which spread themselves over the whole Body and are cold by Nature therefore by the Counsell of the best Physitians these parts are to be covered with the Haire They therefore who would have us believe that the Haire should descend no lower then the Eares and which transcend those limits should contumeliously despight Nature The decency of Hair stated as having so much intrinsique malice in it as cannot stand with innocencie had need prove that Adam had scissers and cut his Haire in Paradise They are yet more severe who would have it against the Law of Nature to weare Haire below the skul for there is some difference between Nature and the law of Nature The Law of Nature is that which by reason of Rationall Nature is common to all Men among themselves which is written in the Hearts of all Men according to which they accuse or excuse themselves They are not of the Law of Nature which many Nations never had nor have notice of it must be known to all Men Some think this Law is written in all Mens Hearts explicitely as to some things implicitely as to others and we shall not charge all Nations of Malice or wilfull transgression against the law of Nature who nourish Haire besides the intention of Nature since there are many conclusions which are of the law of Nature which are not known to all Men. To conclude Haire long or short thick or thin more or lesse is a matter of indifferency wherein there is a variety incident according to the diversity of complexions ages seasons of the Yeare Climates or places of habitation diseases or health the prolixity or brevity whereof wee cannot positively determine Upon pretence of their hot Climate the Turks call such as weare long Haire on their Heads slovens and account them Salvage Beasts for they themselves weare no Haire at all upon their Heads We in colder climates are bound by a principle of Naturall practise and conveniency to reduce our Tonsure to a just moderation and decency wherein some regard must be had to custome which is the rule of decorum for he doth that which is ridiculous Black Haire affected and lesse honest and convenient who offends against Custome which is the Rule of Decency who being singular is Poled and closely cut among those who weare a bush or bushie among those who are Poled The Maldives esteem black Haire a great Beauty and make it come so by Art by continuall shaving keeping their Heads shaven untill eight or nine years they shave them from 8 dayes to 8 dayes which makes the Haire very black The Turks have a black powder made of a Minerall called Alcohole with which tincture they use to colour the Haire of their Heads and Beards black Lord Bacon Nat. Hist cen 8. vici And divers with us that are grown gray and yet would appeare young finde meanes to make their Haires black by combing it as they say with a leaden combe or the like Verily the Art Cosmetique refuseth to accommodate any in this businesse it being not to be attempted by Art since Naturall whitenesse of aged Haires is rather an Ornament then a shame unto the Head and therefore since graynesse as it cannot be amended so it ought not to be palliated with any Fucus and he that assaies to doe it is justly derided of whom Martial Mentiris juvenem tinctis Lentine capillis Martial l. 5. Epigr. Idem lib. 1. Epigr. 99. Tam subito corvus qui modo cygnus eras Non omnes fallis scit te Proserpina canum Personam capiti detrahet illa tuo Cana est barba tibi nigra est coma tingere barbam Non potes haec causa est sed potes Ole comam Artificiall black Haire Sandys Travels lib. 1. The Turkish Women also practise this Art of blacking their Haire as a foyle that maketh the white seem whiter and more becomming their other perfections Peter Mart. Decad 3. The Ciguanians if Nature deny it them make their Haire black by Art Plinie Nat. Hist lib. 3. The Water of the River Busentus would serve these People for a curious Cosmetique which is reported to have a propertie to die the Haire black The like would another River as that in Booetia which makes the fleeces black of those Sheep that are dipt in it Linschoten lib. 1. cap. 26. In Japan contrarie to the opinion of most Nations who think it a goodly sight to see Men with white and yellow Haire esteeme it the filthiest thing in the World and they seek by all meanes they can to make the Haire black for that the white causeth their griefe Trigaut lib. Iapon and the black maketh them glad And therefore they mourn in white In Germanie the Noble Virgins that they may seeme to have somewhat exotique and peregrine Haire or that they may differ from the Plebean Maides to whom the yellow or Golden colour is gratefull affect to have their Haire black Sic suum cuique pulchrum be it their own by traduction or artificiall purchase These Virgins seeme to themselves to doe as that Aethiope who lived in the Court of a certaine Germane Prince who often when he saw in the nursery a faire Virgin and withall a little black whelp he said unto the Virgin you are not faire but this Dog is faire and beautifull Gaudet sic concolor atro as Julius Scaliger saith And I have known some Women among us Yellow Haire affected who rejecting their own Haire for its Naturall rednesse have worn black curled locks which although it falsified their complexions and therein was a trespasse against Nature yet they seem to agree with their cleer skins as the Naturall doe with the black Women that are cleere skin'd This tincture of Haire is but a foolish and ridiculous affectation and many times proves a sinfull vanity Galen therefore a Famous Mr. in Cosmetiques would never communicate to any loose and wanton Woman any medicament to make their Haire black because he knew they would abuse it Hier. Merc. lib. de decoratione but to Matrons who lived honestly he willingly afforded this accommodation The Women of old time did most love yellow Haire and it is found that they introduced this colour by Safron and by long sitting daily in the Sun who instead of Safron sometimes used medicated Sulphur This Art of changing their Haire with Safron was called Crocuphantea Tertullian observing this artifice tels them that they are ashamed of their country and would be Gaulise Women or Germanie Women so much did they disguise themselves whereby is known how much red Haires were esteemed in the old time which to seeke out by Art St. Cyprian and St. Jerome with Tertullian doe say that the same doe prasage the fire of Hel. Galen affirmes that in his time most Women were dead with the Head-ache Galen lib. 1 de vestimentis localibus cap. 19 neither could there be any remedie applied to
minds by speech that they may more commodiously make use of their Teeth they file them sharp to make them indented one within another saw-like for they stick faster in the root when they joyne not together at the top Scaliger exercitas Cardan Scaliger in his exercitation upon this part of Cardan saith that in the Island Tendaia the young men cause their teeth to be cut even to the roots for by this meanes they say their Teeth become firmer and thicker Where they pull out Teeth in a bravery the same thing happens also to Plants for trees grow thicker whose tops are cut off These Nations degenerate from the principles of Humanity into ravening Wolves Who would have more dog-teeth than Nature allows endeavouring by this fond Artifice to have Teeth stronger than Nature intended man upon a just account lose more than they can gaine by the Device for having perverted the curious Machin of Speech by altering of the Instruments thereof they must surely speake in the Teeth and have but a lisping or snarling Elocution which is an improvement with a mischiefe Hieron Bez. Hist nov orb In Guanchavalichia a Region of the new World they are wont to pull five or sixe Teeth out of their jaw and being asked the reason why they did so they replyed they did it Elegantiae causa for a bravery and most fashionable elegancy Pancerol de novo orb tit 1. The Guancavilcae in Peru are all Edentuli or without Teeth for they have a custome to pull out all their Teeth which they offer to their Idols Teeth intended for an ornament affirming that they ought to offer to them the best things One would thinke these Nations accounted teeth to be no parts of the Body or very impertinent and unnecessary whereas they are justly enrolled among the number of the parts of a Human Body since the definition of parts appertaines to them and likewise their use and office for they belong to the integrity of the Body and they attaine a proper office and use in the same nay the preternaturall absence of the Teeth is accounted among the Diseases of Number their naturall number being thirty at the least twenty eight So that the Teeth were intended by Nature to serve for an ornament and a certaine beauty and furniture unto the Mouth for it would have been a foule deformity in man to have lived without Teeth as they say Phericrates the Poet did Valla de Corp. part who was edentulus and had no Teeth at all For in whom they fall out or are lost by age or some disease it makes the Mouth look like a decayed Harpe that is unstrung more especially the fore-teeth being lost proves a more apparent blemish and dammage because they were set in the first and most conspicuous place since there was more necessity of them for the forming of the voice whence Infants speake not before their mouths are replenished with Teeth But the fore-teeth more especially serve for the forming of certaine Letters whence those who are edentuli cannot pronounce C. U. G. T. R. wherein the enlarged tongue must bear against the fore-teeth the losse of which hinders the explanation of the voice that speech must necessarily thereupon be the slower and lesse plaine and easie neither are there wanting examples among us of those whose speech hath been very much impaired by the amission of their Fore-teeth Hofman thinks Want of Teeth a blemish that therefore the Romans were wont to bind them fast with gold wire And our Master Operatours are somtimes usefull to prevent this blemish and inconvenience Artificiall Teeth hath been an ancient invention for we read that the Romans used Artificiall Teeth in defect of Naturall Mart. lib. 5. Epig. 43. Thais habet nigros niveos Lecania Dentes Quae ratio est emptos haec habet illa suos And againe to Laelia Dentibus atque comis nec te pudet uteris emptis Quid facies oculus Laelia non emitur And because great account is to be made of the Teeth both for the necessity of eating and speaking Hence the Art Cosmetique although it be a part of Medicine that makes little to the necessity of life yet it conduceth to the conveniencies of a better life deservedly and by good right doth now and then engage Physitians not only to repaire and patch up a decayed and lost beauty but to preserve that which is enjoyed and the Obligation lies more strong upon them where the party hath attained to almost all the degrees of beauty it being more pitty then she should have any blemish in the mouth whereby it too plainely appeares what affront they offer to Nature who account her usefull ornaments to be loathsome and what benefits of hers they renounce for the mischiefe of a ridiculous Fashion Neither is it to be omitted that it is a high transgression against the Morall Law of Nature by which the Teeth were ordained to be as a Palisado or Quickset hedge to restraine the licentious liberty of the Tongue For Tibsheares to cashiere the Shearers for women who have more need of such a monumentall restraint and inconvenience in contumelious despight of Natures Law to breake the hedge and make so foule a gap in it argues not only malice and folly but a wilfull resolution to assume to themselves more than a naturall liberty of speech and to let loose the reines to all extravagant excursions of the Tongue But this is not the least prejudice that these foolish Nations occasion to Nature and her operations for the order of Nature is inverted and her Method broken hereby for the fore-teeth or shredders were placed first because more acute and for the necessity there is of them for dividing the meat called therefore Dentes quasi edentes their first and primary use being for eating the Incisorii or fore-teeth and the Canine or Eye-teeth being placed before the Grinders cause those things that are to be ground very small ought first to be divided into small particles which is done by them that afterwards these lesser particles may be ground into the smallest by the Grinders which thing is so much the more admirable that Nature hath observed this in all Creatures And that it might be the better done Nature hath set the upper and lower teeth exactly right one against another which is so much the more admirable by how much the difference is considerable between the upper and lower Iaw whence it comes to pass that the meat comming betweene them is most commodiously prepared that the Chylus is thereupon better transmitted from the Stomack for the mincing of the meat into lesse particles is profitable unto this end that the heat of the stomack doth the better concoct it hence they who chaw not well or through too much hast passe over the triple order of manducation are ill nourished as it happens in old men and those who are edentuli Hither tends the Proverbe
Anthropometamorphosis Man Transform'd OR THE ARTIFICIALL CHANGLING Historically presented In the mad and cruell Gallantry foolish Bravery ridiculous Beauty filthy Finenesse and loathsome Loveliness of most NATIONS fashioning and altering their Bodies from the mould intended by NATVRE With Figures of those Transfigurations To which artificiall and affected Deformations are added all the Native and Nationall Monstrosities that have appeared to disfigure the Humane Fabrick With a VINDICATION of the Regular Beauty and Honesty of NATURE And an Appendix of the Pedigree of the ENGLISH GALLANT Scripsit J. B. Cognomento Chirosophus M. D. In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas London Printed by William Hunt Anno Dom. 1653. The intent of the Frontispiece unfolded THe high Commission from Heaven granted for the triall of the Artificiall Changling upon the matter of Fact touching Man's Transformation is exhibited by the Letters Pattents or Great Charter of Nature ingrossed with a Sun beame and signed with the Broad-Seale of Heaven presented by a Hand extended out of a Cloud The crowned Scepter in the other out-stretched Hand shews the Government of the World is by the Laws of Nature established from the Creation and that the forme of proceedings is according to that un-repealed Statute The perpendicular Ray intimates that formidable sentence which as it is to be feared shall be pronounced at the generall day of Judgement against all abusers of their Bodies who have new-made and deformed themselves I know you not neither are you the workes of my Hands The Angell by motto expresseth That God made man righteous but he hath found out many inventions The Devill is figured rejoycing at the practicall and abusive Metamorphosis of Man with a ha ha he In the image of God created he them but I have new-moulded them to my own likenesse The Creatures the Asse the Leopard the Hound and the Ape admiring at the degenerate Apostasie of Man from the originall perfections of his true Shape cry out Behold Man is become as one of us A Tent being pitched sub Dio over the Valence whereof the title is inscribed Anthropometamorphosis or the Transformation of Man Nature with all the Hieroglyphicall Equipage of her Power being seated upon the Tribunall our Prototypes Adam and Eve Assessors The two Books being laid open one of the use of parts the other of the abuse of parts is read at which the Ghost of Galen appears as raised up at the report of the prodigious abuse of parts Which being urged and prosecuted by Natures Solicitor against the Nations at the Bar who plead Guilty and submit themselves to be try'd by God and Nature thereupon the Ocular witnesses are brought into Court and sworne upon a Book to testifie and give in evidence of the whole truth and nothing but the truth A Jury being Empannelled the Foreman after consultation brings in a Bill signed Billa Vera which implies the Inditement is found whereby these Nations are judged guilty of high-Treason against Nature Judgement is passed on them to suffer according to their demerits the Court rose up and adjourn'd untill the last Great Assizes and Session Johannes Bulwer cognomento Chirosophus alias Philocophus Vultispex Insignis vtrius que Phisiognomiae Protomystes Pathomyotomus Naturalis Loquelae Primus Indagator Anatomus Moralis Stagerita novus Motistarum Clarissimus Stator Augustus et Vindex Naturae M.D. Author noster hisce Gnosticorum Suffragijs insignitus Cluit Quae vel ingratijs Subscripsi G H W Faithorne Sculp Deus fecit â—oâ—â—nâ—m rectum Per Leges Natura Non noâ—â— illos nec sunt opera manuum mearum Magna Charta Natuâ—â— ANTHROPOMETAMORPHOSIS Ecce Homo quasimus exâ—â—â—â— De usu partium Testas jurati De abusu partium Quid de abusu partium D◠〈◊〉 de abusâ— partium Bella Vera A through-description of the Nationall Gallant Being indeed an Anacepheloisis of the whole Book intimidated by the Frontispiece STay Changling Proteus let me count the rapes Made on thy Forme in thy abusive shapes I have observ'd thy Nature-scoffing art Wherewith th' ast Schematiz'd in every part Out of wise Nature's plastique hand thy Head Came like a ball of wax oblongly spread Now'ts like in its acuminated line A Sugar-loafe or Apple of the Pine Now'ts long now short now flat now square now round Indented now like to a Foisting-hound 'T was soft now hard it is a Blockhead made What 's this appeares the Neck and Head are lost Within the Breast by force of Art embost An entire grove of haire the skull did shade Now the North side 's alone depriv'd of haire And now the South side appeares only bare Now the East parts the Front of Time present Whil'st the blind No deck wants it's ornament Why now the Fore part 's bald party per-pale Thus one halfe still thy Art hath made to falle Ascending from thy Eyes two arched Bowes Thy Front tow'rds the Coronall suture rose That Plains sublime extent which should be bare By Art's now shortned and oregrown with haire High Foreheads here above their confines mount Which some doe a transcendent beauty count Here frantique men cornute themselves and scorne The front that weares not an ingrafted horne Drawn out by Nature's pencil o're thy Eyes Two hairy Crescents once did Arch-like rise Which Geometry is now abolish'd quite By thy eradicating arts despight Nature some distance between these allow'd But here the Fashion 's Beetle-Brow'd The Eye-lids meane to veil the Orb of sight Turn'd backward to thy Front do now afright Their Palisado which did Sight direct Now rooted out present a torve aspect What mean these painted Circles 'bout each Eye ' Mongst other markes of fearfull braverie Nature between thy Eyes thy Nose did place That goodly Promontory of the Face Here cut and pair'd betwixt thy Eyes no Nose Is left at all their raies to interpose Thy Nostrils there cut off unwing'd are found To represent a most dishonest wound Alas poor Noselesse Ape why now't should seem A Camoyse Saddle-nose is in esteem Here crosse to that Face-levelling designe Thy high rais'd Nose appeareth Aquiline Thy Art-augmented Nose here 's thick and strong There short and little and here over-long Thy Nostrils now bor'd through ring'd on each side Afford an inlet unto cruell pride What Gallantry is this wherein th'appears So Hell-hound like with long out-stretched Eares Whos 's bored Tips torn wide with the fond weight Of glittering Stones thy shoulders over-fraight This extant part whose standing off behov'd As glu'd unto thy Head is lesse improv'd What horrid affectation have we here Thy Cheeks on each side bored through appeare Thorough whose holes the slav'ring spetles vent The Teeth and Gums themselves to view present Natures strict Orifice who here deride Seek beauty in a mouth more heavenly wide Lip-gallantry succeeds Thick blabber Lips Here hanging in their light the sight Eclipse There 't is the neather lips especiall grace To fall down to the lowest barball place Bor'd full of holes
many vain appendices as that they bark and howl like Dogs and so understand one another having no other Language that they have Teeth greater then Dogs Clawes but longer and rounder that although they cannot speake they make signes with their Hands and Fingers as Deaf and Dumb men use to doe that both the Men and Women have Tailes at their Rumps like to Dogs Headlesse Nations but that they are greater and thicker of haires that they engender with Women more Canino accounting any other way of Copulation shamefull all which Additaments are more advantagiously read then believed By what meanes these Natives might come to be thus monstrously deformed and the shape of their Heads to degenerate into the similitude of a Dogs-Head shall be sufficiently declared in our succeeding Face-moulders Scene where wee shall present the Cynoprosopi or Men having a Dogs Face The Artifice used being as I probably conjecture the same in both Sr. John Mandevil reports that in one of the Iles belonging to the great and mighty King of the Iland Dodyn there are Men that have no Heads and their Eyes are in their Shoulders and their Mouth is on their Breast He gives their originall Cham saith he took the best part Eastward that is called Asia being the mightiest and Richest of his Brethren and of him are come the Pannim folke and divers manners of Men of those Iles some headlesse and the other Men disfigured And because some things spoken by him might seem strange and scarce Credible therefore he thought good to make known to all that will see more proofe hereof in his Book called Mappa Mundi there they shall finde the most part of the same ratified and confirmed St. Augustine makes commemoration of such a Nation August de civ Dei li. 6. cap. 8. and although he there doth not impose a necessity of believing the Relations that are made of such kinds of Men so he seems to grant that it is not incredible Nay he testifies that he had seen them himselfe for he assures us in these words I was now Bishop of Hippo August Serm. 37. ad fraires in â—remo and with certain servants of Christ I Travelled to Aethiopia to preach the Gospell of Christ unto them and we saw there many Men and Women having no Heads but grosse Eyes fixed in their Breast their other Members like unto ours Fulgos. lib. 1. de mirac Sr. Walter Rawleigh Histor of Gui. ana which place of August Fulgosus cites to the same purpose But let us heare Sr. Walter Rawleigh his relation of this kind of transformed Nation the Ewaipanomi saith he are a strange headlesse Nation for on the Banks of the River Caora are a Nation of People whose Heads appeare not above their Shoulders which though it may be thought a meere Fable yet for my own part I am resolved it is true because every Child in the Province of Arromaia and Comurs affirme all the same they are call'd Ewaipanomi are reported to have their Eyes in their Shoulders and their Mouths in the Middle of their Breasts and that a long traine of haire groweth backward between the Shoulders The Son of Tomawari which I brought with me into England told me that they were the most mighty Men of all the Land and use Bowes Arrowes and Clubs thrice as bigg as any of Guiana or of the Oronoqueponi and that one of the Iwarawakeri tooke a Prisoner of them the Yeare before our arrivall there and brought him into the Borders of Aromaia his Fathers Country And further when I seemed to doubt of it he told me that it was no wonder among them but that they were as great a Nation and as common as any other in all the Provinces and had of late Years slain many hundreds of his Fathers People and of other Nations their Neighbours but it was not my chance to heare of them till I was come away and if I had but spoken one word of it while I was there I might have brought one of them with me to put the matter out of doubt Such a Nation was written of by Mandevill whose reports were held for Fables many Years and yet since the East-Indies were discovered we find his relation true of such things as heretofore wee held incredible whether it be true or no the matter is not great neither can there be any profit in the imagination for my own part I saw them not but I am resolved that so many People did not all combine or fore-think to make the report The Translator of the History of Congo written by Pigafetta hopes that in time some good Guianean will make good proofe to our England that there are this day headlesse Men. And if any make Conscience to joyne Faith to these things upon these relations yet they ought not to think this wonder impossible especially being certified by such Authors as are here alledged For these strange Histories of Monstrous Nations which in Pliny and other Ancient Authors I have heretofore counted vain do now require and deserve some Credit since in these times there is a new Nature revealed new miracles a new World full of strange varieties and sincere novelties Dr. Franasus Hernandus who by the Command of Philip the second sailed to the new World to discover the condition thereof whose manuscripts are kept in the Kings Library of St. Laurence in the Escuriall and other Manuscripts sent to the King of Spaine about the affaires of India by the Advantage of which Eusebius Neirembergensis was inabled to write his new History of Nature doe justifie these and stranger relations of divers kind of men among the Indians in stature disposition forme and deformity as Monstrous as these Acephali or headlesse Nation Avicen was so bold to affirme that after the immense inundations of the World not only mankind but all other Creatures were produced from the tabid Carcasses by the Celestiall influx without seed which is a thing no wise man can be brought to believe that so Noble a Creature should arise out of a putrid matter about whose Creation the whole Godhead was employed wherefore so great and Beautifull a worke that was worthy of the Divine Labour could not spontaneously proceed it being most unlikely that Man being Compos mentis which is a particle of Divinitie should result from so vile an originall Sanct. Augustin in lib. de Civitate Dei St. Augustin where he speaks of these Acephali and other Monstrous Nations somwhat better resolves the doubt of their Originall It is demanded saith he whether Noahs sonnes or rather Adams of whom all Mankind came begot any of those Monstrous Men and he concludes that whatsoever he begot that is Man that is a Mortall reasonable Creature be his forme Voyce or whatever never so different from any ordinarie mans no Faithfull Person ought to doubt that he is of Adams Progeny yet is the Power of Nature shewn and strangely shewn in such God
made all and when or how he would forme this or that he knowes best having the perfect skill how to Beautifie the Universe by opposition and diversity of parts but he that cannot contemplate the Beauty of the whole stumbles at the deformity of the part and not knowing the Congruence that it hath with the whole Yet God forbid that any one should be so besotted as to think the Maker erred in these Mens Fabrick though we know not why he made them thus be the diversity never so great he knowes what he doth and none must reprehend him therefore what Nations so e're have shapes differing from that which is in most Men and seem to be exorbitant from the Common forme if they be definable to be reasonable Creatures and Mortall they must bee acknowleged for Adams Issue But St. Austin here speaks more like a Divine then a Philosopher for although the supreame efficient and supernaturall cause of Monsters is God and that when Nature seems to deflect from the common Law established shee is rapt by a Divine force and there is aliquid Divini in the peculiar cause of these transfigurations of the Humane forme and that the finall cause of these prodigious apparitions may be the anger of God who is no way bound to the Law of Nature and who in revenge for some crime committed may transforme a Man as he did Nebuchadnezzar or give over a self-deformed Nation to the vanitie of their own inventions yet it sounds very harsh to the principles of our Philosophie that the God of Nature should be so glorified by such strange apparances that evill and imperfect Creatures should concurre to the perfection of the universe since they have no reference to the Beauty of the World because the Beauty of the universe consists in things perfect and permanent and Monsters quatenus Monsters being nothing but defects and privations can contribute no perfection and so consequently appertaine not to the Beauty of the universe if they did conferr any ornament they should for the most part be produced because the great decorum of the World is sustained by frequent effects but Monsters happen rarely and therefore they ought to be segregated from the Ornaments of the World and if they had come to light to adorne the World they had from the beginning of the World appeared which we read of no where How this Monstrous alienation from the Humane Form was first introduced and continued is not so easie to conjecture St Augustine de civit Dei St Augustine thinks that the same reason may be given for these deformed Nations as there is for those Monstrous productions of Men which sometimes happen among us of which kind of prodigious productions there are many records wherein Nature seems to have upbraided Mans invention and to retaliate his affectations Anno Dom. 1525 at Wittenberg an Infant was borne without a Head Anno 1554 In Misnia an Infant was born without a Head Fincelius de mirac nostri temporis the Effigies of Eyes expressed in his Breast Anno Domini 1562 in the Calends of November at Villafranc in Vasconia a Monster was borne a Female Acephalon the Pourtraiture of which headlesse Monster Fontanus who religiously affirmed that he had seen it having communicated to Johannes Altinus the Physitian Schenchius de monst capit he presented it to Paraeus when he was writing his Commentarie of Monsters Paraus lib. 24. cap. 6. And reason may perswade us that it is not impossible for it may happen by the constitution of the Climate that the Neck may not be allowed to be eminently advanced above the Shoulders and yet the instruments of Nature may performe their Office in a nearer approach of the Neck unto the Body Kornmannus lib. 1. de vivorum miraculis which is the opinion of Kornmannus But for my own part I much suspect some villanous Artifice and affectation to have been concurrent causes of this non-appearance of the Head and some fantasticall dislike of the Naturall distance between the Head and the Body by the interposition of the Neck which hath been the humour of some other Nations who have in a manner no Neck as appears in this Scene and in the fifteen and sixteenth of this our practicall Metamorphosis where you shall find this very Nation described as if they affected to have their Shoulders higher then their Heads And Sr Walter Rawleigh saith their Heads appeare not above their Shoulders And I conceive that they are not so much headlesse as that their Heads by some Violent and constant Artifice are pressed down between their Shoulders and affecting to have their Shoulders higher then their Heads the Scapula's by the constant endeavour of their Levators grown to a habit hath drowned the Head in the Breast the Head being crowded too close to the Shoulders and as it were growing to them the Neck is quite lost and the Eies seem planted as upon the Shoulders and the Mouth in the Breast a shadow of which resemblance we may sometimes see in very croked short neck'd Men. And consequently all the uses of the Neck in point of circumspection are quite lost by this Artifice and the Donation of Nature therein is made void for they cannot with ease turne their Head about to and fro every way to looke about them the Spondyles or turning round Bones tied and fastened one unto another by joynts and knots cannot possible in this posture accomplish their Motions But this charge and evidence I give in only against them by way of presumption you Gentlemen Readers of the Jury may give up your Verdict according to your judgments and either find Billa Vera or returne Ignoramus Sr. John Mandevils Travels cap. 83. Beyond the Land of Cathay there is a Wildernesse wherein are many wild Men with Hornes on their Heads very hideous and speake not but rout as Swine That men should be so cornuted or have horns grow on their Heads is a thing neither impossible nor incredible for many have been Borne cornuted Amat Lusit cent cur 51. Amatus Lusitanus speaks of a Boy Borne with a little horne on his Head Lycost Chron de prod stent Ann. 1233 In Rathstade a Town in the Norican Alpes which the Inhabitants call Taurus there was an Infant Borne cornuted Jacobus Fincelius de miraculis Anno 1551 in a Village of Marchias call'd Dammenuvald neer Whitstock a Country Mans Wife brought forth a Monster with such a horned Head Among the Subalpians in Quierus a little Town ten Miles distant from Taurin Teurin Anno Dom. 1578 Amb. Paraeus lib. 24. cap. 2. the seventeenth of January about 8 of the clock at Night an honest Matron brought forth a Child having five hornes one against another on his Head like unto Rams hornes Lanfraneus saw a man who came unto him for his advice Lanfraneus tract 3. Doct. 2. cap. 3. Chirur Major who had seven Eminencies in his Head one
Teeth as a Son of Prusias King of Bythinians who had such a bone in his upper Iaw Pyrrhus King of the Epirotans had such a continued bone marked as it were with certain lines wherby the interpunction of Teeth were designed out Many more examples might be added but these may suffice Double-tongued Nations SCENE XIV Devices of certaine Nations practised upon their Tongues Purchas Pilgr 1. lib. 2. Geor. Graudius Comment in Solinum Joh. Bohem. de moribus Gent. lib. 3. Kornman lib. de mirac viv Schenckius observat lib. 1. Gemma lib. 1. cap. 7. Cosmogr IN the Island of Jambuli the Inhabitants who exceed us foure Cubits in stature their Tongue hath somewhat peculiar by Nature or Art for they have a cloven Tongue and which is divided in the bottom so that it seemes double from the root so they use divers speeches and do not only speake with the voice of men but imitate the singing of Birds But that which seemes most notable they speak at one time perfectly to two men both answering and discoursing The Tongue double by Nature for with one part of their tongue they speake to one and with the other part to the other The Tongue of man is not indeed double tri-sulke or bisulke as in some Creatures but simple and one only and that verily according to a morall intention of Nature Yet some may wonder how since all the Organs of the Senses are framed double by Nature in the Taste she should order but one only and a simple Instrument and that to good purpose but although to sence it seeme one and a simple Instrument yet to a diligent Anatomist it will appear to be double Galen said the Tongue is double which he proves by this Argument that it hath double Vessels for neither the Veins nor Arteries nor Nerves of the right side go into the left side of it and so è contrario And we see that one side of the Tongue is struck with the Palsie sometimes the other side being unhurt The same disposition also there is of the Muscles to which we may add the white Median or middle line of separation which intersects the Tongue throughout or if you had rather scores it out so that the Tongue as all other Senses is double The cause why it was better for men that the Tongue should be such he saith to be for that by this means it proves more commodious for mastication and speech Which if it be true as Hofman thinks it to be most true without all peradventure saith he we must encourage those Fables which Diodorus Siculus makes Narration of Diod. Siculus lib. 3. that there are men somewhere who have really a double Tongue with which they better performe the linguall offices than we do with one which is the lesse incredible Jo. Franci Hildesii Med Camenicenj obser since we read of the Infant of a certaine Nobleman which had a double tongue divided according to latitude and of another who had eleven tongues One with eleven Tongues eleven mouths Albert. Mag. Comment ad li. 2. Phys 1. Arist and two and twenty incompleat lips Whether this Duplicity of Tongue be in them Lusus Naturae or a meere device of Art you may see my Authors doubts They that shall seriously ponder the strange Inventions mentioned in this Booke may perchance incline to the latter as most probable at leastwise if Anatomists will allow of the possibility of the thing and then it may passe for an audacious improvement of the Body Such a stratagem of improvement the pragmaticall invention of man hath proved effectuall in the Tongues of other Creatures it being a common practice to slit the Tongues of Pies Stares Jayes and Daws whom we would teach to speake to inable them the better to imitate the articulation of our speech Yet for the honour of Nature we must question whether this device be not somewhat destructive to the numericall perfection of the Body since that praesupposition in Philosophy is most true That Nature neither abounds in superfluous things nor is defective in necessaries for she doth nothing in vaine nor creates any thing diminished unlesse she be hindred by matter Now since this device pretends to double the provision of Nature by addition of a supernumerary particle although it be quid naturale the Instrument is probably hurt in its operations the number of parts requisite to the composition of the Instrument is depraved either as wee speake by minoration or majoration And if this multiplication of Tongues out of the substance of the Body there should be added to the number of the parts it must prove superfluous and how shall such an attempt be answered to Him who made all things in number measure and in weight Hofman The cutting of the Bridle of childrens Tongues condemned saith he hath heard of Dr Aquapendent that in certaine places of Italy the Midwives were perswaded that the bridle of the Tongue had need of cutting in all Infants therefore they wore the Naile of their right Thumbe long but conform'd into the rising edge of a pen-knife wherewith suddenly as soone as the Infants are borne they breake that ligament or bond Most of them all so served have become Stutterers and many have dyed inflamation arising from that Action Kypler Kyplerus condemns this tearing of it thus with the fingers as certaine rash women are wont to do since through the paine there follows a flux of humours inflamation and other mischiefes and when it is necessary to be cut he would have it done by Chirurgicall operation with a paire of Sizers Casserius also takes notice of this custome of unskilfull Midwives foolishly beleeving that unlesse they should do so the Infant would remaine mute Bauhinus inveighs against this pernicious custome of ignorant Midwives that they indifferently cut that which they call the bridle-string of the Tongue to wit that strong and membranous Ligament which was ordained for the strength and stability of the Tongue and the insertion of its proper Muscles Camerarius saith this opinion is pernicious and not to bee endured And Fabricius Hildanus Columbus and others cry out against it There is indeed a most strong Ligament membranous and broad placed under the middle of the body of the lower part of the Tongue by whose aide the softnesse of the Tongue under-propped it is more easily rolled about and produced to the end of this about the tip of the Tongue there is a little cord or Ligament groweth The use of the Tongues bridle which they call the Bridle of the Tongue and the Tongue hath a Ligament for two causes First for the firmament of its Basis for if it had been without this the Muscles in their action or their contraction to their principle had had nothing to rely upon and so it would have come to passe that the Tongue would be convolved as it were into a Globe secondly that the tip of it
might be easily moved every way for unlesse that were there would be much of the voice lost in dearticulation and as Casserius notes it restraines the Tongue from being drawn backe beyond measure by the over-streining of the anterior Muscles to which it is a helper and it hinders the Tongue from being put forth too monstrously and indecently and from being too exorbitantly led to any one side But that it should alwaies need the Midwives naile or great or the Chirurgeons Pen-knife lest it should prove an impediment to sucking or to future speech and without which enlargement it could not be freely roll'd or mov'd every way is a most dangerous conceit Certainly these Midwives as women are great friends to loquacity joine in opinion with these Authors who therein playing the Rhetoricians opine that Nature imposed this bridle upon man lest he should prove too talkative which morall use holds not for there are some as Kypler notes that are too talkative who have this Bridle short enough and there are some not so full of prattle although this bond be loose enough to give them scope for Loquacity or Taciturnity depends upon a higher principle and therefore their blind zeale in this businesse is the more reprovable Camerarius thinks that this never-enough condemned custome grounded hereupon might possibly be introduced into the Midwives practice A Caution for cutting from the suggestion of some Physitians who pretended this bond in all Infants doth so strictly tye the Tongue to its root insomuch as without resection of the same speech would become lame and imperfect and thereupon without any necessity the Midwives in many Nations began to dilacerate and breake it indifferently in all Infants But since neither Parrots nor Pies stand in need of any disruption of this Bond to utter their voice such as it is it would seeme a wonder if Sagacious Nature should faulter only in the forming of that part which was ordained to serve speech proper to Mankind Neither without reason did Galen even in this particular admire the providence of Nature that had in such exact Symetry ordered the Tongue that it was neither too short nor too long for the Offices it was to performe But let us distinguish and grant that it sometimes so fals out that even as in other parts of the Body so also in this little Bond Nature failes and offends as it were in excesse upon which occasion section is not unprofitable but it is to be esteemed necessary But that Nature the tender mother of all things doth alwaies in all Children commit this errour the best of the Learned constantly deny some of them witnessing as before that by omitting that Ruption or rather more truly Corruption according to their advice the Children have notwithstanding spoke very perfectly and on the contrary by the same foolish institution of Midwives others to have died inflamation being raised by the rude hand of unskilfull women which hath caused pain and hindred their sucking therefore when we suspect either a slownesse or depravation of the Tongue we ought to defer the dissection untill the appointed time of speech Chirurgions not Midwives worke for then this may more commodiously be done by a skilfull Chirurgion who may do it with Caution lest when he cut this little Corà he do not also cut the hard Nerves of motion to wit the seventh Conjugation placed in the lower part of the Tongue SCENE XV. Platter Faces where affected Face-moulders Face-takers Stigmatizers and Painters THe Chiribichensian women use to boulster the Necks of their Infants with two pillowes the one before Pet. Martyr Decad. 8. the other behind and bind them hard even untill their Eyes start for a smooth plaine Face pleaseth them Platter-faces being there in great request Lindscot lib. 1. cap. 20. In Java Major they have flat Faces and broad thick Cheekes Scaliger de subtil ad Cardan exerc 167. Leo hist de Africa l. 7. Scaliger saith that in the Island Java they have very broad Faces as likewise the Circassians In the Region of Zanfara they have extreame black broad visages Discovery of Norembega The Inhabitants of Norembega are disfigured in nothing saving that they have somewhat broad Visages and yet not all of them Sir John Mandevils Travels In an Island neare the great Island Dodyn there are men that have flat Faces without Noses and without Eyes but they have two small round holes instead of Eyes and they have flat mouths without Lips And in that Isle are men also that have their Faces all flat without Eyes without Mouth and without Nose but they have their Eyes and their Mouth behind on their shoulders These Faces cannot be commensurate because the Members thereof are forced out of their naturall proportion and so necessarily exclude that naturall beauty which is wont chiefly to be found in the Face For so much as it is from the middle of the brows to the end of the Nose so much it ought to be from the end of the Nose to the Chin and the same space should fall from the middle of the Brows to the exterior angle of the Eye as fals from the aforesaid Angle to the beginning of the Eare. The latitude of the Forehead the length of the Nose and the magnitude of the Mouth should be the same also the semicircle of the Eye and of the Cheekes the same as the altitude of the extremity of the Nose ought to be halfe as much as the Longitude of it which proportion is most notoriously demolished in these Platter-Faces Platter faces condemned Insomuch as considering these strange attempts made upon the naturall endowments of the Face one would thinke that some men felt within themselves an instinct of opposing Nature and that they tooke more delight to overcome than to follow her the delight would be lesse the profit greater if they did it for profit rather than pleasure they cannot but know that their happinesse doth consist in the overcoming of these unreasonable and phantasticall affectations but equivocating therein and either for want of understanding or through a wilfull misunderstanding whereas they should strive against their own inward they oppose their outward Nature Thus man transported with vaine imaginations where he finds Hils he sets himselfe to make Plaines where Plaines he raiseth Hils in pleasant places he seekes horrid ones and brings pleasantnesse into places of horrour and shamefull obscurity he seconds that which he ought to withstand and that which he should follow he opposes and when he thinkes he triumphs over his subdued and depraved body his own corrupt Nature triumphs over him This is a stratagem of the Enemy of our Nature to set us at odds with our naturall endowments and that he may remaine quiet within he causeth us to strive abroad like to a cunning politique Tyrant who having a valiant and fierce Subject within his City by whom he feares to have violence or opposition offered him
themselves and have painted their Faces and have put on their faire Ornaments The Queen Jesabel doing the same 2 Kin. 9.30 was for all that cast down out of a window Some Fucus allowable and bare the punishment of her wicked life Yet we cannot say that it is absolutely unlawfull to use any Fucus especially when any foule blemish doth disgrace the forme of modest Virgins or Matrons and we know Physitians are sometimes constrained to satisfie the desires of honourable Ladies and great Persons whom as Galen saith we may not deny And indeed somewhat is to be allowed to women who are studious of their beauty and desire a nitor and certainâ— splendour of Countenance and therefore either to repaire the injuries of aire or any other losse and dammage that hath happened to the Face or what is wanting to the emendation of the Elegancy of the Epidermis or skin of the Visage is no trespasse against Piety but may be honestly endeavoured by a Physitian since this induceth no Fucus but restores the naturall nitor of the Body upon whatsoever cause it is lost and therefore it is granted to women especially who since they were somewhat inferiour to men in prudence strength of Body and fortitude and other things instead thereof as Anacreon interpreted sings Natura donat illis Decoram habere formam Pro parmulisque cunctis Pro Lanceisque cunctis Nam flamma cedit illis Ferrumque si qua pulchra est And since Plato in Phaedro cals Beauty the most illustrious and amiable of all things and that a faire Face is illustrious with a kind of Divine Forme it is worthy of preservation and a faire restitution Women out in their Cosmetiques And indeed it belongeth to the corrective part of Medicine to reduce a superficies that is preternaturall for an inequality in the superficies belongs to Decoration as when any spot is in the Face from the Nativity it belongs to the Corrector to make this superficies beautifull and to correct it as women who have native spots in their face Mont. mediâ— par 2. which the Moderns call Stercus Daemonum which proceed from a thin and adurent bloud therefore it is the Office of the Corrector to correct those spots in them that have contracted them But the practice of woman in this case is not laudable nor agreeable to the corrective Art of Medicine for your women in your Cosmetique usurpations use only those things which constipate refrigerate repercuss to remove them from the Superficies to the Center whereas they should also use those things which are abstersive and mundifying But because things abstersive and mundifying introduce a scurfe women will not endure this way of Reduction to the naturall state of perfection But as the needlesse assumption and affectation of such Artifice is absurd and no way pleasing to Nature so too much curiosity in such matters is naught and reprovable And to take in what a grave and learned Divine hath Dr Donne Serm. 20. in concurring with the purpose of God in dignifying the Body we may exceed and go beyond Gods purpose God would not have the Face mangled and torne but then he would not have it varnished with forreine Complexions it is ill when it is not our own bloud that appeares in our Cheeks it may do some ill offices of bloud it may tempt but it gives over when it should do a good office of bloud it cannot blush God would not have us disfigure our Face with sad Countenances in fasting and other Disciplines Painting when sinfull nor would have us go about to marre his worke or to do his last work which he hath reserved to himselfe in Heaven here upon earth that is to glorifie our Bodies with such Additions here as though we would need no Glorification there But concerning this kind of transgression against the honesty and truth of Nature or rather the sinfulnesse of it Cajetan is of an opinion that as a woman may conserve her naturall beauty without sin so she may also preserve it by Art by adhibiting the vertues of Fucusses Pigments and other paintings so it do not intend an evill end it is a fiction and vanity somewhat excusable Whereas it is concluded a mortall sin for any to sell such disguising trash to those they know will abuse it for an evill end And in this regard some Divines will not allow so much as palliation of any deformity in the Face which hath proceeded from licentiousnesse and intemperance or that they should be disguised by unnaturall helps to the drawing in of others and the continuation of their former sins The sin it selfe was the Divels act in thee but in the Deformity that follows upon the sin God hath a hand and they that suppresse and smother these by paintings and unnaturall helps to unlawfull ends do not deliver themselves of the plague but they do hide the markes and infect others and wrastle against Gods notifications of their former sins The invention of which Act of Palliation of an ascititious deformity against Gods indigitation of sin is imagined one reason of the invention of black Patches wherein the French shewed their witty pride which could so cunningly turne Botches into Beauty and make uglinesse handsome yet in point of Phantasticalnesse we may excuse that Nation Musitians Face Deformers as having taken up the fashion rather for necessity than novelty in as much as those French Pimples have need of a French Plaister But vocall Musique performed by Instruments which Nature hath invented for delight ought not to be set at naught for the same or peradventure no reason at all as it is by the Stoick morall Philosophers For the Wind-Musique doth not deforme the Visage it reformes yea conformes it and the vocall which is correspondent to the hearing altereth the proportion of the Face to conforme it to the Eye the one requires setlednesse to be well looked upon and the other receives its perfections from motion one unfolds the Beauty of the Visage the other both laies open and accompanies the sweetnesse of the voice where there is a sound Motion hath necessarily proceeded and the motion is with measure if the sound be harmonious Sometimes also it is voluntary accompanied with the Head Eyes and Mouth and with delight though without necessity if it be with proportion That motion which offends produces no harmonious sound or doth not accompany it proportionably SCENE XVI Long-necked Nations Nationall Monstrosities appearing in the Necke PEtrus Damianus Damianus libello de mirac Arch-Bishop of Ravenna and Cardinall relates that Robert King of France married a Kinswoman of his by whom he had a Son with a Gooses neck and head whereupon by a common consent of the French Bishops they were excomunicated the King compelled by these streights takes better Counsell and renouncing his incestuous Bed entred into lawfull marriage with another Beyond the streights of Magellan Pigafetta reports to
they strive to have their Children suck over their shoulders for this is a device contrary to the intention of Nature as plainly appeares by the scituation of the Breasts as we have shewed in our Vox Corporis or Morall Anatomy of the Body Sutable to this absurdity is the Custome of the Turkish women Helyn who carry not their Children in their armes as we do Very little Breasts affected but astride on their shoulders But more conceited is the Fashion of the Matrons of Dasamonque in Florida who have a strange manner of carrying their Children plainly diverse from ours For we as a gesture more conformable to the hint of Nature carry ours in our armes before our Breast they taking hold of the right hand of the Child beare them on their back De Bry Hist Ind. embracing the Child 's left-heele with their left-hand by a way as wonderfull and forreign as it is averse to Nature Purch Pilgr 3. lib. 2. More commendable are the women of Uraba who do mightily affect little Breasts and use all the Art they can devise to have them so Allowable is the use of those Cosmetiques which are contrived by Art to restraine the exuberancy of the over-grown Breasts and reduce them to their naturall proportion which in the corrective part of medicine is performed by refrigerating repercussive medicaments which drive backward the matter to the profundity and excellently advancing the naturall heat compell it to enter into the depth of the Body and so meeting with the Aliment afar off prevents its passage io the more superficiall parts and so consequently prohibits the undecent augmentation of the Breasts Yet the practice of some Indian women to avoid the deformity of sagging Breasts is no way allowed who having Teats that become loose and hanging use therefore abortions with a certaine herb because they will not have this deformity and when they fall the principall women beare them up with Bars of Gold As if the Breasts of women were intended only for ornament Doe you thinke saith Phaverinus Men with great Breasts Phaver in Aul. Gell. that Nature hath given women their swelling paps as so many more beautifull Warts not for the nourishing of Children but for the adorning of the Breast for so many prodigious women endeavour to dry and dam up that most sacred Fountaine of the body and feeder of mankind as if it should despoile them of the ensigns of Beauty of which not the Vulgar but the Learned complaine that the greatest part of women an ancient crime put forth their Children to be Nursed from whence there follows the frequent infirmities of mens Bodies together with a shortning of the age and a diminution in their stature The same or not much differing folly are they guilty of who use strange counterfeit sleights to abortiate the fruit of their Body that the smoothnesse of the Belly be not wrinkled and enfeebled with the weight of the burthen and the labour of Child-birth a thing deserving all hate and detestation that a man in his very originall whiles he is framed whiles he is enlived should be put to death under the very hands and in the Shop of Nature In Aegypt the men have greater Breasts than the biggest of our women for Prosp Alpin lib. de med Egypt c. 9. Prosper Alpinus writes that they grow so fat by their course of Diet that he never saw in any Country so many extreame fat men as he observed in Grand Cairo and he reports that most of them are so fat that they have Breasts far greater and thicker than the longest Dugs of women But if I should say that men in some Countries have not only great Breasts bearing out like unto women which give suck but that many men have given suck unto their own Children Male Nurses it would sound very strange and somewhat against kind Purch Pilgr 2. lib. 9. Alex. Benedict lib. 3. cap. 4. Anatom yet upon credible witnesses it appeares to be very true For one Peter a Christian Casar at Sofula his wife dying after Travell of a Daughter nourished the same with milke from his own Breast for a whole yeare Pitty of the motherlesse crying Infant which his poverty could not otherwise relieve caused him to seek to still it with laying it to his Breast and then gave it somewhat to drinke which having continued two or three dayes his Breast began to yield milke Purch Pilgr 2. lib. 9. A poore Jew of Ormus nourished his son with his Breast the Mother dying when it was young in the Cradle A poore man in Moura being sixty yeares old had as much milke as a woman-Nurse and gave suck to two Children I have not wherewith to accuse these Male Nurses of tampering with their Breasts yet since the businesse concornes the reputation of Nature 't is worth the scanning Anatomists say that men have scarce any Glandules since they according to Hippocrates were not to have any milke in their Breasts yet they deny not that such a kind of humour like unto milke may be ingendred in them which Aristotle cals milke but unfit for nourishment Bauhin Anat. As Bauhinus observed in two men whose Breasts were replenished with a more copious juice Idem Ibid. Alex. Buatus Vesal lib. 5. Hum. Corp. Fabr. lib. 18. sect 7. Tra. 1. Sum. 2. ca. 39. Jac. Font. Art med pars 1 yet a certaine learned man affirmes that there have been seen some who putting an Infant to their Breasts have given suck Vesalius saith that more than once he had seen abundance of milke in men which also Nicolus affirmes Jacobus Fontanus saith Women with manlike Breasts he knew a Butcher of a good habit of body and fat that had Breasts abounding with milke And Bauhinus confesseth Idem Ibid. that they who have viewed the new World report that men there generally almost have store of milke in their Breasts In particular we read of the Cumacaiaro's a Nation of Brasile Renuard Cysatus Ins Japonia Germanice that the men are endued with large Breasts swelling with milk which are sufficient for the suckling and nursing up of Infants their women on the contrary being endowed with small and manlike Breasts Which Femenine property of men although not so frequently Card. 4. de hist Anim. 20. de subtil 12. hath appeared also in this our old world Cardan affirmes that he saw at Venice one Antoney Bussey of thirty yeares of Age who had such abundance of milke in his Breasts as was not only sufficient to suckle a Child but it moreover sprouted out exuberantly Johan Conradus Schenckius the Son knew one Laurence Wolff who from his youth to fifty five yeares of Age being then so old abounded with such store of milke that in their meetings being drunke he would by way of sport compressing his Breasts ejaculate and spurt milk in the face of those that sate right over against him being known to
titilationem diminiendo hinc Illa in Epigrammate invisa fuit haec inventio magis rationabile putans addidisse huic organo quam substraxisse Hence also it is thought there commonly passeth opinions of invitement that the Jewish women desire copulation with the Christians rather than their own Nation and affect Christian Carnality before Circumcised Venery D. Brown Pseudoxia Epidem as the ingenious Examiner of Popular errours well notes And yet it is noted that the Turkes Persians and most Orientall Nations use Opium to extimulate them to Venery and they are thought to speake probably who affirme their intent and effect of eating Opium is not so much to invigorate themselves in Coition as to prolong the act and spin out the motions of Carnality which Venerian Prolongers were intended to lengthen the titillations of Lust luxurious Leachers thinking Nature too sudden in her motions And therefore Mahomet well knowing this their beastly and inordinate affection promiseth them that the felicity of their Paradise should consist in a Jubile of Conjunction that is a coition of one Act prolonged unto fifty yeares For any Naturall end therefore except in case of an Epidemicall disease or Gangrene to Circumcise The end of Judaicall Circumcision that is to cut off the top of the uppermost skin of the secret parts is directly against the honesty of Nature and an injurious unsufferable trick put upon her As for Circumcision commanded by God it was for a morall reason and had an expresse command otherwise Dr Whateley as a Grave Divine expresseth it in the case of Abraham as a naturall man it would have seemed the most foolish thing in the world a matter of great reproach which would make him as it made his Posterity after him to seeme ridiculous to all the world it carried an apparence of much indecency and shamefulnesse to cause all his servants to discover themselves unto him Much more might have been alleadged against this Ordinance What good could it do What was any man the better because he had wounded himselfe and put his body to torture And indeed as Lactantius Eucherius Irenaeus and all the Greeke and Latin Fathers say unlesse this mutilation of the flesh in the Iews did signifie the Circum-of the heart or had some figurative meaning in it as the taking away of Originall sin it would have been a most unreasonable thing For if God would have had only the Fore-skin cut off he had from the beginning made man without a Prepuce No little danger of life also they incurred in this case for the Iudaicall Circumcision was performed with a sharpe cutting stone and not with any knife of iron steeled a thing which was most dolorous and whereby the young tender Infants sometimes got a Feaver whereof they after dyed Howbeit they had enough to do with other occasions as the cutting and fall of the Navel whereby Hyppocrates giveth assurance that Children do incur divers dangers Thevet and many others who have voyaged into the Countries where this Circumcision is used Circumcision of women do say that they have seen store of young people dye grown to indifferent stature and young Children of eight daies old only by being Circumcised which may manifestly be proved by Sacred Histories The Sons of Jacob after they had fraudulently Circumcised all the Males of the City of Sichem scituate in the Land of Canaan they tooke them the third day after their Circumcision and made them passe the Edge of the Sword for they well knew that they were so sore and tormented with paine as they could not stand upon their own defence Cael. Rhod. In Arabia there is a kind of People called Creophagi among whom they were not wont to circumcise Judaically the men only but the women also Herb. Travels The women of the Cape of Good Hope also excise themselves not from a notion of Religion but as an Ornament Bellonius 3. observ 28 Jovius lib. 3. Magin Geogr. In Ethiopia especially in the Dominions of Prester Iohn they Circumcise women These Abassines have added errour upon errour and sin upon sin for they cause their Females to be circumcised whom they call Cophles A thing which was never practised in Moses Law neither was there ever found any expresse Commandement to do it I know not where the Noselesse Moores learned it for they cut their Females although they be of marriage estate taking away a certaine Apophosis or excrescence of musculous skin that descendeth from the superiour part of the Matrix which some call Nympha or Hymenea one growing on either side even so far as the Orifice of the neck of the Bladder The way of Circumcising women which serve the erection to coition Many women both here and elsewhere have caused themselves to be cut as being over-great and exceeding Nature but not for any matter of Religion In all which places it is done by cutting that part which answereth the Prepuce or Foreskin in a man The Chiribichenses use to bind up the Fore-skinne of their Privities with a little Cord Helyn Geogr. and untie it not but to make water or when they use the Act of Generation Montaigne in his Essaies Nations that tye up the end of their Yard speaking of these late discovered Nations saith as there were some people found who tooke pleasure to unhood the end of their Yard and to cut off the Fore-skin after the manner of the Mahometans and Jews Some there were found that made so great a conscience to unhood it that with little strings they carried their Fore-skin very carefully out-stretched and fastned above for feare that end should see the aire A restraint which if Nature had imposed upon them Momus might have found an occasion to Cavill and they scape well if they pay not deare for this invention and that some are not oftner borne with their secrets so contracted and drawn together as some have beene among us for which Fabricius ab aqua pendens hath shewed the way of Chyrurgicall reduction Fabricius ab Aquapendens in Chirurg affirming upon his own experience that such are not barren as some have thought them to be This phantasticall cohibition against the freedome of Nature in this part Purch Pilgr 2. lib. 7. makes me reflect upon as inconvenient a restraint deserving but a collaterall insertion imposed upon the reverse of this and the benefit we receive from the egestions of Port Esquiline For the Guineans are very carefull to let a fart and wondred at the Netherlands rusticity and impudence who used it so commonly and durst commit such a stinke in presence they esteeming it not only to be a great shame and contempt done unto them but they had rather die than perpetrate such an abominable act De Bry Hist Ind. The Irish are much of the same opinion in this point of unnaturall restraint whereas the Romans by an Edict of Claudius the Emperour Where they adorne
Latitude and Profundity and these consist in a due proportioned mediocrity not declining from it in excesse or defect which againe may be more or lesse But that we may more perfectly comprehend it in our minds in the first place we must explaine what magnitude man is wont to have when he satisfies the Law of Nature in all perfections and is not defrauded of her just Donatives by the deceitfulnesse of a conceited education that we may have a body which as to a certaine statue of Polycletus all others may be diligently examined for so we shall easily understand who is to be called Tall or Low Grosse or Slender Broad or Narrow Such a one in this our Europe shall that be esteemed which in Longitude is six foot compleat and in Latitude or thicknesse one foot only and a third part they who decline now from this proportion are called unproportioned although this very excesse or defect is not to be defined to so strict bounds but they who only descede from this exact rule may yet be accounted among the number of proportioned men By this account he will be a tall man who is seven foot or somewhat lesse in length and in breadth and thicknesse is most conformable to a proportioned body on the contrary he is a little or low man whose length fals short of six foot in the other Dimensions correspondent to a well proportioned body An Art to make men by Art In like manner they are grosse who when they are of a due height which comprehends six feet yet the Diameter of Latitude exceeds one foot or the compasse or circumference of the breast and lower belly containes above three feet wheras in a well proportioned body it exactly equals three feet and so equall to the halfe of the Longitude of the whole body on the other side if they attaine not to these they are to be called leane and slender men Hippocrat in Epidemicis such as Hippocrates cals 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whom he declares to be very obnoxious to a Consumption But this Magnitude although it be thus defined by the observers of Nature because for the most part it is wont to be such yet it is so unequall that according to Age Sex Region and Diseases it much differs ¶ They say that Rhases and Albertus had invented a way to get little men by Art Julius Camillus rashly affirmes that a true man may be produced by a way not instituted by Nature out of urine or other humour decocted by fire or the Sun in glasse vessels Thomas Garzonus unadvisedly beleeved it to be fecible and some attribute this invention to Arnoldus Villanovanus Paracel lib. 1. de rerum natura Paracelsus boasts that he had received this secret of secrets from God affirming that if the Sperm of a man do putrifie in a sealed Gourd to the highest putrifaction of horse-dung forty daies or so long untill it begin to live and to move and be stirred which is easie to be seen after that it will be in some time like unto a man yet pellucid and without a body Now if afterwards it be daily warily and prudently nourished and fed with the secret of mans bloud The opinion of learned men touching this artifice and conserved for forty weeks in a perpetuall and equall heat of horse-dung it will thence become a true Infant having members as those that are begot on women but it will be far lesse Then it is diligently to be brought up untill it grow a stripling and begin to understand and be wise And this secret is known to the Nymphs of the Wood and the Gyants which are sprung from thence for there are also great and miraculous men made who are Conquerours and skilfull in secrets because they are borne by Art therefore Art prevailes in them for it is borne in them but they are not taught of others being called the sons of Woodmen and Nymphs because in respect of their virtue they are not like men but spirits Campanella Campanella de sensu rerum though he confesseth experience had not as yet brought him to the understanding of this mistery and therefore after some scanning of the matter doubts not of the effect yet he dares not deny it for where there is something like unto the wombe and Intelligence if it become a humane body God denies not to enfuse a mind but where God reveales not he is silent as for Paracelsus his conceit that Giants and Nymphs were artificially borne that he saies is false for the first ought to be borne without humane Art and that they used Art to the Generation of men and not Nature seems irrationall and false unlesse the Intelligences the Executrices of Gods providence have used this Art in some Region as God in the forming of Adam which is uncertaine besides saies he I thinke it false that those that are gotten by Art are more prudent than those who are gotten the naturall way The Pigmies of Paracelsus and their Teachers for Nature is wiser than Art since Art is but her Disciple Thus have we heard of the Pigmies of Paracelsus that is his non-Adamiticall men or middle natures betwixt Men and Spirits wherein he hath gone some way to meet their wish who desire to propagate the world without conjunction with women The ground of whose Vote is supposed to be that they had sensibly observed an impotency or totall privation of that which Eunuchs by Nature have prolongeth life they living longest in every kind that exercise it not at all Castrated Animals in any kind as well as Spado's by Art living longer than they that retaine their Virilities for the Generation of bodies as one once of this Sect said is not effected as some conceive of Soules that is by Irradiation or answerable to the propagation of Light without its proper diminution but therein a proper transmission is made materially from some parts and Ideally from every one and the propagation of one in a strict acception is some minoration of the other The Generation of one thing is the corruption of another although it be substantially true concerning the forme and matter is also dispositively verified in the Efficient or Producer Hereupon they are most unjustly afraid to lessen themselves though to gaine a kind of immortality Surely as the Marquesse of Malvezzi saith They who believe that woman was not made against the intention of Nature that she is not an Errour or a Monster The Commensuration of womans body vindicated must confesse she is made for Generation and if she be made for this end as indeed she is it is necessary she be endued with parts that move unto that end for hence it comes to passe that so soone as she is represented unto us if there be not first a habit form'd or that at the very instant there be not some great resistance made man doth by Nature hasten to contemplate her for the end