It must not be supposed that the scientific—or physico-medical, as the doctor calls it—portion of the subject is dismissed in such few words. The author dilates on the theory, turns it over, tosses it about, takes a bite, squeezes it, holds it up for admiration, and then reluctantly puts it aside. In the course of his physico-medical argument, he introduces a few illustrative anecdotes. One of these, taken from P. Borellus, is to this effect: A servant much devoted to his master, on his return from a journey, found his lord dead and prepared for burial. Full of grief, he cast himself on the deceased, and kissing his pallid lips poured forth a whirlwind of sighs. The breath thus emitted penetrated to the lungs of the corpse, inflated them, and the dead opened his eyes, winked, and sat up. The sighs of the faithful domestic had fanned into flame the expiring, and as all had deemed expired, vital spark. From Orubelius our author quotes another story in confirmation of his hypothesis:—
A woman had died in her first confinement, or, at all events, had fallen into a state which was believed by the attendants and by Orubelius, who was the physician present, to be death. She lay thus for a quarter of an hour devoid of sense and feeling, with pale face, stationary pulse, and with lungs which had ceased to play. A maid-servant who thus beheld her, opened her mouth, and breathed into it; whereupon the patient revived. The physician then asked the girl where she had learned the use of this simple yet efficient restorative, and the servant replied that she had seen it practised upon new-born children with the happiest results. The author also assures us of the beneficial effect produced by wringing the necks of poultry before a person in articulo mortis, and making the cocks and hens breathe out their souls into the mouth of the dying, whereby he is not unfrequently restored, and becomes quite well and chirrupy.
But, continues Dr. Cohausen, it is not only the exhalations from the lungs which are life-generative, but also those from the pores. The pores are little mouths situated all over the body, constantly engaged in the aëration of the blood; they inhale the surrounding atmosphere and then exhale it again, charged with balsamic and sulphurous particles taken up from the system. Men’s bodies are pneumatic-hydraulic machines, composed of fluid and solid materials, and health depends on the fluids being prevented from coagulating, by being stirred up by the constant operations of the currents of air which penetrate the frame through the pores and mouth. The solid portion of the body is disposed to harden and dry up and become stiff, and this produces age and decay; but if the circulation of the fluids be kept up by the healthful infusion of fresh vital force and living energies, then decrepitude and death may be almost indefinitely postponed.
Now the lips of the little mouths or pores all over the person can be kept flexible by oil, and therefore enabled to perform their functions with facility. Thus Pollio, an ancient soldier of the Emperor Augustus, when asked how he had succeeded in prolonging his energies over a hundred years, replied that he had daily moistened his outer man with oil, and his inner man with honey. Dr. Cohausen proceeds to lay down that it is better to absorb the exhalations of little girls than those of little boys, because females are more oily than males—a view we in no way feel inclined to dispute, without having recourse to the receipt of Mocrodius for wholesale incremations, which the doctor quotes to establish the fact:—“Lay one female body to six male bodies, in a great pyre, for thereby the male corpses are the more speedily consumed.” No doubt about it: there is enough combustible material in one woman to set any number of men in a blaze.
Johannes Fabricius, in his Palladium Chymicum, relates that he knew of a lady whose hair when combed emitted sparks.
Bartholinus mentions in his Tractatus de Luce Hominum the case of a female who flashed fire whenever her limbs or back were rubbed with a towel. These examples lead our author to conclude that in women there is not merely a considerable amount of oil, but that there is also no small item of latent fire; we are inclined to add, explosive material as well.
The advantage of old men marrying young wives is next discussed by Dr. Cohausen; and he strongly urges all who have entered on the sere and yellow leaf, to take to themselves wives of very early age; that, if Providence has not made them superintendents of orphanages, or schoolmasters, they may be enabled at small expense to inhale youthful breath. Men already possessed of wives are to spend their days in the nursery. As an instance of the advantage of patriarchs taking girl-wives, he relates the story of a certain ancient man with snow-white hair and beard, who married at the advanced age of eighty. After a while the old man fell ill; all his hair and skin came off. On his recovery, he had a fresh transparent complexion, and a magnificent bushy head and chin of vivid red hair.
“Whatever you do!” earnestly entreats the doctor, “never marry an old woman; she will absorb all the vital principle from your lungs. Alas for him who, in hopes of gaining money, marries a rich old spinster! She becomes youthful, and he prematurely aged. For old women,” he continues, “are like cats, whose breath is poisonous to life. From the eyes and mouth a cat discharges so much that is hurtful, that it has been the cause of innumerable complaints. Indeed, Matthiolus relates that a whole monastery of Religious died because they kept a number of cats.”
“My dear reader,” says Cohausen, “if you are young and wish to marry, follow the advice of Baron von Hevel, late member of the Imperial Council, which he gives in his ‘Psalmodia Sacra’:—
“Si cupis uxorem quæ præstet ubique decorem,
Formidetque marem, dilige sorte parem,
Prolificam, bellam, prudentem quære puellam,
Non genium vanum, nec viduam nec anum.