ancients likened it to the great treacle, because one may see two contrary virtues latent in it. We would have all understood of strong wine mixt, wherein are five properties, colour, smell, taste, substance, age. A man ought to drink that wine, which is yellowish. Haly affirms, that wine should be drunk, whose colour inclines to redness. Avicenna saith, red is most eligible, which is clear of substance, in taste neither bitter nor sweet, but pontick. But if it seem too vinous, it ought to be mixt with springwater, where there is no extraneous vapor. Royal Haly saith, that old and sowre wine should be avoided. Isaac thinks, that after a year is over, the goodness and strength of the wine doth begin. None almost do speak of the space of time, wherein this mixture should be made, except royal Haly, who seems to have spoken well in his foresaid canon, Of old wine: For unless wine remain for some time mixt, the wine by diges tion in the stomach will be separated from the water. For the hot and fiery part ascends, and the earthy will remain in the bottom of the stomach, as appears by a glassvessel full of red wine; so that if water be poured upon it, and the vessel closed, that no air can get in, you shall see the water sink to the bottom. • These properties should be well considered in our beer and ale, whose cold clime refuseth the grape. And since fire is to them, what the sun is to the grape, we should take great care they be well boil'd, and allow them, time cough to ferment and ripen. But here I must take notice of a modern, il custom of drinking brandy, which may very well serve medicinally upon extraordinary occasion; but the constant use of it must needs dry exceedingly the blood and inwards especially, and so turn mens bodies to dry old skeletons tr by creating obstructions in the alimental passages, cause dropsied and either bauten old age, or by death prevent it, But this clashing of the wise about the colour and season of wine is not worth so great admiration, seeing that diversity of soils doth often cause it. For the virtue of plants is various according to the variety of places and provinces, as Haly saith upon Galen's regiment, where he speaks of the correction of medicine. Aristotle, Of the secrets of secrets, affirms, That wine should be drunk by old men, and them that plentifully flow with phlegm; he thinks it hurtful for the young and hot. Red wine encreases blood more than white, and is in some measure better than all wine, and more agreeable to mens complexions, such namely as grows on a soil inclosed between hills and dales, whose clusters are of a good sweetness and maturity, in a subtil and pure air, and which are not gathered before the force of their substance be rebated, their colour become golden, namely, a mean between red and yellow, their taste sharp, pungent and delectable, and before their substance be clear. When the wine shall be such, let a man drink as his age and the nature of the season will permit. For then it will preserve the stomach, strengthen the na tural heat, help digestion, defend the body from corruption, carry the food to all parts, and concoct the food till it be turned into very blood: It also cheers the heart, tinges the countenance with red, makes the tongue voluble, begets assurance, and promises much good and profit. If it be over much guzzled, it will on the contrary do a great deal of harm: For it will darken the understanding, ill affect the brain, render the natural vigor languid, bring forgetfulness, weaken the joints, beget shaking of the limbs and bleareyedness, it will darken and make black the blood of the heart: whence fear, trembling, weakness of the genitals, and the destrucn and ruin of the seed do arise. And, And, which is worse, it breeds the* leprosie, and so imitates the nature of the serpent, which taken immoderately, and not as physicians advise, is mortal: of which well prepared, antidotes are made that cure diseases. CHAP. XIII. Of things which repair the Faculties and Senses, and restore the Strength of the Body. I HAVE found some medicines in the books of the wise very profitable for restoring the senses and faculties of humane nature, and one especially, which is of the serpentine kind. But although there be many kinds of serpents, yet three in especial manner are agreeable to this microcosm. How often do tavern-hunters purchase their liquor with rubies in their faces, which here and there drop off in a leprous scurf? A fit intimation they should be secluded man's society, which they have abused; when their very looks do cry them unclean. † As in the former chapter woman, who was the mediatrix of sin and death between the serpent and man, was made use of to prevent death; so here the serpent himself, the arch-plotter of that death, is taken in his own mare, the decree of the almighty is executed upon him in the very literal sense, and though he can hurt man's heel, yet he must lose his own head, and make one of the greatest antidotes against his own invenom'd spite and man's death, which he so much designed. Thus to his own cost hath the serpent perswaded us to taste of that tree of knowledge, by whose experience we have found how to resist the evil by the good that is in himself. And herein our author makes good, what in his second chapter he told us, That in whatwever thing the most high God hath put an admirable virtue and property, there he hath also placed hurt, as it were the guard of that very thing. The full knowledge of one of which hath neither come to the Greeks nor to us; it is perfectly known only to the Æthiopians: And this serpent is the * dragon. But the knowledge of the properties of the others hath arrived even at us. Such is the serpent, which of Avicenna in his fourth and fifth canon is called at viper, and the other is the snake, Haly * The Æthiopian dragon according to Bellonius is thick about the belly, hath two feet, and as many wings whole like bat's, and the tail of a serpent, They are so big, that without making use of their poison, they kill elephants, and all other beasts by mere force. Whence Lucan lib. 9. sings thus; Rumpitis ingentes amplexi verbere tauros, Nec tutus spatio est elephas, datis omnia letbo, With mortal gripe you squeeze out huge bulls guts, The viper is a serpent about an inch thick, and two cubits, but generally less in length, parti-coloured and yellowish, he bears his neck upright, and crawls with the rest of his body: He leaps when he bites. The male according to the ancients hath only two teeth, and the female four; therefore Nicander saith in Theriacis, Τὸ μὲν ὑπὲρ κυνόδοντε δύο χρόν τεκμαίρονται Τὸν ἐρευγόμενοι, πλέονες δὲ τοὶ αἴεν ἐχίδνης. With dog-teeth two man's skin male vipers gore But Baldus Angelus saith, the male-viper hath four teeth, only at certain times he casts two of them, which made the ancients think he had but two. But if a man will be at the trouble to anatomize vipers, he shall find they have twelve teeth, six on either side in the upper jaw; and twenty two, eleven on either side, in the nether jaw, in all thirty four, which they use in eating; besides the dog-teeth before mentioned, with bladders wherein they contain their 3 Haly and Avicenna write of vipers, saying, that vipers are serpents having flat heads and not broad, their necks are Ele and slender, their tail short, in their going they make a hissing and a noise. · A man must hunt them between the latter end of spring and begining of summer. They which are of the better sort are yellow, and among the yellow the females. They at Estinguished, in that the males have only one tooth, de females several. But care must be had lest asps be chosen, such as are white, Eving in fish-ponds, on banks of rivers and watry places; for such use to do harm, and cause thirst. But let those be taken, which are slow of motion, living in places far remote from moisture, and if possible to be efected, they should dye as they are taken, and let four inches be cut off the head and tail, let the guts be taken cu, let them be washt very clean with water and salt, and let them be boiled again and again in water and salt, till the fesh may easily be pulled and separated from the bones, E 4 them their poison, which once voided gathers again after the manner of excrementitious humors: And with these teeth only they fight and poison. The male bath a narrower and sharper head, thicker neck and smaller body than the female. His tail grows smaller by degrees as in other serpents; hers is small atance. He hath also rougher scales at his tail, which in his anger he ruffles a1 cock doth his feathers. It is observable, that the female-vipers first conetive eggs all of one colour like fish-rows, and then bring them forth young vipers, whereas other serpents first lay eggs, and afterwards hatch them. But the female's biting off the male-viper's head in coition, and the young once cating themselves out of the old viper's belly, are both mere fables. The land-snake is a harmless creature: For if he bite he inflicts no venum, but the bare wound. But the bite of a water snake is exceeding dugerens • They should not be taken presently, as they come out of ther winterquarters; but when they are well fed; yet before they are with young. |