122 BACON 



proper frictions, unctions, and baths ; 3. by preparing the ali- 

 ment itself, that it may more easily insinuate, and require less 

 digestion ; as in many artificial ways of preparing meats, drinks, 

 bread, and reducing the effects of these three to one : again, 4. 

 by the last act of assimilation, as in seasonable sleep and ex- 

 ternal applications. III. The renovation of parts worn out is 

 performed two ways ; either by softening the habit of the body, 

 as with suppling applications, in the way of bath, plaster, or 

 unction, of such qualities as to insinuate into the parts, but ex- 

 tract nothing from them ; or by discharging the old, and substi- 

 tuting new moisture, as in seasonable and repeated purging, 

 bleeding, and attenuating diets, which restore the bloom of the 

 body. 



Several rules for the conduct of the work are derivable from 

 these indications ; but three of the more principal are the follow- 

 ing. And first, prolongation of life is rather to be expected 

 from stated diets, than from any common regimen of food, or 

 the virtues of particular medicines ; for those things that have 

 force enough to turn back the course of nature, are commonly 

 too violent to be compounded into a medicine, much more to 

 be mixed with the ordinary food, and must therefore be admin- 

 istered orderly, regularly, and at set periods. 2. We next lay 

 it down as a rule, that the prolongation of life be expected, 

 rather from working upon the spirits, and mollifying the parts, 

 than from the manner of alimentation. For as the human body, 

 and the internal structure thereof, may suffer from three things, 

 viz., the spirits, the parts, and aliments ; the way of prolonging 

 life by means of alimentation is tedious, indirect, and winding; 

 but the ways of working upon the spirits and the parts, much 

 shorter; for the spirits are suddenly affected, both by effluvia 

 and the passions, which may work strangely upon them ; and 

 the parts also by baths, unguents, or plasters, which will like- 

 wise have sudden impressions. 3. Our last precept is, that the 

 softening of the external parts be attempted by such things as 

 are penetrating, astringent, and of the same nature with the 

 body ; the latter are readily received and entertained, and prop- 

 erly soften ; and penetrating things are as vehicles to those that 

 mollify, and more easily convey, and deeply impress the virtue 

 thereof ; whilst themselves, also, in some measure, operate upon 

 the parts : but astringents keep in the virtue of them both, and 

 somewhat fix it, and also stop perspiration, which would other- 



