THE HISTORIE of Life and Death With Observations Naturall and Experimentall for the Prolonging of LIFE Written by the Right Honorable Francis Lord Verulam Viscount S. Alban LONDON Printed by I. Okes for Humphrey Mosley at the Princes Armes in Pauls Church-Yard 1638. Academiae Cantabrigiensis Liber TO THE Right Worshipfull Sr. EDWARD MOSLEY Knight his Majesties Atturny General of the Dutchey of Lancaster c. SIR THe Honourable Author of this History was such a miracle of Learning that Fancy striving to comprehend his Worth would be lost in Wonder and Amazement this Work of his retaining an affection to Grayes-Inne where the Author is and shall bee remembred by the Living and Posterity hath an originall ambition before it walk abroad into the World to visit Your Worship being a worthy Ornament of that Society that so Your respective entertainment may instruct the Envious and Ignorant Tribe to reverence rather than udge Honorable Personages and their Labours It will become mee onely to waite on the Imaginations of so great a Genius and while they converse with You in a nearer distance to acknowledge that Your Worships Name dignified with deserved Titles the Seales of vertue agreeing with mine only in Denomination made mee presume of Your Favour in accepting them and my Intention full of Service viceable respects hoping that verbum sat c. a word will bee sufficient to present this Oblation and the humble service Of Your Worships Honourer HUMPHREY MOSLEY TO THE Living and Posterity THE History of Life and Death being the last of sixe Monethly designations seemed worthy to bee preferred to bee the second in Publication because the least losse of time in a matter of so great utility should bee pretious for wee hope and desire that it may redound to the good of many and that noble Physitians raising their minds may not be wholly imployd in uncleane cures nor honoured only for necessity but become also the Stewards of Divine Omnipotency and Clemency in prolonging and renewing the life of Man especially since it may be done by safe convenient civill but untryed new waies and meanes For while 〈◊〉 Christians aspire and labour to come to the Land of Promise it will be a signe of Divine favour if our shoos and the garments of our frail bodies be here little worne in our iourney in the worlds wildernesse THE History of Life and Death The Accesse ANcient is the saying and complaint that Life is short and Art long Therefore our labours intending to perfect Arts should by the assistance of the Author of Truth and Life consider by what meanes the Life of man may be prolonged For long Life being an increasing heape of sinnes and sorrowes lightly esteemed of Christians aspiring to Heaven should not be dispised because it affoords longer opportunity of doing good Workes Moreover Amatus survived the other Disciples and many Fathers especially many holy Monkes and Hermites lived very long whereby it seemes that this blessing of long Life so often repeated in the Law was after our Saviours time lesse diminished then other earthly benedictions But the happinesse of long life is naturally desired although the meanes to attaine it through false opinions and vaine reports be hard to find the generall opinion of Physitians concerning Radicall mosture and Natural heat being deceiveable and the immoderate praise of Chymicall Medicines possessing others with failing hopes That which admits reparation remayning whole and sound in Essence may be eternally preserved as the Vestall Fire whereupon Physitians and Phylosophers perceiving that the bodies of living creatures being nourished repaired and refreshed grew old afterward and speedily perished they sought Death in an irreparable subject supposing Radicall moysture incapable of solid reparation from Infancy there being no just reparation but an unlike Addition sensibly by Age decayed and at last corrupted and dissolved This conceit of theirs was ignorant and vaine for young living creatures being all over and wholly repaired do by their increasing in quantity and growing better in quality shew that if the measure and manner of repairing decayed not the matter of repairing might be eternall But the 〈◊〉 in repairing proceeds from the unequall repairing of some parts sufficiently others hardly and badly in Age the bodies of men beginning thereby to undergoe Mezentius torment living in the embraces of the dead untill they dye and being easily repairable yet through some particular difficulty in restoring doe decay For spirits blood flesh and fatnesse are in the declining estate of Age easily repaired but there is much difficulty and danger in repairing the dry parts and fuller of pores as membranes tunicles nerves arteries veines gristles most of the bowels and all the organicall and instrumentall parts For when those parts that should performe their office to other actually reparable parts cannot being decayed in strength execute their office a generall ruine follows and parts naturally restoreable through defective Organs of Reparation doe decrease and decay For the spirit like a light flame continually feeds on bodies and the Ayre without conspiring therewith doth suck and dry the fabrick and instruments of the body which are thereby decayed and made unfit to performe the office of repairing And these are the true wayes whereby natur all Death approacheth deserving due consideration For how can Natures course if unknowne bee helped or prevented Therefore the meanes whereby the consumption or decay of mans body may be prevented and the repairing and restoring thereof furthered are most precious and worth knowing The spirits and ayre without are the chiefe causes of consumption and the generall progresse of Nourishment is the cause of restoration For the spirit within and the ayre without doe worke on dead bodies striving also to produce in living bodies the same effects though weakened and restrayned by the vitall spirits and partly by them increased For bodies without life doe a long while subsist and endure without Reparation but the life of creatures without due nourishment and reparation suddenly decayes and is extinguished like fire Therefore a two-fold search is required considering mans body as livelesse and unnourished and as living and nourished So much for the Preface proceeding now to the Topicks or common-places of the search Particular Places OR Poynts of Inquiry concerning Life and Death 1. OF Nature durable and lesse durable in liveles bodies and in Vegetables no copious or Legall but a summary briefe inquiry is made 2. Of the Drinesse Withering and Consumption of livelesse bodiesand Vegetables of their manner and progresse in working and also of hindring and staying of Drying Withering and Consumption and the preservation of the state of Bodies and also of Mollifying Softning and Reviving beginning to be affected with Drinesse make diligent inquiry 3. Yet no perfect exact inquiry is needfull concerning these poynts included under their proper Title of Duration and Continuance beeing not principall matters in this Inquiry but such as doe onely affoord light to prolonging and restoring of Life in
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
much as change of Ayre Therefore poore men living in Cottages and never changing their Dwellings are commonly long-liv'd But in other Respects the Spirits beeing fresh and lively change of Ayre is good foure yeerely remoovings beeing sufficient that so neither Travayle nor continuall residence in one place may proove wearisome So much of excluding or keeping out and avoyding the praedatory devouring power of the Ayre The Operation on the Blood and cooling the heate of the Blood 3. The History THe two Operations following have as Actives to Passives Relation to the former which endeavoured to keepe the spirits and ayre from wasting the body as these shew how to make the blood moysture and body lesse subject to depraedation and wasting but Blood watering the moysture and limbes three powerfull rules concerning the operation on the Blood shall bee first propounded 2. First Blood being cold is lesse dissipable and subject to scattering abroad There are two coolers more agreeable to the following Intentions than Julips or Potions 3. In Youth Glisters not purgative or cleansing but onely refrigerative cooling and opening made of the juyce of Lettuce Purslane Liverwort Sevegreene or House-leeke Fleawort-seed with a temperate opening decoction mingled with a little Camphire but in Age instead of Houseleeke and Purslane the juyce of Borage and Endive may be used and these Glisters must be an Houre or more retained 4. Secondly in Summer a Bath may be made of sweete luke-warme water and new whey and Roses insteade of Mallows Mercury Milke and such like mollifiers and softners 5. Annoynt the Body with Oyle and thickning substances before Bathing for receiving the refrigerating quality of the coolers and repelling the water the pores of the body being not shut too close lest outward cold strongly closing shutting the Body doe hinder cooling and rather stirre up heate 6. Bladders also apply'd with Decoctions and cooling juyces to the inferiour Region of the Body beneath the Ribs downward are a kind of Bathing whereby the liquour being excluded the Refrigerating quality or Coolenesse is onely received 7. The third Rule doth onely qualifie the substance of the Blood making it firmer and lesse subject to Dissipation and scattering abroad or to the working heate of the spirits 8. To effect this Operation powder of Gold or Leafe-Gold or powder of Pearle precious Stones and Corrals are good being therefore much esteemed by the Arabians Grecians and also Modernes Therefore to omit fantasticall Opinions insinuation being made into the substance of the Blood the spirits and heate having no power to worke thereon putrefaction and drying would bee thereby prevented and Life Prolonged yet divers Cautions are observable First let them bee exactly pulveriz'd and made into powder secondly let their malignant quality hurtfull to the veines be taken away thirdly beware lest their long abode in the body being taken with meate or otherwise received doe breed dangerous obstructions in the Bowels fourthly to avoyd Repletion or filling of the veines let them be seldome used 9. Therefore take them fasting in White-wine mingled with a little oyle of Almonds and afterward use some exercise 10. In this operation use Pearles Corrall and Gold for all Other Mettals having some malignant quality are not so exactly pulveriz'd or made into powder and the powder of cleere grasse greene stones is bad being a Corrosive 11. But drugges of wood may be more safely and effectually used in Infusions and Decoctions being good to make the Blood firme and not dangerous for breeding of Obstructions and their Infusions being taken in Dyet or Drinke having no dregs doe easily pierce into the veines 12. Drugges of Wood are Sanders the Oke and Vine but hot woods having in them any Rozzen or Gumme are not good but dry Rosemarystalkes being a shrub as longlivd as many Trees and such a quantity of Ivy-stalkes as will not make the Potion unsavory may be used 13. Drugs of wood may be also boiled in Broths infused into Ale or Wine before they be setled or refined But Guiacum and such Drugges must bee put in before the Broaths are boyled that the substance of the firmer parts of the Wood being dissolved may remaine in the Broath but whether Ash bee good in Potions is uncertaine So much of the Operation on the Blood The Operation on the moysture of the Body 4. The History 1. TWo kinds of Bodies formerly mentioned concerning living creatures are hardly consumed hard bodies as Mettals and Stones fat as Oyle and Waxe 2. Therefore the moysture of the Body must bee hardened and made fatty or dewy 3. Moysture is hardened by firme foode by cold thickening the skinne and flesh and by exercise compacting the juyce that it may not bee soft and frothy 4. Beefe Porke Venison Goat Kid Swanne Goose and Woode-pigeons especially beeing powdred also dryed Salt-fish olde Cheese and the like are firme sollid meates 5. Oaten bread or Miscelline bread made of Pease Rye and Barley is more sollid than wheaten bread and the course Wheaten bread or browne bread that is full of Brane is sollider than White bread made of purer flower 6. The Orcades feeding on fish and beeing generally fish-eaters are long liv'd 7. Monkes and Hermites living sparingly on drye foode commonly attayned to a great age 8. Pure water beeing mingled with Wine or Drinke hardens the bodies moisture and because the Spirit of the water is dull and piercing Nitre may be there with mingled And so much for the firmnesse of nourishment 9. People living abroad in the open ayre the cold thickning their skinne and flesh no longer liv'd than Dwellers in houses and in cold Countries the Inhabitants attaine unto a greater Age than in hot Countries 10. Many thicke cloathes on the bed or backe doe loosen and soften the body 11. Washing the body in colde Baths doth lengthen life but hot Baths are very bad Baths of binding Minerall waters were formerly mentioned 12. By an easie jdle Life without exercise the flesh is made dissipable and soft being by stout exercises used without excessive sweating and wearinesse compacted hardned Swimming is also a good exercise generally all exercises abroad are better than within the house 13. Frications by a kind of exercise fetching out not hardning nourishment shall be hereafter handled in its proper and due place 14. To make hard moysture oily and dewy is a perfecter worke than hardning being attended with no inconvenience whereas hardners of moysture staying the Consumption and hindering the Reparation and Renewing of Nourishment do thereby further and hinder long Life But oilie and juycy Nourishment by bedewing the Body is lesse dissipable and more reparable 15. This Dewy fat moysture of the Body is no tallowy fatnesse but a Radicall Dew diffused and spread through the body 16. Oily fat meates are not converted agayne into fat perfect Substances returning not agayne into one and the same Substance but Nourishment doth after maturation and Digestion breede an oy lines in the bodies