Van Helmont's works containing his most excellent philosophy, physick, chirurgery, anatomy : wherein the philosophy of the schools is examined, their errors refuted, and the whole body of physick reformed and rectified : being a new rise and progresse of philosophy and medicine, for the cure of diseases, and lengthening of life / made English by J.C. ...

CHAP. CVI. The manifold Life in Man. (Book 106)

I Have shewn elsewhere, that there is in the Womb a Monarch-ship, and therefore also a singular Life: To wit, whereby after the Death of a Woman, it as yet casts forth the Young.

I have also seen a Woman, which was never taken with the Falling-evil, but when the Pain of Travel was urgent; neither also did it cease, but after delivery. I have shewn also, that there doth live a certain piece of Flesh of a spleen-like Form, grown up indeed between the secundines, and hollow places of the Womb; and that its Life is pro∣per to it self, so as that it lives not by the Life of the Mother, or Young, but by a certain promiscuous Life, not indeed by a sensitive Life, although it flourisheth with a certain vi∣tal Power; but not through favour of a certain herby or vegetative Soul.

At length also, that the Veins have their own Life as yet remaining in them after the Death of a Man, whereby it preserveth the Blood detained in them, from coagulation, and in this respect, illustrates it with a certain Life for many dayes after the Death of the Per∣sons.

Wherefore that there is another Life of the Veins, whereby they not only live; but do also conserve the Blood it self, in Life.

Last of all, I have also demonstrated, that there is a certain peculiar Life in the Mus∣cles, together with the sensitive and motive Faculties, whereby they all extend themselves with a fearful Convulsion, at the percievance of Death: As is manifest in a Tetanus, in Rigours or cold shaking Fits, and Convulsions, wherein as well in those that are alive, as after Death, the Muscles are moved with an unvoluntary will, even after the extin∣guishment of Life. And although these Lives are distinguished by their various Subjects, and are manifested by their diversity of Offices, yet they all arise originally from the Seed, they are furious or cruel ones, they are implanted in their own Subjects, and are in the whole or entire Life, as in the total Form of the Parts. Wherefore neither are they to be considered in the Treatise of Long Life; because they are those which perish without the hope of Fewel, at least-wise presently after the Death of the Man: Yet are they memo∣rable in the successive Alterations, and curative betokening of Diseases.