The workes of that famous chirurgion Ambrose Parey translated out of Latin and compared with the French. by Tho: Johnson. Whereunto are added three tractates our of Adrianus Spigelius of the veines, arteries, & nerves, with large figures. Also a table of the bookes and chapters.

CHAP. VIII. Of the Faculties.

* 1.1A Faculty is a certain power, and efficient cause, proceeding from the temperament of the part, and the performer of some actions, of the body. There are three principal Faculties governing man's body,* 1.2 as long as it enjoys its integrity; the Animal, Vital, and Natural. The Ani∣mal is seated in the proper temperament of the Brain, from whence it is distributed by the Nerves into all parts of the body which have sense and motion. This is of three kinds; for one is Mo∣ving, another sensitive, the third principal. The sensitive consists in five external senses, sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. The moving principally remains in the Muscles and Nerves as the fit instruments of voluntary motion. The Principal comprehends the Reasoning Faculty, the Memory, and Fantasie. Galen would have the common or inward Sense to be comprehended within the compass of the Fantasie, although Aristotle distinguish between them.

The Vital, abides in the heart, from whence heat and life is distributed by the Arteries to the whole body: this is principally hindred in the diseases of the Breast; as the Principal is, when any disease assails the Brain;* 1.3 the prime Action of the vital faculty is Pulsation, and that continu∣ed agitation of the Heart and Arteries, which is of threefold use to the body: for by the dilata∣tion of the Heart and Arteries, the vital Spirit is cherished by the benefit of the Air which is drawn in; by the contraction thereof, the vapours of it are purged and sent forth, and the native heat of the whole body is tempered by them both.

* 1.4The last is the Natural faculty which hath chosen its principal seat in the Liver, it spreads or carries the nourishment over the whole body; but it is distinguished into three other faculties; The Generative, which serves for the generation and forming of the Issue in the womb; the Growing or Increasing faculty, which flourisheth from the time the Issue is formed, until the perfect growth of the solid parts into their full dimensions of length, heighth and bredth. The nourishing faculty, which, as servant to both the other, repairs and repays the continual efflux and waste of the threefold substance;* 1.5 for Nutrition is nothing else but a replenishing, or repair∣ing whatsoever is wasted or emptied. This nourishing-faculty endures from that time the Infant is formed in the womb until the end of life. It is a matter of great consequence in Physick, to know the four other faculties,* 1.6 which as servants attend upon the nourishing faculty; which are the Attractive, Retentive, Digestive, and Expulsive faculty. The Attractive draws that juyce which is fit to nourish the body; that, I say, which by application may be assimilated to the part. This is that faculty, which in such as are hungry draws down the meat scarce chewed, and the drink scarce tasted, into the gnawing and empty stomach. The Retentive faculty is that which re∣tains the nourishment once attracted until it be fully laboured and perfectly concocted; And by that means it yields no small assistance to the Digestive faculty.* 1.7 For the natural heat cannot per∣form the office of concoction, unless the meat be embraced by the part, and make some stay there∣in. For otherwise the meat, carried into the stomach, never acquires the form of Chylus, un∣less it stay detained in the wrinkles thereof, as in a rough passage, until the time of Chilifica∣tion. The Digestive faculty assimilates the nourishment, being attracted and detained, in∣to the substance of that part whose faculty it is, by the force of the inbred heat and proper disposition or temper of the part. So the stomach plainly changes all things which are eat and drunk into Chylus, and the Liver turns the Chylus into blood. But the Bones and Nerves convert the red and liquid blood which is brought down unto them by the capillary or small veins, into a white and solid substance. Such concoction is far more laborious in a Bone and Nerve, than in the Musculous flesh. For the blood being not much different from

its nature, by a light change and concretion, turns into flesh. But this Concoction will never sa∣tisfie the desire of Nature and the parts, unless the nourishment, purged from its excrements, put away the filth and dross, which must never enter into the substance of the part.* 1.8 Wherefore there do not only two sorts of excrements remain of the first and second Concoction, the one thick, the other thin, as we have said before; but also from the third Concoction which is performed in every part. The one of which we conceive only by reason, being that which vanisheth into Air by insensible transpiration. The other is known sometimes by sweats, sometimes by a thick fatty substance staining the shirt; sometimes by the generation of hairs and nails, whose matter is from fuliginous and earthly excrements of the third Concoction.* 1.9 Wherefore the fourth fa∣culty was necessary which might yield no small help to nourishment; it is called the Expulsive, appointed to expel those superfluous excrements which by no action of heat, can obtain the form of the part. Such faculties serving for nutrition are in some parts two-fold; as some common, the benefit of which redounds to the whole body, as in the ventricle, liver, and veins; Others only attending the service of those parts in which they remain, and in some parts all these four, aswell common as proper, are abiding and residing as in those parts we now mentioned: some, with the four proper have only two common, as the Gall, Spleen, Kidnies and Bladder. Others are content only with the proper, as the Similar and Musculous parts, who if they want any of these four fa∣culties, their health is decayed either by want of nourishment, and ulcer, or otherwise.* 1.10 The like unnatural affects happen by the deficiency of just and laudable nourishment. But if it happen those faculties do rightly perform their duty, the nourishment is changed into the proper part, and is truly assimilated as by these degrees. First it must flow to the part, then be joyned to it, then agglutinated, and lastly, as we have said, assimilated. Now we must speak of the Actions which arise from the faculties.

Notes

• * 1.1

  What a faculty is.
• * 1.2

  3. Faculties.
• * 1.3

  The triple use of the Pulse.
• * 1.4

  The natural faculty is threefold.
• * 1.5

  What Nutriti∣on is.
• * 1.6

  Four other faculties at∣tend upon the nourishing faculty.
• * 1.7

  The necessity of the retentive faculty.
• * 1.8

  Two excre∣ments of every concoction.
• * 1.9

  The work of the expulsive faculty.
• * 1.10

  By what de∣grees the nou∣rishment is assimilated.