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Every Living Creature out of its own putrefaction educeth some kind of Animal, agreeable to its own Nature, and different from all others, which as I have by Experiment found true in se∣veral sorts of Herbs, and may be seen by Corn animated into winged Animals;
so it holds most certain in Animals, as well perfect as imperfect. The Carcase of an Ox becomes animated into Bees; Horses, both living and dead, generate Wasps and Scarabees. Men do breed Nits, Lice, Fleas; the like do some Brutes also. Man's rotten Carcase be∣comes a Seminary of Worms. Infects putrefied generate Animals of Nature like unto themselves. Nature is so sol∣licitous about promoting the Generati∣ons of Things, that wheresoever She finds a Disposition, that is, heat with a due proportion of moisture, there She immediately thrusts forth an Animal. I could here produce innumerable In∣stances from all sorts of Living Things, but because these are enough for the proof of what I intend, I shall no longer insist on them. Only this one thing I avow, that all Putrefaction hath cer∣tain Seminals or Seeds within it self for the Generation of Animals, which be∣ing excited by external and convenient Heat, do break forth into the aforesaid Colluvies of Worms, so much the more pernicious as the putrefaction is more vi∣rulent.