Arcana microcosmi, or, The hid secrets of man's body discovered in an anatomical duel between Aristotle and Galen concerning the parts thereof : as also, by a discovery of the strange and marveilous diseases, symptomes & accidents of man's body : with a refutation of Doctor Brown's Vulgar errors, the Lord Bacon's natural history, and Doctor Harvy's book, De generatione, Comenius, and others : whereto is annexed a letter from Doctor Pr. to the author, and his answer thereto, touching Doctor Harvy's book De Generatione / by A.R.

CHAP. VIII.

1. Bloud, milk, &c. No integral parts. 2. How the parts draw their aliment. 3. And expel things hurtful. 4. Of the intestines and faeces. 5. The intestines retentive faculty. 6. Of the stomach and its appetite or sense. 7. Whether the stomach is nourished by Chylus or bloud.

I BLOOD, Milk, Fat, Marrow, are not properly integral parts of our bodies, for the body is perfect in its limbs and members, without these; and these in time of hunger, nourish the body, whereas one part cannot be the aliment of another; besides every part hath its figure and shape,

but these have none; yet in a large sense they may bee called parts, as they help to make up the whole.

II. As the Loadstone draweth Iron, and Plants nutriment from the earth, so doth every part of our bodies draw that ali∣ment which is most proper for it: some by the help of the fi∣bres, as the heart in its Diastole draws blood from Vena cava in∣to its right ventricle by the help of the fibres: some without their help, as bones, grissles, and ligaments. So the Intestines draw without fibers, the Chylus from the Ventricle, with which they are delighted; and they draw blood from the Meseraick veins, with which they are nourished; and the same veines draw the purer part of the Chylus from the Intestines for san∣guification.

III. The same part that draws things needful, expels the same things when they grow superfluous or hurtful: thus the ventricles expel the Chylus into the Intestines, and these ex∣pel their gros••er and excrementitious parts out of the body: so the heart expels by its transverse fibers, blood, and spirits, and hurtful vapours too. And indeed nature is more solicitous in expelling of things hurtful, then in attracting of things need∣ful. Thus we see in dying people, that expiration is stronger then inspiration, nature being more willing to be rid of hurt∣ful vapours, then to receive fresh aire: so when the intestines are affected with inflammations, obstructions, or ulcerations, that they cannot send the excrement downward, they force it up∣ward into the stomach again, and so expel it by the mouth, as in the Iliaca passio.

IV. The expulsion of the Foeces is partly the natural or pe∣ristaltick motion of the intestines, and partly the voluntary motion of the muscles of the Abdomen; which muscles being contracted, presse the intestine. 2. There are straight Fibe••s in the intestine, called Rectum, not so much for attraction, as for strengthning the circular Fiber••. 3. The Colon is s••ated uppermost neer to the bottome of the stomach, and hollow∣nesse of the liver, tha•• by the touch of these parts, the re∣mainders of the meat which are in the cels of the Colon, might be better concocted. 4. The stink of the foeces proceed partly from the superfluous humidity, which is the mother of putre∣faction; and partly from the heat of the intestin, which though it be natural to the aliment which it concocts, yet it is external to the excrement which it expels. 5. The length of the in∣testins, which are seven times as long as the body, and ••he many winding•• or folds of them, besides the Val••ula

or shutter in the end of the Coecum, do shew that the injecti∣ons by the fundament can ascend no higher then the blind intestine, except there be any of those three distempers in the guts, which I mentioned but now, or else the stomach be distempered by Bulimia; for in such a case it will draw the foeces to it. 6. Clysters are sometimes carried to the liver by means of the meseraick veins, which suck some part of it from the intestins.

V. The substance, temper, and colour of the intestines and ventricles, is the same; therefore the Chylus is not only con∣cocted in the ventricle, but in the intestins also; and as the one of these members is affected, so is the other. 2. As in the intestines there is an attractive, concoctive, and expulsive fa∣culty, so there is also a retentive; for all these affections are in the ventricle which is of the same substance with the inte∣stines. To what end are stiptick or restringent medicaments, used in Fluxes, but to corroborate the retentive faculty of the intestins; in the lientery the meat passeth away without conco∣ction, because the re••••ntive facul••y both of the ventricle and intestins is hurt.

VI. The mouth of the stomach being united to the Dia∣phragma, and this to the breast-bone, is the cause that we find much pain about this bone, when the mouth of the stomach is ill-affected. 2. In the mouth of the stomach is the ••ea•• of appetite, by reason of the two stomachical nerves th••re, which when they are refrigerated or obstru••t••d, the appetite is dissol∣ved: as in B••limia, where there is a continual attraction from the stomach, but no sense or appetite; but when the stomach is molested with cold and s••wre humours, there is a continu∣all sense or appetite, though there be no inanition of the part, as in the disease called the Dogs appetite. 3. By reason of the sympathy that is between the mouth of the stomach, and the heart, they had of old the same name, and they have the same symptomes. 4. The appetite being an animal faculty, ••ath its seat in the braine originally, in the stomach subjective∣ly; the faculty is in both, but the action onely in the sto∣mach.

VII. Though the stomach be delighted and satisfied with the meat it receiveth; yet it is not thereby immediately and properly nourished, but by the blood; therefore nature hath furnished it with divers veins: neither can the Chylus be fi•• nu∣triment, till it be turned into blood, & the cholerick, melancholy & watrish excrements be separated from it. Besides, how can the

stomach be nourished with Chylus, when the body is red only by Clysters, which the liver sanguifies: or how are those crea∣tures fed with Chylus, which eat not, but sleep all the Win∣ter. Th•• animal or sensitive hunger therefore of the ventricle, is satisfied upon the receiving of meat; but its natural hunger is not satisfied till the blood be converted into its substance.