Mikrokosmographia a description of the body of man. Together vvith the controuersies thereto belonging. Collected and translated out of all the best authors of anatomy, especially out of Gasper Bauhinus and Andreas Laurentius. By Helkiah Crooke Doctor of Physicke, physitian to His Maiestie, and his Highnesse professor in anatomy and chyrurgerie. Published by the Kings Maiesties especiall direction and warrant according to the first integrity, as it was originally written by the author.

QVEST. IX. Whether the menstruous bloud be the cause of those Meazels and small Pocks which are wont once in a mans life to trouble him.

IT belongeth not to this place to dispute of the Nature, differences and all the causes of the small pockes, as also whether the varioli, morbilli, exanthe∣mata, and ecthymata be of one and the same Nature or no; wee will onely touch that which pertayneth to our present purpose.

It is a very obscure question which hath a great while exercised the wits * 1.1 of many men, Whether the small Pocks and Meazels which are wont once in a mans life to happen vnto him, doe come by reason of the impurity of the menstruall bloud. I will not heere enlarge my selfe to reckon vp vnto you all the opinions of all men which haue

written of this question, but onely tell you what we thinke and that as shortly and perspi∣cuously as the Nature of the cause will giue leaue. It is a sure thing, that among ten thou∣sand * 1.2 men and women there can bee scarce one found who once in their life are not afflic∣ted with this disease. Auenzoar writeth that it is almost a miracle if any man escape them. It is therefore a common disease because it taketh hold of all men.

Now it is Hippocrates resolution in his Booke de Natura hominis, that common diseases haue also common causes. When many men at the same time labour of the same disease, wee determine that the cause of that disease is common. But what cause may this be that is so com∣mon to all men? Not the ayre, for we doe not all breath the same ayre; one man liueth in an impure ayre, another in a pure; one inhabiteth in the North another in the South; wher∣fore * 1.3 it must be some Principle which is this common cause. This Principle the Arabians first of all men acknowledged to be the Menstrual blood (as Auicen, Auenzoar, Halyabas and Auerrhoes) wherof the Parenchymata of the bowels are gathered and the particular particles of the Infant are nourished.

For though this blood bee pure and laudable, yet by the permixtion of the humours which fall from all the partes of the body vnto the wombe as it were into the common poomp or sinke it becommeth impure; whence it is that as well the spermaticall as the fle∣shie partes beeing defyled with that corruption, are of necessitie once in a mannes lyfe cleansed and depurated, no otherwise then VVine in the caske woorketh and cleanseth it selfe.

The trueth of this opinion that it may appeare more cleare, we wil see what may be ob∣iected to it, and discusse the same as carefully as wee can, that no scruple may bee lefte be∣hinde.

The Infant is nourished with pure blood. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 sayeth Hippocrates in his Booke de Na∣tura pueri, * 1.4 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, It draweth out of the bloud that which is the sweetest: and therefore there cannot any euill quality settle vppon the solide or fleshy partes. I an∣swere out of the sixt Chapter of Galens first Booke de causis Symptomatum: That the In∣fant whilest it is young and small in the first monethes, draweth the purest part of blood; but when it becommeth larger then it draweth the pure and impure together promiscu∣ously: or we say, that the blood that the Infant draweth out of the veynes wherewith it is nourished is of it owne Nature pure, but is defyled by the humours which are wont to be purged by the wombe. For Aristotle sayeth in his tenth Booke de Historia Animalium, that the wombe is a seruile member, ordained to expell those things of which the body behoo∣ueth to be purged.

Againe they obiect, if the small poxe grow vpon the impurity of the menstrual blood, * 1.5 why is not that ebullition or boyling of the bloud instantly in the first monethes when the Infant is tender and weake, and there is the greatest disposition of the causes moouing thereunto; but after many yeares yea sometimes not before olde age? why doe not acute Agues or other diseases which happen in the life time cleanse the body of that corrup∣tion?

Wee answere out of Hippocrates, that one age differeth from another and one Nature * 1.6 from another. A poyson wil sometimes lurke in the body more yeares then one, which in the end will bewray it selfe and either oppresse Nature or bee ouercome by it and auoided. So the virulency and poyson of the French disease and of the Leprosie will lie hid for some yeares, and the poyson of a mad dog a great while before it shew it selfe.

Their third reason is That some men are troubled with the smal pox oftner then once yea * 1.7 many times, and therfore they procced other-whence then from the infection of the men∣struall blood. But this is a childish argument; for the disease doth therefore returne because * 1.8 haply the expulsiue faculty is weak and thereupon there remaine some reliques of the mat∣ter of the disease: so sayth Hippocrates in the 12. Aphorisme of the 2. Section. The remayn∣ders or reliques of diseases are wont to be the causes of relapses.

Their fourth reason is, the menstruall blood is turned into the substance of the parts by nutrition; now the parts do not suffer any ebullition but the humors onely, it is therefore * 1.9 absurd to imagine that the pox should be generated of their heat or working; to whom we answere thus. The solid parts do not indeed worke or suffer ebullition, but they doe infect * 1.10 the humors with that quality which they acquire from the impurity of the mēstruall bloud, which humors boiling and being offensiue to nature, are thrust out into the skin; insomuch as the parts themselues are purged by that working which is in the blood.

So musty vessels (saith Auenzoar) do infect the wine conteined in them, but if the wine do worke in a musty vessell, then it becommeth sweete euer after.

The fifte reason is, if the poxe do arise out of the impurity of the Menstruall bloode why then are not women ouer taken with the pox when their courses are stopped? We answer, * 1.11 that the blood so suppressed is onely in the veins, and is not sprinkled through the substance of the parts, and therefore doth not set••le that malignant quality in the solid parts.

Their sixt reason. Why are not brute beasts which are full of blood and haue those mo∣nethly euacuations the matter you say of the poxe, and a working heate beside? why haue * 1.12 not such beasts the pox also? Haply, because they vse a drier kinde of nourishment and be∣side lead their whol life in labor and exercise, whence it is that the reliques of their impure blood are spent and euaporated. But a man in his tender infancy sucke aboundantly, and after he is wayned neuer ceaseth eating, and beside the first seauen yeares of his age hee spendeth in great idlenesse.

Finally, seeing the fault of the Mothers blood hath continued euer since the beginning * 1.13 of the world, so that this disease should haue beene the most anncient of all others, howe commeth it to passe that neither Hippocrates nor Galen, nor any of the Graecians did euer make any mention thereof; insomuch that it seemeth to be a new disease knowne onelie to the Moores? It is not likely therefore that it proceedeth from the impurity of the Mothers blood.

But we say that it is very likely that the disease was of old time, but because men were more continent and liued in better order then now they do, it was not so ordinary in the former * 1.14 times as now it is. Hippoc. in his Books Epidemiωn doth often make mention of red, round, & small Pustules which he calleth Exanthemata; and Aetius in his 14. Book saith, that chil∣dren had certaine Pustules or whelkes which brake out all ouer their bodies. I do not there∣fore thinke that this disease was altogether vnknowne to the Grecians, but haply not so a∣curately described, because in those dayes by reason of their good dyet, the symptoms or accidents of the disease were not so dangerous. So euen at this day we haue knowne ma∣ny full of the poxe without either Ague or vomiting, or any notable disease at all; and chil∣dren oftentimes haue them and know not of it till they be gone.

They which referre the cause of the poxe to the malignant disposition of the aer, are in * 1.15 my opinion fat wide, for then we must needs acknowledge that the aer is alwaies infected, because we see Children haue them at all times and seasons and euery year. Neyther then would the disease haunt children onely, but olde folke also as the plague dooth; neither would it happen onely once in a mans life, but as often as the aer is so affected, as it dooth in the plague and other Epidemiall and pestilent diseases which come from the aer.

Mercurialis that learned man in an elegant Booke hee set out concerning the diseases of * 1.16 children resolueth many and those very obscure problemes of the nature & causes of these small pox; but endeauouring to establish a new and vnheard of cause of them, he seemeth to be mistaken.

His opinion is, that the pox is a new disease vnknowne altogether to the Grecians, and that it spring first of all from the ill disposition of the heauens and the aer, and raged almost vpon all men; who afterward being themselues tainted, conferred the succession of the di∣sease vpon their posterities. For as a gowty Father begetteth a gowty child, and a leprous father a leprous childe, an Epilepticall father an Epilepticall childe, why also should not a father infected with this poisonous disease communicate the same disposition to his child? These things may seeme to some very probable, but if we looke more narrowly into them, they will scarse hold water as we say.

For to knit vp all in few words, Hereditary diseases are not communicated from the Fa∣ther or Mother to the childe, but by seede. These seeds containe in them potentially the I∣dea, * 1.17 Formes and Proprieties of all the partes. So the seede of an arthriticall or calculous Father hath in it the disposition of the gowt or the stone; wherfore that disposition of the pox must remaine in the solid parts of the parent. But in those who haue had the poxe and are perfectly recouerd of them, there remaineth no corruption nor any such disposition as being wholly euacuated by criticall excretion and eruption of the postles; otherwise out of doubt the disease would againe returne. How therefore shall they communicate vnto their children that poysonous disposition which now they themselues haue not in their so∣lid parts. Neither are all diseases hereditary, but those onely which are in beeing in a mans * 1.18 body, and therefore putrid Agues and such other diseases as happen by accident, are not

communicated to the children. Now at that time when this disease first began to rage, it must needs be granted that it was as we say in Schooles Morbus Fiens, that is, a disease not * 1.19 subsisting but breeding, hauing his hearth or seate in the corruption of the humours, and therefore it could not be communicated to the children. Add hereto, that if these things were so, it would follow, that as we are all once in our liues troubled with the pox, so wee should once in our liues be troubled with the plague. For the time hath beene vvhen the * 1.20 plague raged so fierce that few men escaped it. As is the poxe so is the plague a common disease contracted from the fault and impurity of the aer, why then should not our parents leaue vs also that vnwelcome inheritance as well as they do the pox?

We conclude therefore with the Arabians, that the cause of the poxe is the impurity of the Mothers blood wherewith the infant is nourished, which impurity it acquireth as well * 1.21 by his stay in the body beyond the limited time, as also from the permixtion of the humors which fall into the womb as vnto the sinke of the body.

Notes

• * 1.1

  The question
• * 1.2

  All men haue once the smal¦pox.
• * 1.3

  The opinion of the Arabi∣ans that they come of the impurity of the courses.
• * 1.4

  Reasons to the contrary. First Answered.
• * 1.5

  Second.
• * 1.6

  Answered.
• * 1.7

  Third.
• * 1.8

  Answered.
• * 1.9

  Fourth.
• * 1.10

  Answered.
• * 1.11

  Fift. Answered
• * 1.12

  Sixt Answered.
• * 1.13

  Seauenth.
• * 1.14

  Answered.
• * 1.15

  Fernelius his opinion con∣futed.
• * 1.16

  Mercurialis his opinion.
• * 1.17

  The first Rea∣son.
• * 1.18

  What diseases are heredita¦ry.
• * 1.19

  Morbus Fiens.
• * 1.20

  The second.
• * 1.21

  The conclusi∣on with the Arabians.