and quality of it, in ill-dressing and preparing, as there is from the
quantity, disorder of time and place, unseasonable use of it, [1397]
intemperance, overmuch, or overlittle taking of it. A true saying it
is, Plures crapula quam gladius. This gluttony kills more than the
sword, this omnivorantia et homicida gula, this all-devouring and
murdering gut. And that of [1398]Pliny is truer, Simple diet is the
best; heaping up of several meats is pernicious, and sauces worse; many
dishes bring many diseases. [1399]Avicen cries out, That nothing is
worse than to feed on many dishes, or to protract the time of meats
longer than ordinary; from thence proceed our infirmities, and 'tis the
fountain of all diseases, which arise out of the repugnancy of gross
humours. Thence, saith [1400] Fernelius, come crudities, wind,
oppilations, cacochymia, plethora, cachexia, bradiopepsia, [1401]Hinc
subitae, mortes, atque intestata senectus, sudden death, &c., and what
not.
As a lamp is choked with a multitude of oil, or a little fire with
overmuch wood quite extinguished, so is the natural heat with
immoderate eating, strangled in the body. Pernitiosa sentina est
abdomen insaturabile: one saith, An insatiable paunch is a pernicious
sink, and the fountain of all diseases, both of body and mind.
[1402]Mercurialis will have it a peculiar cause of this private
disease; Solenander, consil. 5. sect. 3, illustrates this of
Mercurialis, with an example of one so melancholy, ab intempestivis
commessationibus, unseasonable feasting. [1403]Crato confirms as much,
in that often cited counsel, 21. lib. 2, putting superfluous eating for
a main cause. But what need I seek farther for proofs? Hear
[1404]Hippocrates himself, lib. 2. aphor. 10, Impure bodies the more
they are nourished, the more they are hurt, for the nourishment is
putrefied with vicious humours.
And yet for all this harm, which apparently follows surfeiting and
drunkenness, see how we luxuriate and rage in this kind; read what
Johannes Stuckius hath written lately of this subject, in his great
volume De Antiquorum Conviviis, and of our present age; Quam
[1405]portentosae coenae, prodigious suppers, [1406]Qui dum invitant ad
coenam efferunt ad sepulchrum, what Fagos, Epicures, Apetios,
Heliogables, our times afford? Lucullus' ghost walks still, and every
man desires to sup in Apollo; Aesop's costly dish is ordinarily served
up. [1407]Magis illa juvant, quae pluris emuntur. The dearest cates are
best, and 'tis an ordinary thing to bestow twenty or thirty pounds on a
dish, some thousand crowns upon a dinner: [1408]Mully-Hamet, king of
Fez and Morocco, spent three pounds on the sauce of a capon: it is
nothing in our times, we scorn all that is cheap. We loathe the very
[1409]light (some of us, as Seneca notes) because it comes free, and we
are offended with the sun's heat, and those cool blasts, because we buy
them not. This air we breathe is so common, we care not for it; nothing
pleaseth but what is dear. And if we be [1410]witty in anything, it is
ad gulam: If we study at all, it is erudito luxu, to please the palate,
and to satisfy the gut. A cook of old was a base knave (as [1411]Livy
complains), but now a great man in request; cookery is become an art, a
noble science: cooks are gentlemen: Venter Deus: They wear their brains
in their bellies, and their guts in their heads, as [1412]Agrippa taxed
some parasites of his time, rushing on their own destruction, as if a
man should run upon the point of a sword, usque dum rumpantur comedunt,
They eat till they burst: [1413]All day, all night, let the physician
say what he will, imminent danger, and feral diseases are now ready to
seize upon them, that will eat till they vomit, Edunt ut vomant, vomut
ut edant, saith Seneca; which Dion relates of Vitellius, Solo transitu
ciborum nutriri judicatus: His meat did pass through and away, or till
they burst again. [1414]Strage animantium ventrem onerant, and rake
over all the world, as so many [1415]slaves, belly-gods, and
land-serpents, Et totus orbis ventri nimis angustus, the whole world
cannot satisfy their appetite. [1416]Sea, land, rivers, lakes, &c., may
not give content to their raging guts. To make up the mess, what
immoderate drinking in every place? Senem potum pota trahebat anus, how
they flock to the tavern: as if they were fruges consumere nati, born
to no other end but to eat and drink, like Offellius Bibulus, that
famous Roman parasite, Qui dum vixit, aut bibit aut minxit; as so many
casks to hold wine, yea worse than a cask, that mars wine, and itself
is not marred by it, yet these are brave men, Silenus Ebrius was no
braver. Et quae fuerunt vitia, mores sunt: 'tis now the fashion of our
times, an honour: Nunc vero res ista eo rediit (as Chrysost. serm. 30.
in v. Ephes. comments) Ut effeminatae ridendaeque ignaviae loco
habeatur, nolle inebriari; 'tis now come to that pass that he is no
gentleman, a very milk-sop, a clown, of no bringing up, that will not
drink; fit for no company; he is your only gallant that plays it off
finest, no disparagement now to stagger in the streets, reel, rave,
&c., but much to his fame and renown; as in like case Epidicus told
Thesprio his fellow-servant, in the [1417]Poet. Aedipol facinus
improbum, one urged, the other replied, At jam alii fecere idem, erit
illi illa res honori, 'tis now no fault, there be so many brave
examples to bear one out; 'tis a credit to have a strong brain, and
carry his liquor well; the sole contention who can drink most, and fox
his fellow the soonest. 'Tis the summum bonum of our tradesmen, their
felicity, life, and soul, Tanta dulcedine affectant, saith Pliny, lib.
14. cap. 12. Ut magna pars non aliud vitae praemium intelligat, their
chief comfort, to be merry together in an alehouse or tavern, as our
modern Muscovites do in their mead-inns, and Turks in their
coffeehouses, which much resemble our taverns; they will labour hard
all day long to be drunk at night, and spend totius anni labores, as
St. Ambrose adds, in a tippling feast; convert day into night, as
Seneca taxes some in his times, Pervertunt officia anoctis et lucis;
when we rise, they commonly go to bed, like our antipodes,
Nosque ubi primus equis oriens afflavit anhelis,
Illis sera rubens ascendit lumina vesper.
So did Petronius in Tacitus, Heliogabalus in Lampridius.
[1418]———Noctes vigilibat ad ipsum
Mane, diem totum stertebat?———
———He drank the night away
Till rising dawn, then snored out all the day.
Snymdiris the Sybarite never saw the sun rise or set so much as once in
twenty years. Verres, against whom Tully so much inveighs, in winter he
never was extra tectum vix extra lectum, never almost out of bed,
[1419] still wenching and drinking; so did he spend his time, and so do
myriads in our days. They have gymnasia bibonum, schools and
rendezvous; these centaurs and Lapithae toss pots and bowls as so many
balls; invent new tricks, as sausages, anchovies, tobacco, caviar,
pickled oysters, herrings, fumados, &c.: innumerable salt meats to
increase their appetite, and study how to hurt themselves by taking
antidotes [1420]to carry their drink the better; [1421]and when nought
else serves, they will go forth, or be conveyed out, to empty their
gorge, that they may return to drink afresh. They make laws, insanas
leges, contra bibendi fallacias, and [1422]brag of it when they have
done, crowning that man that is soonest gone, as their drunken
predecessors have done, —[1423]quid ego video? Ps. Cum corona Pseudolum
ebrium tuum—. And when they are dead, will have a can of wine with
[1424]Maron's old woman to be engraven on their tombs. So they triumph
in villainy, and justify their wickedness; with Rabelais, that French
Lucian, drunkenness is better for the body than physic, because there
be more old drunkards than old physicians. Many such frothy arguments
they have, [1425]inviting and encouraging others to do as they do, and
love them dearly for it (no glue like to that of good fellowship). So
did Alcibiades in Greece; Nero, Bonosus, Heliogabalus in Rome, or
Alegabalus rather, as he was styled of old (as [1426]Ignatius proves
out of some old coins). So do many great men still, as
[1427]Heresbachius observes. When a prince drinks till his eyes stare,
like Bitias in the Poet,
[1428]———(ille impiger hausit
Spumantem vino pateram.)
———a thirsty soul;
He took challenge and embrac'd the bowl;
With pleasure swill'd the gold, nor ceased to draw
Till he the bottom of the brimmer saw.
and comes off clearly, sound trumpets, fife and drums, the spectators
will applaud him, the [1429]bishop himself (if he belie them not) with
his chaplain will stand by and do as much, O dignum principe haustum,
'twas done like a prince. Our Dutchmen invite all comers with a pail
and a dish, Velut infundibula integras obbas exhauriunt, et in
monstrosis poculis, ipsi monstrosi monstrosius epotant, making barrels
of their bellies. Incredibile dictu, as [1430]one of their own
countrymen complains: [1431]Quantum liquoris immodestissima gens
capiat, &c. How they love a man that will be drunk, crown him and
honour him for it, hate him that will not pledge him, stab him, kill
him: a most intolerable offence, and not to be forgiven. [1432]He is a
mortal enemy that will not drink with him, as Munster relates of the
Saxons. So in Poland, he is the best servitor, and the honestest
fellow, saith Alexander Gaguinus, [1433] that drinketh most healths to
the honour of his master, he shall be rewarded as a good servant, and
held the bravest fellow that carries his liquor best, when a brewer's
horse will bear much more than any sturdy drinker, yet for his noble
exploits in this kind, he shall be accounted a most valiant man, for
[1434]Tam inter epulas fortis vir esse potest ac in bello, as much
valour is to be found in feasting as in fighting, and some of our city
captains, and carpet knights will make this good, and prove it. Thus
they many times wilfully pervert the good temperature of their bodies,
stifle their wits, strangle nature, and degenerate into beasts.
Some again are in the other extreme, and draw this mischief on their
heads by too ceremonious and strict diet, being over-precise,
cockney-like, and curious in their observation of meats, times, as that
Medicina statica prescribes, just so many ounces at dinner, which
Lessius enjoins, so much at supper, not a little more, nor a little
less, of such meat, and at such hours, a diet-drink in the morning,
cock-broth, China-broth, at dinner, plum-broth, a chicken, a rabbit,
rib of a rack of mutton, wing of a capon, the merry-thought of a hen,
&c.; to sounder bodies this is too nice and most absurd. Others offend
in overmuch fasting: pining adays, saith [1435] Guianerius, and waking
anights, as many Moors and Turks in these our times do. Anchorites,
monks, and the rest of that superstitious rank (as the same Guianerius
witnesseth, that he hath often seen to have happened in his time)
through immoderate fasting, have been frequently mad. Of such men
belike Hippocrates speaks, l. Aphor. 5, when as he saith, [1436]they
more offend in too sparing diet, and are worse damnified, than they
that feed liberally, and are ready to surfeit.
SUBSECT. III.—_Custom of Diet, Delight, Appetite, Necessity, how they
cause or hinder_.
No rule is so general, which admits not some exception; to this,
therefore, which hath been hitherto said, (for I shall otherwise put
most men out of commons,) and those inconveniences which proceed from
the substance of meats, an intemperate or unseasonable use of them,
custom somewhat detracts and qualifies, according to that of
Hippocrates, 2 Aphoris. 50. [1437] Such things as we have been long
accustomed to, though they be evil in their own nature, yet they are
less offensive. Otherwise it might well be objected that it were a mere
[1438]tyranny to live after those strict rules of physic; for custom
[1439]doth alter nature itself, and to such as are used to them it
makes bad meats wholesome, and unseasonable times to cause no disorder.
Cider and perry are windy drinks, so are all fruits windy in
themselves, cold most part, yet in some shires of [1440]England,
Normandy in France, Guipuscoa in Spain, 'tis their common drink, and
they are no whit offended with it. In Spain, Italy, and Africa, they
live most on roots, raw herbs, camel's [1441]milk, and it agrees well
with them: which to a stranger will cause much grievance. In Wales,
lacticiniis vescuntur, as Humphrey Llwyd confesseth, a Cambro-Briton
himself, in his elegant epistle to Abraham Ortelius, they live most on
white meats: in Holland on fish, roots, [1442]butter; and so at this
day in Greece, as [1443]Bellonius observes, they had much rather feed
on fish than flesh. With us, Maxima pars victus in carne consistit, we
feed on flesh most part, saith [1444]Polydore Virgil, as all northern
countries do; and it would be very offensive to us to live after their
diet, or they to live after ours. We drink beer, they wine; they use
oil, we butter; we in the north are [1445]great eaters; they most
sparing in those hotter countries; and yet they and we following our
own customs are well pleased. An Ethiopian of old seeing an European
eat bread, wondered, quomodo stercoribus vescentes viverimus, how we
could eat such kind of meats: so much differed his countrymen from ours
in diet, that as mine [1446]author infers, si quis illorum victum apud
nos aemulari vellet; if any man should so feed with us, it would be all
one to nourish, as Cicuta, Aconitum, or Hellebore itself. At this day
in China the common people live in a manner altogether on roots and
herbs, and to the wealthiest, horse, ass, mule, dogs, cat-flesh, is as
delightsome as the rest, so [1447]Mat. Riccius the Jesuit relates, who
lived many years amongst them. The Tartars eat raw meat, and most
commonly [1448]horse-flesh, drink milk and blood, as the nomades of
old. Et lac concretum cum sanguine potat equino. They scoff at our
Europeans for eating bread, which they call tops of weeds, and horse
meat, not fit for men; and yet Scaliger accounts them a sound and witty
nation, living a hundred years; even in the civilest country of them
they do thus, as Benedict the Jesuit observed in his travels, from the
great Mogul's Court by land to Pekin, which Riccius contends to be the
same with Cambulu in Cataia. In Scandia their bread is usually dried
fish, and so likewise in the Shetland Isles; and their other fare, as
in Iceland, saith [1449]Dithmarus Bleskenius, butter, cheese, and fish;
their drink water, their lodging on the ground. In America in many
places their bread is roots, their meat palmettos, pinas, potatoes,
&c., and such fruits. There be of them too that familiarly drink
[1450]salt seawater all their lives, eat [1451]raw meat, grass, and
that with delight. With some, fish, serpents, spiders: and in divers
places they [1452]eat man's flesh, raw and roasted, even the Emperor
[1453]Montezuma himself. In some coasts, again, [1454]one tree yields
them cocoanuts, meat and drink, fire, fuel, apparel; with his leaves,
oil, vinegar, cover for houses, &c., and yet these men going naked,
feeding coarse, live commonly a hundred years, are seldom or never
sick; all which diet our physicians forbid. In Westphalia they feed
most part on fat meats and worts, knuckle deep, and call it
[1455]cerebrum Iovis: in the Low Countries with roots, in Italy frogs
and snails are used. The Turks, saith Busbequius, delight most in fried
meats. In Muscovy, garlic and onions are ordinary meat and sauce, which
would be pernicious to such as are unaccustomed to them, delightsome to
others; and all is [1456]because they have been brought up unto it.
Husbandmen, and such as labour, can eat fat bacon, salt gross meat,
hard cheese, &c., (O dura messorum illa), coarse bread at all times, go
to bed and labour upon a full stomach, which to some idle persons would
be present death, and is against the rules of physic, so that custom is
all in all. Our travellers find this by common experience when they
come in far countries, and use their diet, they are suddenly offended,
[1457]as our Hollanders and Englishmen when they touch upon the coasts
of Africa, those Indian capes and islands, are commonly molested with
calentures, fluxes, and much distempered by reason of their fruits.
[1458]Peregrina, etsi suavia solent vescentibus perturbationes insignes
adferre, strange meats, though pleasant, cause notable alterations and
distempers. On the other side, use or custom mitigates or makes all
good again. Mithridates by often use, which Pliny wonders at, was able
to drink poison; and a maid, as Curtius records, sent to Alexander from
King Porus, was brought up with poison from her infancy. The Turks,
saith Bellonius, lib. 3. c. 15, eat opium familiarly, a dram at once,
which we dare not take in grains. [1459]Garcias ab Horto writes of one
whom he saw at Goa in the East Indies, that took ten drams of opium in
three days; and yet consulto loquebatur, spake understandingly, so much
can custom do. [1460] Theophrastus speaks of a shepherd that could eat
hellebore in substance. And therefore Cardan concludes out of Galen,
Consuetudinem utcunque ferendam, nisi valde malam. Custom is howsoever
to be kept, except it be extremely bad: he adviseth all men to keep
their old customs, and that by the authority of [1461]Hippocrates
himself, Dandum aliquid tempori, aetati regioni, consuetudini, and
therefore to [1462]continue as they began, be it diet, bath, exercise,
&c., or whatsoever else.
Another exception is delight, or appetite, to such and such meats:
though they be hard of digestion, melancholy; yet as Fuchsius excepts,
cap. 6. lib. 2. Instit. sect. 2, [1463]The stomach doth readily digest,
and willingly entertain such meats we love most, and are pleasing to
us, abhors on the other side such as we distaste. Which Hippocrates
confirms, Aphoris. 2. 38. Some cannot endure cheese, out of a secret
antipathy; or to see a roasted duck, which to others is a
[1464]delightsome meat.
The last exception is necessity, poverty, want, hunger, which drives
men many times to do that which otherwise they are loath, cannot
endure, and thankfully to accept of it: as beverage in ships, and in
sieges of great cities, to feed on dogs, cats, rats, and men
themselves. Three outlaws in [1465]Hector Boethius, being driven to
their shifts, did eat raw flesh, and flesh of such fowl as they could
catch, in one of the Hebrides for some few months. These things do
mitigate or disannul that which hath been said of melancholy meats, and
make it more tolerable; but to such as are wealthy, live plenteously,
at ease, may take their choice, and refrain if they will, these viands
are to be forborne, if they be inclined to, or suspect melancholy, as
they tender their healths: Otherwise if they be intemperate, or
disordered in their diet, at their peril be it. Qui monet amat, Ave et
cave.
He who advises is your friend
Farewell, and to your health attend.
SUBSECT. IV.—_Retention and Evacuation a cause, and how_.