29. There are two great forerunners of death, the one sent from the head, the other from the 25. An abundant and continual effluxion of heart; convulsion, and the extreme labour of the blood, which sometimes happeneth in the hæmorr-pulse: for as for the deadly hiccough, it is a kind hoids, sometimes in vomiting of blood, the in- of convulsion. But the deadly labour of the ward veins being unlocked or broken, sometimes pulse hath that unusual swiftness, because the by wounds, causeth sudden death, in regard that heart at the point of death doth so tremble, that the blood of the veins ministereth to the arteries, the systole and diastole thereof are almost conand the blood of the arteries to the spirit. founded. There is also conjoined in the pulse a weakness and lowness, and oftentimes a great intermission, because the motion of the heart faileth, and is not able to rise against the assault stoutly or constantly.

life which had hanged himself, and had hanged half an hour, by frications and hot baths; and the same physician did profess, that he made no doubt to recover any man that had hanged so long, so his neck were not broken with the first swing.

in height, and after, by degrees, lower and lower, | which fall into swoonings. I have heard also of for the space, as I remember, of seven or eight a physician, yet living, who recovered a man to minutes. There is also an ancient and credible tradition of an ox lowing after his bowels were plucked out. But there is a more certain tradition of a man, who being under the executioner's hand for high treason, after his heart was plucked out, and in the executioner's hand, was heard to utter three or four words of prayer; which therefore we said to be more credible than that of the ox in sacrifice, because the friends of the party suffering do usually give a reward to the executioner to despatch his office with the more speed, that they may the sooner be rid of their pain; but in sacrifices, we see no cause why the priest should be so speedy in his office.

33. For reviving those again which fall into sudden swoonings and catalepsies of astonishments, (in which fits many, without help, would utterly expire,) these things are used, putting into their mouths water distilled of wine, which they call hot waters, and cordial waters, bending the body forward, stopping the mouth and nostrils hard, bending or wringing the fingers, pulling the hairs of the beard or head, rubbing of the parts, especially the face and legs, sudden casting of cold water upon the face, shrieking out aloud and suddenly, putting rose-water to the nostrils, with vinegar in faintings; burning of feathers, or cloth, in the suffocation of the mother; but especially a frying-pan heated red-hot, is good in apoplexies; also a close embracing of the body hath helped

some.

The Difference of Youth and Old Age.

To the sixteenth article.

1. The ladder of man's body is this, to be conceived, to be quickened in the womb, to be born, to suck, to be weaned, to feed upon pap, to put forth teeth the first time about the second year of age, to begin to go, to begin to speak, to put forth teeth the second time about seven years of age, to come to puberty about twelve or fourteen years of age, to be able for generation, and the flowing of the menstrua, to have hairs about the legs and arm-holes, to put forth a beard; and thus long, and sometimes later, to grow in stature, or to come to full years of strength and agility, to grow gray and bald; the menstrua ceasing, and ability to generation, to grow decrepit, and a monster with three legs, to die. Meanwhile, the mind also hath certain periods, but they cannot be described by years, as to decay in the memory, and the like, of which hereafter.

2. The differences of youth and old age are these: a young man's skin is smooth and plain, an old man's dry and wrinkled, especially about the forehead and eyes; a young man's flesh is 34. There have been many examples of men in tender and soft, an old man's hard; a young man show dead, either laid out upon the cold floor, or hath strength and agility, an old man feels decay carried forth to burial; nay, of some buried in the in his strength, and is slow of motion; a young earth; which notwithstanding have lived again, man hath good digestion, an old man bad; a which hath been found in those that were buried young man's bowels are soft and succulent, an (the earth being afterwards opened) by the bruis- old man's salt and parched; a young man's body ing and wounding of their head, through the strug- is erect and straight, an old man's bowing and gling of the body within the coffin; whereof the crooked; a young man's limbs are steady, an old most recent and memorable example was that of man's weak and trembling; the humours in a Joannes Scotus, called the subtile, and a school-young man are choleric, and his blood inclined man, who being digged up again by his servant, to heat, in an old man phlegmatic and melancho(unfortunately absent at his burial, and who knew his master's manner in such fits,) was found in that state and the like happened in our days in the person of a player, buried at Cambridge. I remember to have heard of a certain gentleman that would needs make trial, in curiosity, what men did feel that were hanged; so he fastened the cord about his neck, raising himself upon a stool, and then letting himself fall, thinking it should be in his power to recover the stool at his pleasure, which he failed in, but was helped by a friend then present. He was asked afterward what he felt; he said he felt no pain, but first he thought he saw before his eyes a great fire, and burning; then he thought he saw all black, and dark; lastly, it turned to a pale blue, or sea-water green; which colour is also often seen by them

lic, and his blood inclined to coldness; a young man ready for the act of Venus, an old man slow unto it; in a young man the juices of his body are more roscid, in an old man more crude and waterish; the spirit in a young man plentiful and boiling, in an old man scarce and jejune; a young man's spirit is dense and vigorous, an old man's eager and rare; a young man his senses quick and entire, an old man dull and decayed; a young man's teeth are strong and entire, an old man's weak, worn, and fallen out; a young man's hair is coloured, an old man's (of what colour soever it were) gray; a young man hath hair, an old man baldness; a young man's pulse is stronger and quicker, an old man's more confused and slower; the diseases of young men are more acute and curable, of old men longer, and hard

to cure; a young man's wounds soon close, an old man's later; a young man's cheeks are of a fresh colour, an old man's pale, or with a black blood; a young man is less troubled with rheums, an old man more. Neither do we know in what things old men do improve, as touching their body, save only sometimes in fatness; whereof the reason is soon given, because old men's bodies do neither perspire well nor assimilate well. Now, fatness is nothing else but exuberance of nourishment above that which is voided by excrement, or which is perfectly assimilated. Also, some old men improve in the appetite of feeding, by reason of the acid humours, though old men digest worst. And all these things which we have said, physicians negligently enough will refer to the diminution of the natural heat and radical moisture, which are things of no worth for use. This is certain, dryness in the coming on of years doth forego coldness; and bodies, when they come to the top and strength of heat, do decline in dryness, and after that follows coldness.

man more grave and constant; a young man is given to liberality, and beneficence, and humanity, an old man to covetousness, wisdom for his own self, and seeking his own ends; a young man is confident and full of hope, an old man diffident, and given to suspect most things; a young man is gentle and obsequious, an old man froward and disdainful; a young man is sincere and openhearted, an old man cautelous and close; a young man is given to desire great things, an old man to regard things necessary; a young man thinks well of the present times, an old man preferreth times past before them; a young man reverenceth his superiors, an old man is more forward to tax them; and many other things, which pertain rather to manners than the present inquisition. Notwithstanding, old men, as in some things they improve in their bodies, so also in their minds, unless they be altogether out of date; namely, that as they are less apt for invention, so they excel in judgment, and prefer safe things, and sound things, before specious. Also, they improve in garrulity and ostentation, for they seek the fruit of speech while they are less able for action. So as it was not absurd that the poets feigned old Tython to be turned into a grasshopper.

.

OF LIFE AND FORM OF DEATH.

CANON I.

Consumption is not caused, unless that which is departed with by one body passeth into another.

THE EXPLICATION.

There is in nature no annihilating, or reducing to nothing. Therefore, that which is consumed is either resolved into air, or turned into some body adjacent. So we see a spider, or fly, or ant in amber, entombed in a more stately monument than kings are; to be laid up for eternity, although they be but tender things, and soon dissipated. But the matter is this, that there is no

3. Now we are to consider the affections of the mind. I remember when I was a young man. at Poictiers in France, I conversed familiarly with a certain Frenchman, a witty young man, but something talkative, who afterwards grew to be a very eminent man; he was wont to inveigh MOVABLE CANONS OF THE DURATION against the manners of old men, and would say, that if their minds could be seen as their bodies are, they would appear no less deformed. Besides, being in love with his own wit, he would maintain, that the vices of old men's minds have some correspondence, and were parallel to the putrefactions of their bodies: for the dryness of their skin, he would bring in impudence; for the hardness of their bowels, unmercifulness; for the lippitude of their eyes, an evil eye, and envy; for the casting down of their eyes, and bowing their body towards the earth, atheism; (for, saith he, they look no more up to heaven as they are wont ;) for the trembling of their members, irresolutions of their decrees and light inconstancy; for the bending of their fingers, as it were to catch, rapa-air by, into which they should be resolved, and city and covetousness; for the buckling of their knees, fearfulness; for their wrinkles, craftiness and obliquity; and other things which I have forgotten. But, to be serious, a young man is modest and shamefaced, an old man's forehead is hardened; a young man is full of bounty and mercy, an old man's heart is brawny; a young mian is affected with a laudable emulation, an old man with a malignant envy; a young man is inclined to religion and devotion, by reason of his fervency and inexperience of evil, an old man cooleth in piety through the coldness of his charity, and long conversation in evil, and likewise through the difficulty of his belief; a young man's desires are vehement, an old man's mode- No body known unto us here in the upper part rate; a young man is light and movable, an old of the earth is without a spirit, either by attenua

the substance of the amber is so heterogeneous, that it receives nothing of them. The like we conceive would be if a stick, or root, or some such thing were buried in quicksilver; also wax, and honey, and gums, have the same operation, but in part only.

CANON II.

There is in every tangible body a spirit, covered and encompassed with the grosser parts of the body, and from it all consumption and dissolution hath the beginning.

THE EXPLICATION.

tion and concoction from the heat of the heaven-eth that confusion in bodies putrefied. But ly bodies, or by some other way; for the concavi- generation or vivification is a work also mixed of

the spirit and grosser parts, but in a far different manner; for the spirit is totally detained, but it swelleth and moveth locally; and the grosser parts are not dissolved, but follow the motion of the spirit; and are, as it were, blown out by it, and extruded into divers figures, from whence cometh that generation and organization; and, therefore, vivification is always done in a matter tenacious and clammy, and again yielding and soft, that there may be both a detention of the spirit, and also a gentle cession of the parts,

ties of tangible things receive not vacuum, but either air, or the proper spirit of the thing. And this spirit whereof we speak, is not from virtue, or energy, or act, or a trifle, but plainly a body, rare and invisible; notwithstanding, circumscribed by place, quantitative, real. Neither, again, is that spirit air, (no more than wine is water,) but a body rarefied, of kin to air, though much different from it. Now, the grosser parts of bodies (being dull things, and not apt for motion) would last a long time; but the spirit is that which troubleth, and plucketh, and undermineth | according as the spirit forms them. And this is them, and converteth the moisture of the body, and whatsoever it is able to digest, into new spirit; and then as well the pre-existing spirit of the body, as that newly made, fly away together by degrees. This is best seen by the diminution of the weight in bodies dried through perspiration; for neither all that which is issued forth was spirit when the body was ponderous, neither was it not spirit when it issued forth.

CANON III.

The spirit issuing forth drieth; detained and working within either melteth, or putrefieth, or vivifieth.

THE EXPLICATION.

seen in the matter, as well of all vegetables, as of living creatures, whether they be engendered of putrefaction, or of sperm, for in all these things there is manifestly seen a matter hard to break through, easy to yield.

CANON IV.

In all living creatures there are two kinds of spirits: liveless spirits, such as are in bodies inanimate; and a vital spirit superadded.

THE EXPLICATION.

It was said before, that to procure long life, the body of man must be considered; first, as inanimate, and not repaired by nourishment; secondly, as animate, and repaired by nourishment. For the former, consideration gives laws There are four processes of the spirit; to are- touching consumption, the latter touching repara faction, to colloquation, putrefaction, to genera- tion. Therefore we must know, that there are in tion of bodies. Arefaction is not the proper human flesh bones, membranes, organs; finally, work of the spirit, but of the grosser parts after in all the parts such spirits diffused in the subthe spirit issued forth; for then they contract stance of them while they are alive, as there are themselves partly by their flight of vacuum, part-in the same things (flesh, bones, membranes, and ly by the union of the homogeneals; as appears the rest) separated and dead, such as also remain in all things which are arefied by age, and in the in a carcass; but the vital spirit, although it drier sort of bodies which have passed the fire; ruleth them, and hath some consent with them, as bricks, charcoal, bread. Colloquation is the yet it is far differing from them, being integral, mere work of the spirit; neither is it done, but and subsisting by itself. Now, there are two when they are excited by heat; for when the special differences betwixt the liveless spirits and spirits, dilating themselves, yet not getting forth, the vital spirits. The one, that the liveless spirits do insinuate and disperse themselves among the are not continued to themselves, but are, as it grosser parts, and so make them soft and apt to were, cut off and encompassed with a gross body, run, as it is in the metals and wax; for metals, which intercepts them, as air is mixed with snow and all tenacious things, are apt to inhibit the or froth; but the vital spirit is all continued to itself spirit; that being excited, it issueth not forth. by certain conduit pipes through which it passeth, Putrefaction is a mixed work of the spirits, and and is not totally intercepted. And this spirit is of the grosser parts; for the spirit (which before twofold also; the one branched, only passing restrained and bridled the parts of the thing) through small pipes, and, as it were, strings, the being partly issued forth, and partly enfeebled, other hath a cellar also, so as it is not only conall things in the body do dissolve and return to tinued to itself, but also congregated in a hollow their homogeneities, or (if you will) to their ele-space in reasonable good quantity, according to ments; that which was spirit in it is congregated the analogy of the body; and in that cell is the to itself, whereby things putrefied begin to have fountain of the rivulets which branch from thence. an ill savour; the oily parts to themselves, The cell is chiefly in the ventricles of the brain, whereby things putrefied have that slipperiness which in the ignobler sort of creatures are but and unctuosity; the watery parts also to them- narrow, insomuch that the spirits in them seem selves, the dregs to themselves; whence follow-scattered over their whole body, rather than celled, VOL. III.-65