and nips them for coldness is biting according to Hipp. it is cold to such extremity that the expurgation of it is actually cold by the testimony of Galen by a near experiment in himself as in his 4. book of affected parts Gypseous flegme is the production of crasse flegme emulating Limc or a stone almost in hardnesse This rejects the name of humor being consolidated therefore improperly placed in the classe of humors It proceeds from heat pillaging all the humid parts so that there is nothing left but earthy parts which are indurated into a Tophaceous matter almost resembling lime this often perplexeth the joints causing the knotty Gout The Fourth Section of Physiology Of the Spirits and innate Heat The First CHAPTER Of the Nature of Spirits Thus much of the Humors the Treatise of Spirits succeeds which are generated out of them but chiefly out of Blood THE Spirits of our bodies being of substance so thin that they are imperceptible to the quickest glance of sense and by this means reason only can confirm us in the truth of their existence it will not be amisse therefore to inform that our bodies have such attendents before their nature and essence be proposed First Therefore the context in Hippocrates 6. Epid. sect 8. is very convincing where he reckons three things which constitute the composition of our body viz. things containing contained and causing motion by the containing he signifies the parts by the contained the humors by those that cause motion the spirits according to the explanation of Galen himself for such is the tenuity and nobility of the spirits that with wonderfull swiftnesse they can shoot themselves to any place and insinuate themselves into all the parts of the body Secondly Platonicks do thus demonstrate the necessity of spirits nature doth not usually joine two contraries or things of wide distance without the help of a medium but the soul and body differ in the whole latitude of their genus for the soul is incorporeal and immortal but the body corporeal frail and mortal therefore such a dissiliency in natures cannot be forced to unition but by some medium and common obligation leaning as it were to both natures such are the spirits which indeed are material but in tenuity ambitious of the nature of things immaterial Thirdly This appears by prolifical seed which is wholly spumous and inflated with spirits which disappearing leave nothing but a waterish and unfruitful liquor Fourthly We are nourished by the same things of which we are conflated but attraction of breath or aire is necessary to our conservation therefore we comprehend in us some such substance Lastly This is evident by those great and empty cavities which are found in the ventricles of the brain and arteries of men deceased which are observed in the living swelled to a palpitation which clearly convinceth that those vacuities could not be repleat with any other thing then such spirits But a Spirit is a substance thin clear and etherial proceeding from the exhalation of pure blood and the inspiration of aire necessary for the due performance of all duties the body is engaged to It is called a thin substance because with incredible subtility and clerity it penetrates and courses thorough the whole bulk of the body and steals into the narrowest pores of the least particles and intervals of the muscles it is called clear and bright not according to the vulgar opinion as Argenterius fansies but because it excels in splendor and perspicuity which is easily seen in the observation of the eye the ball of which is very clear and we may spin an argument for the probation of it out of this that when some vapours of the melancholick humor or of over-swelling in drunken men are predominant the mind is in a present perturbation by reason of the dulness of these fogs which suffocate the spirits And of this Avicenna's demonstration is beyond all exception because saith he our soul which transacts every thing by her servants the spirits loves light and no darkness and the spirits do their duty with much more alacrity in a serene then in a cloudy day hence it is plain that they are excited by similitude They are also called Aetherial because the matter of them is by long elaboration so defecated that it stands in competition with that higher Element which is next neighbour to the celestial bodies and is called the Element of fire or etherial But that the spirits start out of the permixtion of blood and aire shall appear in the explication of their differences The uses of them are declared in the end for the soul cannot in the least operate upon the body without the officiousness of the spirits because they have the honour to be immediately and principally subservient to her CHAP. II. Of the Differences of Spirits Spirits are two-fold Inbred and Adventitious Inbred is the relict of the first principles in every part IT is called inbred innate or implanted according to the Greek Connate but while our parts are composed out of the first principles of our generation viz. seed and blood that spiritous substance which is contained in the seed constitutes the inbred spirit But this reason convinceth that this spirit is communicated to every part because the adventitious cannot be brought forth without the midwifery of this every production being like to its Author And also the prolifical seed issuing from every part argues that a spiritous matter is derived from every part from the sound parts sound from morbous parts morbous which in the issue represent their dispositions Adventitious is that which flowes and is sent in from some other place for the nutrition and conservation of the Inbred The Inbred spirit continually laborious in the performance of the functions of the parts would easily be consumed unlesse it were preserved and refreshed by the continual influence of this stranger therefore nature hath contrived some parts which should be the forge of great plenty of spirits which by their allotted courses influx into all the parts of the body to defend the inbred spirit This spirit is three-fold Natural Vital and Animal The Natural is produced in the Liver out of the thinner part of Blood tempered with a little Aire whose influence is thorough the veins into the whole body for the due exercise of the natural faculties This Natural spirit hath caused much dissention among Authors because some upon the ground of pregnant reasons deny nature the assistance of any such spirit First Because Galen was not resolved of it book 12. method cap. 5. where he thus discourseth If any spirit be natural it is contained in the Liver as its fountain and in the veins as its instruments And his first book of parts affected last chap. the natural faculties are by him differenced from the animal by this distinction that the natural are implanted in the parts but the animal are sent in from some other principle as light from the Sun whence it
heat is immediately suffocated as appears in Suspension But this native heat being weak in most parts of our body and so easily obnoxious to extinction Nature hath so provided that by the continual influence of heat it may be nourished and sustained Hence Physicians divide Heat into two parts viz. implanted and adventitious The adventitious flows in from the two fountains of heat viz. the Heart and Liver in company of the spirits and blood A COROLLARY LEarned Fernelius was so transported in admiration of the noble effects of this native heat that he was of opinion that it was to be struck out of the number of Elementary qualities as being of a higher extract and wholly divine and heavenly which lest he should seem an indeliberate babler he endevours to evince by the following reasons First All action depends upon a predominant quality but there are in Nature examples of many Plants as Poppy Hemlock Mandrakes and of Animals as the Salamander which is thought to be cold in the fourth degree yet they live and heat is the cause of life it is therefore necessary to constitute another heat differing from the Elementary which in them is very weak by the help of which they live and exercise their actions Secondly If Elementary heat caused life Brimstone Arsenick and such like things which are intensely hot would chiefly live but they live not because they are destitute of this celestial and vivifying heat so cadaverous reliques retain Elementary heat yet live not Thirdly If our heat were Elementary it would admit of no contrary Elementary heat as that of a Feaver which most of all dissolves it Fourthly Fernelius grounds this assertion upon the authority of Aristotle Book 2. of the Gener. of Anim. Chap. 3. where he affirms That native heat is not of an igneous but some more divine nature correspondent in proportion to the Element of the Stars But though this opinion is grounded upon the invention of a most ingenious and excellent Artist we cannot betray our reason to it by a quiet assent for the species of the qualities of our bodies are not without the command of necessity to be multiplyed our judgement therefore is that native heat is wholly of an Elementary nature as we shall prove by the following arguments First Celestial bodies have not the first qualities for then they would be corruptible for all corruption depends upon the qualities so the Philosophers prove the Heavens incorruptible because they have no qualities So they argue the Sun to have no heat in it but to produce it in these inferiour bodies energetically and virtually viz. by motion light and influence Secondly If native heat were celestial it would abhor a contrary according to the sense of Fernelius himself But Elementary cold hath a contrary for the extremity of cold sometimes causeth death by the extinction of native heat therefore it is not celestial Thirdly If it were celestial it would want no fuel to prey on and if it wanted it could not be proportioned to it in our body for Celestial cannot be nourished by Elementary To this is opposed That this heat though it be celestial is by a familiarity with elementary heats changed as it were into elementary or at least models it self into an elementary fashion which seems not satisfactory because celestials receive the impress of no passion from elementaries it is not possible their nature should be so inverted as to savour of the conditions of things elementary Fourthly Native heat derives its original from seed and seed from blood and spirits which are also the production of blood but the blood is elementary therefore by consequence native heat The Arguments of Fernelius though they represent some truth yet may be easily thus resolved by us To the first I answer That heat in a living body is twofold one as the body is mixt the other as it is living as mixt it hath the foure first qualities tempered and so only potential heat mixt bodies inanimate affecting not the touch with heat as living it hath actual heat by the help of which it exercises the functions of life and this heat though it be no ingredient of mixtion and though its operations are performed in a different manner from the operations of mixt heat yet it is not distinguished from it specifically but onely numerically as if Pepper be heated in the fire that acquired actual heat differs from the heat produced by mixtion yet both are elementary To the second I reply That Brimstone Arsenick and such like live not through the defect of a soul which is the true and principal Author of life whereof heat is but onely the instrument but the instrumental cause acts nothing of it self but at the command of the principal though that heat proceeding from mixtion as before is said concurs not to the operations of life but onely the living heat of which they are destitute So dead carcasses have neither soul nor that actual heat so bodies just expired retain that heat for some time yet live not wanting a soul So seed is largely fraught with that native heat though it live not through defect of a soul though our learned Neoterikes judge it to be animate which discourse shall be referred to its proper place To the third I answer That feaverish heat is contrary to the native as it is more intense for an intense degree of the same quality in comparison with a more remiss is accounted contrary because it effects its destruction by raising it to intensity Besides feaverish heat is contrary to native by reason of the passive quality attending it for feaverish heat is dry native moist Lastly we shall thus disoblige our selves from the duty we owe to Aristotle's authority that he referred to the effects not the nature of native heat But the effects of this heat are almost divine the honour of which is rather to be conferred upon the soul and its faculties though the heat of our fire being temper'd according to Art produceth admirable effects in Chymistry And so even in our Culinary fire as in Aegypt according to the report of Scaliger Eggs are wont to be excluded in some Furnaces so artificially built that the heat of the fire may be in them so temperate that it may be fit to effect generation The fifth Section of Physiology Of the Parts CHAP. I. Of the Nature of the Parts A Part is a body cohering to the whole Mass and participating of life and fit for its functions and offices THIS definition of a Part being the most ingenious invention of Fernelius was afterwards ratified by the consent of most learned men For he considers a Part as it is related to Medicine viz. as it is capable of health or disease and in his opinion all those deserve not the name of Parts which though they concur to constitute the body yet they cannot sympathize in a Disease Therefore the Humors and Spirits have no share in this definition because they
duly perform its action unless it first rightly conform and especially acquire a proper figure so for instance the head ought to be round the arm long and so forth Besides the parts for the discharge of their offices must have certain passages and cavities so the veins and arteries have their passages the ventricle useth the passage of the Esophagus but the cavity is all that space which contains the aliment Thirdly some parts for their more convenient operation ought to be smooth as the aspera arteria whose interior superficies is smooth and polite for the sweeter modulation of the voyce for it is not termed rough as being unequal and rugged according to the usual acception of that term but being made up of an unequal viz. cartilaginous and membranous substance But it is requisite some parts should be rough and rugged as the interior superficies of the ventricle that it may the better contain the aliment A certain and determinate magnitude also is proportioned to every member requisite to the exercise of its action So the Liver is bigger than the Heart the Brain than the Eye and so forth But one part of the same kind are sufficient for the exercise of certain actions for others many So for speech the tongue onely is requisite but to hold any thing many fingers are necessary Conjunction signifies two things viz. site and connexion So the liver is situated on the right hypocondrium but the milt in the left the intestines in the middle of the abdomen the wombe between the bladder and the intestinum rectum so the bones effect motion by their mutual connexion in the joynts on the contrary the lips and the eye-lids for the performance of their offices ought not to have any connexion but are open and separate But the organical parts are two the principal and the ignoble The principal are they which are without exception necessary for the conservation of the individual and are liberal in the distribution of faculty and spirit to the whole body And these are three the brain the heart and the liver There are in our bodies three faculties as we shall afterwards instance the animal vital and natural every of these keeps a peculiar court in peculiar members in which it is more glorious and majestical and from which in fellowship with the spirits which are also generated in it it flows into the whole body hence these parts are nobilitated with the title of Principal This is the ancient and customary tenent of School-Physicians which we propose for the sake of young Practitioners from which opinion in the Physical Schools it was a sin to dissent though it be inconsistent with the assertions of the Peripateticks who obtrude that the Soul with the train of all its faculties resides wholly in the whole and wholly in every part therefore there needs no influence of faculties they dwelling in every part and operating every where if they want not convenient instruments which caused Aristotle to say If the eye were placed in the foot the foot would see The ignoble are they which send forth no faculties nor spirits or which are the servants and vassals of the principall So the organs of the senses are framed for the sake of the brain onely so the lungs midriffe and arteries are designed to the temper and purgation of the heart so the ventricle intestines milt reins both bladders are made for the use of the liver To be short all the parts of the whole body are ignoble excepting the three principal parts mentioned Yet Galen in his Ars parva reckons the testicles among the principal parts because they are necessary for the conservation of the species We must therefore distinguish that in respect of the species they are principal parts not in relation to the individuum A COROLLARY THat which should here be discoursed of the substance temper figure situation action and use of every part is so accurately and perspicuously handled by the learned Laurentius in his Anatomical History that repetition will be superfluous Therefore thus much shall suffice to be spoken of the Parts The sixth Section of Physiology Of the Faculties and Functions The First CHAPTER Of the Nature of Faculties and Functions The Faculties and Functions depending upon the Soul as their first cause it will not be amiss to explain what the Soul is The Soul therefore is the substantial form of a living body by which we enjoy life sense nutrition understanding and local motion ARistotle defines it the perfection or act of an organical body potentially living which definition lies invelop'd in obscure terms and is a point of nice speculation We therefore suppose this our definition to be more clear and more convenient for our conduct in the course of Physick for man being constituted of matter and form as all other natural bodies and all his parts being the matter it is consequent that the soul should be the form For all actions having a dependency upon the form and the soul being the cause and principle of all the actions of a living body we must necessarily acknowledg that the soul is the form Hence in the absence of the soul action ceaseth By this means we arrive at the knowledg of her by her actions onely because immaterial substances are understood only by their effects But these various actions are exercised by the soul through the help of divers vertues and proprieties which are the immediate retainers to its Essence and immediately depend upon it and these proprieties are termed faculties of which we institute our following discourse A Faculty is a proper and inseparable accident of the soul which is instrumental to it in the execution of certain Functions in the body The faculties are accidents referred to the second species of quality Their subject is the soul in which they inhere not as common but as proper and inseparable accidents hence Fernelius weakly asserts them separable from the soul which he endeavours to verify by an instance of the auctive faculty which he affirms to be abolished when the vigor of Age declines Yet this faculty is not abolished but only lies idle for want of Instruments for the whole Aliment is wasted in nutrition because the body being well grown requires more nutriment and innate heat being debilitated cannot operate accretion of which nature also is unmindful while it hath filled the body to its due proportion yet this faculty is not extinct as neither the procreating faculty in a Child though it is quiet without wantonizing till Youth when it finds the seed elaborated to maturity fit for the exercise of its functions A Function is an Active motion or the effect of a Faculty in any part of the body As the faculties wait immediately upon the form or the soul so the functions upon the faculties as effects depend upon their causes But in this lies the distinction between the actions and faculties that they are appropriated to the soul the functions to
the whole masse therefore for the exercise of action there is not only required the presence of the soul with its retinue of faculties but also a disposition of the Organ fitted for action which being disorderly the actions are lamely or not at all exercised But it is observable that in the parts beside the action properly so called there are two other things considerable viz. their Work and Use The Work is the effect of action viz. when it hath a real and permanent object as for example the Chyle which proceeds from concoction in the ventricle is named the Work so the blood in the Liver But the use of a part is when it exerts no action from it self but is only auxiliary and commodious to the action of another part as the mesenterium which is only the pillar supporting the mesaraick veins the epiploon of the ventricle nourisheth heat and involves it as a vestment Therefore Use is distinguished from action because this is perpetually in motion which cannot in conceit be abstracted from it but Use is placed in the idleness of the part which sometimes remains after the decease as appears by the use of the skin which covers the whole body and by the skul useful to contain the brain CHAP. II Of the Differences of Faculties and Functions The Faculties and Functions are three-fold Natural Vital and Animal THE spirits were before divided into three differences every one of which is produced in its peculiar part and streams from it into the whole body where we mentioned three parts which are the shops of these parts it remains now that we constitute three faculties and enthronize them in those parts which by the disposition of instruments may in them chiefly exercise their actions whose actions ought not to exceed in number the faculties being their effects and because we attaine not the knowledg of the faculties but by the functions aforesaid they were divided into three because there appear three kind of actions distanced by a great latitude every of which is subdivided into its species as after shall appear But experience doth often inform us that those three functions and so the faculties are mutually distinguished For First it is evident enough by this that the Animal faculty is distinguished from the natural because many parts as the bones and cartilages are destitute of sense and motion yet they live and receive nutriment Besides It is plain by this that there intercedes a difference between the Vital and Animal because when we sleep or desist from all operation yet the heart with the Arteries is in continual agitation and is in no wise obedient to the command of the will Lastly The distinction of the vital from the natural is manifest in a part consumed by an Atrophy or the whole body in a Marasmus which for want of Aliment is pined yet it lives by the help of a faculty issuing from the heart which defends and preserves it Some may object That Galen in his bookes of the differences of symptomes constitutes only two faculties the Animal and Natural omitting the Vital I Answer That Galen there understands that terme Naturall at large for all that which is not voluntary and so comprehends the Vital faculty in the latitude of the Animal for he there engages himself to the strict law of division which is made when the members are opposite so that in this manner voluntary is opposed to involuntary seeing then the Animal functions are voluntary but the Vital and Natural involuntary and both performed only by the vertue of nature therefore he there expresseth both by the term of Natural though in many other places he distinguisheth them CHAP. III. Of the Natural Faculty and Function and their species and First of Nutrition The Natural faculty is that vertue of the soul by which through the assistance of native heat the body is nourished and increased and the same according to its species is generated And it is three-fold Nutritive Auctive and Generative Hence the Function is three-fold Nutrition Auction and Generation IN Animate bodies three things are very necessary the conservation of the Individuum its just proportion and the conservation of the species The substance of the Individuum by divers causes as well internal as external daily moulders away and something alwayes departs from it which unlesse a restauration were made by Aliment life would soon be extinct that therefore this body may be preserved to while away some time the first faculty called Nutritive is requisite But because Nature hath confined all things to a certain magnitude convenient for the exercise allotted them the second necessary will be the Auctive faculty by the help of which the animate body fils up every particle of that magnitude whence this virtue proposeth not for its end the conservation of the form in the matter but the operation of the living creature Lastly animate bodies being frail and subject to corruption lest their species should fail the Procreative faculty was necessary by which though the individuals yeild to corruption the species it self is preserved The Nutritive faculty is that vertue of the soul which by the help of innate heat converts the Aliment into the substance of the body to repaire its loss The Action of this faculty is called Nutrition which is the instauration of that substance of our bodies which is consumed The Native heat in our bodies is never idle as is before alleaged but acts continually upon the humidity which it wasts and dissolves therefore lest the creature should pine away and dye the losse must be made up this caused that opinion of Hippocrates that a man cannot subsist without Aliment seven dayes And so Nutrition is proper only to living creatures for though by Aristotle himself fire is said to be nourished and increased by combustible matter yet this is no true Nutrition but only improperly so called for there are three things requisite to true nutrition and accretion according to the mind of Aristotle First That a thing be nourished and increased by the access of external matter Secondly That the thing increased remain numerically the same Thirdly That this accesse of magnitude accrew not only to the whole but to every particle thereof But now in the nutrition of the fire it remains not in its numerical identity but by reason of the combustible matter is continually successive neither is every particle thereof compleat with the addition of magnitude and for this cause true and proper nutrition is not agreeable to fire but by Analogy only It may be objected That if the Aliment in Nutrition convert into the substance of the parts there is no intervening difference between nutrition and generation I answer That there is no real but only a rational distinction between them viz. according to the diversity between the whole and a part for nutrition is the generation of a part of the substance viz. of that small part of the flesh which is wasted but
generation is of the whole flesh and the total substance This therefore the Philosophers term an adgeneration of the parts but the other is simply named generation The nutritive faculty is attended with foure servants the attractive retentive concoctive and expulsive And their actions are attraction retention concoction and expulsion Every of these is twofold one official the other private The official is that which is not only subservient in the nutrition of the part in which it is exercised but also of the whole body But the private is onely servitor to that part in which it is exercised The parts which exert official actions are said to exercise publick duty the rest private So the ventricle and liver are official in their actions as attracting retaining concocting and expelling the aliment not for the nourishment of themselves only but also of the whole body but the mouth the flesh and such like do only act privately as attracting aliment only sufficient for their own nutrition The attractive faculty is that virtue of the soul by which the parts attract their usual aliment All the parts not being of one and the same substance nor temperament any aliment is equally fit for their nutrition but every part attracts that which is to it self most convenient by that faculty which is the handmaid of the nutritive viz. that which is called the attractive Private attraction is caused by heat and siccity But the official partly by those qualities partly by the direct fibres All natural actions proceed from the temper though not all from the same but as they are divers so they delight in variety of temperament Yet it is undoubtedly true that all are helped by heat though they be sometimes sociable with humidity sometimes with siccity And so the attraction of every singular part is strengthened by heat and siccity and performed by them alone which is to be understood of private attraction for official actions are not exercised by the temper alone but they must necessarily use a due disposition of instruments and so official attraction is not onely performed by the aforementioned qualities but also by direct fibres which by their contraction insinuate the aliment The retentive faculty is that virtue of the soul by which the parts retain the attracted aliment The parts invite by attraction the aliment as their familiar and acquaintance and therefore attract it that they might enjoy the company of so dear a friend which cannot be effected unlesse they retain it for some space this then implies the necessity of another quality by whose help the aliment may be retained in every part Private retention is exercised by calidity and siccity as also attraction But official is performed not onely by these qualities but also by oblique fibres The natural parts on which it is incumbent to exercise official actions are interwoven with three kinds of fibres direct oblique and transverse by the help of the direct attraction is performed of the oblique retention of the transverse expulsion as afterwards shall appear But all these fibres officiate their duties by self-contraction as all the muscles when they agitate the parts by various motions usually perform it by a retreat contracting them towards their principle The concoctive faculty is that virtue of the soul by which the parts change and assimilate to themselves the aliment So we say that our meat is then concocted in the ventricle liver and other parts when in colour smell taste and first qualities as also in substance it is assimilated to the parts which was the mind of Galen himself Book 8. of Composition of Medicaments where he terms concoction alteration which proceeds so far till the aliment be changed into a resemblance to the part Where also he instructeth us in the difference between concoction and nutrition for concoction is an assimilation but nutrition is an union of that which is assimilated Aristotle defines concoction a perfection arising from the natural and proper heat by opposite passives which definition is too Philosophical and extends too far nor doth so nearly touch upon the nature of those coctions which are performed in our bodies Every concoction in our body is perfected by heat and moisture The Philosophers propose three species of concoction Maturation which is the concoction in fruits Assation which is by the heat of fire and Elixation by heat and moisture That concoction which is performed in our bodies is a kind of elixation or an alteration like to elixation for it is caused by our native heat tempered with much moisture So the aliments for the more convenient concoction ought to be well drench'd with moisture Observe That official concoction is performed onely by these qualities and stands not in need of any fibres as the other three actions subservient to Nutrition But concoction in our body is threefold viz. Chylification Sanguification Assimilation Chylification is performed in the Ventricle Sanguification in the Liver and Assimilation in every part The manner of these Coctions and their Excrements were treated in the Section of humors which Exposition if it be not copious enough for the satisfaction of any ones desires and the controversies agitated concerning it let such an one appeal to Andreas Laurentius in his Anatomical History where he may find all of them largely and perspicuously handled In Concoction of this kind we must take special notice of a Theoreme consented to by Philosophers and Physicians viz. that all concoction is caused by incrassation In good concoction moisture is joyned with siccity and the humid parts more convenient for nourishment are united to the terrene alimentary parts but the more thin and dissipable part of moysture is consumed by the action of heat hence coction is produced by incrassation But these sequels seem to force our judgement to a contrary sentence For first Chyle produced out of bread is thinner than bread blood than chyle spirits than blood which consequentially derive their original from them Besides if urine be more thin or crass it is termed crude therefore coction consists in a certain moderation of the substance and not in crassity To the first I give this answer that is In every coction the crass excrements are excluded from the separation of which the tenuity of the rest of the alimentary mass proceeds yet this distinct by it self and from the excrements is incrassated and this also is onely termed concoct the rest is set apart as useless for these exiles are not properly the subject matter of coction but that onely ought to be termed the subject of coction which after the departure of the excrements is fit for concoction from which the excrements being totally separated it is evident that necessarily in that whole interval in which coction is performed the action of heat should cause some effluxion and so the incrassation of the thing which is concocting To the second I reply That the urine which by reason of too much thickness is termed crude is not
proceeds not from the copiousness of aliment viz. after nutrition performed will in this convincingly appear because experience shews that they grow and fill who use but little nutrition as is evident in boys and youths diseased who though they be very lean are yet continually growing because at such age the auctive faculty is most efficacious and so potent that it plunders the nutritive it self of aliment conveying it chiefly to the solid parts viz. the bones by the extension of which the whole body is extended therefore the aliment by virtue of the auctive faculty is carried to these parts and the carnous parts are defrauded of their due nutriment Hence those that are in growth appear lean On the contrary we find many fat and well stuffed and fed with high delicacies which yet arrive not to a due or decent procerity of body But though to the auctive and nutritive faculties the same object is proposed viz. nutriment yet they use this object in divers relations For the nutritive useth it as it tends simply to the conservation of the substance of the part But the auctive as it is directed to heighten the substance to a just magnitude and quantity For though the substance acquired by nutrition have quantity it being impossible for a material substance to be destitute of quantity yet nutrition regards not the substance as it hath quantity but as it is a substance but accretion is related to it not as a substance but as having quantity So for example as the blood is incarnated so far goes nutrition respecting only the substance of the flesh but as blood is changed into a greater proportion of flesh here enters accretion regarding not the substance of the flesh but only its quantity The end of accretion is not commensurated by life but accretion is most usually extended to twenty five or thirty Nature hath measured out a certain proportion to every living body therefore a living body is so long in a tendency to augmentation as it is in attaining to this determination of time But when it is augmented to a compleat magnitude in obedience to the command of Nature it stops there and makes no further progress Besides because accretion immediately depends upon the extension of the solid parts according to the three dimensions the sequel will be that a body doth so long increase as the parts thereof may in this manner be extended But now in the course of our life the solid parts are so hardened and dryed through the continual resolution of primigenious moisture occasioned by the action of native heat that they will no longer yeeld to extension But though the auctive faculty after the limitation aforesaid operates no more yet we must not assert it corrupted or idle as some fancyed it being not necessary that the faculties of the soul should be alwayes secondly actual and in operation for in our apprehension generation and local motion is not ever actual and therefore also there is no necessity of a continual growth but the faculties upon their arrival to their appointed end repose themselves So the auctive rests upon the assecution of its end viz. the due stature of magnitude After that it is obstructed in its operation having no fit subject viz. a body not disposed to an aptitude for extension The cause therefore sprouts into two branches one taken from the end the other from the subject A COROLLARY Here is obvious a Probleme worthy our knowledge Why all men are not advanced to an equality of magnitude but some are taller others of shorter stature I answer That the cause of this is threefold The first drawn from the various disposition of bodies for the more moist and hot they are the fitter they are for extension and grow more and in less time than cold and dry bodies whose parts submit not so easily to extension The second proceeds from nutrition for the more perfectly and copiously a body is nourished it is of a better and more speedy growth and the more imperfectly and sparingly it hath been supplyed with nutriment it groweth the less and the slower The third cause is the similitude of the Parents for tall Parents generate tall Sons short short ones because the seed transfers the idea and conditions of all the parts from the Parents upon the Children CHAP. V. Of the Generative faculty and of Generation The Generative faculty is that virtue of the Soul by which a man produceth a thing like to himself for the perpetual conservation of his species Hence Generation is a production of something like the producer GEneration according to the Philosophers is twofold Univocal and Equivocal That is termed Univocal when every thing generates something resembling it self such is the generation of all perfect animals Equivocal is when things of a various and dissenting nature are generated such is the generation of imperfect animals whose wombe is putrefaction Therefore univocal generation is principally applicable to perfect animals Hence Mules and Eunuchs are not fit for generation By this it appears that the name of Generation is not used in so large a sense by the Physicians as by Philosophers who call all introduction of form into matter Generation but here it is taken onely for the production of a like thing which is also called procreation To the Generative faculty two other are subservient the alterative and conformative The Alterative is that which alters and changes the subject matter of generation Seed is the subject matter of generation which is incompatible with the nature of various parts unless all its qualities as well first as second be variously changed for this cause the soul is endowed with a peculiar faculty which may execute this duty which is therefore called alterative or immutative The Conformative is that which graphically delineates and effigurates the whole body and all its parts The Conformative faculty entertains the seminal matter altered and prepared and out of it commensurates all the parts of the body and assignes to every of them a due magnitude figure site connexion and all other things commodiously which are requisite for the convenient exercitation of every peculiar action A COROLLARY All other relations to the Generative faculty are more largely disputed in the succeeding Section which treats of the Procreation of Man CHAP. VI. Of the Vital faculty The Vital faculty is that virtue of the Soul by which the vital spirits are generated in the heart and life is preserved in the whole body THE Spirits plainly demonstrate that there is in the Soul a peculiar faculty distinct from the rest which from the fountain of the heart copiously flow into the Arteries but every spirit is the instrument of some faculty But this faculty generates Vital spirits in the heart which spirits are the subjects of the influent heat which two communicate themselves to every part of the body the heat whereof with the implanted spirit they preserve But life necessarily depending upon implanted heat the
are divine or diabolical 'T is here impertinent to treat of these belonging rather to Metaphysicians or Theologers to whom we concede the honour of this exposition The Natural proceed either from the impress left of images cut out and shaped in the day or from a certain temper of body Most dreams are hatch'd by the images of those actions in which we have been in the day frequent for the impression of them upon the animal spirits being fresh they stick the closer and are the more easie rub'd over by our busie nocturnall imagination They also many times are composed from the various disposition and temperament of bodies To men sanguine the appearance of red colours banquets musical harmony nuptial festivals basiations venery gardens and such like voluptuous fooleries are usually represented in sleep To bilious men yellow colours wranglings war homicide firing flying and the like To pituitious men white colours waters navigations swimming drowning fishes and such like To melancholicks black colours darkness dead bodies graves and diabolical apparitions Yet observe That the influence of the stars doth not seldome concurre with a disposition of the body to effect dreams and these chiefly afford matter of Exposition CHAP. X. Of the less principal Faculties The less principal Faculties are two the one causing sensation the other motion The Sensitive faculty is that virtue of the soul by which externall objects upon the intercession of a fit medium are received in their proper organs The action of this faculty is called sense or sensation FOURE things are requisite to effect Sensation First an orderly disposed instrument Secondly a proportionate object Thirdly a medium which multiplyeth the species from the sensible thing Fourthly a convenient distance between the object and the sense that it may be rightly perceived The species of it are five Seeing Hearing Smelling Tasting and Touching Seeing is a sense by the help of which a man with his eyes perceives a visible object through a transparent medium actually illuminated Hearing is a sense by which a man perceives with his ears an audible object through a sonorous medium that is a medium fitted for the conducting of sound Smelling is a sense by which a man perceives at his nostrils an object of smell by a fit medium Taste is a sense by which a man perceives with his tongue the object of Taste by a disposed medium Touch is a sense by which a man with any carnous and nervous part of his body perceives a tangible object by a prepared medium The motive faculty is that vertue of the soul by which a man in his owne strength performs local motion All these less principal faculties and functions are so exactly declared in Natural Philosophy that we think it needless to allow them room for exposition The seventh Section of Physiology Of the Procreation of MAN The First CHAPTER Of the Seed of both Sexes Two Sexes are requisite to the Procreation of Man viz. male and female by whose mutual congress the prolifical seed is effused by both from which being received in the cavity of the wombe the first Sciography of the offspring is delineated Mans seed is a humid and spiritous substance well wrought in the testicles from the aliment left of the third concoction containing potentially the form of man concurring not only virtually but materially to the production of the parts of the infant IT is an assertion commonly obtruded by many That seed is generated by blood alone operated in the Liver grounding upon this because they find the conducting Spermatick vessels tumified with blood as other veins and because that overmuch coition causeth an effluxion of blood But this matter being to bear the force and impresse of the whole body so that we commonly attribute the similitude of Children to their Parents to this we think the assertion more proper that it is derived from every part from the aliment glean'd from the third concoction which being not much changed by the parts there is no cause of admiration that it retains the idea of blood Yet it cannot be supposed that every little particle comprehensible rather by thought then sense should afford this matter but all the similar parts which are called the sensible Elements of our body but from the principal especially which can supply us with those vivifying spirits which represent the idea and character of the whole But to that objection that the blood issues by tedious venery I answer That the seminal nature not yet elaborated in the testicles resembles blood being made out of it somewhat changed in the parts and before obtaining elaboration in them In the seed there are two parts Spirit and Thickness The seed by the help of spirits is impostumate and frothy it swels because the spirits are much in motion and stirring it is frothy because by the same spirits as by aire it becomes tumid and by their motion is agitated But in this spiritous matter resides the formative faculty by which a man engenders according to his own similitude But the thickness is the humid and watery substance which is manifestly evident when the spirits have bid adue to the seed for then it looseth its spumosity and whiteness and that humid substance is the matter of all the solid parts and their first step to a being The efficient cause of generation is brooded in the spiritous part but the material in the incrassated part This affords cause of objection to the Philosophers that one and the same thing cannot be agent and patient therefore both causes cannot be placed in the seede To which I oppose That the assertion of this objection would hold good if the substance of the seed were wholly Homogeneous but it being composed of divers parts it will not be inconvenient that it should execute divers offices for as it is spiritous it acts upon and informs that more humid and crasse substance applyed to it for its matter and as it were its subject as experience points out to us in the seeds of Plants and in Eggs in which seeds of plants after they have derived heat from the earth or the eggs from the incubation of the Hen the prolifical spirit is raised which acting upon the matter of the same seeds or eggs endeavours and perfects the conformation of the parts In artificials the efficient or Artist enters not into the thing made or the work because his business lies in the external parts But Nature situate in the very marrow of every thing perfects both internal and external and penetrates the whole substance of its work dwelling upon it as in its proper mansion This clears the doubt and demonstrates that the efficient and the matter for generation of the embryo find both room in the seed But though the seed by it self perfects the generation of the infant yet it is not actually but onely potentially animate Some have been of opinion that the seed is actually animate and hath that form which afterwards must inform the
whole fabrick furnished with instruments But we suppose that the seed of man doth onely potentially contain the form of man For the soul of man being extrinsecally adventitious we cannot affirm that the seed comprehends the humane soul onely potentially as it hath an aptitude to induce those dispositions which are requisite for the entertainment of a more noble form So neither in other living creatures must we imagine the seed to be actually animate but potentially onely because it hath that conformative power contained in the spirit by which it generates according to its own likeness when the seed is laid in a convenient place and hath subject matter But it is no absurdity to affirm such a power given to the form of seed there being found in many inanimate things as in load-stones rubarb and the like many and notable faculties which have not the advantage of any influence from a soul Yet this point of doctrine is very intricate and notably fenced with difficulties which Sennertus shews us in his Philosophical Hypomnema's Corruption therefore seiseth on the form of the seed upon the first arrival of the soul to the body now fashioned and prepared to welcome this guest which is said to live the life of a plant so long as it is simply nourished but when the organs of sense and motion are compleat it lives an animal or sensitive life and lastly proceeds to the operations of a rational soul when it hath acquired a well tempered brain and disposition of spirits A COROLLARY There hath been a long-started controversie between Physicians and Peripateticks whether women afford prolifical seed For all the Physicians after Hippocrates obtrude the affirmative for the defence of which they appeal to the common experience of women who relate that in that coition by which they conceived they sent out something causing more pleasure Which also the contrivance of feminine parts will serve to confirm Nature having placed in them very large testicles for the elaboration of the seed plenty of which being whitish and well concocted is often found in them in dissection Hence we may conclude that there is no third thing proceeding from the commixtion of male and female seed which is fit for the generation of the Childe But the Peripatericks in obedience to their grand Master Aristotle suppose that the seed of women is termed seed by analogy onely and homonymie concurring not to the generation of the fetus but onely by provoking to coition and useful to moisten the sides of the wombe which assertion they seem to make impregnable by the fortifications of strong reasons First If a woman had prolifical seed she might generate without obliging man to a copulation for she would have the seed and menstruous blood the only two necessaries to generation of the Childe Secondly One being by it self cannot be the result of two actual beings but onely accidentally aggregate Therefore out of two seeds the fetus cannot be produced To which objections and others of the same nature I answer Both seeds as well of male as female though they be prolifical are not sufficient by themselves to generate the fetus but a due commixtion of both is requisite in the wombe by which the delineation of the Embryo is perfected And so out of more compleat beings proceeds not one being by it self but yet out of divers incompleat beings one compleat is produced is an opinion subject to no absurdity CHAP. II. Of Menstruous blood There is not onely a concurrence of the seed but of the Menstruous blood also to the generation of the fetus which is another principle onely material not efficient as seed THE Mothers blood harbours none or very few spirits therefore it hath no efficient virtue but onely supplies matter out of which all the carnous parts are compounded as the spermatick of the seed And this blood is called menstruous because in well affected women which are neither with childe nor give suck it flows out every moneth And the menstruous blood is an excrement issuing from the last aliment of the carnous parts which at certain times and observed limitations is in a small quantity purged out of the wombe for the generation and nutrition of the fetus Hence it appears that menstruous blood is an excrement and useful as to its substance being converted into the parts of the fetus and the nutrition of them And this blood is usually in women plentifully because of the weakness of their heat which cannot digest all the blood made in the liver as also because of their soft and moist temper which breeds plenty of humors Hence it is that that blood exceeding in quantity is returned into the bigger veins from the flesh now filled and as it were satisfied and by them is thrust out by the veins of the wombe The time for the expurgation of this blood is twofold universal and particular The universal is from twelve or fourteen yeers of age to fifty or fifty five Before the twelfth or fourteenth yeer the vessels of women are narrow and the heat almost extinct by the plenty of humors cannot expel the reliques and before that age great plenty of the blood is spent in the augmentation of the body But after the twelfth or fourteenth yeer heat begins to move in a vigorous lustre the vessels are enlarged the breasts swell the body by a pleasant tickling is insinuated into lust and the genitals are fenced with new down But on the other side after fifty or fifty five the effluxions of menstruous blood cease because the heat being weakened is not able any more to generate such plenty of blood as may leave some reliques of which if there be any it cannot commodiously drive them away The particular time is limited by the space of a moneth and that by the space of three or foure dayes This evacuation of the menstruous blood returns usually every moneth which all attribute to the motion of the Moon Emperess of the humors and experience informs us that this purgation is commonly contingent to the more youthful about a new Moon but to the ancient about full Moon This caused that common piece of Poetry The Moon when old she fils the round Old Womens purgaments abound But when her horns begin to grow From Women young purgations flow A COROLLARY Hence is moved a notable question Whether menstruous blood be of a noxious quality The accurate decision of which see in Laurentius Quest 8. Book 8. of his Anatomy CHAP. III. Of Conception Conception is then said to be when the seed of both sexes are coupled and cherished in the cavity of the wombe and their formative virtue is become actual MAle and female while for posterity sake they condescend to venereous copulation send forth their seed together and at the same time the male into the neck of the wombe the female into her proper closet of the womb which wombe hath an admirable propriety of attracting the seed of the male wherefore
rested the third day a Coma and inclination to sleep again watching roused her she could not contain raved much was taken with an acute Feaver on the same night copious and hot sweat issued out of the whole body she slept free from her feaver and came to her right understanding Sleep and watching If either sleep or watching be excessive it is bad For this signifies a recess from the natural state and a morbous disposition in the principal part which is alwaies bad In any disease if sleep and waking keep their customary vicissitudes which they did in the health of the person now sick it is good For it seems impossible for a man to dye of any disease who hath a laudable and unchanged intercourse of sleep and waking Wakings in the augmentation or state of a disease appearing with the signes of concoction are good For they signifie the appropinquation of a Crisis whose forerunners are watchings and other symptomes caused by critical perturbations which yet upon the appearance of the signes of concoction are not to be feared as being the antesignanes of an healthy Crisis Immoderate watchings are more dangerous in young men but in old immoderate sleep Because the recess from the natural state is the greater for young men do naturally sleep more because their moisture is more copious but old men being more dry are naturally more vigilant Those sick persons which can neither sleep night nor day are in much danger Hipp. 2. progn For those continual watchings shew a very great hot and dry distemper of the brain and very much debilitate the strength multiply crudities by the resolution of native heat and at last cause fondness and convulsions Dead sleep in an acute Feaver is pernicious So in Hipp. 3. Epid. Sect. 1. aegr 2. Hermocrates was taken with a great feaver and after many symptomes began on the eleventh day to fall into a dead sleep which persisted and he dyed the twenty seventh day But the reason why a comatous affection is in acute diseases so pernicious may be learnt out of Galens-Commentary upon the mentioned History where he argues thus It remains therefore that some notable refrigeration of the brain or imbecillity of some faculty laid Hermocrates in a deep sleep the eleventh day but which soever of them two it be it is extremely dangerous for we have shewen that those colds are incurable which succeed hot and dry diseases But that which is caused by infirmity speaks a propinquity of destruction but when this dead sleep succeeds long watchings it is more pernicious for it signifies a total extinction of native heat so when phrenitical persons become comatous they have one foot in the grave That disease in which sleep causeth trouble is mortal but where it is advantageous not mortal Aph. 1. Sect. 2. We must not think that every trouble after sleep is deadly for if it be a light one as when sick persons raised from sleep are more anxious and unquiet this indeed is bad but not upon necessity deadly but if after sleep there appear any dangerous symptomes as fondness convulsion weakness cold of the extreme parts and the like then there is cause to think it a deadly affection When sleep allayes a fondness it is good Aph. 2. Sect. 2. For this signifies that the heat and acrimony of the vapors and humors causing fondness is mitigated by sleep and reduced to some mediocrity Those to whom upon a fit of cold a nocturnal exacerbation brings a vacancy of sleep are dangerously affected Book 1. Coac Aph. 20. For this signifies a retreat of the matter to the brain Whosoever is stupefied in a troublesome Feaver and affected as it were with a catoche is very badly diseased 1. Coac Aph. 47. As we said before that a Coma in acute Feavers is dangerous so a Catoche much more which is caused by a transmigration of the more dry matter into the brain and nerves hence the nerves are bound and therefore they who are troubled with this affection stand at the same pitch and remain stupid though their eyes be open and inconnivent and so they differ from Comatous persons whose eyes are alwaies shut Excitations from sleep with fear and turbulency are dangerous For they signifie copiousness of atribilary humor which produceth such like passions If in sleep when the eyelids hang any thing of the white part of the eye appear which is neither caused by a flux of the belly nor fasting nor hath it been usual for the sick party to sleep so it is a bad signe and very deadly Gal. in 1. progn For this signifies the extinction of the faculty moving the eyelids Dreams Dreams in a Phrensy remembred are good signes 1. Coac Aph. 91. There is nothing more to be desired in a phrenitical man then that he fall asleep and sleep sweetly But dreams are signes of sweet sleep But those not turbulent ones and tumultuous but gentle and quiet which are afterward remembred by the sick persons for this is a signe that they are come to themselves again and that the brain enjoyes again its formerly moderate temper In those who are dangeroussly sick dreams of dead men graves and priests denote immimennt death In dying persons the soul sometimes is before sensible of her separation from the body and represents it to the body by dreams veiled in the species of those things which can signify death The sight Eyes dimme or abhorring the light in acute diseases threaten death For this speaks a great dissipation of the spirits In a not intermitting feaver if the sick person see not or hear not his body being now debilitated death is at hand Aph. 49. Sect. 4. For this denotes a very great debility of the sensible vertue and very much exolution of the spirits Hearing Deafness proceeding from a Critical perturbation and accompanied with other decretory signes is usually healthy Those decretory signes which ought to attend surdity that it may be called healthy are principally those signes of concoction which usually appear in excrements and are perpetually good So 3. Epid. Sect. 3. aegr 7. There is a story of Abderitana a maid which from the eighth to the seventeenth on which a copious effluxion of blood was conveyed through her nostrills was affected with deafness which persevering the following days also denoted the first Crisis imperfect and shewed another to come for the resolution of the disease which after a second eruption of blood sweat and transition of the humor to her feet on the twentieth day followed By which evacuations the disease not being wholly taken away her deafness on the four and twentieth day returned in company of other symptomes which was a nuntio of a completely perfect Crisis on the twenty seventh day which will more clearly appear by the words of the story it self On the seventh day saith he proceeded thin but well coloured urine as to the excrements of the belly they were not troublesome on the eighth day she was deaf