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. CXIV. The nourishing of an Infant for Long Life. (Book 114)

IT is already manifest, that Life is not from the Stars: but that from a seminary Facul∣ty of the Parents, Life is short, Diseasie, Healthy, and Growing: For it is limited ac∣cording to the Disposition of the Seed, and Truncks of the Body, no less also according to the goodness of Nourishments and Climates. Among the Impediments of Long Life, is an infirm Constitution of the Young, and a bad nourishing of the Infant.

The Young therefore being generated and brought forth, the quantity and quality of the Nourishment is to be regarded; seeing its little Body ought to be nourished, and to wax great, and so to be setled or confirmed: And it is now chiefly known, that the nourish∣able Juice in a Child, is adopted into the Inheritance of the radical Moisture: For Nature hath appointed Milk in the Dugs, for the Meat and Drink of the little Infant; which Nourishment hath rendred it self common unto him, with Bruit-beasts.

It might be thought by some, that it would be injurious unto God, if we should think of any other Nourishment; as if he had not alwayes chosen out of Means, that which should be most exceeding good: But surely, shall not the God of Nature be a Step-father, and Nature her self a Step-mother, because he made not Bread, not Wine, but Grain and Grapes only?

Nature is governed by the Finger of God. It is thus.

Milk therefore, as an ordinary Nourishment, hath afforded a sufficiency for living; but not that it should be serviceable for long Life: For Nature no longer meditated of long Life, after that she knew her Author had cut short the Life, nor would have every one to be long lived: But he hath given Milk for Food, unto every one alike: For he hath sent an Army of Diseases into Nature, that a thousand fore-ripenesses of Death might bend unto the Foundations of Life, for Ruine.

Nature therefore by Milk, satisfies the ends of her Author, and hath afforded a beast∣like Nourishment: But the Doctrine of long Life, is exceeding diverse; in its unfold∣ing and I know that it hath remained in secret, even among those that have been divinely chosen the Sons of Art.

The present Doctrine therefore, hath not regard unto the ordinary course of Nature; but unto a new mark.

Therefore, I do not think that I am injurious to Nature, if I shall prefer an unwonted Nourishment before Milk: For truly in Milk, very many Discommodities do in∣vade.

First of all, Milk waxing clotty, very often produceth frequent Vomitings, Wormes, Wringings of the Bowels, Fevers, Fluxes, Falling-sicknesses, Convulsions, and contains many unthought of Occasions of Death: For Milk in the Stomack, obeying the proper Ferment of the place, doth of necessity wax sour before that it turn into Nourishment; whereunto, if a new sucking of milk succeedeth, an hard clot of milk lays on the little tender Stomack, which becoming callous or brawny hard, into small clods, counterfeits tough Cheese; not much otherwise, than as milk doth oft-times grow together within the Dugs, and breakes not forth but with an Apostem: the which, seeing it stubbornly resists Digestion, if it shall not also be exceeding hurtful, at least-wise, it presently putrifies, growes bitter, waxes yellow, becomes green, contracts a burntishness, and estrangeth the Pylorus or lower Mouth of the Stomack; from whence the aforesaid Slaughters of Diseases are often stirred up: For an Infant sucks long, and frequently repeats it. The first Milk is curdled, another new milk is sent in the third and sixth time, and there is made a co-mixture of them all, and a strange one being sharp or four, besides Nature, is stirred up with howlings, and a common curd is made of them all: In which are the

manifestations of Heterogeneity or diversity of kind, and a co-resemblance of a cheesed, burntish, and putrified matter follows the new Milk.

These Vices are almost unavoidable, and they are the material offences of the milk, which the new Young being brought forth, begins from the beginning to expiate; as though from the birth, the Mother doth frame snares, and the threatnings of Death for her little Infant.

There are moreover, other faults of the milk, pernicious by a more hidden gore: For not only the Pox, Leprosie, Plagues, and Fevers (infamous through contagion) are sucked from the Nurses: but also, a diseasie Inclination of the Nurses, is stamped on the Child from his Cradle, no otherwise than as if it were hereditary.

Surely, it is a Character to be bewailed from his Life time.

I knew a certain Governour, blessed with a Sixth, and sound Off-spring, whose seventh (because he was nourished by a Nurse who was subjected to the Stone of the Kidneys) with a mournful Disease of the Stone, finished his Life on the 13th Year of his Age, under cutting for the Stone, at the third cutting.

In the next place, it is not sufficient for the material Diseases of the Milk, the hidden Consumptions of Diseases, and their hereditary Roots, to be transplanted by the milk into the sucking Infant, and to be most stubbornly incorporated into the Life: But also the morral Seminaries of any kinde of Vices do pierce inwardly with the milk, and pre∣severes for the term of Life.

So I have observed, that a leacherous, theevish, covetous, and wrothful Nurse, hath transferred her Frailty on the Children.

So an unwonted blockishnesse, anger, madnesse, and many Passions of the Mind (also beside moral Defects) sleeping a long while, and at length, being under the maturity of Dayes, unfolded, do bewray themselves on Families, they being begged from Nurses, and propagated by the Milk.

Then in the next place, the Milk being as yet in the Nurse, is in danger to be mortified or wax stinking, if the Nurse be privily gotten with Child, doth partake of Fevers and Maladies which are after some manner bred, for the infecting of the Milk.

Lastly, the Milk undergoes diverse Impressions every hour, from all the disturbances of the Mind; from whence it not only waxeth clotty, and putrifies or stinks: but also by an unsensible quality it puts on Deformities, which the guiltless Infant drinks, and is held to pay the punishment of: For the Nurse doth not alwayes bridle her Mind with one te∣nor; but she failes, being sore smitten with a thousand Apprehensions of Anger, Sorrow, Agony, Envy, Wantonness, Theft, Covetousness, &c. all whereof, there is no doubt, but that they badly dispose the Milk, as well in respect of the Body, as the Soul: For they are most of them unavoidable, yet dangerous.

Whosoever therefore would study long Life from the Birth, let him not expose his Children unto this sort of voluntary, unthought of, and certain Dangers. By how much the rather, because a Medicine for Long Life, as it is dayly (from the Cradle) extend∣ed for a long and healthy Life, by drops, cannot be digested, as neither Penetrate, if it be burred within the gross clots of Milk: Because so also, Poysons in the Milk, do well nigh become unhurtful, and being as it were gelded, become barren.

I therefore have hated the oft extended nourishing of an Infant by Milk: For this Cause, I am not wont to eat milk, unless it be meer or unmixt, alone, without o∣ther Meat and Drink, until that it being fully digested, hath slidden out of the Sto∣mack.

I praise, for our Child, Nourishments which are made of Bread boyled so long in thin Ale, with clarified Honey, if not, with Sugar, until they shall come together into the likeness of a Museilage, or Glew or Jelly: Then as much thin Ale is mingled with, and washed on this Jelly, as is sufficient for it to serve instead of Drink.

Nevertheless, he must abstain from Rye-bread, if he be nourished with Honey, be∣cause it breedeth Wormes: Yea, a piece of that Bread being cast into a Vessel of Honey, it passeth into Ants.

After this manner, I bad (among others) the Son of an Earle to he nourished from his Birth, who far exceeded his three Brethren in Strength, Health, Stature, Wit, and all Valour, and so that, if he had not died in war, as being pierced thorow with a Bullet by a warlick Hand, he had been of great hope. For indeed, as the aforesaid Meat and Drink is harmless, not putrifying, not coagulable, not stubborn against Digestion (for whatso∣ever things are fetch'd from living Creatures, do easily putrifie in the more tender Sto∣macks) as neither a partaker of Malignity, or of a forreign unstable Disturbance, or the

Heir of an induced vitious Impression: So it is alwayes equal, like, and constant to it self, becomes most familiar to Nature, not wormy, not sharp, not stinking, or of a burntish Savour; in the next place, not tart, acute, feverish, yea, nor ever hurtful, although it shall exceed in quantity, for more, or less, may be washed off: So also, the Infant growes and waxeth of ripe Years without Diseases, and is made capable of a Remedy for a Life of long continuance.

Therefore also according to the Letter, it is not badly read concerning the thrice glori∣ous Messias being incarnated, That he shall eat Butter, and Honey: For truly, the one con∣tains the Glory of a Dew, together with the extraction of Flowers: But the other is the Magistery almost of all Herbs: Therefore he shall eat Butter, but not Milk: From whence the discerning of the Good from the Evil, and the sharpness of Judgment is promised. But the strength of dayes increasing, let our Child accustom himself to the more vigorous and hard Meats; yet I fitly praise a Mean or Moderation. But let him take twice every day, four Drops of the Tree of Life.