1. Now to supply the defect of food in its most useful restoration of what by daily evacuations the body is deprived of; as I need not compute the vast expence of the microcosm by stool, urine, spitting, and terms, these being vulgarly known; so neither of the transcendent loss by transpiration, reckoned by * Sanctorius to preponderate all the rest; all which exact constant additions to be made by aliment, without which the body would quickly be depopulated. But 1. Let it be considered, that this person (as it is most credibly reported) empties nothing by urine or stool; and, it is probable, next to nothing by salivation or transpiration; not by salivation through a considerable defect of drinks; nor by transpiration, because, wanting food, there is a partial defect of fermentation in the blood, and thence of natural heat, and so, by the coldness of the parts, the pores are precluded, and the diaphoresis impeded; whence it will follow, that, where the parts are duly warm, and the pores patent, there the more active principles are apt to take flight; yet, where the parts are cold, and the pores corked up, there it is otherwise; as generous wines and subtle spirits, left in open vessels, will quickly bid adieu to their more volatile and brisk principles; yet, if shut up in safe vessels, these fugitives are imprisoned and kept to their daily offices. The same is verified in aqueous humours, which (our kitchens as well as laboratories experiment) quickly evaporate through intense subjacent heats, but not without, and so it is here. Thus, these plentiful evacuations being suppressed, restoration by food is rendered less necessary. Yet, lest you should dread from this hypothesis a suffocating mass of excrementitious humours to assault the heart, &c. I therefore subjoin, that a defect of nutritious assumptions must needs precede a defect of humours; moreover, the blood commands much of these remaining humours for its own chariot use; neither may it seem dissonant to reason, that the ventricle and some of the intestines are used as a receptacle of the more tartarous and terrestrial feculencies; as embryo's, though they receive large quantities of liquid nutriment, yet there is seldom observed the least excretion by the fundament, but a retention of a quantity of excrementitious terrestreities in the intestines, during their whole abode in their maternal cells. Likewise, in fermenting liquors, the more active principles do precipitate the more slaggish to the bottoms, chinks, and walls of their continents. Further it cannot be denied, that, by expiration, there is a considerable evacuation, as appears both by the heat of our breath, and its moisture, which is discovered by the reception of it into any concavous body. But 2. admit that there is some waste either by salivation or transpiration, yet these, being small, produce only a lingering consumption, which doth often consist for many years with a declining life: Such as our Virgin's is.

2. How shall natural heat be preserved, if not fed by oil, continually supplied and renewed by aliment? There are, sir, divers opinions touching human ignicles, and therefore it highly concerns

Sanctorius de Staticâ Medicina.

us to proceed cautiously. It cannot be denied, that there is a po. tential heat, more or less, in all human bodies, which is the Calor mixti, remaining, when we are dead and key-cold; such as is the heat of sulphur, arsenick, &c. though in a great allay. This ap pears from chymical operations on man's blood, by which it is forced to acknowledge its endowments with spirits and volatile salts in great quantities, and some sulphur also. Likewise, it must be granted, that there is an actual heat abiding in us, whilst we live, and some while after death. This is obvious to the sense of feeling itself; this is the heat, as I conceive, joined with the primogenite humour, to which Aristotle ascribes life itself. But yet, sir, I am somewhat doubtful, whether this heat be properly called Calor vivens, though the great * Riverius term it so; or an im mediate cause of life, though an Aristotle pronounce it so; for, certainly, holy Scripture ascribes life to the blood, The blood is the life thereof; and death to a dissolution of the compositum, The body returns to the dust, and the spirit to God that gave it. But of this dissolution, I suppose, the soul is not ordinarily the cause, but the body and, what part of the body may more justly be challenged to be the parent, if I may so phrase it, of death, than the blood, which is, in a famous sense, the parent of life. So, then,+ most killing distempers must arise from the excessive multiplication, consumption, or depravation of the blood, and the pernicious effects thereof. Yet, mistake me not, this hinders not other parts of the body, bowels, and humours to be often peccant, as undoubtedly they are, by infecting the blood, and receiving infections morbifick from it. Moreover, this heat continues some hours without life, even after the dissolution; and, as it is without life, so is life often found without it, as, not only in some vegetables, as, lettuce, hemlock, cucumbers, &c. but in animals, as, frogs and fish, which are said to be actually cold, and the salamander, reputed cold in a high degree. This heat may, possibly, be but the effect of matter and motion, i. e. of the blood, or, before it, of the seed impregnated with active principles, which, through their activity and heterogeneity, suffer mutual collisions, or fermentations, whence ebullition; and thence this heat, which is, by circulation, not only promoted, but also conveyed to all parts of the body, and by the same causes preserved; which, possibly, may prove the sum of Riverius's implanted and influent heat. These things pre-supposed, it will not be impossible to guess, that this heat is no such celestial fire, as the most famous Fernelius would have it, but only the igneous result of the combinations and commotions of the most active elementary principles; and, if there be any other heat, it may prove to be, according to the conjec ture of the great Riverius, the product of the immaterial soul. But of that I understand little; only this is unquestionable, that

Riverii Instit. Med. Lib. i. Sect. 4. c. 3. de Calido innato.

Εςὶ μονὴ τῆς Seilinus aur Ta digu. Arist, de Respirat. + Willis de Morb. Convuls. p. 175. Needham de formato Fatu, p. 138. Loweri Diatribæ, p. 115. Fernel. de Abdit. Lib. ii. c. 7. Riverius, ubi supra.

the celestial soul chuseth, for its more immediate organs, the most subtiliated, spirituous, and active parts of matter, such as the vital and animal spirits, and the heat before-mentioned, which seems to be of the same genius, and all but the mechanick productions of various fermentations, percolations, and distillations in the hu man engine: Wherefore I shall crave leave to dismiss this fire, till we come to discourse of fermentations.

And so I pass on to the next flame; which is the Biolychnium, or the actual flame of the blood kindled in the heart, asserted both by ancients and moderns of astonishing titles and tremendous vene. ration; which devouring flame, if once kindled, will quickly depredate all the oleaginous aliment, if not renewed by frequent and plentiful assumptions. But, therefore, it is greatly suspected to have no existence in our bodies, because, in these jejunants, it must needs extinguish, for want of sulphureous supplies, and produce death to those that have lived long enough to help to entomb it. It is strange to me, that provident nature should require such vast supplies, both of meat and drink, out of which to extract a small quantity of nutritious juice; which, with divers ferments, colatures, emunctories, and rapid motions, it endeavours to exalt and defæcate; and yet, after all, should expose what she hath attained of purity and activity, and consequently of noblest use, by her unparalleled artifices, cost, and toil, to the improvident disposal of wasteful flames; for, indeed, flames are great wasters, as appears in the preparation of the balsam of sugar, &c. No less wonderful is it, that a flame should continually burn in the heart, and yet the fleshly walls thereof not boiled, roasted, nor so much as a fuliginous, or cineritious colour imparted. But, lest, sir, you should be confident, that this perennial flame scorns an extinction by these few drops, I therefore commend to your observation those numerous and plentiful buckets, that are poured thereupon by the dexterous hand of the very learned and candid Dr. Needham. But yet, lest you should be so far prepossessed, by the deter minations of venerable antiquity, as to reject this new doctrine, and avowedly maintain this unseen fire, I shall therefore add, 1. That this flame can be but small, through the defect of bodily exercise, and freer ventilations (these fasters being mostly close prisoners) as also of strong fermentations; therefore, the less the lamp, the less oil will sustain it. 2. Through the defect of heat, the pores are bolted, and transpiration restrained; whence a scarce credible quantity of moisture is retained, which, returning both by veins and lymphaticks, gives no contemptible quantity of food to this fire. 3. Through the restraint of transpiration, the igneous particles are secured from their excursions, to the great increase of intestine heat; for, in feeders, the loss of transpiration often kindles in the blood a feverish fire. 4. The air (as impregnated sometimes especially) entering by the mouth, the nose, and pores, in parts passing the various concoctions, may be converted into a humour not altogether unapt to preserve the lingering life Needham de formato Fatu, p. 129, &c.

of this dying flame. 5. In pituitous bodies, the abundance of phlegm, through the various concoctions which it undergoes in the body, may become useful, in the room of more proper aliment, to this analogous lamp in its table-supplies: Which phlegm though some reject as excrementitious, yet, I suppose, they do it only, when consideration is from home of its usefulness in the mastication of our food, wherein, as some say, lies the first concoction; at least, therein lies the main preparation for the grand concoction in the ventricle. The constant mixture of our food with our spittle, in the jaw-mill, may force some considering men to think, that it is nearer of kin to our natural moisture, than hath been formerly acknowledged. 6. The colliquation of the parts of these emaciated bodies may yield oil to these lamps, as it is usually affirmed in hectick fevers. Besides, if fire be nothing but an innumerable host of sulphureons atoms, breaking the prisons of their former compositions with other heterogeneities, then, certainly, all fire is avropayòs, for nothing of that sulphur remains ; it leaves only the heterogeneous principles, with which it was combined. 7. It is probable, that the moisture of these jejune bodies is much, not only condensed by their cold, but also, loaded with terrestreities, thro' the non-reception of aliment impregnated with active principles; whereby it is rendered more durable in this flame; as oils, the more impure, thick, and clammy they are, the less fiercely they burn; but, the more tenuious and spirituous, the more nimbly do they flame, and expeditiously consume: As my face and hair did sadly experiment, upon the unexpected and sudden conflagration of a quantity of the oil of turpentine, as I, not long since, drew it from the fire; I dare say, the turpentine itself would not, or rather could not, have served me so. 8. This moisture, being drawn from more jejune principles (as, air, phlegm, and lympha) + is the less impregnated with nitro-sulphureous particles, and therefore less inflammable; as, in oligophorous wines, where the spirit and sulphur are greatly exhaled, and with a quality abun. dantly dilated, there fire slowly burns. 9. It is probable, that the crasis of these bodies is so altered, by the predominancy of fixed salts not duly actuated by powerful fermentations, that they much retard the consumption of oil by this vital fire; as, if quick-lime, sope, or other saline concretes be added to wax, or tallow, they will (say chymists) make a candle of far greater duration than ordinary. Strange is that story of St. Augustine, who reports a lamp to be found in the temple of Venus, that no storms could extinguish; yet much more strange was that torch, reported § to have burnt fifteen-hundred and fifty years, in the tomb of Tullia, Cicero's daughter, which being exposed to the air, by the opening of the tomb, was quickly extinguished. Now, if our humours should chance to attain the disposition of these ancient oils, they might supply the Biolychnium long enough. 10. Or, if these fixed

• Willis de Ferment. p. 66.

† Willis de Febr. p. 103. Idem, de Ferment. p. 866. French's Art of Distillation, p. 148. Joh. Baptist. Porta. Card. de Subtilitate. + Ludovic. Vives, in Lib. xxi. c. 6. de Civitate Dei Augustin. § Guido Pancirollus.

salts should attain fluidity, as it is probable they have done, be cause some of these abstinents were of melancholick complexions * then the sulphureous parts of the humours would be so fettered and oppressed thereby, that they could not so quickly burst from under the yoke into violent flames, but by degrees, and leisurably, as they could disentangle themselves; from whence will arise a more durable, though less forceable fire. Lastly, It seems probable, that extraneous particles of fire may be conveyed into a body, and therein lodged, which shall afterwards cause heats to kindle therein. That igneous particles pass from one body to another, seems a matter of daily experience; for it is not easy to demonstrate, how our bodies are warmed by their approach to the fire, if there be not fiery effluviums from the burning matter, that enters our bodies; and, that these fiery atoms, thus lodged in a foreign body, may afterwards, by water, air, or the like, break forth into a considerable heat, is very imaginable; as in quick. lime, which, before it is burnt, is not at all subject to combustions by air, or water; but, when it hath endured the kiln-fire, then it is readily kindled by the addition of almost any humidity: Which humidities may not be supposed directly to contribute to the kindling of the atoms, but to the dissolving of the concrete, and, thereby, the disentangling of the atoms; whereupon they fly out into a considerable heat; like whereunto is that powder,+ boast ed by chymists, to take flame in your hands, by the only addition of spittle. Thus, sir, having tendered a slender repast for your antique lamp, I crave leave to attend the more modern hypothesis of famed fermentation.

- Thirdly, How shall fermentation be continued in the blood, without the addition of chyle? And how can chyle be added, without food assumed? It is the opinion of ingenious Henshavius, that fermentation is caused by the addition of chyle to the blood in the heart, like that of wine by the adding of must; from whence doth arise (he saith) a necessity of frequent feeding; which the excellent Dr. Needham seems much to approve. And both the incomparable ¶ Willis and ingenious** Castle cite Hogeland. for ascribing heat to a fermentation in the heart, like to that which happens upon the pouring of spirit of nitre on butter of antimony. Resp. Now, sir, to help us out at this dead lift also, I shall take notice of the several opinions of the learned, touching the causes of fermentation. First, There is a ferment placed in the heart itself by the great ++ Willis and his Hypaspistes, the dexterous anatomist Dr. Lower, ‡‡ with Dr. Castle,§§ and other renowned assertors of fermentation. This, sir, would serve us eximiously to supply the defect of new chyle, if it were but sufficiently evinced. But, I must confess ingenuously, though (as it is not unknown to you) I have laboured to advance the antique glory of the heart,

Sennert. Pract. Lib. iii. Part. 2. Sect. 2. de longa Abstinentia.

Distill. p. 130.

Henshav. in agoxaλívw.

Needh. de ** Castle's Chym. Gal. p. 81, 82. #Loweri Diatr. p. 121, 124.

Willis de Febr. p. 113. p. 24, 25. De Febr. p. 101, 102, 103. tal. p. 81, 82.

↑ French's Art of form. Fœtu. p. 132. tt Willis de Ferment. Castle's Chym.