world, the principal and mighty work of God, wonder of Nature, as
Zoroaster calls him; audacis naturae miraculum, the [820]marvel of
marvels, as Plato; the [821]abridgment and epitome of the world, as
Pliny; microcosmus, a little world, a model of the world,
[822]sovereign lord of the earth, viceroy of the world, sole commander
and governor of all the creatures in it; to whose empire they are
subject in particular, and yield obedience; far surpassing all the
rest, not in body only, but in soul; [823]imaginis imago, [824]created
to God's own [825]image, to that immortal and incorporeal substance,
with all the faculties and powers belonging unto it; was at first pure,
divine, perfect, happy, [826] created after God in true holiness and
righteousness; Deo congruens, free from all manner of infirmities, and
put in Paradise, to know God, to praise and glorify him, to do his
will, Ut diis consimiles parturiat deos (as an old poet saith) to
propagate the church.
_Man's Fall and Misery_.] But this most noble creature, Heu tristis, et
lachrymosa commutatio ([827]one exclaims) O pitiful change! is fallen
from that he was, and forfeited his estate, become miserabilis
homuncio, a castaway, a caitiff, one of the most miserable creatures of
the world, if he be considered in his own nature, an unregenerate man,
and so much obscured by his fall that (some few relics excepted) he is
inferior to a beast, [828]Man in honour that understandeth not, is like
unto beasts that perish, so David esteems him: a monster by stupend
metamorphoses, [829]a fox, a dog, a hog, what not? Quantum mutatus ab
illo? How much altered from that he was; before blessed and happy, now
miserable and accursed; [830]He must eat his meat in sorrow, subject to
death and all manner of infirmities, all kind of calamities.
_A Description of Melancholy_.] [831]Great travail is created for all
men, and an heavy yoke on the sons of Adam, from the day that they go
out of their mother's womb, unto that day they return to the mother of
all things. Namely, their thoughts, and fear of their hearts, and their
imagination of things they wait for, and the day of death. From him
that sitteth in the glorious throne, to him that sitteth beneath in the
earth and ashes; from him that is clothed in blue silk and weareth a
crown, to him that is clothed in simple linen. Wrath, envy, trouble,
and unquietness, and fear of death, and rigour, and strife, and such
things come to both man and beast, but sevenfold to the ungodly. All
this befalls him in this life, and peradventure eternal misery in the
life to come.
_Impulsive Cause of Man's Misery and Infirmities_.] The impulsive cause
of these miseries in man, this privation or destruction of God's image,
the cause of death and diseases, of all temporal and eternal
punishments, was the sin of our first parent Adam, [832]in eating of
the forbidden fruit, by the devil's instigation and allurement. His
disobedience, pride, ambition, intemperance, incredulity, curiosity;
from whence proceeded original sin, and that general corruption of
mankind, as from a fountain, flowed all bad inclinations and actual
transgressions which cause our several calamities inflicted upon us for
our sins. And this belike is that which our fabulous poets have
shadowed unto us in the tale of [833] Pandora's box, which being opened
through her curiosity, filled the world full of all manner of diseases.
It is not curiosity alone, but those other crying sins of ours, which
pull these several plagues and miseries upon our heads. For Ubi
peccatum, ibi procella, as [834]Chrysostom well observes. [835]Fools by
reason of their transgression, and because of their iniquities, are
afflicted. [836]Fear cometh like sudden desolation, and destruction
like a whirlwind, affliction and anguish, because they did not fear
God. [837]Are you shaken with wars? as Cyprian well urgeth to
Demetrius, are you molested with dearth and famine? is your health
crushed with raging diseases? is mankind generally tormented with
epidemical maladies? 'tis all for your sins, Hag. i. 9, 10; Amos i.;
Jer. vii. God is angry, punisheth and threateneth, because of their
obstinacy and stubbornness, they will not turn unto him. [838]If the
earth be barren then for want of rain, if dry and squalid, it yield no
fruit, if your fountains be dried up, your wine, corn, and oil blasted,
if the air be corrupted, and men troubled with diseases, 'tis by reason
of their sins: which like the blood of Abel cry loud to heaven for
vengeance, Lam. v. 15. That we have sinned, therefore our hearts are
heavy, Isa. lix. 11, 12. We roar like bears, and mourn like doves, and
want health, &c. for our sins and trespasses. But this we cannot endure
to hear or to take notice of, Jer. ii. 30. We are smitten in vain and
receive no correction; and cap. v. 3. Thou hast stricken them, but they
have not sorrowed; they have refused to receive correction; they have
not returned. Pestilence he hath sent, but they have not turned to him,
Amos iv. [839]Herod could not abide John Baptist, nor [840]Domitian
endure Apollonius to tell the causes of the plague at Ephesus, his
injustice, incest, adultery, and the like.
To punish therefore this blindness and obstinacy of ours as a
concomitant cause and principal agent, is God's just judgment in
bringing these calamities upon us, to chastise us, I say, for our sins,
and to satisfy God's wrath. For the law requires obedience or
punishment, as you may read at large, Deut. xxviii. 15. If they will
not obey the Lord, and keep his commandments and ordinances, then all
these curses shall come upon them. [841]Cursed in the town and in the
field, &c. [842]Cursed in the fruit of the body, &c. [843]The Lord
shall send thee trouble and shame, because of thy wickedness. And a
little after, [844]The Lord shall smite thee with the botch of Egypt,
and with emerods, and scab, and itch, and thou canst not be healed;
[845]with madness, blindness, and astonishing of heart. This Paul
seconds, Rom. ii. 9. Tribulation and anguish on the soul of every man
that doeth evil. Or else these chastisements are inflicted upon us for
our humiliation, to exercise and try our patience here in this life to
bring us home, to make us to know God ourselves, to inform and teach us
wisdom. [846]Therefore is my people gone into captivity, because they
had no knowledge; therefore is the wrath of the Lord kindled against
his people, and he hath stretched out his hand upon them. He is
desirous of our salvation. [847]Nostrae salutis avidus, saith Lemnius,
and for that cause pulls us by the ear many times, to put us in mind of
our duties: That they which erred might have understanding, (as Isaiah
speaks xxix. 24) and so to be reformed. [848]I am afflicted, and at the
point of death, so David confesseth of himself, Psal. lxxxviii. v. 15,
v. 9. Mine eyes are sorrowful through mine affliction: and that made
him turn unto God. Great Alexander in the midst of all his prosperity,
by a company of parasites deified, and now made a god, when he saw one
of his wounds bleed, remembered that he was but a man, and remitted of
his pride. In morbo recolligit se animus,[849]as [850]Pliny well
perceived; In sickness the mind reflects upon itself, with judgment
surveys itself, and abhors its former courses; insomuch that he
concludes to his friend Marius,[851] that it were the period of all
philosophy, if we could so continue sound, or perform but a part of
that which we promised to do, being sick. Whoso is wise then, will
consider these things, as David did (Psal. cxliv., verse last); and
whatsoever fortune befall him, make use of it. If he be in sorrow,
need, sickness, or any other adversity, seriously to recount with
himself, why this or that malady, misery, this or that incurable
disease is inflicted upon him; it may be for his good, [852]sic expedit
as Peter said of his daughter's ague. Bodily sickness is for his soul's
health, periisset nisi periisset, had he not been visited, he had
utterly perished; for [853]the Lord correcteth him whom he loveth, even
as a father doth his child in whom he delighteth. If he be safe and
sound on the other side, and free from all manner of infirmity; [854]et
cui
Gratia, forma, valetudo contingat abunde
Et mundus victus, non deficiente crumena.
And that he have grace, beauty, favour, health,
A cleanly diet, and abound in wealth.
Yet in the midst of his prosperity, let him remember that caveat of
Moses, [855]Beware that he do not forget the Lord his God; that he be
not puffed up, but acknowledge them to be his good gifts and benefits,
and [856]the more he hath, to be more thankful, (as Agapetianus
adviseth) and use them aright.
_Instrumental Causes of our Infirmities_.] Now the instrumental causes
of these our infirmities, are as diverse as the infirmities themselves;
stars, heavens, elements, &c. And all those creatures which God hath
made, are armed against sinners. They were indeed once good in
themselves, and that they are now many of them pernicious unto us, is
not in their nature, but our corruption, which hath caused it. For from
the fall of our first parent Adam, they have been changed, the earth
accursed, the influence of stars, altered, the four elements, beasts,
birds, plants, are now ready to offend us. The principal things for the
use of man, are water, fire, iron, salt, meal, wheat, honey, milk, oil,
wine, clothing, good to the godly, to the sinners turned to evil,
Ecclus. xxxix. 26. Fire, and hail, and famine, and dearth, all these
are created for vengeance, Ecclus. xxxix. 29. The heavens threaten us
with their comets, stars, planets, with their great conjunctions,
eclipses, oppositions, quartiles, and such unfriendly aspects. The air
with his meteors, thunder and lightning, intemperate heat and cold,
mighty winds, tempests, unseasonable weather; from which proceed
dearth, famine, plague, and all sorts of epidemical diseases, consuming
infinite myriads of men. At Cairo in Egypt, every third year, (as it is
related by [857]Boterus, and others) 300,000 die of the plague; and
200,000, in Constantinople, every fifth or seventh at the utmost. How
doth the earth terrify and oppress us with terrible earthquakes, which
are most frequent in [858]China, Japan, and those eastern climes,
swallowing up sometimes six cities at once? How doth the water rage
with his inundations, irruptions, flinging down towns, cities,
villages, bridges, &c. besides shipwrecks; whole islands are sometimes
suddenly overwhelmed with all their inhabitants in [859]Zealand,
Holland, and many parts of the continent drowned, as the [860]lake Erne
in Ireland? [861]Nihilque praeter arcium cadavera patenti cernimus
freto. In the fens of Friesland 1230, by reason of tempests, [862]the
sea drowned multa hominum millia, et jumenta sine numero, all the
country almost, men and cattle in it. How doth the fire rage, that
merciless element, consuming in an instant whole cities? What town of
any antiquity or note hath not been once, again and again, by the fury
of this merciless element, defaced, ruinated, and left desolate? In a
word,
[863]Ignis pepercit, unda mergit, aeris
Vis pestilentis aequori ereptum necat,
Bello superstes, tabidus morbo perit.
Whom fire spares, sea doth drown; whom sea,
Pestilent air doth send to clay;
Whom war 'scapes, sickness takes away.
To descend to more particulars, how many creatures are at deadly feud
with men? Lions, wolves, bears, &c. Some with hoofs, horns, tusks,
teeth, nails: How many noxious serpents and venomous creatures, ready
to offend us with stings, breath, sight, or quite kill us? How many
pernicious fishes, plants, gums, fruits, seeds, flowers, &c. could I
reckon up on a sudden, which by their very smell many of them, touch,
taste, cause some grievous malady, if not death itself? Some make
mention of a thousand several poisons: but these are but trifles in
respect. The greatest enemy to man, is man, who by the devil's
instigation is still ready to do mischief, his own executioner, a wolf,
a devil to himself, and others. [864]We are all brethren in Christ, or
at least should be, members of one body, servants of one lord, and yet
no fiend can so torment, insult over, tyrannise, vex, as one man doth
another. Let me not fall therefore (saith David, when wars, plague,
famine were offered) into the hands of men, merciless and wicked men:
[865]———Vix sunt homines hoc nomine digni,
Quamque lupi, saevae plus feritatis habent.
We can most part foresee these epidemical diseases, and likely avoid
them; Dearths, tempests, plagues, our astrologers foretell us;
Earthquakes, inundations, ruins of houses, consuming fires, come by
little and little, or make some noise beforehand; but the knaveries,
impostures, injuries and villainies of men no art can avoid. We can
keep our professed enemies from our cities, by gates, walls and towers,
defend ourselves from thieves and robbers by watchfulness and weapons;
but this malice of men, and their pernicious endeavours, no caution can
divert, no vigilancy foresee, we have so many secret plots and devices
to mischief one another.
Sometimes by the devil's help as magicians, [866]witches: sometimes by
impostures, mixtures, poisons, stratagems, single combats, wars, we
hack and hew, as if we were ad internecionem nati, like Cadmus'
soldiers born to consume one another. 'Tis an ordinary thing to read of
a hundred and two hundred thousand men slain in a battle. Besides all
manner of tortures, brazen bulls, racks, wheels, strappadoes, guns,
engines, &c. [867]Ad unum corpus humanum supplicia plura, quam membra:
We have invented more torturing instruments, than there be several
members in a man's body, as Cyprian well observes. To come nearer yet,
our own parents by their offences, indiscretion and intemperance, are
our mortal enemies. [868]The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the
children's teeth are set on edge. They cause our grief many times, and
put upon us hereditary diseases, inevitable infirmities: they torment
us, and we are ready to injure our posterity;
[869]———mox daturi progeniem vitiosiorem.
And yet with crimes to us unknown,
Our sons shall mark the coming age their own;
and the latter end of the world, as [870]Paul foretold, is still like
to be the worst. We are thus bad by nature, bad by kind, but far worse
by art, every man the greatest enemy unto himself. We study many times
to undo ourselves, abusing those good gifts which God hath bestowed
upon us, health, wealth, strength, wit, learning, art, memory to our
own destruction, [871]Perditio tua ex te. As [872]Judas Maccabeus
killed Apollonius with his own weapons, we arm ourselves to our own
overthrows; and use reason, art, judgment, all that should help us, as
so many instruments to undo us. Hector gave Ajax a sword, which so long
as he fought against enemies, served for his help and defence; but
after he began to hurt harmless creatures with it, turned to his own
hurtless bowels. Those excellent means God hath bestowed on us, well
employed, cannot but much avail us; but if otherwise perverted, they
ruin and confound us: and so by reason of our indiscretion and weakness
they commonly do, we have too many instances. This St. Austin
acknowledgeth of himself in his humble confessions, promptness of wit,
memory, eloquence, they were God's good gifts, but he did not use them
to his glory. If you will particularly know how, and by what means,
consult physicians, and they will tell you, that it is in offending in
some of those six non-natural things, of which I shall [873]dilate more
at large; they are the causes of our infirmities, our surfeiting, and
drunkenness, our immoderate insatiable lust, and prodigious riot.
Plures crapula, quam gladius, is a true saying, the board consumes more
than the sword. Our intemperance it is, that pulls so many several
incurable diseases upon our heads, that hastens [874]old age, perverts
our temperature, and brings upon us sudden death. And last of all, that
which crucifies us most, is our own folly, madness (quos Jupiter
perdit, dementat; by subtraction of his assisting grace God permits it)
weakness, want of government, our facility and proneness in yielding to
several lusts, in giving way to every passion and perturbation of the
mind: by which means we metamorphose ourselves and degenerate into
beasts. All which that prince of [875]poets observed of Agamemnon, that
when he was well pleased, and could moderate his passion, he was—os
oculosque Jovi par: like Jupiter in feature, Mars in valour, Pallas in
wisdom, another god; but when he became angry, he was a lion, a tiger,
a dog, &c., there appeared no sign or likeness of Jupiter in him; so
we, as long as we are ruled by reason, correct our inordinate appetite,
and conform ourselves to God's word, are as so many saints: but if we
give reins to lust, anger, ambition, pride, and follow our own ways, we
degenerate into beasts, transform ourselves, overthrow our
constitutions, [876]provoke God to anger, and heap upon us this of
melancholy, and all kinds of incurable diseases, as a just and deserved
punishment of our sins.
SUBSECT. II.—_The Definition, Number, Division of Diseases_.
What a disease is, almost every physician defines. [877]Fernelius
calleth it an affection of the body contrary to nature. [878]Fuschius
and Crato, an hindrance, hurt, or alteration of any action of the body,
or part of it. [879]Tholosanus, a dissolution of that league which is
between body and soul, and a perturbation of it; as health the
perfection, and makes to the preservation of it. [880]Labeo in
Agellius, an ill habit of the body, opposite to nature, hindering the
use of it. Others otherwise, all to this effect.
_Number of Diseases_.] How many diseases there are, is a question not
yet determined; [881]Pliny reckons up 300 from the crown of the head to
the sole of the foot: elsewhere he saith, morborum infinita multitudo,
their number is infinite. Howsoever it was in those times, it boots
not; in our days I am sure the number is much augmented:
[882]———macies, et nova febrium
Terris incubit cohors.
For besides many epidemical diseases unheard of, and altogether unknown
to Galen and Hippocrates, as scorbutum, small-pox, plica, sweating
sickness, morbus Gallicus, &c., we have many proper and peculiar almost
to every part.
_No man free from some Disease or other_.] No man amongst us so sound,
of so good a constitution, that hath not some impediment of body or
mind. Quisque suos patimur manes, we have all our infirmities, first or
last, more or less. There will be peradventure in an age, or one of a
thousand, like Zenophilus the musician in [883]Pliny, that may happily
live 105 years without any manner of impediment; a Pollio Romulus, that
can preserve himself [884]with wine and oil; a man as fortunate as Q.
Metellus, of whom Valerius so much brags; a man as healthy as Otto
Herwardus, a senator of Augsburg in Germany, whom [885]Leovitius the
astrologer brings in for an example and instance of certainty in his
art; who because he had the significators in his geniture fortunate,
and free from the hostile aspects of Saturn and Mars, being a very cold
man, [886]could not remember that ever he was sick. [887]Paracelsus may
brag that he could make a man live 400 years or more, if he might bring
him up from his infancy, and diet him as he list; and some physicians
hold, that there is no certain period of man's life; but it may still
by temperance and physic be prolonged. We find in the meantime, by
common experience, that no man can escape, but that of [888]Hesiod is
true:
Πλείη μὲν γὰρ γαῖα κακῶν, πλειη δὲ θάλασσα,
Νοῦσοιδ' ἄνθρωποι ἐιν ἐφ' ἡμέρη, ἠδ' ἐπὶ νυκτὶ
Ἁυτοματοι φοιτῶσι.———
Th' earth's full of maladies, and full the sea,
Which set upon us both by night and day.
_Division of Diseases_.] If you require a more exact division of these
ordinary diseases which are incident to men, I refer you to physicians;
[889]they will tell you of acute and chronic, first and secondary,
lethals, salutares, errant, fixed, simple, compound, connexed, or
consequent, belonging to parts or the whole, in habit, or in
disposition, &c. My division at this time (as most befitting my
purpose) shall be into those of the body and mind. For them of the
body, a brief catalogue of which Fuschius hath made, Institut. lib. 3,
sect. 1, cap. 11. I refer you to the voluminous tomes of Galen,
Areteus, Rhasis, Avicenna, Alexander, Paulus Aetius, Gordonerius: and
those exact Neoterics, Savanarola, Capivaccius, Donatus Altomarus,
Hercules de Saxonia, Mercurialis, Victorius Faventinus, Wecker, Piso,
&c., that have methodically and elaborately written of them all. Those
of the mind and head I will briefly handle, and apart.
SUBSECT. III.—_Division of the Diseases of the Head_.
These diseases of the mind, forasmuch as they have their chief seat and
organs in the head, which are commonly repeated amongst the diseases of
the head which are divers, and vary much according to their site. For
in the head, as there be several parts, so there be divers grievances,
which according to that division of [890]Heurnius, (which he takes out
of Arculanus,) are inward or outward (to omit all others which pertain
to eyes and ears, nostrils, gums, teeth, mouth, palate, tongue, weezle,
chops, face, &c.) belonging properly to the brain, as baldness, falling
of hair, furfur, lice, &c. [891]Inward belonging to the skins next to
the brain, called _dura_ and _pia mater_, as all headaches, &c., or to
the ventricles, caules, kells, tunicles, creeks, and parts of it, and
their passions, as caro, vertigo, incubus, apoplexy, falling sickness.
The diseases of the nerves, cramps, stupor, convulsion, tremor, palsy:
or belonging to the excrements of the brain, catarrhs, sneezing,
rheums, distillations: or else those that pertain to the substance of
the brain itself, in which are conceived frenzy, lethargy, melancholy,
madness, weak memory, sopor, or Coma Vigilia et vigil Coma. Out of
these again I will single such as properly belong to the phantasy, or
imagination, or reason itself, which [892]Laurentius calls the disease
of the mind; and Hildesheim, morbos imaginationis, aut rationis laesae,
(diseases of the imagination, or of injured reason,) which are three or
four in number, frenzy, madness, melancholy, dotage, and their kinds:
as hydrophobia, lycanthropia, Chorus sancti viti, morbi daemoniaci,
(St. Vitus's dance, possession of devils,) which I will briefly touch
and point at, insisting especially in this of melancholy, as more
eminent than the rest, and that through all his kinds, causes,
symptoms, prognostics, cures: as Lonicerus hath done de apoplexia, and
many other of such particular diseases. Not that I find fault with
those which have written of this subject before, as Jason Pratensis,
Laurentius, Montaltus, T. Bright, &c., they have done very well in
their several kinds and methods; yet that which one omits, another may
haply see; that which one contracts, another may enlarge. To conclude
with [893]Scribanius, that which they had neglected, or perfunctorily
handled, we may more thoroughly examine; that which is obscurely
delivered in them, may be perspicuously dilated and amplified by us:
and so made more familiar and easy for every man's capacity, and the
common good, which is the chief end of my discourse.
SUBSECT. IV.—_Dotage, Frenzy, Madness, Hydrophobia, Lycanthropia,
Chorus sancti Viti, Extasis_.