resolve into Ayre for slender thinne substances being alwayes moveable are willingly carryed to their like being neare as a bubble of water is carried to a bubble flame to flame and much more willingly doth the spirit depart into the Ayre beeing not carried to a peece like it selfe but to a whole Globe of connaturall and like substance But the departing and venting of the spirit into Ayre is a two-fold action proceeding from the desire of the spirit and the desire of the Ayre being an indigent needy substance greedily gathering and receiving spirits smells substances sounds and the like CAN. 8. THe detayned spirit having not sufficient matter to beget another spirit doth soften the thicker parts The Explication A New Spirit is generated of a matter somwhat neere 〈◊〉 nature of a Spirit as of 〈◊〉 Therefore if the 〈◊〉 residing in the thicker 〈◊〉 farre different from their Nature cannot convert them 〈◊〉 a spirit yet it softens and enlarges them that it may being not increased in 〈◊〉 have a larger dwelling and live with more friendly companions in Nature Also by this Aphorisme the Bodies hardnesse may bee softned by detayning the spirits CAN. 9. THe softning of the parts of the Body is best wrought when the spirit doth neither depart nor generate The Explication THis Canon dissolves a knotty doubt in softning by detayning the spirits for if the spirit not vented doe devoure inward moysture the softning of the parts doth not advantage their continuing in their essence but rather their dissolution and corruption Therefore the detayned spirits must bee cooled and restrayned lest they bee too active CAN. 10. THE heate of the Spirit to renew and make the Body young must bee strong not vioent The Explication THis Canon also dissolving the aforesaid doubt shews the temper of heate fit to prolong life for howsoever the spirits be detayn'd or not yet their heate should rather soften hard substances than devoure soft softning rather than drying For such heat causeth good Digestion and Assimilasion but this 〈◊〉 must have these properties first slowly not suddainly enflaming secondly not violent but moderate thirdly equall not disordered being sometimes greater sometimes lesser fourthly not languishing nor soone extinguished This Operation is very subtile and profitable being partly explained in the Remedies prescribed for infusing into the Spirits a strong working heate not pradatory or devouring CAN. 11. THE thickning of the Spirits substance doth lengthen life The Explication THis Canon is subordinate to the former for the thicke Spirit is capable of all those foure properties of heate formerly mentioned the manner of thickning is shewed in the first Operation CAN. 12. A Boundance of spirits are more hasty to depart and get forth and more consuming than a small quantity of Spirit The Explication THis Canon is cleare and evident for the bigger the stronger As great flames breaking forth with greater violence consume more suddainly therefore exceeding plenty or excessive swelling of the Spirits doe hinder long Life For Spirits maintaining Life and the Body in good plight are sufficient CAN. 13. THe Spirits equally diffused through the Body is not so hasty to depart nor so devouring as being unequally placed The Explication A Subundance of spirits generally diffused is an enemy to durablenesse so is store of spirits not dispersed Therefore the spirit being more diffused consumes lesse for Dissolution begins in that part where the spirit is loose Therefore Exercise and rubbings doe lengthen life because motion doth very finely blend and mingle CAN. 14. THE disordered motion of spirits makes them hastier to depart and more consuming than a constant equall motion The Explication THis Canon holds in livelesse creatures for inequality is the mother of Dissolution but in living 〈◊〉 whose Consumption and Reparation is considerable Reparation proceeding from Appetite and Appetite being sharpened by variety it is not absolutely but respectively true this variety being rather an alteration than confusion and a constant inconstancy CAN. 15. THE Spirit in the solid frame of the Body is unwillingly detayned The explication DIssolution is generally abhorr'd but more or lesse according to the thicknesse and thinnesse of subtances The thinner bodies being driven into straighter narrower passages For Water will runne through where Dust will not passe and Ayre is more penetrative and piercing than Water and yet their penetration is bounded For the spirit will not passe through exceeding narrow pores thereby to get foorth and depart for the spirit being encompassed with a hard or oyly and clammy body not easily divisible is bound and imprisoned and not desirous to depart Therefore the spirit of Mettalls and Stones will not in an Age depart unlesse they be melred or dissolved with strong Corrosive waters In clammy substances also the spirits are not desirous to depart as in Gummes though with lesse heate dissolved Therfore the hard juyce of the body and the closenesse of the skinne and the like caused by dry nourishment exercise and cold ayre do lengthen life because they keepe the enclosed spirits from departing CAN. 16.
is of a middle Nature betweene flame beeing a momentary substance and Aire beeing a fixed Substance The Destruction of the Organs of the spirits either by Diseases or violence is another Doore of Death And so much of the Forme of Death 29. Convulsions of the Head and Face with deepe deadly sighing being a kind of Convulsion and the extreame quicke beating of the Pulse the Heart trembling with the pangs of Death and sometimes againe beating weakely and slowly as the heate beginnes to faile and faint are two chiefe Signes of Death 30. The immediate Signes of Death are great unquietnesse tumbling and striving raking with the hands as if gathering lockes of Wooll striving to take hold and holding fast hard shutting of the Teeth ratling in the 〈◊〉 trembling of the under-lip pale countenance confused memory speechlesnesse cold sweats stretching out the Body lifting up the white of the eyes and an alteration of the whole Face the Nose becomming sharp the eyes hollow and the cheekes falling with the Contraction and Convulsion of the Tongue and coldnesse of the lowest parts and sometimes issuing of Blood or seede loud shreeking short breathing the falling of the lower jawes and the like 31. After Death there follows immediately a privation or depriving of the Sense and motion of the Heart Arteries Nerves and Sinewes inability of standing upright stiffenesse of the Nerves and limbs coldnesse putrefaction and stinke 32. Ecles Serpents and Flyes cut in pieces will a great while after moove and stirre Countrey people supposing they would if suffered joyne together againe And the bodies of Birds their heads beeing cut or pluckt off will afterward leape and flutter I remember that I say a Traytor emboweled whose heart beeing cast into the fire leaped five foote high and afterward lower for the space of seaven or eight minutes Also the old tradition of a sacrificed Oxe that in embowelling lowed deserves to 〈◊〉 beleeved thogh it be more 〈◊〉 that a man executed and embowelled after his hart was pluckt out and in the hang mans hand was heard to utter three or foure words of his prayers beeing more likely than the relation of the 〈◊〉 Oxe the friends of the partie executed usually feeing the executioner for a suddayne dispatch out of payne by the quicke performance of his office but the Priests were not feed speedily to dispatch their Sacrifices 33. To rayse and recover to life such as faint and fall into a swond in which fits many without helpe would expire use hot waters bend the Body forwards stoppe the mouth and nostrils hard bend and wring the fingers plucke off hayre from the Beard or head rub and chafe the Body especially the face and outward parts cast cold water suddainly in the face shrecke out aloud hold Rose-water and vinegar to the nostrils burning feathers and woollin cloath for the mother also the smoak of a hot frying pan is good in sounding and keeping the body close and warme 34. That many laid forth coffin'd buried were only in a sound hath bin discovered by digging them up agayne and finding their heads beaten and bruised with striving in the Coffin Of such a living funerall Iohn Scotus that subtle Scholler was a memorable example who by his servant absent at his buriall but acquainted with those 〈◊〉 wherein hee falling was supposed to bee Dead and so buried being digg'd up againe 〈◊〉 found in the aforesayde manner with his head and other limbes beaten and 〈◊〉 A Player also acting Death to the Life in a sound thought to put a ieast upon Death but was buried in earnest at Cambridge as many can well 〈◊〉 who were then 〈◊〉 I remember that a 〈◊〉 desirous to make 〈◊〉 of the paine suffered by prisoners at their execution told me that in hanging 〈◊〉 getting upon a stoole and casting himselfe off from 〈◊〉 hee swung a while about and then thought to recover the stoole but could not without the helpe of his friend then present who asking him what hee suffered He answered that hee felt no payne but first saw a fire or a flame then a kinde of black greene mist and lastly a pale Sea-blew colour usuall visions in sowning Also a Physitian having hang'd a man halfe an houre recovered him to life by rubbing and hot Baths professing also to recover any man after halfe an houres hanging his necke at the first falling downe beeing not broken The Differences of youth and Age. 1. THE Scale or Ladder of Mans life hath these steps 〈◊〉 Quickning in the 〈◊〉 Birth Sucking 〈◊〉 feeding on Pap and Spoon-meat in Infancy 〈◊〉 of teeth at two yeares old secret haire at twelve or foureteene ability for 〈◊〉 flowers hayre on the 〈◊〉 and under the arme-holes a budding Beard full growth full strength and agility Graynesse Baldnesse 〈◊〉 of flowers and of 〈◊〉 ability inclining to 〈◊〉 a creature with three feete Death The periods and courses of the minde as slipperinesse of memory and such like not described by yeeres shall be hereafter mentioned 2. The Differences of Youth and Age are these following In youth the skinne is moyst and smooth in age dry and wrinkled especially about the fore-head and eyes the flesh in youth is tender and soft in age hard youth is strong and nimble age weake and unwealdy in youth good Digestion in age weake the Bowels in youth are soft and moyst in age salt and dry in youth the body is straight in age bowed and crooked the finews in youth are steddy in age weake and trembling cholericke humours in youth and hot blood in age Phlegmatick melancholy humours and cold blood youth prone to Venery age slow in performance the moysture of the Body in youth oyly in age raw and waterish in youth many swelling spirits in age few and weake in youth spirits thicke and lively in age sharpe and thinne in youth sharpe and sound senses in age dull and decaying in youth strong sound Teeth in age weake worne and falling out in youth colour'd haire in age the former colour turnes grey Haire in youth in Age Baldnesse Quicke and strong Pulse in youth in Age weake and flow in Youth sharpe 〈◊〉 Sicknesses and Diseases in Age tedious and incurable Wounds heale soone in youth in age slowly in youth fresh-coloured checkes in Age pale or of a deepe fanguine red Youth not much troubbled with Rheumes Age Rheumaticke the Bodie growes fatter onely in Age than Youth Perspiration and Digestion in Age being bad and fatnesse being the aboundance of nourishment over and above that which is perfectly assimilated and converted into the substance of the Body And the Appetite is sometimes in Age increased by sharpe humours digestion being then weaker this and the rest being by Physitians ascribed to the decay of naturall heate and radicall moysture but drynesse in the 〈◊〉 of Age doth precedo coldnesse and the lusty heat of flourishing Youth declines 〈◊〉 then to coldnesse 3. The affections also of youth and age differ I remember in