THE BUCKLER OF BODILY HEALTH, Whereby Health may be defended, and sickness repelled; consecreate by the Au 〈…〉 the use of his Count 〈…〉 〈…〉 shing from his heart (though it were to his hurt) to see the fruits of his labour on the constant welfare of all his Countrymen.  
By Mr. JOHN MAKLUIRE, Doctor in Medicine.  
EDINBURGH Printed by john Wreittoun 1630.   

TO THE MOST NOBLE, WORTHY, AND GENEROUS LORDS, MY L. chancellor, PRESIDENT, and the rest of the Lords of his Majesty's most honourable privy Counsel.  
MY LORDS,  
THE Philosophers, who have seriously by contemplation considered the nature of man, have learned into the school of verity, that he is the chief of all creatures under the Sun, seeing all things in this theatre to be made for his use, the Heaven, the elements, and all that doth depend of them appointed for his service: Moreover they found such perfection in his fabric, so great miracles in his works, that they could not find any thing in all this universe, to whom they should licken him well except the world itself, so they have called him Microcosm, or little world, being (as Plutarch sayeth) the abridgement of the whole globe: For it is certain that GOD in the creation made all things before man, and when he was going about to make him, he made an reflection of his divinity, and took a view of all his works, that he might print in this his last work the quintessence all other, with the beams of his own image: as man surpasseth the rest of the creatures in dignity; so the Magistrates private men: but amongst the Magistrates of this Kingdom, your LL. keep the first rank both by place and worth: for in maintaining of peace and banishing of troubles, in advancing and approving of the good, and suppressing the evil, your LL. have given an clear manifestation of both prudency and vigilancy. I knowing how your LL. did affect these who study to the well of the public have made bold to publish this small work with your L names in the frontispiece of it, as most due to you: nam vestri interest ne quid detrimenti respublica capiat. Truly if the smiling brightness of your LL. sweetly shining countenance had not glansed on my dazzled eyes, should have been forced with Diogenes in the day light with a candle to look for a man festered with the milk of letters, and now become a father and favourer of all such, whose emolument depends from the advancement of virtuous studies Your LL. presence at the entry, Will preserve it from the virulent biting of viperous invyers, and so shall encourage me to employ the small talon the Lord hath imparted to me to your LL. service, and the use of the public as  
your LL. Most humble servant I. Macluire D. M.   

TO THE TRVELY NOBILITATE HONOURABLE, AND GENEROUS GENTLEMAN, JAMES MONTGOMERY ESQVIER, SON TO MY LORD VISCOUNT OF the Airds, in the Kingdom of IRELAND: Health.  
Right Honourable, and worthy Sir:  
HAving after a long calculation found out time of my conception, almost doubting of the father, (as few honest women do) I knew in end the child belonged by right to you, which (yet honest woman like) I present to you, willing it should carry your name in the forefront: Reject it not Sir, either by reason of the unlawfuluesse of the time, being now eleven years passed since my first conception, where others take but eleven months at the most: the first lineaments being drawn, and carefully: ye, fatherly, under the cover of your wings by heat till it took life, hatched in the University of St. Androws eleven years since: or because of the unlikeness of the birth, which doth not resemble you the father, (yet it is no wonder Sir) it being (babe like) toothless, tongueless, sightless, noseless: yea, wholly senseless, and so unable to bite again the backbytter, or make answer to the Critic babbler, to flee the Viper in the way, ●r smell a far of the slanderous Censurer, whose throat is become an open sepulchre: You Sir the father, having with the proportion of the members the sharpness of the senses, and sweet harmony of these outward decorments, that inward ornament of all, to wit, these eminent faculties of the soul, which kithes in your conception, grave and solideratiocination, and memory furnished from former observations, with a copious matter to all sort of wholesome discourse, so that inbred natural wisdom, and painful acquired learning, hath made you Sir (absit verbo invidia) justly to be thought by me (who scarcely seeth any thing clearly) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a just dimension of all things, required in a noble generous mind, and a properly proportioned person. Receive therefore this silly babe Sir, and let the perfections which are in you, supplie the defects that are in it maintain it by your authority from the unchristen: yea, uncharitable railing tongues and ryving hands of all Waspe-like searchers of poison amongst honey flowers, divel-like by invy hinderers never authors or furtherers of any good enterprise, aiming at the well of the public, but them I regard not: laugh you Sir, and let them lightly it; receive you it, let them reject it: to you Sir only being consecrate, I do offer it as a sure badge of my constant desire out of ardent affection Sir to live and die,  
Your most affectioned servant, JOHN Makluire, Doctor in Medicine.   

TO THE READER.  
Receive gentle Reader this little treatile with that mind it is presented, which is humble without alleged pride, and sincere without affected fared: only desirous to serve GOD, for which end I was form, and the country to which end I was called: lest now I should be idle, while the Sun of knowledge is eclipsed by the clouds of ignorance, which hath bred such an apprehension of supposed weakness in the minds of many, when this science is enclosed in the person of a young professor: that old ignorant ruffians, practised Man-slayers, are repute only worthy Physicians, whose best cure hath been upon their own purse, if they have been but a by-stander in some desperate recovery, they are slandered with it, though guiltless, and this hath bred their reputation, to whom if once ye send your urine, ye must resolve to be sick howsoever, for they will never leave examining of it, till they have shaked it in a disease. Of such our country and city is filled, for none from the Preacher to the cobbler, or the Lady to the landres, but all doctorate deceavers: by this the sorcerer venteth his divelrie: the seminary Priest his Popery. To you be it said my Lords of his Majesty's Counsel and Session, and on you be laid the blood of th●se poor ignorant innocents, daily precipitate to their grave. By this neglect GOD is bereft of his servants, and the King of his subjects: help this my Lords, and let not this old science, commanded of GOD, followed by Kings and Princes, embraced of all, and renowned by all, over all, second to none, (divinity except) decay amongst you, and restrain pantodidactos extravagant spirit, (more ignorant than the Ox or Ass, while he knoweth not his own crib) within the borders of his profession, showing whatsoever his vocation be, Mr. Perkins superscription of his books, Minister verbies, hoc unum age, that medicine flourishing in this Kingdom, not only my old Lord Doctor, but also young Master Doctor may live by the labour of his hands, destitute of other lands.   

In IO AN. MAKLVIREUM (sive lyradem) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  

AOnidum pater est, idem est Asclepii, Apollo;  
Illius inventum est ars metrica & medica.  
Verum Asclepiadis citharamque & Paeonis artem,  
Musarum ut famulis tradidit Aoniam.  
●ieridum nato simul atque Epidaurii alumno  
Phoebus avus Lyradae donat utramque lyram.  
Macte lyrâ utrâvis, canon's dignate modosque  
Tradere Paeonios', ludere & Aonios'.  
Ludebat G. Sibbaldus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.    

In Authoris nomen, Mak. hoc est filius. Lure, id est esca.  

PErge salutiferam sic impertirier escam,  
jure salutiferae diceris filius escae.    

In Libri inscriptionem  

MIlitia est quicquid mortales degimus aevi:  
quam fit opus clypci nemo negabit ope.  
Mysticus est Mystae; Medicae hîc Maklurius artis  
Porrigit, ingenii nobile deig na sui,  
Qnisquis amas sanam, quoque sano in corpore mentem,  
Sanus si es, sanum qui tueatur habes.    

In Zoilum.  

TEntas Maklurii incassum discerpere nomen,  
Livide, praeclarum iam super astra volat.  
Pat. Sandaeus.    

Author ad Censorem.  

CUM tua non edas carpismea dogmata Censor,  
Carpere vel noli nostra, vel ede tua.  
Candidus imperti meliora vel utere nostris:  
Aut alios nostro mitte labore frui.    

The Contents of this Book.  

THE natural causes of death. Pag. 1  
The use of meat, drink, sleep, etc. 3  
Of phlebotomy, or drawing of blood. 6  
A remedy for drunken comers. 8  
Of Lochleaches Bloodsuckers, and wicked men Blood-drinkers. 9  
Of purges for the body. 10  
Of purges for the purse. 18  
Of vomiting. 19  
The inconvenients of long sleeping. 23  
Means for expelling the whole excrements of the body. 24  
The time, term, and other circumstances of exercising. 26  
TOBACCO. 30  
Dinner time, and meats in general, 38  
A remedy for grown greasy bellies. 39  
Of bread, 41. Of flesh, 42. Fowls. 45  
Of Eggs and milk. 46  
Herbs for eating. 51  
Drink in general. 53. Wine, 54  
Beer, 55. Water. 46  
What should be done after dinner. 57  
Passions of the mind. 59  
Supper tyme. 62  
The Cooks good parts. 63  
After supper what, and the Air. 64  
The praises of night drunkards and vain Roarers. Pag. 6●  
Bed time, and sleep. 6●  
Procreation with the circumstances. 7●  
Complexions 7●  
Sanguineans and their diet 7●  
Cholericks diet. 7●  
melancholics diet. 7●  
phlegmatics diet. 8●  
Age in general. 8●  
Bairnes meat. 8●  
Youths meat. 8●  
Middleage diet. 8●  
Old men's meat. 8●  
The careless care of a young lass for old man. 8●  
The seasons. 9●  
The diet of the spring. 9●  
Of the summer. 9●  
Of the harvest. 9●  
Of the winter. 10●  
A regiment for women with child. 100LS  
For women brought to bed. 100LS  
For the child. 11●  
For the Nurse. 11●  
Of waning the babe. 12●  
Greedy misers, godless heirs. 12●  
Bairnes diseases. 12●  
The marks of both true and false conception. 12●   
FINIS.   

THE BUCKLER OF HEALTH.  
GOD the Creator made man with a soul immortal, and a body subject to death, being composed of four elements, of contrary quali 〈…〉 s, which doth combat still amongst 〈…〉 emselues, the stronger stryving to sub 〈…〉 e the weaker, hence cometh many 〈…〉 eases, and in end destruction: Moreo 〈…〉 r our life is sustained by two pillars, 〈◊〉 wit, by the natural heat, (which is 〈◊〉 chief instrument of the soul) and the 〈…〉 bred moist, or sap of the body, which 〈◊〉 the nourishment, or food of this heat, 〈◊〉 is the oil in the lamp, of the light, 〈…〉 ich humour failing, the heat must needs 〈…〉 rish: but so it is this humour can not still last, because the natural heat: doth daily destroy it, and although there be daily reparation made by the heat, and the blood that proceeds from the heart by the arters to all the members of the body, yet the sappy or humid substance that is dissolved is much purer than that which by reparation doth succeed to it: for our natural heat being daily weakened, is not able to make up her losses, by as good as it hath lost: as wine the more water be mixed is the weaker, so our natural heat, and inbred sappy substance is daily weakened by the apposition of new aliment or food, having still some thing unlike the former: Add to these that the dissolution of the body is continual the reparation, but by little and little, after many alterations: here ye see, that the natural heat devouring this our natural inbred sap doth destroy the self in end.  
And although that these things do impose a necessity of death to man, nevertheless he may not only prolong his life (considering here the second causes only) but also preveene sickness, and keeps himself in health, and that by the righ● and moderate use of these outward circumstances in themselves indifferent, and ●o good, if rightly and circumspectly used, ●ut evil, if not: These are the air, meat, ●rink, sleeping, waking, motion, and rest: ●he excretion of the excrements of the ●ody, and the passions of the mind, all which are so necessary to the life of man, ●hat it can not last long without the use of ●he same, for the continual dissolution of the ●ody requireth a reparation by meat. Then ●eepe is needful for the digestion and ●estitution of the spirits, waking for the exercises and functions of the spirits, and ●he stirring up of the natural heat: and ●est is necessare for the refreshing of both ●ody and spirits wearied: and seeing nature can not turn all her meat in good substance, the excretion of the superflui●es was needful. The passions of the ●ynde by reason of the objects that are offered, good or evil, can not also be eshewed: for the moderation then of these circumstances remark these few Canons ●ollowing.  

Canon 1.  
It is expedient for the preserving of ●ealth, and prevening of diseases, that e●ery one whose age and force doth permite, should every year draw blood and purge, and that in the spring, because the body replenished with humours doth readily at that time fall in divers diseases, while as the natural heat revived, by the approaching of the sun towards 〈◊〉 doth attempt the expulsion of these humours out of the body, from the which enterprise of nature ariseth a conflict, if nature have the victory, man escapeth: but if she succumb, man dyeth: that nature doth thus attempt the expulsion of these humours, it is known by these intercutanean diseases, as are itch, pustuls, biles, ulcers, and such like, which we see commonly in the Spring to fall out.  
The body in the winter by two means is replenished with humours, the one is by that extraordinary appetite whereby men are carried: yea, rather forced to eat more meat in that season than in the Summer: this appetite proceedeth from the greater heat of the stomach then, than at any other tyme. The other mean whereby the body is replenished, is the envyroning cold, whereby dissipation of these three substances (to wit, the airy, humid and solid is hindered, as also the excretion of the vapours by the small holes, or pores of the body. It is therefore needful to help nature, and light her of this burhen, by drawing of blood, or phlebotomy and purging: And because the reward of Physicians in this country being frequently, My Lord, GOD reward you, hath made Physicians to be scarce, and no wonder, for how shall his L. live upon this rent, is it not to content my Lord with the poor folk's alms, who get often GOD help you, they differ in form, but not in matter: this scarcity constraineth the Gentlemen to commit themselves to be handled by ignorants, who lest they should deal with them as that Chirurgeon of jedburgh dealt with his patients, who forced all them of whom he drew blood, their wound under-cotting, to return to have it healed, and being asked the reason of this of his little boy, he answered, that for making of the wound by opening of the vein, he got a Wether, but for curing of the same a Kow, that every one may understand for his own well, I will insist a little on phlebotomy and purging.  

Of Phlebotomy.  
PHLEBOTOMY then is an evacuation of the vicious humours abounding in the body, mixed with the blood, by the opening of a vein.  
This is either urged by the present disease, which admits no delay, or it is voluntare for the prevening of the imminent, when the present danger doth press, it may be at any time of the year, or any hour in the day or night without exception, and that in divers places of the body, as the nature of the disease shall require: when it is by election, or voluntary for preveennig of future diseases, the most fit time of the year, is the Spring, in the latter end of March, or the beginning of april, and the most proper hour in the day is the morning: an hour or more after you are awake, having made a clean Ship, fore and est, (as the Seamen say:) the most accommodate place is the vein basilike, or lever vein, the Chirurgeon having rubbed it with his hand, or a dry cloth before, for the gathering of the blood thither, then having tied it, let him make the incision beneath the place, where it meeteth with the vein Cephalic, about two finger's breadth, having marked the place before, and anointed it with a little oil, holding the vein fast, lest it should slide with the thumb of the left hand if the incision be made with the right hand, and leaning the hand wherewith he openeth the vein on the arm of the patient, that it may be stable, and giving him who is bled a battoun in his hand, for to stir his fingers, to that effect the blood may issue the better, and having drawn such a measure as the nature force and age of the person may well suffer, slacking the band, let him say upon the wound a little piece of linen cloth dipped in water and tied softly by a band of linen till all danger of new bleeding be past, keeping still the arm all that day free from all motion.  
Blood may be taken in greater measure of sanguineans and bilious, than of melancholious, and phlegmatics, of young men than of old, and of men than women. Except it be of such who by often sacrificing to Bacchus, their head takes now and then a giddy startling, their tongue a tedious trattling, their tail a vile wavering. These monsters of nature, shame of their sex, cross of their husband, and disgrace of kin, friend and alliance should be bled in both the legs and arms, and in the crop of the tongue, by a cross sneck to that end, it may be made slower for talking, and stiffer for drinking, least continuing in this wicked mood, they make their husband's Cuckolds, their bairnes bastards and beggars, themselves whores and thieves. justly many are molested with such beasts, who glames at the turd for the twelve pence sticken in it: the corruption of our time being such that Tome the tinklers son metamorphosed in a Gentleman, suits mistress Marie my Lord's daughter, and Sir john my Lords second, spears out for Sandie the Souters forty thousand mark jennie. This Tom aiming at vanitïe rather than virtue, comes to honours or horns by his wife, and Sir john looking to gear more than to grace, is often perplexed, while the trash is wasted, by a Masie Fae or a Maly Dae. I wonder that their unequal conjunctions do not fill the country with monsters like Muiets which is begotten betwixt a Mare and an Ass.   

Of Loch-leachs.  
Some use Lochleaches when they cannot have the use of drawing of blood. These little beasts are not to be applied presently, after they come out of the water, but they must be kept four and twenty hours in a vessel, full of fair water, that they may spew out this, while the filthy mud & dross is within them. They should be gripped with a white ●innen cloth, for the bare hand cankers them. The place to the which they are to be applied, should be smeered over with blood, to that end they may enter the sooner: and when ye would have them to fall, sprinkle a little Aloes or salt on them, if ye would them to draw more than they are able to contain, cut off their tail while they are yet hanging, and if the bleeding ' staunch not after they are fallen, apply with a band, of cloth or wool brunt and beat to powder.  
There be other Lochleaches or bloodsuckers not spoken of here, such be gold greedy, inventors of new impositions, faith less victual forestallers, and treacherous quarrels, and process hatchers, who bereaving by these means his innocent brother of his goods the entertainers of his life, may be termed rather man slayars than blood suckers. These unlike to the former, does suck the best blood but like the former in others, for they never of themselves fall from that sucking till they be not able to contain any more; if ye sprinkle them with the sharp powder of Aloes, (that is with justice) than they fall, and if you continue to pursue them by the same, you shall find them as the former by salt, so they by it are forced to spew out the undigested blood of the poor, and cut me the tail from them that is, make them quite of wife and barns, in whose person they fear the curse of the great judge. These grinders of the face of the poor, shall never make an end of sucking. These as unworthy to be thought or spoken of by any good Christian, I leave to be handled, yea, justly to be hanged by the justice heir, and if they amend not, to be tormented by the great justice prison-keeper hereafter.   

Of purging.  
And because our country Leeches, considering the disposition of the people amongst whom they live (who esteem well of no meat but that which rakketh the belly, though it were draff and satlings: so they think of no physic, but that which sendeth them three or four score times to the midding) doth carry about with them commonly for this end (to use their terms) colocinthida, stibium, and diagirdium, violent fiery remedies, whereby the body is mightily endomaged: it shall not be amiss to consider what purging is, and the nature of the remedies proper for the same.  
Purging then (as commonly it is taken) is a cleansing of the body of the superfluous humours by use of medicine working downward, the purgatives are divers, according to the divers nature of the humours that is to be purged.  
The humours are three, bile, phlegm, and Melancholy: the purgatives are either gentle, mediocre, or violent.  
The gentle purgatives of bile, are Casse, manna, the juice of Roses, Tamarinds, sweet prunes.  
Casse being of temper hot and humid, being corrected because it is windle, with anise or finckle seed, it may be given to all sort of persons, to bairnes half an vn●●, to aged an once and an half, or two 〈◊〉 the most.  
Manna being temperate in qualities may be given the weight of an ounce to bairnes, and two or three ounces for men, for some men correct the slowness of it, by three or four grain weights of diagridium.  
The juice of roses is hot and dry in the first degree, the dose is from an ounce and an half to two ounces, the syrup of rose solutive made of this juice is from an ounce and an half to four.  
The dose of Tamarinds is from half an ounce to a whole.  
Sweet prunes are given in number from twelve to four and twenty.  
The mediocre purgatives of bile, are Aloes, Rheubarb, Myrabolans, Citrins.  
The dose of Aloe hot in the second, and dry in the third degree, according to Galen, is from a dram to one and an half, or two at the most, it is most used in pilluls; because it is sharp and biting, it is corrected with mastix, and being slow of operation it is hastened by the juice of roses.  
Rheubarbe hot and dry in the second is given from a dram and an half to two, and because it is slow in operation, there is adjoined to it cinnamon or spice.  
The Myrabolans citrins are almost of the same faculty with Rheubarbe, but that they bind more: their dose of old was from two dragm. to half an ounce, Mesue giveth them to the weight of five dragm. they are rubbed with the oil of sweet almonds for their dryness cause.  
The violent purgatives; are Diagrid: Azarum and Centaurie the less.  
Diagrid: being hot and dry in the third degree, is given to the weight of ten grains, it is corrected because it biteth sore with the juice of quinces, and gum, tragacantha, and with mastix, for the keeping of the stomach from hurt by it.  
As for Azarum and Centaurie the less, because they are out of use I pass them over.  
The composed remedies purging bile, are syrupes, opiates, electuaries, or pilules.  
Syrupes, as the syr. of rose: whose dose is from an ounce and an half to four.  
The syr. of chicory with Rheubarb, given according to the same quantity, but of less force.  
The opiates, are Catholicum, Diacassia, Diaprunum simplex: their dose is from half an ounce, to one and an halfe. Triphera persica, and Diaprunum solutivum, are much more violent: their dose is from three dragm. to six, or an ounce at the most.  
The Electuares, are the electuare of Roses that is of great force: his dose is from two dragm. to six, or an ounce at the most: the electuary de Psillio is after the same manner.  
The pilules are pilulae sine quibus Aureae, de Rheu. their dose is from a scruple to four: Remark here that pilules are seldom used to purge bile.  
The simples that purge Melancholy are Senne: polypod. as gentle purgatives.  
Senne is hot in the first degree. and dry in the second: his dose given in substance, is two or three dragm. in infusione: from three to six, in decoctione, an ounce; his wind is corrected by anise, and his slowness by cinnamon, and ginger.  
Polypode is hot in the second, dry in the third, his dose is from two dragm. to half an ounce, his dryness is corrected by glycyrize.  
The mediocre purgatives of melancholy, are; Epithimus, Myrabolam Indi.  
Epithimus is hot, and dry in the second, his dose is from a dram to half an ounce; Mesue did give the weight of half an ounce, his dryness is corrected by rasins of the sun.  
Myrobolani indi are of the same nature, that the myraboline citrons are.  
The Ancients had by these, fumaria, alias, earth-smoake, cuscula, and the bark of capres.  
The violent purgatives, are, black ellebore: lapis armenius and lapis Lazuli, black hellebor hot and dry in the third degree, his dose prepared is from 15 grains to half a dram, it is prepared when they stick an apple with little pieces of it, and with clowes, and so roasteth both under the ashes, the which apple is used, the pieces of ellebore being casten away, it is infused in hidromel or barley water, from the weight of a dram to half an ounce.  
Lapis armenius is in the first, hot and dry in the second, his dose unwashen is from half a dram to a whole, but washen to a dram and an half, it is corrected by frequent washing, without the which it procureth vomit, lapis lazuli is lyk it every way.  
The composed purgatives of melancholy, are, opiates, confections, pilluls.  
Opiates, as Catholicon, Diasenna, their dose is from an ounce to one and an half.  
Confections, as confectio hamech, his dose is from three dram to six.  
Pilluls, are pilulae de fumaria, which are seldom used in melancholy.  
The simple purgatives of phlegm gently, are, Carthamus, Myrabolani, Chebulae, Sarcocolla.  
Carthamus hot in the first, dry in the second, his dose is from 2 drams to an ounce, it is corrected by cynamone and anise.  
Myrabolani chebulae are like in all to the cittrins.  
Sarcocolla, hot in the first, dry in the second, his dose is from a dram to two, his slowness is corrected by gingiber.  
The Mediocre, are Agaricus hot in the second degree, and dry in the first: ●is dose is from a scruple to two dragm. 〈◊〉 slowness is corrected by ginger, or pica Nardi.  
The violent purgatives of phlegm, are Turbith, Hermodactes, Colocinthis: Me●oacham; jalap and of old, Sagapenum, ●poponax.  
Turbit is hot and dry in the se●ond degree: his dose is from three scru●les, to four, it is corrected with ginger.  
Hermodactes, hot and dry in the se●ond: the dose and correction of the same ●s that of Turbit.  
Colocinthiss, hot and dry in the ●hird: his dose corrected, that is, the Trochiscks of Alhandal, is from six grains ●o fifteen, and to the weight of a scruple ●or the strongest.  
Maechoacham, hot in the first dry in ●he second, a remeedie fit for all sort of people, his dose infused in white wine ●s from two scruples to a dram.  
jalap root is to be taken after the same manner, and in the same quantity.  
The remeedies composed, are, opiates, electuaries, pilluls, trochisks opiates, as ca●holicum, diaphenicum, whose dose is from ●alfe an ounce to a whole for the strongest.  
Electuaries, are electuarium de citro, his dose is from half an ounce to six drams  
Diacarthanium, his dose is from half an ounce to a whole.  
Pilluls, as of Agarice, Stomachiae, & sine quibus, their dose is from half a dram to four scrupuls, pilulae cocciae, faetidae, lucis majores, arthriticae, de hermodactilis, their dose is from two scrupuls to a dram  
Trocises are de agarico, their dose is from two scrupuls to a dram: trochiscis of alhandall, their dose is from six grains to a scruple.  
Their bee other sort of purgatives, which men call purse purgations, and these are of three sort as the former, gentle, mediocre, or violent.  
The gentle comprehend the modest, and moderate charges of an honest house.  
The mediocre are the just reward of the physician, the due of the schoolmaster, and the fitting of the conscientious merchand counts.  
The violent conteane the gorgeous depursements to the Goldsmith for lace, cups, and such like, the pursuing by law some tedious process by the fiery violence of these two, the poor purse which ●ften taketh an irremediable flux, and byeth of the skitter: His Majesty with ●is most honourable and wise Counsel, by an act of parliament (evil keeped) ●ath found out a remeedie for the former: would GOD the wisdom and concord of his subjects would admit an other for ●he latter, for then the Nobility and Gentry should not be so lukken-handed to other professions.   

Of Vomitores.  
Because some (as bilious constitutions) are sooner and better purged by vomiting then purging: and seeing it is much used, consider with me the remedies of it.  
Vomitores then as the purgatives are of three sorts, to wit, gentle, mediocre, and violent, the gentle are such as do procure it in burdening the stomach by their quantity, as warm water, fat broth, butter, oil, and the like taken to the measure of ten or twelve ounce.  
The mediocre are the seed and flower of Anise, the seed and root of orage, the Latin term is atriplex, the root of ●azarum, given from a dram to four and agaric, his dose a dram.  
The vehements are, the se●de and flower of broom, to the quantity of two drams, gratiola from a dram to one and one half.  
Some of the Ancients thought it to be expedient for the health to vomit every month, and that after a great carouse, but this counsel needeth not to be given to the soukespikkets of our age, who asthey drink like Suiczers, yea rather like swine, they cast as Duchess, yea rather like dogs, it were little fault for punishment to pinch so these intemperate and untymous abusers of GOD'S creatures, until they were glad with the dogs to return to the vomit, And this much to you Drunkards.  
It is here to be remarked that grown fat men should not be purged by vomiting, for by the press, ye will easily break some vein in their body: nor melancholicks, for they hardly purge upward; nor asthmaticks, or such as hath any impediment in their breath, through the infirmity of their lights, for by it they are much more weakened, yea sometimes torn: nor hectiks, for their body being already worn, is wholly casten down, neither they who are of a weak ●eade, tender eyes, of a long neck and 〈◊〉 narrow breast, only cholericks, being of strong firm constitution, not burdened with flesh, and much subject to the vomiting of bile, yellow, green, or sea coloured: as also phlegmatics of a rude robust nature, whose stomach is full of phlegm, should be purged upward by vomit, and that with great caution following in it, the advice of some understanding man, for no less danger floweth from ●he extraordinary dose of vomitores ●nd the malegovernement of the patient both after, and while it worketh then by purgative medicines.  
I have only here for breveties cause touched the qualities of the medicaments, and their dose, living the form of exhibition, and preparation to the givers, that takes upon them to minister physic in the country.  
It is to be remarked, that except the body be so full of blood and humours, that the physic cannot pierce through them, purging aught to precead phlebotomy, howsoever the belly should always be empty and clean of the excrements.  
The patient should keep himself warm while the medicine is working helping the operation by a gentle motion as also by a little thin warm broth after the taking of it about a littl● space.  
And because that the not working o● medicine doth affraight many, it is to b● understood, that some will not move th● body any way, and yet do little or no harm to it, such are gentle & mediocre medicines, the gentle purgatives, when they purge not, are turned by nature into the blood, the mediocre into the nature o● the humour, which they purge whither bile, pituite, or melancholy, but the violent cast the body in a fever readily, and become venomous, while as nature overcome hath not force to expel them, but the other two being overcome by nature, are retained within the body, so that the stay of them is from a weakness in them, but the stop of the last is from a weakness in the body.  
Gentlemen therefore seeing you know both the names and varieties of the purgatives spare not to ask at your Leeches what they be ere ye take them.  
Bairnes before they be eighteen or ●wentie year of age, and old men after ●ourtie, (except they be of a strong complexion) doth not stand in need of this yearly purging.    

Canon. 2.  
The body being thus made clean, take head least by overcharging of it ye file it a new, for being in some fashion, weakened by the former remeadies, it doth not shortly admit that measure of nutriture that it did before, it is expedient therefore to come to your accustomed diet by degrees, lest a new file require a new cleanse, and too often scouring of the pot although it were of brass wears it.   

Canon. 3.  
Flee mornings sleep, and lazy lying in winter after six, and summer after seven, for long lying to the health is hurtsome.  
Because it hindereth the cleansing of the body from the excrements, (and judge you give it be either handsome or wholesome to see the midding at the fire-end) while it stoppeth the passage of the spirits animale, the causes of motion for their expulsion. it sharpeneth, or by the haemorroides o● some other way, it procures melancholy hypochondriake, sometimes the fever quartan, sometimes other diseases, for this is good, the bark of the root of Tamarisk, and of capres with the foresaid herbs.  
The retention of the sweat causes the itch. scab, pustuls, and such like, therefore it is to be procured by frictions baines and exercise.  

Of exercise.  
Because that frictions, and baines are not much used, leaving them we shal● speak a little of exercise.  
Exercise should be much regarded an● moderately used, by those who hath 〈◊〉 care of their health, this Galen, testifieth in his book of good and evil meat i● these words, For the keeping of health a continual rest is a great hinder: as i● the contrary, moderate motion is a gre● help. By exercise the members of th● body are hardened, and so made fit t● sustain any labour, the natural heat i● quickened, and so prompter for his functions, and the body is made more agile and nimble in his actions. here by exercise I understand honest games and pastimes, not these debauched lose-tymes, cards, dice, tables, and such like fathers, and fosterers of jars and mischief, books furnishing lies, oaths, blasphemy, hurtsome to the health of the body, troublesome to the good of the estate, and hindrance to the rest and peace of the soul: I leave such devyces of Satan enticing to sin to be thought or treated of by ragged ribaulds, and lousy licentious limmers, the fittest penmen of such a process, discharging by the right of a physician, and the charity of a Christian, all generous honest spirits, who tends the health of their body, the wealth of their estate; and eternal welfare of their soul of such hellbred conceits.  
The time most proper for these honest exercises is the morning, when the stomach hath made an end of his digestion, and the belly of his expulsion, so that both ●ee lightened of their burden. Hence we may see how our daily custom of exercising after meat is not good: first, ●hen by this our motion the digestion is hindered by a catching of our meat to ●nd fro, as the Ploughman doth with his ●aill in his coge, when he would have them fain cooled, this catching suffereth it not to settle itself in the ground of the stomach, the place of digestion: secondly, because the body by exercise being made hot, draweth from the stomach and the lever by the means of this heat, the meat before it be well prepared, which breeds obstructions in the veins within, and scabs without, our scabbed scholars, that keepeth no fit time, nor just term of their pastimes, may suffice to instance this allegiance.  
The term or end of exercising, should be when the face becometh red and swelled and the sweat issues forth through the whole body, leaving it before reddnesse, turn to paleness, and swelling to swampnesse, and sweat to be like weet: otherwise in stead to be refreshed ye shall be wearied, and for dissipating of the humores by the pores of the body, ye shall dissolve the spirits by the passages of the same. Some exercises employ some particular members of the body, as the Tailor his hands and head, the Webster his legs and arms, the Tobacco man his mouth and nose, the Beggar the nails of his thumbs, and tongue, Coupers, Trumpeters, and Pipers, their cheeks, hands, and mouth: the most fiery and wicked scolds their tongue, and the licentious whores their tail: these I pass ●y, not having many particular exercises ●o treat of used amongst us worthy of consideration, or special delineation, and very few universal, except the football, which often doth more good to the Chirurgeons, than evil to the Physicians by a●y help the body getteth: the gooffe and archery, from the which exercises they come ofter hungry than sweeting, and the pinnace or catch the best of all, if it be moderately and orderly used.  
In all exercises whereby men sweats, 〈◊〉 except these that are under the sheets) ●hese things are to be remarked: first, ●hat in your gaming your mind be free ●f all fear, the gadges being little or none, otherwise the mind shall be in a continual vexation, and neither body nor mind ●hall receive any recreation: Secondly, if 〈◊〉 time of game you thirst, let your drink ●ee small ail, taken in a little quanti●ie, not water, for it by the open passages going straight to the liver, will cool ●t too much, on the which ensueth often hydropsy, nor wine, for by it the lyver already heat is set on a fire, on the which followeth frequently a fever: Thirdly, after your exercise have a care to cause rub away the sweat in a warm chamber with dry warm linnings see that the body rubbed be strait, lest the wrinkles of the skin do hinder the issuing of the sweat, see the rubbers be many and nimble, and that they rub not over hard, for this doth stop the passages, nor too soft, for it goeth not half far in, but a mediocrity in all things is good.  
The excrements of the head in the morning ought to be purged by sternutatories or sneezngs of betony, leaves, or marjoline leaves, and by masticatores chawed, which because they are little in use, I will pass over them, and speak of that which supplieth their place which is Tobacco.   

Of Tobacco.  
Tobacco is an herb fetched from the West Indies to us, some calleth it Nicotiana, from Master john Nicote, that brought it first to France out of Portugal, he being Ambassador for the time there. The Portugals brought it first in Europe, out of the Island Trinada, and 〈…〉 am Peru in the continent of America, ●ome term it petoun or tobacco.  
Tobacco is of a temper hot and dry, ●s appeareth first from the effects thereof, ●s to purge cold and moist humours, as 〈…〉 egme, or pituite: hence it is that it doth ●arme to fiery hot bilious persons, except it be taken in little quantity, and ●hat for the cleansing of the head from ●hese cold superfluous humours, which a ●old stomach hath sent to it; commonly these men have cold stomaches, hot ●ivers, and weak heads, (for these three ●eadily follow one another:) so the cold stomach filleth the head with cold va●ours, and the mouth with cold humours ●s do appear by their continual spitting.  
It hurteth also melancholiens (if it be 〈…〉 ot for the foresaid reasons) by drying of ●heir body too much, but aggrieth best with the piteous ●●●gmatick, as daily experience doth approve. Secondly, from ●he biting quality that is in it, by the which it moveth vomit. Thirdly, from ●he purging faculty downward. Fourthly, from the penetrative subtle faculty outward, as appeareth by the issuing of sweat, after the use of it in some. Fifthly, from the thirst and drought it moveth, which is taken away by the use of drink. Sixthly, from the wind it dryveth forth and that both upward and downward.  
Lastly, from the giddiness of the head, which proceedeth from a melting of the phlegm through the head, which being melted, it stoppeth the passages of the spirits: so the stronger the Tobacco be, the sooner it melteth it and more of it, and therefore strong Tobacco moveth this giddiness most and soon: this giddiness is stopped by a drink of ale, or any cooling drink, which sendeth up gross thick vapours, the which do hinder the further operation of it: and condenseth, or congealeth the phlegm melted by it.  
This giddiness of the head is a reason that some allege to prove the coldness of it, which might be alleged aswell o● of wine or strong drink, that doth no less procure the same dissinesse of the head but they will have it to proceed from a narcotick, or stupefactive quality in it, as the chesbow, and suchlike cold things by their coldness do produce such effects, I wonder how dare they that say so, be bold to use it, seeing it is of such stupefactive cold, and do not rather abstain from it, and hinder others also, but I think they do jest, for if it were true that it were so as they say, some had ●lyed by it long ago, specially after so great taking of it: I knew two Gentlemen that after supper took sourescore pipes, if it had been narcotick, they had never drunken any more. The fittest time of year for taking it, is, first, the Winter: next the Harvest: last the Spring: and no ways in Summer. The most proper time of the day is the morning and evening before meat, no ways after it, except it be they to whom of long it hath proved helpful for the expelling of the wind, and digestion of their meat.  
The seasons wherewith it aggrieth best are the cold and moisty: these circumstances remarked taken in a reasonable quantity, that is, a pipe for two: I think it shall do no harm, yea, rather freeing the head of the great burden of phlegm: it preveneeth the diseases that may flow from the abundance of it: such as apoplexy, epilepsy, paralysie, lethargy and others, but me thinks the Tobacco man barking as a dog at the Moon, at these courious observations and idle restrictions of tobacco, (for so he terms them) and crying that all men at all time when their appetite inordinate biddeth them, and their purse serveth them may take of it, and it is no wonder he so do, for it is meat, drink and clothes to him: his Shop is the randevouse of spitting, where men dialogue with their noses, and their communications are smoke: in it he playeth the Ape in counterfeiting the honest Merchant man with his divers rolls of Tobacco, new come up out of the cellar, where they lay well wrapped in a dog's skin and soussed: he knoweth himself how, and yet sweareth that they are new landed from Verinus, Virginia, or S. Christopher's. If he be not content with this, he shall have more when I come again, as he well deserveth: for his wares are both dear and evil; dear, while he taketh a penny for a pipe, and his welcome Gentlemen: and evil, for h● seedeth his guests neither on roasted, no● sodden meat; but on white, or blackeburnt meat, without drink, grace, table, plate, truncheour, or serviture, yea, scarce a stool to sit on, and is not this 〈◊〉 brave Inns my Masters?  
The excrements of the lights are gross 〈…〉 egmes, which are expelled by the mouth ●●ter the use of some incisive and deter 〈…〉 e things, as are sugar candy, glycyrize, 〈…〉 soap, tussilage, and their syrupes prepared.  
There be some excrements which are 〈◊〉 termed, when they abound and so ●armes rather by their quantity, then 〈…〉 eir quality, there are semen, and sanguis 〈…〉 enstruus, that is, man's seed, and woman's 〈…〉 ours. Either of the which being corrupted, breedeth diverse diseases: means ●herefore aught to be used by the which ●hey may be expelled.  
The means for expelling of the seed, 〈◊〉 that natural conjunction of man and woman, whereby the members are made ●ore agile, the spirit more joyous, (licet ●ulgo dici soleat omne animal post coitum 〈…〉 iste: sed hoc statum à coitu fit) shagring and 〈…〉 oller is banished from betwixt man and wife: peace is made in the house, and fill 〈…〉 ie polluted dreams, in the night are 〈…〉 revened, but who may not lawfully en 〈…〉 y these mids, let them hold down nature by the use of others, such as are phlebotomy, fasting sobriety, and the use of cooling meats.  
Woman's flowers are moved by the decoction of hyssop, Mugwort, Marjoline, and other aperitive herbs prepared in white wine, with the use of stoves, and frequent frictions of the thighs.  
Exercise being ended, and the body thereafter having reposed about the eleventh hour, or sooner in the summer, when as the appetite doth require, let it be answered by meat, which because it is of greater importance than any of the rest of the circumstances, and more inconveniences do follow upon the inordinate or immoderate use of it, plures enim occidit gula quam gladius, we shall insist a little in it, first in general, and next in particular.   

Of meats in general.  
As good meat engendereth good blood, so evil produceth vicious humours, which causeth diseases.  
Let us therefore make choice of the meat, of good substance, of easy digestion, and that hath no abundance of excrements.  
The qualities of meat are known by their temperament, or by their consistence: meats should not be neither over hot or cold, over dry or moist by nature, nor over fat nor lean, but keeping the mids.  
Gross and viscuous meat causeth obstruction (to these that have narrow passages) in the liver, milt, nears, and stoppeth the pores of the whole body by a gross blood, but these who are of a good constitution, and hath the passages larger may use of them boldly without hurt, for gross and viscuous meat nourisheth much, if it be well digested in the stomach, it agreeth well with labourers whose natural heat is stirred up by their exercise, as also these who have suffered long hunger.  
Light meat and of subtle substance are not meet to lean people, and of a hot complexion, because being quickly digested, they entertain not the body half well, but they are sitting for grown, and gross bodies, whose passages through the body being straight, are not well aired, also for phlegmatics, and for these who are of a weak stomach.  
The reparation of the body ought to be according to the dissipation of the same, wherefore they who are of hot complexion, and worketh much, must eat more than cold dispositions and idle bellies, whosoever by overcharging of the stomach gives their natural heat much to do, (which is the instrument of nature for nourishing the body) they praecipitate themselves willingly in many diseases, wherefore every one should rise from the table with appetite.  
All variety of dishes is noisome to the stomach, because that by variety, corruption of meat in the stomach is procured, while as easy digestable meats are mixed with difficile, also men by variety, which giveth contentment to the taste, are induced to surfeit: but this seemeth unsavoury to the taste, and unpleasant to the ear of these spicy jacks, who have no use all the day over for ten fingers but to fill six puddings, (and yet a poor wife will fill six score in an hour) whose belly is become like the Britoneses, who because of his wife's insolency, (that would needs mount her time about) and of his own big belly did apprehend he was with child.  
I would have such greasy barrels for their health's sake to take a quarter of an hour's course between the Castle-hill and Arthur's seat twice in the morning, coming thereafter (if they be hungry) to their dinner made up of an half penny loa●e, two eggs, and a cup of small Beer: and after meat, for digestions cause returning to their walk; going to bed without supper: if this pining of the paunch doth not make them light, I will have no money for my medicinal receipt. Let these whose God is their belly, and guide is their taste (for they inquire still to john Good-Ales house) and who are no less nose-wise than a browsters' Sow, in smelling a dish of good meat a far off. Diminish both of the quantity, and quality of their dishes, and impart of the superplus to their needy brother, who is come of Adam according to the flesh, aswell as they, and may be of ABRAHAM according to grace, Christians by profession, and who knoweth but Sanctes by election. Did the Master prefer thee over his house, and goods for the satisfying of thine inordinarie appetite, and thy children's only? or to give the bread of the children to dogs or horse, as our great men do, rather than to the poor: and shall not thou expect: yea, when the Master cometh, get the reward of the unjust steward, amend, or look for it.  
The supper must be longer than the dinner, (if the body be not subject to distillations) because the time is longer between supper and dinner, than between dinner and supper: meat should be well chawed, or if it be let over, for evil chawed meat troubleth the stomach, hence it is, that they who hath many teeth live long, because they chaw well their meat: light, liquid, and meat easy of digestion, should be taken before gross meat, and hard of digestion, nevertheless when the stomach is louse and verïe hungry, you may do the contrary.  
It is expedient that every one should keep a certain hour for taking of meat, and this hour should be when the stomach requires refreshment, the former ingestion being digested, and the stomach empty: this rule is evil keeped by our morning drink, (which sometime makes drunk, and so not fit for dinner) our four hours' penny, (that often buyeth a pint of wyne-seck, I had it never so cheap) our collation after supper made in a three pint tub, (I can not call it a dish) of wine, milk, suggar, and some spices, I would content me with it all the day long.  
This much in general, followeth in particular to speak of meat, and first of bread.   

Of Bread.  
Bread keepeth the first rank amongst all other meat, as the ground of others, for all other meat (though never so good) are without it unpleasant, yea unwholesome.  
The best bread is that which is made of wheat, good wheat is gross, full, thick, weighty, firm, of colour yellow, clean, and that hath great quantity of flower.  
Bread made of pure flower, well bolted, nourisheth much in little quantity, but it is of slow digestion.  
Bread made of the bran or clattes nourisheth little, and filleth the body with excrements, and because the bran hath an detersile faculty, it goeth quickly through.  
Bread made of both nourisheth well, and keepeth an open belly.  
Ry bread is black, heavy, engendering melancholious blood, more proper for rustics than burgesses.  
Barley bread is very dry, of little nourishment, and looseth the belly: bear meal is better mixed with ry meal, that the viscuositie of the one may be corrected by the brtitlenesse of the other.  
As for oat bread it is more used amongst us than the goodness of it doth require.  
Bread unleavened nourisheth much, but it engendereth gross blood, it is of an evil digestion, breedeth obstructions, and looseth the belly.  
Evil wrought bread is viscuous, of evil digestion, as also that which is made of grumly or troubled water, when it hath not gotten enough of the fire, it is heavy and of hard digestion, that which is hardened in the oven is better than that which is hardened on the ashes.  
Hot bread by reason of the viscosity is hard to digest, procureth an inflation in the stomach, obstruction in liver, and other parts within the body.  
Old bread of three or four days losseth all the taste, becometh dry and withered, evil to digest, of slow passage, bindeth the belly, and engendereth a melancholious blood.  
The crust of bread breeds bile, fit only for these whose stomach is moist and humid: Tairtes, flammes, pies; and all other sort of baken meat, are more to the satisfying of the taste than for health of the body, for they are heavy in the stomach, and burdeneth it, and stoppeth easily the passages of the veins in the liver.   

Of Flesh.  
Beasts according to the variety of their kind, age, manner of living, constitution of body, and of the place where they feade, are different in the temperature and virtue of their flesh.  
The flesh of fat beasts is better than that of lean, and of libbed than unlibbed, because they are fatter, and not so hot, except it be for these who hath been in the battle where the uppermost goat the worst, where striking at their nighbour with over great force, and too good will, hath hurt themselves with their own spear, for such some say, that a kind of unlibbed beasts are good: yea, the stones themselves.  
The flesh of young beasts, because tender, moist, soft and easy to digest, and of great nourishment, is better than that of old beasts, which is dry, hard, of litie meat, and hard to digest.  
The wild beasts that keep the hills are dry, and have fewer excrements, and leanner then others: Galen. preferreth the flesh of porks, of a mid age to other beasts, because it draweth near to man's flesh than others do, and also because it nourisheth well, and breedeth good blood, but because it is viscuous, it is hard to digest to these that hath the stomach moist, and humid: Moreover, as experience hath taught, the great use of this flesh causeth leprosy: hence it was forbidden to the jews, because they were subject to this malady.  
Beef novisheth much, but it engendereth a gross melancholic blood: young beef is better than old: Hearts flesh is of a difficile digestion, and as the beef engendereth gross blood.  
The goat's flesh is better than the bucks and the kids than the goats.  
Lamb's flesh is better than Yewes, and Wedders than Lambs, because as nourishing, and not so humid and slubbrye, the Rams is the worst of all.  
Old hairs flesh causeth melancholious blood: young hairs is better and more pleasant: the Coney is better than either of them.   

Of Fowls.  
Amongst the Fowls that are about the house, the Hen and Capons keepeth the first rank, they engender a blood of a mediocre substance, because they are neither too hot nor too cold: Chickens are more delicate than they.  
The Brissell-fowles are heavy and hard to digest, wherefore in France they are both larded and spiced.  
The Goose aboundeth in superfluous excrements, is of harder digestion than other souls, except the wings.  
The Ducks, and all other water ●oules is humid, viscuous, phlegmatic, excrementitious, and of adure digestion, wherefore they are not so wholesome, as these of the land. Amongst the birds of the field the Partridge bears the bell, being of easy digestion, and causing good blood, and the younger are better than the elder.  
Next the Partridge is the phesane almost of the same qualities that it is, the Quallies are not less praised, except in the countries where there is abundance of hellebore, whereon they commonly feade, they are best in harvest.  
The Doves are hot of nature, they set the blood on fire: and readily of Venus' games moves a desire, unfit for these who readily do fall into a fever: The Pigeons are better than the doves, the doves are best in the spring, for they eat much corn. The Coushins flesh is hard to digest, yet it is not evil in the winter, if it be suffered to hang a while, so that it may become tender.  
The Turd or Cuzell is delicious engendering good blood, but some thing hard to digest: Marshal extolleth it highly in these words, 
Inter aeves Turdus si quis me judice certet,  
Inter quadrupedes gloria prima lepus.   
Pluvers, mearls, turturelles, are not to be rejected, for the former laudable qualities, which are to be found in them.   

Of Eggs and Milk.  
The eggs of hens and phasanes excels the eggs of other beasts, goose eggs are worst of all, except swine eggs.  
New laid are better than old, and sodden than fried, and roasted than sodden, and potched than roasted, the soft than the hard.  
Milk hath three divers substances, a serious or watery, whereof is the whey a thick and gross whereof is the cheese, and a fat and creamie, whereof is the butter: but of our Edinburgh milk where the two part is water, and the third part milk, there would be little cheese and no butter.  
Milk if the stomach be clean the body whole, and no other meat mixed with it, nourisheth much, otherways it corrupteth easily and quickly.  
Yew milk hath more of the gross & thick substance, whereof the cheese is made, then of the other, and by this means it is nourishing, but heavy to the stomach. Ass' milk is of contrary consistence, kine milk is thicker and fatter than yew milk, and so fitter to make butter, it is nourishing and makes an open belly.  
Goat milk is neither too thick nor too thin, neither over fat nor over lean, and so it keepeth the middle betwixt extremities, nevertheless it should not be used, either without suggar or honey, water or salt lest it lapper in the stomach.  
women's milk is fittest for bairnes or hectickes, because of the resemblance of nature.  
New milked milk is best, because milk changeth quickly.  
Sodden milk nourisheth more than raw, but it is binding because thicker.  
Milk of fat and lusty beasts is better than of lean and hungered.  
Fresh butter is a little hot, with time it becometh hotter, it is not very nourishing, but it softeneth and looseth the belly, it is good for the lights and breast.  
Cheese is not to be much used, for it engendereth gross humours, breedeth obstructions, binds the belly, and is hard to digest, the new is better than the old, the soft than the hard, and that which is made of unrained milk is better than of reigned.  
Over viscous cheese, as also over brittle, is not good, mediocrity is best, cheese without any evil or strong taste is better than other.  
New, soft, and sweet cheese, is of a cold and humid temper, but the old, hard, salt cheese, is hot and dry, too great use of it engenders the stone in the nears.  
This curious sifting of the nature of cheese, and improbation of the great use of it, will seem first ridiculous and then odious to the mourish men of Kyle and Galloway, the quintessence of whose meat (that is milk) is cheese, the which the goodman hath keeped for his own mouth as a desert, (being nevertheless at breakfast, supper and dinner, the first, last, and only dish) and for the Lairds, or the wise black men, the Ministers, when they come abroad: the bairnes contented with froth, crap-whey, or lapperd milk, I think that if the bodies of these bodies, were chymicallie dissolved: the princips to wit: sal. sulphur. and mercurius, should savour of cheese, milk, and yet they are as daft as if they were made of Wine and Wastels, which they often speak of, as the rarest dainties they either saw or hard of.   

Of Fish.  
Fish are of complexion cold and humid, for being still in the water they must needs keep the nature of the water, the ●ouritute they give is more light, slub●rie, and sooner dissipate, than the reparation, which is made by the use of the beasts of the land. The fish that are of a solid and firm substance are most nourishing and wholesome, because less phlegmatic, for this cause sea-fish because fi●mer are better than fresh-water-fish, amongst the fishes of the sea, these that useth about rocks are best.  
Amongst the fresh water fishes these that haunt the rivers are better than these that haunt the stancks or loches: and fish of a running river, and craggy, with clear● water, is to be preferred to them that are taken in a dead running pool, or in a troubled muddy water.  
Fish as milk would be eaten, when the stomach is clean of filthy humours, and they would not be mixed with other meat, lest they corrupt, as quickly they will.  
The drowners' of meal with malt, to whom the bone of a herring, or a thread of salt beef will serve to be kitchen to a quart of ale, says, that fish should swim, I answer, in water: but if thou take more of ail, beer, or wine, or any other strong drink than serves to wash it down, it will come above the broth, and so not boil well.  
I will not insist in the particular enumeration, lest it should reduce the Lector to a tedious calculation: the generals may suffice, if they be well remarked: It may be thought a preposterous order this, to put the flesh before the kaill, but here I keep ordinem dignitatis, non methodum sanitatis.   

Of herbs fit for eating.  
Herbs in regard of other meat are of little nourishment, yet they serve some for cooling, others for heating, being prepared in broth, salads, sauce, or other ways.  
Amongst the herbs that are commonly used, the lactuce is the first, being of more wholesome sap than all the rest, it cooleth the body, procureth sleep, and hindereth dreams.  
The garden Cicorie is of the same qualities, but it is not so pleasant to the taste, nor of such good sap.  
The Souroke is good for eating, because of the sourness, it quencheth thirst, procureth appetite, and mitigateth the heat of the stomach and liver.  
Purpie cooleth much, quencheth thirst, holdeth down Venus, tempereth the teeth, being out of style, by the use of sour things.  
Kaill engendereth evil blood, troubleth the stomach, and the sight, and moveth strange dreams.  
Spinards' rouseth the belly, and moisteth the body, but they are windy.  
Borage and bugloss purifieth the blood and keepeth the belly open, their ●●owrs are good in a salad, for to refresh the spirits, and rejoice the heart.  
Artichokes heateth the blood, and provoketh Venus to battle, they are good for the stomach, and giveth appetite.  
Cresson is of quality hot and dry, provoketh urine, and is eaten ordinarily raw in salads. Menth fortifieth the stomach, and helpeth the appetite.  
Cerefole and Finkle is good for the sight, augmenteth the seed, and engendereth milk to Nurses. Parsley is agreeable to the stomach, and profitable to the nears, because it is diuretic. Sauge helpeth appetite, and digesteth crudities out of the stomach. Hyssop purgeth the lights from the phlegm, by the subtility of it: thyme doth the same. Rayfords' taken after meat helpeth digestion, but before meat they lift up the meat in the stomach,  
Neeps are windy, of little nourishment, and engendereth worms in little bairnes, little, are better than the great, they should be eaten with pepper. Carrots, are worse than they, Sybouse, Onions, Leeks are agreeable to pituitous and phlegmatic persons, but noisome to cholerians, and to these who are subject to a sore head.  
But I think we have eaten long enengh without a drink, let us now go to it.   

Of drink in general.  
Drink, as I think (and so thinks the drunkard) is no less worthy of consideration for the health than meat. There be sundry sorts of drink used among us. as wine, ale, and beer, for no man drinketh water with his will.  
Drink should be answerable in proportion to our meat, for if we drink more than serves to sign down the meat, and mix it there down, the meat will swim above, and so shall not digest: drink may be taken more largely with dry solid meat, than with liquid humid.  
They who have a hot liver, and a weak head, subject to distillations should abstain from strong drink, chiefly after their meat, but these whose liver is temperate, and head strong may take a lick of the best, quale Deus creavit, after their fruit, quia post crudum merum.  
It is not good to drink with a naked stomach, for presently it runneth through the body to the nerves, whom it debilitateth, and maketh the body the more subject to cold diseases, as the gout, paralyse, trembling, and such like: It is also troublesome to the digestion to drink between mealles, for it hindereth the same, as water in a pot, stayeth the boiling of it: because while the concoction is making in the stomach, the mouth of it is closed: hence is it that men much subject to companionry, and so to extraordinary drinking, findeth their meat still rowing up and down, some for their ease are forced to cast it: It is not good to drink when bedtime draweth near, for readily it moveth the theume to fall down, except it were of water after too much wine, eiat supper, or before, and that to hinder distillations. It followeth to speak in particular of drink, and first of wine, as best.   

Of Wine.  
Wine is very profitable for the use of man, it stirreth up the natural heat and fortifyeth it, and so procureth the appetite, helpeth the digestion, engenders good blood, purifies the troubled, openeth the passages, gives good colour, cleanseth the brain, sharpeneth the wit, makes the spirits subtle, and rejoiceth the heart of man, as sayeth the Psalmist, if so be it be taken moderately.  
Wine is of five fold difference, the first is taken from the colour, so it is either white or red, yellow or tannie, and black: the second from the taste, as it is either sweet, sour, or of any austere taste: the third of the smell being of a sweet, heavy, or no smell: the fourth from the consistence, being either subtle or gross: the fifth, from the age, as it is old or new: Of all wine the red and thick wine is meetest for the engendering of blood; next blackish, gross, and sweet wine, to them succeeds white and thick, or gross wine in substance and austere in taste, last of all white thin small wine: Wine as it is agreeable to phlegmatics, so it is hurtful to bilious hot natures, over old, and too new wine should be eshewed, the one because too hot, the other because no heat at all.  
The second drink is beer, which as it nourisheth more, so is of a grosser substance and harder digestion, than the wine, if it be but new made or troubled, it causeth obstructions, and swellings, it troubleth the head, moveth the colic, gravel, and difficulty of pissing, specially if it be biting, if it be too old and very sharp it hurts the stomach, and nerves, and engenders evil blood, wherefore it is best that is well sodden, purified, and clear and of a middle age.   

Of Water.  
Although that water be the most simple sort of drink, and the most common, yet because of least worth it is put behind.  
Galen. proves good water by three senses, by the sight, being clear and clean, by the mouth, that hath no strange taste, and so not bitter nor sour nor salt, but almost without taste, & by the nose that it hath no smell, adding thereto that it must be light in the belly, suddenly changed, that is, soon hot soon cold, and that it doth not pass through sulphureous mines or suchlyke.  
There be five sorts of water, to wit of rain, fountain, river, well, and stank.  
Rain water although according to the weight it be lightest, yet it is not the best, being made of the vapours which doth proceed from the earth, whereof some be of the rivers, others of loches, stanks, gutters, standing waters, and of the sea, as also of the exhalations of pestilent places and of dead bodies.  
Fountain water is best of all, next river water, last Well water, the worst of all, is stank water, river water is the better it stand till it settle, fountain water the better it look to the East, and Well water that the Well be not too often covered, but that it get the air sometimes.    

Canon. 6.  
After meat abstain from all vehement motion or exercise, all curious disputs or careful meditations, discoursing of some good purpose, procuring laughter, joy, and mirth, whereby the spirit may be revived, and the digestion helped. If the great men of the country knew what good these sort of discourses did for the health of the body, and the recreating of the spirit, they would with greater avidity drink in, in their young and tender years' letters, for the better fashioning of their manners and forming of their mind. And also carry a greater respect to Scholars than they do: and not study only to be well versed in Arcadia, for the entertaining of Ladies, or in the routing of the tolbuiths, for commoning with lawyers. So that they esteem more of a Page of the one, or a pok-bearer of the other, then of any Sholer whatsoever, except my Lord Bishop, or Mr. Parson: this frowning of our Greats hath moved many poor souls flee first to Dowy, and then to Rome, and from thence post to hell: having received the mark of the beast that is a bull of his holiness to pass Scot-free at Purgatory, not being able to procure the favourable presence, or gracious assistance of any noble for his furtherance in studies and advancement in degrees, in the country wherein he was borne.  
O what a shame it is to see a great Man without Letters! He is like a fair house without plenishing, a goodly ship without furnishing to pursue or defend: a Heraldry without honour, being less real than his title. His virtue is, that he was his father's son, and all the expectation of him, is to get an other. No man is kept in ignorarance more, both of himself and men, for he heareth nothing but flattery, and understandeth nothing but folly; thus he liveth till his Tomb be made ready, and then is a grave statue to posterity. Thus it is expedient to pass two or three hours after dinner, for the well both of the body and mind: that you may know this the better and so believe it the rather: Consider with me alittle the passions of the mind, such as joy, sadness, choler, and fear.  

Of the Passions of the mind.  
Although we be often deceived in the decerning of good and evil, following ofter the applause of the sense, than the judgement of reason, nevertheless we seek always that which we think be good, and fleeth that which we apprehend to be evil. Hence it is, that we are moved by divers passions unruled, according to the apprehension of good, or evil, either present or absent; the which passions according to the consideration of the object either enlargeth or draweth in the heart, in the moving thereof, they move also the spirits and natural heat, so that the colour of the face is suddenly changed.  
From the opinion of present good ariseth joy, and of the good to come, desire, unto the which choler doth adjoin the self, which is a desire of revenge, from the apprehension of present evil cometh sadness, and of the evil future, fear.  
joy comes of the heart enlarging the self sweetly, for to embrace the object that is agreeable to it, in the which dilatation, it sendeth forth abundance of the natural heat with the blood, and the spirits, a great portion whereof comes to the face when one laugheth, by the which the face swells up, in such sort, that the brow becomes tied and clear, the eyes bright, the cheeks red. An other part is sent through the members of the body.  
cupidity or desire, and choler, doth dilate or enlarge the heart also, that, through the desire of the thing it loveth, this, for to se●d quickly, the spirits with the blood from the centre of the body within, to the habit of the same without: for the fortifying of the members that they may revenge the wrong we have received.  
Sadness, grief, or melancholy, in the contrary doth in such sort, shoot up or draw together the heart, that it fadeth and faileth: This hindereth the great generation of the spirits, as also the distribution of these few, that are engendered, whereby the vital faculty is weakened and also the rest of the whole body shirps.  
Fear causeth retire on a suddenty the spirits to the heart from the rest of the body, hence the face becometh pale, the extremities grow cold with a trembling through all, the voice is stopped, the heart leapeth as it were, & that by reason of the great multitude of the blood and spirits, whereby it is almost smothered, so that it cannot move freely.  
Amongst all the passions of the mind ●oy is the most wholesome, because it giveth such contentment to the spirit, that the body is participant by a sympathy.  
The reasonable passions are called affections, but the sensual are termed perturbations: the passions ought to be moderated, for Plato writeth in his dialogue, called Carmides, that the most dangerous diseases proceed from the perturbation of the spirit, because the mind having an absolute authority over the body, doth move, change, and alter it in a moment, as it pleaseth.  
We should then affection the objects in so far as reason will permite: for excessible joys do so disperse the blood, with the spirits through the whole body, from the centre to the extremities, that the heart is wholly destitute of his natural heat, from whence cometh first a sounding, and by and by death, of excessible joy, the Poet Phillippides, the wise Chilon, Diagoras of Rhode suddenly died: And sudden fear chassing the blood and spirits to the heart their fortress, frequently causeth death, by the suffocation of the natural heat.    

Canon 8.  
About the sixth hour the stomach requiring, return to meat, let your supper consist rather of roast meat than sodden, because it nurisheth more, in less bounds, it is lighter, and hath fewer excrements: it should neither be too sore roasted, (for then it is sapless,) nor yet half roasted, for the superfluous humidity is not driven out by the force of the fire.  
here I can not pass by a great uncleanness of Noble men's cooks, who after that they have sweeped the pot with the one end of their apron, and the plat with the other, they draw off my Lord's meat with the whole, dirty as it is: and for to make place to a new spit, placeth the same under the droppings of the unroasted meat, interlarding their own grease amongst these droppings: and yet the cook dare not be reproved, for he in his kitchen is like the devil in hell, curses is the very dialect of his calling, he is never good Christian until a hizzing pot of ail hath slaicked him, like water cast on a firebrand, and for that time he is silent: his best faculty is at the dresser, where he seemeth to have great skill in military discipline, while he placeth in the forefront meats more strong and hardy, and the more cold and cowardly in the rear, as quaking tarts, and quivering custards, and such milk-sope dishes, which escape many times the fury of encounter, and when the second course is gone up, down he goeth unto the cellar, where he drinks and sleeps till four of the clock in the afternoon, and then returneth again to his regiment.   

Canon 9  
After supper it is expedient to walk a little softly, for the procuring of the descent of the meat to the ground of the stomach: this walk ought to be in pleasant fields, free of all unwholesome vapour, which may procure vomit by the virulency, or the filthiness of the smell: and seeing this after supper doth permit me to visit the fields, and take the air, come forth ye also who love your health, and consider the same with me.  

Of the Air.  
Such as the air is such are our spirits, our humours, our blood, and our members: for by, that it furnisheth matter and nouriture to our spirits, it passeth so quickly through the body, that it printeth presently the qualities wherewith it is endued in the parts of the same, and therefore there is nothing able to change more shortly the body than it; so that from the constitution of the air, the good or evil disposition of the spirits, humours, and members almost do depend, we should therefore have a special respect of the same. For to understand the goodness of the air, we would not only consider the first qualities of it, whereof two are active, to wit, heat and cold: and two passive, humidity, and dryness; but also the second qualities, taken from the substance, as gross, or subtle, pure or misty, clear or dark: we may add to these the qualities that flow from the state of it, as constancy, and mutability, equality and inequality.  
A good air than hath no excess in the qualities, that is, neither too hot nor cold, moist nor dry: if it exceed this measure, it is better to decline to drought than to waknesse, for drought is still more wholesome than rain: It is also of a mediocre substance between gross and subtle, being pure and neat, clear and light, constant and equal: such an air revives the spirits, purifieth the blood, procureth appetite, helpeth the digestion, banisheth the excrements forth of the body in good time, coloureth the face, rejoiceth the heart, quickeneth the senses, sharpeneth the wit, and fortifieth the members, so that all the actions of the body animals, vitals, and naturals are made better by it.  
A sudden change in the air is evil, but especially if it changeth from great humidity and waknesse, to great heat or cold, for the rain having filled the body with humores, the following heat doth putrify them, or the cold hindering their exhalation doth procure their corruption.  
A contaminate air with filthy exhalations, arising from standing waters, dead carcases, midding, gutters, closerts, and the filth of the streets, (all which if any where are to be found here, which argueth a great oversight of the magistrates, bringeth a great hurt to the inhabitants, and a great good to the Physicians, Apothecaries, and belman) corrupteth the spirits, and humours, and engedereth often a deadly contagion or pest.  
High places (as hills) are fittest for the morning-walke, because the sun beating on them, first doth dry up the vapours thereof; but low wallyes in midowes and about fountains are most proper for the evening.  
If Gallants! the health and welfare of your body, and the care of the felicity eternal of your soul doth not work in thee a detest irreconcilable of drinking this time, which would be spent in wholesome walks, and holy conferences, let shame deter you: For what I pray you is a drunken man, he is one that hath let go himself from the hold and stay of reason, and lieth open to the mercy of all tentations, no lust but finds him disarmed, and fenceless, and with the least assault entereth, every man seeth him, as Cham saw his father, the first of this sin, an uncovered man: and though his garment be on, yet he is uncovered, the secreetest parts of his soul lying in the nakedest manner visible, all his passions come out, all his vanities, and these shamefuller humours, which discretion clotheth, his body becometh at last like a miry way, where the spirits are clogged, and can not pass: he is a blind man with eyes, and cripple with legs: Tobacco serves to air him after a washing, and is his only breath: in a word, he is a man to morrow-morning, but is now what ye will make him. And should our gallants be drunk? the chief burden of whose brain is the carriage of their body, and setting of their face in a good frame, which they perform the better, because they are not distracted with other meditations, whose outside when ye have seen, you have looked through them, yet they are something more than the shape of a man, for they have length, breadth, and colour, their picktooth beareth a great part of their discourse, so doth their body; the upper parts whereof are as starched as their linen: they are never serious but with the Tailor, when they are in conspiracy for the next device: they are furnished with jests, as some wanderer with sermons, some three for all congregations, one especially against the Scholar, whom these ignorant ruffians know by no other definition but silly fellow in black, they have stayed in the world as cyphers to fill up the number, and when they are gone, there lacketh none, and there is an end.    

Canon 10.  
When the stomach is lightened of the burden of meat about three or four hours after supper, go to rest, and sleep: and because a great part of our life is spended in sleeping and lying, we shall make a little digression for its cause.  

Of Sleep.  
Sleep giveth rest to the faculty animal, and vigour to the natural: for when the spirits animales be dissipate by labour, than sleep seizeth on us, through the means of the natural heat, which in the digestion of the meat, sends up vapours to the head, the which being condensed, and turned in a grosser substance by the coldness of the brain, doth stop incontinent the passages of the spirits whereby the body is moved. Sleep aught to be quiet, profound, and of moderate length: for sleep troubled with dreams, or so light, that little stir doth awake, or hinder it, is not good, long sleep is worst of all, for it hindereth the evacuation of the excrements, gathereth abundance of superfluities, maketh the head, and the whole body heavy and drowsy, the spirits dull, senses stupid, and the members lazy.  
Sleep should be continued while the digestion be absolved, which in some is sooner, in others latter: nevertheless it is commonly ended in six, seven, or eight hours, when the digestion is perfect, than the belly doth the duty, the water is golden coloured, the stomach is not bended with wind nor troubled with evil smelling rifts, the body is nimble and quick.  
Choleriks should sleep more than phlegmatics, that their body by sleep may be made moist: bairnes and old men, theu young men or of middle age, the one to hinder thee to fast dissipation of their fluxile and humid body, through the open pores, the other for the helping of his digestion: after great variety, and much meat, sleep should be longer than at other times, as also after heavy labour, and long travel. In your lying, the head, shoulders, and the upper part of the body should be higher than the rest, that the meat regorge not to the mouth of the stomach: It is not good to lie on the back, for by that posture the neires are made too apt to the making of gravel or stones: the vein cave, and the great artery, which do lean on the loins, made warm, sends up many vapours to the head, and the excrements of the head, that should be evacuate by the nose and the mouth falleth down the back, it will do no harms to lie sometimes on the belly, for helping the digestion, if the eyes be not sor● or weak: The first sleep should be on the right side, that your meat may go down to the ground of the stomach, that the liver, lying as it were under it, may serve for a chouffer to it, to help the concoction, then turn to the left sid● that the vapours gathered in the stomach may exhale, and in end return to the right side, that the digestion being made, the chile may be the more easily send to the liver, and so distribute through the whole body. The members, the time of sleep, should not be strait, but some thing drawn in, for the rest of all the muscles consists in a moderate contraction. It is not good to sleep with an empty stomach, or after any heavy, or sore work for the body is thereby dried, and becometh lean.  
And because procreation is a thing most necessary for the preserving of mankind, I cannot pass by here, but I must speak of it, seeing things remarkable in it.   

Of Generation.  
Nature careful of the own conservation, so it perish not, hath given unto every creature for this end a certain desire of eternity, the which not being able to be attained to, in the person of singular things, it doth obtain it by propagation. Therefore the elements are preserved by the mutual change of one in an other: the metals by addition or opposition, the living creatures by generation: The generation of living creatures is by the seed of both male and female, united in the matrix of the female, fostered and made fertile in some kind, by the good disposition of the same: so that for procreation there is required the seed of both, at one time ejaculat, or soon after: A matrix of a moderate temper, neither too hot, nor too cold; too moist, nor too dry: As also a convenient time of copulation, the which is, after the three concoctions are ended, and this time is about the latter end of the second sleep, so that thereafter the body be refreshed by a little slumber, and that for the reparation of the spirits dissipate: The immoderate use of this natural exercise doth weaken the body, and hinder all generation, and the inordinate doth procreate weak and unable birth, by reason of the seed which is not enough fined, or elaborate: this appeareth clearly in the remark of Burges, and Countrymen's bairnes: the one, to wit, the burges being begotten in the fore-night, while the father his spirits was lifted up, and moved to such work, by the use of strong wine, spyceries, and other hot meat being weakly: The other to wit, the Countrey-mans child being of a strong constitution, while as the father wearied by his daily labour, doth delay his dallying till the morning, ●t ubi aliquamdiu indulsit Veneri, uxor ne ingrata videretur, ait Deus benedicat relliquijs.  
Now as the CREATOR did finish his work after man's creation, so here I at man's generation, beseeching thee, my Lord and my GOD, who made all things perfect in the beginning, and man the most perfect of all: casting all under his feet, to teach him his perfection by creation, and his dignity by high vocation, that he may carry himself conform to the one, perfectly, shunning all base deboshing of that divine impression of the Majesty supreme, And for the other, thankfully in serving thee his Lord with all, whereof thou made him Lord, and honouring thee in the ordinate taking, and moderate using of all these thy creatures,    
AMEN.   

A PARTICULARE REGIMENT ACCORDING TO THE COMPLEXION, AGE, AND REASON.  
NOT having thought it sufficient for the preserving of health, to have spoken in general, lest any thing should seem deficient, I have particularised some generals diversified according to the variety of the temperature age and season, and first of the temperature.  

Of temperature or complexion in general.  
Complexion is a proportion of the first four elementary qualities, made fit for the natural functions: the which is either temperate or intemperate: A temperature temperate, is a harmony of the four first elementary qualities justly mixed for the perfect acting of all the functions of the body: An intemperate is, where there is always some quality or other surpassing, the rest, of the which there be eight sorts four simple; where only one quality exceeds the rest, as heat, or cold, and four composed where there be two qualities excessives, as heat and dryness, cold and waknesse together: These are either natural, as when they hinder not manifestly the actions of the body: or vicious, when as they exceed so, that they hinder the same.  
A temperate complexion should be keeped by the like, and the intemperate corrected by the contrary, as the hot, by cold: the dry, by moist.   

Of sanguineans.  
From the variety of the complexions, floweth the variety of humours, for the temperament makes humours like to the self, so if it be very temperate, it produceth perfect temperate blood, and so it subjects all the rest of the humours to the same, if the complexion be hot and humid, it filleth the body with blood, too hot and humid, so being hot and dry, it breedeth bile, cold and wake, phlegm, and when it is cold and dry, melancholy.  
A temperate sanguinean body is of a mediocre grossness, moderate in heat and humidity, neither too hard, nor yet too soft, ●f good colour, mixed of red and white, ●he hair somewhat yellow and curling, ●ll the members proportionable, the spirit is gentle, judgement good, manners sweet, disposition merry, carriage modest, ●ill, free and liberal, so that they are brave ●n person, discreet, wise, peaceable, honest, ●overs of knowledge, courteous, gracious, ●ffectioners of dames, mirth, pastime, and good cheer: and because they keep (as 〈◊〉 were) the mids between the extremes, they are not readily sick.  
Sanguineans then of a temperate complexion should flee all excess in any thing, and every thing that is of an excessive quality.  
Sanguineans intemperate are fleshy, rud〈…〉ie, have great veins & arteries, of difficile respiration, the body is heavy and often weary with little labour, the spirit simple, given rather to sottish follies than to serious affairs, they are subject to many diseases, proceeding from the inflammation of the blood, as fevers, flegmones, flux of blood, and such like: they should keep a very straight diet, use cold and dry things, for the correcting the intemperancy of the body, as in their broth, sicorie, surocks lactuces, and the like, drinking of water ail, or beer, little wine, moderate exercise, much sleep hurteth, to preveene diseases phlebotomy is expedient.   

Of Cholericks.  
Cholericks hath a lean body, thin and hoary, dry and hard, the veins and arters great, the colour yellow, pale, or brown, the hair red or blackish, the spirit quick, subtle, hasty: the judgement light, variable; the carriage inconstant, the courage martial, so they be nimble in body, prompt in spirit, hasty in all their actions, vehement in their affections, impatient, soon angry, and soon pleased, ingenious in invention; but proud, bold, impudent, vanters, scorners, crafty, vindictives, quarrellous, rash, and undescreete, unfit to bear charge either in state or war, as unable to endure heat, hunger, travel, watching, and other incommodities of war, their sleep is short and troubled.  
They should keep themselves out of the sun in an air cold and humid, using cold refreshing meats, as by the forenamed herbs, fruits cold or sodden, barley, prunes, melons, cucumbers, and to sauce their meat, either boiled, or roasted with ●he juce of grenads, oranges, and citrons, ●r verjus, they ought to eat much, and ●ften, to use little wine, moderate exercise, eshewing the excess of Venus, anger ●r wrath, and all deep meditation.   

Of melancholics.  
The predominant humours in the body, giveth still the name to the complexion, ●o they in whom through their cold and dry temperature, melancholy aboundeth, are called melancholicks: such are of a body, cold, dry, rude, without hair, having straight veins and arteries, the colour is brown or blackish, the countenance sad or trist.  
Among all the complexions that are intemperate, there is none to be preferred to the melancholic, providing it contain itself within the terms of health: for of all men the melancholicks are fittest to carry charge, the sanguineans are given to their pleasure: The bilious having their head full of quick silver, they lack judgement and deliberation: The pituitous are so lumpish, that they care for nothing but to have their back at the fire: and the belly at the table: so melancholicks are of all most fit: First, because they do their business with due deliberation: Secondly: because they are quiet and not babblers or talkatives, doing their affairs without din: 3. because solitary and retired, so that their spirits not being distracted, they may think on their affairs the better, taking greater pleasure in the profound meditation of serious business, than in idle toys. 4. Because they seem sad in company, not taking pleasure in gaming, laughing, fooling or in idle spending of the time, and yet they live very contented, when they are where they may recreate their spirits, not having any thing, affords them greater contentment, than to moderate their meditations, and to be employed in serious matters, (it is agreeable to all men in authority, to have a grave countenance and somewhat severe) 5. Because they are fearful when they see any danger, not willing rashly either to hazard their life, honour, or estate, so they enterprise nothing lightly. 6. Because constant in their opinions, words, and deads', for having past any thing thorough the alembick of reason they cannot be brangled 7. Because slow to wrath as also to be appeased, except it be those who hath been first bilious, and now are melancholicks, they will have some short fits, smelling of their former disposition. 8. Because they are commonly good husbands, and doth not spend their goods idly. 9 Because they are courageous, respecting their honour above all things.  
They should flee the air that is gross and thick, choising the subtle and clear, shunning also meats that are viscuous, windy, gross, melancholic, and of hard digestion, choosing the flesh of Veilles, muttons, kids, capons, partridges, and of young beasts, rejecting the old, using boiled meat often, with borage, bugloss, endive chicory, but no cabbage, beattes, neippes, oynions, sybouse, and no bitter, or sharp biting herbs, as also no beans and pease: their drink should be white wine, or clear fyne bear, moderate exercise, and pleasant games: long watching is noisome, sound sleeping wholesome, their belly still should be keeped open.   

Of phlegmatics.  
phlegmatics are of colour white or grayish, their face bowden or swelled in some kind, the body grown, soft, & cold to the touch, without hair, the veins and arteries straight, the hair white, the spirit lumpish, and stupid, so they are slow, sweere, heavy, cowards, sluggish, sleepy, subject to destillations, vomiting or spiting of phlegm, colic, hydropsy, and other sickness proceeding from phlegm.  
They must make choice of hot, & dry things which may correct their intemperate complexion, as the air hot and dry, such like meats of the same qualities, their bread of good flower, well hardened, mixed with a little salt and anise, their flesh rather roast than boiled, being of easy digestion, and few excrements, as capons, pigeons, partridgs, young coneys, and kids, and birds of the field, fleeing these of the river, as also swine flesh, lamb flesh, and Veilles, with all boiled meat, all fish, all sort of milk. Herbs, hot, as sauge, menth, marjoline, hyssop, thym, rosemary, and the like are to be used, but cold as lattuces, and pourpie to be refused, they should comb well their head in the morning, rubbing it with their neck, striving to purge the head of a 〈…〉 the excrements: too long sleep is naught for them, and always while they sleep, look they keep the head and feet warm.   

The change of diet according to the age.  
It is a thing most sure, that although man should do all that is required for the keeping of his temperament natural, yet he cannot stay always in one estate without alteration; he is first by nature hot and humid, yet with time the heat and natural moist is so diminished, that in end he becometh cold and dry: so that by process of time, the body of itself doth change. The Physicians looking to the most sensible changes, hath divided the life of man in five parts: infancy, bairnly age, youth, middle age, and old age.  
The infancy is hot and humid of complexion, but the humidity surpasseth the heat, and keepeth it so in subjection that it can not kith, it continueth from the birth to the fourteenth year: Bairnely age or adolescency is also hot and humid, but the heat in it beginneth to appear: so the voice in male children becometh austere and grosser, all the passages of the body are enlarged: in women the paps hardeneth; and groweth greater, and they begin to have their natural flowers: It is from 14 to 25, which is the term and end of growth: Youth is hot and dry, full of fire, agility, and force, it is the flower of the age, and is from 25 to 35, in it cholere or bile doth reign, as in the former blood: Mid age followeth, which keeping the mids between the extremities, is the most temperate of all, in it the force beginneth to decline, but it is recompensed by the gifts of the mind, which are in greater measure than before, as discretion, wisdom and judgement, lasting from 35, to 49: And old age beginning there, containeth all the rest of the life until the end: It is the most cold and dry time of the life, by reason of the destruction of the natural moist by the inbred heat, abounding nevertheless in humid pituitous excrements: hence their eyes are still watering, their nose dripping, and their mouth being full of water, they are still spitting.  
The division of ages must not always be taken from the time: for some sooner, others latter, according to their complexion, runneth thorough all these spaces, so the sangineans bear their age better than the rest who become sooner old.  
Seeing then the body doth change the temper according to the course of the years: It is needful to diversify the diet: and because I am to speak of infancy hereafter, passing it, I will first treat of the bairnly age.   

Of bairnly age.  
Bairnes are of a very good temperature: hence it is, that they agree better with the spring than any other season, because of the temperate air; as also with temperate meats: and seeing their body by the softness and rarity of it is much subject to dissolution, they have need of much food, otherwise their bodies in place of growing shall decrease and diminish, as witnesseth Hipp. they should not sleep so much as infants, but being stronger, they ought to use exercise more than they: this is the time wherein they should be instructed both in liberal and mechanic arts, that thereby both the body and mind being coupled, Cupid's darts get no entry, for they should flee all violent exercise, and Venus' games, because they hinder the growth of the body, and being subject to bleeding, they ought to eshew every excess, whereby the body is made hot, stryving to keep a mediocrisie in all things. This is evil keeped by these who pamper their bairnes belly with spiceries and strong drink, which so drieth, that some of them can never be quenched.   

Of Youth.  
Young men being of complexion hot and dry, should use a diet cold and moist: for this cause we see they are most wholesome in the winter, because it is contrary to their bilious temper: they should shun all heat either in the air or meat, as garlic oynions, mustard, pepper, ginger, and all other suchlike: also all strong drink, as wine, aquavitie, rosa solis, and the like: or violent exercises, because they procure a fever, soreness of the head, and troubleth the spirit: in this age men are meetest for any charge in public or warfare.  
This is the time most proper for marriage, for bairnes procreate of bairnes, or old men are commonly infirm, either of body or of mind, but begotten in the flower of the age, when the body and spirit are at the best, are found to be most able for any business: for Venus if it be moderate, doth not hurt them as other ages, by reason of the force of their members: yea, they are by it made more gallant, and lusty.   

Of middle age.  
Men of middle age ought to keep a more temperate diet than the former, not declining so much to cooling things, because the heat of youth is past: so a temperate air, temperate meat taken in less quantity than before, because the body hath left growing, also moderate in exercise, employing better the spirit than body, flying all grief and sadness, because that age is most subject to melancholy: they fall readily in agues, phrenesies, pripnenmonies, pleurisies, cholere, dysentery, and other such like diseases bilious, through abundance of bile, gathered in the youth: and according as their natural force diminisheth, and old age approacheth, they begin to find a shortness in the breath to press them: for the prevening of these, they should keep a mediocrisie in their diet between youth and age.   

Of old age.  
Old men should strive to correct their cold and dry complexion by hot and humid diet: and therefore flying all coldness in the air, keeping them by a fireside, hot meats of good and easy digestion are best, as capons, hens, pigeons, partridges, veill, and muttoun, soft new laid eggs, and such like cheer: fishes are not for them: spices, as ginger, cannell, mustard should be much used by them: they must beware of overcharging their stomach with much meat, for they may readily by this means chock their natural heat, being now but small: it is better to eat often and little, especially they who are decrepit: for they are like lamps, in the which the light is almost extinguished, which must be entertained by a gentle effusion of oil, because much at once will suffocate it, and too long withholding will procure the evanishing of it: strong wine, rather old than new is fittest for such, and therefore it is called their milk: it is granted to them to sleep alittle after meat, chiefly in the summer, because they are commonly troubled with night-watching, by reason of some biting vapours, arising from one abundance of a salt phlegm in them: they should keep themselves free of all the violent passions of the mind, chiefly of chagrin and melancholy, living, joyful and merry, rejoicing all their senses with pleasant objects, their eyes with the variety of pleasant flowers, and divers colours, carrying still some precious jewels in their rings, and among others the saphere, the emerald because the green or violate doth conserve the sight best of any: Their ear with the music of voices and instruments, entertaining them also with pleasant discourses, flattering them in all, and contradicting in nothing: the smell with muskue, sweet waters, and musk balls, and the taste with some dainty dishes: But this too curious caring for a Carrion, will seem tedious to the view, and troublesome to the ear of our young wenches, who looking to the Mammon rather than the Man: and the wealthy estate more than healthful body, hath tied themselves to be helpers, and upholders of the chivering and shaking bones of an old man, but pleasantly pulling them down: the poor man consenting: yea, assisting to his fall, these wags hungry for young fresh meat, long to laufe under a mourning weed, in beholding the piafing carriage, and hearing the enticing; yea, rather ravishing discourse of a young Bravado, of whose words they reap greater contentment, than ever they did of the old man's deeds: A just reward for dotting Love..   

Of the seasons.  
As the vicissitude of the night and the day proceeds from the motion of the Sun, from the East to the West, in 24. hours' space, even so the change of the seasons cometh from his course, from the West to the East, about the twelve signs of the Zodiac, making thereby the days longer or shorter. By this approaching or retiring of himself in his coming and going, the Air receiveth many diverse alterations being subject to receive the impressions and influences of the heavenly bodies: for the Sun heateth and drieth by his heat: the Moon in the contrary cooleth, and humecteth, or maketh moist; so when the day is long the Air is hot and dry, and when it is short it is cold and moisty, but when they are of equal length, the Air is temperate by the equal force of both alike communicate to it.  
The Ancients from the course of the Sun in the Zodiac did remark sour special changes in the Air, which are made by the quality & inequality of the nights ●nd days: therefore they have divided ●he year in four seasons; The Spring, the Summer, the Harvest, and Winter, the which are divided by two equinoxes, the one falling in the Summer, the other in ●he Harvest, and two solstice; one in Summer, and an other in Winter, equinox is an equality in length of the night and day, which befalls to all the world alike, when the Sun is under the equinoctial line; the first is in March, the other in September. Solstice is, when the Sun coming to such a point, standeth and cannot go forward, but from thence turneth his course backward, the first in lune, the other in December: This change in the air causeth a change in our bodies, from the which, according to the divers season, diverse humours do abound, requiring the changing of the diet, for this cause we shall insist in every one in particular, and first.   

Of the Spring.  
The Spring begins at the equinox, when the sun first enters into Aries, and ends at the solstice of the summer, when he enters in Cancer, containing a part of March and june, and all Apryle and May: from the equinox in the spring till the solstice in summer, the day still groweth longer, the night shorter, for in March the night hath twelve hours, the day as many; but from thence till the end the day groweth longer, but the night shorter.  
The first sign of the spring is called Aries, that is, Ram, because he punsheth (as it were) with his horns the borders of the new year: the sun then in the mids of March beginning to recover his force, & display lively his beams. Taurus is so termed, because the time maketh for the coupling of the bulls or oxen, for labouring the ground being fred from the rigour of the winter, and moistened with the drops of pleasant rain: Gemini hath the name from the duplication: yea, rather multiplication of the growth of the ground: Pleiades or 7 stars are at the back of Taurus, and Hyadeses (so called, because rainy) at his head. The Poet's feinzie that they were the Nymphs of Bacchus: they cut short often the hope of the labourer: for when they rise, the Sun being opposite to them; and the Moon recountering also, if none of the other Planet's do not interveene in hot signs, here followeth many heavy reins, which spoileth the corns and fruits of the ground, 〈◊〉 from time to time some dangerous ●ayes, at the end of the spring, which are hurtful to the good of the earth, hath ●eene remarked, The spring is of temper ●ote and moist: yea, these qualities are so tempered in it, that it appeareth no ways excessive, neither in the one nor other.  
Amongst the signs of the spring Aries is more moist and humid, than hot, yet temperately, but in Gemini the heat goeth beyond the humidity.  
The spring keepeth a mid temper betwixt the great heat of the summer, and ●he extreme cold of the Winter, two extremities, wherefore it is more wholesome ●nd less dangerous, than the rest of the ●easons, although sickness be frequent in 〈◊〉, yet that proceeds from the multitude ●f humours, which the winter hath gathered in the body: and now are melted by the heat of the season, nature stryving to excel them, such are melancholy, epilepsy, the quinance, but they proceed from melancholic humours, which the Harvest before had gathered in the body, such are distillations, cough, and other cold diseases flowing from the abundance of phlegm, gathered by the Winter: The proper diseases of the spring are scabs, pu●●uls, tumors, and gout, but these are all without danger, and cause health to the body, being cleansed from all vicious humours by such means: so the spring is the most wholesome of all the seasons, for if it get a body with good humours it keepeth it so in health. Yet if it doth surpass the limits of the own temperature, it is no less fertile of sickness than the other seasons, so Hipp. sayeth, if the winter be dry and cold, and the spring hot and humid, the summer is accompanied of necessity with many fevers, ophthalmies, and dysenteries. And if the winter be gentle, warm, and rainy, and the spring dry and cold, women with children, who should be brought to bed in the spring, do with light occasion part with child: and if they bring forth without danger, their birth commonly is weak and subject to sickness: for the bodies by the clemency of the air made soft, moist, and open, receives easily within the cold of the circumsisting air, so that the children ●ong accustomed with the heat, bestrickken powerfully by the coldness of the ●ire, dyeth in the belly of the mother, or ●fter the birth not dying, liveth unarmed by nature, against all danger. For prevening sickness: It is good to purge in this ●yme, and to draw blood: This season requireth a diet conform to itself in temper, so if cold in the beginning, it should have the diet of the winter, and if very hot at the end, the diet of the summer: ●he meats agreeable for this season are Veilles and Kids, fish haunting about ●ockes, soft roasted eggs: fowls are not good ●hen, because they are about their procreation: boiled meat is better than roasted, & more drink, & less meat, than in winter.   

Of Summer.  
Although the sun be the father of ●ll the rest of the four seasons, yet he carrieth greatest respect to the summer of any, it receiveth greater force from his beams, and is made more like his father than the spring his elder brother, or the rest that are younger: It is he that makes the love of the spring, and of Dame Flora, to be faecund and fertile, in receiving the sweet drops sprinkled by the spring in the bosom of the earth, Ceres doth present him with Corns, Bacchus with wines and Pomon with fruits.  
Summer beginning at the solstice, when the sun enters in Cancer the 11 of june, and endeth at the equinox of the Harvest, the sun being in Libra, the 13 of September, from his solstice in summer, till the equinox in Harvest, the days shorteneth still and the night groweth longer, and then they are of equal length. Among the signs, Cancer is more hot than dry, Leo extreme hot and dry, in Virgo the drought surpasseth the heat, Cancer taketh the name from the back going of the sun, being at the height as a partane doth, and Leo is so called, because the sun is red and burning then as a Lion: Virgo by reason of the earth's infertilitie, in that season, the earth being dried by the heat of the sun: The sun entering in Leo, the little dog beginneth to kith, and so soon as he enters in the first degree, the great dog is perceived: which hath eighteen stars, the little dog is called by the Greeks Syrios', because of his great heat and drought, the little dog appeareth a day before the great, the first the 16 the latter the 17 of julie, while the dog doth make his course, the space of six weeks in the caniculare days, he augmenteth the heat of the sun by his presence, engendering many diseases from extreme heat, for the moderating of this heat, the LORD hath appointed certain North winds, very gentle, called Etesias, that is yearly, because they appear ordinarily about the rising of the dog, and continue from three hours in the morning till night daily.  
The heat of the summer is so great, that it not only drieth the body, but also piercing thorough the skin, it dissolveth not only the humour between the hide and the flesh; but also the spirits: so it weakeneth the body, and engendereth much bilious blood, from the which floweth vomiting of bile upward, and dysentery from bile downward: This time would be entertained by refreshing things, as a cooling air, and cold meats, using much purpie, ●actuces, endive, sourocks, and other herbs, both in broth and salad, eating rather boiled than roasted, having for sauce vinegar, the juice of sydrons, or oranges, flying all spyceries: and because the weakness of the body doth not admit much meat at once, and the great dissolution of the same doth require great reparation, to eat little and often is best for this time: drink would be taken in greater quantity, but weak in quality: exercise should be little and that in the morning, and they that can not sleep, the night may repose a little after dinner.   

Of Harvest or Autumn.  
Although Autumn hath just reason to be sad, seeing his father the Sun to leave him, and take his journey towards a strange country, and his mother the earth to be sorrowful by reason of her golden locks which are daily fading, and her pleasant laughing countenance that is changing to be unpleasant and shaggring. Yet she may rejoice with her husband Bacchus, having through their lovely conjunction brought forth wine, and by the help of Pomon many fruits.  
The Autumn beginneth at the Equinox, and endeth at the solstice in the winter, conteaning a part of September and December, and whole October, and November, from the beginning the day still shorteneth, and the night groweth long, for in September the day and the night hath each of them twelve hours, but from thence the day diminisheth, and the night groweth longer. Amongst the signs Libra is more hot than cold: Scorpion is very hot and dry: Sagittarius is more cold than dry. Libra is so called, because the night and day are in equal balance: and Scorpion by reason of the biting of the cold subtle air, as a scorpion, making the earth dry and cold. And Sagittarius, while by the shooting of his arrows, he makes as it were the ground and all things dead. In Libra, Boötes a sign with 22 stars, whereof the ehiefe is Arcturus, is remarked: The Harvest is cold, in regard of the Summer, and dry in respect of the Winter: it is not absolutely hot or dry, cold or humid, and so not temperate, as is the spring: for there is not only found an inequality in the whole season, but also in one day, which is now warm now cold, as at noon it is hot, at night it is cold: This inconstancy causeth divers diseases inconstant and dangerous, by the production of humours of inequal temper, through the cold it hindereth the dissipation of the cholere, engendered in the summer, by the which it causeth a change of the same bile in melancholy, which is not absolutely cold and and dry, but of inequal temper, being more dry than cold: so we see sundry diseases of the summer to be revived by it, and many severs, quartanes, and erratiques, inflation of the rat, hydropsies, lienteries, sciatiques, passions, ashmatiques, epiplespies, and others, the quartanes, proceeds from a black melancholious blood which then abounds: the erratic ●evers of the inequal temperature of the air, the swelling of the melt, of the abundance of the melancholic humour: for the prevening of their maladies, it is good to purge this season: we ought to shun the cold air of the morning and evening: meats of moderate temper should be used, taking more meat in summer, but less drink and stronger.   

The Winter.  
It is no wonder to see the winter still weeping because of his far distance from the Sun his father, regrating still his mother Vesta's case, droupping for her husband Titan's long absence, who carrieth on her head a white veil in place of her dainty cough, flowered with roses, and winter with his tears doth pavia the ground with pleasant crystal, but seeing the same tramped under foot, renewing his tears, he turneth all into mire and clay. The winter beginneth at the solstice, which is in it, when the sun entereth in Capricorn, and finisheth at the equinox in the spring, when the sun beginneth to enter into Aries, it containeth three signs, Capricornus, Aquarius, and Pisces, a part of December and March, but whole januar, & Februar, from the beginning of winter to the end the days grow longer, the night shorter, at the end they are of equal length, being the equinox: Capricorn is more cold than humid: Aquarius is both cold and moist extreme: Pisces is more wakthan cold. Orion kytheth his whole force in the beginning of winter, who affraighteth much the Seamen, moving still storms at his rising. The most frequent diseases of the winter, according to Hipp. are the pleurisy, and peripneumonie, because the instruments of respiration are hurt by the coldness of the air, it moveth also destillations by the nose, rheums, cough, pain of the breast, side, loins, head, dissives and apoplexies, when the head is full: for to preveene these we ought to cover well the body, but especially the head, breast, and feet, and use hot meats and dry: Salt meat and venison is better now than in any other season: roasted meat is better than boiled, spices now are good, and hot herbs; more meat may be taken now than in summer, but not so often, and less drink than meat, but strong, because the humidity of the season, and long sleep doth moisten the body much.  
   

A REGIMENT FOR WOMEN WITH CHILD, BAIRNES, AND NURSES.  
THE good Gardner hath not only a care of the imp and tree; but also of the seed which kyths by his careful choosing, and labouring of the ground for this end. At whose example, (that this my work should not be manck in any thing) I have made digression containing the safe keeping, and right governing of the ground, wherein man his seed is sown.  
Women with child are likened to one bearing a weighty burden, by a small thread tied to their hands, who going, softly, and warily may happily bring their burden to the purposed place: but if they be agitate by any inordinate or violent motion, easily their burden partly by the weight, and partly by reason of the small string will fall to the ground: so it sareth with them, for if they move violently, or suffer agitation either in a Coach or chariot, or by any other sort of riding, or if they be troubled suddenly by the passions of the mind, or use evil food, smell evil savoured things, behold things fearful, a sudden impression of these being first in the spirits, next in the blood and last by these in the tender body of the child, the knit breaking, they readily are brought to bed before tyme.  
For this end let them have a care to keep a moderate diet in all things, using good and nourishing meats, being more sparing in the first month than afterward, because the menstruous blood doth then abound, not employed either for growth, or nourishing of their birth as yet; it is better to take often and little rather than too much at once: they should flee, all meats of a bytting faculty, also all windy, all procuring either the flux of their water, or of their flowers, as capirs, oynions, garlic, safrane, and strong wine: they should use little drink, lest the ligaments become, sl●brie, shunning darkness, solitariness and melancholy. The first month should be quietly passed over without motion. The second a soft gentle walking is good. The third a little quicker. The fourth, fifth, and sixth admit greater exercise, and stronger motion. The seventh, eight, and till half of the nynth, requires some greater rest and quietness than the former, among these the eight as most dangerous, would be quyetest and most carefully keeped, from the middle of the nynth till their birth, a more quick motion, and frequent, exercise is properest for the furthering of the same. They should shun the company of men the first month, for fear of a new conception, afterward they may be more bold: also all passions of the mind, because by chase the blood inward, they choke the child, which often falleth out in great wrath, or sadness. Too long sleep is not evil, from the which they should awake quietly. They should keep themselves from excessive cold or heat, and from the North and South wind, for both the one and the other do move a distillation, from whence a cough, the which hasteneth their birth before, the time flying always the noise of thunder, & guns of great bells, and the like: and because that women with child, either hath lost all appetite, or are troubled with an inordinate, as a desire to eat strange things, as also with a pain in the stomach, gnawof the heart, great spitting, short breath, sore head, swelling in the legs, and an universal heaviness thorough the whole body, proceeding from the suppression of their flowers, (yet there be some so full of blood, who hath them, the first months, others all the time) lest these and the like by weakening of the mother, do precipitate both mother and bairne in hazard of death: it is better to purge these vicious humours, than to suffer such manifest dangers. The properest time for purging, according to Hipp. is from the fourth month to the seveneh; for the child (saith Galen.) is tied to the matrix of the mother, as the fruits are to the trees, the fruits new budded out have the stalk so tender that little shaking will make them fall, but being with time more firmly tied to, they are not so shortly broken, till the time of their maturity, where they fall off themselves without help; so women with child are in less danger the fourth, fifth, and six months, than the first and the last.  
Women with child should not be bled, except in a great necessity, lest the bairne by bleeding, frustrate of his food, be forced to break forth before the time to look for meat; yet there be some women who are so full of blood, that except you draw blood of them, they will chocke the child in their belly, of such blood may be taken once or twice.  
Women with child should cast away their buistes, which they use, to keep them small about the middle, and that so soon as they find their belly to swell: for they hinder the growth of the child, and constraineth it often to come forth before the tyme. Whosoever hath of custom to part with child, through the moistness of their bairne-bed, let them wear about their neck the Eagle stone, called by the greeks Aetites, applying this plaster over the belly and the loins.  
R. Gallarum nucum cupress. sanguine. drac. ballast. myrtill. rosar. an drag. 1 ss. mastic. myrrh. an drag. 11 thuris hypocistid. acaciae. gummi arab. bol. armen. an drag. 1. camphor. scrup. ss. ladan. unc. ss. terebinth. venet. 11 picis navalis. vuc. 11 cerae. q. s. fiat emplastrum secundum artem extendatur super alutam ad praefatum usum: If the passage of the belly be stopped (as often it falleth out) the last months, the tripes being straitted by the matrix, let them use broth of barley, malves, beets, and mircurial.  

Of their government, the time of their birth, and after the same.  
There be three things required to a natural birth, the first alike fordwardnesse both in the mother and the child: so the child requiring more meat than the mother can afford, and greater liberty to take the air, he tares with his hands and feet his thin membranous sheettes: the matrix again wearied of its burden, doth contract the self, for the expelling of it: Now if any of these be inlacking, their birth is not without danger: for if the whole action be imposed on the mother, as it falleth when the child is dead, or very weak, it is with great pain, which sometimes bringeth death: and if the child get all the business to do, by reason of the mother's weakness, it is of no less hazard. The second is a due form, which Hipp. describeth in his first book de morbis mulierum, and in his book de natura pueri, in these words: A child (saith he) if the birth be natural cometh forth headlong, and he giveth the reason in an other place of this, because the parts above the middle are heavier than beneath it: Moreover if the feet come first forth, they in stretching of themselves should stop the passage to the rest of the body: so the custom of the Ancients was, (as reporteth Plinius in seven books of his natural history,) and is now also to carry the dead with their feet formest, because that death is contrary to life. The third thing required, is, that it be quick, easy, and without great pain or many symptoms.   

The time of birth.  
Nature (saith Arist.) hath set down a certaime term and time of birth almost to all the creatures, only man hath divers times: so the dove hath her mouthly birth: the bitch keepeth still four month: the mare nine month, the Elephant two year: only woman changeth, having for term the 7 8. 9 or 10 months: the first is the seventh, before which no child can be lively: the next is the eight, in the which, according to Hipp. and other Physicians are not lively: the nynth is the mostnaturall, and best of all: the tenth and eleventh in the first days are lively also, although that birth doth not fall often forth in them.  
Now that women be not troubled before the time, remark here the signs of birth approaching, these are, a pain from the navel to the secret parts going about to the loins or small of the back; a descent of the bairn-bed causing a swelling about the privy members, a redness of the face: the mouth of the matrix open and strait, and in the entry of it there is found a lump about the greatness of an egg a shivering through the whole body, and in end a certain liquor issueth forth: first in little quantity then more largely: and lastly there floweth a watery blood if it be a female child, but pure, if a man child.  
There are three things to be remarked about the time of the birth. The first, that the travelling woman be not burdened with too much meat, for thereby the natural heat is drawn from the matrix to the stomach. Secondly that the Midwife do not handle roughly, the bairn-bed of these who are long in travelling, but gently their hands being ointed with oil: Thirdly that the woman be not troubled, till the foresaid signs appear, especially the straightness of the mouth of the matrix, and the eshuing of these humidities. These appearing, let her so be placed that her loins be free, le●ning most on her back and shoulders, her heeeles be bowed inward toward her buttoks being lifted up, and that her thighs be so far asunder as possible they can. Thus let her lean rather than sit, holden up behind by a chair, or the bedside. Others standing do bring forth their birth leaning to their hands, fastened to an hold. This time if the air of the chamber be too warm, it must be refreshed by opening of the windows, lest they faint. And when the pain returneth, the mouth of the matrix being open, let her who is travelling contain her breath, keeping her mouth and nose fast, and press downward with all her power, the Midd-wyfe softly with her hands helping her by pressing also from the navel downward, desisting when the matrix beginneth to close, lest they travel in vain.  
The child should be received by the midwife in a soft small and warm linen cloth, and that quietly, lest any of the members should be hurt. This done, the woman should be laid in her bed, in a dark chamber, with her thighs asunder, lest the issuing of the blood should be stopped, which ought to be dried up by the oft changing of warm clothes, lest either by the sharp biting, or the unwholesome stinking, it grieve the delivered. It were not amiss to tie a band of two hand-breadth about her navel, both for the furthering of her purgation, as also from hindering of inflations from cold wind, which readily then entereth through the emptiness of the matrix, which thereafter breedeth a suffocation of the same: after her delivery a drink of the best in little quantity will do no harm: let her absteane two days from flesh, using the while caddels, aleberries; and such like easy digestable meats, and nourishing, for the repairing of her forces, eshewing all sudden charging of the stomach, either by the great quantity, or divers quality of the meat: for her weak force doth not admit that, rather come by degrees to the former diet, shunning all sudden repletion after such an evacuation, it is better to give them oft and little, eight days being passed they may eat more largely, especially if they nourish their child. They should absteane from all kind of herbs, fruits, and legums, that is pease, beans, and the like.  
If after her delivery her pain continue, the Midwife shall search the bairne-bed if there be any congealed blood in it, (as sometimes there is, which being taken away the pain ceaseth) or any lump of flesh: applying also to her navel the secundines or after birth yet warm, the skin of a Ram hot from the sheep alive.  
When they come to nourish the child, they should cause suck the milk of their breast the first two or three days, by some old woman, that the old unwholesome milk may be drawn forth, and better supply the place of it, twenty days is the term of purgation after a man child, and forty after a f●mell, the which space they should keep themselves free of the society of man, yet these that are of strong constitution, will purge sufficiently in eight or ten days.   

Of the government of the Child.  
So soon as the child is brought forth, his navel should be cut about three finger broad from his body, and then tied in the lovest part, and sprinkles in the uppermost part, where the incision was made with the powder of bol. armen. sanguinis. draconis. sarcocolle. myrrh. and cumini and then covered: bound up with a little wool dipped in the oil of Olives, afterward see it be washen in warm water by the Nurse, and oynt again with the foresaid oil, his nostrils should be softly opened and his prick looked if the passage be open: his eyes tenderly wiped, his fundament rubbed and handled, for the procuring of the passage, to the cleansing of the stomach from a part of the menstruous blood lurking in it, drawn in while he was in his mother's belly, the which staying, and not cast out, presently after his birth, or at the farthest the first day doth cause either death, or the epilepsy: It is remarked, that this issuing before the birth doth foretell a parting with child. For the purging of the child from this black blood, it is good before he suck any to give him of honey half an ounce, of fresh butter two drams, with half a scruple of myrrh, and when the half part of the navel falleth away, it should be sprinkled again with the powder of burnt lead, and afterward wrapped in warm clothes. The member are to be stretched forth, and made strait by the warm hand of the Nurse, for now they are ready to receive any crook or hurt: The child should be washen twice a day, in the winter with hot water, and in the summer with warm: neither must he be long keeped in the water, than the body becometh hot and red. Keeping his nose and ears free from the drops: being washen and dried, let him be laid strait with his arms, close to his sides, and his feet together in warm fine linen, then put in his cradle, with his head, and upper parts highest, that the humidity may fall from the head to his lower parts, laid on his back, for that is the surer, then on either of the sides, lest his soft bones, and lightly tied, by weak bindings, under the burden of the whole body do bow, or be disjointed: but so soon as his teeth do come forth, he may be accustomed to lie now on the one side, now on the other: above his head in the craddell their should be placed small twigs, or wands bowed, covered with clothes, or in place of these a little canopy, whereby the wavering, and inconstant motion of the child's eyes may be restrained and corrected, least by long looking too earnestly to any thing aside, he become glyed, or by inconstant wavering to and fro: of still winking and moving, ringle sight, for a frequent turning of the tender eyes, turneth in end to a habit, which can not be forborn: so a child by oft looking to his guyed Nurse, will become so in end, having imprinted by long custom a habitude in the muscles, moving the eye towards the nose, which are stronger than the opposite muscles, suchlike bairnes by oft use of the left hand, becometh more perfect of it than of the right.   

Of the Nurse.  
There is no milk so proper for the child as the mothers, being accustomed in his mother's belly to feed on it while it was as yet blood, and now turned by the paps into milk: but when the mother can not, being either sickly or weak, or lacking milk sufficient, or paps competent. Let them make choice of a Nurse, with these conditions following: first, that she be of a temperate complexion, not subject to diseases, of good colour, and proportion of body, neither too fat nor too lean, but proper and handsome, with paps of mediocre consistence, that is neither too little nor too big, nor long and hanging, neither over soft or hard, with the ends long enough, that the child be not troubled in gripping ●hem, with the breast large and great: Secondly, let her be in the flower of her age, that is, between 25 and 35: one younger aboundeth in superfluous excrements, and older is too dry, by lack of the natural moist, and heat daily decressing: Thirdly, see she be diligent, lusty, merry, sober, chaste, meek, not sluggish nor sad, no gluttoun, nor delicate of her mouth, no drunkard or unclean, not choleric, or envious, but gentle and courteous: for the child doth not follow so much the nature of any, (except the parents) as the Nurses: Fourthly, that she be not of a long time delivered, for when they pass two month without causing suck their paps, nature becometh forgetful to furnish them matter for milk: Fiftly, that she be not with child, otherwise the best part of the blood will be employed for the entertaining the child in her belly: Sixtly, that her last birth be a man child, because her blood is purer, and the excrements are fewer, and so the milk must be better: Seventhly, that she hath been brought to bed at the time, for they who are before the time, are commonly sickly, or infirm: Eightly, that their milk be of an mediocre substance between gross and subtle, thick and clear, of colour white, of taste sweet, in smell pleasant, and in sufficient quantity.  
The Nurse should use much nourishing meat (except she abound in milk) and of easy digestion, as wheat bread of two days, the flesh of vealles, kids, fowls and birds of the field, perches, trout, souls, pikes, and soft roasted eggs, flying all spyceries, all sour or bitter things, and mustard. Fruits are not good, except prune-damase, and ●igges: nor wine, or strong drink, neither the company of man. First, because dallying with Venus troubleth the blood, and consequently the milk: secondly, because it diminisheth the quantity of the milk, by turning the course of the blood downward from the breast to the matrix: thirdly, because it giveth the milk an evil smell by the corruption of its qualities: and lastly, because it lifteth the Nurse's apron, and putteth a kid in her kilting.  
Milk is deficient to the Nurse, either from lack of meat; great care, too much grief and pain, or from any in disposition of the whole body, or of the paps only, if lack of victuals cause it, cause help her dishes both in quantity and quality: if care, grief, or pain, cause banish them. Goat's paps or yewes boiled with their own milk have a peculiar faculty for restoring of the milk lost, as also wheat bread baken with kynes milk, decoctions made with the leaves and seed of green finkle, or of anise and milk.  
The Nurse should have care to keep the child in a place of temperate air, shunning the Sun, the night, rain, and all sort of intemperate season. The quantity of the milk is to be taken from the age, complexion, and the desire the child hath to suck. The first month lesse, by reason of his inabiltie to digest much: afis better for him: so he that is of a complexion humid sooner than he who is dry: also one that is wholesome, than he who is infirm and sicklye. Diseases also according to their divers nature will change the term, causing wain him sooner or later: suchlike the season, for in Summer it is not good to wain him, for to give him solid meat in place of his milk, which are not so easily digested: in like manner the region, for in a country very cold he may be wained in the midst of summer, & in a very hot, in the hart of winter. Also the sex for the males may be sooner wained than the females: because they have their teeth sooner, and have greater heat and force to digest their meat.  
He should be wained by little and little, by giving more seldom the pape and ofter of other meat. And if he be not willing to quite it, you must cause rub the head of it with wormwood or Aloes or any bitter thing.  
Being wained, Veilles, mutton, capons, hens, partridges, and birds of the field are fittest for them: boiled meat is better than roasted; soft eggs are never evil, so prunes boiled with suggar: they must abstain from oynions, leeks, sybouse, garlic, mustard, salt meat, or spyced, old chief, baken meat. Their drink should be small ail or water, no ways wine, because it easily hurts their brain and nerves, being as yet weak and tender, as also adds heat to heat, whereby their natural moisture or humidity is dried up. The child should sleep much because he is of a moist complexion, and sleep moisteneth more by hindering the dissipation of his natural humid substance: he should lie on his back, till his members be strong, and he begin to use stronger meat than milk: and easy rocking is best, for by it the natural heat retires the self within, and the spirits become drowsy: but a toilsome catching, tosseth the milk to and fro in the stomach, hindereth the digestion, troubleth the spirits and brain.  
So soon as he awakes in the morning, you must have a care that his body be made clean, from all the excrements, by the siege below, and by purging the head above at the nose, washing his mouth, ears and eyes, and combing of his head, both for the lightning of the same and making of the hair pleasant and fair.  
And having attained to the age of five years, send him to the School, where he may with the elements of knowledge, be informed in the rudiments of piety, that is, taught to know love, fear, and serve his GOD The neglect of this makes them first disobedient to their parents, next shamelessly debauched thirdly, spectacles of misery through their tragical end, or objects of pity, having nothing to spend: our thrifty yea rather theifie parents now a days, stryving per fas & nefas, by hook and crook to big a hedge of earth about their children, either they live within this hedge a fiery devil, or a silly fool. The frenetick fool (when old miser is gone to hell to bear Dives company, who living, would not bestow a penny on the poor, or dying, leave any of his goods for any public work, as planting of Seminaries of learning, building of Kirks and Hospitals:) not able to suffer the heat the hedge doth make, presently maketh a breach, in turning his father's cape (as old as the King) in a silk beaver, his two penny band in a thirty pound ruff, his coat and cloak of the wife's making, in some ris●ing silks and his doubled with pan drop de scene cloak. His course pricks, in stoc●kings, garters, roses, russet walking boots, and gingling long necked spurs, his prentice in a page. Thus breach being made, where through the Gallant hath passed his body, next the tempestuous wind of the vengeance of GOD, which the father had scraped together with the goods, seizeth on the hedge, and entereth the better of the breach: this wind is, some mischief befallen this Gallant in his intemperate over night drinking as murder, or by his immoderate gaming at cards and dice, (the devil's two special factors) as losing of a great part of his goods: the murder takes his head, losing, takes his wit, so that thereafter, as a mad man, despairing of recovery, with both his hands he throweth down the hedge, and scattereth the same abroad to every one passing by: thus my Gentleman the last year, by the means of his gear, supposed a Lords peer, this year being poor is a beggar's brother, and yet these gentils are very frequent amongst us: so for one lawfully begotten, and truly nobilitate, by virtue there be twenty earth borne bastards, new start-ups, by the excrements of their mother the earth: if I were a noble, I should be ashamed of such a mother.  
The silly fool sitteth within his hedge, like a goose on eggs, then presently a cunning catching Lawyer marries his sister, who findeth out some clause in his evidents, by the which he allegeth a part of the hedge to belong to him, so my blockhead getteth up to hold up his hedge. The while he is a struggling with his party, there cometh one behind him, (a pirate by sea, or a thief by land,) and he pulleth down a part of it: next his wife at home tied to him a duarfe, or an impotent, either of body or of mind, sometimes of both, (forced by her parents) alured by his goods to match with him: yea, (if without offence I may say it) holden like a Kow to the Bull, (not enjoying, though a reasonable soul, the liberty of the pretty birds, unreasonable beasts, who doth make choice of their own mates,) maketh of a silly ass a horned sheep: Thus the lawyers chyding, the Pirates or thiefs robbing, the wife's whoring abateth the poor sots little courage, and not prevailing for all his toiling, he returneth gouse-like to his nest again, where wring his hands, and hanging his head, his gear he seeth spent, while he hath neither meat, drink, nor clothes of it.   

Of the diseases befalls Children, and their cure.  
Although that children be best provided in natural heat and moisture, from the which the life of man depends, yet they are subject to many diseases. Children that are all over scabbed, also that cast much phlegm and pituite at mouth & nose, suchlyke these whose belly is very louse, if it do not proceed from too great abundance of meat, prognostics a more constant health to follow. The infirmities of babes, are pustuls in the roof of the mouth, called the water canker, vomiting, cough, watching the night, fear in the sleep, waknesse of the ears, and inflammation of the navel. And when their teeth breaks forth, they are troubled with a itch in the gums, fevers, convulsions, flux, and when they become older and greater, an inflammation in the wax kirnels disjointing of the vertebres or links of the back, a shortness of the breath, the gravel, worms, cruells, and other tumours in divers parts of the body. The pustuls of the mouth, according to Galen. cometh of the sharpness, and serositie of the milk which easily exulcerateth that place, being as yet tender: Vomiting is from the abundance of the milk, overcharging the weak stomach: the cogh is from the humidity of the brain distilling on the lights. night watching, of the sharpness of the vapours that ariseth from the stomach to the head Fear in the sleep, is of the meat corrupted in the stomach, which sendeth evil vapours to the head, from the which ariseth dreams, procuring fear. The running of the ears is, from the humidity of the brain: the inflammation of the navel proceedeth of the evil cutting and binding of the same: The itch of the gums, from the pricking of the teeth pressing forth. The fever floweth from the pain the teeth maketh, from the night watching, and from the inflammation of the gingives. Convulsions are from the former causes, as also from the crudity of the nourishment, which hurteth the nervous parts, which are not as yet strong.  
The flux cometh of the indigestion of the stomach. The inflammation of the wax kirneles, and likewise the dislocation of the links of the back, are from defluxion from the head, as also the shortness of breath called Asthma. The gravel taketh the origine from abundance of raw humours engendered of the gluttony of the child, the which going to the bladder, furnisheth matter to the heat, to work on for the production either of a stone, or of gravel. Worms breeds of the corruption of the superfluities of the body, and of the great heat of the same. tumors, Cruels, and the like, of the abundance of the foresaid supperfluities.  
Hence it appeareth that bairnes are subject to many sicknesses, which ariseth either from the coming forth of the teeth, or from the evil nourishment they have gotten in their mother's belly, or of the evil milk of the Nurse, or from their evil guiding, by their mother and Nurse, or from their own gluttony, or immomoderacie in soucking, drinking, eating, moving, or sleeping. For to make the teeth come forth easily, and so to preveene the sickness that may flow from thence, as fevers, convulsion and the rest: the Nurse must rub the gums gently with her finger, both for to open the passages and also to draw forth the water that is within, bowing the child's head that the rheum may pour out, afterward oynt the same with oil of camomile, or sweat almonds, or dukes, or hens grease, or with honey, or fresh butter. During this time, he should souck less than before, also abstain from all chawing meat, not using any thing that is actually cold, for fear it ding back the humour sent thither to prepare the passage to the teeth that are coming forth, for the eshewing of the rest of the diseases, let the mother, the child, and the Nurse keep the diet that hath been set down to them, and so I leave them.   

Of conception according to the divers sorts of it.  
As conception doth cause joy when it is found to be true; so being false, the hopes frustrate, moveth grief. For prevening these sudden changes, I have thought it expedient to annex here the marks of both the one, and the other.   

The signs of true conception.  
There be divers signs of it which are commoun to it, with a false conception: passing these, I will here make mention of the chiefest: as are, the retention of the seed by the femell sex, after the lawful and natural imbreacing of both the sexes. Next a contraction of the matrix, which breedeth a shivering through the whole body, and a coldness a-longst the back. Then within a little space a smallness of the belly, especially about the nevell, where it appeareth to be somewhat hollow, and when the time of her flowers draweth near, in place of them she finds her papes become hard and hot, at the end of three or four month the child doth move.   

Of false conception.  
There be divers sorts of it, arising either from a lump of flesh, in the matrix, called mola, or from a wind or a water: A mola is a lump of flesh without shape, bred in the matrix, which either sooner or later is cast forth. It is caused of a little portion of seed environed, and almost chokked by a too great abundance of menstruous blood, and so the spirits are not able to form any thing: The marks are one in the beginning with a true conception, as a stopping of the flowers losing of appetite, loathing, vomiting, swelling of the belly, and growing of the papes. But after they differ, for with a true conception a woman daily after the first month groweth lustier, with a mola daily worse, after the third or fourth month a child moveth, but a mola never except, when the woman turneth in her bed, and then like a stone it falleth from one side to an other: it moveth often by this falling the pains of her birth, without effect. It hath moreover a certain pricking and grinding in the belly; also being pressed by the hand, it giveth place or way to the presser, returning again to the own room, which a child or true conception will not do. Such like the belly is much harder with a mola then with a child. In a mola the monthly courses rusheth often forth like little pieces of flesh in great quantity, and then the woman daily becometh extenuate, in end all the body shirping, and the belly growing, it resembleth an hydropsy, yet it is different from it by the hardness of the belly by it, and in not receiving any impression made by the finger or hand: it brings an universal laziness of the whole body, with a softness of the members and trembling; sometimes a swelling of the eyes and lips, a dissinesse of the head. A mola is cast forth sometime after forty days, sometimes after three month: others keep it two, three, four, or five years, yea all their life.   

A false conception from wind or water.  
Such sort of false conceptions befalleth when the monthly courses are stopped to a woman using the company of man, and her belly riseth, the rest of the marks of a true conception concurring, she not having for all this conceived any lively thing, but something correspondent in substance to some of the elements, as wind or water: the cause of these is the seed of both the sex infirm and weak, received by a matrix of the same indisposition, by the which means the spirits contained in the seed, doth vanish: it may proceed also from a small skin, closing the mouth of the matrix, and so stopping the issuing of woman's monthly courses, whereby the belly swelleth, and is bended, upon the which there followeth often the fits of a woman travailling: this is known to be the cause, when that the skin is cut, and the blood gusheth forth, and she is fred of her pain: To try these sorts of conceptions, we should try if the woman hath been troubled before by corrupt, or unnatural courses, (as commonly they do precede) upon the which hath followed presently this swelling of the belly, whereby it differeth from a true conception, in the which the womb first is drawn in, before it be bended forth: if the matter of this false conception be windy, it is known by the resounding of the belly beat thereon, like unto a drum: also by a pain of the head, loins, back, and of the privy members. If water cause it, there is perceived into the motion from one side to an other, the noise of water catched to and fro; also a dropping of a serious watery matter from the secret places, which is very biting, and of an evil smell, the feet, face, and eyes swell in it, the whole body becometh pale, and they look like hydropicks, and almost the rest of the marks of a mola are to be found here, from this disease women become often barren.  
The not distinguishing of a true conception from the false, hath been often troublesome and chargeable to divers: Such was the case of a Lady in Burdeous, who after nine months careful carrying of herself, lest she should hurt her supposed child, and three weeks troublesome travailing, in end was delivered of a fart forsuiths: Let any man who is feared for to be deceived either with pillows under the kilting, or farts in the skirping, supply that which hath been omitted by me, for I hope not to be deceived this twelve months by my wife, and so farewell.   
FINIS.