The divine physician, prescribing rules for the prevention, and cure of most diseases, as well of the body, as the soul demonstrating by natural reason, and also divine and humane testimony, that, as vicious and irregular actions and affections prove often occasions of most bodily diseases, and shortness of life, so the contrary do conduce to the preservation of health, and prolongation of life : in two parts / by J.H ...

SECT. I. Of Gluttony.

THis is such a sin, as Christ gives us a strict Caution against it: Take heed to your selves, lest at any time your hearts be over-charged with surfeiting, &c. And as it is a sin; so a Mother-sin, fruitful in the production of other sins, Deut. 21, 20. yea

fruitful also in diseases of the body. The Stoicks imputed all diseases to age; but Era∣sistratus did not ill to ascribe all, or most of them to excess in eating: For if a Man feed too much (as a Physician saith) these discom∣modities arise thereof, all Natural Spirits leave their several standings, and run head∣long to the stomack to perfit Concoction; which if with all their forces they cannot perform, then brain and body are over-ma∣stered with heavy vapours, and humours, so that he is ever under the arrest of some disease, or in danger of it. Multos morbos fercula multa faciunt, Many dishes bring or cause many diseases: It was the observation of temperate Seneca; and it is not with∣out reason: For Physicians do affirm, that crudities (the fruits of repletion) are the nurseries of all those diseases, wherewith Men are ordinarily vexed. Now that which we call crudities, is the imperfect Conco∣ction of food; for when the stomack, ei∣ther through the excess of Meat, or for the variety taken at one meal, or some other evil quality, doth imperfectly di∣gest what it hath received, the juice of

the Meat so taken, is said to be crude, that is to say, raw or to have a cruditie in it, which is the occasion of many inconve∣niences.

For in the first place, they do fill the brain with many phlegmatick excrements, and overheat the bowels, whereupon ma∣ny obstructions are bred in the narrow passages of them: Moreover these cru∣duties do corrupt the temper of the whole body, and stuff the veins with putrid hu∣mours; from whence proceed many grie∣vous diseases; for when the first Chylus is crude, and what we eat is malignantly concocted, it is impossible (to speak as to the less Modern opinion) that any good blood can be bred in the second Chylus of the Liver, for the second Concoction can never amend the first. Again these cru∣dities are the cause that the veins through the whole body, are replenished with foul, and with impure blood, and ming∣led with many humour, which do break forth into desperate Diseases. And this may be more fully seen, if we shall make make an inspection into a Treatise of

Doctor Charlton's Exercitationes Pathologicae p. 70. wherein we may observe how, and after what manner, food becomes the cause or matter of diseases. Or if a sum of what he more largely deliberates upon, may be satisfactory, take it thus: From an ingurgitation of food, beyond the strength of Nature, ariseth a Repletion; from a Reple∣tion flow a Plethora, or an Exuperance of good humours; and when these by a continual mo∣tion have increased to corruption and putrifa∣ction, there soon follows a Cachochymia, or a re∣dundance of ill Humours, and out of these two spring a most fruitful field of diseases. Hence arise Feavers, Inflammations, Tumours, Swel∣lings, Irruption of the Vessels, bleeding at the Nose, Apoplexies, Cathexy, or ill disposition of the Body, when the nourishment is converted to ill humours; Scabiness, Leprosie, and innumer∣able other diseases: For (saith he, p. 71.) quid mali, precor, est quod à corrupto sanguine non expectes, ac time as? What evil distemper, I pray, is there, but may be both expected, and feared to arise from a corrupt blood? Thus you see, Gluttony is a Nurse to innumera∣ble diseases.

But this is not all; it is a cut-throat to innumerable Persons, (according to the Proverb, Intemperance is a cut-throat) de∣stroying Man's life frequently, and sud∣denly, according to that known saying, By Suppers, and Surfeits more have been kil∣led, than Galen ever cured. Yea by surfeit∣ing have many perished, as saith the Son of Sirach, Eccl. 37. 31. Thus Gluttons dig their graves with their teeth, whil'st their Kitchin is their Shrine, their Cook their Priest, their Table their Altar, and their Belly their God. Hence also it is said, That Meat kills as many as the Musket; and that Pluaes pereunt crapulâ, quam capulo; lanti∣bus, quam lanteis; The board kills more than the sword. I have read that the Spartans, to deter others from Luxurious feeding, erected Statues, to represent the fatal, and fearsul end of those that were given to riot. What Schollar hath not read in He∣rodotus, of the Minstrel of Megara, (whose girdle in the wast was three yards and a half long) or of Milo Crotoniates that great Pamphagus? Athen. l. 10. c. 1. yet they died both very weak Men, and young, by

oppressing Nature. History records of the Scots, that they punished * 1.1 their Belly-gods in this sort: First, they filled their bellies as full of good Meat as ever they could hold, then they gagged them, and threw them into the next River with their arms pin∣nion'd, saying, Now as thou hast eaten too much, so drink too much. But they should not have needed to punish them by such an artificial destruction; for had they waited with a little patience, they might have observed this sin to be its own natu∣ral punishment, destroying more frequent∣ly, and more generally, than any other means: For Life (as one saith) is a lamp, excess in Meat doth shorten the one, as too much Oyl extinguisheth the other. The Glut∣ton then turning that into an occasion of death, which was given for preservation of life, seldom or never lives long: But as he is hateful unto God in idolizing his belly; so he is hurtful to himself, as a Felo de se, in hastning his own death.

Now if any should here require some Rules of Temperance in eating, whereby

they may know, how to limit themselves within due bounds; that so they may not run out upon the borders of Intemperance; I must suspend that enquiry with its full determination, until I shall have positive∣ly treated of Temperance in general: On∣ly thus much may be inserted here, which Doctor Muffet, a famous Physician hath written in his Book of Health's Improve∣ment. Fools and Idiots (saith he) know you when your Horse, and your Hawk, and your Dog have enough, and are you ignorant what measure to allow your selves? Who will urge his Horse to eat too much, or cram his Hawk till she be over-gorged, or feed his Hound till his tail leave waving? And shall Man, the measurer of Heaven and Earth, be ig∣norant, how in Diet to measure the bigness or strength of his own stomack? Knows he by signs when they are over-filled; and is he ig∣norant of the signs of repletion in himself? namely of satiety, loathing, drowsiness, stiff∣ness, weakness, weariness, heaviness, and belching? But we will pass over this, and treat of the other branch of Intemperance which follows.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Hector Boeth. History of Scot∣land.