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A15052
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The tree of humane life, or, The bloud of the grape Proving the possibilitie of maintaining humane life from infancy to extreme old age without any sicknesse by the use of wine. By Tobias Whitaker Doctor in Physick of London.
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Whitaker, Tobias, d. 1666.
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1638
(1638)
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STC 25356; ESTC S119853
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23,147
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94
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THE TREE OF HVMANE LIFE OR THE BLOVD OF THE GRAPE PROVING THE POSsibilitie of maintaining humane life from infancy to extreame old age without any sicknesse by the use of Wine By TOBIAS WHITAKER Doctor in Physick of London LONDON Printed by I.D. for H.O. and are to be sold at his shop in Popes-head Ally 1638. To the Reader Gentle Reader IF I would have made any particular Dedication I could stoope no lower then a Prince the subject meriteth asmuch had it beene handled accordingly and if it had yet I durst not flye so high though Riolanus taketh boldnesse to tell Henry the fourth of France that the faculty deserveth the patronage of a Prince both in respect of antiquity necessity subject and office For Antiquitie a twinne with the Divine for so soone as the soule was breathed into man it was then Corpus humanum vivens sanabile and so the subject both of Phisicke and Theologie for had Adam never sinned yet must his body have been preserved and maintained by diet which is part of physick But after his fall so violated his equall temper that as then hee became subject to mortalitie and naturall decay Then came in the necessity of medicine and ever since for this necessitie sake hath the Almighty commanded an honour to bee given to the Phisician for he hath created him an Angell of mercy Also in respect of the subject about which this art is exercised it rightly challengeth precedence of all other faculties except Theologie for it is the body of man a world a wonder the image of God himselfe and such a piece of architecture as the Almightie would not vouchsafe to frame without a Councell The office then of preserving and maintaining it must needs bee high and eminent and may well befit a King to exercise Such esteeme it had obtained when Avicenna Isaac and other Princes were Phisicians nay the faculty hath crowned some to this day with title of Prince witnesse the house de Medicis And if I should say it comprehends all other faculties I dare attempt the proving of it First in respect of government as Agents they ought to be obeyed in practice even by Princes for they are subject to sicknesse and must die like men and Iudges which have power to condemne poore malefactors or others yet they must receive their sentence of death from the Phisician if they come to a faire and timely end And as they make lawes for the well ordering and governing the Republique So doth the Physician prescribe rules for the preservation of harmony throughout this little world but ab quantum mutatus ab illo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was his Motto in Homer Now if Stercus and Vrina can bee pickt out of the vanities of Cornelius Agrippa it shal be thrown upon the purple robes of the Physician by the ignorant or impudent For Science hath no enemy but ignorance nor is vilified among any except pigritious and impudent persons Then let the ignorant prattle still the Physitian shall be the instrument of all common good in a Republique and if no valetudinarie man of any condition bee able to effect any solid good either to his King Countrie or selfe as he is not and the power of restoring and healing him bee given principally to the Phisician And if also upon that prolongation of life if upon but one houre or moment eternity doth or may depend then consequently the Physician must bee acknowledged an instrument of salvation principally to the body accidentally to the soule What if I shall seeme in the eyes of others to advance my faculty higher then their judgements wil imbrace yet can I not justly deserve a frowne where a probable truth is manifest nor is my intention hereby to undervalue any person or judgement nor overvalue my owne whatsoever Cicero shall affirme to the contrary in these words Nemingem unquam neque Poetam neque Oratorem fuisse qui quenquam meliorem quà m se arbitraretur but rather to vindicate my faculty of those contempts and disparagements which various dispositions cast upon it What I have written concerning the subsequent subject begs neither acceptation nor encomiastick favour nor doe I quit my selfe of temerity Suffenus will be a companion for the best learned and some wantonnesse will escape the tongue and pen of the wisest man in this or that thing Therefore I doe feare no frowne except from my naturall Prince and those whom he hath commanded me to feare and obey and thus as a loyall subject I doe In testimony wherof I have indeavoured to open this mysterie of life and health to my King and Countrey If I have frustrated any expectation in the handling of it let my velle be accepted in magnis est voluisse satis THE TREE OF LIFE OR THE BLOVD OF THE GRAPE THis subject is bloud in that is life 't is of the Vine and that the plant of life And if I should say a Species of that in Paradise my opinion might not in all places and amongst all persons bee rejected magis and minùs may be the difference for as that was called the Tree of life so is the Vine and they doe not only agree in the appellation but in their nature and effects also In testimonie hereof Aselepiades the Phisitian both to my former distinction as also to the appellation affirmeth The nature of Wine to be neerest to the nature of the Gods and their nature is incorrupt Secondly he adviseth the application of it to unsound bodies to reduce them to a sound and incorrupt temper and in some sence to eternitie for such a state there is in this world as will be more plainly demonstrated in our following discourse How necessary then is this subject and how difficult to explicate Necessary because life is short difficult because art is long yet if by this Act I shall bee an instrument to protract life and abreviate art not only shew the plant but teach the use it may prove worth my labour and Countries acceptation How ever reason and Philosophie shall be my guide neither Hippocrates nor Galen nor any other authority further then they are my owne and agree with reason and truth As for the abbreviation of art preservation of life and restauration of health wee will comprehend in a small circle and render in a few words the summe of all Classick Writers to this purpose especially the Foureteene bookes of Galen his method of curing and Six of health preserving and in these few words exprest viz. Dyet and Medicine for thus chiefly and substantially and by these two wayes are life and health extended and restored quantity quality and manner of application in them observed Quantity as it is vsque ad vasa ad vires Quality as it corresponds with humane bodies in generall or with this and that individuall Lessius seemeth to mee to dote more upon quantity ad vasa then any other thing conducing to the preservation of life and
Nature being so many Centuries after Adam the yeares of Noah necessarily must have bin shorter by many score then were his Grandsires yeares had he not tasted Nectar from that plant from which Adam was excluded I meane an inferiour species of that tree of life For had it beene equall in power whereas he lived after his plantation Three hundred and fifty yeares a good cordiall to an old man hee had beene now alive and so should have beene for ever Moreover in Six hundred yeares hee could not but conclude and determine most naturall questions by experience and thereby sufficiently taught out of universals how to draw his particular conclusions or otherwise by resolving them into their naturall principles make a sensible discovery of Natures secrets And out of this fulnesse of knowledge and experience doth he plant his Vineyard So that by inference the excellency of this subject doth appeare transcendent Now let us really consider the nature and quality of it with its difference and use both in respect of aliment and medicament and application to every individuall of what age or temper soever And to the end we may act asmuch as wee speake Let us looke upon the quality of Wine philosophically and at the first view wee shall discover a two-fold heate in it as it flowes from a living body viz. an animall and elementary heate for though wine cannot be said to be animatum such as giveth a soule or life yet it may carry with it and to it selfe an impresse central orimplanted heate from a soule as may bee demonstrated plainly in other things for the seed of animals aswell as of plants have not a soule in act according to the doctrine of Aristotle Yet it doth take from a soule such a generative power like unto the soule which Aristotle saith is nothing else but a vitall heate which hee hath distinguished from igneous and elementary So as in the generation of a living creature the first moving is animal or the plant from which the seed issueth but the seed is the instrument which by a power received from the plant that is to say by a vitall heate begetteth another being like it selfe Since therefore there is in semine a vitall heate distinct from elementary why may we not say the same of wine which in like manner issueth from an animate body Then wine hath a double heat or one conflate or moved out of two and that which is great and intense doth not consist of an indivisible but in some certaine latitude and it is now greater or lesse according to the variety of Species as also from the diversity of places for in more hot places where the Sunne effects a stronger heate there grow hotter Wines and this heate in them is not externall but rather naturall and implanted in the wine For from the heate of the place it commeth to passe that the vitall and elementary heate which constituteth the naturall heate of the wine doth become greater and more intense So as wee cannot deny in wine that double moisture and Galen is of the same opinion when as hee distinguisheth the substance vinosa from the substance aquosa for vinosa qualitas hath that humidity which doth unite the parts and the watrish substance only that which is contracted from aliment For so long as the Grape was conjoyned to the Vine there did flow thereunto a watrish humour by which it was nourished and after the Grape is separated from the Vine still doth retayne that waterish humour which as yet was not converted nor assimulated into the substance of wine neither can have any further conversion because the wine is now no more animatum or able to produce it into act But this is that humidity in wine which is spent and wasted in boyling or otherwise and the other heate remaineth only which is innate and fixed to the substance of wine and hence it is that the boyling of wine makes it more sweet the other humidity being thus spent it returnes to its true naturall moisture And this I hope will be a sufficient satisfaction for the nature of wine in generall from whence its familiarity with humane nature will appeare Now we proceed to the specificall difference of wine and wine and these differences consist chiefly in name for although some differ among us in name yet there is no specificall difference but if you take them naturally there is in such a specificall difference which addeth to the name as colour tastes and smell The nature of them all corroborative nutritive mundificative apperitive and these are not only testified by the ancient learned Phisitians but also proved out of their owne existence or prime animation which hereafter shall bee demonstrated To returne therefore to the difference in name or names they are so various and endlesse as that will relish more of curiosity then utility to render many of them being more phantastically imposed out of the exuberate singularity in Merchants of all nations But so many as Philosophers Phisitians or Poets have taken notice of I shall briefly set downe and so passe to the colours In the first place let us take notice of the generall name Vinum and so called à vi from the strength of it as Varro would have it but I rather render it vinum quasi divinum and so a species of the tree of life in Paradise The Ancients they had many sorts of wine differing in name as Fortinum newly exprest from the grape Protopum such as fell from the Vine before the grapes were trodden others which take their names from the regions in which they grow as Chium Lesbium Falernum Caecubum Surrentinum Calenum Signinum Tarraconense Spoletinum Ceretanum Fundanum Malvaticum amongst the French many others as vinum Belonense Divionense Monlispedonense Remense Burdegalense Aurelianense Andegavense and these agree better with sound bodies in preserving their temper then with infirme constitutions There are weake wines in France which agree better with feaverish dispositions then with cold phlegmatick tempers as Parisiense Limonicense Forense Allobrogense with many other But now you know their names and partly to what temper they are proper let us take a taste and principally strike these foure vessels viz. sweet acute austere and milde observing also foure colours in them viz. white sanguineous yellow and blacke the first three commonly used and knowne to us by the names of White Claret and Sack and these also admit of their differences for there are severall sorts of Sack and Claret so also are there of white wines some sweet some austere some thick others lympid and cleere and all these nourish much but especially the sweet wine with this caution that the liver spleene and reines bee void of obstruction For the sweetest Wines though they nourish most yet because they obtaine a body generally more crasse therefore they are said to obstruct very much Now having Philosophically shewed their nature and difference specifically it remaines that I