brick, as Monsieur de Calve, affirmeth. Mistake may be made in this way of trial; when the antimony is not weighed immediately upon the calcination, but permitted the air, it imbibeth the humidity thereof, and so repaireth its gravity. CHAPTER VIII. That there are several passages for Meat and Drink. THAT there are different passages for meat and drink, the meat or dry aliment descending by the one, the drink or moistening vehicle by the other, is a popular tenet in our days, but was the assertion of learned men of old. For the same was affirmed by Plato, maintained by Eustathius in Macrobius, and is deducible from Eratosthenes, Eupolis and Euripides. Now herein men contradict experience, not well understanding anatomy, and the use of parts. For at the throat there are two cavities or conducting parts; the one the œsophagus or gullet, seated next the spine, a part official unto nutrition, and whereby the aliment both wet and dry is conveyed unto the stomach; the other (by which 'tis conceived the drink doth pass) is the weazand, rough artery, or wind-pipe, a part inservient to voice and respiration; for thereby the air descendeth into the lungs, and is communicated unto the heart. And therefore, all animals that breathe or have lungs, have also the weazand; but many have the gullet or feeding channel, which have no lungs or wind-pipe; as fishes which have gills, whereby the heart is refrigerated; for such thereof as have lungs and respiration, are not without the weazand, as whales and cetaceous animals. Again, beside these parts destined to divers offices, there is a peculiar provision for the wind-pipe, that is, a cartilagineous flap upon the opening of the larynx or throttle, which hath an open cavity for the admission of the air; but lest thereby either meat or drink should descend, Providence *Des Pierres. hath placed the epiglottis, ligula, or flap like an ivy leaf, which always closeth when we swallow, or when the meat and drink passeth over it into the gullet. Which part although all have not that breathe, as all cetaceous and oviparous animals, yet is the weazand secured some other way; and therefore in whales that breathe, lest the water should get into the lungs, an ejection thereof is contrived by a fistula or spout at the head. And therefore also, though birds have no epiglottis, yet can they so contract the rim or chink of their larynx, as to prevent the admission of wet or dry ingested; either whereof getting in, occasioneth a cough, until it be ejected. And this is the reason why a man cannot drink and breathe at the same time; why, if we laugh while we drink, the drink flies out at the nostrils; why, when the water enters the weazand, men are suddenly drowned; and thus must it be understood, when we read of one that died by the seed of a grape, and another by an hair in milk." Now if any shall affirm, that some truth there is in the assertion, upon the experiment of Hippocrates, who, killing an hog after a red potion, found the tincture thereof in the larynx; if any will urge the same from medical practice, because in affections both of lungs and weazand, physicians make use of syrups, and lambitive medicines; we are not averse to acknowledge, that some may distil and insinuate into the wind-pipe, and medicines may creep down, as well as the rheum before them: yet to conclude from hence, that air and water have both one common passage, were to state the question upon the weaker side of the distinction, and from a partial or guttulous irrigation to conclude a total descension. Anacreon the Poet, if the story be taken literally. by an hair in milk.] And a woman in Knowle,Wiltes, by a piece of the great tendon in a neck of veale (which is commonly cald the Halifax) which getting sodenly within the larinx chokt her. Wr . See my note relating the death of Lord Boringdon, at p. 336. 9 syrups.] In a dangerous catharr, the end of giving syrupes is, that sliding downe with the rheumes, they may both abate and correct the cold crude salt corroding qualityes of rheumes: and withall by the heat of the ingredients, and the balmy benigne quality of sugar, att once arme and warme the lungs, and withall thicken the rheum that fals, that itt may bee more easily expectorated.— Wr. CHAPTER IX. Of saluting upon Sneezing. CONCERNING Sternutation or Sneezing, and the custom of saluting or blessing upon that motion, it is pretended, and generally believed, to derive its original from a disease, wherein sternutation proved mortal, and such as sneezed, died. And this may seem to be proved from Carolus Sigonius, who in his History of Italy, makes mention of a pestilence in the time of Gregory the Great, that proved pernicious and deadly to those that sneezed. Which notwithstanding will not sufficiently determine the grounds hereof, that custom having an elder era than this chronology affordeth. For although the age of Gregory extend above a thousand, yet is this custom mentioned by Apuleius, in the fable of the fuller's wife, who lived three hundred years before, by Pliny in that problem of his, cur sternutantes salutantur; and there are also reports that Tiberius the emperor, otherwise a very sour man, would perform this rite most punctually unto others, and expect the same from others unto himself. Petronius Arbiter, who lived before them both, and was proconsul of Bithynia in the reign of Nero, hath mentioned it in these words, Gyton collectione spiritûs plenus, ter continuò ità sternutavit, ut grabatum concuteret, ad quem motum Eumolpus conversus, Salvere Gytona jubet. Cœlius Rhodiginus hath an example hereof among the Greeks, far ancienter than these, that is, in the time of Cyrus the younger, when consulting about their retreat, it chanced that one among them sneezed, at the noise whereof the rest of the soldiers called upon Jupiter Soter. There is also in the Greek Anthology a remarkable mention hereof in an epigram, upon one Proclus; the Latin whereof we shall deliver, as we find it often translated. VOL. III. D Non potis est Proclus digitis emungere nasum, Froclus with his hand his nose can never wipe, His hand too little is his nose to gripe; He sneezing calls not Jove, for why? he hears Himself not sneeze, the sound's so far from 's ears. Nor was this only an ancient custom among the Greeks and Romans, and is still in force with us, but is received at this day in remotest parts of Africa. For so we read in Codignus, that upon a sneeze of the Emperor of Monomótapa, there passed acclamations successive through the city; and as remarkable an example there is of the same custom, in the remotest parts of the East, recorded in the travels of Pinto. But the history will run much higher, if we should take in the rabbinical account hereof, that sneezing was a mortal sign even from the first man, until it was taken off by the special supplication of Jacob. From whence, as a thankful acknowledgment, this salutation first began, and was after continued by the expression of Tobim Chaiim, or vita bona, by standers by, upon all occasion of sneezing. Now the ground of this ancient custom was probably the opinion the ancients held of sternutation,3 which they generally conceived to be a good sign or a bad, and so upon this motion accordingly used a salve or Zɛû σov, as a gratulation for the one, and a deprecation for the other. Now of the ways whereby they enquired and determined its signality; the first was natural, arising from physical causes, and consequences oftentimes naturally succeeding this motion, and so it might be justly esteemed a good sign; for sneezing being properly a motion of the brain, suddenly expelling through the nostrils what is offensive unto it, it cannot but afford some De rebus Abassinorum. Africa,] And in Otaheite.-Jeff. And as remarkable, &c.] This sentence and the following paragraph were added in 3rd edition. 3 sternutation.] Physitians generallye define itt to be the trumpet of nature upon the ejection of a noxious vapour from the braine, and therefore saye rightly itt is bonum signum malæ causæ, sc. depulsæ.-Wr. evidence of its vigour, and therefore, saith Aristotle,* they that hear it, gozuvoñarv is isgov, 'honour it as somewhat sacred,' and a sign of sanity in the diviner part, and this he illustrates from the practice of physicians, who in persons near death, do use sternutatories, or such medicines as provoke unto sneezing, when if the faculty awaketh, and sternutation ensueth, they conceive hopes of life, and with gratulation receive the signs of safety.† And so is it also of good signality, according to that of Hippocrates, that sneezing cureth the hiccough, and is profitable unto women in hard labour, and so is it good in lethargies, apoplexies, catalepsies, and comas. And in this natural way is it sometime likewise of bad effects or signs, and may give hints of deprecation; as in diseases of the chest, for therein Hippocrates condemneth it as too much exagitating; in the beginning of catarrhs, according unto Avicenna, as hindering concoction; in new and tender conceptions, as Pliny observeth, for then it endangers abortion. The second way was superstitious and augurial, as Cœlius Rhodiginus hath illustrated in testimonies as ancient as Theocritus and Homer; as appears from the Athenian master, who would have retired because a boat-man sneezed; and the testimony of Austin, that the ancients were wont to go to bed again if they sneezed while they put on their shoe. And in this way it was also of good and bad signification; so Aristotle hath a problem, why sneezing from noon unto midnight was good, but from night to noon unlucky. So Eustathius upon Homer observes, that sneezing to the left hand was unlucky, but prosperous unto the right; so, as Plutarch relateth, when Themistocles sacrificed in his galley before the battle of Xerxes, and one of the assistants upon the right hand sneezed, Euphrantides, the soothsayer, presaged the victory of the Greeks, and the overthrow of the Persians. Thus we may perceive the custom is more ancient than commonly conceived, and these opinions hereof in all ages, not any one disease, to have been the occasion of this salute and deprecation. Arising at first from this vehement and |