The Works of Sir Thomas Browne Volume III Part 36

[287] Strange and rare Escapes there happen sometimes in Physick.

_Angeli Victorii Consultationes._ Matth. iv. 25.

I was not so curious to ent.i.tle the Stars unto any Concern of his Death, yet could not but take notice that he died when the Moon was in motion from the Meridian; at which time, an old _Italian_ long ago would perswade me that the greatest Part of Men died: but herein I confess I could never satisfie my Curiosity; altho' from the time of Tides in Places upon or near the Sea, there may be considerable Deductions; and _Pliny_[288] hath an odd and remarkable Pa.s.sage concerning the Death of Men and Animals upon the Recess or Ebb of the Sea. However, certain it is he died in the dead and deep part of the Night, when _Nox_ might be most apprehensibly said to be the Daughter of _Chaos_, the Mother of Sleep and Death, according to old Genealogy; and so went out of this World about that hour when our blessed Saviour entred it, and about what time many conceive he will return again unto it. _Cardan_[289] hath a peculiar and no hard Observation from a Man's Hand to know whether he was born in the Day or Night, which I confess holdeth in my own. And _Scaliger_ to that purpose hath another from the tip of the Ear: Most Men are begotten in the Night, Animals in the Day; but whether more Persons have been born in the Night or the Day, were a Curiosity undecidable, tho' more have perished by violent Deaths in the Day; yet in natural Dissolutions both Times may hold an Indifferency, at least but contingent Inequality. The whole Course of Time runs out in the Nativity and Death of Things; which whether they happen by Succession or Coincidence, are best computed by the natural not artificial Day.

[288] _Aristoteles nullum animal nisi aestu recedente expirare affirmat: observatum id multum in Gallico Oceano et duntaxat in Homine comertum_, lib. 2. cap. 101.

[289] _Auris pars pendula Lobus dicitur, non omnibus ea pars est auribus; non enim iis qui noctu nati sunt, sed qui interdiu, maxima ex parte. Com. in Aristot. de Animal._ lib. 1.

That _Charles_ the Vth was crown'd upon the Day of his Nativity, it being in his own Power so to order it, makes no singular Animadversion; but that he should also take King _Francis_ Prisoner upon that Day, was an unexpected Coincidence, which made the same remarkable. _Antipater_ who had an Anniversary Fever every Year upon his Birth-day, needed no Astrological Revolution to know what Day he should dye on. When the fixed Stars have made a Revolution unto the Points from whence they first set out, some of the Ancients thought the World would have an end; which was a kind of dying upon the Day of its Nativity. Now the Disease prevailing and swiftly advancing about the time of his Nativity, some were of Opinion that he would leave the World on the Day he entred into it: but this being a lingring Disease, and creeping softly on, nothing critical was found or expected, and he died not before fifteen Days after. Nothing is more common with Infants than to die on the Day of their Nativity, to behold the worldly Hours, and but the Fractions thereof; and even to perish before their Nativity in the hidden World of the Womb, and before their good Angel is conceived to undertake them.

But in Persons who out-live many Years, and when there are no less than three hundred sixty five days to determine their Lives in every Year; that the first day should make the last, that the Tail of the Snake should return into its Mouth precisely at that time, and they should wind up upon the day of their Nativity,[290] is indeed a remarkable Coincidence, which, tho' Astrology hath taken witty Pains to salve, yet hath it been very wary in making Predictions of it.

[290] According to the _Egyptian_ Hieroglyphick.

In this consumptive Condition and remarkable Extenuation he came to be almost half himself, and left a great Part behind him which he carried not to the Grave. And tho' that Story of Duke _John Ernestus Mansfield_[291] be not so easily swallow'd, that at his Death his Heart was found not to be so big as a Nut; yet if the Bones of a good Skeleton weigh little more than twenty Pounds, his Inwards and Flesh remaining could make no Bouff.a.ge, but a light Bit for the Grave. I never more lively beheld the starved Characters of _Dante_[292] in any living Face; an _Aruspex_ might have read a Lecture upon him without Exenteration, his Flesh being so consumed, that he might, in a manner, have discerned his Bowels without opening of him: so that to be carried _s.e.xta cervice_, to the Grave, was but a civil Unnecessity; and the Complements of the Coffin might out-weigh the Subject of it.

[291] _Turkish_ History.

[292] In the Poet _Dante_ his Discription.

_Omnibonus Ferrarius_[293] in mortal Dysenteries of Children looks for a Spot behind the Ear; in consumptive Diseases some eye the Complexion of Moles; _Cardan_ eagerly views the Nails, some the Lines of the Hand, the Thenar or Muscle of the Thumb; some are so curious as to observe the depth of the Throat-pit, how the Proportion varieth of the Small of the Legs unto the Calf, or the compa.s.s of the Neck unto the Circ.u.mference of the Head: but all these, with many more, were so drown'd in a mortal Visage, and last Face of _Hippocrates_, that a weak Physiognomist might say at first Eye, This was a Face of Earth, and that _Morta_[294] had set her hard Seal upon his Temples, easily perceiving what _Caricatura_[295] Draughts Death makes upon pined Faces, and unto what an unknown degree a Man may live backward.

[293] _De Morbis Puerorum._

[294] _Morta_, the Deity of Death or Fate.

[295] When Men's Faces are drawn with Resemblance to some other Animals, the _Italians_ call it, to be drawn in _Caricatura_.

Tho' the Beard be only made a Distinction of s.e.x, and Sign of masculine Heat by _Ulmus_, yet the Precocity and early Growth thereof in him, was not to be liked in reference unto long Life. _Lewis_, that virtuous but unfortunate King of _Hungary_, who lost his Life at the Battle of _Mohacz_, was said to be born without a Skin, to have bearded at fifteen,[296] and to have shewn some grey Hairs about twenty; from whence the Diviners conjectur'd, that he would be spoiled of his Kingdom, and have but a short Life: But Hairs make fallible Predictions, and many Temples early grey have out-liv'd the Psalmist's Period.[297] Hairs which have most amused me have not been in the Face or Head, but on the Back, and not in Men but Children, as I long ago observed in that Endemial Distemper of little Children in _Languedock_, call'd the _Morgellons_,[298] wherein they critically break out with harsh Hairs on their Backs, which takes off the unquiet Symptoms of the Disease, and delivers them from Coughs and Convulsions.

[296] _Ulmus de usu barbae humanae._

[297] The Life of a Man is threescore and ten.

[298] See _Picotus de Rheumatismo_.

The _Egyptian_ Mummies that I have seen, have had their Mouths open, and somewhat gaping, which affordeth a good Opportunity to view and observe their Teeth, wherein 'tis not easie to find any wanting or decay'd; and therefore in _Egypt_, where one Man practised but one Operation, or the Diseases but of single Parts, it must needs be a barren Profession to confine unto that of drawing of Teeth, and little better than to have been Tooth-drawer unto King _Pyrrhus_,[299] who had but two in his Head.

How the _Bannyans_ of _India_ maintain the Integrity of those Parts, I find not particularly observed; who notwithstanding have an Advantage of their Preservation by abstaining from all Flesh, and employing their Teeth in such Food unto which they may seem at first framed, from their Figure and Conformation: but sharp and corroding Rheums had so early mouldred those Rocks and hardest parts of his Fabrick, that a Man might well conceive that his Years were never like to double or twice tell over his Teeth.[300] Corruption had dealt more severely with them than sepulchral Fires and smart Flames with those of burnt Bodies of old; for in the burnt Fragments of Urnes which I have enquired into, altho' I seem to find few Incisors or Shearers, yet the Dog Teeth and Grinders do notably resist those Fires.

[299] His upper and lower Jaw being solid, and without distinct Rows of Teeth.

[300] Twice tell over his Teeth, never live to threescore Years.

In the Years of his Childhood he had languish'd under the Disease of his Country, the Rickets; after which notwithstanding many have been become strong and active Men; but whether any have attain'd unto very great Years, the Disease is scarce so old as to afford good Observation.

Whether the Children of the _English_ Plantations be subject unto the same Infirmity, may be worth the Observing. Whether Lameness and Halting do still encrease among the Inhabitants of _Rovigno_ in _Istria_, I know not; yet scarce twenty Years ago Monsieur _du Loyr_ observed, that a third part of that People halted: but too certain it is, that the Rickets encreaseth among us; the Small-Pox grows more pernicious than the Great: the King's Purse knows that the King's Evil grows more common. _Quartan_ Agues are become no Strangers in _Ireland_; more common and mortal in _England_: and tho' the Ancients gave that Disease[301] very good Words, yet now that Bell makes no strange sound which rings out for the Effects thereof.

[301] ?sfa??stat?? ?a? ???st??, _securissima et facillima_. Hippoc.

Pro Febre quartana raro sonat campana.

Some think there were few Consumptions in the Old World, when Men lived much upon Milk; and that the ancient Inhabitants of this Island were less troubled with Coughs when they went naked, and slept in Caves and Woods, than Men now in Chambers and Feather-beds. _Plato_ will tell us, that there was no such Disease as a Catarrh in _Homer's_ time, and that it was but new in _Greece_ in his Age. _Polydore Virgil_ delivereth that Pleurisies were rare in _England_, who lived but in the Days of _Henry_ the Eighth. Some will allow no Diseases to be new, others think that many old ones are ceased and that such which are esteem'd new, will have but their time: However, the Mercy of G.o.d hath scatter'd the Great Heap of Diseases, and not loaded any one Country with all: some may be new in one Country which have been old in another. New Discoveries of the Earth discover new Diseases: for besides the common Swarm, there are endemial and local Infirmities proper unto certain Regions, which in the whole Earth make no small Number: and if _Asia_, _Africa_, and _America_ should bring in their List, _Pandora's_ Box would swell, and there must be a strange Pathology.

Most Men expected to find a consumed Kell, empty and bladder-like Guts, livid and marbled Lungs, and a wither'd _Pericardium_ in this exuccous Corps: but some seemed too much to wonder that two Lobes of his Lungs adher'd unto his Side; for the like I had often found in Bodies of no suspected Consumptions or difficulty of Respiration. And the same more often happeneth in Men than other Animals; and some think in Women than in Men; but the most remarkable I have met with, was in a Man, after a Cough of almost fifty Years, in whom all the Lobes adhered unto the Pleura,[302] and each Lobe unto another; who having also been much troubled with the Gout, brake the Rule of _Cardan_,[303] and died of the Stone in the Bladder. _Aristotle_ makes a Query, Why some Animals cough, as Man; some not, as Oxen. If Coughing be taken as it consisteth of a natural and voluntary motion, including Expectoration and spitting out, it may be as proper unto Man as bleeding at the Nose; otherwise we find that _Vegetius_ and rural Writers have not left so many Medicines in vain against the Coughs of Cattel; and Men who perish by Coughs die the Death of Sheep, Cats and Lions: and tho' Birds have no Midriff, yet we meet with divers Remedies in _Arria.n.u.s_ against the Coughs of Hawks.

And tho' it might be thought that all Animals who have Lungs do cough; yet in cetaceous Fishes, who have large and strong Lungs, the same is not observed; nor yet in oviparous Quadrupeds: and in the greatest thereof, the Crocodile, altho' we read much of their Tears, we find nothing of that Motion.

[302] So _A. F._

[303] _Cardan_ in his _Encomium Podagrae_ reckoneth this among the _Dona Podagrae_, that they are deliver'd thereby from the Phthysis and Stone in the Bladder.

From the Thoughts of Sleep, when the Soul was conceived nearest unto Divinity, the Ancients erected an Art of Divination, wherein while they too widely expatiated in loose and inconsequent Conjectures, _Hippocrates_[304] wisely considered Dreams as they presaged Alterations in the Body, and so afforded hints toward the Preservation of Health, and prevention of Diseases; and therein was so serious as to advise Alteration of Diet, Exercise, Sweating, Bathing and Vomiting; and also so religious, as to order Prayers and Supplications unto respective Deities, in good Dreams unto _Sol_, _Jupiter clestis_, _Jupiter opulentus_, _Minerva_, _Mercurius_ and _Apollo_; in bad unto _Tellus_ and the Heroes.

[304] _Hippoc. de Insomniis._

And therefore I could not but take notice how his Female Friends were irrationally curious so strictly to examine his Dreams, and in this low State to hope for the Fantasms of Health. He was now past the healthful Dreams of the Sun, Moon and Stars, in their Clarity and proper Courses.

'Twas too late to dream of Flying, of Limpid Fountains, smooth Waters, white Vestments, and fruitful green Trees, which are the Visions of healthful Sleeps, and at good Distance from the Grave.

And they were also too deeply dejected that he should dream of his dead Friends, inconsequently divining, that he would not be long from them; for strange it was not that he should sometimes dream of the dead, whose Thoughts run always upon Death; beside, to dream of the dead, so they appear not in dark Habits, and take nothing away from us, in _Hippocrates_ his Sense was of good Signification: for we live by the dead, and every thing is or must be so before it becomes our Nourishment. And _Cardan_, who dream'd that he discoursed with his dead Father in the Moon, made thereof no mortal Interpretation: and even to dream that we are dead, was no condemnable Fantasm in old _Oneirocriticism_, as having a Signification of Liberty, vacuity from Cares, Exemption and Freedom from Troubles unknown unto the dead.

Some Dreams I confess may admit of easie and feminine Exposition; he who dream'd that he could not see his right Shoulder, might easily fear to lose the Sight of his right Eye; he that before a Journey dream'd that his Feet were cut off, had a plain Warning not to undertake his intended Journey. But why to dream of Lettuce should presage some ensuing Disease, why to eat Figs should signifie foolish Talk, why to eat Eggs great Trouble, and to dream of Blindness should be so highly commended, according to the _Oneirocritical_ Verses of _Astrampsychus_ and _Nicephorus_, I shall leave unto your Divination.

He was willing to quit the World alone and altogether, leaving no Earnest behind him for Corruption or After-grave, having small content in that common Satisfaction to survive or live in another, but amply satisfied that his Disease should die with himself, nor revive in a Posterity to puzzle Physick, and make sad _Memento's_ of their Parent hereditary. Leprosie awakes not sometimes before forty, the Gout and Stone often later; but consumptive and tabid[305] Roots sprout more early, and at the fairest make seventeen Years of our Life doubtful before that Age. They that enter the World with original Diseases as well as Sin, have not only common Mortality but sick Traductions to destroy them, make commonly short Courses, and live not at length but in Figures; so that a sound _Caesarean_[306] nativity may out-last a Natural Birth, and a Knife may sometimes make Way for a more lasting Fruit than a Midwife; which makes so few Infants now able to endure the old Test of the River,[307] and many to have feeble Children who could scarce have been married at _Sparta_, and those provident States who studied strong and healthful Generations; which happen but contingently in mere _pecuniary_ Matches, or Marriages made by the Candle, wherein notwithstanding there is little redress to be hoped from an Astrologer or a Lawyer, and a good discerning Physician were like to prove the most successful Counsellor.

[305] _Tabes maxime contingunt ab anno decimo octavo ad trigesimum quintum_, Hippoc.

[306] A sound Child cut out of the Body of the Mother.

[307] _Natos ad flumina primum deserimus saevoque gelu duramus et undis._

_Julius Scaliger_, who in a sleepless Fit of the Gout could make two hundred Verses in a Night, would have but five[308] plain Words upon his Tomb. And this serious Person, tho' no _minor_ Wit, left the Poetry of his Epitaph unto others; either unwilling to commend himself, or to be judg'd by a Distich, and perhaps considering how unhappy great Poets have been in versifying their own Epitaphs: wherein _Petrarcha_, _Dante_, and _Ariosto_, have so unhappily failed, that if their Tombs should outlast their Works, Posterity would find so little of _Apollo_ on them, as to mistake them for _Ciceronian_ Poets.

[308] _Julii Caesaris Scaligeri, quod fuit._ Joseph. Scaliger in vita patris.

In this deliberate and creeping Progress unto the Grave, he was somewhat too young, and of too n.o.ble a Mind, to fall upon that stupid Symptom observable in divers Persons near their Journey's End, and which may be reckoned among the mortal Symptoms of their last Disease; that is, to become more narrow minded, miserable and tenacious, unready to part with any thing, when they are ready to part with all, and afraid to want when they have no Time to spend; mean while Physicians, who know that many are mad but in a single depraved Imagination, and one prevalent Decipiency; and that beside and out of such single Deliriums a Man may meet with sober Actions and good Sense in _Bedlam_; cannot but smile to see the Heirs and concern'd Relations, gratulating themselves in the sober Departure of their Friends; and tho' they behold such mad covetous Pa.s.sages, content to think they die in good Understanding, and in their sober Senses.

Avarice, which is not only Infidelity but Idolatry, either from covetous Progeny or questuary Education, had no Root in his Breast, who made good Works the Expression of his Faith, and was big with Desires unto publick and lasting Charities; and surely where good Wishes and charitable Intentions exceed Abilities, Theorical Beneficency may be more than a Dream. They build not Castles in the Air who would build Churches on Earth; and tho' they leave no such Structures here, may lay good Foundations in Heaven. In brief, his Life and Death were such, that I could not blame them who wished the like, and almost to have been himself; almost, I say; for tho' we may wish the prosperous Appurtenances of others, or to be an other in his happy Accidents; yet so intrinsecal is every Man unto himself, that some doubt may be made, whether any would exchange his Being, or substantially become another Man.

He had wisely seen the World at home and abroad, and thereby observed under what variety Men are deluded in the pursuit of that which is not here to be found. And altho' he had no Opinion of reputed Felicities below, and apprehended Men widely out in the Estimate of such Happiness; yet his sober Contempt of the World wrought no _Democratism_ or _Cynicism_, no laughing or snarling at it, as well understanding there are not Felicities in this World to satisfy a serious Mind; and therefore to soften the Stream of our Lives, we are fain to take in the reputed Contentations of this World, to unite with the Crowd in their Beat.i.tudes, and to make ourselves happy by Consortion, Opinion, or Co-existimation: for strictly to separate from received and customary Felicities, and to confine unto the Rigor of Realities, were to contract the Consolation of our Beings unto too uncomfortable Circ.u.mscriptions.

Not to fear Death,[309] nor Desire it, was short of his Resolution: to be dissolved, and be with Christ, was his dying Ditty. He conceived his Thred long, in no long course of Years, and when he had scarce out-liv'd the second Life of _Lazarus_;[310] esteeming it enough to approach the Years of his Saviour, who so order'd his own human State, as not to be old upon Earth.

[309] _Summum nec metuas diem nec optes._

[310] Who upon some Accounts, and Tradition, is said to have lived 30 Years after he was raised by our Saviour. _Baronius._

But to be content with Death may be better than to desire it: a miserable Life may make us wish for Death, but a virtuous one to rest in it; which is the Advantage of those resolved Christians, who looking on Death not only as the Sting, but the Period and End of Sin, the Horizon and Isthmus between this Life and a better, and the Death of this World but as Nativity of another, do contentedly submit unto the common Necessity, and envy not _Enoch_ or _Elias_.

Not to be content with Life is the unsatisfactory State of those which destroy themselves;[311] who being afraid to live, run blindly upon their own Death, which no Man fears by Experience: And the Stoicks had a notable Doctrine to take away the Fear thereof; that is, in such Extremities, to desire that which is not to be avoided, and wish what might be feared; and so made Evils voluntary, and to suit with their own Desires, which took off the Terror of them.

[311] In the Speech of _Vulteius in Lucan_, animating his Souldiers in a great Struggle to kill one another. _Decernite Lethum et metus omnis abest, cupias quodcunque necesse est._ All Fear is over, do but resolve to die, and make your Desires meet Necessity.

But the ancient Martyrs were not encouraged by such Fallacies; who, tho' they feared not Death, were afraid to be their own Executioners; and therefore thought it more Wisdom to crucify their l.u.s.ts than their Bodies, to circ.u.mcise than stab their Hearts, and to mortify than kill themselves.