God had made the whole creation, he in the laft place makes him, for whom all the rest were made; And he took man and put him in the garden of Eden, to dress it, and to keep it: This place, of all the earth, was the meetest receptacle for fo noble an inhabitant, for it had in it a river, which was divided into four heads, the name of the firft is Pifon, which encompasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold, Gen. ii. 10, 11; and all the other are there reckoned up by their names: When the Lord God had made this noble inhabitant of the duft of the earth, he in like manner in the last place breathed into him that more noble part of him, for which all the reft were made; and the foul of man, which is to rule and guide him, hath he placed in this most convenient feat, which is watered by a river, that is parted, and becomes four heads, which are all known by name, where also there is gold. Arteriarum quadriga ad quatuor diftinetas ro iynepány, plagas evehitur*; the two carotidal, and the two vertebral arteries are this golden quaternion, whofe ftreams make glad that city, wherein the breath of God hath its principal abode. There is yet another thing, wherein this part we are now treating of, and gold, have a very great refemblance; and that is in the ductility of them both: Gold of all metals is the most ductile, and may be drawn out at the greatest length; this only makes * Dr. Willis, Anatom. Cerebri, Cap. 10. good good that maxim in philofophy: Quantitativum eft divifibile in femper divifibilia; no man can draw gold fo thin, but a better artift, can yet make it thinner; it is the nature of this solar mineral to be endless in purity: how pure fine the pia mater cerebri is, none can express, and none but the diligent observer of it, (who hath often endeavoured its feparation from the parts to which it is annexed) can poffibly understand. This, as fo much leaf-gold, drawn out to a very great thinnefs, doth fecurely, tenderly, and univerfally wrap up all thofe little hills and valleys, thofe convex, or concavous parts, that are within the compass of its own circumfe rence. This golden bowl, fo long as man remains in his strength, is firmly knit unto itself in all its parts, but in the extremity of extream old age, when he is juft giving up the ghost, it can no longer continue its continuity; but, by reafon either of its natural drinefs, fhriveling into itself, or preternatural moisture, imbibing excrementitious humours till it is over-full, it often snaps afunder, and fo recurs into itself, as the word properly fignifieth; from whence the brain muft neceffarily fubfide, and all the parts ferving in any wife to animality must be fuddenly and irrecoverably fmitten, and ceafe from their feveral uses; and moreover, immediately hereupon followeth a change of the whole countenance, the nose appears very sharp, the eyes K 2 fink fink into the head, the temples are pinched in, the ears become cold and contracted, and the fibres thereof inverted, the skin about the forehead hard, intenfe, and dry, and the colour of the whole face livid and black, and in all things perfectly reprefenting, that ultimum vale, known among physicians by the name of facies hippocratica, and fo confequently the man doth im'mediately die apoplectical; according to that of Job, Thou changeft his countenance, (and what followeth immediately thereupon,} Thou fendeft him away. So that the symptom hereby intended, is, Repentina omnium operationum cerebri; motus, viz. fenfus, & aliarum functionum animalium, tam principalium, quam minus principalium abolitio: cum facie hippocratica. It cannot but here upon this occasion be remembred, that an apoplexy was mentioned before, in the explication of the second verfe, and that as a disease of old age, which might furprize a man, and yet not immediately kill him, and of which there might poffibly be a removal, at leaft for a feafon, that there might fome space be given him to recover a little ftrength, before he go hence and be no more feen; how therefore comes it to pass, that it is here accounted as one of the immediate harbingers of death? For answer hereunto, we must know, that an apoplexy falls under a double confideration; either as it is a difeafe, or as it is a symptom. In the first confideration, it is morbus conforma- Apoplexia eft vel vera vel notha. A true apo- K 3 pertaining thereunto, remaining otherwife in good plight, as they ought to be, in their due place, with their wonted firmness of compofition: And this is like unto an house, whose entry or common paffages are wholly filled up with rubbish, so that it becomes altogether uselefs, and this is the difeafe of old age beforementioned. But a bastard apoplexy is a far more dreadful thing, when the tone of the brain, and of all the parts within the compass of the pia mater, is wholly relaxed and destroyed, and by confequence only thereupon all animal functions do in a moment cease, in the manner of the true apoplexy, but yet with far more terrible and amazing symptoms, the pulfe and refpiration alfo being wholly taken away, and the countenance changed to that ghaftly aspect before mentioned; which is an infallible fign of the duft immediately returning to the earth as it was, without any the least stop in its courfe; Xu ἀποπλεξίαν ἰχυρὴν μὲν ἀδύνατον*. And this is like that house wherein the Philiftines were gathered together to fce Samfon make sport, which came tumbling down, when the two foundation pillars thereof were violently torn from their place; Ut collapfa ruit domus, fubducta columnis; and this is the certain symptom of death, treated on in this verfe. And thus much fhall fuffice to have spoken for the explication of those symptoms of death, that belong to the Hippo. 1. 2. Apho. 42. |