SUBSECT. I.—_Bad Diet a cause. Substance. Quality of Meats_.
According to my proposed method, having opened hitherto these secondary causes, which are inbred with us, I must now proceed to the outward and adventitious, which happen unto us after we are born. And those are either evident, remote, or inward, antecedent, and the nearest: continent causes some call them. These outward, remote, precedent causes are subdivided again into necessary and not necessary. Necessary (because we cannot avoid them, but they will alter us, as they are used, or abused) are those six non-natural things, so much spoken of amongst physicians, which are principal causes of this disease. For almost in every consultation, whereas they shall come to speak of the causes, the fault is found, and this most part objected to the patient; Peccavit circa res sex non naturales: he hath still offended in one of those six. Montanus, consil. 22, consulted about a melancholy Jew, gives that sentence, so did Frisemelica in the same place; and in his 244 counsel, censuring a melancholy soldier, assigns that reason of his malady, [1347]he offended in all those six non-natural things, which were the outward causes, from which came those inward obstructions; and so in the rest. These six non-natural things are diet, retention and evacuation, which are more material than the other because they make new matter, or else are conversant in keeping or expelling of it. The other four are air, exercise, sleeping, waking, and perturbations of the mind, which only alter the matter. The first of these is diet, which consists in meat and drink, and causeth melancholy, as it offends in substance, or accidents, that is, quantity, quality, or the like. And well it may be called a material cause, since that, as [1348]Fernelius holds, it hath such a power in begetting of diseases, and yields the matter and sustenance of them; for neither air, nor perturbations, nor any of those other evident causes take place, or work this effect, except the constitution of body, and preparation of humours, do concur. That a man may say, this diet is the mother of diseases, let the father be what he will, and from this alone, melancholy and frequent other maladies arise. Many physicians, I confess, have written copious volumes of this one subject, of the nature and qualities of all manner of meats; as namely, Galen, Isaac the Jew, Halyabbas, Avicenna, Mesue, also four Arabians, Gordonius, Villanovanus, Wecker, Johannes Bruerinus, sitologia de Esculentis et Poculentis, Michael Savanarola, Tract 2. c. 8, Anthony Fumanellus, lib. de regimine senum, Curio in his comment on Schola Salerna, Godefridus Steckius arte med., Marcilius Cognatus, Ficinus, Ranzovius, Fonseca, Lessius, Magninus, regim. sanitatis, Frietagius, Hugo Fridevallius, &c., besides many other in [1349]English, and almost every peculiar physician, discourseth at large of all peculiar meats in his chapter of melancholy: yet because these books are not at hand to every man, I will briefly touch what kind of meats engender this humour, through their several species, and which are to be avoided. How they alter and change the matter, spirits first, and after humours, by which we are preserved, and the constitution of our body, Fernelius and others will show you. I hasten to the thing itself: and first of such diet as offends in substance. _Beef._] Beef, a strong and hearty meat (cold in the first degree, dry in the second, saith Gal. l. 3. c. 1. de alim. fac.) is condemned by him and all succeeding Authors, to breed gross melancholy blood: good for such as are sound, and of a strong constitution, for labouring men if ordered aright, corned, young, of an ox (for all gelded meats in every species are held best), or if old, [1350]such as have been tired out with labour, are preferred. Aubanus and Sabellicus commend Portugal beef to be the most savoury, best and easiest of digestion; we commend ours: but all is rejected, and unfit for such as lead a resty life, any ways inclined to melancholy, or dry of complexion: Tales (Galen thinks) de facile melancholicis aegritudinibus capiuntur. _Pork._] Pork, of all meats, is most nutritive in his own nature, [1351] but altogether unfit for such as live at ease, are any ways unsound of body or mind: too moist, full of humours, and therefore noxia delicatis, saith Savanarola, ex earum usu ut dubitetur an febris quartana generetur: naught for queasy stomachs, insomuch that frequent use of it may breed a quartan ague. _Goat._] Savanarola discommends goat's flesh, and so doth [1352]Bruerinus, l. 13. c.