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all hereditary diseases, or other contagion, whereas without help of Physick they live commonly 120 years or more; as in the Orchades and many other places. Such are the common effects of temperance and intemperance but I will descend to particulars, and shew by what meanes, and by whom especially, this infirmity is derived unto us.

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Filii ex senibus nati, rarò sunt firmi temperamenti, old men's children are seldom of a good temperament, as Scoltzius supposeth, consult. 177, and therefore most apt to this disease; and as Levinus Lemnius farther addes, old men beget most part wayward, peevish, sad, melancholy sons, and seldom merry. He that begets a child on a full stomach, will either have a sicke childe, or a crazed son (as Cardan thinks) contradict. med. lib. 1. contradict. 18. or if the parents be sick or have any great pain of the head, or megrim, headach, (Hieronimus Wolfiush doth instance in a childe of Sebastian Castalio's) if a drunken man get a childe, it will never likely have a good brain, as Gellius argues, lib. 12. cap. 1. gignunt Ebrios, one drunkard begets another, saith Plutarch. Ebrii symp. lib. 1. quest. 5. whose sentence I. 1. c. 4. * Lemnius Alsarius Crutius Gen. de qui sit med. cent. 3. approves, fol. 182. Macrobius lib. 1. Avicenna lib. 3. Tract. 1. cap. 8. and Aristole himself sect. 2. prob. 4. foolish, Fen. 21. drunken, or hair-brain women, most part bring forth children like unto themselves, morosos & languidos, and so likewise. he that lies with a menstruous woman. Intemperantia veneris, quam in nautis præsertim insectatur 'Lemnius, qui uxores ineunt, nulla menstrui decursus ratione habita, nec observato interlunio, præcipua causa est, noxia, pernitiosa, concubitum hunc exitialem ideò, & pestiferum vocat. *Rodoricus a Castro Lusitanus, detestantur ad unum omnes medici, tum & quarta luna concepti, infælices plerumque & amentes, deliri, stolidi, morbosi, impuri, invalidi, tetra lue sordidi, minimè vitales, omnibus bonis corporis atque animi destituti: ad laborem nati, si seniores, inquit Eustathius, ut Hercules, & alii. Judæi maximè insectantur fædum hunc, & immundum apud Christianos Concubitum, ut illicitum abhorrent, & apud suos prohibent; & quod Christiani toties leprost, amentes, tot morbili, impetigines, alphi, psora, cutis &

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f Lib. 4. c. 3. de occult. nat. mir. Tetricos plerunque filios senes progene rant & tristes, rarius exhilaratos. filii qui tum gignuntur, aut morbosi sunt, aut stolidi. Coitus super repletionem pessimus, & vito. i L. de ed. liberis. h Dial. præfix. Leomulieres liberos plerunque producunt sibi similes. * De occult. nat. mir. temulentæ & stolida nat. mir. Good Master Schoolmaster do not English this. 1 Lib. 2. c. 8. de occult. 1.b. 5. cap. 4. Buxdorphius c. 31. Synag. Jud. Ezek. 18.

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faciei decolorationes, tam multi morbi Epidemici, acerbi, & venenosi sint, in hunc immundum concubitum rejiciunt, & crudeles in pignora vocant, qui quarta luná profluente hac mensium illuvie concubitum hunc non perhorrescunt. Damnavit olim divina Lex, & morte mulctavit hujusmodi homines, Lev. 18. 20. & indè nati, siqui deformes aut mutili, pater dilapidatus, quod non contineret ab immundá muliere. Gregorius Magnus, petenti Augustino nunquid apud Britarmos hujusmodi concubitum toleraret, severe prohibuit viris suis tum misceri fæminas in consuetis suis menstruis, Sc. I spare to English this which I have said. Another cause some give, inordinate Diet, as if a man eat Garlick, Onyons, fast overmuch, study too hard, be over-sorrowful, dull, heavy, dejected in minde, perplexed in his thoughts, fearful, &c. "their children (saith Cardan subtil. lib. 18.) will be much subject to madness and melancholy; for if the spirits of the brain be fusled, or mis-affected by such meanes, at such a time, their children will be fusled in the brain; they will be dull, heavy, timerous, discontented all their lives." Some are of opinion and maintain that paradox, or problem, that wise men beget commonly fools; Suidas gives instance in Aristarchus the Grammarian, duos reliquit filios Aristarchum & Aristachorum, ambos stultos; and which Erasmus urgeth in his Moriâ, fools beget wise men. Card. subt. l. 12. gives this cause, Quoniam spiritus sapientum ob studium resolvuntur, & in cerebrum feruntur à corde: because their natural spirits are resolved by study, and turned into animal; drawn from the heart, and those other parts to the brain. Lemnius subscribes to that of Cardan, and assignes this reason. Quod persolvant debitum languide, & obscitanter, unde fœtus à parentum generositate desciscit: they pay their debt (as Paul cals it) to their wives remissely, by which meanes their Children are weaklings, and many times ideots and fooles.

Some other causes are given, which properly pertain, and do proceed from the mother: If she be over-dul, heavy, angry, peevish, discontented, and melancholy, not only at the time of conception, but even all the while she carries the child in her wombe (saith Fernelius path. 1. 1. 11.) her son will be so likewise affected, and worse, as Lemnius adds, 1. 4. c. 7. if she grieve overmuch, be disquieted, or by any casualty be affrighted and terrified by some feareful object heard or seen she endan

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"Drusius obs. lib. 3. cap. 29. Beda. Eccel. hist. lib. 1. c. 27. respons. 10. Nam spiritus cerebri si tum male afficiantur, tales procreant, & quales fuerint affectus, tales filiorum: ex tristibus tristes, ex jucundis jucundi nascuntur, &c. Fol. 129. mer. Socrates Children were fooles. Sabel. De occul. nat.

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gers her childe, and spoiles the temperature of it; for the strange imagination of a woman, workes effectually upon her infant, that as Baptista Porta proves Physiog.cœlestis 1. 5. c. 2. she leaves a mark upon it, which is most especially seen in such as prodigiously long for such and such meats, the childe wil love those meates, saith Fernelius, and be addicted to like humors: "If a great-bellied woman see a Hare, her Childe will often have an Harelip," as we call it. Garcæus de Judiciis geniturarum cap. 33. hath a memorable example of one Thomas Nickell borne in the city of Brandeburge, 1551. "" that went reeling and staggering all the dayes of his life, as if he would fall to the ground, because his mother being great with childe saw a drunken man reeling in the street. Such an other I finde in Martin Wenrichius com: de ortu monstrorum c. 17. I saw (saith he) at Wittenberge in Germany a Citizen that looked like a carkass; I asked him the cause, he replyed, "His Mother when she bore him in her wombe saw a carkasse by chance, and was so sore affrighted with it, that ex eo fatus ei assimilatus, from a ghastly impression the childe was like it."

So many several wayes are we plagued and punished for our father's defaults; in so much that as Fernelius truly saith, "It is the greatest part of our felicity to be wel-born, and it were happy for humane kinde, if only such parents as are sound of body and minde, should be suffered to marry." An husbandman wil sow none but the best and choicest seed upon his land, he will not rear a Bull or an Horse, except he be right shapen in all parts, or permit him to cover a Mare, except he be well assured of his breed; we make choice of the best Rams for our sheep, rear the neatest Kine, and keep the best dogs, Quanto id diligentius in procreandis liberis observandum? And how careful then should we be in begetting of our children? In former times some Countries have been so chary in this behalf, so stern, that if a childe were crooked or deformed in body or minde, they made him away; so did the Indians of old by the relation of Curtius, and many other wel-governed commonwealths, according to the discipline of

Baptista Porta loco præd. Ex leporum intuitu pleriq; infantes edunt bifido superiore labello. "Quasi mox in terram collapsurus, per omne vitam incedebat cum mater gravida ebrium hominem sic incedentem viderat. * Civem facie cadaverosa, qui dixit, &c. * Optimum bene nasci, maxima pars fælicitatis nostræ bene nasci; quamobrem præclare humano generi consultum videretur, si soli parentes bene habiti et sani, liberis operam darent. y Infantes infirmi præcipitio necati. Bohemus lib. 3. c. 3. Apud Lacones olim. Lypsius epist. 85. cent. ad Belgas, Dionysio Villerio, si quos aliqua membrorum parte inutiles notaverint, necari jubent.

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those times. Heretofore in Scotland, saith Hect. Boethius, "if any were visited with the falling sicknesse, madness, gout, leprosie, or any such dangerous disease, which was likely to be propagated from the father to the son, he was instantly gelded; a woman kept from all company of men; and if by chance having some such disease, she were found to be with child, she with her brood were buried alive: And this was done for the common good, lest the whole Nation should be injured or corrupted. A severe doom you will say, and not to be used amongst Christians, yet more to be looked into then it is. For now by our too much facility in this kinde, in giving way for all to marry that will, too much liberty and indulgence in tolerating all sorts, there is a vast confusion of hereditary diseases, no family secure, no man almost free from some grievous infirmity or other, when no choice is had, but still the eldest must marry, as so many stallions of the race, or if rich, be they fools or dizzards, lame or maimed, unable, intemperate, dissolute, exhaust through riot, as he said, jure hæreditario sapere jubentur; they must be wise and able by inheritance: It comes to pass that our generation is corrupt, we have many weak persons, both in body and minde, many feral diseases raging amongst us, crased families, parentes, peremptores; our fathers bad, and we are like to be worse.

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MEMB. II. SUBSECT. I.

Bad diet a cause.

Substance. Quality of meats.

CCORDING to my proposed method, having of ened

hitherto these secundary causes, which are inbred with us: I must now proceed to the outward and adventitious, which happen unto us after we are born. And those are either Evident, Remote; or inward, Antecedent, and the nearest : Continent causes some call them. These outward, remote, precedent causes are subdivided again into necessary and not necessary. Necessary (because we cannot avoyd them, but they will after us, as they are used, or abused) are those six non-natural things, so much spoken of amongst Physitians, which are principal causes of this disease. For almost in every consultation, whereas they shall come to speak of the causes, the fault

Lib. 1. De veterum Scotorum moribus. Morbo comitiali, dementia, mania, lepra, &c. aut simili labe, quæ facile in pro em transmittitur, laborantes inter eos, ingenti facta indagine, inventos, ne gens fæda contagione læderetur, ex iis nata, castraverunt, mulieres hujusmodi procul a virorum consortio ablegarunt, quod si harum aliqua concepisse inveniebatur, simul cum fœtu nondum edito, defodiebatur viva. • Euphormio Satyr..

is found, and this most part objected to the patient; Peccavit circa res sex non naturales: He hath still offended in one of those six. Montanus, consil. 22. consulted about a melancholy Jew, gives that sentence, so did Frisemelica in the same place; and in his 244. counsel, censuring a melancholy souldier, assigns that reason of his malady, "He offended in all those six non-natural things, which were the outward causes, from which came those inward obstructions; and so in the rest. These six non-natural things, are Dyet, Retention, and Evacuation, which are more material then the other because they make new matter, or else are conversant in keeping or expelling of it. The other four are, Air, Exercise, Sleeping, Waking, and perturbations of the minde, which onely alter the matter. The first of these is Diet, which consists in meat and drink, and causeth melancholy, as it offends in Substance, or Accidents, that is, Quantity, quality, or the like. And well it may be called a material cause, since that, as Fernelius holds, "It hath such a power in begetting of diseases, and yields the matter and sustenance of them; for neither air, nor perturbations, nor any of those other evident causes take place, or work this effect, except the constitution of body, and preparation of humors do concur. That a man may say, this Diet is the mother of diseases, let the father be what he will, and from this alone, Melancholy and frequent other maladies arise." Many Physitians, I confess, have written copious volumes of this one subject, of the nature and qualities of all maner of meats; as namely, Galen, Isaac the Jew, Halyabbas, Avicenna, Mesue, also four Arabians: Gordonius, Villanovanus, Wecker, Johannes Bruerinus sitologia de Esculentis & Poculentis, Michael Savanarola, Tract. 2. c. 8. Anthony Fumanellus, lib. de regimine senum, Curio in his Comment on Schola Salerna, Godefridus Stekius arte med. Marsilius cognatus, Ficinus, Ranzovius, Fonseca, Lessius, Magninus, regim. sanitatis, Frietagius, Hugo Fridevallius, &c. besides many other in English, and almost every peculiar Physitian, discourseth at large of all peculiar meats in his Chapter of Melancholy: Yet because these Books are not at hand to every man, I will briefly touch what kinde of meats ingender this humor, through their several species, and which are to be avoyded. How they alter

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b Fecit omnia delicta quæ fieri possunt circa res sex non naturales, & ex fuerunt causæ extrinsecæ, ex quibus postea ortæ sunt obstructiones. 1. c. 2. Maximam in gignendis morbis vim obtinet, pabulum, materiamque Path. 1. morbi suggerens: nam nec ab aëre, nec à perturbationibus, vel aliis evidentibus causis morbi sunt, nisi consentiat corporis præparatio, & humorum constitutio. Ut semel dicam, una gula est omnium morborum mater, etiamsi alius est genitor. Ab hac morbi sponte sæpè emanant, nulla alia cogente causa. gan, Eliot, Vauhan, Vener.

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