Medica Sacra Part 4

CHAPTER V.

_The disease of king Hezekiah._

"When Hezekiah lay sick of a mortal disease, and the prophet Isaiah went and declared to him, by G.o.d's express command, that he should die and not recover; the Lord moved by his prayer, commanded Isaiah to return, and tell him, that he would cure him in three days. Whereupon Isaiah ordered a _ma.s.s of figs_ to be taken, and laid it on the boil; whereby he recovered[72]."

[72] _2 Kings, Chap. xx._

Now to me it seems extremely probable, that this king's disease was a fever, which terminated in an abscess: For in cases of this kind, those things are always proper, which promote suppuration; especially digestive and resolving cataplasms; and dried figs are excellent for this intention. Thus, the Omnipotent, who could remove this distemper by his word alone, chose to do it by the effect of natural remedies.

And here we have an useful lesson given us in adversities, not to neglect the use of those things, which the bountiful Creator has bestowed on us, and at the same time to add our fervent prayers, that he would be graciously pleased to prosper our endeavours.

CHAPTER VI.

_The disease of Old-age._

Old-age _itself is a disease_, as the poet has properly expressed it[73]. Wherefore as I have frequently read with pleasure, the very elegant description of it, given by Solomon the wisest of kings; I think it will not be foreign to my design, to attempt an explanation and ill.u.s.tration thereof. For it contains some things not easy to be understood, because the eloquent preacher thought proper to express all the circ.u.mstances allegorically. But first I will lay the discourse itself before my readers, which runs thus.

[73] _Terent. Phorm. Act. iv. Scen. i. v. 9._

"Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth, before the evil times come, and the years draw nigh, in which, thou shalt say, I find no pleasure: before the sun, and the light, and the moon, and the stars be darkened, and the clouds return after rain; when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the soldiers shall give way, and the diminished grinders shall cease; and those that look out thro' holes shall be darkened; and the doors shall be shut outwardly, with a low sound of the mill, and they shall rise up at the voice of the bird; and all the daughters of music shall be of no avail; also when they shall be afraid of high places, and stumblings in the way; and the almond tree shall flower, and the _Cicadae_ shall come together; and the appet.i.te shall be lost, man departing to his eternal habitation, and the mourners going about in the street: before the silver chain be broken asunder, and the golden ewer be dashed in pieces; and the pitcher be broken at the fountain head; and the chariot be dashed in pieces at the pit; and the dust return to the earth, such as it had been; and the Spirit return to G.o.d, who gave it[74]."

[74] _Ecclesiastes, Chap. xii. Verse 1-7. translated from Castalio's latin version._

The recital of evils (and infirmities) begins from the aberrations of the mind. _The sun_, says Solomon, _and the light, and the moon, and the stars are darkened_. Perceptions of the mind are less lively in old men; the ideas and images of things are confounded, and the memory decays: whence the intellectual faculties must necessarily lose their strength or power by degrees. Wisdom and understanding are frequently called _light_ in the sacred scriptures;[75] and privation of reason, _darkness_ and blindness.[76] Cicero likewise says very justly, that _reason is as it were, the light and splendor of life_.[77] Hence G.o.d is stiled the _father of lights_.[78] Thus the virtues of the mind decaying, may be compared to the luminaries of the world overcast. I am conscious that this exposition is contrary to that of a number of learned interpreters, who take this _obscuration of the lights_ in the genuine sense of the words, and think that the failing of the sight is here to be understood. But I am surprized, how they happened not to take notice, that every thing in this discourse, even to the most minute circ.u.mstances, is expressed in words bearing a figurative sense. For whereas, in describing the infirmities of Old-age, the injuries of the operations of the mind, as the most grievous of all, were not to be pretermitted; so these could not be more clearly expressed, than by the obscuration of the clestial luminous bodies, which rule our orb, and cause the vicissitudes of times and seasons.

Moreover it is particularly to be observed here, that the author mentions the defects of sight lower down, and most certainly he would have avoided repeating the same thing.

[75] _Job, Chap. xviii. Verse 5, 6, 7._

[76] _Matthew, Chap. vi. Verse 23. John, Ep. i. Chap. ii.

Verse 11._

[77] _Academ. iv. 8._

[78] _James, Epist. Chap. i. Verse 17._

But he goes on, and adds, what well agrees with the foregoing explanation. _The clouds return after rain._ That is, cares and troubles crowd on each other, and daily oppress aged folks. As in moist climates, and those liable to storms, even when the clouds seem to be exhausted, others soon follow, and the rains become almost perpetual. And these inconveniencies are felt the more sensibly, in proportion to the debilitation of the powers of the mind, whereby they are rendered less able now, than formerly, either to bear, or get the better of their oppressions.

But from the mind our royal author now pa.s.ses to the body. _The keepers of the house_, says he, _shall tremble, and the soldiers shall give way, and the diminished grinders shall cease_. The limbs, and firmest parts of the body, are damaged by age: the hands and knees grow weak, thro' the relaxation of the nerves. Hence those are rendered incapable of defending us against injuries, and of performing innumerable other good offices, for which they were originally intended; and these becoming unequal to the weight they were wont to sustain, lose their active suppleness, and fail in bending. Likewise the double teeth or grinders, either drop out, or rot away; so as now to be too few remaining to comminute solid food. In the translation of the Hebrew word, which I have here rendered by _double teeth_ or _grinders_, I followed Arias Monta.n.u.s, who, in my opinion, has translated it right. For it is in this pa.s.sage used by the author in the plural number; who afterwards employs it in the singular, but in a quite different sense, when he treats of the sense of tasting; as I shall shew anon, when I come to that pa.s.sage. For, that Solomon's intention in this place was, to describe those defects of the senses, which generally steal on old-age, I have not the least doubt.

Wherefore now proceeding to them, he begins by the _sight_. _Those_, says he, _that look thro' holes shall be darkened_. By which words it is manifest, that he points out the failing of the eyes, which most people, far advanced in years, feel by sad experience.

Next follows the _taste_, which he thus describes: _The doors shall be shut outwardly, with a low sound of the mill_. As old people, thro'

diminution of appet.i.te, open their mouths seldomer than formerly; so for want of teeth to comminute their food, they do it with less noise.

Now this last inconvenience seems to be meant and expressed very elegantly by the words _a low sound of the mill_: for by the word _mill_, which in the Hebrew is used in the singular number, the grinding of the food may very well be meant; and this grinding, as it is not done by the a.s.sistance of the teeth, which they have lost, but by that of the gums, is performed with less noise.

Sleep is the sweet soother of our labours, and the restorer of our exhausted strength. But the loss of appet.i.te, and disgust to our food, generally robs us of this comfort. Hence subjoining this evil of old-age to the foregoing, he says: _he shall rise up at the voice of the bird_; that is, the old man is awaked at the c.o.c.k's first crowing.

Wherefore his sleep is short and interrupted, tho' his weakness would require longer rest.

But he returns to the senses, among which he gives the third place to _hearing_; for receiving the benefits of which the Creator gave us the use of ears. Now this is frequently diminished, and sometimes entirely taken away in old-age; which the royal author seems to indicate in the following words: _The daughters of music shall be of no avail_.

For thus he thought proper to express the ears, to which at this time of life, not only the pleasure of harmonious sounds is sought in vain; but, what is much more disagreeable, the words in conversation are not easily understood: whereby the enjoyment, and one of the greatest conveniencies of life, are gradually lost. Hence in the jewish history, Barzillai, at eighty years of age, complains that he could no longer _hear the voice of the singing men and singing women_.[79]

[79] _Samuel, (al. Kings) ii. Chap. xix. Verse 35._

These defects of the organs of hearing, are immediately followed by those of the sense of feeling. Now _the touch_, as Cicero says, _is uniformly spread over the whole body; that we may feel all strokes and appulses of things_.[80] Wherefore this sense, besides its other uses, contributes vastly to the safety of the body, and the removal of many evils, to which it is perpetually exposed. And this the sagacious author seems to have princ.i.p.ally in view, when he says: _They shall be afraid of high places, and stumblings in the way_. For as old folks are unsure of foot, even in a plain smooth way, by reason of the weakness of their limbs; so when they come to a rugged uneven road, thro' the dulness of this sense, they do not soon enough perceive the depressions or elevations of the ground whereby they run the hazard of stumbling and hurting their feet. Therefore they are not unjustly represented as being _afraid_.

[80] _Nat. Deor. ii. 56._

The only one that remains of the senses is that of smelling, the diminution of which in old men, he describes with equal elegance and brevity in this manner: _the almond tree shall flower_. By which words he seems to mean, that old people, as if they lived in a perpetual winter, no longer perceive the agreeable odors exhaling from plants and flowers in the spring and summer seasons. That this tree flowers in winter, we learn from Pliny, who in treating of it says: _The almond tree flowers the first of all trees, in the month of January_.[81] I am not to learn, that these words are by most interpreters understood as relating to grey hairs, which being generally a sure token of old age, they would have us believe, are denoted by the white flowers of the almond tree. But then, who can imagine, that this wise author, after having indicated the defects of four of the senses, by clear and distinct marks, would designedly pa.s.s over the fifth in silence? Besides, white hairs are by no means to be esteemed a sure and indubitable token of old-age; since there are not a few to be found, who turn gray in the middle stage of life, before their bodily strength is any ways impaired. Moreover, what they say of the flowers of the almond tree, does not seem to agree with the things they mean by them: for they are not, strictly speaking, white, but of a purplish cast. Thus far concerning the senses: let us proceed to the remaining part.

[81] _Lib. xvi. --. 42._

The scrotal rupture is a disease common to persons far advanced in years; whether it be formed by the intestine or omentum slipping down into the s.c.r.o.t.u.m, or proceed from a humor distending that part. In either case the part is tumefied. This pernicious disease the Preacher thought proper to compare to a gra.s.shopper. _The gra.s.shopper_, says he, _shall be a burthen, Oneri erit locusta_. For thus the Hebrew phrase is more literally translated, than by _convenient cicadae, the cicadae shall come together_, as the learned Castalio has rendered it.

Indeed the Vulgate version has _impinguabitur locusta_, _the gra.s.shopper shall be fatted_. The Septuagint ?a????? ? ?????.

_The gra.s.shopper shall be fatted._ The Arabic version, turned into Latin, _pinguescet locusta_, _The gra.s.shopper shall grow fat_.

But our English translation, _The gra.s.shopper shall be a burden_. It is well known, that the Hebrew language is always modest, and that the sacred Writers, in expressing such things as belong to the genital members, abstain from indecent and obscene words, for fear of offending chaste ears, and therefore borrow similitudes from any other things at discretion. Which is particularly observable in the _Cantic.u.m Canticorum_, or _Solomon_'s _Song_, written by our Author.

Now the gra.s.shopper, or locust, is an odd-shaped animal, made up chiefly of belly; and therefore, especially when full of eggs, may be said to bear some resemblance to a s.c.r.o.t.u.m, swoln by a rupture.

These parts being thus affected, the wise author adds, _the appet.i.te shall be lost_; wherein he does not attend so much to the appet.i.te for victuals, as for those other things, which are sought after in the vigor of life. For as the author of _the Art of Love_ has rightly said: _Turpe senilis amor_[82].

[82] _Ovid. Amorum, lib. i. Eclog. ix. ver. 4._

That old people are crushed to death by so great a heap of evils and infirmities, and _depart to their eternal habitation_, to the grief of their friends, can be no matter of wonder. But in the remaining part of the discourse we are admonished, that their miseries in this life are not confined within these bounds, but that sometimes there is still an accession of others.

For loss of strength in old age does not terminate at the limbs, or extremities of the body; the spine of the back also loses considerably of its firmness, by the daily diminution of power in its muscles and ligaments: hence an old man can seldom stand upright, but stoops his body towards the earth, which is shortly to cover it. This part is likened to a _silver chain_, which is said to be _broken asunder_. For the _vertebrae_, of which it is composed, may be looked upon as the rings or links, and they give way outward by the bending of the body.

Moreover the _medulla oblongata_, which pa.s.ses through them, is of a _silver_ or whitish colour.

These points, which we have hitherto handled, are very difficult of explanation. But the three inconveniencies, which close the discourse, are true aenigma's, and require an Oedipus to solve them. And as such an one, in my opinion, has not appeared hitherto, I will use my endeavours to do it. _The golden ewer_, says he, _is dashed in pieces: the pitcher is broken at the fountain-head; and the chariot is dashed in pieces at the pit_.

Old men are troubled with defluxions from the head to the nose, mouth and lungs; which are compared to water rus.h.i.+ng out of a broken bottle or ewer. And the ewer is said to be _of gold_, to express the dignity of the head.

Nor does phlegm flow from the head alone; but other parts also pour forth their juices too abundantly or irregularly. For the serosities, which are secreted by the kidneys (whose cavity is even at this day named pelvis by Anatomists) runs into the bladder; which, by reason of the relaxation of its sphincter, as if the pitcher were broken at the fountain head, is not able to retain its contents a sufficient time.

Hence an incontinence or dribbling of urine is continually troublesome.

Now, the evils. .h.i.therto enumerated lodge in particular parts; but the last calamity, both in this discourse, as well as in old people, is that the whole body is afflicted. The very course of the blood is interrupted; hence wretched man is seized with difficulty of breathing, apoplexies or lethargies. The heart also, the principle and fountain of life, sinks thro' want of its usual force, _and the broken chariot falls into the pit_. The ancients indeed did not know of the circulation of the blood; but they could not be ignorant, that it was moved thro' the body, that it cherished the viscera and members by its heat, and lastly, that it concreted and grew cold in death.

But nothing in this whole discourse is so much worthy of our serious attention as these words, with which he closes it. _The dust returns to the earth, such as it had been; and the spirit returns to G.o.d, who gave it._ For by these words his intention seems plainly to have been, to refute the ignorant notions of those, who thought that the soul perished with the body, and to a.s.sert its immortality.

CHAPTER VII.

_The disease of king Nebuchadnezzar._