dine or sup alone, without all his honourable attendance and courtly company, with a private friend or so, 1 a dish or two, a cup of Rhenish wine, &c. Montanus, consil. 24, for a noble matron enjoins her one dish, and by no means to drink between meals. The like, consil. 229, or not to eat till he be an hungry, which rule Berengarius did most strictly observe, as Hilbertus, Cenomecensis Episc. writes in his life, "cui non fuit unquam Ante sitim potus, nec cibus ante famem," and which all temperate men do constantly keep. It is a frequent solemnity still used with us, when friends meet, to go to the alehouse or tavern, they are not sociable otherwise; and if they visit one another's houses, they must both eat and drink. I reprehend it not, moderately used; but to some men nothing can be more offensive; they had better, I speak it with Saint 2 Ambrose, pour so much water in their shoes. 66 It much avails likewise to keep good order in our diet, 8" to eat liquid things first, broths, fish, and such meats as are sooner corrupted in the stomach; harder meats of digestion must come last." Crato would have the supper less than the dinner, which Cardan, Contradict. lib. 1, Tract. 5, contradict. 18, disallows, and that by the authority of Galen, 7, art. curat. cap. 6, and for four reasons he will have the supper biggest; I have read many treatises to this purpose, I know not how it may concern some few sick men, but for my part generally for all, I should subscribe to that custom of the Romans, to make a sparing dinner, and a liberal supper; all their preparation and invitation was still at supper, no mention of dinner. Many reasons I could give, but when all is said pro and con, 4 Cardan's rule is best, to keep that we are accustomed unto, though it be nought, and to follow our disposition and appetite in some things is not amiss; to 1 Semper intra satietatem à mensa recedat, uno ferculo contentus. 2 Lib. de Hel. et Jejunio. Multò melius in terram vina fudisses. 3 Crato. Multum refert non ignorare qui cibi priores, &c., liquida 4 Tract. 1 eat sometimes of a dish which is hurtful, if we have an extraordinary liking to it. Alexander Severus loved hares and apples above all other meats, as Lampridius relates in his life; one pope pork, another peacock, &c.; what harm came of it? I conclude our own experience is the best physician; that diet which is most propitious to one, is often pernicious to another, such is the variety of palates, humours, and temperatures, let every man observe, and be a law unto himself. Tiberius, in 2 Tacitus, did laugh at all such, that thirty years of age would ask counsel of others concerning matters of diet; I say the same. These few rules of diet he that keeps, shall surely find great ease and speedy remedy by it. It is a wonder to relate that prodigious temperance of some hermits, anchorites, and fathers of the church; he that shall but read their lives, written by Hierom, Athanasius, &c., how abstemious heathens have been in this kind, those Curii and Fabritii, those old philosophers, as Pliny records, lib. 11, Xenophon, lib. 1, de vit. Socrat. emperors and kings, as Nicephorus relates, Eccles. hist. lib. 18, cap. 8, of Mauritius, Ludovicus Pius, &c., and that admirable example of Ludovicus Cornarus, a patrician of Venice, cannot but admire them. This have they done voluntarily and in health; what shall these private men do that are visited with sickness, and necessarily enjoined to recover, and continue their health? It is a hard thing to observe a strict diet, et qui medicè vivit, miserè vivit, as the saying is, quale hoc ipsum erit vivere, his si privatus fueris? as good be buried, as so much debarred of his appetite; excessit medicina malum, the physic is more troublesome than the disease, so he complained in the poet, so thou thinkest; yet he that loves himself will easily endure this little misery, to avoid a greater inconvenience; è malis minimum, better do this than do worse. And as * 1 Super omnia quotidianum leporem habuit, et pomis indulsit. 2 Annal. 6. Ridere solebat eos, qui post 30 ætatis annum, ad cognoscenda corpori suo noxia vel utilia, alicujus consilii indigerent. 3 A Lessio edit. 1614. 4 Egyptii olim *He 1 Tully holds, "better be a temperate old man than a lascivious youth." "Tis the only sweet thing (which he adviseth) so to moderate ourselves, that we may have senectutem in juventute, et in juventute senectutem, be youthful in our old age, staid in our youth, discreet and temperate in both. MEMB. II. Retention and Evacuation rectified. I HAVE declared in the causes what harm costiveness hath done in procuring this disease; if it be so noxious, the opposite must needs be good, or mean at least, as indeed it is, and to this cure necessarily required; maximé conducit, saith Montaltus, cap. 27, it very much avails. 2Altomarus, cap. 7,"commends walking in a morning into some fair green pleasant fields, but by all means first by art or nature, he will have these ordinary excrements evacuated." Piso calls it Beneficium Ventris, the benefit, help or pleasure of the belly, for it doth much ease it. Laurentius, cap. 8, Crato, consil. 21, l. 2, prescribes it once a day at least; where nature is defective, art must supply, by those lenitive electuaries, suppositories, condite prunes, turpentine clysters, as shall be shown. Prosper Calenus, lib. de atra bile, eommends clysters in hypochondriacal melancholy, still to be used as occasion serves; Peter Cnemander, in a consultation of his pro hypochondriaco, will have his patient continually loose, and to that end sets down there many forms of potions and clysters. Mercurialis, consil. 88, if this benefit come not of its own accord, prescribes clysters in the first place; so doth Montanus, consil. 24, consil. 31 et 229, he commends turpentine to that purpose; the same he ingeminates, consil. 3 4 1 Cat. Major: Melior conditio senis viventis ex præscripto artis medicæ, quam adolescentis luxuriosi. 2 Debet per amoena exerceri, et loca viridia, excretis prius arte vel natura alvi excrementis. 3 Hildesheim, spicel. 2, de mel. Primum 4 Si 230, for an Italian abbot. 'Tis very good to wash his hands and face often, to shift his clothes, to have fair linen about him, to be decently and comely attired, for sordes vitiant, nastiness defiles and dejects any man that is so voluntarily, or compelled by want, it dulleth the spirits. 1 Galen cracks how many Baths are either artificial or natural, both have their special uses in this malady, and as Alexander supposeth, lib. 1, cap. 16, yield as speedy a remedy as any other physic whatsoever. Ætius would have them daily used, assidua balnea, Tetra. 2, sect. 2, cap. 9. several cures he hath performed in this kind by use of baths alone, and Rufus pills, moistening them which are otherwise dry. Rhasis makes it a principal cure, Tota cura sit in humectando, to bathe and afterwards anoint with oil. Jason Pratensis, Laurentius, cap. 8, and Montanus set down their peculiar forms of artificial baths. Crato, consil. 17, lib. 2, commends mallows, camomile, violets, borage to be boiled in it, and sometimes fair water alone, and in his following counsel, Balneum aquæ dulcis solum sæpissimè profuisse compertum habemus. So doth Fuchsius, lib. 1, cap. 33, Frisimelica, 2, consil. 42, in Trincavellius. Some beside herbs prescribe a ram's head and other things to be boiled. 2 Fernelius, consil. 44, will have them used ten or twelve days together; to which he must enter fasting, and so continue in a temperate heat, and after that frictions all over the body. Lælius Eugubinus, consil. 142, and Christoph. Ærerus, in a consultation of his, hold once or twice a week sufficient to bathe, the "water to be warm, not hot, for fear of sweating." Felix Plater, observ. lib. 1, for a melancholy lawyer, 4" will have lotions of the head still joined to these baths, with a lee wherein capital herbs have been boiled." 5 Laurentius speaks of baths of milk, which I find approved by many others. And still after bath, the body to be anointed 8 1 Balneorum usus dulcium, siquid aliud, ipsis opitulatur. Credo hæc dici cum aliqua jactantia, inquit Montanus, consil. 26. 2 In quibus jejunus diu sedeat eo tempore, ne sudorem excitent aut manifestum teporem, sed quadam refrigeratione humectent. 3 Aqua non sit calida, sed tepida, ne sudor sequatur. 4 Lotiones capitis ex lixivio, in quo herbas capitales coxerint. 5 Cap. 8, de mel. with oil of bitter almonds, of violets, new or fresh butter, 1 capon's grease, especially the backbone, and then lotions of the head, embrocations, &c. These kinds of baths have been in former times much frequented, and diversely varied, and are still in general use in those eastern countries. The Romans had their public baths very sumptuous and stupend, as those of Antoninus and Diocletian. Plin. 36, saith there were an infinite number of them in Rome, and mightily frequented; some bathed seven times a day, as Commodus the emperor is reported to have done; usually twice a day, and they were after anointed with most costly ointments; rich women bathed themselves in milk, some in the milk of five hundred she-asses at once; we have many ruins of such baths found in this island, amongst those parietines and rubbish of old Roman towns. Lipsius, de mag. Urb. Rom. 1. 3, c. 8, Rosinus, Scot of Antwerp, and other antiquaries, tell strange stories of their baths. Gillius, l. 4, cap. ult. Topogr. Constant. reckons up one hundred and fifty-five public 2 baths in Constantinople, of fair building; they are still frequented in that city by the Turks of all sorts, men and women, and all over Greece and those hot countries; to absterge belike that fulsomeness of sweat, to which they are there subject. * Busbequius, in his epistles, is very copious in describing the manner of them, how their women go covered, a maid following with a box of ointment to rub them. The richer sort have private baths in their houses; the poorer go to the common, and are generally so curious in this behalf, that they will not eat nor drink until they have bathed, before and after meals some, 5" and will not make water (but they will wash their hands) or go to stool." Leo Afer, l. 3, makes mention of one hundred several baths at Fez in Africa, most sumptuous, and such as have great revenues belonging to them. Buxtorf. cap. 14, Synagog. Jud. speaks of many 4 1 Aut axungia pulli, Piso. 2 Thermæ Nympheæ. Sandes, lib. 1, saith, that women go twice a week to the baths at least. 4 Epist. 3. 5 Nec alvum ex 8 cernunt, quin aquam secum portent quâ partes obscænas lavent. Busbequius, ep. 3, Leg. Turciæ. |