396 HISTORY OF 



The History. 



1. In the fable of restoring Pelias to youth again, Media, 

 when she feigned to do it, propounded this way of accom 

 plishing the same ; that the old man s body should be cut 

 into several pieces, and then boiled in a cauldron with 

 certain medicaments. There may, perhaps, some boiling 

 be required to this matter, but the cutting into pieces is 

 not needful. 



2. Notwithstanding, this cutting into pieces seems, in 

 some sort to be used, not with a knife, but with judgment. 

 For whereas the consistence of the bowels and parts is very 

 diverse, it is needful that the inteneration of them both 

 be not effected the same way, but that there be a cure de 

 signed of each in particular, besides those things which per 

 tain to the inteneration of the whole mass of the body of 

 which, notwithstanding, in the first place. 



3. This operation (if perhaps it be within our power) is 

 most likely to be done by baths, unctions, and the like, con 

 cerning which, these things that follow are to be observed. 



4. We must not be too forward in hoping to accomplish 

 this matter, from the examples of those things which we 

 see done in the imbibitions and macerations of inanimates, 

 by which they are intenerated, whereof we introduced some 

 instances before : for this kind of operation is more easy 

 upon inanimates, because they attract and suck in the 

 liquor ; but upon the bodies of living creatures it is harder, 

 because in them the motion rather tendeth outward, and to 

 the circumference. 



5. Therefore the emollient baths which are in use do 

 little good, but on the contrary hurt, because they rather 

 draw forth than make entrance, and resolve the structure 

 of the body, rather than consolidate it. 



6. The baths and unctions which may serve to the pre 

 sent operation (namely, of intenerating the body truly and 

 really) ought to have three properties. 



7. The first and principal is, that they consist of those 

 things, which in their whole substance are like unto the 

 body and flesh of man, and which have a feeding and nurs 

 ing virtue from without. 



8. The second is, that they be mixed with such things, 

 as through the subtilty of their parts may make entrance, 

 and so insinuate and convey their nourishing virtue into 

 the body. 



9. The third is, that they receive some mixture (though 

 much inferior to the rest) of such things as are astringent ; 





