CENTURY X. 52 1 



the intention is to relax the sinews ; but the contrac 

 tion of the spirits, that they strive less, is the best 

 help : so to procure easy travails of women, the in 

 tention is to bring down the child ; but the best 

 help is, to stay the coming down too fast : where- 

 unto they say, the toad-stone likewise helpeth. So 

 in pestilent fevers, the intention is to expel the infec 

 tion by sweat and evaporation : but the best means 

 to do it is by nitre diascordium, and other cool 

 things, which do for a time arrest the expulsion, till 

 nature can do it more quietly. For as one saith 

 prettily ; &amp;lt;f In the quenching of the flame of a pesti- 

 &quot; lent ague, nature is like people that come to quench 

 &quot; the fire of a house ; which are so busy, as one of 

 &quot; them letteth another.&quot; Surely it is an excellent 

 axiom, and of manifold use, that whatsoever ap- 

 peaseth the contention of the spirits, furthereth their 

 action. 



969. The writers of natural magic commend the 

 wearing of the spoil of a snake, for preserving of 

 health. I doubt it is but a conceit ; for that the 

 snake is thought to renew her youth, by casting her 

 spoil. They might as well take the beak of an eagle, 

 or a piece of a hart s horn because those renew. 



970. It hath been anciently received, for Pericles 

 the Athenian used it, and it is yet in use, to wear 

 little bladders of quicksilver, or tablets of arsenic, as 

 preservatives against the plague : not as they con 

 ceive for any comfort they yield to the spirits, but for 

 that being poisons themselves, they draw the venom 

 to them from the spirits. 



