another from the tip of the Ear:1 most men are begotten in the night, most animals in the day; but whether more Persons have been born in the Night or the Day, were a Curiosity undecidable, tho more have perished by violent Deaths in the Day; yet in natural Dissolutions both Times may hold an Indifferency, at least but contingent Inequality. The whole course of Time runs out in the Nativity and Death of Things; which whether they happen by Succession or Coincidence, are best computed by the natural, not artificial Day. That Charles the Fifth was Crowned upon the Day of his Nativity, it being in his own power so to order it, makes no singular Animadversion; but that he should also take King Francis Prisoner upon that day, was an unexpected Coincidence, which made the same remarkable. Antipater who had an Anniversary Feast every Year upon his Birth-day, needed no Astrological Revolution to know what day he should dye on. When the fixed stars have made a Revolution unto the points from whence they first set out, some of the Ancients thought the World would have an end; which was a kind of dying upon the day of its Nativity. Now the disease prevailing and swiftly advancing about the time of his Nativity, some were of Opinion, that he would leave the World on the day he entred into it; but this being a lingring Disease, and creeping softly on, nothing critical was found or expected, and he died not before fifteen days after. Nothing is more common with Infants than to dye on the day of their Nativity, to behold the worldly Hours and but the Fractions thereof; and even to perish before their Nativity in the hidden World of the Womb, and before their good Angel is conceived to undertake them. But in Persons who out-live many Years, and when there are no less than three hundred and sixty-five days to determine their Lives in every Year; that the first day 1 Auris pars pendula lobus dicitur, non omnibus ea pars est auribus; non enim iis qui noctu nati sunt, sed qui interdiu, maxima ex parte.-Com, in Aristot. de Animal, lib. 1. should make the last, that the Tail of the Snake should return into its Mouth precisely at that time, and they should wind up upon the day of their Nativity,1 is indeed a remarkable Coincidence, which tho Astrology had taken witty pains to salve, yet hath it been very wary in making Predictions of it. In this consumptive Condition and remarkable Extenuation he came to be almost half himself, and left a great part behind him which he carried not to the Grave. And tho that story of Duke John Ernestus Mansfield be not so easily swallowed, that at his Death his Heart was found not to be so big as a Nut; yet if the Bones of a good Sceleton weigh little more than twenty pounds, his Inwards and Flesh remaining could make no Bouffage, but a light bit for the Grave. I never more lively beheld the starved Characters of Dante3 in any living Face; an Aruspex might have read a Lecture upon him without Exenteration, his Flesh being so consumed that he might, in a manner, have discerned his Bowels without opening of him: so that to be carried sextâ cervice to the Grave, was but a civil unnecessity; and the Complements of the Coffin might outweigh the Subject of it. Omnibonus Ferrarius in mortal Dysenteries of Children looks for a Spot behind the Ear; in consumptive Diseases some eye the Complexion of Moals; Cardan eagerly views the Nails, some the Lines of the Hand, the Thenar or Muscle of the Thumb; some are so curious as to observe the depth of the Throatpit, how the proportion varieth of the Small of the Legs unto the Calf, or the compass of the Neck unto the Circumference of the Head: but all these, with many more, were so drowned in a mortal Visage and last Face of Hippocrates, that a weak Physiognomist might say at first eye, This was a Face of Earth, and that Morta had set her Hard-Seal upon his Temples, 1 According to the Egyptian hieroglyphic. 2 Turkish history. In the poet Dante's description. De Morbis Puerorum. • Morta, the deity of death or fate. easily perceiving what caricatura1 Draughts Death makes upon pined Faces, and unto what an unknown degree a Man may live backward. Tho the beard be only made a distinction of Sex and sign of masculine Heat by Ulmus,2 yet the Precocity and early growth thereof in him, was not to be liked in reference unto long life. Lewis, that virtuous but unfortunate king of Hungary, who lost his Life at the Battle of Mohacz, was said to be born without a Skin, to have bearded at Fifteen, and to have shewn some gray Hairs about Twenty; from whence the Diviners conjectured that he would be spoiled of his Kingdom, and have but a short Life: but hairs make fallible Predictions, and many Temples early gray have out-lived the Psalmist's Period.3 Hairs which have most amused me have not been in the Face or Head but on the Back, and not in Men but Children, as I long ago observed in that Endemial Distemper of little children in Languedock, called the Morgellons, wherein they critically break out with harsh Hairs on their Backs, which takes off the unquiet Symptoms of the Disease, and delivers them from Coughs and Convulsions. The Egyptian Mummies that I have seen, have had their Mouths open, and somewhat gaping, which affordeth a good opportunity to view and observe their Teeth, wherein 'tis not easie to find any wanting or decayed and therefore in Egypt, where one Man practised but one Operation, or the Diseases but of single Parts, it must needs be a barren Profession to confine unto that of drawing of Teeth, and little better than to have been Tooth-drawer unto King Pyrrhus,5 who had but two in his Head. How the Bannyans of India maintain the Integrity of those parts, I find not particularly observed; who notwithstanding have 1 When' men's faces are drawn with resemblance to some other animals, the Italians call it, to be drawn in caricatura. 2 Ulmus de usu barbæ humanæ. 3 The life of a man is three-score and ten. 4 See Picotus de Rheumatismo. His upper and lower jaw being solid, and without distinct rows of teeth. an Advantage of their Preservation by abstaining from all Flesh, and employing their Teeth in such Food unto which they may seem at first framed, from their Figure and Conformation: but sharp and corroding Rheums had so early mouldred those Rocks and hardest part of his Fabrick, that a Man might well conceive that his Years were never like to double or twice tell over his Teeth.1 Corruption had dealt more severely with them, than sepulchral Fires and smart Flames with those of burnt Bodies of old; for in the burnt Fragments of Urns which I have enquired into, although I seem to find few Incisors or Shearers, yet the Dog Teeth and Grinders do notably resist those Fires.2 -- 1 Twice tell over his teeth, never live to threescore years. 2 In the MS. Sloan. 1862, occurs the following paragraph :Affection had so blinded some of his nearest relations, as to retain some hope of a postliminious life, and that he might come to life again, and therefore would not have him coffined before the third day. Some such verbiasses [so in M.S.], I confess, we find in story, and one or two I remember myself, but they lived not long after. Some contingent reanimations are to be hoped in diseases wherein the lamp of life is but puffed out and seemingly choaked, and not where the oil is quite spent and exhausted. Though Nonnus will have it a fever, yet of what diseases Lazarus first died, is uncertain from the text, as his second death from good authentic history; but since some persons conceived to be dead do sometimes return again unto evidence of life, that miracle was wisely managed by our Saviour; for had he not been dead four days and under corruption, there had not wanted enough who would have cavilled [at] the same, which the scripture now puts out of doubt: and tradition also confirmeth, that he lived thirty years after, and being pursued by the Jews, came by sea into Provence, by Marseilles, with Mary Magdalen, Maximinus, and others; where remarkable places carry their names unto this day. But to arise from the grave to return again into it, is but an uncomfortable reviction. Few men would be content to cradle it once again; except a man can lead his second life better than the first, a man may be doubly condemned for living evilly twice, which were but to make the second death in scripture the third, and to accumulate in the punishment of two bad livers at the last day. To have performed the duty of corruption in the grave, to live again as far from sin as death, and arise like our Saviour for ever, are the only satisfactions of well-weighed expectations." A ་ In the Years of his Childhood he had languished under the Disease of his Country, the Rickets; after which notwithstanding many have become strong and active Men; but whether any have attained unto very great Years the Disease is scarce so old as to afford good Observation. Whether the Children of the English Plantations be subject unto the same Infirmity, may be worth the observing. Whether Lameness and Halting do still increase among the Inhabitants of Rovigno in Istria, I know not; yet scarce twenty Years ago Monsieur du Loyr observed, that a third part of that People halted: but too certain it is, that the Rickets encreaseth among us; the Small-pox grows more pernicious than the Great: the King's Purse knows that the King's Evil grows more common. Quartan Agues are become no Strangers in Ireland; more common and mortal in England: and though the Ancients gave that Disease1 very good Words, yet now that Bell makes no strange sound which rings out for the Effects thereof.2 Some think there were few Consumptions in the Old World, when Men lived much upon Milk; and that the ancient Inhabitants of this Island were less troubled with Coughs when they went naked, and slept in Caves and Woods, than Men now in Chambers and Feather-beds. Plato will tell us, that there was no such Disease as a catarrh in Homer's time, and that it was but new in Greece in his Age. Polydore Virgil delivereth that Pleurisies were rare in England, who lived but in the days of Henry the Eighth. Some will allow no Diseases to be new, others think that many old ones are ceased; and that such which are esteemed new, will have but their time: However, the Mercy of God hath scattered the great heap of Diseases, and not loaded any one Country with all : some may be new in one Country which have been old in another. New discoveries of the Earth discover new Diseases: for besides the common swarm, there 1 'Aσpaλéσratos Kal phïotos, securissima et facillima.-Hippocrat. • Pro febre quartana raro sonat campana. |