parts especially the elder they are Old Wall-nuts require strong stomackes to digest them They have even before Galens time beene esteemed as a good antidote against poyson who also maketh mention of that famous antidote made of this same Nut with Rue and Salt and hee giveth it also an astringent faculty A late Writer giveth it some commendation in furthering womens menstruous fluxe They preserve them ordinarily in France and Italy about mid-sommer before they be ripe cutting off their greene coat and after boiling them while they bee tender sticking them with cinamon and cloves and afterwards preserving them with sugar and so they become very comfortable for the stomacke and good for the heart The oile of walnuts is not only used for lights in lamps and by painters for vernice but is of a great use also for dressing of meats and in many parts of France supplieth the roome of butter and is ordinarily used in sallets and in my opinion it is better than butter and wholesomer for use Dioscorides holdeth this nut hurtfull for the head and stomacke to be ill of digestion and hurtsfull for the cough which must be understood of them when they are old as hath been said already The shaddow of this tree is hurtfull to them that shall sit under it in Sommer and thought to bee called Nux a nocendo from hurting Nuts according to our Arabian Physitians are chiefely to be eaten after fish according to that triviall verse Post pisces nux sit post carnes caseus adsit And this I thinke in regard of their astringent and drying faculty The Hasell-nut is not so good as the former hard of digestion especially being any thing old and hurteth the breast and lungs and therefore sparingly to be used especially of weake stomackes They are best used when they are young and newly gathered When they are old they are of a terrestrious substance hot and dry whereas yong and new gathered they are farre moister and rather temperate than hot The best are those we call Filberds especially those that have red skins The astriction I thinke of all nuts proceedeth chiefely from the skin The Almond both bitter and sweet is reckoned among nuts The bitter are for the use of Physicke and not for food Sweet Almonds are good for the breast and lungs they fatten and nourish much espeally their creame or milke They are of an opening and abstersive or cleansing facultie and withall participate of some narcoticke vertue whereby they further sleepe and send many vapors up to the head whereby in some weaker dispositions head-ach is sometimes procured They are rather temperate than of any great heat howbeit the new ripe Almonds are much moister and somewhat colder If they be very old and withered they are not good to be eaten but onely for oile The older they are the harder they are of digestion and offend the stomacke more Blanched their skins being taken off and eaten with rose-rose-water and sugar they are easilier concocted moisten and nourish more but eaten too liberally procure head-ach They use also to eat them with Raisins in Lent and some other times The yonger they be before they be full ripe the moister they are and the more appropriate for hot and dry constitutions and worse for phlegmaticke the riper may be indifferently used of any age or constitution The oile of sweet Almonds is exceeding good taken inwardly being exceeding good in infirmities of the lungs helping gently to concoct and expectorat that which was descended upon those parts but especially it is good for young children with a little sugar candy for this purpose It is also exceeding good in outward paines and griefes being of an anodyne faculty by reason of that temperate discussing and concocting faculty wherewith it is endowed There is another Apple or nut call it as thou wilt commonly called a Pine-apple which is much used in pectorall diseases and therfore used in compositions for that end and purpose being good to cut cleanse and expectorate tough and Phlegmaticke matter out of the pipes of the lungs These kernels are moderately hot and somewhat moister yeelding good nourishment to the body howbeit hard of digestion and no good friend to the stomacke The newest are the best and easiliest digested But because this is not a food frequent with us and not every where easie to come by nor yet much used for food I leave it here Fisticke or Pistach nuts are more used in Physicke than in food and are much of the facultie of the former and are very wholesome good for the stomacke helpe obstructions of the liver are good against consumed or weakened and wasted bodies and esteemed forcible to procure lust good to cleanse the kidnies and strengthen the same They are better for the aged cold and phlegmaticke constitutions being somewhat hotter than the pine-apple kernels This nut is sent us out of Syria Persia and Arabia and groweth also in some places of Italy and other countries howbeit the best and most we have come from those parts There resteth yet one Nut which some ranke among the glands which we commonly call a Chestnut which are not very frequent with us especially in most places This nut is thought to bee very nourishing but it is hard of digestion and the nourishment thereof is but grosse and fittest for strong rusticall bodies This Nut bindeth the belly stoppeth fluxes of the belly breedeth obstructions and hurteth the head They are used in many places of France for a desert after dinner or supper either boiled or rosted together with other fruits And what they can spare from their owne use they bestow on their hogges which doe exceedingly fatten them In some parts of France where they abound and other provision come especially is scant as in the country of Limosin Perigort and some others the country people make bread of them CHAP. XVIII Of the severall sorts of flesh especially of foure footed beasts with their appurtenances and parts OF all food flesh is most agreeable to the nature of man and breedeth most abundant nourishment to the body Now flesh is of two sorts either of foure-footed beasts or of fowle The flesh againe of foure-footed beasts differeth in quality not only one kind from an other but even the same kind from it selfe according to the age c. And of foure-footed beasts some are wild and some are tame which makes some difference in their alimentary faculty The tame are of a more nourishing faculty than the wild and among them the male of such as be gelded is commonly better than the female of the same kind and so is that of middle age wholesomer than that which is either very old or very young And againe among the young some are better than other as yong veale providing it be not too young is better than lamb or pigge Besides very fat meate cloieth the stomacke and quickly
fresh-waters In generall Shell-fish for the most part ingender crude viscous and phlegmaticke humors howbeit some more some lesse Of these some are of a farre softer substance and others of a firmer Oisters Mushells Cockles and the like are of a soft substance Lobsters Crevices c are of a firmer and solider substance And in nourishment and concoction they differ also accordingly Oisters among all others are in greatest request and for the softnesse of their substance and easinesse to be concocted they are commonly eaten raw and before meales by which meanes they are good to loosen the belly And although they better befit some constitutions of body than others as namely hot dry cholericke bodie yet are they indifferently used by all constitutions sexes and ages But they helpe themselves with the correction of pepper vineger and onions and a cup of good claret wine for the most part But I wish a moderation in the use of this Sea-excremēt for it is nothing else hath bin shewed already is in divers others so especially in this others of this nature and kind Cockles Mushells and such others not much unlike them are far inferior unto Oisters as being harder of concoction and yeelding worse nourishment to the body especially Mushells All are enemies to obstructions Pranes and Shrimps to an indifferent good stomacke prove good and wholesome nourishment exceeding any of the former and being indifferent easy of concoction Crabs and their kinds Lobsters and the like Shell-fish are of a farre more solid and firme substance nourish much but are hard of concoction The Crab is the colder and worst for cold and old complexions The Lobster is better than the former and may better bee used of colder complexions provided the stomacke be strong it being also hard of concoction The Tortoise as living most in the water deserveth well to bee ranked among fish It is of a firme and solid substance being in forren nations often used as an ordinary food The wood Tortoises are accounted of all others the best Tortoises have not an evill taste and yeeld to the body abundance of strong nourishment howbeit hard of digestion used liberally they are esteemed to loosen the belly They ingender tough and clammy humors and therefore unfit for the wind-collicke obstructions stone c. They use to prepare them with great art and industrie against Consumptions and Hecticke-fevers And for this purpose the Wood Tortoises are the best Among all our fresh-water-fish the Salmon in all ages hath borne the bell away even in the dayes of Pliny It is very sweet and pleasant to the Palat easy of concoction and yeelding a good and wholesome nourishment to the body howbeit it quickly filleth the stomacke and taken in any quantity will not so easily be concocted The Salmon-trout young Salmon or Salmon-peale are yet better and easilier concocted than the great and older Salmon Eaten with vineger they are not so burdensome to a weak stomacke Many use to keep this Fish sometime in such sowre liquor although it then nourish lesse They are taken in great abundance in many places both of this Iland and Ireland Salt salmon looseth much of its former bounty as nourishing lesse becomming harder to be concocted and ingendring worse humors in the body as is the nature of salt-fish The little River-trout among River-fish challengeth the second place and unto it by some is assigned the first place The best are such as are bred in cleere and rockie Rivers The others that live in great Lakes and more muddy waters although in greatnesse they may exceed yet in good wholesome nourishment they are farre inferior to the others The Trout yeeldeth a dainty moist and cooling nourishment especially to hot and dry complexions The Perch that liveth in pure Rivers I ever held for as good a Fish as the fresh-water bringeth forth It is of good taste pleasing the palat of an indifferent firme substance and may safely bee used of the sicke The Pike is of a firme and solid substance yeelding to none in good wholesome nourishment that especially I meane which liveth in pure Rivers and not in muddie ponds and pooles The Pickrell or yong Pike is easiest of concoction Those of middle age are best for ordinary use for most people in sickenesse and in health It may as well be allowed the sicke as any other fish And the Gudgeon is as good as the best River-fish both for sicke and healthfull people and will easily be concocted with a weak stomacke affording the body a good laudable and wholesome nourishment and may be called the River Smelt The Roch is an indifferent good fish and affordeth the body no bad nourishment howbeit it be farre inferiour to the Gudgeon The Allowes yeeldeth good store of nourishment to the body although it be hard of digestion Take time and leisure to the eating of it and take heed of bones The Barbell is easily concocted yeelding but small nourishment and that not very excellent and somewhat muddie in taste the greater are the best It is to be observed in the use of this fish saith a late Writer that the spawne thereof worketh as violent effects in the bodie both upwards and downewards as either Antimonie or Sneesing powder or the like and therefore wisheth every one to take good heed that they eat none of this stuffe This fish was in so high esteeme among the antient Romans that one cost sometimes neere threescore pounds Sterline And Cicero himselfe maketh it plainly appeare in what high esteeme it was then among great ones at Rome But me thinkes I heare the Carpe complaine that hath beene all this while neglected being neverthelesse so highly esteemed and reckoned one of the chiefest fish that furnisheth our fish meales The Carpe then howsoever in so high an account yet scarce deserveth so high a praise and commendation It yeeldeth to the body a viscous and clammie nourishment apt to ingender obstructions wind-colicke stone c. and therefore I wish the use thereof to be but sparing The Brame is better and of easier digestion than the Carpe howbeit inferiour to the Perch and some others The Tench delighteth commonly in slimie and muddy waters in which it ordinarily liveth and although it yeeld abundance of nourishment yet it is naught ingendring obstructions and many dangerous diseases being especially much used by such as use little exercise and are used to feede daintily Strong robust labouring people are better able to overcome the harmes from thence ensuing The Lamprey not onely among the antient Romans was in no small esteeme and account but is even at this day accounted an extraordinary daintie fish but especially among the greater sort the poore not being able to reach to so costly a sauce And I may well say of it that the sauce is farre better than it selfe The Lamprey although pleasant to
long most of all and is of least use Blacke Pepper is with us in most frequent use heateth much cutteth tough grosse phlegme helpeth the concoction in a cold phlegmaticke stomacke is also good against crudities wind-colicke and cold in any part sinewes or others It is not to be too small beaten for feare of inflaming the blood and other profitable humours of the body it is safelier used in old age than in younger people for whom the too frequent use of it is exceeding hurtfull And therefore it ought not to be so ordinarily without any consideration had either to age or season of the yeere as it is used of every one Let youth therefore take heede how they use too liberally Venison so much peppered and salted in the Sommer-season and to mend the matter after make it swimme in wine It is thought pepper heateth lesse than other spices and this I doe not conceive that other spices are indeed actually hotter but by reason the heat of it is lesse durable and it is not of so terrestrious a substance And for this same cause I suppose long Pepper by reason of a more terrestrious substance and more durable heat is accounted hotter by reason of this durable biting and abiding heat And this I suppose gave the vulgar occasion to call Pepper hot in the mouth and cold in the stomack But let the dullest taste try a small quantity of Pepper and I will appeale to his senses whether it be hot or cold so that I shall need use no other argument to proove it That little hot root which we call Ginger commeth in the second place of spices to be considered And although it be not so intense in heat as Pepper I meane in the degree yet heateth it more by reason of its terrestrious substance It is brought over unto us either dry or else preserved greene in sirup and it is sometimes yea very often preserved after it commeth over being first steeped and boiled in water which notwithstanding yeeldeth much in goodnesse to the former Dry Ginger is very hot and dry and is used to season cold and moist meats as pepper is howbeit Pepper be in far more frequent use either for fish or flesh especially for fish Ginger is good to helpe digestion and to open obstructions to cut and attenuate grosse and tough phlegmaticke humors to discusse winde and helpe to expell it out of the bodie It is better for aged than for young hot cholericke bodies or the like diseases Green Ginger preserved in the Indies when it is yet moist and succulent as it is pleasing to the palate so is it nothing so hot and dry as any other sort and therefore may safelier be of younger people used than any of the other sorts and is good to eat fasting for a waterish or windy and weake stomacke and comforteth the head being good for diseases of the braine proceeding of cold Ginger here with us at home is both preserved in sirup as hath been said already and sometimes also candied to be eaten dry This last approacheth neerest to the nature of dry Ginger and is fittest to bee used of the elder colder and moister age and stomacke That which is heere preserved in sirup is farre inferior in goodnesse to that which is preserved in the Indies And thus prepared they are hardly concocted by a weake stomacke and continuing long there are converted into a tough glutinous substance of the which a late writer bringeth an instance A Bishop of Basile saith he having by the too frequent use of a certaine Minerall water acquired a very cold and moist stomacke to correct this crudity used much this so prepared Ginger notwithstanding his Physitians counsell to the contrary At length he fell into a desperate disease whereof he died His body being opened in the capacitie of his stomacke were found about two pounds of putrified water together with a petty quantity of the aforesaid Ginger some part of it yet continuing still in its owne nature and some part of it converted into a tough blacke glutinous substance sticking to the sides and cels of his stomacke and guts some part whereof hee did also before his death now and then yet not without fainting and swounding often cast up Let others then take warning to use it more sparingly The Clove is a spice brought us from the Molucks in the East-Indies being hot and dry in the third degree It is very much used in the kitchin both for sauces and sticking of meat Cloves comfort the head heart stomack and liver helpe the eye-sight and concoction and strengthen nature They are good against fainting swounding as also against the plague and any infectious disease Besides they are good against all fluxes of the bellie proceeding of cold humors strengthen the retentive faculty and make the breath sweet Of this as of other spices are extracted water oile and other things usefull for the health of mankind whereon I will not now insist But I advise young people hot and cholericke complexions to bee sparing as in the use of all other spices so of this also and of any thing extracted from them The Nutmegge is the fruit of a tree growing in the East-Indies being covered with that spice we call Mace They are accounted hot and dry in the second degree and are good for the same cases for the which Cloves were commended and although they be not altogether so intense in hearing and drying yet are they very astrigent and comfort the noble parts being also very good for moist cold phlegmaticke bodies and cold diseases fluxes c. But still let young hot dry and melancholicke persons carefully take heed what they doe The Nutmeg being yet greene covered over with a greene huske as are our Walnuts is preserved in the Indies and brought us over the which is nothing so hot nor drying as our dry Nutmegges and therfore very comfortable for the head and stomacke especially and may be either eaten fasting in a morning or after meales Mace covereth the Nutmegge partaking of the same nature strengthening all the noble parts being good against cold diseases and against fluxes and spitting of blood There is yet another great fruit brought to us from the same Indies ready preserved called the Indian Nut which is very good likewise to comfort all the noble parts and strengthen nature Cinamon is the inward rind or barke of a tree growing in the East-Indies hot and dry about the third degree and yet in regard of the tenuity of its parts as was before said of blacke pepper is thought not to heat so much as some other spices This noble spice both in regard of the fragrant smell and pleasantnesse to the palat may justly challenge the first place of excellency It comforteth all the noble parts cheereth spirits openeth obstructions both of men and women furthereth the expulsion of the birth sweetneth the breath
drinke in time of health is neither in time of sickenesse of us to be used especially in hot acute diseases And our wines are commonly so strong that it is not fit to administer them to sicke folkes howbeit if any I thinke our Rhenish were the safest and fittest if it were free from brimstone or such other trash wherewith our vintner wine-brewers doe oftentimes marre our best wines But God of his singular goodnesse hath furnished us with a wine befitting our owne countrie and climat which being also in ordinary use in time of health may freely and without any danger be allowed the Diseased in time of sicknesse But because in imitation of wine this our northern wine for so I may cal it wee are likewise furnished with divers sorts differing in strength one from another we may according to the nature of the disease and constitution of the diseased allow the sicke such as shall be thought most fitting But in acute diseases the smaller the beere be it is so much the better provided it be neither too new too stale nor taste too much of the hop which will make it more heady and hotter Let people therefore beware of their march beere and strong ale in all such infirmities which may as much offend their bodies as strong wines doe others in hot countries But in any case let this beere be very cleere and not thicke and muddy Most of our ordinary people in the country especially are perswaded that wine and strong drinke will recover all diseases whatsoever bee they never so hot and acute And a bottle of good wine is commonly the first physicke they send for to the next market towne But many times before their recovery they are forced to their cost to recant their former erroneous opinion and often cry a too late peccavi Now besides naturall wines made of the juice of the grape onely there bee also severall sorts of artificiall wines made for divers uses some made with purging ingredients to purge the body and so for divers dayes to be drunke according as the Physitian in discretion shall thinke fit and the strength of the patient and nature of the disease shall suffer Some againe are appropriated for other uses as for strengthening of the stomacke opening of obstructions and innumerable others But because these artificiall wines are commonly to best purpose made with new wines when they are new prest out of the grape therefore wee are deprived of the benefit of making such artificiall wines In stead of them wee use to boile in our new wine our wort I meane such ingredients as we thinke fitting for that we intend either purging simples or others as sage wormewood c. And thus wee make severall sorts of diet drinkes and ales for severall ends and purposes But amongst many others there is a drink made with scurvy-grasse much used by our Ladies and Gentlewomen in the spring of the yeere for clearing of their blood Many I am sure make use of this drinke without any use or need at all but only out of a wanton custome and a certaine preconceived opinion of making them looke faire Out of wine is also extracted a noble liquor or spirit called for the noble effects as being esteemed the true balsame of a mans life Aquavitae or water of life This liquour by many hath been much magnified and no small commendations ascribed unto it for the preserving and mainteining the life of man for many yeeres Among many there is an Italian Writer who doth exceedingly extoll and set forth the praises thereof and relateth many histories of such as have by meanes thereof prolonged their lives for many yeeres As one Physitian called Antonius Sapelius who after hee had atteined to 80 yeeres of age by the use of this liquor lived yet 22 more The like hee relateth of another famous Physitian called Iacobus Parmensis who attributed his long life of 90 yeeres to the use of this noble liquor But what me thinks I heare some secret complaints of aurum potabile as though it were somewhat thereby disparaged by meanes whereof notwithstanding they say men may live multitude of yeeres But I heare nothing but words their smoakie promises not being seconded by answerable events as I have already proved But I wish people to be wise and cautelous in the use of this or any other such hot fiery liquor Those of whom this late alleaged Author made mention were Physitians and of a good age and no strangers to the state of their own bodies and well able to judge what might best make for the preservation of their own healths and so might find that benefit therby which another might long seek and at length perhaps for his labour find a late repentance If it be usefull for any it is especially for old and cold moist constitutions and so no question moderatly used now and then it may produce a marvellous good effect in spinning out of divers yeeres the thred of mans life And therefore let youth and hot and dry constitutions be very wary in the use of this or any other such hot waters There is also a spirit extracted out of our Northern wine beere or ale I meane the which although inferiour to the former yet may it well in time of neede with good successe be used That which is most commonly sold under this name of Aquavitae and in most frequent use is nothing else but a liquour distilled out of the dregges and washings of ale and beere barrells and might rather from the evill it breedeth in the body be called Aquamortis The right spirit of wine if it be as it ought will suffer drops of oile to sincke to the bottome and will dissolve Campher besides being once set a fire it is quickly all wasted away And such a liquor would be used onely in extremity in swounding and the like and then but a very small quantity at a time I deny not but it may be of good use also which commeth somewhat short of this absolute perfection howsoever I advise thee as thou lovest thy life and health know well what water thou medlest with and especially shunne such stuffe as I have already disclaimed Somewhat milder than this Aquavitae is that strong water wee commonly call Vsquebach so much in use among the Irish having for this same purpose some Liquirice and raisins of the Sunne and withall some Cloves Mace and Ginger This is likewise cautelously to be used and especially of cold phlegmaticke constitutions and in a cold and moist constitution of the aire But still beware of excesse even in those whom it best befitteth There are yet an infinit other varieties of strong waters both simple and compounded destilled both with wine ale and beere and take the denomination from that simple or simples wherewith they are distilled as Wormwood-water Balme-water Cinnamon-water and the like and they
water-lilly leaves violet leaves and flowers and some poppy-heads being very forcible to provoke sleepe by reason of the great sympathy betwixt those two howbeit farre distant and remote parts But in this as in all the rest if it be possible bee advised by thy learned counsell But now we come to speake of the division and diversity of bathes and being of so great use in the body of man it shall not bee out of purpose to insist a little the longer upon this subject All baths then are either naturall or artificiall Of the artificiall first as being most obvious and easy to come by we will speake in the first place In the first place then for the matter of these bathes it is various and divers as water wine milke and oile and sometimes sand but the most common and frequent matter is water sometimes warme sometimes cold and sometimes of a meane temper betwixt both In the body of man these bathes have a triple use or benefit some evacuat and cleanse some qualifie and temper the humors of the body and some supply and fill up that which is decaied Now that they doe euacuat by sweat if one should deny daily experience will evince and Galen himselfe witnesseth unto us but to fill up and supply any thing that is wanting will perhaps finde lesse credit with ordinary understandings which notwithstanding the same author yet in another place witnesseth In the sicke wee commonly use them of warme-water intending or remitting this quality of heat as occasion requireth adding thereunto divers simples according to the nature of the disease and constitutions of the body to be bathed Now a temperate warme bath helpeth forward natures worke in such as have need of moderate humectation and heat and by reseration of the pores of the body refresheth and cooleth and by extraction of fuligionous excrements freeth from internall heat A hot bath helpeth contractions proceeding from cold provoketh sweat exhausteth and draineth the body dry of superfluous moisture This bathing in warme-warme-water acccording to a late Writer is good to bee used in divers infirmities as in a Diarie or owne dayes Fever and in a hecticke fever also sole and of it selfe before it turne to a marasme and not as yet joined to any putrid fever as also for such as have their moisture exhausted with watchings cares dry Diet or medicines of that nature And not in these onely but also in dry distempers and in decrepid old age In Fevers proceeding from putrefaction it is not to be used but after signes of concoction unlesse in a perfect Tertian the drinesse of the humours urge the use of it It is also in use in Quartans proceeding from choler adust In Rheumaticke distillations inflammation of the lungs pleurisie after signes of concoction and in headach proceeding from humours or vapours arising from the nether parts it is of good use as also for the falling off of the haire for Lethargies Phrensies Epilepsie not proceeding from the stomacke or head but from some other part of the body It is also good against melancholy proceeding from sharpe humors paines of the eyes bleere-eyes fluxes of the belly helpeth defects of the voice inveterate infirmities of the spleene and indurations thereof the cholicke proceeding of choler especially in the younger sort But proceeding of a cold cause and grosse humours it qualifieth indeed but cureth it not And it is good against the gout proceeding of choler as also against all extenuation of the body But on the contrary is hurtfull to plethoricall and cachochymicall bodies to Hecticks proceeding from an Erisipelas commonly called S. Anthonies fire and Headaches proceeding from a flatuous matter and it is hurtfull for the inward parts overtaken with inflammation in all diseases of the ioints excepting the above mentioned and for all manner of effusion of blood whether at the nose or any other part of the body And it is yet hurtfull for all such as are inclined to casting loathing of the stomacke weaknesse of body such as are subject to bitter belchings and such as abound with humors howbeit otherwise good especially if any feare of a fluxe of blood That bath which is hotter than the former in provoking sweat is more effectuall but withall doth not communicate that humectation to the body as the former Now there was also an use of bathing in cold water succeeding the former which was not immediatly to be used after the temperate but from this into a tepid or a little warmish and then into cold water But to some bodies this kind of bathing bringeth some prejudice as among healthfull people to such as are yet growing and to children especially as also to women and antient people to small and weake persons It is also hurtfull for the brest procureth hoarsenesse and the cough offendeth the heart the stomacke especially if already weake and feeble And as for the diseased it is principally hurtfull to weake kidnies procureth paine in the guts especially that called Tenesmus and stayeth womens fluxes and it is hurtfull also for humid and cold diseases as likewise for the Fevers Hectick that especially already turned into a marasme The antients used often to enter into another roome where they sweat by meanes of the aire warmed the which they called Laconicum answerable unto which in neerest resemblance are our hot houses or stoves as they are in frequent use in all Germanie although the particular manner of heating this aire differeth much these drie stoves being warmed by the heat of the fire onely but this Laconicum was a moister vapour This vapour then or hot aire the antients used was twofold either dry in respect of the other procured by heat of flints or the like water being cast upon them and the sicke set in the tub and covered with clothes made to sweat or else this was a moister aire procured by a vapour derived from a vessell full of liquour with answerable ingredients and conveied betwixt the two bottomes of a bathing tub the uppermost full of holes where the sicke being set and covered with clothes was to sweat as need required and this with us is also in frequent use Wee use often also particular moist bathes called insessus and semicapium being a bathing tub filled with warme water or other matter with appropriate herbs wherein the patient sits up to the middle or more being prepared for divers uses and ends And these are chiefely usefull for hot and dry bodies The other dry sweatings are fit only for moist cold constitutions abounding with grosse humours and for fat and corpulent people having alwaies a watchfull eye to the strength of the patient But such are altogether contrary to cold and dry and yet more to hot and drie constitutions Now as concerning the time of these bathings and sweatings both generall and particular wee are to consider whether they are used for any necessity in
sicknesse or otherwise as physick for prevention of future infirmities If it be left to election then the most temperate time of the yeere is to be made choice of as hath beene said of other evacuations and the time of the day likewise most temperate as in a morning before dinner and after concoction is perfected In sicke folkes if there be a necessity the ambient aire if not answerable to our desire must be corrected as accasion shall require As for the time of the day as hath beene said already the former daies food must first be perfectly concocted as well in the stomacke as in the liver As concerning the time of the disease it being with us unusuall in Fevers and such acute diseases wee need not so curiously insist upon it yet if there were any such necessity the same time already set downe for the diet and evacuations both generall and particular were to be observed Before entring into any of these baths of any kind whatsoever wee are to see that the body be before cleansed and that the common excrements of urin and ordure first be evacuated for feare of some defluxion upon the feeble parts by dissolving liquifying the humors of the body Neither yet are we to use exercise before it for feare of filling the head with fumes vapors and food must also be refrained from for feare of crudities from whence obstructions and divers dangerous diseases might after insue If the party be not able to absteine let him take some little sustenance in a morning a little biscuit or some cordiall electuary or the like In bathing the party is to abstein from all manner of food as also from drinke and sleep for feare of crudities the mother of a many diseases But if strength should so farre faile that we should feare fainting then are comfortable smells to be presented to the nose or else the crums of a manchet soak'd in good sacke or the like a little marchpane manus Christi or some such comfortable refresher of the spirits speedily to be given the patient As for the continuance in the bath there cannot be one certaine rule prescribed to every individuall person Cold constitutions unlesse very weake may continue a longer time but temperate persons when they begin to grow red may goe forth of it and leane and slender people by long continuance therein are much indāmaged But the strength is that which must alwaies be our best directer In hectick fevers they are first to goe into the warme bath and next into a cold that by this meanes a constipation of the skin may be procured and dissipation prevented Such as in health were much accustomed to bathing in sicknesse more freely may use this meanes and yet if they use oftner than once a day they are to interpose 4 or 5 houres betwixt the two severall times After bathing the party is diligently to be dried with dry clothes in a warme roome and well rubd the head especially and then sent to bed to sweat a while and is afterwards againe to be rubd and dri'd with soft linnen clothes After all this is performed and the body setled then are we to offer the sick some liquid food at first as namely some broth or the like and afterwards in a more solid substance sometimes in a greater sometimes in a lesser quantity according to the nature of the disease strength of the patient custome the ambient aire the season of the yeere c. But as in all other things so are we here to observe the golden mediocrity for all manner of hot baths immoderatly used whether moist or dry doe too much mollifie the body evacuating overthrowing the naturall vigor thereof and if too hot they cause continuall burning fevers debilitate the body from whence proceedeth great faintnesse and finally death it selfe Againe too much bathing in cold water procureth shivering and shaking convulsions and at length an extinction of naturall heat wherein life consisteth CHAP. XVIII Of naturall baths or minerall waters whether leap-yeere called also the bissextil causeth any alteration in these minerall waters or infringeth the force thereof and of the originall and first beginning of this time ALmighty God out of his singular goodnesse and infinite bounty taking pitty upon miserable man-kinde now by reason of sinne made subject to so many sicknesses a due reward of the fame as bee hath affoorded this microcosme man a multitude of soveraigne medicines for his solace in such diseases so among many others hee hath made many waters that spring out of the earth to affoord him comfort in his great calamity of sickenesse Now besides the common waters of severall sorts whereof wee have daily use both in food and physicke as hath beene proved already there are yet many waters that spring out of the bowells of the earth participating of the nature of divers mineralls and metalls the vertues whereof these waters do reteine and are therfore with no small successe often used of the sicke for many and divers infirmities And these by a generall word are by us commonly called Thermae or aquae Thermales from that heat whereof most of them doe lesse or more participate Now that these waters were not at first among antient Physitians in that request they have beene since may by Pliny appeare who wondering that Homer made no mention of them doth afterwards answer himselfe that in those daies there was no Physitian that made use of them although Homer maketh often mention of washing in warme water After Homer Hippocrates although hee seeme not utterly to to reject such waters yet by reason of their running thorow minerall and metallicke veines holdeth them therefore for suspected for the which cause hee never admitteth of them for the use of the sicke And of the same mind was Galen also who never that we reade of made any triall of such waters But the late Physitians as well Greeke as Arabians have introduced the use of them as finding by long experience that in chronicall and long continuing diseases there is not a more soveraine remedy as in old inveterate obstructions of the inward parts and the like Now it is confirmed by the Authorities of a multitude of our best Physitians that some of these waters are hot and some againe cold in their first qualities and some mixt and so in their second qualities depending upon the first they differ likewise according to those mineralls or metalls from whence they borrow their vertues howbeit in generall all these waters participate of exsication Now from what metall or minerall the water taketh its vertue or operation may partly by the colour taste smell the day in the bottome and partly by distillation long boiling evaporation and the dregges left in the bottome be discerned as also the nature of such diseases as are thereby cured And howsover many trust much to distillation yet is it not
halfe a daies iourney from S. Annaberg where I rested these foure daies I found neither frost nor snow nor any signe of the same but both corne and grasse as greene and forward as had ever beene observed about that season together with a fine warme temperate aire and inquiring there of the weather past they assured me that they had seen neither frost nor snow onely that morning had falne a small showre of warme raine which was scarcely to be discerned upon the ground But it is yet stranger that within a few miles of ground one place not exceeding another in height should be Sommer in one and Winter in the other as appeareth by that which followeth At the same time when in the West part of this Peninsula being neere Cambaia betweene that ridge of mountaines and the sea it is after their appellation Sommer which is from September to April in which time it is alwaies cleare sky without once or very little raining on the other side of the hills which they call the coast of Choromandell it is then Winter every day and night yeelding abundance of raines besides those terrible thunders which both beginne and end their Winter and from April till September in a conntrarie vicissitude on the Westerne part is winter and on the Easterne part Sommer insomuch that in little more than 20 leagues iourny insome places as when you crosse the hill to S. Thomas on the one side of the hill you ascend with a faire Sommer on the other side you descend with a stormy Winter The like saith Linschoten happeneth at the Cape Rosalgate in Arabia and in many other places of the East But it is as great if not a greater wonder that in some places of the same elevation of the Pole even upon the low levell ground there should be such a disparity in the qualities of the ambient aire as it is reported of the straits of Magellan In and about the straits of Magellan saith a late Writer in as high an elevation of the Pole as many parts of Spaine the cold is yet there so violent that besides the mountaine tops alwaies covered with snow their very Sommer in the midst thereof freeth them not from yee Yea at that time of the yeere the Hollanders encountred an Iland of yee in the Sea The trees yet there are generally greene all the yeere long The cold is so extreme that Henry Barwell became balld therewith so continuing a yeere or two One Harris a Gold-smith blowing his frozen nose cast it with his fingers into the fire and our Authour himselfe going on shore And returning wet in his feet the next morning pulled off his toes with his stackings from his benummed feet Those countries wherein the aire is so continually warme as within the Tropicks and neere to them prove not commonly so healthfull especially to our Northerne constitutions whose lives are better preserved in a Northern aire than any of those hot regions which is diligently to be observed of those who undertake to transport colonies into remote regions that they settle not themselves in too hot a climat Now that the distempered qualities of the aire are a meanes of producing divers diseases appeareth by many places of that famous Hippocrates his works where hee setteth downe divers distempered constitutions of the aire whereupon ensued divers dangerous diseases both pestilentiall and others And among our selves the instances I thinke are fresh enough yet in our memories of this last yeere 1630. which deprived many of life and many so pinch'd with poverty that the wound is not yet healed up It is then apparent that the severall seasons of the yeere together with the alterations and changes thereof doe not a little affect both the body and minde of man and therefore diligently and carefuly of Physitians to be considered CHAP. VII Of Water in generall of Terrestriall VVater or water passing thorow or issuing out of the Earth as Springs Rivers Wells and Ponds IT is now more then time that we come to this so noble and necessary element of Water which can never sufficiently be commended And in so high an account was it among the Antients that Thales Milesius one of the seven Wise-men of Greece thought it to be the originall of all things quasi aqua omnia from whence all things have their first being and beginning and this was also the opinion of the Greeke Poet Hesiod But in briefe both the antiquity and utility doe highly recommend it unto us The Antiquity as being that prime and principall liquour where with our forefathers untill the time of Noah after the flood yea and even after the flood continued still to bee in greatest request The utility appeareth in this that it is the most common and naturall drinke to all living creatures and withall the most familiar and easiest to come by and hence by the goodnesse of our God have we this Element obvious every where as well in the highest hills as in the lowest vallies And that great Calvin saith that God deprive the Aegyptians of the one halfe of their life when as hee inflicted upon them that great plague of turning their water into blood The utility and necessity of this noble Element was not unknown to Isaac and Abimelec which made their herd-men so strive for these fountaines of living water and did yet more manifestly appeare in that more than triennal disastrous drought in Ahabs daies And some late writers relate that the like hapned of late yeeres in some parts of the West-Indies And is yet more cleerely in this seene in that it is the Basis or foundation of all other liquors whatsoever and giving as it were the essence even unto that king of liquors Wine it selfe as without the which neither it nor yet any other ever attaine to any perfection Being therefore so usefull both for drinke dressing of meate and many other necessary uses it will be requisite to say something of it And first for the temperature both Physitians and Philosophers have reputed water to be of a cooling quality And Aristotle himselfe is of this opinion and as for moisture Galen holdeth that it is an absurd thing to hold that any thing is moister than this Element It is then generally held that Water is very cold and very moist And yet Cardan thinkes it not to be cold as it is commonly accounted but rather temperate and exclaimeth against his teachers who instructed him in that maner which saith he hath done me great mischiefe And in very truth it would seeme in its owne naturall condition not to be so very cold howsoever actually as many other liquors it may partake of an intense frigidity All water is either potable and usefull for ordinary emploiments or else Physicall and appropriated to divers diseases or lastly venomous and altogether unprofitable for the use either of man or beast My purpose is in this place
alleaged Author in that by Chymicall art and industrie this slimy substance may with small paines be converted into a stone This might therefore in my opinion deterre any from the use of such an aliment especially such as are of a weake stomacke are troubled with the stone in the bladder or kidnies arthritical infirmities as gout sâ—hiâ—cira c. As also any obstructions of the inward parts liver spleen c. I have somewhat the longer of set purpose insisted upon this kinde of food because it is growne an ordinray custome here in the countrie as I have said in any consumption nay in any supposed and but surmised weakenesse or frivolous feare thereof indifferently to exhibit this dish in manner as I have said Besides this is done without any consideration of circumstances either of age strength time of the disease c. And therefore I leave it to the understanding and judicious Reader to judge whether this be a legall and laudable course or no. And withall let the judicious and ingenious Reader judge of the necessity and utility of handling the diet of the diseased Besides all the former sorts of diet there hath a barbarous and inhumane custome of killing and eating mans flesh not of late onely but even many yeeres agoe crept into the world insomuch that wee know for a truth that now there are divers of those Anthropophagi or men-eaters in divers places of the world And truely I thinke there is scare any among vs that would easily have beleeved that any that bare ingraven the stamp and image of his Maker could ever have harboured so barbarous a thought within his breast farre lesse to have acted so tragicall and inhumane a crueltie unlesse it had been by divers true histories testified unto us and related by word of mouth by those who to their great griefe have been spectators of so barbarous and inhumane a cruell custome The late histories of such as have travelled of late yeeres into those parts of the Westerne world doe evidently witnesse the truth thereof And it is yet further recorded that in some of those places they keepe ordinarily shambles of mens flesh as we doe of beefe and mutton and other flesh and besides if they thinke their Slaves will yeeld them more mony cut out by the joint than sold alive if there were but a halfe penny saved they will bee sure to send him to the shambles I doubt not but that the very reading of these things will strike a certaine horror and amazement in the minds of many men with an horresco legens when they consider of the customes of these cruellest Caniballs of all others and iustly so they may But have we no such devouring Caniballs here at home among our selves The law would take hold of so barbarous a fact But if there be not as bad if not worse Caniballs among our selves let the world judge I could instance in many several sorts of extortioners and daily grinders of the faces of the poore if this were a theme befitting my person profession But there is one particular kind which not in my private opinion alone but of many both of the most judicious and honest hath beene alwayes accounted and reputed as horrible and cruell an oppression as any other whatsoever if not far crueller My meaning is of depopulating inclosure wherby many wealthy townes who before maintained a number of able people and fit in time of need to doe their country good service have now for the most part left only a sheepherd and his dog But the judgements of God upon their Persons or at least upon their posterity most of them I meane are yet so recent in the memories of most now living that I need say no more but wish that others may take warning CHAP. XXI Of severall sorts of Fishes both of the Sea and fresh waters and the various and divers nourishment they breed in the body AS in the land we may not without wonder and admiration behold the great bounty our gracious God so in that liquid element of water is no lesse to bee seene the rich liberality of our great Lord and Maker in affording us for food so great variety of severall sorts of fishes All fishes are of a cold and moist temperature but some exceeding others in bounty according to the nature of the water and places wherin they live Now all fishes live either in the salt-water which we call the Sea or in fresh-waters as Rivers Lakes Pools or Ponds The Sea-fish are accounted the best as being of a firmer substance hotter and drier and not so clammy and slimy as the fresh-water Fish they are also more savory and nourish better Among sea-fishes againe such as have scales and firme substances are the best and such as are inclosed within shells divers of them as Lobsters afford the body good and solid nourishment Others of a softer and slimier and cartilaginous substance are not so good That fish that liveth in a pure water tossed to and fro with waves is better than that which hath lesse agitation and motion and liveth in a more muddy water And such as live most neare a rocky or sandy shore are better than where there is much slime and mudde and therefore were Pisces saxatiles or rockie fish for this cause so called in so high an esteeme among antient Physitians And so among fresh-water-fish such as live most commonly in cleere rockie or gravelly Rivers and which are of a swift course are the best an of best nourishment Such fish againe as live in slimy and muddy waters in the fens marshes Ponds Pools and motes are nothing so good nor yeeld any good and laudable nourishment to the body And howsoever Fish have beene in use and great esteeme among the ancients especially the Romans and sold at a very high rate yet if wee compare their nourishment with that of flesh it is in many respects farre inferior to it as not yeelding so wholesome and laudable a nourishment to the body And it is to bee also observed that fish are greatest enemies to cold the moist phlegmaticke bodies and old age especially the moistest and slimiest Now something of some sorts of fish And first wee will beginne with the Sturgeon called of the antient Romans as is supposed Acipenser and by some the sea-peacock which was in so great request among the antient Romans that not onely was it served in to the table with musicall Pomp but even they also who carried it in were to weare garlands on their heads The Sturgeon is of a reasonable good nourishing substance if it be not too fat which will easily cloy the stomacke and then take heed of surfetting with this dish which hath indangered some and cost some their life for want of good take heed We have it commonly brought to us barrelled up from the Easterne countries being commonly used at great feasts and then by reason of the salt
of such moist and liquid food the more an ordinary stomacke useth thereof the lesse drinke is needfull and not as too many use needlessely and foolishly to drinke immediatly after hot pottage And as concerning rheumaticke persons I wish them to be sparing both in the use of pottage and drinke especially when rheume is most busie And as for a cup of sacke it cannot be indifferently good for every one at the beginning of meales but onely for feeble phlegmaticke cold and old constitutions and that immediately before meales for otherwise it may even hurt such constitutions especially if subject to any diseases of the head and nerves as Epilepsie Apoplexie Palsie c. Now to the next whether it be good to finish our meale with meate or drinke To finish the feast with a draught of good drinke hath beene alwaies a very ancient custome as by many antient Authors appeareth which I could easily here make good if I feared not to trespasse upon the Readers patience The Iewes it seemeth were accustomed both to beginne and end their feast with such a draught and of the beginning therewith the practice of our Saviour Christ in Luke maketh it cleare The English have long continued this custome as witnesseth the learned Erasmus and is so used among the Germans and many other Europaean people even at this very day being commonly used after the washing of the hands which in Scotland they call the grace drinke and from the washing of the hands this drink tooke the name and was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Germanes call it Saint Iohannis segen or Saint Iohns blessing Now by antient Authors it may appeare that there were cups called after three severall names used about that time one was drunke in honour of Iupiter called Olympius or in honor of all the gods the second was in honor of deified men whom they called Heroes such as be our Popish canonized Saints the third was in honor of Iupiter Saviour called perfect from the number of three wherein is the beginning the middle and the end By some also this was called the cup of health or good lucke which they dranke one to another and by some also it was called the cup of their good spirit or God which was used both at the beginning and ending of their supper before they rose from table And after this last cup was once drunk then all the guests rose and all was taken away as may by that sacrilegious pranke plaied by Denis the tyrant appeare who comming into the temple of Aesculapius within the city of Syracuse where was the statua or image of Aesculapius with a table of pure gold standing by it tooke a cup full of wine adding these words I drinke to thee Aesculapius the cup of the good God or spirit and with this word caused presently carry away this golden table Among the Indians it was called the cup of Tantalus But now to the solution of the question whether is it better to close our stomacke with meat or drinke I answer that for the generall and for the most part it is holden that it is best to close it up with meat yet with a limitation that such as are hot and dry and are troubled with thirst may drinke a little at the latter end of their meale And of such is Celsus to be understood when hee willeth us to close up the stomacke with a cup of cold water a custome I am sure would not be very welcome to the Swill-bowles of our times and that of Hippocrates who in feare of fumes and hot vapors arising up and fuming into the head adviseth us to use this water or else very thinne waterish white wine But there are many pleasant astringent meanes which in such cases may better bee used as namely marmalad of quinces of goose-berries preserved quinces conserve of barberries of rasps and many other such things astrigent and acid in taste Howsoever it is the best course ordinarily to close the stomacke rather with meate than drinke according to this verse Sit tibi postremus semper in ore cibus Let a morsell of meat be ever last in thy mouth Now the answer to the other question whether it bee good to drinke to bed-ward or going to bed is concluded to the negative that we are not at all to drinke at that season for feare of hindering concoction But if the body be hot and dry the stomacke especially and the partie thereunto accustomed and sometimes in extraordinary great thirst heere something is to bee yeelded to necessity in which case it is good to be sparing and when concoction is almost finished as foure or five houres after meales a more liberall draught may then bee allowed And this may likewise serve for an answer to that question whether one may drinke betwixt meales So that I shall not need to make any repetion concerning this point As for very aged people of cold windy stomackes I shall not find fault with them if they take a little draught of sacke or such liquor at the end of their meale CHAP. XXV Of Water as it is used for drinke and severall waies of cooling the same and correcting bad Waters HAving discoursed of Drinke in generall as wee have done in meats so must wee here come to the particular sorts of drinke amongst which Water offereth it selfe in the first place as the first and most ancient so the most common to all living creatures most obvious and easie to come by And although after the flood wine came in request for mans use yet by many passages both of holy and prophane Writers whom for brevities sake I here passe by it may appeare that water was the most common and ordinary drinke and wine used more at festivall times and solemne meetings than for their daily and ordinary use and it is even at this day so used in many places As for the division of waters their variety and diversitie I have already said sufficient as also concerning the qualities whereas I shewed that water was not of so cooling a qualitie as hath beene by many both Philosophers and Physitians hitherto deemed A late Writer confirmeth this same opinion by the authority of divers other writers by valid and probable reasons thereto perswaded The chiefe and principall reasons are desumed from the inbred principles of this element as light heat agitation and mobiltie which constitute and make the essence or being thereof as also from the actions as the manifold generative power perspicuity raritie the taste also bitter salt and sweet c. Of the other quality of moisture there is no controversie Now concerning the drinking of water wee are herein to consider three things the good quantity the quality and the order The qualities of the best water have already largely beene described and that among all waters raine water was the best and next unto it
stopping In our countries here we have a custome to adde barme to our bread which other countries as France Italie and Spaine c. use not and therefore I give warning that this be sparingly used in the sickes bread very bitter barme especially which maketh both the bread unpleasanter and hotter in acute diseases and hot bodies As for salted bread Galen himselfe doth not reject it even in Fevers and besides even in the cure of a dry stomack alloweth the use of it Bread for the sickes use is to be used new and not old especially not above two or three daies at the most New bread is two manner of waies used either simply as it is of it selfe or else artificially prepared Simple bread I call such as it is baked when it is so administred to the sicke Bread is againe prepared after the baking and that divers wayes Now whether the one or the other be used the crummes are the best the crust being of an evill quality Ordinary simple bread was used either hot or after it was cooled A late writer sheweth that the antients used hot bread And Hippocrates used hot bread in the cure of that kind of Dropsie which wee call anasarca or leucophlegmatia which neverthelesse elsewhere hee alloweth not of Hot bread filleth suddenly is hard of digestion and drieth much and this later reason might move him to exhibit it in that kinde of Dropsie But cold bread was ever most in request and is also the best especially if not too old as hath beene already proved As for the preparation of bread the antients used either to wash it in faire water or else to mingle it with flesh broth Pliny affirmeth that wheat-bread being washed either in cold or warme water is a very light food for the sicke Now they used to wash their bread two manner of waies either they soaked and steeped their bread in warme water which they often shifted untill such time as it had quite lost all the taste of leaven and salt or else they grated and punned it small and so steeped it in faire water and strained it through a cleane linnen cloth by this meanes making a seperation of the solid from the subtilest parts which subtile thinne part they afterwards boiled untill it grew thicke This washed bread both Hippocrates and Galen used to coole in all kindes of Fevers Wee use rather to wash it in rose-water adding some sugar and currants Neither was it the custome onely to steepe bread in water but in wine also where they were free from any Fever Wee use rathe to toste bread at the fire and so steepe it in wine And that sometimes also they mingled bread with fresh broth is apparent out of the same Hippocrates There are also divers artificiall preparations of bread which may be usefull in some diseases as biscuits prepared with divers ingredients as yolkes of egges annise and fennell and coriander seeds with a little sugar and may be usefull for weake stomakes and rheumatik persons But because few of our Gentle-women are ignorat of the preparation of these and the like I shall not need to insist upon their preparation Besides these there are divers sorts of march-panes made partly for superfluity and adorning great feasts and great mens tables and partly also sometimes for physicall uses as in hecticke Fevers and some pectorall diseases which here to particularize is neither the particular place nor my purpose But before I finish this point concerning bread I must advertise all diseased people that since unleavened bread as pycrusts many sorts of cakes and the like are not so fit even for the use of healthfull people how much more then are they unfit for the sicke Such bread is alwaies very hard to be concocted and apt to ingender obstructions and the stone Now in the Diet of the Diseased there is no small use made of herbs whereof we have spoken already Herbes minister but small nourishment and serve rather to alter than to nourish the body And therefore they are of good use to coole to open obstructions and keepe the body soluble of the which both juleps apozemes and divers decoctions are made according as the nature of the disease requireth We use them likewise in the sickes broths according as we see occasion Now that herbs nourish but little Galen himselfe avoucheth affirming that men cannot live upon herbes although beasts are therewith nourished And Hippocrates affirmeth that those who use this kind of food much live a shorter while than others And Galen upon that place expoundeth the word imbecillis cibus or a feeble food to bee such as yeeld little or small nourishment to the body such are herbes and many sorts of fruits growing upon trees and such saith Hippocrates are both of a short continuance and make them short lived who use them by reason such food maketh but short stay within the body Out of this place then is confuted the opinion of Cardan affirming that such as lived on fruits and herbes were longer lived than those who lived on flesh which hee would prove by the antient fathers and by Eremites living in deserts onely upon such food But this may easily be answered that it was our forefathers frugality free from all manner of excesse and riot and not the quality of their food which prolonged their lives Besides their lives were for other necessary and usefull ends then prolonged as we have heretofore touched As for Hermites and others who live long by the use of such diet I doubt not but with the moderate use of flesh and keeping a moderation in all other things they might have lived longer and in as good health of body whatsoever Cardan say to the contrary Now it may againe be demanded whether fruits may be admitted into the Diet of the Diseased I answere it would seeme that by reason of their waterish juice they should bee excluded yet no doubt they may safely be used at least some sorts as apples for melancholy capers for the spleene pomegranats for hot and cholerick stomacks the quinces in fluxes of the bellie in costivenesse prunes and cherries raisins and currants for the liver and so of divers others according to severall occasions Trallian tells us that the Aegyptian Physitians fed their sicke of Fevers with cucumbers and melons and that by reason they cooled much and nourished little But Cardan altogether disalloweth of any such diet And it were farre more tolerable to use the distilled water of such fruits I doubt not but fruits may sometimes be exhibited to the sicke provided they be first rosted that by such meanes the moist watery juice may either be corrected or dissipated Now the antients had another fashion of rosting their fruits than we have as may by the same late alledged Author appeare who speaking of the use of peaches in
little cold drinke sometimes with a little faire water and a few drops of wine vineger or some such other liquor and sometimes some preserved or conserved barberries raspes ribes some lemmon sliced and sugred or the like acid things and sometimes a stewed acid prune keeping the stone in his mouth as the manner is or any other like art may be used to deceive this counterfeit thirst But when the house is now all on a fire we must needs have some liquour to quench this heat and extinguish the fire even so when this house of mans body is all on a fire wee must needs have some moisture to quench the same Now what this must be is our purpose here to discusse The most antient drinke and most common to all living creatures is water of the which as in generall usefull to all and in particular as serving for drinke in healthfull persons hath beene already spoken Now we are to speake of it as it serveth for the use of the sicke and whether it bee usefull for all or not The use of water we read to have been very frequent among the antients and especially the Guidian and Rhodian Physitians used it much and that chiefly in acute diseases whom therefore Hippocrates reproveth for not distinguishing the causes of diseases which may often alter our purpose of exhibiting water to drinke in acute diseases especially where there is a burning Fever proceeding of choler And this he there illustrateth by the example of the inflammation of the lungs where he affirmeth that neither staieth it the cough nor maketh spit up eafilier but in a cholericke constitution is altogether converted into choler and besides is hurtfull to the nether parts about the stomacke overthrowing the whole body especially if dranke fasting If there bee any inflammation of the liver or spleene it increaseth the same swimming and floting in the stomacke descending slowly being hard and not easy to bee concocted for the which cause also it looseneth not the belly provoketh not urine nor futhereth any excretion And Galen himselfe also confirmeth this same opinion adding that when as Hippocrates perceived the harmes and mischiefes proceeding from the drinking of water abstained from the use of it in all acute diseases and betooke himselfe to drinks made of hony and water of honie and vineger and sometimes to wine And with them yet agreeth a late Writer who out of divers places of both these Authors compared and parallelled together mainteineth that in acute diseases water is altogether hurtfull And of the same opinion is likewise another learned Physitian yet with this qualification that if a small quantity of water be added to a great quantity of choler it is quickly converted into choler but a great quantity of water drunke tempereth and allaieth the heat of the choler and so overcommeth it whereas a small quantity increaseth this humor being turned into the same Another antient Physitian notwithstanding controlleth this opinion of Hippocrates and affirmeth the quite contrary But to compose this controversie our Authors meaning is to be understood of water actually cold which indeed in pectorall diseases and for the breast it selfe is very hurtfull and hindereth expectoration but being once boiled it groweth thinner and more subtile and then onely fit in pectorall diseases to further expectoration And it cannot be denied that cold water is very profitable and usefull in acute diseases as may even by divers other places both of Hippocrates and Galen appeare and besides most of our antient and moderne writers with one unaminous consent approve of the same But in the use thereof wee must diligently consider both the nature of the disease and constitution of the Diseased And it is the saying of the same Hippocrates whose bellies are hard and apt to bee inflamed they are to drinke the lightest and purest water but whose bellies are soft moist and phlegmaticke such are to use hard thicke and somewhat saltish waters subsalsis is his word Now water is not in all diseases to be used after one and the same manner In burning Fevers water is to be drunke cold in pectorall diseases a little warmish Now that it was familiar in antient times to give cold water to drink in hot acute diseases I shall make it appeare Galen himselfe findeth fault with Erasistratus and his followers for denying cold water in burning Fevers And againe for the same cause reproveth Thessalus and braggeth that hee hath often cured distempered hot stomackes with drinking cold water yea even sometimes cooled with snow it selfe And againe in another place hee cureth that sort of Fever called Ephemere or Diaria that is of one day by this same meanes And in the same booke by this onely meanes hee preventeth this same disease And in another place giveth us yet warning that this is a remedy fit for any sort of Fever providing it be drunke in great abundance A late German Physitian also braggeth how many fevers hee hath by this meanes cured and I know it will seeme no strange thing to heare a Portugall relate what cures he hath by this meanes performed as in his centuries is at length to be seene Neither is it my purpose to spend time and increase the bulke of this booke by relating of such stories And it is not only commended in all ordinary acute diseases but even in maligne and pestilent Fevers also as witnesseth Celsus and is the opinion of the Arabian Physitians who all seeme to have borrowed it of Hippocrates who relateth the story of one sicke of a pestilent Fever who having drunke great store of cold water and cast it up againe recovered presently his health And besides the same Celsus in fluxes of the belly and in all defluxions proceeding of choler commendeth this as a soveraine remedy The point then being reasonably well cleared it resteth to be considered how it is to be exhibited Hippocrates in that hot countrie would have the drinke for the diseased to be exposed to the night aire that so it might receive the morning dew which might increase the coldnesse thereof but because this procureth to it some acrimony some would have other meanes tried as salt-peter snow c. Concerning the which wee have sufficiently spoken heretofore But I would not have any such extraordinary actuall frigidity by any such meanes in this case procured it being so prejudicial to heath howsoever peradventure at the first not so sensibly perceived Now in the exhibition of water to the sicke two things are to be considered the fit and convenient time when and the quantity thereof The time is either generall to wit the course of the disease or particular the exacerbation or paroxysme which we call the fit Concerning the generall time all are not of one mind for Galen and our Greeke Writers would have us wait for signes of concoction in the
may be out of ignorance As for our roaring bores tosse-pots pot-companions and our ordinary swil-bolls who I thinke will be readier to jeere and flout than be reformed and ruled by my counsell therfore such I leave to be corrected with their owne rod and it may be a sharper if they persist I advise especially all thin cleare and cholericke constitutions as likewise all melancholicke persons especially by meanes of choler adust hot brained and yong people women with child and all such as are sicke of any acute diseases to absteine from the use thereof It is best to be used in Winter in raw and moist weather and in cold and moist braines in dropsies defluctions upon the joints and lungs proceeding from cold humors tooth-ach gout pector all infirmities c. As also for the megrim proceeding from the same cause the mother and divers infirmities of the braine proceeding from wind cold moisture As for the age it best befitteth old age where the brain is cold and moist And as for the kind of life Mariners and Sailers and such as live neer waters and there use their trade as Tanners Pelt-mongers and the like and such as live in moist fenny waterish and moorish places as in Holland in Lincolneshire and other like places And such as make use of it thus physically for to such here I direct my speech I thinke it very fit they use with it some correctives it having as great need as any most violent purge whatsoever as hath bin already proved In diseases of the braine therefore a drop or two of the oile of amber cloves mace or in defect of them some of their powder or halfe sage some dry rosemary or the like if in Epilepticall fits some powder of paeoniae seeds or roots will much correct the ill qualities of this intoxicating simple and corroborate the animall powers In diseases of the lungs joints cholicke from wind or phlegme and the like a drop or two of the oile of annise seeds of mints cumin or caroway seeds or in defect of them some of the powder of the seeds will serve for a good corrective But howsoever let no man deceive himselfe so farre as to thinke this to be some famous Panacea Nepenthe or some golden Elixir whereof there hath beene much bragging but small benefit as yet reaped If thou wilt not be warned by that which I and others have advertised thee thou maiest perhaps repent when it will be too late and howsoever thou findest not alwaies suddenly such ill successe as we fore-tell thee yet remember that oftentimes in yonger yeers there is such seed of diseases by disorder sown in the body that in old age bringeth forth much bitter fruit And of this I am verily perswaded that the excessive and disorderly use of this simple is no small cause as of the more frequent raigning of divers dangerous diseases among us so of many strange and uncoth accidents according to the severall and individuall bodies therewith assaulted But yet before I finish this point concerning salivation I must give notice of an ignorant and dangerous custome of some Barber-surgeons in the use thereof Some of these many times undertake the cure of some inâ—â—â—â—â—tâ—â—◠〈…〉 with an ordinary 〈…〉 with a 〈…〉 by 〈…〉 into this câ—â—rt o◠〈…〉 by 〈…〉 mercurially 〈◊〉 which in this cas◠〈◊〉 commonly uses wh◠〈…〉 noâ—th all there 〈…〉 and 〈…〉 into 〈…〉 with a 〈…〉 His reason as sâ—â—be of her 〈…〉 â—ted 〈…〉 all 〈…〉 or this cause was to draw the humour upwards and frâ—â— the 〈…〉 But here the whole frame of her body was out of order the live 〈…〉 body especially the nether parts by reason 〈…〉 Now whether such a coursâ— was then sit 〈…〉 the â—â—rned â—â—dge and besides a reasonable in 〈…〉 by that which hath been said already 〈…〉 and their waiâ—s how unfit and indirect a course this was 〈…〉 makâ— it in thâ—â— appeare but that now iâ— cannâ—t 〈…〉 thiâ— particular Onely by thâ— way take a 〈…〉 sottish stupidity and or 〈…〉 of the 〈…〉 This soâ—◠〈…〉 counsell a 〈…〉 onely 〈…〉 time being 〈◊〉 Winteâ— to 〈…〉 such a 〈◊〉 as 〈…〉 the 〈…〉 of the 〈…〉 from anâ— kinde of physicke to 〈…〉 by 〈…〉 and aâ—eâ—snesse and partly for 〈…〉 â—presse upon her shâ—â— seeming 〈…〉 to 〈…〉 the Spirits of the yeere and yet 〈…〉 it perswasion shee that before was unwilling to 〈…〉 â—tion submitted her selfe to this trouble some mercuriall 〈…〉 â—vation and such other directions hee was pleased to ordeine 〈…〉 member very neere a matter of a yeere I speake nâ—t this 〈…〉 will I beare this mans person but pleading now fâ—r the publiâ—◠〈…〉 â—he which I haue my warrant from my mâ—ther the Vniversity I thought not my duty to betray the truth but hee â—omâ— to my 〈…〉 to vindicate the same from error and impoâ—ture And therof for 〈…〉 â—â—suredly knowne that the same party hath with others prâ—ceeded aftâ—â— this same manner in other cases also and where I dare sweare therâ— was not the haâ—t â—â—â—â—ition of the poâ—e I thought good to give the countrie notice that they be no more deluded And that so much 〈◊〉 â—ther in that â— suppâ—se it be not his errour â—â—â—ly but 〈…〉 be culpable in th same binde CHAP. XXIII Of Snot or Snevell Rheume falling downe upon the lungs and other pectorall parts of Expuition or Expectoration and the great abuse in the use of expectorating medicines and the right use thereof AS in the whole body of man there are divers emunctories or passages whereby superfluous and excrementitious matter is expelled so hath the braine for the same purpose obteined the nose which besides other uses hath this in particular thereby to expell such superfluous excrements as abound in the braine This excrement most usually thus expelled is by the Greeke Physitian Hippocrates especially call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Latine mucus narium in English snot of snewell This is then an excrement of the braine the which abounding in phlegmaticke moisture whatsoever is superfluous or unprofitable it partly expelleth by the nose and partly by other places Of this excrementitious matter some is sometimes very thinne and some tough and clammy sometimes in a greater sometimes in a smaller quantity some againe hot some cold some also sweet unsavoury and bitter againe some without and smell and some of an evill smell as commeth to passe in ulcers called ozenae and principally in the French pox where the nose to the view of the eye may often be discerned to be eaten away with this venomous matter This excrement is againe often died with divers colors as reddish yellowish white Sometimes this snot commeth away of its own accord and sometimes otherwise expelled Such excrements as are purg'd by the palat of the mouth and the nose according to Galen declare unto us how the braine and the members thereof are affected When this
and lastly of a more solid substance flesh and bone Now these three from the very first beginning to the end of our daies are continually decaying and therefore must daily be repaired if life be continued The losse then of the first is repaired by meanes of this aire of the two later by meanes of meate and drinke Now since the use of this element is so great that it not onely cooles and refreshes the excessive heat of the heart but also repaires our decaied spirits wee will say something thereof The proper quality then of the aire is reputed to be warme joined with moisture I meane in a temperate and not in any excessive degree howbeit according to the severall and manifold alterations it is subject unto it often altereth not the body onely but the minde of man also A good laudable and temperate aire is a great meanes to uphold the health on the contrary being corrupted it proveth often the cause of many diseases and that the aire doth not a little affect the mind may from hence be evinced that such aire as we most commonly breath in such spirits are there ingendred Of a thicke and cloudy aire thicke and grosse spirits are most commonly produced For this cause the Athenians were accounted wiser than the Thebans by reason they lived in a purer and more refined aire And all Scythia brought forth but one famous Philosopher Anacharsis and this they impute to the thicknesse of the aire of that countrey Plato made choice of a moist and moorish place in the suburbs of the City of Athens to teach in and that of set purpose to blunt the sharpe edge of his pregnant wit And Plato himselfe affirmeth that Minerva being to build the City of Athens did well before consider the nature and quality of that countrey as promising no lesse then such famous worthy wits as in antient histories are recorded Now the healthfulnesse and goodnesse of the aire according to Galen is determined by the purity and good temper thereof A pure aire is called a subtill aire infected with no corrupted vapours nor noisome smells A temperate aire is such a one wherein we neither quiver for cold nor yet sweat for heat Now if the aire of any countrey whatsoever of it selfe naturally unhealthfull no art of man ever can amend it and then the best remedy I know is with all possible speed to make choice of a better If the aire be but accidentally bad then there may be use of Art and so it may according to the excesse in any quality be corrected as wee read that Hippocrates corrected the malignity of a pestilentiall aire by making of great fires of sweete smelling wood as concerning that alteration of the aire occasioned by meanes of the times and seasons of the yeere we are alwaies carefully to preserve the laudable temperature thereof by contrary remedies as farre as in us lieth as the sharpnesse of winter is to be helpt by good fires and warme clothes In the parching heat of summer we are to coole and refresh our bodies by correcting the aire with contrarie coolers especially within doores as also by the use of thinner clothing Now that aire which any one hath suck'd in from his infancie suteth farre better with that constitution than another howsoever perhaps in it selfe of a more laudable quality It behooveth therefore every one as far as in them lieth to make choice of a good and laudable aire But because most men must be contented with that aire they first breathed in therefore this would chiefly be diligently carefully considered of our new colonies who transplant themselves into remote regions that they first make choice of a country whose naturall temper differeth not much from their owne but with this proviso that it be rather warmer than colder than their owne In the next place let the place of thy particular habitation be setled in a good place of the countrey and that both in regard of the aire and water as also all other necessarie commodities Our Virginian colonies therefore were at the first in this very farre over-seene not being so carefull to build their townes in a good and laudable aire and likewise my Lord of Baltomore was too confident in setling himselfe in so tempestuous and cold a place of New-found-land which forced him at length quite to relinquish that land And I wish all other undertakers may take warning by other mens harmes Now it is to be observed that the aire is much altered in quality according to the high or low situation of the place and hence commeth it to passe that there is a great difference betwixt the aire of the high hills and that of the vallies the aire being commonly exceeding cold on the top of those hills yea even when it is indifferent warme in the lower regions and this travellers that passe the Alps and Pyrenean hills doe often finde true where the snow covereth their high tops when there is none to be found in the lower regions A Spanish Iesuit to this purpose relateth a strange story of such a high mountaine in the West Indies There is saith he in Peru a high mountaine whereupon hee ascended as well provided as he could being fore-warned by men expert But in the ascent both he and all his company were surprized with so sudden pangs of straining and casting and some also of scowring that the sea-sicknesse is not comparable thereunto He cast up phlegme choler and blood and thought he should have cast vp his heart also Some thinking presently there to die demanded confession and some are said to have lost their life by this accident The best is it lasteth but for a time and leaveth no great harme behinde it and thus it fareth in all the ridge of that mountaine which runneth above 1530. miles although not in all places alike In some different passages thereof he found the like difference and distemper but not so grievous as at Pariacaca He ascribeth it to the subtilty of the aire in those hills which he thinketh are the highest in the world the Alps and Pyrenees being in respect thereof as ordinary houses compared to high towers In other places of Peru men sometimes are found dead by reason of this sharpe aire and yet their bodies putrifie not which argueth an extreme pure cold penetrating aire Now this maketh it to seeme the stranger Peru being of it selfe situate within the Tropickes Now in the aire this is likewise to be considered that some aire better befitteth some bodies than others a moist foggy body agreeth better with a good dry aire and a dry constitution with a moderate moist aire and so of other complexions simple or compounded We are yet further in considering the aire to take notice of it according to the severall times of the day and therefore although the aire admitteth of many alterations and changes upon divers occasions yet that aire is
to speake of such waters as be beneficiall for the life of all living Creatures In the first place then let us examine the qualities of the best water The goodnesse thereof is principally discerned by the lightnesse and thinnesse the which according to Hippocrates is soone warme and soone cold againe if it bee free from any smell or taste if any kind of pulse bee quickly tender that is boyled therein if put in a silver vessell it cause it no to rust and leave no slime at bottome It is also accounted a good signe of wholesome water if a handfull of sage being throwne therein it be presently dispersed if it nourish good fish and good and wholesome plants grow in it we thinke well of it but if it nourish toads snakes or other such vermine it is utterly to be rejected The weighing of water is not to be trusted to for a venomous water may be as light as that which is of a more laudable quality and besides one and the same water may be heavy in winter and light in sommer as for any other experiments either by a linnen cloth or round piece of wood as idle and impertinent I passe by and come to the differences and severall sorts of water Water that is in request for the ordinary use as well of man as beast as for Physicall waters we referre them to their proper place and venomous waters we will not meddle with wee will divide into Celestiall and Terrestriall Celestiall are either snow or raine-waters Terrestriall is either spring or river-water well-water or of a pond and standing lake Raine-water is engendred in the middle region of the aire of certaine vapors which the Sunne by his heat in the day-time draweth up Aristotle is of opinion that some hot and dry vapors are therewith mingled which causeth the saltnesse in the sea In raine-water againe we are to observe both the time and the manner of falling Hippocrateâ— rejecteth that which falleth in the winter-time as being heavier and harder than in the Sommer The best in his opinion is that which falleth in Sommer and in the most temperate part of the same not in the extreme heat of the canicular dayes it being then farre worse Some notwithstanding hold that the winter and spring raine water are the best and to be preferred before that which falleth in Sommer and Harvest and that by reason it is not so soone putrified But the opinion of Hippocrates is to be preferred who measureth the water by the lightnesse and thinnesse thereof Of the parts of the day that which falleth in the morning is accounted best The manner of the falling is likewise of some moment whether it fall with force or violence or mildly and softly with greater or smaller drops That which falleth with smaller drops and with violence Hippocrates esteemeth better than that which falleth more leisurely and with greater drops and that which falleth with great stormes of wind is accounted worst The substance of raine-water is most subtile and sweet by reason that the most subtile and thinnest parts are exhaled and drawne up by force of the Sunne-beames Snow-water is either of snow alone or of snow mingled with haile or yee or else snow and yee are mingled with other water Both these sorts are to be rejected by reason that the thinnest and subtilest parts by congealing doe exhale and vanish away the thicker and more terrestrious part still remaining behind Of this a triall may be made by letting some water freeze in the night-time and the next morning being dissolved by the heat the quantity shall easily bee discerned to bee diminished Now what harme insueth by drinking of these snow-waters is by the testimony of Hippocrates apparent and such as doe inhabite the Alpes and Pyrenean hills and Auvergne in France are sensible of this hurt being much molested with great throats whom for this cause their neighbours call Goitreux Cisterne waters are of a very neare affinity with raine-water as being nothing else but raine-water conveighed into a cisterne as a fit and convenient receptacle Pliny approves not of raine-waters because by reason of their standing they putrifie and ingender noisome creatures harden the belly and are hurtfull to the throat But since raine-water is so usefull and soveraine I see no reason why cisterne-water should be blamed And since of raine-water there be some better and some worse we must choose the fittest and convenientest time to wit that which falleth in the Sommer As for the slime filth which often accompanieth rainewa-ter being strained thorow gravel and sand they easily leave al that behind the as for the feare of putrefaction it may easily be avoided by casting in some small fishes which will keepe it in continuall motion As concerning the quality of such water it is by some Physitians beleeved that it bindes but that which is reserved in the middest of Sommer rather looseneth then bindeth the belly And by the same reason boiled water rather looseneth than bindeth the belly contrary to the vulgar opinion and that by reason that being boiled it is more easily againe expelled out of the body Now as for terrestriall waters among then Fountaines or Springs challenge vnto themselves the prerogative of the first place above any others In fountaines or springs wee are to consider three things their originall situation and places through which they passe The best springs in the judgement of Hippocrates are such as spring out of high places and earthy hills Such as spring out of rockes he mis-liketh as also such as runne neere any hot bath or thorow mineralls It may be objected that springs issuing out of rockes are by some of the antients accounted wholesomest and best It may bee Hippocrates in regard of their excessive cold and that they are not so passible thorow the body rejected them In the situation of springs wee are to consider the soile where it is seated and next the aspect of the Heaven As for the soile the best spring out of high hilly places but worse that spring out of champian and plaine grounds for such water in Winter is hot and in Sommer cold In regard of the Heaven such are commended that runne towards the Sunne rising and have their aspect that way Such as runne towards the West or other parts c are not of that high esteeme although not unwholesome to drinke Now the ground through which waters runne is not to bee neglected The best ground is a good firme clay unto the which the filth and corruption of the water sticketh fast Againe it must runne a swift course by which meanes it is freed from all smell and putrefaction But heere ariseth a question whether water carried through pipes especially of lead may safely be used The reason may bee both in regard of Galen and others antient Authors and famous in their generations Now
all This herbe is not very hot and therefore ordinarily reckoned among cooling herbs as the vulgar account all herbs cooling which doe not evidently evince their senses of the contrary Although some would ascribe great vertues to the simple yet because I finde no certainty nor any such things recorded by antiquity I leave it as I found it Asparagus or as we call it Sperage is an opening herbe temperately hot and moist and for food the tops or tender sprouts first springing out are in most request and commonly boyled in faire water and afterwards with oile vineger and pepper eaten as a sallet by themselves or else as in some places set round about the dish wherein meat is conteined and so eaten with it and sometimes it is eaten last with banqueting stuffe That this was an ancient custome amongst the Romans to beset their dishes round with them may appeare by an ancient Poet. They are good for the stomacke yeelding no bad nourishment to the body loosen the belly gently provoke urine cleanse the kidnies open obstructions and helpe the eye-sight They must be but a little boiled and if thou wilt boile them againe they lose much of their bitternesse but withall some of their vertues The roots are much used by Physitians in opening Apozemes and syrups And after the same manner may the first yong and tender Hop-buds be used and produce the same effects with the former Avens is also used as an ordinary pot-herbe being somewhat hot yet not exceeding the first and dry yet not exceeding the second degree The leaves are most ordinarily used in brothes and yet the roots are most effectuall against obstructions of the liver or other parts and are of themselves abstersive and are very fit to bee used in Physical broths as being both opening and strengthening No herbe in more frequent use than persly both the leaves and the roots It is no wayes hurtfull agreeing well with the stomacke openeth obstructions discusseth wind and provoketh urine But I advise none to eate it raw being best dressed with meat or in pottage The severall wayes of using it are so well knowne that it were superfluous for me to speake of it The roots are very usefull in Physicall broths especially the inward pith taken out and thus we use fennell roots also It hath been an inveterate opinion among many that Persley was hurtfull for the eye-sight but let it be used as we have set downe and I warrant thee from any harme but if any will eate great store of it raw and often let him looke to himselfe It is both hot and dry yet not exceeding the second degree of either Some use in the Spring to make use of the herbe called Alexanders or Alysander in pottage and some againe use the young leaves and tender stems first bioled for a sallet with some other herbes as they please or else of it selfe with vineger This hearbe hath the same operation that persly hath but yet more forcibly as being of it selfe of a hotter quality The herbe Clary is in great use also especially among women which they esteeme soveraine good against their immoderate fluxes and strengthening of the backe howbeit I cannot find any such thing recorded by antiquity They use commonly here with us in the countrie to fry it with egges Penniroyall an hearbe well knowne both in towne and countrie is of very good use and very wholesome for the body of man and woman especially it is best for phlegmaticke constitutions and ancient people and is very good for women such especially as are any waies troubled with any manner of stoppage Some call it pudding grasse by reason it is often used in puddings being small shred and mingled with the blood which in my opinion is very good and would wish none made without it It is good for a weake waterish stomack against the wind colicke provoketh urine and cleanseth the urinarie passages it is good in obstructions of the pipes of the lungs and others also It is comfortable in all cold diseases of the head and nerves It is hot and dry about the third degree howbeit our ordinary garden penniroyall I thinke commeth somewhat short of this intense degree There is yet an other herbe in frequent use amongst other pot-herbes and called here in the countrie Pot-marjoram which is nothing else save a sort of Organy called Origanum The qualities and properties in Physicke because I thinke they differ not much from the former therefore I need not to insist upon them If I should passe by this so soveraine and noble a simple I should much wrong the publike it being of so excellent an eminency All sorts of Mints are good howbeit that wee commonly call the garden Speare-mints is of all others the best It is hot and dry howbeit I think our garden mints doth not exceed the second degree It is very good to comfort the stomake both greene and dry being good against vomiting and all manner of immoderate fluxes of the belly or other in women which both the red mints and this speare-mints effect Their smell comforteth both the animall and vitall spirits Besides it cleanseth the kidneyes killeth worms and stayeth the effusion of blood It hath beene an inveterate opinion among the antients that this plant procured barrenesse and therefore was not to bee sowne in time of warre as a late writer allegeth out of Aristotle But this opinion is most false and erroneous if we shall attribute any specificall quality to this plant whereby it should cause sterility I doe not denie but in hot and dry wombs especially excessively used it might bee some hinderance But the like may by other plants of a hot or hotter and drier quality as easily be effected But since that mints not onely strengthen those parts of generation but consume also and dry up all cold raw and uncocted crudities ordinarily proving the greatest hinderances of conception I see no reason why this plant should not rather be esteemed a great furtherer and friend to generation This herbe being yong may bee used also in sallets with other herbes And the uulgar doe well in using this herbe very frequently in their pease pottage both greene and dry It is of all other most proper for the use of the stomacke Rosemary is that not without good reason in high esteeme among all sorts of people It is hot and dry in operation at least in the second if not touching upon the third degree It is exceeding comfortable in all cold infirmities of the braine comforteth the senses and the spirits especially the animall as also all the noble parts and corroborateth all the nervous parts It is best to bee in most frequent use in the Winter and cold and aged constitutions of body Of the flowers of it is made a comfortable conserve for all these uses And of the same is made a very soveraine good water
And of this simple there is a spirit quintessence distilled But beware of imposture if thou beest not well acquainted with the preparation Marjoram is a sweet pleasant and well smelling herbe hot and dry in operation and little inferior to the former in this respect It comforteth all the noble parts especially the stomacke and may with good successe be used to further concoction comfort the stomak discusse wind It much comforteth the brain also and as the precedent so is this good against all cold diseases of the braine and nervous parts But this as all other hot plants excelling in strong smell are most appropriate for phlegmaticke constitutions cold and moist braines and stomacks Hot cholericke bodies are thereby offended And very hot braines are offended with any strong smell I have knowne some whom the smell of a Damaske rose would presently make their heads ake Of the soveraine vertues of Sage few are ignorant and the singular good opinion the world had alwayes of this simple did minister occasion to aske the question why any man dyed that had sage growing in his garden To which it was as truely againe answered that against death no Physicke was to be found The qualities for heat and drouth doe much accord with those of the plants last spoken of It is above all others most effectuall against all cold diseases of the braine and nervous parts and therefore good for those who are obnoxious to Palsies and Apoplexies It is good also to strengthen all the noble parts and very good against wind It is very good to comfort and cleanse the cold and moist womb and fit it for conception And being of an astringent and corroborating quality it is good to prevent abortion in such as be thereunto subject as also good against womens immoderate fluxes The country people in Germany thinke themselves free from poyson all that day after if they eat in a morning three leaves of sage with a little salt well dried and taken in a pipe as is usuall to take tobacco it would produce a farre more safe and certaine effect in cold and moist braines and so might prove an excellent preservative against Apoplexies Epilepsies and all manner of cold rheumaticke defluxions commonly called by the name of colds And I am perswaded that if it were to us unknowne and brought from the East or West-Indies or som other remote region and so begunne to bee taken by some of our Shagd or Slasht Mounsieurs we should quickly have it thus used in the country for we are all now for the new cut Bawme is a soveraine good cordiall herbe and is very good against melancholy strengtheneth the braine and helpeth the memory where the defect is from a cold cause bawme- It is more used for Physicke than for food and yet it may wel be used in broths and in sallets mingled with cooling herbs especially when it is yet tender and young There is a strong water stilled out of it very good in palpitation of the heart and other such infirmities especially where there is no great heat It is hot and dry in quality about the second degree Betonie is no lesse hot and dry than the former a very good herbe howbeit in greater request for Physicke than for food and yet may it well be used in broths It is a soveraine good herbe for many both outward and inward diseases It is esteemed principally good for the braine and cold infirmities of the same It is likewise good against inward obstructions and is good also to cleanse the kindneies and all the urinary passages with many other vertues which were heere too long to relate and shall suffice to have reckoned up the principall There is an herbe called Tarragon as hot as any we have yet named of a pleasant and delectable smell and comfortable both to head and heart whereof is also sometimes made use in the kitchin and is used in sallets being used with cooling herbs It may be used of cold and phlegmatick nauseous stomacks and so it both warmeth the same and furthereth concoction Hyssop is sometimes used in broths or pottage although in a small quantity being hot and dry about the third degree or not farre off it being also of a thinne attenuating and cutting quality It is good for the head but principally for the breast and obstructions of the pipes of the lungs and singular good for attenuation and expectoration of tough phlegmaticke humors Phlegmaticke cold obstructed bodies may freeliest use it Time a soveraine good and usefull herbe is as hot and dry if not more than hyssop and is in no small request both for food and physicke being especially good in cold infirmities and phlegmaticke constitutions against the wind colicke weakenesse of stomacke and may also conveniently be used against melancholy and for many other infirmities which for brevity I here passe by Savourie is much of the same vertue that Time and appropriated for the like infirmities It is used amongst other pot-herbs howbeit alwayes in a small quantity and mingled with many cooling herbes And this is alwayes in the use of pot-herbs to be observed that there be a small proportion of these hot and dry herbs used to a greater quantity of those of a cooling quality Besides the herbes themselves some of them bring forth a frâ—utâ— which is in no small esteeme among many We will beginne with the garden thistle which although it beareth not properly any fruit yet is it answerable thereunto for before it flowre it sendeth forth as it were a fruit which is in no small request and used by most people It is most commonly eaten boiled with butter vineger pepper and salt The young and tender stalkes used after the same manner are nothing inferior to themselves The Italians eat Artichockes raw while they are yet young and tender with pepper and salt which is a food nothing worth ingendring crude grosse and evill nourishment Galen saith it ingendreth but bad nourishment boiled and dressed much more than raw But being used moderately they will not offend the body They are accounted hot and dry howbeit I thinke ours doe not exceed the first degree They are esteemed flatuous and to excite lust and are with all diureticke provoking urine and cleansing the passages of urine There are three sorts of these fruits of herbs which have som affinity among theÌ„selves especially two of them The first is by the Latines called Cucurbita Citrullus by the French Citroulle and in English a Gourd and by som a melon It is cold and moist ingendring no good humors in the body and never to be eaten raw but boiled or rather fried with butter or oile and onions or the like which may correct this cold and moist quality It is of it selfe insipid and therefore the French use to adde to it vinegar or verâ—uice as some use here in England also It may
wilde fowle the best is very tender easie of digestion good for all ages and conditions ingendreth good nourishment agreeing well with the stomacke There is also a great Moore-cocke or Heath-cocke called uro-gallus or uraga and greater than our ordinary Cocke yeelding little in goodnesse to our Turkies howbeit somewhat drier and harder of digestion There be divers sorts of little Birds in no small esteeme for ordinary use some of them very good and some againe not worth the eating the Larke is of a good and laudable nourishment and best and fattest in coldest weather they have ever beene dignified with a certaine vertue against the wind-colicke And for this purpose some wish to stuffe them with Garlicke but then they lose much of their reputation Garlike of it selfe being able to bring this to passe Some to make them eat plump and fat rost them with their guts every man as hee likes The Thrush is counted little inferiour to the former yeelding indifferent good nourishment but that it is somewhat hotter and as Larkes so are these also best in Winter and cold weather It was in high esteeme among the antient Romans Sparrowes nourish much and increase both blood and sperme and yet are they hard of digestion especially rosted but the best way is to boile them and then hast thou the benefit both of their bodies and their broth which is restorative The Linnet yeeldeth good nourishment and is easier of digestion than the Sparrow and may safely be used of any Blacke-Birds although esteemed by some a good nourishment yet others are of opinion they are better to delight the eare with their musicke than to feed the belly being bitter in taste and hard of digestion but if eaten the fattest are the best The Starline is rather worse and therefore utterly to be rejected Whatsoever opinion some have of the Wood-cocke and would parallell it with the Partridge yet affordeth it but a dry melancholick nourishment being withall hard of digestion the Winter is their season The Suite or Snipe is worse than the Wood-cocke being more unpleasant to the taste harder of concoction and nourisheth lesse and is very apt to ingender melancholy And the like may I say of that little bird called Fildfare so common and frequent here every where in the Winter season and therefore all such as are any waies disposed to melancholy let them be very carefull and circumspect how they adventure on such meats Rails are of very good use yeeld good nourishment and are easie of digestion The Plover hath purchased a great reputation and high esteeme of a dainty dish and although it be none of the worst so is it none of the best neither being somewhat hard of digestion and not so good for melancholicke persons The Lapwing by some called the greene Plover is by some likewise in high esteeme and yet is it inferiour to the Plover and therefore I thinke them wisest that make no use of it at all especially when they are well supplied with store of other good food Such as are in want must make use of anything Some of those already named live in Moores or watrish and fenny places but besides these there are a many more both greater and smaller fowle that live both in and about waters which for the most part are nothing so good nor yeeld so good and wholesome a nourishment as other fowle which live most commonly in drier places and feed on better food Amongst all these the Swan is the biggest and yet not the best It ingendereth melancholy and is very hard of digestion affording but bad nourishment And howbeit it agree somewhat with the Goose in the nature of nourishment yet is it farre inferiour and of harder concoction It is accustomed to be served in for a dish at great feasts with the first course but those that feed well on this dish I warrant them need no second course or else they have better stomacks than their neighbours Of Duckes there be both wilde and tame all which frequent waters and live most therein They are ranked amongst food of good nourishment being hard of digestion and ingender store of excrementitious moist nourishment especially the tame ones the wilde are of a more solid and firme flesh and will indifferently nourish a strong robust body that can well digest it But of choicer stomacks these and all water-fowle are to be avoided as also of melancholicke persons and such as use but little exercise as students c. But Ducklings being fed with good food are easier of digestion and ingender indifferent good nourishment yet they are farre fitter for hot and drie bodies than for phlegmaticke and moist complexions The Heron Storke Crane Bustard Bittour afford no good nourishment at all but are all very hard of concoction and ingender nothing but melancholy and abundance of bad humours Caveat emptor And indeede such fowle give no approbation to the palate of their worth and sufficiencie no more than doth the Sea-meaw or Sea-gull and many other such fowle of an unpleasant fishie taste The Teale notwithstanding hath procured unto it selfe a good reputation and not without cause above his fellow-water fowles It is easie of digestion nourisheth indifferent well and will not offend a weake stomacke seldome in water-fowle to be observed The Moore-Hen called also by some a Fenne-Durke although somewhat more cōmendable than many other water-fowle in regard of the fatnesse yet are they not freed from the faults wherewith other wilde fowle frequenting waters are charged There be yet many more both water-fowles and which live neer and in the water and fens and watry places which either are not so much in use and request as the former or if they be yet differ they not in nature from the former by the which one may easily judge of their natures and properties And among such as live in drier places some are sometime accustomed to eat some other kindes of fowle as Rookes or young Crowes and some others the which notwithstanding are neither so usefull nor yet of so good and laudable an aliment as others in more frequent and ordinary use But these be the chiefe and which most frequently furnish our tables But befor wee finish this discourse of fowle I will say something of some parts of them as also of things which proceed from them namely their egges In fowle both wilde and tame some parts are preferred before others In fat Capons Hens Turkies the wing is esteemed the best and daintiest in Geese Duckes and water-fowle the legges as being in perpetuall motion And for the same reason in Partridges and other wilde fowle the wing is esteemed the best But the pulpous flesh about the breast by reason of the hearts neighbourhood being drier declineth from that degree of goodnesse The Braines of the great water-fowles as of Swanne Goose and Ducke
either water or strong drinke but especially water or small drinke Hippocrates maketh mention of wrestler whâ— after violent motion and agitation of his whole body and all covered with sweat drinking a great draught of cold water died suddenly and this was also the fatall end of the famous Physitian Valerius Cordus Many more such histories are related by the learned Schenekius And in France my body being then in the like case and had almost bin made an addition to the former examples For after a draught of colâ— water in the heat of Sommer I was immediatly after surpized first with a single and after with a double tertian fever and to adde yet unto my former misâ—rteâ—â—l was shortly after about the beginning of the canicular daies surprized with the blody flixe at that time epidemicall and for the most part mortall in most places of France especially Southward the which together with the former infirmities did adhere unto me almost a quarter of a yeere and recovered not my full strength againe for the space of a whole halfe yeere and upwards Now as meat so is drinke not to be excessively and inordinatly used but stinted and limited to a certaine determinate quantity And howsoever I confesse it is impossibe to regulate and determine how much every particular and individuall person ought to drinke and that by reason of the difference of countries and climats of divers and various constitutions and severall obseruable circumstances yet may we still aime at a certaine decorum or golden mediocrity alwaies as in other things so in this diligently to be observed The antients as it seemeth observed even a set number of draughts at their set meales which were 3 as witnesseth the Poet and the same number was determined by the Synod of Nants Democritus as witnesseth Pliny wrote a booke wherein hee averreth that no man ought to drinke foure draughts at one meale and it was a saying of the antients the first draught is good against drougth the second is for mirth the third for pleasure and delight and the fourth made one madde But because the number of draughts is nothing the quantity of the draught being that wee are to build upon therefore that was also regulated among the antients There were among the antient Romans three usuall measures for drinke called by these names triens sextans deunx The middlemost was the least being under foure ounces and with the which sober people contented themselves that called triens was about a quarter of our wine pint not above foure ounces the last was above our wine pint Sober people contented themselves with the smallest measure and such as assumed some more liberty proceeded to the other but intemperate persons would adventure on the last and biggest measure Cato allowed to labouring men and such as wrought hard about three English pints of wine aday which perhaps was then ordinary for such kindes of people But mee thinks I heare some by reason of that which hath beene already said aske mee a question whether a draught of drinke in a morning fasting be not in the rules of wholesome diet to be allowed of Their colour to cleare this their custome is this a draught in a morning say they washeth downe all ill humors that lie in the stomack or places adjoining and withall is good against the stone I answer thy draught is either strong drinke or small if strong then have I the authority of our famous antient Physitians on my side that this is very hurtfull to the health Indeede during the Empire of Tiberius Caesar saith Pliny the Physitians some fortie yeeres agoe appointed that people should drinke fasting and that onely by meanes of some cunning Physitians willing by some plausible novelty to skrew themselves into the favour of the people And it seemeth there is some recent authoritie at least to beginne our meales with drinke But Galen is flat against this preposterous custome of drinking thus fasting averring that to drink strong drink fasting is very hurtfull for the nerves and nervous parts and withall hasteneth and procureth to the body many dangerous diseases as Epilepsie Apoplexie and many others It is therefore farre better for thy health to eat a little before thou drinke But some will say I will take but a draught of small drinke which is good against the stone To this I answer that howsoever this be a seeming reason yet to mee it is none at all for by this meanes thou causest the more speedie descent of those glutinous and feculent humours toward the kidnies and bladder and by consequent rather furtherest than hinderest either the generation or increase of the stone as the like is also by the unseasonable and too frequent use of diureticall medicines often procured But if thou wilt drinke then the best will be to eat a little before thou drinkest and this like a Sponge will drinke up this liquor and afterwards these superfluous excrements will at great leisure be thorow the guts expelled out of the body Some hot and dry bodies may perhaps plead for some privilege who of all others are most to be excused especially if they be not rheumaticke and in such a case let not the drinke be too strong And as for antient people and cold constitutions who perhaps will take it ill to be abbridged of their morning draught of wines muscadine sweet canary and the like with a tost soked in them and eaten are the best and a cup of good wholesome ale with a tost some nutmegge and sugar may be allowed But the ordinary use of morning draughts being indifferently of every one used is not so good for the health of the body whatsoever our tost pots prate to the contrarie And now I proceed to the next In the next place it may be demanded whether it be good to begin our meales as likewise to end the same with a draught As for the first it hath beene by mani holden as an oracle to beginne the meale with drink which was also held by the Salernitan Schoole and with us it is holden for an ordinary and inveterate custome to beginne our meale with a cup of sacke Now as in many other things so in this particular also can we set downe no certaine precise rule which may fit every particular individuall constitution But this according to my opinion and of our Physitians of the best note is the best for health in ordinary constitutions and the most part of people to beginne their meales with solid food And from this rule none is to be exempted unlesse some hot dry constitution and in such bodies the pot may be washed as some use to say or rather moistned before the meat be put into it providing alwaies there be no pottage or other liquid meats in which case they may well supply the place of drinke And besides as concerning the use
the best spring water or good river-water In quantity it must not exceed for so it would hinder the concoction of the stomacke And as for the order it must be drunke as is already in the generall directions of drinke set downe little and often at a meale Vsed before meales it moistneth much dry bodies and cooleth more than sacke or any wine whatsoever be it never to small and therefore fitter for hot and drie bodies than wine or strong drinke Vsed after meales it inhibiteth and hindereth the hot vaporous fumes of strong drinke to ascend into the braine and so is said to resist drunkennesse but I advise weake stomackes to looke unto themselves for feare of too much debilitation proceeding from too much humectation And howbeit in hot countries their water by reason of correction by the splendor of the Sunne-beames is accounted wholesomer than ours yet might ours be farre more used than it is especially by hot and dry bodies especially such stomacks and yonger people especially but this is the mischiefe that such commonly powre downe most strong drinke by this meanes adding fewell to the fire untill Fevers inflammations and such furious diseases in the very Aprill of their age bring them to an untimely death And the poorer sort I am sure might make more use of the same than ordinarily they doe which would better become them than go a begging strong drinke or which is yet worse steale to procure mony to buy it And notwithstanding this our nicity I know som honourable and worshipfull Ladies who drinke little other drinke and yet injoy more perfect health than most of them that drinke of the strongest Two things do most deterre people from the use of this noble antient drinke the coldnesse and the crudity As for the coldnesse howsoever it doth often actually to the palat appeare such yet have I shewed that there is no such intense cooling quality here to be feared The other is the crudity which is indeed nothing else but the abundance of moisture wherewith it is indowed and most offensive to weake and moist stomackes and all is notwithstanding ordinarily imputed to the coldnesse of water Some to correct what they deeme amisse in water use to adde some sugar to it and so thinke all is well amended and is most practised by the female sex But this is no good correction for of this they cannot be ignorant and experience teacheth no lesse that sweet things doe rather hurt than helpe a weake and tender stomacke And besides Sugar being but temperately hot could adde but a little heat to such a drinke if it were as cold as is supposed Againe sugar having no drying quality ascribed unto it but rather a meane moisture it will rather adde to than detract from this moist quality But in my opinion the best correction is by boiling it first and then if thou wilt adde thereunto a little hony or sugar and a little wine vineger which well correcteth the moisture and joined with the other sugar or hony giveth it a pleasant rellish thou maiest make thee a pleasant and wholesome drinke Now as concerning the boiling of waters there is a controversie about the quantity or how much should be boiled away some willing to boile water to the wasting away of the third part others of the halfe which others againe thinke too much and indeed a meane is the best Againe some would have water corrected by distillation which I must needes confesse to be best if not too costly besides that it is not so easy every where and at all times to be effected Some straine it thorow a cleane linnen cloth and some againe boile it with sand Some with corall beaten to powder correct the bitternesse of waters and some attribute a correcting qualitie to Penniroall Pliny reports that bitter waters are made sweet and potable by casting into them a little meale or flowre of wheat so that they may bee drunke within two houres after I doubt this triall would hardly answere our expectation And I am sure the practice of the Prophet Elisha in healing the water with salt was miraculous It is familiar with mariners after the use of evill waters to eat garlicke The Arabian Physitians advise him who is to remove his habitation to a place where waters are not good to carry with him some of the earth where hee lived before and mingle with his water and being well strained drink of it Now because oftentimes water is either somwhat warme and therfore quencheth not the thirst so well or else is not so cold as to please some nice and curious palats therefore partly for pleasure and wantonnesse and partly for necessity especially when all manner of riot and excesse began to reigne amongst many other things were devised severall waies to coole both their water and their wine And it cannot be denied that cold water doth better further the concoction of the stomacke than warme And Galen in Sommer alloweth of very cold drinke yea even cooled with snow and to such especially as labour hard and use much exercise but others that live idly leading a sedentary life and free from imployment either of body or mind he adviseth to drinke water as nature hath produced it without any alteration Avicen wisheth alwaies to eat before they drinke water and to drinke sparingly and often at our repast and out of a vessell with a narrow mouth that so the draught may be the more moderate There were six several waies the antients used to coole their water by means of the aire which was familiar to the Aegyptians as witnesseth Galen In the Sommer saith he the Aegyptians of Alexandria having first well warmed their water and put it up in close earthen vessells exposed it to the night aire and before Sun rising set them in some shadie places of the ground environed round about with cooling herbes Sailers have beene seene sometimes to expose their water to the night aire and afterwards cover their bottles with many clothes and thus it is very certaine it reteineth still the cold quality The reason why they thus boiled their water was because that water once boiled receiveth sooner and easilier the impression of the cold aire as witnesseth the Prince of Philosophers And therefore in Pontus where they fish alwaies in frost they besprinkle their angling-rods with warme water which afterwards congealeth and freezeth so much the harder which serveth them in stead of glue The second way of cooling water is by letting it downe in an earthen bottle into a deepe well howbeit others are of opinion it receives some evill impression from this close water and therefore thinke it better to draw up the water and so set it in it The third way is by injection of some salt peter which afterwards for a while is stirred about with a sticke howbeit this is not so well approved of with whatsoever present
satisfaction it may seeme to sooth us up The fourth way is by meanes of ice or snow It was the invention of the Emperour Nero to boile water and then let it downe into a pit of snow Athenaeus saith it was an old invention howbeit others affirme it first found out by Nero. The Turkes at this day familiarly use this kinde of cooling their drinke The fift way is by meanes of deepe cellars wherein in antient times some were wont to set bottles full of hot water and take them out againe colder than any snow In Paris there are some such deepe cellars wherein the smallest wines will seeme to the taste twice as strong as they are in very truth Besides all the premisses water falling from a high place acquireth unto it selfe a greater coldnesse than that which runneth softly in a river and the agitation and much stirring of the water furthereth not a little this cooling qualitie And this for the present concerning the use of water shall suffice what resteth shall be discussed in the diet of the diseased which doth something also concerne them CHAP. XXVI Of wine the various and severall sorts with the right use and for whom it is most fitting IT may be my former discourse of water was to some unwelcome who would more willingly perhaps heare of some more noble liquor and therefore now from the water-pale to the wine-pot Now although this same subject of wines alone might well fill up a larger discourse than this in hand yet will I content my selfe with such things as shall be of greatest use for the health of mankind And because al wines are not alike differing in divers respects it will therefore be for us very usefull to set downe the severall differences Wines therefore differ not a little one from another and that in these respects following The first difference then is desumed from the age for some wine is called Mustum or new wine and others of longer continuance one two or three yeers c. New wine before it be well purged from the lees howsoever it may seeme to please the palat by reason of a sweet pleasant and delectable taste yet is it most dangerous for the health of the body for by reason of the thicknesse grossenesse and as some call it a tartareous substance it is very windy and apt to ingender all manner of obstructions wind cholicke and the stone it selfe c. But among all such wines the white and Rhenish doe least harme and that in regard they make the body soluble and so all corruption is evacuated and so in regard of their short abode within the body they are least of all others offensive unto it New wine pressed out of tart and sowre grapes is of all others the worst The Poet Ovid could well tell whether new or old wine were better when he wishes to drinke wine of the continuance of certaine Consuls that is so many yeeres old And as the new wines are not to be allowed for ordinary use no more are the very old wines better to be liked of for then they become farre hotter sharper and sometimes bitter also As for the certaine determinate time orange when wine might safeliest be drunke no man can certainely determine for some lasted twenty some more some fewer yeeres Cicero at a supper with Damasippus was served with wine of 40. yeeres old But the Emperor Caligula was presented with wine of 160 yeere old Now the nature of such wines was this that they were not to be drunke unlesse mastered with much water Our wines now a daies differ much from those in frequent use among the Ancients the Romanes especially for few of our ordinary wines will continue good for yeeres as theirs did yea a yeere and sometimes lesse will put them to the period of their longest endurance Although I deny not but some of our sackes and some such strong wines will continue good farre beyond this prefixed period The second difference is taken from the substance some being thinne perspituous and very small needing no admixture of water called for this cause 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such as grow plentifully about Paris Rochell and divers other places as along the river of Rhene in Thuringia Misnia c. And yet Cardan thought no such wine grew in those regions Others againe were of a thicker and grosser substance and may therefore be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or bearing much water as being of farre greater force and strength than the former The third difference may be taken from the colour some being white in colour some pale yellow some sadder in colour or of a high golden yellow colour some againe of a blackish intense red and others of a pale red colour The yellow wines are the hottest the red lesse and the white least of all And it is to bee observed that mingling grapes of divers colours the wine becommeth of a mixt colour as the white and red grape mingled together maketh a claret and the more red grapes be in the mixture the higher coloured is this claret and the more white grapes the paler coloured it is approaching both to the colour and quality of white wine as is to bee seene in that wine called from the colour of peach flowre couleur du pesche The fourth difference is taken from the taste sweet sowre sharpe or bitter The sweet are most nourishing such as are commonly the high coloured red wine and some sweet sacks brought unto vs from Greece and other parts such as are our malmesey muscadine browne-bastard Canary and some others of that colour and our high coloured red wines called vin de Graves Some againe are of tarter taste as most of our white and claret Galen was of opinion there were no sweet white wines howbeit divers Provinces of France can now witnesse the contrary And I doubt not but the Wine-brewers of the City of London have so well profited in their profession that they are able to furnish any with as sweet wine of any colour as any other place whatsoever The fift difference is desumed from the smell which in wine is also not a little to be regarded and the wines of best smell are also ordinarily the hottest Among our ordinary wines that which smelleth like the raspe as the French say sent la fram boose is esteemed the daintiest But here my meaning is not of any artificiall smell procured by the wit and invention of the vintner no more than that which already hath bin spoken concerning the substance colour and taste Another difference may yet be desumed from the soile and the naturall temper of the aire where such wines grow And thus in one and the same country are so many severall sorts of wine to be seene differing in goodnesse one from another and yet far more those of one countrey from those of another And thus we may apparently perceive what
are novv atteined to decrepit old age to give them onely hony-vvater or boiled vvater to drinke But I thinke fevv that read this but vvill thinke this too rigid and so am I of their mind His reason is because saith hee hot strong wine drunke in abundance hath need of a like proportion of naturall heat to overcome it otherwise it sowreth in the stomacke oppresserh naturall heat ingendreth crudities and proveth the cause of many noisome diseases But by his good leave although a learned man yet he delivers his opinion too lavishly and without limitation Wine in old age moderately taken cheereth the spirits furthereth concoction and overcoÌ„meth crudities The chiefe hurt befalleth old age by the too liberall use of strong hot vvines in my opinion is by way of exâ—ccation their bodies howsoever replenished with an accidentall and excrementitious moisture yet the naturall Crasis and constitution of their bodies get inclining to siccity The excesse in the use of any sort of wine I allow not of But I see no sound reason why the moderate use of our Muscadines sweet Canary sackes and sweet nourishing red wines may not safely and to good purpose be allowed this age which besides the former benefits may likewise by their mild fumes and vapors so irrigate the braine that it may procure them quiet and comfortable sleepe to this age so acceptable And by this moderate use I see not but it may likewise communicate a gentle warmth to all the parts of the body although I am not of opinion this is the only use as this Author seemeth to allege And in the use of wine among the antients this is yet to be observed that they were either to drinke this or water there being no other in ordinary use among them and therfore wheras they allowed youth at the age of 22. to drinke wine this is not a precept for us to practise being furnished with so fit and wholesome drink and so appropriated and fitted for this climat and our complexions and the which may safely to any age or complexion be exhibited and being in our owne power to make it weaker or stronger there is no danger in the use of our ale or beere And besides we must also withall consider that in the hot seasons of the yeere both wine and other strong drinkes must more sparingly be used but in colder seasons we may be bolder Now againe among the antients wine was either drunke pure of it selfe without any mixture or else diluted and mingled with water and is used also in this our age In antient times some added the water to the wine and some againe wine to the water Water was and is used to be added unto wine to allay and qualifie the heat and fumes thereof and is more frequent in those countries where wine is their ordinary drinke This mixture differeth according to the diversitie of the natures of the parties drinking the wine drunke together with the severall times of drinking all which points are learnedly and largely set downe by a famous Italian Physitian and which were too long for mee here to insist upon But this I must advertise in briefe that as young people especially hot and cholericke constitutions ought not to drinke wine so if they doe at any time drinke thereof they ought to delute or mingle it with a greater quantity of water than others and the like I wish to be understood of the heat of Sommer when as both smaller drinke and wine more deluted is best Some in stead of ordinary spring water use rose water and a little sugar which is not amisse and the like may be practised with Strawberry Sorrell Succory or Endive water But to determine the quantity of water which differeth according to circumstances is very hard but the best will be for people to consider of that proverbiall speech Every man is either a foole or a Physitian The meaning is a man should observe what best befitteth the state of his owne body and so accommodate all things accordingly Many in hot countries where the wine groweth sometimes use wine so sparingly that they adde but a little quantity of wine to a great quantity of water it may be not the fifth or sixth part But with us where wine is not our naturall and ordinary drinke this deluting or mixture of wine and water is not so frequent except sometimes in Sommer where often and most commonly sugar is also added thereunto with some Borage flowers and a sprig of Rosemary which are not out of purpose especially if the wine be any thing tart or sowrish And by the way I must here say something concerning the use of sugar with wines It is a common custome thorow this kingdome to adde sugar to all wine indifferently sweet or sowre or whatsoever sort I doe not deny but sometimes to helpe a tart taste or to inhibit the hot fumes of a vaporous or strong sacke apt to flie up into the braines a little sugar helpeth well but to use it indifferently with all sorts of wines and without any consideration of circumstances whatsoever which is the ordinary and common custome and that merely for wantonnesse and to satisfie their lustfull desires I hold it not convenient Our neighbouring Nations who abound in all sorts of wine and most somewhat tartish in taste yet never use this addition of sugar And therefore as I advertised already so wish I all especially our women aptest in such cases to exceed to use a moderation in the use of sugar As for wines thus to be mingled with water they must be indifferent strong and withal of an indifferent thinne substance Wines of a grosse and thick substance are not thus to be mingled with water but rather moderately and sparingly drunke without any addition And as for our Rhenish and small white wines they need farre lesse water than other stronger Some wish that certaine houres before the wine be drunke water be mingled therewith that by this meanes there may be a more perfect mixture of the one with the other There is to this purpose a certaine antient speech recorded Vinum lymphatum cito potatum generat lepram Wine mingled with water suddenly drunke ingendreth leprosie But concerning wine this shall suffice Of the use of wine in the sicke in what diseases usefull and how to be used hereafter in the diet of the diseased CHAP. XXVII Of Beere Ale Cider and Perry serving us in stead of Wine NOw because all countries are not furnished with this noble liquor of the grape therefore our gracious God besides this element of water with man-kind common to all living creatures hath furnished these our Northern Regions with other drinkes which might to us supply the place of wine This drinke hath for its principall ingredients water and corne and to season it and make it keepe a long time in stead of salt hath hop added to it And that this is no new invention to
will yet appeale to any whether they would have their owne houses especially their parlours or roomes where they are most frequently to be made places of burying the dead And the Papists would yet make a man wonder more who were so carefull and curious in contenting the outward senses that not onely would they please the eyes of the spectators with curious pictures and images and by melodious musicke of organs and other instruments of musicke besides vocall give so good content to the eares that notwithstanding they were so carelesse of this other sense of smelling that they would not spare to bury the dead even under the high Altar it selfe But I thinke they may reply there was another smell which did more affect them to wit that which did so much affect that Roman Emperour Vespasian the smell of gaine And this pleasant smell was that which first forged purgatory indulgences consecrating of Agnus Dei Episcopall palles and innumerable other things sent to Princes and great persons and sold at a high rate and this same bred first this burying in Churches in S. Francis his habit yea caven hard by the high Altar the which was little above 400 yeers agoe brought into the Church whenas this begging brother-hood began to increase to a greater number than their almes and ordinary allowance would well maintaine But on this particular I will not dwell any longer but wish that things might be so carried as injury might be done to none and withall that a publike good might be alwaies preferred before any private or personall respects neither were it a hard matter for mee to answer whatsoever could be objected against this so laudable a custome of burying the dead in some place set apart for this purpose in some out-part of Townes and Cities or rather without the same Howsoever I have discharged my dutie as a Physitian giving warning of the inconveniences from hence arising and prescribing a sweet and wholesome aire especially for the sicke But of this â—â—us much shall suffice Now when there is any fault either by excellâ—â—â— defect in the aire wee may safely correct the same In the Sommer time when the aire is too hot wee are to use all meanes to coole and refresh it by strowing our roomes with cooling greene herbs as lettâ—ces vineleaves violet leaves sallow and the like by sticking the roome with greene boughes and letting in some aire by opening the windowes if any that looke towards the North. There may also great pales full of cold water be set in severall corners of the house and sometimes water powred out of one uessell into another If the aire againe be too cold as in Winter then the best way is to warme the roome with a good fire And because fire is so necessary and vsefull wee must have a speciall regard especially being for the use of the sicke of what fewell it is made In the first place then it must be made of drie wood and not of greene smoakie sticks very offensive both in sicknesse and in health The fire of coles is not so good for the use of the sicke especially such as are digged out of the bowells of the earth And those wee commonly call char-coale if either new kindled or yet be in a narrow roome are very hurtfull for any sicke yea will offend a healthfull person And it is reported that Iovinian the Emperour travelling towards Rome in the Winter-season by the way was lodged in a roome newly whited with lime in the which to aire the roome was made a great fire of char-coale and the next morning this Emperour was found dead in his bed being stifled by the venomous vapours of these coales and lime I remember that living in Paris 1608. A young Gentleman of Poictou in France my chamber-fellow set a great pan of char-coale within his studie in the Winter time shutting both doore and window within a little space came running out of his study halfe stifled whenas being in mine own study within the same chamber â— marvelling and much amazed came to him asking him the cause of this sudden fright who scarce able to speak related the truth of the matter and how that being almost suffocated with the venomous and suffocating vapours of these coales hee was scarce able to open his study doore Sweet wood without all controversie is best fewell as Rosemary Juniper Bai-tree if they were as frequent with us as in the south parts of France and many other Countries With us our ordinary wood of Ash Elme oake sallow and beech are good fewell for the chamber of the diseased But the poplar the elder and all sorts of thornes are farre inferiour to the former by reason they trouble the head more as witnesseth Ranzovius and what if we adde to these the walnut tree which hath beene ever reputed an enemie to that principall part Besides there is a fewell in the northerne parts of this Iland called heath or ling whereof there is great use made as well for ordinary uses of baking brewing and drying malt as for burning in the chambers sometimes both of sicke and healthfull persons the which in my opinion is exceeding good especially for the sicke without any offence or hurt to any part of the body being very good in all manner of defluxions and diseases from thence proceeding and good to corroborat the sinews and nervous parts If the aire of thy chamber be infested with noisome smells if otherwise unavoidable then art thou to correct the same with sweet smells as of vineger roses and rose water sanders in hot diseases and in cold diseases with juniper and many hot aromaticall smells It is also to be observed that such hot woods are best for the sickes chamber in cold and not in hot acute diseases unlesse the roome be large and spacious If there be no other meanes to correct the aire we are if it be possible to exchange it for a better as hath been said already But it is now time to come to the habitation of the sicke CHAP. II. Of the particular Aire wherein the sicke liveth to wit his habitation and the best situation thereof As also whether a countrie-aire or that of townes or cities be best where something concerning the situation of the towne of Northampton THe ambient aire wee considered in a double respect one generall of the which already in the former Chapter now in the next place wee come to consider of it in a particular relation to the sicke considered in the habitation or place where the sicke dwelleth And since it is seldome so safe to remove the Diseased there is therfore no small care to be had in the choice of the place wherin any one is to live The healthfulnes of the house is by the situation and structure thereof esteemed That house is by many esteemed the best which is situate somewhat high and on a dry
further and advance this businesse and prove beneficiall not to this corporation alone but to other market townes also to wit Owndel Thrapstone and Waldenborrow together with the whole adjacent country and other neighboring shires and this is by making the river of Nine navigable from Peterborrow to Northampton Now let every one seriously consider the need and they shall find more than enough if it were but even in regard of the scarcity and decay of fewell in this Westerne part of the shire besides many other benefits would from thence arise as preserving the high-waies now chargeable to the countrie in regard of much carriage by cart keeping the meddowes from so frequent overflowing and that by meanes of scowring the chanell and raising the banks besides the importation of corne and other commodities in time of dearth and againe exportation of the same commoditie of corne in time of greater plentie and cheapnesse besides many other benefits whereon I may not now dwell As for any objections to the contrary they may easily be answered and the worke knowne to be faiseable having been long since surveied and the charges cast up and an act ready drawne to be put up in parchment divers yeeres agoe and this same Alderman lately mentioned as hee hath ever manifested himselfe a good Patriot in furthering any publike good at that time followed the same businesse I hope when time and opportunity shall serve good Patriots will not be unmindfull of promoting and furthering the publike good and those whom it more neerely concerneth even this same in particular And although I shall perhaps by some be censured for this digression yet because I thought it not impertinent I must needs crave the curteous reader pardon and so I now proceed to the prosecution of the businesse I have begunne CHAP. III. Of the clothing and covering of the sicke as also concerning shifting of the diseased and of the error of the vulgar practising the contrary Something concerning the bed wherein the sicke lieth and whether the sicke ought to have his haire cut NOw because among other uses of clothes one is to keepe and defend us from the injuries of the ambient aire therefore after our discourse of aire I thinke it materiall to say something of the clothing and covering of the sicke Now our meaning is of such clothes as cover the sickes bed and lie upon him and the sicke are either covered with many thicke heavy clothes to defend them from the injury of the cold aire or else with thinne covers for feare lest they be by multitude of clothes oppressed and internall heat increased Hippocrates in cholericke diseases covereth the sicke with thinne and soft clothes And Asclepiades the Physitian saith Pliny did abrogate this troublesome custome of covering the sicke with so many clothes In that great and fearefull sweating sicknesse it was observed that most died by reason they were covered with so many clothes for their opinion was saith a learned Writer that the disease was to be helped by sweating which by all meanes they laboured to further In the beginnings of the paroxysmes or fits of fevers we ought to cover the sicke with many clothes that the sicke may quickly grow warme and the cold be driven away and for this purpose the parts which are cold are to be rubbed with warme clothes After they beginne to be warme the clothes are to be taken off and toward the declining of the heat to be laid on againe the better to provoke sweat Moreover it is to be observed that more clothes be used in the night-time than in the day and that by reason the night aire is colder than that of the day But if it should so fall out that the sicke could not sleepe with a multitude of clothes then were it good to wait while they be asleepe and then to cover them Now the bed wherein the sicke lieth is not to be neglected as for the forme of the bed a high headed bed such as is now in greatest request and we commonly call French beds especially in Sommer-time and in hot acute diseases are the best for the use of the sicke and afford him most aire and withall I would have the ascent or going up to it low and easie In Sommer and hot weather in hot acute diseases the curtaines would be thinne in Winter and colder weather thicker As for the bed he lieth on downe beds are the hotest of all others and next to them ordinary feather beds yet both doe much heat the sicke especially in Sommer and hot acute diseases And therefore I can in no wise approve of the preposterous German custome to cover them with one feather bed and lay another under them Wooll beds and mattrices are cooler and fitter than the former if the sicke would be perswaded to indure a little hardship for a future benefit But straw and chaffe especially of oats are coolest of all other and fittest for sicke folke if people would prise more their health than their ease In Babylon saith a late Writer great men used in Sommer to lie upon beds of leather filled with cold water which I would not advise our new fashion-mongers to imitate And they say in Italy they use even at this day to lie upon leather-beds filled with wind as we doe here our foot-balls and the French their ballownes Our low field beds and canopy beds are not so good in the former cases as high beds The best of all others are accounted such as hang by cords whereby this benefit may be reaped that the sicke may be rocked asleepe as is the custome of the Brasilians to have their beds hung betwixt two trees for feare of venomous vermine Now from the covering of the bed to the covering of the sickes body in bed and immediatly touching the same and first wee will beginne with the head-peece his cap I meane It is an inveterate and radicated custome in all diseases to cover the head with thicke caps or other clothes esteeming all manner of defluxions and diseases to proceed from the head and as it would seeme by their practice to proceed of a cold cause whereas by this meanes they rather increase for the most part this paine if any there be already the head like a ventose or cupping glasse attracting vapours from the neather parts Avicen warneth us that too much covering of the head weakneth it And yet it is thoght by many that the head can never be sufficiently coverd I confesse in this case it is hard to set down and determine all the particular circumstances as of the time of the yeer the sex the nature of the disease the age and constitution of the diseased according to which circumstances the Physitian is forced to accommodate his particular prescription of clothes And heere I must needs give warning to younger people that they would not so much in their health oppress
that the antient hereticks and heathens did farre surpasse in this point many of our Romanists If they would as they pretend subdue the lust of the flesh why doe they not then abstaine from wine in that point farre surpassing any flesh as hath been proved And why doe not their Priests and clergie-men abstaine from wine and forbid it the people at least in Lent and on fasting daies I have already instanced in the like abstinence both in heathen and heretickes If Sir Iean and his generation will reply that they must serve at the altar and therefore must both drinke for themselvs and the people who by their Canons are debarred from the cup I cannot deny but as in many other things so herein likewise their clergy have been too hard for the laity yet good Sir Iean if you have purchased such a privilege above the people mee thinkes you might the better abstaine from wine at other times especially those of your strictest abstinence and might likewise abstaine from many flatuous meats as many sorts of bulbous roots which all our Physitians doe hold to be irritamenta incitamenta libâ—dinis The Abissine Priests and religious persons so strictly observe their Lent fast that it is reported of them that they eat nothing but roots and drinke water during that time yea and stand often up to the chinne in cold water and the Laity during that time onely eate bread and drinke water If our supercilious Pharisaicall Romanists would imitate this rigid austerity the Clergy I meane it would coole their courages yet withall purchase them a great deale of more praise and reputation than many of them have hitherto attained unto I am not ignorant that some of the simpler sort of their religious orders are more rigid and austere in their manner of living than many others but this I confidently avouch that for the most part their Clergy especially the greater sort are as licentious and luxurious as any sort of people this day living under the face of heaven upon which point I will not here digresse Now to conclude this point of abstinence we are so farre from rejecting and far lesse from finding fault with it that we wish it in farre greater request than hitherto it hath been I meane not onely that ordinary and customary abstinence or sobrietie in meat and drinke and other delights but even that other sort of fast also which we have wished might bee more in practice But I hate and abhorre these counterfit and hypocriticall heathenish and hereticall-like fasts of our Pharisaicall Romanists with their many idle repetitions of their many mumpsimus upon their beads making a shew of prayer where there is nothing but a little lip-labour without any true religion or any true devotion indeed But having said more than I doubt I shall be thanked for I leave this point and proceed CHAP. V. Of Aliment or Diet of the Diseased in generall whether a thinne and spare Diet or a full or liberall be better FRom the Elements wee are now comming to the aliments of nourishment and food fit for the sicke Now as by the moderate and timely use of aliments the diseased reapeth no small benefit so againe by the immoderate and unseasonable use of the same the diseased is much indammaged and indangered And for this cause no small care ought to be had of the Diet of the Diseased We made mention of three sorts of Diet of the which we have Galen for our warrant a thinne or slender a full and liberall and a meane or middle diet betwixt both Now these two extremes have a great latitude and extension In the first place a thin and spare diet is either simply thinne and sparing more sparing and most sparing of all So againe the like by way of opposition is to be understood of a full and liberall diet Now an absolute thinne and spare diet called victus tenuissimus is nothing else but an absolute abstinence from all manner of food whatsoever or at most permitting onely the use of a drinke made of water and hony called by the antient Greekes melicratum And this manner of abstinence did the antients use in most acute diseases which were terminated on the fourth day And when they did a little exceed this first so thinne and slender diet or abstinence they did then allow the sicke some barly-water ptisan or creame of ptisan at most This was usuall among the Greekes which strict and rigid kind of diet the Arabians were not able to undergoe And it may bee the Greekes either because they were thicker skinned or else surprized with sharper sickenesses did more easily endure this kind of diet It may be also the Arabians fared better than the Greekes and were not therefore able to endure this kinde of diet And in this wee adhere more to the Arabians than to the Greekes And therefore if Physitians should now imitate the Hippocraticall course of dieting they should be utterly shent Galen was not so rigid and strict in his diet for he often suffereth the sicke to use some sustenance in acute diseases and often findeth fault with certaine Physitians called diatritarij who pined their patients with abstinence in the beginning of their disease made them fast untill the fourth day and after againe exhibited something on the sixt and againe on the eight and so consequently after the first foure dayes they fed them but every other day And this manner of cure is by Celsus Aurelius called a circular cure To this manner of cure was quite contrary that manner of diet which used that antient Physitian Petronius who abbridged his patients of no kind of diet but filled them with wine and flesh And this is that we call a full or liberall diet according to the extensions and latitude therof To this manner of diet ours approcheth nearest and it is the coÌ„mon opinion of our people of our vulgar women especially that unlesse the sicke be crammed with all manner of food he is quite starved And this commeth often to passe by importunitie of those about them and sometimes by meanes of the Physitian saith Galen who to give satisfaction to the sicke and assistants oftentimes giveth way to such a diet Followeth now in the next place a question to be discussed whether a thinne or slender or a full and liberall diet be the better Now as almost all diseases have their originall and beginning from gluttony and abundance of humors so would it seeme the cure thereof required principally abstinence and hunger For by this meanes the body is dried up and superfluous humors exhausted And it is reported that the Emperour Aurelian in his sickenesse used no other Physicke Hippocrates seemeth in some places to allow of a full diet in all diseases and againe in other places to stand for a thinne and slender diet finding fault with the Guidian Physitians who in the beginning of the disease permitted the
use of a more liberall diet Galen often preferreth a slender diet before a full and liberall and that by reason a full and plentifull diet breedeth innumerable dangers in the body which a thinne and slender diet doth not the which if to the body troublesome may easily by addition be amended This question cannot absolutely be determined by reason both are alike and equally necessary all circumstances well seriously considered but especially having a due regard to the strength of the patient together with the nature of the disease We must conjecture saith Hippocrates whether the sicke be like to hold out with such a diet or no or whether the disease will not first give over before there need any alteration in the diet But with us wee need never be afraid that there be any fault committed in the defect wee are most commonly inclined to be faultie rather in the excesse And howsoever I confesse indeed our bodies are not able to beare that antient strict and rigid Grecian thinne and spare diet yet I wish there were a more moderate course taken for moderating the diet of our diseased But riot and excesse haue so ceized upon us in our health that it is a hard matter to regulate our desires according to reason when wee are diseased Now wee proceede to other circumstances according to this subject CHAP. VI. Certaine Rules and Lawes from whence the Diet of the diseased is desumed AS in the structure and building of houses we must lay a good foundation before ever we beginne to build so no lesse carefull ought wee to be this case where the Diet of the diseased is to be handled to lay a good and firme foundation whereon our building may stand the firmer wee are therefore in the first place to take notice of certaine rules or lawes call them as you list which in the ordering of the diet of the diseased are carefully to be considered and they are all reduced to these two principall heads being all desumed or fetcht from the party diseased or from the disease In the party diseased or the sick himselfe we are to consider the strength the temperature the disposition or quality of the body the age custome particular or individuall disposition or propertie of each person expressed by this word idiosyncrasia the time of the yeere and the region where one liveth Now the first and principall rule law or judication is taken from the strength of the sicke person which by a due and convenient diet answerable to requisite necessity must be sustained to the end the diseased may the better be inabled to overcome the contumacy of the disease for here nature must play the physitian in curing of the disease both food and physicke receiving their power and efficacie from our naturall heat and from divine benediction principally which we ever would have to be understood This one thing is alwaies saith Celsus to be observed that the Physitian present diligently observe the strength of his patient and so long as it holdeth out to cure him by abstinence but if feeblenesse be feared let food then supply what is wanting In the next place the temperature of the body is to be considered for this wee may easily observe that cholerick complexions are not long able to indure long abstinence although in perfect health and if they be at any time ceized with any diseases proceeding from choler they are by a thinne and slender diet much offended In the third place wee are carefully to consider of the frame and structure of the body called Habitus for such as are of a thinne and slender constitution of body are more by a thinne and slender diet offended than others of a thicker Wee are not also to neglect the age for old people are best able to indure abstinence and next unto them those of a consisting or middle age but children and little infants are with fasting most offended By old age I here vnderstand greene old age as it is called cruda viridisque senectus and not decrepit old age which by reason of the languishing and decaying of the innate naturall heate as the oile of a lampe unlesse it be frequently by good and comfortable food and good drinke refreshed will quickly faint under the burden And this must be done frequently and often not confertim or abundantly at once lest this small fire be by too much fewell suddenly suffocated and oppressed And since custome often carrieth so great a stroke that wee see even poisons by long continued custome converted into food it is not slightly in ordering the diet of the diseased to be past over And experience it selfe doth even teach us that things wherewith we were formerly accustomed doe lesse offend us The prerogative of custome Galen well describeth by the example of Arius the Peripateticke who being much molested with a great weaknesse of stomacke that he durst neither indure the cold aire nor once so much as taste a drop of cold water falling into a fever and forced to drinke cold water died suddenly And therefore if any were in their health accustomed to eat twice or thrice aday not onely are we to yeeld to this custome in their sicknesse but even to permit unto them their accustomed houres unlesse some sudden accident as the fit in a fever or the like doe hinder us Now besides the premises every one almost hath some certaine peculiar property or condition called idiosyncrasia whereunto belongeth often some peculiarity in appetite and other things and to the which sometimes wee are forced to give way and wee finde often by common experience that when the stomacke is whetted on and eagerly longeth after some particular food howsoeuer it may be in it selfe not so fit having injoyed it greedily imbraceth and with great facility concocteth the same and this Hippocrates in his aphorismes did very well expresse But herein I would not that any one should at randome let loose the reines of his appetite but carefully and with good counsell regulate and moderate his desires We are in the next place to consider the time of the yeere howsoever many may perhaps thinke it to small purpose But as in health this is to be observed there must then be like correspondency in the time of sicknesse And certaine it is that in Winter the internall heat of the stomacke and inward parts is farre intenser and greater than in Sommer and the concoction easilier performed and therefore no question is to be made but that the quantity of aliment must needs be answerable and in greater abundance than in Sommer when as by the heat of the ambient aire the internall is extracted the pores of the body rarefied and dilated and sweat with fuliginous excrements more copiously expelled And therefore a lesser quantity of food of a laudable quality and easie of digestion as also a more liberall allowance of drinke is then to be
urines and other excrements The Arabian Physitians are of another minde and would have us give store of cold drink in the very beginning of the disease It is indeed very certain that better it were to wait for signes of concoction if the fever were not violent but in extremity of heat and for feare of further inconvenience by meanes of too long absteining it is better to yeeld to an inconvenience than to a mischiefe True it is indeede that drinking of cold water before signes of concoction may somewhat prolong the disease and make the humour grosser and more crude but againe this scalding heat would parch up the humours of the body before these signes of concoction And therefore Galen sometimes fore-seeing this danger was forced even in the beginning of the paroxysme to take this course As for the particular time in intermittent Fevers it is by Hippocrates himselfe determined while as he willeth us in the fit to absteine from all manner of food and if hee forbid food why not drinke also since that by much drinking in the beginning of the fit wee see it prolonged While the feet are yet cold wee are to absteine not from suppings only but from all manner of liquid substances saith the same Hippocrates and so the common currant runneth that the sicke should not drinke during the fit and yet are not all of this minde And there is a learned late Writer who would not have the sicke altogether debarred from drinke during the fit And although saith hee Hippocrates willed us during the fit to absteine from all food even from suppings also yet must not this be extended to drinke And Galen himselfe in the heighth of a burning Fever ordeineth a good draught of cold water and the fit of an intermitting Fever is correspondent and answerable to the whole duration and continuance of continuall Fevers As for my part as I would not be too rigid in denying any reasonable gratification which might not prove prejudiciall to the patient so would I not be too servile and obsequious without some great necessitie it being most commonly seene that if wee give an inch they will take an ell Besides there is difference betwixt our bodies here and the French in the South parts of that Kingdome where this Author lived and both in regard of the ambient aire and their ordinary diet and drinking of wine their bodies in any fever must needs admit of a higher degree of cooling than our moist foggie phlegmaticke bodies in this our climat But if any particular individuall patient should be thus by excessive heat scorched up as I should not my selfe be too rigid so I wish others to be wise It resteth in the next place to define the quantity which would seeme to be controverted some allowing of a great draught at once and some againe would have drinke taken by degrees It is by the most both Greeke and Arabian Physitians mainteined that the sicke may drinke ad satietatem even to satiety But Aristotle seemeth to be of another minde and it seemeth it was the custome of some Physitians of his time for saith he Physitians use to give cold drinke by degrees whereof he rendreth this reason that being thus drunke by degrees it moisteneth more than drunke plentifully and at once even as wee see soft showers moisten more than great dashes of raine I answer that wee intend not here so much humectation as sudden extinction of this exorbitant scorching heat for even as we see in Smiths forges that a little water kindleth the fire and maketh it burne faster even so doth a little drinke rather increase the heat of the fever than extinguish it Now because so great a quantity of cold water if it should long lodge within the body might breed some inconvenience it is therefore by Physitians appointed that the sicke should cast it up againe as both by Hippocrates and many other Authours may appeare And in another place relating the disease and death of the wise of one Antiochus in Larissa to the end of his long discourse subjoineth this that it seemed shee might have lived if shee could have drunke store of cold drinks and cast it up againe But now to come home to our owne country wherein we live and to see how the premisses may agree with us I thinke it will not be impertinent It is then to be observed that all those countries wherein the Greekes and Arabians lived were very hot and the inhabitants thereof much naturally addicted to drinking of water their wine being there too strong for ordinary drinke as it is in many parts of Europ even at this day where the vulgar drinke most water or mingled with a little wine and therefore in time of sicknesse cannot so much offend them But with us water is not so usuall for ordinary drinke and therefore might more wrong our bodies Besides water is hurtfull to weake stomackes whose bodies abound not with blood or yet are troubled with any tumour or inward inflammation and oppressed with tough and crude clammy humors And therefore wee safely permit the use of small beere which neither indangereth the body if not cast up againe neither can it much wrong the body by sudden overcooling of the same Besides the boiling correcteth the crudity the barly is good in all acute diseases as after shall appeare and the hoppe openeth obstructions of the inward parts If the patient after a good draught can cast it up againe it will doe him good and if not it will finde a vent some other way as being farre more penetrant than water And as for the benefit might by casting it up againe be procured it may by meanes of a convenient vomit easily be effected which may by a discreet Physitian be according to severall circumstances accomodated But if the heat were yet very violent and more cooling drinke be yet requisite we are not unfurnished of variety of distilled waters whereof we can easily compose such variety of cooling juleps with the addition of tart acid juices and liquors as may give content to the nicest and daintiest palats And wee are not unfurnished of barly waters posset drinkes of severall sorts and many others whereof we purpose shortly to make mention And yet if wee would make use of water in fevers I see not but it might be very well and to good purpose used I would have then pure spring water well boiled and afterwards well cooled againe and then made tart with a spoonfull or two of good white-wine vineger or some drops of the acid spirit of vitriole some barberries or the like This would prove a soveraine good cooling and wholesome drinke in all hot fevers whatsoever contagious or others and the poorer sort might reap as much benefit by this as any other drinke CHAP. XIII Of warme Drinke and whether it be usefull or no. WHat hath hitherto beene spoken concerning cold
water and the many waies were used to coole it its hot countries to please the palate wil easily finde credit with a vulgar understanding hot drinke being of no living creature whatsoever desired and cannot therefore be naturall for thirst is nothing else but an earnest desire of a cold and humid substance Now de facto that there were such hot drinkes in use among the antients if we should deny yet many Authors will make the truth thereof appeare But whether this now used in sicknesse or in health or both as likewise de iure whether usefull for the body or no resteth now to be discussed It hath beene an usuall speech among people that wee ought to drinke as hot as our blood and that for feare lest naturall heat by cold drinke be quite extinguished And it would seeme that the antient Romans had this custome in frequent use for wee read that in Rome there were shops where such hot drinkes were sold called therefore Thermopolia as may appeare by that the Emperour Claudius discharged this custome and tooke quite away all such places And againe Caius Caligula put to death a Master of one of these shops for selling of this warme drinke during the funeralls of his wife Drusilla And from this warme drinke was the Emperour Tiberius nick-named Biberius Caldius mero And in great families one of the servants had the charge of fetching such warme water which was alwaies in a readinesse to be sold the which if he brought too late his punishment was 300 stripes And that the Romans had it in ordinary use especially at their suppers when as they fed most liberally may also by many places of the old Poets appeare And the old comicke Poet Plantus make thereof frequent mention and many other Authors whom for brevity I here passe by A late Writer rendereth a reason why some of the Easterne nations as namely the inhabitants of China and Iapan use warme drinke and yet live long and in good health to wit that by reason of the extreme heat of the ambient aire their stomackes and inward parts are cold and therefore to warme them within use this warme drinke Others againe used this warme drinke onely for wantonnesse to make them cast up their meat and so fill their stomacke againe with fresh food the which the same Authour also out of some antient Writers relateth and that this was a common custome among the Rhodians Some againe were of opinion that the antients never dranke warme water of it selfe but mingled with their wine At least it seemeth it was the custome of some as likewise that nothing might be wanting at a great and sumptuous feast as the Poet intimateth unto us Some againe thinke that although they warmed their water yet that they let it coole againe before they either drunke it or mingled it with their wine at least it seemeth it was the custome of some as of some others to warme both their water and their wine and then to coole them being so mingled before they dranke them Some learned men are also of opinion that these warme drinkes were not alwaies water but some other sweet artificiall drinkes and which people out of wantonnesse were wont to drinke as is the custome both in high Germanie and the Low-countries to repaire in a morning to certaine shops where strong waters are sold whereof they drinke some being mingled with sugar or sweet sirup But certaine it is the best course is to drinke our drinke cold as it is in its owne nature and if in extreme cold as in frosty weather or any otherwise be by extreme cold drinke offended then may they qualifie this extreme quality either by putting a warme tost into it or otherwise abate the extremity of the cold but in no case to drinke it hot And yet we see that even among our selves we have a custome sometimes to drinke warme wine burning it with spices as is supposed to qualifie the heat and strength of the wine and so drinke it warme But in my opinion this is a wrong both to the wine and themselves also burning away the spirit which is the life of the wine they procure unto it an accidentall and adventitious heat more hurtfull to the body than the naturall heat of the wine it selfe And besides although it be often used in cold weather yet to drinke it so actually hot is nothing so good the wine howsoever it be actually cold yet doth it alwaies by a potentiall heat warme the inward parts But let us now see whether warme water were in use with the sicke or no It would seeme to bee more usefull for the sicke than for the whole and the Arabian Physitians administer it in pectorall diseases by reason cold drinke is an enemy to all the pectorall parts And an antient Roman Physitian commendeth it in all Fevers Others commend it in that Fever called diaria or of one day Besides the Greeke Physitians used it ordinarily in diseases of the reines But yet that it is not so good for the stomacke cannot bee denied And although it be not now the custome with us to give our patients warme-water to drinke yet upon divers occasions we use also warme drinks as warme posset drinke to further the operation of vomits and others to provoke sweat And howsoever we use not to exhibite this warme water as did many of the antients yet because we are accustomed for the sickes use and benefit to boile our water with addition of some simples something I will say concerning this point Water boiled is more subtill and of a more sudden penetration than crude as it commeth naturally out of the earth The antients boiled it either with the heat of the Sunne or of the fire And the Persian and Aegyptian Kings were wont to boile their water at the he at of the Sunne were it never so thinne and pure in it selfe With us we have in use a double boiling of water the one by the heat of the fire in ordinary vessells the other by way of distillation to the antients unknowne Which of these two wayes is the best we are now to inquire Our Physitians are for distilled water and must needes be the best Indeed boiled water is to bee preferred before the crude and is farre more familiar for the stomacke but in this distillation hath the preheminence that whereas by decoction many thinne parts are evaporated this is here avoided And indeed by distillation all uncouth taste if any is removed and by reason of this refining and attenuation it will also keep a long time without putrefaction But this point is so cleere that I shall not need to prosecute it any longer And although we are not accustomed to distill ordinary water yet is it very frequent with us to distill waters out of simples of all sorts both hot and cold whereof here
to speake is not now my purpose Onely this one thing I adde that whereas some object that waters distilled in stills made of metall either are not so good by reason of some relicks of the mettall communicated unto them or else have some smoakie or firie impression left behind in these waters I answere the first feare is frivolous and builded on a false foundation and the other may by care and diligence be much prevented But if any be so curious and fearefull they may have their waters distilled per balneum Mariae in glasse stills if they will be at cost But it is the custome of many people that they would fare well and pay little for it Now before I finish this point I must give warning to such as attend the sicke that they doe not unseasonbly too much obtrude upon the sicke these their warme drinks or suppings wherein women doe very much exceed and many times quite debilitate and overthrow their weak stomacks And this shall for this particular now suffice as occasion shall offer it selfe I shall now and then touch upon some particular abuses and failings in this kind and now I proceed to some other drinks and first concerning wine and whether the sicke may be suffered to drinke any CHAP. XIIIJ Of wine and whether it may safly be administred to sicke Of artificiall wines of aqua vitae usquebath and other strong waters OF wine we have already spokeÌ„ at great length and of all the severall sorts thereof the right use and abuse resteth now to say something thereof as it hath relation to the sick Of the excellent vertues of this king of liquors there is no doubt to be made but yet the event is often doubtfull whether it may prove a profitable medicine or a deadly poison And therefore Pliny relateth that a famous wiseman called Androcides wrote good counsell to Alexander the Great as an antidote against his intemperance when thou art to drinke wine O King remember that thou drinkest the blood of the earth For as hemlocke is to man a poison even so is wine To which precepts if he had hearkened he had not in his drunken fits imbrued his hands in his deerest friends blood So that of it may truely bee said there is nothing more conduceth to the strength of the body not yet more dangerous delight than this if not regulated according to reason No mervaile then if there ought to bee great caution and circumspection in exhibiting this to sicke folkes and indeed there hath beene some alteration among Physitians whether wine might safely bee exhibited to sicke people For siâ—â—e diseases are cured by contraries and wine in the estimation of all Physitians is reputed hot it will follow that to drinke wine especially in hot diseases for of others there is no controversie is to increase the disease Plutarch writes that Alexander the great falling into a Fever and drinking wine liberally by that meanes died howbeit we are not ignorant others hold an other opinion concerning his death yet it cannot be denied but wine might hasten his end It may be then admired and wondered at why Hippocrates in Fevers and hot diseases permitteth the use thereof Neither yet did Galen in like cases deny his patients the use of wine If the like care and caution they used in the exhibiting of it were observed no doubt it might be without feare yeelded unto The wine they used was thinne weake white wine called by him vinum aquosum or watery wine much degenerating from the nature of strong hot wine and there he findeth fault with the Guidian Physitians who were altogether ignorant of the right use of wine affirming also that we may safely even in a Pleuresie or inflammation of the lungs exhibite such wines providing still there bee neither great headach nor deliration or perturbation of mind as likewise that the spitting up of tough phlegme bee not hindered nor urine suppressed c. And a little after thou must know that it will be lesse hurtfull to the bladder and upward parts if it be thinne and waterish as he termeth it but better for the guts if it be stronger It appeareth then plainely that even in the opinion of Hippocrates such small wines might be used of the sick And therefore these wines which in comparison of others may bee called cold of the which both Hippocrates and Galen are to be understood are often without danger administred to sicke persons But in the use thereof wee are diligently to consider besides the quality whereof we have already spoken the quantity and opportune time of offering the same The quantity cannot well be determined yet must it be by moderation regulated and severall circumstances not neglected The fit and opportune time is by the same authors assigned when signes of concoction appeare or in the declining of the Fever As likewise in a pleuresie or inflammation of the lungs the matter being now concocted and the inflammation abated and by this meanes expectoration is furthered not hindered Something notwithstanding is to be yeelded to custome and old age If any from their youth bee brought up with wine they will hardly admit of any other drinke neither will the stomacke commonly admit of any other liquor But heare what Pliny saith concerning this same subject As concerning Fevers saith he it is certaine we ought never to give wine in that disease but to such as bee of good yeeres and that in the declining of the disease onely And in acute diseases to none but such as have manifest remissions especially in the night time the halfe of the danger being in the night time that is hope of sleepe to such as shall then drinke It must therefore be given onely with meate neither after sleepe nor yet after any other drinke that is onely taken when the diseased is dry and almost in the case of greatest extremity all hope almost now failing us In such places then where such smal wines grow as in the I le of France about Paris and in the countrey of Xantonge especially about Rochell they may freely give the diseased such smal wines without any danger at al. And of such a thinne acid and somwhat tartish wine composed of most white grapes and a few red I my selfe made a triall in a double tertian during my abode in France This they cal couleur dupesche or peach coloured wine from the colour of the peach flowre or bloome and this wine mingled with water did both quench thirst without any apparent heat and provoked both sweat and urin But let us now draw nearer home and see whether wine may be allowed our sicke It is not unknown that our cold moist climat bringeth not this noble liquor of the grape to any maturity or perfect ripenesse so that whatsoever wine we use we are beholden to our neighbour countries for it besides that wine not being our naturall
reteine the vertue of the simples whereof they are distilled whereof we have at large already discoursed Some of these waters againe are compounded of many severall simples and take the denomination either from that which is most predominant as the Theriacal-water or else from the sublime and extraordinary effects as aqua coelestis aqua mirabilis c. and sometimes from the Author also as Doctor Stevens his water But whosoever is too busie or bold with any of these hot waters in ordinary use either for furthering concoction or otherwise shall at length finde them produce the like effect as lime laid to the roots of trees which howsoever it hasten the fruit for the present yet killeth it the trees in a short time And this I have in some of my very good friends and patients often found too true with whom I wish sound reason might have more prevailed than their owne disorderly appetites I have observed in some who had these hot liquors in too frequent use as they pretended to warme their stomacks that at length they came to this pitch that whether they drunke any of these sublimate waters or the best sacke or other wine whatsoever they found no more heat in it than of a cup of cold water powred downe their throats But this was not all the harme from thence ensuing but was after accompanied with an extraordinary great distempered heat both in the liver and kidnies and in some an irrecoverable scirrbus in the liver a disposition to a dropsie and in conclusion an untimely death I could easily at great length dilate and discourse largely upon this one point but that I hasten to the other matters which yet remaine to handle CHAP. XV. Of divers drinkes made of hony mulsum mulsa or hydromel and oxymel with the various waies of composition and their excellent vertues ALthough wee have already handled hony with the vertues thereof and divers other things concerning this subject yet now wee are to speake of it againe at more length at least of some drinkes made thereof of no small use in the Diet of the Diseased And the praise of it may from hence appeare in that the Land of Canaan was commended and that by the Authour of truth himselfe to be a Land flowing with milke and hony Of this many excellent drinkes were made by the antients which with us at this day are not in so great request Howbeit even at this day some nations where hony is plentifull make thereof some drinkes very usefull both in sicknesse and in health as namely the Polonians Lituanians or country of Lettow and other territories subject to the Polonian Crowne where good wine is scant and good hony plentifull and therefore in stead of wine use this drinke And wee have already made mention of Metheglin made in Wales Now of hony were made three sorts of drinkes differing one from another The first of those was called Mulsum or a drinke made of hony and wine another Mulsa or Hydromel a drinke made of water and hony the third of hony and vineger water sometimes being mingled therewith and by them called Oxymel at this day with us in no small request in pectorall diseases especially The first of these then is that which the antients called Mulsum and so celebrated by that Roman Pollio as wee have already mentioned And that this was a very antient drinke may by a late learned Writer appeare who proveth the same against Plutarch who held it in his time to be but a new invention His opinion hee proveth both by the authority of Homer and Hippocrates who call this drinke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Of this drinke Pliny maketh one Aristeus a Thracian the author and the which drinke he brought into that credit and reputation that in these daies there was no sort of drinke in greater request howsoever now in our daies neglected It was made of tart or sharpe wine and hony taking its name a mulcendo from mitigating and qualifying the sharpnesse and tartnesse of the wine Pliny would have it made of old wine as being easiliest incorporated with the hony That this is that Oenomeli mentioned by Dioscorides may by comparing that place of Pliny with his easily appeare Plutarch writeth that honie spoileth and corrupteth the wine and may therefore be questioned whether it be wholesome or no I answer that being new made it is windy but being well boiled and kept a good while it becommeth a most wholesome drinke And many saith the same Pliny have by the continuall use of this drinke atteined to old age as hath been already in Pollio instanced This drinke is in some places of Hippocrates prescribed in pectorall infirmities The likest to this drinke is that famous Metheglin so much used in Wales In some sea-cities of Germanie they make this Mulsum and mingle therewith many aromaticall simples There was another drinke made of the same hony and water onely and in no small request among the antients called therefore Hydromel Of this drinke there were divers manners of composition Dioscorides maketh it of two parts of old river water and one part of hony boiled together and set a long time in the Sunne Pliny composeth it of hony and raine-water long kept boiling the water with the third part of hony untill the third part of it were wasted away There was also another drinke made of hony in request among the antient Greekes called Apomeli and was made of the hony-combes washed and boiled in faire water Galen maketh yet mention of another manner of composing this drinke taking of vineger one part of hony two parts of faire water foure parts and so boiled them where no mention is made of the combes The Arabian Physitians made their Mulsa or Hydromel after this fashion They tooke one pound of very good yellow hony and not too old which they boiled with eight times as much spring-water in an earthen or stone vessell skimming them well and boiling altogether at a great fire and then straining it thorow a cleane linnen cloth In Hippocrates wee read of two sorts of this Mulsa or Melicratum one ravv another boiled The former was made of three parts of spring-water or old raine-water and one of very good hony well mingled together and set a long time in the Sunne The second sort which was boiled was composed of the same quantity but presently boiled to the wasting away of the third part Besides he maketh there two sorts of this drinke according to the predominancy of the one or the other of these two for when the quantity of water exceeded that of hony it was called Melicratum aquosum but when there was greater store of hony than water then it was call Sincerum Melicratum or pure and plaine hony-water In our daies some make this drinke of good pure hony one part and six times as much good spring
may be asked whether the sicke may not sleepe after it I answer that it is onely to very weake persons permitted and not to others for whom it is very hurtfull especially if drunke in any great quantity lest head-ach heavinesse and drowsinesse of the whole body follow after Womans milke is best suck'd out of the brest which if the sicke refuse to doe then it is thought expedient that it be milked in a cleane vessell standing in water a little warmish and so presently drunke up Milke of beasts is to be drunke warme immediatly after the milking with the addition of a little sugar rosat or other ordinary sugar in defect thereof The antients added hony and a little salt to it especially when they would have it to purge and so might wee well at this day if our palats were not now adaies growne so dainty and nice that no sweetning now will serve our turnes unlesse fetch'd from Madera Barbary or Brasill Howsoever the poorer sort may use it after this manner The ordinary measure to take at once some would have it to be three or foure ounces or about a quarter of an English wine pint according as the nature of the disease and diseased shall indicate to vs. Galen in a Fever hecticke beginneth with two ounces and then addeth halfe as much more increasing the quantity untill such time as hee saw it sufficient for the sicke Physitians of old were wont to give milke to the sicke in a very great quantity and Hippocrates gaue at once almost five quarts of Asses milke and sometimes lesse But hee giveth onely Asses milke in this abundant quantity so farre as we can read and elsewhere he giveth sometimes above a gallon and a halfe and sometimes above two gallons of this same milke Rondeletius addeth this caution in the use of Asses milke that if it be used to cleanse and purge wee may use an English pint at a time but if it be used for aliment then a lesser quantity will serve the turne lest it trouble the stomacke I dranke as much as was milk'd from the Asse at a time the quantity I remember not But such as have in their health beene accustomed to the use of milke may drinke as much as they please Sometimes the antient Physitians and Hippocrates himselfe also in benigne and milde Fevers and in internall heats used to boile good store of water with their milke and so gave it their sicke to drinke But because milke in its owne entire substance is not alwaies so safe for the sicke besides there being so many cautions to be observed and so many cases wherein it is not safe to exhibite it it therefore being composed of three severall substances the mercuriall or waterish part called serum and in English whey may farre safelier in any disease be exhibited than any of the other This serous substance doth cut tough humors cleanse and loosen the belly and therfore whatsoever milk most aboundeth with this moist substance is most wholesome and although often used yet hurteth least Such are Womans Goats Asses Camels milke for the whey of such milke is accounted good against the Iandise dropsie arising from the obstructions of the inward parts as also against Scabs Morphewes Tetters Freckles of the face and Cataracts of the eyes Of all other wheyes that of Goats milke is esteemed the best for it participateth of a sharpe nitrous quality whereby it cleanseth a thinne and subtile quality whereby it openeth obstructions cold and moist whereby of cooleth and moisteneth in all Fevers it is good against Dropsies Iandise the Spleene melancholicke diseases obstructions from choler diseases in the kidnies and all inflammations The antients used also often to infuse their medicines in whey made especially of Goats milke although sometimes mention be also made of whey of Cowes milke which now is most in request Antient Physitians make mention of two sorts of whey one of the whole substance of the milke as it is and another of milke already skimmed but the first is the best and loosenth the belly most Both these sorts were prepared after a double manner one without commixtion of any other substance called a simple manner and was thus prepared the milke being very hot they suddenly set within it another vessell full of cold water and so by this sudden concurse of hot and cold was made this separation Some would have this vessell of silver some of brasse others care not what the metall be Boiled with a very hot fire it often also quickly curdleth and then by straining one substance is separated from another Another way of separation was called compounded by addition of some other substance rennet juice of the figge tree c. And many other things as well hot as cold will easily curdle milke It is moreover to be observed that whey acquireth unto it selfe divers qualities according to the various preparations thereof for that which is made with rennet is sharper than that which is made without any addition of any other substance That which is made with sowre juices as of lemmons and the like is more cooling and pleasing to the palat and more appropriate and fitting for hot and maligne diseases howbeit more hurtfull for any internall ulceration or excoriation Now for the quantity it must be measured according to the nature and constitution of the patient observing also these cautions following to wit that it be drunke blood-warme in a morning fasting Some give above a pint if for the qualifying of sharpe humours but if to purge then about three pints and Hippocrates to almost two pints more Wee follow rather the Arabians directions who give it from halfe a pint to a wine quart and upwards and this quantitie must be taken by degrees not all at once and the patient must walke a turne or two betwixt as is the manner in drinking of minerall waters And as did the antients so doe we likewise often boile in our whey divers sorts of simples and with us is much used in the Sommer-time for cooling and clearing the blood We use Endive or Succory fumiterre especially dock-roots c. According to the particular occasion and the parties constitution c. Who useth it And this is often used even of healthfull persons Wee make our whey for the sicke after a farre other manner which we commonly call posset-drinke and is made after divers manners In fevers and hot diseases we turne the milke only with the juice of a lemmon and this we call lemmon posset being both cooling and cordiall and in the absenee of lemmons wee may make use of the juce of sorrell or some wine vineger which the poorer sort may use whensoever they have need And in the use of posset-drinke this is to be observed that it be alwaies made cleare for the sick and if it be not so at
of the body And Galen in many places of his workes doth not a little extoll and magnifie exercise as in these words following To mainetaine our bodies in good health we must beginne with labour and exercise And elsewhere To maineteine the body in good health the moderate exercise of the body is marvellous usefull and necessary but on the contrary rest ease and idlenesse are very hurtfull And in the same book hee affirmeth That both himselfe and a companion of his for the space of many yeeres lived in very good health hee attributed to the moderate and seasonable use of their exercise by meanes whereof crudities were avoided And of the same minde is the learned Celsus Sluggishnesse saith he dulleth the body exercise and labour maketh it firme and strong the one hasteneth on old age the other prolongeth the time of youth And the opinion of Plato is that exercise strengtheneth but ease and idlenesse corrupteth the body But fearing to trespasse too much upon the readers patience in the enumeration of more Authorities I come next to the time and then to the several sorts of exercises of us seriously to be considered The fittest and most opportune time for exercise is agreed upon among all our Physitians in the generall to be best before meales when concoction is accomplished to be seene in the urines And as for the particular time of the day the morning is both by Hippocrates and of others preferred before any other time of the day Howsoever let this alwaies carefully be observed that thy exercise be not undertaken before thy food be well concocted and that now the time of thy next repast approach And this a late Writer proveth both by reasons and the example of Alexander the great And Hippocrates mentioning the moderate use of divers things which concerne the life of man ranketh labour and exercise in the first place Let labour or exercise and meat and drinke carnall copulation and sleepe all be used with moderation And Celsus wisheth those who in the day time have been busied either with their owne private or else with the publike affaires of the Common-wealth to set apart sometime wherein they may take care of their owne body Now the principall care thereof consisteth in the use of exercise and ought alwaies to be used before meales and hee that hath taken lesse paines and his food be well concocted may use it more freely but he that hath beene toiled out with labour and hath not well concocted his food let him use exercise more sparingly And this was the sauce the noble Cyrus used in all his warlike expeditions for saith Xenophon he never supped before he had sweat or had performed some warlike exploit or some rusticall and country imploiment and by this meanes inioyed his health perpetually And besides being not only sollicitous of himselfe but also of all his souldiers servants health he had an especiall care that they were never admitted either to dinner or supper before they had laboured hard And the Egyptian youth by the command of Amasis did not eat before they had run about 20 miles and Tully relateth that Denis the Tyrant having supped with the Lacedemonians said hee cared not much for their blacke-broth which was notwithstanding the principall dish of the feast whereunto the Cooke replied that it was no marvell for saith hee the sauce was wanting What sauce saith the Tyrant Labour and exercise saith hee in hunting sweating running hunger and thirst for these be the sauces wee Lacedemonians use And Hippocratâ—â— hath one particular precept to this purpose to use exercise before our meales Labour and exercise saith he must goe before our meales But to use exercise especially if it be violent immediatly after meals is altogether unfit for the health of man And that by reason it filleth the body full of crudities from whence proceed strong and often invincible and incurable obstructions the orignall and as I may say the mother of most Fevers and a multitude of other diseases for the foode being before concoction violently expelled out of the stomacke must needes much annoy the body Let such therefore looke to themselves and be warned who immediatly after meales give themselves to any violent exercise as jumping dancing and the like violent motions and agitations of the body Having now sufficiently discoursed of the time wee come next to the place Now the place where exercise is used is not of small consequence as whether it be in a towne or in the country and in particular whether within doores or without in a warme aire or in a cold whether in a blustring windie or in a calme and quiet aire We are againe to consider the place wee tread on or whether it bee hard or soft grassie dusty sandy wet with water or snow or whether hard or dry And againe we are to consider the time of the yeere whether in Sommer or Winter which doe intend or remit the manner of exercise Violent exercise in Sommer in the heat of the Sunne heateth much dissolveth and melteth the humors and procureth distillations and where the braine aboundeth with humors the head weake and the stomacke stuffed with crudities it occasioneth sometimes death or at least very dangerous diseases And in Winter exercises in the Sun being violent cause wearinesse inward impostumes as pleuresies in hot countries I thinke especially such as is Spaine where this author lived In the shade it is safer yet ought it to be shorter in Sommer and lesse violent but in Winter it may bee more violent In the use of exercise againe we are to consider the persons to be exercised as whether men or women young or old weake or strong for according to these and other the like circumstances the manner of exercise must bee ordered and altered The strong may use stronger exercise than the weake and the man other exercise than the woman and againe the same patient is to alter his exercise according to the seasons of the yeere and other circumstances Children againe are not to use such exercise as able young men and old age must use such exercise as becommeth that age Cholericke persons also are not so much to exercise their bodies as the phlegmaticke and other constitutions and withall their exercise must be gentler and the like is to bee said of thinne extenuate dry bodies who by strong and violent exercise are much in damaged And exercise in the quality must also bee accommodated according to severall circumstances as hath beene touched already and shall more particularly hereafter appeare And in it we consider first the manner of exercise whether violent or no whether by lifting any great weight a lighter or of a middle size and whether it bee continued or interrupted whether the motion bee swift or slow Wee are againe in it to consider the site and posture of the bodie moved as whether it stand
so fit for a weake stomacke except the distance of some part require it and in that case they are to be mingled with well-smelling correctives or else they much debilitate the stomacke But if the stomacke be strong and uncleane then may they bee exhibited with lesse correction and long after meales Electuaries participate of a meane betwixt both and are of divers sorts some lenitives and preparatives and some againe strong purgers Followeth now the ordering of the party that hath taken physicke both before and after the same The patient after the taking of physicke for feare of casting up againe may wash his mouth with some liquid substance whereof he may let downe a guple or two to wash and cleanse away the loathsome-taste of the medicine and this may bee either a little cleere posset-drinke thinne broth or a little ordinarie beere or ale or yet it will not be amisse especially for our sweet toothed female sex to eate a preserved damson cherrie or some such thing which may take away the evill taste of the medicine Some wish before the taking of the medicine to chew a little pellitory of Spaine As for the smell few are ignorant how to hold a tost of bread dipt in rose-vineger to the nose that the smell offend nor And as for the manner of taking physicke I hold it not amisse to take Pillâ— in the pap of a rosted apple as many doe and better in my opinion then in the yolke of an egge Some gild them over and so swallow them which is not amisse The Germane Physitians make them farre smaller than we use as for our seven they make commonly the double if not more and so give their patients 4. or 5. in a spoone at a time with some sirup to suppe up and so proceed till they have taken all Electuaries are most usually rolled in sugar and so eaten by gobbets or on the point of a knife without sugar Potions are drunke downe and therefore in most danger to be cast up againe and therefore greater care must be had in keeping them downe for feare of frustrating our intention and therefore besides that which hath beene said when that is feared it will be good to make the party hold his hand in cold water to besprinckle his face with a little faire water rose-water or rose-vineger mingled therewith or to lap the hands in a linnen cloth wet with vineger and which is a most soveraigne remedy let tye a warme linnen cloth close about their necke And some hold a raw egge shell and all close to the throat Besides the premisses let them be silent and refraine as much as is possible from spitting coughing sit still a while without motion or agitation of the body It is to bee wished that the medicine at the least stay an houre and if there be no meanes to reteine it longer yet will it not cease to have its operation the vertue and efficacie thereof having in that space diffused it selfe abroad and sometimes in a shorter space as I have often observed and besides it will hardly come up alone but bring up with it such corrupt humors as have been collected in the stomacke which is no small benefit if it went no further I have often observed that even after halfe an houres retention and sometimes lesse although rejected againe by vomit yet hath it wrought effectually downe-wards Now here it may be demanded whether after physicke the patient may sleepe or no It is agreed upon by all our Physitians that after Pills the patient may sleep and are therefore often after supper exhibited but as for other physicke most are against it untill the physicke have finished its operation And yet a late learned French Physitian sometimes heretofore by us mentioned alloweth of sleep after any physicke which he professeth to have practised to his patients without any prejudice howbeit after the operation is once begunne then permitteth he it not untill all be finished As for vomits we give now and then a draught of thinne posset-drink to facilitate the operation and some dissolve in it a little butter and some to facilitate the operation thrust their finger into their throat and sometimes dip a feather in oile and so thrust it downe the throat the better to facilitate the same Now as for the lavative ordinarily given after purgations being nothing else but a draught of thinne broth or posset-drinke it is hard to determine the particular houre but it is then to be given when as we thinke the medicine al or the most part to bee descended out of the stomacke into the guts which is most commonly three or foure houres after the taking of the purgation so that if it be taken about six in the morning this broth may be given about nine or ten in some sooner in some later and then there would againe interceed two houres to let this lavative descend into the guts before dinner which is to be given when as we guesse that the medicine hath wholly or almost finished it operation and the patient findeth his stomacke empty of it which is not at one and the same houre in all alike The dinner must be sparing and of boiled meat and as for supper if the dinner be late the supper need to be little or none unlesse some cawdell a potched egge or two of some such easie thing If the medicine be taken earely in the morning then is the operation of the physicke so much furthered that dinner-time commeth on so earely that supper may be had in due season which may likewise be sparing and rost meat rather than boiled If pills be taken over night the lavative may be taken in the morning betimes and dinner and supper at their accustomed seasons During this time of purging it is commonly injoined by the Physitian to keepe the chamber which is called cum custodia and that for a double reason both for feare lest the ambient aire abroad if exceeding in cold might offend as likewise for feare of troubling the operation of the medicine by any objects which then occuring might hinder the operation thereof And therefore the roome ought not to be too light but rather somewhat darke and the patient to be purged is that day to free his thoughts from any weightie cares not to study nor admit of company which might hinder and divert the operation of the medicine And it is to be observed that if the ambient aire be warme wee need not to warme the roome with any fire but if the ambient be cold then are we to warme it moderatly If the diseased be weake then the discretion of the Physitian must appeare in accommodating diet and other things according to the strength and other circumstances concerning his patient And when solid food cannot be received suppings and liquid meats must then of them be used And this is the summe of that I thinke needfull to
in health or sicknesse and either naturall and involuntary or else voluntary Naturall involuntary teares proceed either from the want of this caruncle or abundance of moisture in the braine which they signifie If they be accidentall then they may proceed by meanes of cold compressing and condensating as also by meanes of sharpe things from without or taken inwardly as onions mustard smoake and defluxions and weaknesse of the braines Involuntary teares in the sicke of acute diseases are esteemed bad as signifying a great imbecillity of the retentive faculty Voluntary teares both in sicknesse and in health may proceed aswell from a voluntary compression or a dilatation and hence is it that teares proceed aswell from joy and mirth as from sorrow and anger Cold teares are not esteemed good and so are very hot and salt and that not only because they signifie too great a heat of the braine but also because as witnesseth Hippocrates they threaten exulceration of the eyes Thicke teares argue concoction The thinnesse argueth sometimes the crudity of the humor and sometimes againe the narrownesse of the passages which are also causes thereof But this shall suffice to have said concerning this subject CHAP. XVIJ. Of bathing among the antients as also certaine ablutions of head hands and feet Of artificiall bathes generall and particular their right use the time preparation and divers other considerable circumstances and how far we observe these customes THe antients had in great request divers sorts of ablutions or washings both of the whole and also of some parts of the bodie some whereof we yet observe and some wee have forsaken They were used either before or after meales and that for severall uses and ends Before meales they had a custome to bath their whole body and to anoint it as may appeare by many places of antient writers both Poets and Orators and many other antient authors aswell Physitians as others Of these some were publike to receive all commers others private which private men of meanes with great cost and charges builded for their owne and friends use the like whereof is at this day to be seene in all the Germane countries My purpose is not to spend time in entring upon a particular description of those sumptuous bathes of antient times whereof antient authors are so full But what excesse was used in this particular see in that wise Seneca At this day the Germanes have in very frequent use this bathing once a weeke or at least in a fortnight those of any fashion having for this same purpose their hot house in their backe court as we here have other office houses and in every towne are some of these publike hot-houses for the use of any where they pay a certaine rate for their attendance In these bathes they use most commonly to sweat without any other previous preparation or purgation both man woman and child and many use immediately after scarification with cupping-glasses applied to some parts of the body where they bleed at the discretion of their dog-leach who yeelds his attendance during this time or yet according to their owne foolish fancy seldome consulting with a Physitian about this businesse With us these bathings are not so much in request although I deny not they might now and then discreetly used prove profitable for the body howbeit in some places of London there are some hot-houses whereof one may make use It is more frequent here with us to wash the body in cold water in the Sommer-time which being but seldome as twice or thrice a yeere used might well bee allowed But there is a very perverse and preposterous custome used of the younger sort apprentices especially to wash their bodies in rivers or other waters immediately after meales especially after supper being very prejudiciall to their health and disposing the bodie to divers diseases The hands may be as often washed as one will both morning evening and midday both before and after meales in sicknesse and in health But whether often washing of the hands helpe the eye-sight may not without cause be questioned The Salernitane schoole affirmeth it howbeit his interpreter thinketh it is only by accident by reason the hands being cleane they handling the eyes they are like to fare the better Againe whether we may ever wash head and feet may likewise be demanded Or whether that old proverbiall speech be true Saepemanus raro pedes nunquam caput Now as for the head in regard it is for the most part so well supplied with internall moisture and that aswell in regard of its moist constitution as also by the continuall exhalations from the nether parts of the body and there by sublimation metamorphosed into moisture it would seeme to be against reason by any new addition to increase the same I doe indeed confesse we are to be wary in medling with this sublime and noble part the seat of the senses of reason and understanding it selfe It is notwithstanding in some cases and certaine diseases not onely tolerable but even also necessary to use this lotion of the head provided it bee but seldome used as namely in heads much subject to defluxions of rheume in which case we may wash the head in a lee appropriated for this purpose as of betony or the like and afterwards wash it in faire water not fully cold then dry it with a dry linnen cloth without warming it afterwards besprinckling the head with some powder made of frankincense masticke red-rose leaves rosemary and sage it will much comfort both head and senses And we see the antients used much Embrocations which was a wetting of the head and those who goe to the hot bath in Sommerset-shire sitting in the bath use these Embrocations or buckettings which some doe often endure to a very great number I wish notwithstanding that these ablutions of the head bee but seldome used in health as twice or thrice or at most foure times a yeere And as for the use of it in the sicke as in defluxions and rheums I advise them if they desire to speed wel to be advised by good counsell what and when to doe As for this ablution or washing of the feet it hath been of very antient use especially among the Easterne people where the heat was great where this was an ordinary curtesie used towards strangers which was no small refreshing in these hot scorching countries Wee use it often also both in sicknesse and in health but in warme-water commonly with addition of some well-smelling herbes as fennell camomill hyssop and the like which cannot be misliked especially to bed-ward as it is most commonly by us used In sicknesse it is also often of very good use especially in hot acute diseases in burning Fevers Phrensieâ— where often pertinacious watching is joined with deliration And in this case we are to boile good store of lettice white nymphaea or
waters there be divers sorts as said is every country being furnished with some one kind or other France and Italy abound most in hot baths desuming their force and efficacy most from Sulphur or Brimston wherewith is sometimes conjoined some salt or salt peter Our English baths in Sommerset shire take their vertue and efficacie from this sulphureous substance In Germanie baths of all sorts are in great abundance and as the country abounds in divers mineralls and metalls so doe these waters participate of severall and divers qualities and vertues as those of Baden in Switzerland participate of Brimstone principally and some little quantity of Alum those of Baden the Marquisat besides the premisses participate also somewhat of salt and salt-peter Againe in the confines of Lorreine there are hot baths called Plumbarenses participating of the nature of Lead Brimstone and Salt-peter In the Dutchie of Wirtenberg there is the wild bath called Silvestres or Ferinae participating of the nature of brimstone salt and alum and as some say of copper and salt-peter also And besides these a great number of many others also not differing from the former in operation some of them as they say participating also of the nature of gold which I hardly beleeve it being of so solid and well compacted a substance that hardly doth it communicate any vertue to waters that runne thorow such mines no more than silver also being likest unto it for solidity of substance As concerning our owne baths with us here in great use for a multitude of infirmities and which doe most concerne us because a learned Physitian hath lately explained their vertues and use as being best with them acquainted I shall not need to say any thing the vertues of others of the same nature and kinde in other countries being much also of the same vertue and efficacy But because peregrination and travell partly for profit and partly for pleasure and other ends is now much in this our age improved and by reason it concerneth not a little the health of such as are to live or travell in remote and forren countries to know the nature and vertues of such minerall waters as are found in these countries I will therefore say a little concerning some of them Among all those such as are of an acid or sowre taste and much abounding in many places of high Germany beare away the bell And these waters doe commonly participate of the nature of vitriol or copperas of alum and yron with the admixture often of other mineralls or metalls as sulphur salt c. There sowre waters sometimes somewhat differ in taste one from another and sometimes little or no difference at all in their taste can be observed Their chiefe vertues in the body of man are these following In the first place they are very soveraine good against all manner of obstructions of the liver splene kidnies and meseraicall veines and for this cause conduce not a little for the infirmities of those parts being very good against exorbitant casting which by their astringent facultie they cure and they helpe also the Iaundise the Dropsie in the beginning cleanse the kidnies bladder and other urinary passages purging away gravell or any other matter lying in these passages They are also good against the itch scab and any other defedations of the skinne all foule ulcers and gangrenes But Nihil est ex omni parte beatum So are not these acid and sowre waters able to helpe all infirmities and in particular they are great enemies to infirmities of the lungs especially where there is any ulcer wasting or inflammation They are hurtfull also for the bloodie fluxe with exulceration of the guts and any other internall ulcer or excoriation and that in regard of their acidity or sharpnesse And for the dimnesse of the eyes they have beene tried to be soveraine good and that they have a singular and forcible faculty in provoking urine I had the triall in mine owne body this sowre water being ordinarily brought from a place distant from Ments in stone bottles to Franckfort mart These waters are cold and therefore are commonly drunke in hot moneths May Iune Iuly August September in a morning fasting an houre or two after Sunne rising as is the use in others and then againe at night after dinner is digested The continuance or time of duration of drinking this water is according as necessity shall require and cannot certainly be determined as in some 10 or 12 daies a fortnight or three weekes No more can the measure or certaine quantity be gaged some contenting themselves with halfe a pint and some againe will drinke double some 4 or 5. And the more freely they passe thorow the body by urin or otherwise the bolder in the use of them may we be How the body before the use of these waters is to be prepared the Physitian shall in time of need give notice and according to all severall circumstancess give particular directions It is to be observed that these minerall waters by carrying from one place to another lose alwaies something of their former force and efficacie how close soever they be stopt up and so become lesse powerfull It is further diligently to be observed in the use of all minerall waters that are to be drunke that when as they are drunke twice a day the partie using them must be carefull that dinner be well digested before they be drunke in the afternoone and for this purpose dinner must either be very sparing or else a long distance betwixt dinner and the drinking of them or else it were better to drinke it but once in a morning and so double the time of continuing this drinke as for a fortnight a whole moneth Moreover if the case should so require that the party should need both to drinke of this water and bathe in it it would be most expedient to doe them severall as first for certaine daies to drinke them and afterwards for as long to bathe in them But because wee in this Iland are so farre remote from these acid and other fountains that ordinarily we cannot have recourse unto them therefore I shall not need to particularise many of them of one only being so much freequented by many of the gentrie as being neerer unto us than the rest I will say a little the so much renowned Well of Spa I meane This Spa then is in the Bishoprick of Liege a part of the 17 Provinces and is much resorted unto yeere by many Knights and Gentlemen and sometimes by Ladies and Gentlewomen also and that for recovering of their health in divers chronicall infirmities howbeit it is well knowne that under this colour some have other projects in their pates This water particapateth principally of the nature of yron which in the taste it doth somewhat represent and it participateth also somewhat of a sulphureous faculty and a little
Bathes artificiall 296. Vse of Bathes in mans body ibid. Warme or temperate Bathes and their vertues ibid. Hot Bathes and their use in divers diseases and in what cases most hurtfull 296 297. Bathing in cold water and for whom hurtfull in sicknesse and in health 297. In Bathing how to be ordered continuance in the Bathe 298. Bathes naturall of severall sorts 300 304 305 306 c. Bathes participating of the nature of yron allum copperas plaster silver and gold ibid. Of Sulphurous and Biluminus Bathes ib. Immoderate Bathing dangerous 299. Bawme and Bawme-water 56. Beanes 43. Bed whereon the sicke lieth 152. Downe Beds and feather-beds heat the back much in sommer especially and in hot diseases ibid. Beds filled with wooll ibid. Beds filled with Oat-chaffe very usefull c. ibid. Babylonian Beds of leather filled with water ibid. Italian beds filled with wind ibid. High French Beds best in sommer and hot diseases ibid. Field-beds and canopy beds ibid. Hanging Beds good for the use of the sicke ibid Beds should differ according to the disease and season of the yeere Beefe 72. Beere and the vertues thereof 123. Differences of Beere from the malt it is made of from the age the strength substance taste quantity of hops the calour the fewell wherewith the malt is dried and the water wherewith it is brewed 126. Bitter Beere 127. Beere better for our sick than wine 192. Buttered Beere and the abuse thereof 324. Beetes 49. Belly or Tripes 75. Benedict 1. and 14. Popes and their licencious lines 330. Barberies 62. Beteony 56. Bewitching See fascination Bilberries 62. Bird of Paradise 29. Bissextile or leap-yeere 229 300 c. Blacke-bird 80. Bittowre 81. Bleare eyes the and effects they produce 355. Blites or Bleees 49. Blood of beasts 76. Blood abounding causeth many diseases 228. Blood-leting See phlebotomie Borrage 50. Boare-heads nailed on great mens gates in Switzerland 356. Braines of beasts 75. Braines of fowle 82. Bramble-berries 61. Brawne See Hogs flesh Bread of severall sorts 42. Bread of Wheate and the differences thereof from the meale prepration and age ibid. Bread made of Barley of Pease Beanes Oates Millet Panicke c. 43. Bread made of roots ibid. Bread of other graines seldome used for food more for physicke ibid. Bread of Chestnuts 70. Bread yeeldeth the best nourishment Bread to be used both with Fish and Flesh ibid. Bread what best for the sickes use how for them to be prepared and how to be used 170 c. Bread of new flowre fittest for the sick and how the ancients washed their bread ibid. How it is washed with us ibid. Vnleavened Bread hurtfull for the sicke ibid. Artificiall preparations of Bread according to occasions ibid. Breake-fast and whether it be usedfull 49. Broome 93. Broome-flowers 99. Brothes for the sicke 179. Buglosse See Borrage Buriall in Churches and Church-yards See Aire Burning lampe made of blood See lampas vitae mortis Bustard 81. Butter 76. When best 208. Whether usefull for the sicke and how to be used ibid. C. Cabbage and their qualities 52. Cacochymia what 231. Calipha died by eating pigeons roasted with the heads 275. Camels milke See milke Camels flesh See uncouth flesh Capers pickled 99. Capons flesh 77. Capons unknowne to the ancients 154. Capons whether they ingender the gout 175. Cardan contemned the dog-daies His voyage into Scotland to Cardinall Beton 255. Carnall copulation and the moderate use thereof 325. Moderately usefull and profitable for the body 326. Immoderate use thereof procureth great hurt to the body For what bodies most usefull For whom most hurtfull sicke folkes must absteine from it Some other things concerning this subject 326.327 c. Carpe 93. Carrot 45. Carrying on mens shoulders 219. Cats flesh See uncouth diet Cephalice vein when to be opened 239. Chamelion liveth not on the aire 29. Charles the great had something read to him during meales 229. Cheekes of beasts 75. Cheese 76. The best ibid. Cherries and their kindes 62. Chestnuts See Nuts Chickens 77. Children are not to be frighted with bug-beares and the like 394. China broth See broth Cider 128. Cinamon and the vertues thereof 102. Cinq-foile 51. Circaea or Circelus See Mandrakes Citron or Lemmon 63. Cives 46. Clary 54. Clement the 8 Pope a bastard a Bawd c. 329. Climactericall yeeres with the signification of the word 10. Climactericall yeers of divers sorts and what they portend ibid. According to some divers in man and woman ibid. Three severall causes of these yeeres Astronomicall Physicall Numrical 11. Clothing of the sicke 153 154. Clothing would inrich Northampton 150. Clothing begunne to be set up in Northampton ibid. Clovegillisiflowres 99. Cloves 101. Cocatrice See Basiliske Cockes-flesh 78. Old Cockes 157. Cockles 91. Cod-fish of divers kinds 89. Coelica passio See Fluxes Cold of Northerne countries 259. Cold countries may feed more liberally than hot 38. Colice 180. Columbines 53. Col-worts See Cabbage Concoction naturall and artificiall 277. Concoction when to bee expected ibid. Conger 89. Conie 74. Constantine King of Scotland made strict lawes against riot and excesse 106. Conviviall discourses See exercises of the minde Corne and the kindes thereof 4. Corneillons 67. Covering of the sicke 151. 152. Too much covering of the sicke ibid. Countrie-people often much wrong themselves in the use of phlebotomy 148. Country-Surgeons often much wrong the people in this same particular ibid. Cow-slip flowers 99. Crabfish 92. Crane 81. Criticall daies depend more upon the materiall cause of the disease than on the starres 358. Crustards See white meats Crying See exercise Cucumer or Coucomber 58. Cupping most commonly used with scarification See Scarification The matter and forme of such cups and in what bodies most usefull ibid. Dry cups without scarification ibid. Currants 61. 65. Cuttle-fish 90. D. Dates 65. David King of Scotland suppressed all riot and excesse in his kingdome 167. Daies good and bad a heathenish superstion 259. Deer See Venison Derivation and when to be used See phlebotomy What it is ibid. Distillation unknowne to antiquitie 190. Distilled waters ibid. Distilled restoratives for the sicke 180. Dinner and the time thereof among the ancients and among us 37. 38. Dinner or supper which may be more liberall 39. 40. Dinner the day of purgation 288. Discourse of waighty matters during meales See conviviall discourse ibid. Directions for Conviviall discourse ibid. Divines and their education in good literature Intr. 19. Their paines and prerogative ibid. Their advantage beyond the Physitians ibid. They are freed from many incombrances whereunto the Physitian is subject ibid. They have the sole power of admitting those of their owne profession Intr. 19. 21. Diureticke remedies and their use 311. Their right use and preparation before ibid. Of two sorts ibid. Errour in the use of diuretickes Safest and best diureticke simples ibid. Danger in the use of hot diureticke simples ibid. Dog-daies whether to be observed 151 c. Whether phlebotomy and physicke may not safely be
naturall threefold 335. Drowsie or deadly sleepe ibid. Criticall Sleepe and the severall sorts of the same 336. Sleepe carefully to be procured ibid. The vulgar very shy of hypnoticke or sleepy medicines ibid. Skirret 45. Smelt 90. Snailes and their use See uncouth flesh Snailes whether usefull in Consumptions and Hecticke fevers ibid. Snot and Snevill and the significations thereof 303. Snowtes of beastes 73. Sodomie by a Popish Prelate maintained lawfull and allowed by a Pope 329. Sorrell 30. Wood sorrell ibid. Soule and the passions thereof 341. Spa. See Minerall waters Spa by Aberdene ibid. Sparrow 80. Spells characters and strange words of themselves have no power to produce any strange effect 357. Spices used in Diet 100. Spinage 49. Spirit of wine See aqua vita Spirit of Ale or Beere 1â—3 Spittle and the use thereof 316. Spittle best in condition Severall tasts of Spittle Severall colours ibid. It is to be considered in sicknesse and in health 3â—6 Sprats See pilchards Sterline 80. Stipendary Physitians Intr. 24. Stipends for Physitians would prove very profitable for the coÌ„mon-wealth ibid. Stocke dove 78. Stones of beasts 76. Stones of fowle 82. Storke 81. Stove See Hot-house Strawberrie 59. Sturgeon 89. Succory or Cichoree See Endive Sugar and the vertues thereof whether knowne by the antients 96 97. Sugar and sweet meats much used often prove dangerous and for whom especially 97. Sulpherous Bathes See Bathes Supper See repast Suppositories their use and with what caution to be used 282. Surgeons ought to be carefull They are often too busy with the profession of Physicke Intr. 4. Swan 81. Sweat an excrement of the third concoction 290. Sweating in acute diseases 291. Naturall and procured by Art Sweat diaphoreticall Sweat criticall and symptomaticall Sweat how to bee procured siimples provoking sweat ibid. Swounding in phlebotomy no certaine signe of a sufficient evacuation 247. T Tansey See egges Tarragon 56. Teale 81. Teares their divers kindes and severall significations in sickenesse and in health 293. Tench 93 Tennis play See Exercise Theodosius his cruell execution at Thessalonica His worthy decree and constitution against the sudden execution of Princes decrees 390. Thirst hardlier indured than hunger 109 False thirst Sitis mendosa 183. Thrush 80. Thornebacke See Scate Tiberius Caesar as sharpe sighted as a cat 354. Time 57. Tabacco as strong and violent a purger partaketh as much of a venomous or poisoning quality as any other simple accouÌ„ted therfore most infamous 317 It evacuateth often good and laudable moisture with the bad It is indifferently used of all without respect of any circumstance whatsoever Qualities of Tabacco Violent purging faculty Abuse of Tabacco with the best use It is a strong narcoticke or benumming medicine ibid. Often unseasonably used to further digestion 318 It often causeth crudities ibid. It is much sophisticate For what infirmities fittest In what season of the yeere and with what correction to bee used Circumstances in the use thereof to be considered For whom most hurtfull It is the cause of many diseases and dismall accidents 329 330. Tongues of beasts 75. Tortoise 92. Triballians See Illyrians Tripes See bellie Trout 92. Truffe See Puffe Tunbridge-water 307 Turbot 89. Turkie 78. Turneps of severall shapes and formes and their faculties 44. Turtle 78. V Vdderne of beasts 76 Veale 72. Veines to be opened in severall parts of the body of man 239. Venetians vigorous and long lived 18. Venison 73. Verjuice and the use thereof 98. Vesicatories or blistering medicines See searing or burning Violets 51. S. Vincents rocke-water 307. Vineger The vertues and various use thereof 98. Vomit and the commendation thereof Rejected by some of the antients 280 But very frequently used by others 281 What parts best purged by vomit Often rashly exhibited by Empirickes ibid. For what persons most usefull and for whom most unfitting Preparation before and what after a vomit to be done 280 281. Vrines and their use 309. Best urine in colour and contents Golden coloured urine Blacke urine Vrine a fallacious signe therby to judge either of the disease or issue thereof ibid. Vrines vary much in diseases 310. Criticall excretion of urine Retention and difficulty of avoiding urine Quantity of urine Suppression of urine from divers causes ibid. W Walking a profitable exercise See exercise Walking after supper ibid. Wal-nut See nut Washing and anointing of the body after Washing in cold water 294 295. Washing of the hands Of the head Of the feet usuall with us 295. Washing of the feet in sicknesse 296. Watching what it is and to what function to be referred 332. Immoderate watching hurtfull and how ibid. Water highly esteemed of the antients Antiquity utility and division of water 24. Weighing of water deceitfull Division of usefull waters 25. Raine-water Snow-water Harmes of snow-water Cisterne-water and the correction thereof ibid. Vulgar error concerning the boiling of water 6. Terrestriall or water springing out of the earth Spring-water Best spring-water according to situation place aspect of humours c. ibid. Water carried through pipes of lead whether usefull Water of rivers of pooles and ponds Of wells and pumps and which of all these is the best ibid. Water the most antient and common drinke of mankind with divers observations in the use of drinking water 116 184. Not to be despised for drinke 187 Bad water how to be corrected 117 118 Water destilled to the Antients unknowne Destilled better than boiled 290. Water in great request among the antients Not to be indifferently exhibited in all diseases 184 185 Water how to bee exhibited without hurt and what in the use thereof to be considered ibid. Cold water how to be prepared for the use of the sicke together with the time of use generall and particular the quantity c. ibid. Water warmed in frequent use among the antients Whether usefull for the sicke 188 189. Strong waters of severall sorts and the great abuse thereof For whom most usefull 193 194. Weapon-salve The names Various wayes of preparation Blood sometimes omitted in the preparation It effecteth just nothing Sympatheticall and why Magneticall and why Blood used in the Weapon-salve is taken from any man It receiveth no particular vertue or efficacy from the starres It is accounted sometimes miraculous and sometimes mysticall Confutation of many arguments brought for the confirmation of the weapon-salve and such other cures as are sometimes supposed to be done at as great or greater a distance without any Physitians contact 362. 363 364 365 366. Welling-borrow-well 367. Whey and what it is It may safeier in sicknesse be exhibited than milke it selfe Vertues of Whey Best whey Whey of goats milke and the vertues thereof It differeth according to the preparation or separation 206. Clarified whey 207. Whigge or wigge See sowre-milke White meates and for whom fit 21â— Whiting 90. Wild-fowle See fowle Winds alter the body of man in sickenesse and in health They are of great force 16. Their number natures and properties
4. n Erastus Antiparaâ— Part. 4. o Amat Lusit centur 4. curat 14. centur 1. curat 3. p Lib. 3 cap. â— q Lib. 7. epid in aegrotâ— 7. qui suit meton r Libr. 1. cap. 6. Å¿ 6. Epidem How water is to be prepared for the use of the sicke In the exhibiting of cold water what things to be considered t 11 Meth commen lib de victu acut u Rhas libr. 1. divis ca. 148. Averih collect lib. 7. cap. 8. The generall time * 10 Meth. Particular time x Lib. de diaeta acut y Ioubert des erreurs populaires partic 2. cap. 7. Contre ceux qui ne permetient aux fâ—bricitans de boire durant leur acces c. The quantity z Proct. 57. sect 1. Obiect Answere a De dâ—â—ta acut Cels lib. 3. cap. 7. b Lib. 5. epid Accommodation to our owne countrie 〈◊〉 climat Small beere with iâ— in stead of water allowed the sick and so to be used How water may safe liest of us be used What thirst is Hot drinkes have bin in use of old a Dio 〈◊〉 Thermopolia in Rome placeâ— where hot drinkes were sold Fiberius Calâ—ius mero b Quando vocatus adest calidâ— frigidaque minister luven Caldam poscis aquam sed nondum frigidalenit Alget adhuc nudo clausa culina soco Mat. c In Vers in Trinummo Rudente in pseudolo d Stuâ—k Anntiqu conâ—â—â— libr. â— cap. 6. ex 〈…〉 Iud. * 〈…〉 ex 〈◊〉 tem ex Athen. 8 Diâ—nosoâ— f Mercur. â—ariar lect 〈◊〉 1. Frigida non dâ—crit non decrit 〈…〉 Idem Stuck ex 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 h Lambiâ— Turneâ— in praed Plauti loc referente eodem Stuckio ibid. Cold drinke is best and most usefull Burning of wine whether better for use than other wiâ—e Whether warm drink be useful for the sicke i Cels lib. 3. capâ— k Trallianus Paulus Aegineta Warme drinke in use with us also Boiled water Distillation 〈◊〉 us in frequent use to the antients unknowne Distilled waters to be preferred before others Needlesse feare of som conceived in the use of distilled waters a Androcideâ—s sapientia claruo ad Alexandrum Magnum scripsit intemperantiam eius â—ohibendam sic scripsit Vtinam potaturus rex memento te bibere sanguinem tâ—rrae Situti venenum est hominicicuta ita vinum Quibus praecep is si ille obtemperavisset profecto amâ—cos in temutentia non interemisset Plin lib. 14. cap. 5. b In vita Alexandri magni c De victu in aâ—utu d In comment alibi Wine may safely somtimes be exhibited the sicke e Vide Gal. sub finem lib. de euch cacoch Circumstances considerable in exhibiting wine to the sicke f Quod ad febrium aegritudines attinet certum est non dandum in febre nisi veteribuâ— aegris vinum nec nisid â— clinante morbo In acutis vero periculis nullis nisi qui manifestas remissiones habeant bas noctu potius dâ—midia enim pars periculi est noctu hoc est spesomai bibentibus nec a partu abortuve nec a libidine aegrotantibus nec in capitis doloribus nec quorum accessiones cum frigore extremitatum fiant nec in febri tussientibus c. Et paulo post dari utique non nisi in cibo debet nec a somno nec praecedente alio potu hoc est utique sitienti nec nisi in desperatione summa c. Plin. lib. 28 cap. 2. Wine called couleur du pesche Accommodation to our climat VVhat wine with us fittest Beere better for our sicke than wine In acute diseases the smaller the better Erroneous opinion of the vulgar esteeming strong drinke a Panacea or catholick medicine against all diseases Artificiall wine Diet drinkes made of ale or beere Scurvy grasse ale Scurvy-grasse is good aâ—ainst obstructions of the spleene and accidentally cleareth the blood and iâ— therefore good against the Scurvy Of Aquavitae and other strong sublimated waters g Savonatola tractatiâ— de aqua vitae Historie Another Aurum potabile produceth but few witnesses of its efficacy Srongwaters sparingly warily to be used For whom most usefull Spirit of ale or beere Ordinary aquavitae pernicious to the health of man The right spirit of wine how to be discerned Great variety of stroÌ„g waters Great danger in the too frequent use of these sublimate waters especially in the yonger sort Three sorts of drinks made of hone in use among the antients b Mercur. variar lect lib. 6. c Plin. lib. 7. cap. 56. d 4 Sympos Proâ—â—â— e Piacotonius lib. de cerevisia mulsa Hydromel and divers compositions thereof f Libr. g Loco nuper citat Apomell h 4 De san tuend How Hydromel or Mulsa was made among the Arabian Physitians i Lib. de victu acut Two sorts of it among the Greekes Melicratum Aquosum sincerum To know when it is boiled enough k Lib. 31. cap 6. Oxymel or sirup made of vineger l Lib. de diaeta acut Gal. in commen 8. meth 11. mâ—th m Augerius Ferrerâ—us in castigat pract n Thaddeus Dunus in epist medicinal o 4 de sanâ—t tuenda Divers composition of Oxymel p Iohann Renod. institut Pharmaceut lib. 3. cap. 4. q Val. Cordus ex meâ— antidoterio Choice to be made of the ingredients of this drinke Divers compounded Oxymels are made of hony Great error in the ordinary use of Oximel and other expectorant medicines Temperature of barly a 7 simplic medica 1 de alim lib. de in victu aâ—ut b Lib de victu in acut alibi Ptisan what in old time what with us c Rond instit pharmaceut lib. 5. cap. 11. Ptiâ—aâ— made of divers graines d Problem 27. sect 1. Whether ptisan made of barly or wheat be better Answere d Gal lib de ptisana How the antient Greeke Physitians prepared this ptisan or creame of barâ—y Manner of preparation with us How to prepare our owne barly to make this and other drinks made of barly Orgemond and what it is Barly-water e Lib. de diaeta acut Gal. in comm f Collectan lib. Barly-water of two sorts Of prepared barly two sorts g Cap de pleurit Preparation Caveat concerning the use of barly water Our barly-water Barly water for the poorer sorts Another drinks to be used in any Fever Of emulsions or almond milke In what cases most usefull The quantity of the Almonds must be according as it is made thicke or thin howbeit the vulgar make it coÌ„monly too thick and fulsome The manner of preparation Addition of certaiÌ„ne seeds and how to be used Cautions to bee observed in emulsion They must not be too fulsome not too frequent Some use to make the emulsions or almond milks with the decoction of flesh but if the partie bee weake stomacked it may make him loath both that and all other food Divers sorts of emulsions in time of need may be prepared Several
casting of it up Pills how to be taken Electuaries Potions how to be taken and how to keep them downe How long at least we are to keepe the medicine Whether wee may sleepe after physicke Answere b Ioubert des erreurs populaires partic 2. chap. 17. In vomits what to be done â—rative what time â— bee given 〈…〉 of 〈◊〉 When pills are taken over night Keeping of the chamber cum custodia and the reason The ambient aire how to be ordered Sine custodia what and when it may be used Signes of compleat purgation c Aph. 10. lib. 4. Defective purgation Causes of defective purgation History If physick worke not If too violently Gripings in the belly Three concoctions in the body Sweat an excrement of the third concoction What sweat is a Sudoris materiam ab internis visceribus succo naturali madentiâ—us emanare contendis Fernel lib. de feb 〈◊〉 cap. desudere Sweating in acute diseases Sweat naturall or artificiall Naturall againe criticall or symptomaticall Symptomatical what Diaphoreticall sweat Sweat how to be provoked Hydrotick simples or provokers of sweat Strong hydrotickes Hydroticke minerals Compounded sudorifickes Cautions in the use of hydrotickes Preparation When to be neglected Frictions Fomentations Sudorifickes in chronicall diseases How to use these sudorificke medicines The continuance oâ— time of endurance In what cases hurtful Of teares b Mercur. de excrem lib. 3. cap. 2. de lachrymis Differences of teareâ— Vse of this moisture c Lib. 1. de cris cap. 7 Why some can so easily weepe and some not at all Naturall involuntary teares what they signifie Accidentall teares Involuntary teares in acute diseases Voluntary teares Cold and hot teares Thick and thin tears Divers sorts of ablutions or washings in use among the antients Bathing and anointing the body before meales a Epist 87. lib. 13. Bathing in Germany very frequent Vsed there promiâ—â—â—ously without any previous preparation With cupping and scatification Preposterous custom of washing the body in rivers with a full stomacke b Mundificat palmas lumina reddit acuta Schola Salern Arnald villa nov in com Whether the head ought to be washt or noâ— Answere How and when it it to be washed Embrocations Washing of the feet Of artificiall baths The matter Their use threefold c 14. method d Qui ex tennibus crassiores voluÌ„t evadere lavabunt bis c. Id. lib. 3. de sympto cap. 1. lib. de salub diaeta comment 14. Vertues of a temperate bathe Of a hot bath e Andernacus de veteri nov medic comment 2. dial 8. circa finem The use in divers diseases In what cases hurtfull Bathing in cold water For whom hurtfull in sicknesse in health Latonicum and what it is Of two sorts â—â—micapium cinsessus The time both generall and particular The time of the day Preparation of the 〈◊〉 In bathing how to be ordered The continuance in the bath How to be used in hecticke fevers After bathing Dangers arising from the inordinate use of bathing Minerall waters usefull for the health of man Thermae seu aqua therâ—ales a Homerum Câ—lidorum fenâ—iâ—m mentionem non fecisse miror cum aelioqui lavari cali sa frequenter indicarit videlicet quia medicina tanc haec non erat quae a â—uarum perfugio utatur Plin. lib. 31. cap 6. b Lib. de aere aquâ—â— locis The later Physitians made 〈◊〉 these minerall waters How their vertues are to be discerned Sulphuâ—oâ—us and â—itumâ—nous waters Waters participating oâ— divers metalls and mâ—neralls Whether leap-yeere doth alter or annihiâ—â—â— the vertues of â—inerall waters Originall of leap-yeere Iulian or Sosigenian yeere Alteration of the yeeâ— by Pope Gregory 13. Amputation of tenne daies from the former yeeres Gregorian yeere and account beyond the seas * There wants yet about 2 daies in all we want 3 of that wee should have Answer c Ovid fastor lib. ¶ Trojan c See Calvins treatise of reliques where he proves many bodies of their Saints to be monsters No alteration in the leap-yeere more than any other e Claudius Deodatus panth hygiast libr. 2 cap. 7. Minerall waters used after a double manner The time Preparation of the body before the use of minerall waters The time of the day for use The manner No cetaaine nor precise time for the continuance of the use of these waters can bee determined Hot baths and where they most abound English baths Divers minerall waters in Germany Gold and silver communicate no vertue to such waters a Doctor Venner in his treatise of baths of Bathe and since the collecting of this tractat I saw a learned tractat of baths published by Dr. Iorden residing there Acid or sowre waters They abound in high Germany Their vertues In what infirmities helpfull In what hurtfull The time for use § And yet they are ordinarily brought to Francksort mart in March and September Continuance or duration in drinking them They lose much vertue by carriage Observation in the use of these waters Of the Well of Spa. For what infirmities most beneficiall Water of S. Vincentâ— rocke by Bristoll b D. Venner in the aforenamed treatise A neere and antient towne in Yorke-shire called by the name of Knareâ—brough Wellenborow Wel in Northampton shire Observation in the use of such waters to be carefull of the stomacke History Tunbridge water Water in Maubornâ— hils in Worcestershire Newname Wells in Warwick-shire The Spa by Aberdene in Scotland Saint Catherins Well called now the oâ—ly Well neer Edenburgh in Scotland This Iland abounds in minerall waters De urinarum praesagiis iâ— aegretis agit Hippocrat in locis praenâ—t in prorihet libr. de indication * See our arraignement and anatomy of urines Vncertaine and generall iudgement for the most part afforded us by urine Best urine Best colour Red coloured urines Blacke urines Cleare transparent urin without coÌ„tents In diseases various Quantity of urine in excesse Criticall excretion of urine In the defect Difficulyy of divers causes Suppression of urine from divers causes a De his omibus fusius Mercatus de intern morb curat tom 3. lib. 4. cap. 12. b Incoacis aph 25. prorrbet 155. All these infirmities to bee cuâ—ed according to their severall causes Diureticke remedies and their right use Preparation Diureticks properly so called Another kind of diureticks Of two sorts Diureticks improperly so called Erroneous opinion concerning the breaking of the stone by Diureticks Safest diureticke simples and best for use Medicines accidentally good By occult quality Many medicines used against the stone but few answere expectation Dangers in the use of hot diureticke medicines Advertisment The presence of the Physitian is able to discover more in the disease than a many water a Mercur. de facibut alvi The fecall excrements diligently to be considered b Vide Hippoc. in prognost prochet coac motionib Aphoc etiaem 12. lib. 1. c Lib. 26. cap. â— What this fecall ordure is Best excrements