I. Of Cleanness in Food.
What is more profitable for all Lovers of Health and Wisdom, than Food that is Radically Clean? And as Bread hath deservedly the first Place, together with Herbs, and various sorts of excellent Fruits; so the next is Milk, which of it self is a brave, mild, and most friendly Food to Nature, very fit and profitable for all Ages and Complexions; and if it do not agree with some People, it is because their Stomachs are made sharp and soured by superfluity of dainty Food, and the continual use of strong Drink. Also Milk being altered, it makes many sorts of wholesom healthy Food. Next to these, are various sorts of Flesh, which being killed in their proper Times and Seasons, and when they are free from their Uncleannesses, Surfeits, and other Inconveniences, which most Beasts are subject to; and if care be taken also that they be well and moderately seasoned with Salt, and boyled in plenty of River or Spring-water (which is the best of all Waters except Rain-water) they become wholesom Nourishment. For, River-water hath the advantage of running through various sorts of Earth, by which it sucks into it self a fat, oylie, and saline Quality, which the Surface of the Earth does plentifully afford; which also is the cause of all Vegitation, and the lovely Green Colour which all Vegitables are cloth'd with, does arise from this Saline Quality. For these Reasons, River-water will Brew, Boil, and Wash, and it is more profitable in all Uses in Houswifery, than Spring or Pump-water, and far wholesomer for Men and Beasts to drink. Also your Vessel in which your Food is boyled, ought to be uncovered all the time it boyls; for if the Air have not its free egress and regress, the pure Spirits in the Food become as it were suffocated, and then the Food so prepared becomes dull and heavy; for the Air is the Essential Life of the Spirit; and all Food that hath not plenty of Water, and the free Influences of the Air, in its Preparation, does certainly lose its natural Colour, with the pure Smell and Taste: for if those three Qualities be not preserved in all Preparations of Food, then the genuine Vertue and lively Tinctures are in part lost. The same is to be observed in all Physical Operations. And if the above-mentioned Order be not observed, then the Food is not so pleasant to the Pallate, nor so easie of Concoction; it lies heavy in the Stomach, dulling and stupifying the Senses; it generates a gross Nourishment, and bad Blood, whence does proceed many Diseases: Whereas if the above-mentioned Rules be observed, and your Fire quick, that your Food do not stand still, or cease from boyling, till it be sufficiently done, the Effects are contrary. It is also much better the Food should be a little under-prepared, than too much: For when the gross phlegmatick Body of any Food is by Preparation digested, then presently the lively spirituous Quality is set at liberty, whence does proceed a most pleasant Smell and Taste; which pleasant Quality, before the Preparation, lay hid or captivated in the Body of Phlegm; but so soon as this phlegmatick Body is in part destroyed, the Spirit becomes Volatile; and then, if the Preparation be continued, those pure Spirits do either become suffocated, or evaporate; and then the sweet Balsamick Body turns as it were sour. For these Reasons, all sorts of Food, either over prepared, or twice prepared, are of a strong fulsom taste and smell; as all Meats heat again, and also Pottages, and all such things, do obstruct Nature, and generate many Diseases. But if the forementioned Rules be observed, the Food so prepared is not only more pleasant to the Pallate, but far lighter of Digestion, and breeds better Blood. For that Universal Distemper (the Scurvy) which reigns so much in England, is chiefly caused by Food ill prepared, and the eating of too much Flesh, and Fat things, especially in the improper Seasons of the Year, viz. from July to the last of November. In this Season the Sun, which is the true Life and Power of all things, declines; and all sorts of Herbage, which is the Food of all Beasts that are generally eaten, doth the same: The Grass all this Season is fraught with a gross phlegmatick Matter; besides, it is a fainty hot time; the Air, which is the Cherishing Life of all things, is more gross, and full of Humidity, than all other times of the Year; the Spirits of all sorts of Creatures are also weak, and on any Accidents are quickly wounded, or evaporated, more especially those Beasts that come from remote Parts to great Cities. Besides, it is then the principal time of their Generating, which renders them unclean. Are not the People ten-fold as sickly in this Season, and double the number die, than they do at other times? Also you may observe, That the Rots amongst Sheep, and Murrains that attend other Beasts, are all or most of them in this Season: Therefore all sorts of People ought to be more careful of their Health, both in Exercises, Meats, and Drink, that they do not exceed either in quantity, nor eat things that are improper in quality. This is the time that all Shepherds, and also those that are Drivers of Horses, and indeed all that have the Government of Cattel, ought to have and use double the prudence in the management of them, than at other Seasons of the Year, as I have more largely discoursed in a small Treatise, which I intend to put forth, if I am permitted, of the Preservation of Sheep from the Rot, and Horses from Surfeits.
There are three Marks by which every one may know whether the Flesh be good. The first is by its pure White and brisk Red Colour, when Raw. The second is by its continuing its firmness, being plump or swelled when boyled, having a brisk and lively Taste, and that after eating it feels easie and pleasant in the Stomach. The third is, by its taking Salt well; for if your Flesh be free from Heat and Surfeits, and not over-fed, which charges the Body with gross Phlegm; as also if it be not kept longer after it is killed (as indeed it ought not) than it be thought to be cold, before it is salted; all such Flesh will take Salt greedily, and it will not only keep longer from Putrifaction, but it will eat much sweeter, and breed better Nourishment. For, if any sort of Cattel be over-fed, surfeited, or any other Inconveniency attends them, and they be killed before they have recovered themselves of those Injuries; or if it be in August, September, or October, this Flesh will not take Salt so well as the former, neither will the Salt preserve it half so long from Corruption. Also, as it is before-mentioned, if Flesh be kept too long after it be killed, such Flesh will not receive Salt into it, as other will, which is salted as soon as it is cold: For by keeping it does certainly lose its pure Spirituous Quality, so that the Body becomes heavy, gross, and dull. Does not the Life and Spirits of most sorts of Food waste and evaporate by keeping, if there be not a proper way of Preservation used? If Flesh, by any Inconveniencies, have lost its pure lively Spirits and Vertue, Salt then hath no power to preserve such Flesh from Putrifaction: For Salt cannot preserve the Body from Corruption, but by vertue of the pure subtile Spirits, which are a pleasant Habitation for the Salt to incorporate it self with: For Salt will not preserve Flesh from Putrifaction, any longer than the Vertue and Power of the Spirit does continue, as it does appear by all salted Flesh and Fish: For through length of time the Spirits become either suffocated, or evaporated, and then it presently falls into Putrifaction: And yet this same Flesh does still continue Salt; for Salt does not destroy and purge the Flesh from its Corruption, but incorporates it self with the Essential Spirits, and those two do as it were tie or hold the corrupt Part Captive, till the Spirit and Life of the Flesh be spent or wasted, and then the Flesh falls into Putrifaction, which cannot be recovered, eitheir by Salting, or any other Art, to its first state: But if the Salt had purged or destroyed the Humidity and gross part, then there would have been no Room nor Matter for Putrifaction, and then it would have continued firm and sound, as many other things do, which are freed from that gross humid Matter from which Putrifaction does proceed. Therefore Flesh is naturally the most unclean of all Food, it being of a gross phlegmatick Nature; and if Care be not taken, and Order and Temperance observed in the Eater, it generates abundance of crude and noxious Humours.
2. Cleanness in Houses, especially in Beds, is a great Preserver of Health. Now Beds for the most part stand in Corners of Chambers, and being ponderous close Substances, the refreshing Influences of the Air have no power to penetrate or destroy the gross Humidity that all such Places contract, where the Air hath not its free egress and regress. In these shady dull Places Beds are continued for many Years, and hardly see the Sun or Elements. Besides, Beds suck in and receive all sorts of pernicious Excrements that are breathed forth by the Sweating of various sorts of People, which have Leprous and Languishing Diseases, which lie and die on them: The Beds, I say, receive all these several Vapours and Spirits, and the same Beds are often continued for several Generations, without changing the Feathers, until the Ticks be rotten. Besides, we have many Feathers that are Imported from several Countries, which are the Drivings of old Beds, the Uncleanness whereof is not considered. As to the Nature of Feathers, they are of a strong, hot, fulsom Quality: for, Fowls, of all Creatures, are for the most part the hottest; and their Feathers contain the same Nature: Therefore the constant lying on soft Feather-beds, does not only over-heat the Back and Reins, weakning the Joynts and Nerves; but they have power also not only to receive but retain all evil Vapours and Excrements that proceed from, and are breathed forth by various Diseased People. Hence it comes to pass, that sundry Distempers are transferred from one to another, by lying upon or in such Beds, which Distempers do secretly steal on a Man by degrees, so that he cannot imagine whence the disorder proceeds, or what the Cause thereof should be. But I would not have the Reader mistake me; all People are not subject to get Diseases this way: There are some whose Constitutions are strong, and their Natural Heat and Spirits are vigorous and lively, by the Power and Vertue whereof they withstand and repel all such evil Vapours and Scents as do proceed from such Beds, when a Man is hot and sweats in them, that they have no power to seise the Spirit: But, on the contrary, when such People shall lie on such Beds, whose Natural Heat is weak, their Spirits few, and whose Central Heat is not able to withstand or repel those Vapours and Scents which such Beds send forth when a Man is hot in them, this last sort of People are subject to receive Injuries, and contract Diseases: For those evil Vapours do powerfully penetrate the whole Body; and if they are not withstood by the Central Heat and Power of the Spirits, then these evil Vapours do seise the Spirits, and incorporate themselves with their Likenesses: For every particular thing does sensibly and powerfully seek out its Likeness, and wheresoever it finds its Simile, it hath power to incorporate, and become essential. These are the chief Reasons why one Man gets Diseases by lying with Diseased Persons, and in unclean Beds, and others not. It is a general Custom, when Men go abroad or travel, to desire clean Sheets, imagining them to be a sufficient Bulwark to defend them from the pernicious Fumes and Vapours of old stale Beds; but it is too short. For, it is certain, that most or all Beds do perfectly stink, not only those in Inns and Houses of Entertainment, but others: Not but that every ones Bed does smell indifferent well to himself; but when he lies in a strange Bed, let a Man but put his Nose into the Bed when he is thorowly hot, and hardly any Common Vault is like it.
Now this sort of Uncleanness, which does proceed from old Beds, is not only the greatest, but also the most injurious to the Health and Preservation of Mankind, and the least care is taken to prevent it: Every one that can, will have plentiful Changes both of Linen and Woollen Garments; for if they have not, Experience does shew, that the Excrements and Breathings of the Body will generate Vermin. Also do not most People take care that their Furnitures are daily brushed and rubbed, and their very Floors washed, as though they were to eat their Food on them? But all this while they lie on Beds that have not been changed, or hardly aired, in several Years. Let any indifferent Person judge, which is most pleasurable and healthful, to have a clean Floor to tread on, which costs many hard days Labour to keep so, and is dirtied in a Moments time; or to have a clean sweet Bed to lye on. There is no Comparison to be made, the difference is so great; the one being essential either to Health or Sickness, the other an indifferent thing. If there was but the tenth part of the Care taken to keep Beds clean and sweet, as there is of Clothing and Furniture, then there would be no Matter for the getting of Diseases, nor for the Generation of Bugs. I would have all Housewifes, and others, consider the Reasons of these things. Are not Lice, that troublesom Vermin, bred from the Breathings of the Body, for want of often Change both of Linnen and Woollen? And will not Fleas breed from the very Dust of Chambers where People lie? Also any Woollen that hath been used about Beds, although the cold Winter hath destroyed them, yet if these Clothes lie in any close place, where the Air hath not its free egress and regress, these very Garments will generate Fleas the Summer following: but if these Clothes had never been used about Men and Women, they would never have bred Fleas: for there is no Matter of Element in Wooll or Cloth for the Generation of such Creatures; but Wooll, Cloth, Furs, and Hair are chiefly the Element of Moths, and sometimes of small Worms; that is, if such things are kept in Places where the refreshing Influences of the Air have not their free egress: for all such Places do contract great store of Moisture, which, when hot Weather comes, causeth Putrifaction, whence all such Vermin do proceed. But if those things be in daily use, and exposed to the open Element, they never breed any Vermin: So that the Generation of those things are generally caused by Accidents; not but that there is Matter in the Radixes of such things for the Generation of such Vermin.
3. From the pernicious Smells and putrified Vapours that do proceed from old Beds, are generated the Vermin called Bugs, (of which, neither the Ancients, nor the Modern Writers of this Age, have taken any notice) according to the Degrees of Uncleanness, Nature of the Excrements, and the Closeness of the Places where Beds stand: for some Peoples Excrements are not so unclean as others: Also in all close Places, especially in Cities and Great Towns, the Spirits and thin Vapours of the Air are suffocated, which makes the same Air Sulphurous and Humid, whence does proceed Putrifaction. Therefore it is not to be thought a General Rule, That all old Beds should breed Bugs, as some (who are ignorant of the Operations of Nature) will be apt to say, If one Bed do breed them, why not all? No, it is according to the nature of the Uncleanness, and other Accidents that do happen: For where (as is said before) the thin pure Air, with the refreshing Influences of the Sun and Elements, have their free egress and regress, all such Matter is destroyed whence such Vermin is produced. The Original of these Creatures called Bugs is from Putrifaction, occasioned by stinking Scents and Vapours which do proceed from the Bodies and Nature of Men and Women, and the mixing or incorporating of these Vapours with moist and sulphurous Airs: For where there is no Heat nor Humidity, there can begin no Putrifaction. Therefore all that have attributed the Generation of this Vermin to Wood, as Bedsteads, and the like, are grosly mistaken in the Productions of Nature; for there is no Matter in Wood that can generate such a Vermin, it being productive only or chiefly of two Creatures in England, viz. of Wood-Lice, and a small Worm. These Wood-Lice are never generated but in Places where the Sun and Air have not their free Influences, so that there is store of Humidity contracted; and when the Sun comes to such Degrees of the Zodiack, this Creature is generated, which is of as different a Nature from Bugs, as sweet Wood is from a stinking Bed. Also Wood does breed a certain small Worm, but never till the Salts Nature and Power is decayed through length of time; then the Air enters it, which does presently cause it to contract a humid Quality, from whence proceeds Putrifaction, whereof, when the Sun is powerful, this Worm is bred. But so long as Wood continues sound, and is kept dry, the Air having its free Influences on it, I affirm, That no sort of Wood ever breeds any kind of Vermin.
4. There are many also that attribute the Generation of this Creature to Hogs Hair, which being mixed with Lime, and Houses Plaistered with it, does occasion (say they) the Generation of Bugs. Now it is most certain, that there is no possibility in Nature for this Production: For no kind of Hair ever breeds any Living Creature, except it be put into Water or Mud when the Sun is powerful, and then this Creature, thus generated, retains its first Species, viz. a Hair, with a live Head, which was its Element whence it proceeded: but if you take it out of the Water, it presently dies: So also it doth when the Sun declines in Heat, as most sorts of Vermin that are bred through Heat and Moisture do. But Hair being mixed with Lime, all Matter of Generation is thereby totally destroyed: For Lime does chiefly contain a harsh, fiery, keen, sharp, corroding Quality; it is so sharp, that it does destroy all Life, and is as contrary to it, as Light is to Darkness; the predominant Quality in it is the Salts Nature, from which no Living Creature can be produced. Besides, if there were never so much Matter in Hair for the Generation of such Vermin, Lime would destroy it; for in Lime there is only a Sal-nitral fiery Vertue.
5. If the Reasons before-mentioned be not sufficient to convince the Ignorant of their erroneous Opinions in this particular, then I hope the following one will, which is more familiar to every one. It hath never been known, that this troublesom Vermin was ever seen in Warehouses, Kitchens, Parlours, Dining-rooms, or any Places where Beds have never been, except they have by accident been brought into such Rooms or Warehouses, by Furniture of Chambers that have been troubled with them, though all such Places have the same Furniture as Chambers, except Beds.
6. From the same Substance or Matter whence Bugs are bred, is also occasioned the Generation of many nasty Diseases in the Blood; so that the destruction of the Matter that breeds them, is of greater Consequence than most People are sensible of: And if these following Rules be observed, I dare affirm, That the Generation of Bugs will cease, and also many other Inconveniencies and Distempers, that are got by this sort of Uncleanness, will be avoided.
First, You are to destroy all Press-Bedsteads which stand in Corners of Rooms, being made up with Boards so close, that the Air cannot penetrate or dry up and consume the moist sulphurous Vapours that are contracted. These sorts of Beds, that stand so, are apt to have them more than others. Also you are to set your other sorts of Beds as near as you can in the most Airie Places of your Rooms, exposing them to the Air the most part of the day, with your Chamber-Windows open, that the Air may freely pass, which is the most excellent Element, that does sweeten all things, and prevents Putrifaction. In the Night also you ought not to have your Window-Curtains drawn, nor your Curtains that are about your Beds; for it hinders the sweet refreshing Influences of the Air, so that the Air of all close Places becomes of a hot sulphurous Nature and Operation; the thin pure Vapours, which do wonderfully refresh Nature, are as it were suffocated: And this preventing the Influences of the Air, is in an especial manner observable, when People are sick, or out of order; as though the sweet pleasant Air had been the Cause of their Disease: such Rooms being so very close, with great Fires in them, that if a healthy Person do but continue three or four Hours in them, the fulsom Steams and thick Vapours will much disorder him, and take away the edge of his Appetite: And if so, what will the Operation be on those whose Spirits are weak and disordered with Distempers?