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. Of divers and strange spleens. 2. Black urine. 3. One lived without sleep. 4. The Tarentula's effects and cure. The force of Musick. 5. Serpents begot of dead brains. 6. Of Tiberius his sight, Alexanders sweat. Strabo's eyes.

FAllopius in his Anatomical Observations, (l. 1.6.) writes, that he hath found three Spleens in one man, Gemma in his Cosmocritick speaks of two Spleens that he found; and hee writes of one who had the Spleen in the right side, and the Liver in the left, in l. 1. Cyclognomonick, p. 75. Some have Spleens of incredible bignesse and weight: others have them fastned to their breasts: others loose and swimming up and down: others again have had no Spleen at all, and such have died of the black jaundice: for the blood and skin could not but bee infected with that melancholy humour, wanting the Spleen, which is the proper receptacle of it.

II. For a man in a burning fever, or one that is oppressed with melancholy humours, to void black urine, is no wonder; but for one that is sound all the days of his life, to pisse black urine, as Petraeus sheweth, is somewhat strange, Disput. 5. de urinis, num. 22. But doubtless the constitution of that man was melancholick: for the black colour in any thing, is caused by the predominancy of earth: therefore ater quasi à terra: And earth is most predominant in melancholick tempers; besides, the watrinesse of natural heat may be the cause of black Urine.

III. Whereas the animal spirits and strength of our bo∣dies are wasted by watching; therefore sleep is ordained

to repair and refresh the decayed strength and spirits. Yet Fernelius (in his Pathology, lib. 5. c. 2.) speaks of one who lived without sleep 14 moneths. But this man was possessed with madnesse, whose brain being heated with adust melancho∣ly, did beget animal spirits without much wasting of them. Thus we see that hot and cholerick constitutions can endure longer without sleep, then cold and moist complexions.

IV. The effects of the Tarentula in mens bodies are strange and various, and no lesse strange is the cure: for their sting and poison cause some to laugh, some to weep, some drowsie and stupid, and some jovial and merry: These divers effects must proceed from the diversities of poison that is in them: for it seems these venomous creatures are not all of one kind; or els these doe proceed from the different constitutions and tempers of those men that are stung with them: Thus we see what different effects drunkennesse doth cause in men, and so doth musick; but whether this poisonable humour be cured by the musick, or by their dancing, and labour, by which the pores are opened, and the poison by sweat expelled, is questionable; but I think by both; for even in musick, there is great power over the minde and affections, and consequently over the dis∣eases and humours, which are mitigated or exasperated accor∣ding to the minde and affections. This we see in Sauls melan∣choly, which was cured by Davids Harp. Such force there was in Timothy the Milesian, that when he pleased he could by the power of his musick, make Alexander take up and lay downe Arms. Not to speak of that Dane, who by his musick could make men mild, sad, and merry at his pleasure.

V. That a Serpent should bee in gendred of a dead mans brain, is no more impossible then for Snakes or Eels to be be∣got of Horse hairs; or for divers sorts of beasts to breed in women upon depraved conceptions. And doubtlesse as Satan in the form of a Serpent, brought mortality upon mankind, so he doth sometimes triumph in that shape over mans mortality; God in his judgement permitting sometimes that dead brain to be turned into a Serpent, which when it was alive, did hatch so many Serpentine plots and imaginations.

VI. I read in Suetonius, that Tiberius the Emperour could see perfectly in the dark. And Curtius writes, that Alexander did smell sweetly when he sweat. I have read of men and wo∣men who can fascinate and hurt others with their eyes. Pliny and Solinus write of one Strabo, who from a Promontory in Sicily, could see the ships that went out of the Harbour at Car∣thage,

which is 55 Leagues. These are strange and rare privi∣ledges, in which God doth manifest his power, and sh••weth, that he is not tied to the Laws of nature. Yet there is no necessity, that we should call these miracles: for as it is no miracle for a Cat to see in the dark, nor for a musk-Cats sweat to smell sweetly, nor for a Basilisk to kill with his eye, or rather with the poisonsome vapour of his eye or breath of his mouth; nor is it a miracle for an Eagle or Raven to see at such a distance; these effects flowing from the natural temper and constitution of these creatures, of which temper might these men now mentioned be. I could alledge many other strange qualities of men, as of one who could move his ears like an Horse, of another whose spittle was poison, and of one who never laughed, &c. but these are sufficient to let us see the power and wisdome of God, and the dexterity of his Hand∣maid Nature, both in the fabrick and divers temperaments of mens bodies.