ACCOUNT OF THE BRITISH AUTHORS, WHO HAVE WRITTEN ON HEALTH AND LONGEVITY. A NUMBER I. FRIAR BACON, MONG the British Authors who have written on health and longevity, the celebrated Friar Bacon deserves first to be commemorated. He was born of a respectable family near Ilchester, studied at Oxford, and afterwards spent some time at Paris, the University of which was then much resorted to by learned men. Having returned to England, he applied with so much diligence to the study of nature, and distinguished himself so much for superior knowledge in a variety of arts and sciences, that not only the vulgar, but even some learned men thought him a conjuror. Being accused of magic and heresy, he was thrown into prison, and was detained there for many years. He died A. D. 1292, leaying a variety of works behind him, on many interesting subjects. But, according to Browne, the choicest and most useful of all his works, was entitled “De "retardandis senectutis malis," or A Cure for Old Age; of which it is said, Quem Nec poterit ferrum, nec edax abolere vetusłać. This valuable treatise, was published in English, from the Latin, by Richard Browne, B L. Coll. Med. Lon. with a variety of notes, which render the translation still more valuable. But as this curious work is very rarely to be met with, it is thought advisable, instead of partial extracts, to reprint the whole, for the purpose of rendering it more generally accessible. * In Boerhaave's list of books, de Diacteticâ, mention is made, that this work of Bacon's, was printed at Oxford, in 8vo, anno 1590.-Browne's trans lation of it, is printed at London anno 1683. A THE CURE OF OLD AGE, &c. AS the CHAP. I. Of the causes of Old Age. world waxeth old, men grow old with it: not by reason of the age of the world, but because of the great increase of living creatures, which infect the very air, that every way encompasseth us: and Through our negligence in ordering our lives, and That This year 1632, with the astrologers, is celebrated the climacteric grand conjunction of the highest planets. And divines after St. Peter's chronology in reckon that the sabbatical millenary is not far off; nor without great reaL. For if moral symptoms, such as nation's rising against nation, divisions in irs and between friends, do portend the last days, we must conclude the world in its testy old age, and that that day, the angels in heaven, no nor the son of man himself, knew not of, is coming on. • The lives of the patriarchs before the flood were almost a thousand years. Near the food men lived but about ten pro cent. to what they did before. And David in his time allowed, a strong man might make a shift to creep to furscore. Yet I concur with the author, that in those scripture-instances, as in our own case, not so much the decay of universal nature, as the good pleasure of her God, is seen in permitting men, for the reasons assigned by the author, to be cut short in their lives. This negligence is most perceived in our diets: For it is impossible good hinod er humours should be bred, when we heap dish upon dish, sauce upon sance, fruit upon fruit, raw upon roast, roast upon raw, bak'd upon boil ́1, beil'd upon bak'd, sowre upon sweet, and soft upon hard. Horace 1. cy. a. in the Roman luxury lasheth this fault in all others That great * ignorance of the properties which are in things conducing to health, which might help a disordered Hesternis vitiis animum quoque praegravat unà, Atque affigit humo divinae particulam aurae. Much barm to us from various meats doth flow. And on the ground inhumanely does roll That part of beavenly breath, the precious soul. way We that believe the holy scriptures know, that God first planted all plants, and made all living creatures: For before man was made, all plants, shrubs, and trees sprung out of the carth, endowed with their genuine virtues and faculties, every way compleat by the sole power of God's word. Which things when God had brought to the first man Adam, to see what he would call them; Adam out of that unfpeakable wisdom and knowledge in the nature of things, which God had given him, gave them names, and whatsoever Adam called every thing, that was the name thereof. Now God that made the properties of things, invented them, and communicated of his own knowledge to his image, Man. And notwithstanding that by man's transgressing God's command, he lost his original righteousness, and impaired his wisdom; · yet it is evident he retained the knowledge of the virtues of things. For otherwise how could he in the sweat of his face eat his bread, if he knew not what to make it of? And whereas God allotted him the herb of the field for his food, he must of necessity know the virtues of herbs, else he might for his repast cat his mortal bane. So with the knowledge of his evil he had this good left him. But with his posterity it fared worse. Their infant-knowledge only aped their fathers, and had no connate ideas of the virtues of things: but took all upon the word of tradition or some empirical experiment. And since we cannot derive the pedigree of our knowledge so high as Solomon (whose inspired herbal, could it be found, might be a good succedaneum to Adam's onomasticen) we find ourselves very far from reading it on Seth's pillars: Only with astonished ignorance we may see its epitaph in confusion on the plains of Shinar. For we are more wise in tongues than things, and are a sort of philologic phitophers, whose knowledge is various readings. And so no wonder if our skill fail us. |