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. I. How the Haires are nourished.

THe controuersies concerning the haires, how they are nouri∣shed or otherwise encreased, although it bee a matter of no great necessity, yet is it very difficult and full of Philosophical subtility. That they doe encrease from short to long, is not doubted: so also it is past question that nutrition goeth before accretion. Galen in his first Booke De Naturalibus facultatibus, and in the second De Temperamentis saith, that their generati∣on is like the generation of plants; and yet in his Book de Arte Medicinali; in the ninth chapter, where hee treateth of the dif∣ferences of the members, he saith, they haue onely a genera∣tion, no gouernment; that is to say, they are generated of recrements, but not nourished or gouerned by any Naturall faculty. And in his second Booke de Temperamentis he thus expresseth their production. But if the vapour be sooty, thicke, and earthy, it remaineth im∣pacted in the straight breathing pores of the skin, neyther easily returning backeward, nor easilie euacuated; wherefore another vapour succeeding from within, striketh the former and thrusteth it outward, and so one vapour following another, they are in time complicated and conioyned, & make a roping body like the soote in a Chimney, but are not nourished at all by the assistance of any Facultie.

Hence it appeareth, that they are onely excrements, and their auction is but an im∣proper accretion, vtterly deuoide of life, and therefore they are not to be reckoned among the parts of the body; or if they be, it is not because they do participate of life, but because they haue other vses of couering, ornament, and such like, as before in their history is ex∣pressed. But there are some of Aristotles followers, who contend that they haue a life, but that of nourishment onely, not of sense. Which distinction seemeth to mee to bee very friuolous. For if you take from them any part of life, you must also take away all life. Be∣side

the very substance of the haire so dry and without sence, is a manifest euidence that they cannot be truly nourished. For if they assume an Aliment into themselues, and alter it for their behoofe, what should hinder that they should not encrease according to al the dimensions, length, bredth, and thicknesse? but we see manifestly, that they only encrease in length, & not otherwise, receyuing their additament or aliment, whether you wil cal it, onely at their rootes, not as other parts equally on euery side. It will be obiected, that the nailes and the teeth do also receiue their aliment after the same manner, and yet they are * 1.1 liuing parts. We answere, there is great difference. For the Nailes and the Teeth haue all kinds of Vessels, Veines, Arteries, and Nerues, inserted into their roots, by which they * 1.2 receyue nourishment and sence, so haue not the Haires; and the reason why they are one∣ly nourished at their roots, is because Nature foresawe, that by continuall attrition and collision they would soone be worne away, vnlesse new matter were supplied vnto them at their roots; and truly we willingly confesse, that the extreme parts of the nailes & teeth which are farthest from their roots do not liue, neyther are nourished properly, but onely * 1.3 are driuen forward by apposition and impulsion like as the Haires are. But it should seeme that the nature of the Haires and of the nailes is all one, because they both increase in dead carkasses. Wherefore if the nayles be nourished, why should it be denied that the haires also do grow by nourishment?

Heereto we answer, that true it is, aswell the nailes as the haires do shoot out after death; but the maner is not alike, for the haires do, so and from the same causes grow in length af∣ter death, as they did before; he heat of corruption and putrifaction seruing as well, so long as the matter lasteth, to driue out the excrement after death, as the naturall heate did while the man was on liue; but the nailes do not grow as they did in the life time, but onely be∣come more prominent, the adiacent parts sinking from them, as being consumed by pu∣trifaction. But it may further bee vrged, That the nature of a putrified excrement when * 1.4 it is not ouer-ruled by the faculty, is not to breath outward to the Circumference, but to gather inward vnto the place where the most putrified matter is; and this is daily obserued euen in liuing bodies, that till the offending humour be brought into subiection vnto na∣ture, and receiue a kinde of mitigation, it gathereth still to the center; afterwarde, nature hauing gotten the victory, she driueth it as farre from her as is possible, euen to the skin; as we see it falleth out in Criticall sweats, in the Meazels, small Pocks, and such like. Now if the putred excrement haue no disposition to the Circūference in liuing bodies when the secret passages of the body are open, the skin porous, & the faculties euery where at work; how shal it passe that way after those passages and pores are falne, the habit forsaken of the spirit, & the trāspirable wayes locked vp vnder the seale of death? It seemeth therfore more reasonable to thinke that the matter of the haires which is added after death, was a surplu∣sage of the last concoction celebrated in the habit of the body, and remaining in the extre∣mities of the vessels which determine in the skin, which being in that place intercepted by the extinction of naturall heate, and hauing no spirits to guide it backward; yet hauing be∣fore attained the perfection which the faculty could impart vnto it, worketh it selfe a way through the skin. But this knot will easily bee vntied, if we consider that after death the * 1.5 haires do not grow or encrease in any place of the body, but onely in such, as wherein there were haires standing in the time of life, to the roots whereof, as I saide before, the heat pro∣ceeding from putrifaction, is sufficient to driue, though not any humor, yet a vapor which may passe where the way was before thrilled and bored, but cannot where the skinne was not notably perforated. Againe, there is a double limit, beyond which the excrescence of the Haire dooth not proceede. For if either the confluence of the vapour to those pores make a dampe, as in processe of time it will, or the putrifaction of the vapour grow to a Venom, then the Haires cease to encrease, but fall not so soon in dead carkasses as in liuing men, because the aire exiccateth and drieth the skin wherein the roots are fastned; but in those that are aliue whose skin is open, they fall not vpon a dampe, for there can be no such thing in a liuing body, but vpon a confluence of a venemous vapor, as we see in the French disease and the Leprosie. And so much of the Haires.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Obiection.
• * 1.2

  Answere.
• * 1.3

  Obiection. That Haires and Nayles are both of one Nature. Answere.
• * 1.4

  Obiection.
• * 1.5

  Answere.