SUBSEC. 4. Dissimilar parts.

Dissimilar parts, are those which we call Organical, or Instrumental, and they be Inward, or Outward. The chiefest outward parts are situate forward or backward. Forward, the crown and foretop of the head, skull, face, forehead, temples, chin, eyes, ears, nose, &c. neck, brest, chest, upper and lower part of the belly, hypocondries, navel, groyn, flank, &c. Backward, the hinder part of the head, back, shoulders, sides, loyns, hipbones, os sacrum, buttocks, &c. Or joynts, arms, hands, feet, legs, thighs, knees, &c. Or common to both, which because they are obvious and well known, I have carelesly repeated, eaque præcipua & grandiora tantum: quod reliquum, ex libris de animâ, qui volet, accipiat.

Inward Organical parts which cannot be seen, are divers in number, and have several names, functions, & divisions; but that of Laurentius is most notable, into Noble, or Ignoble parts. Of the Noble there be three principal parts, to which all the rest belong, and whom they serve, Brain, Heart, Liver, According to whose site, three Regions, or a threefold division is made of the whole body. As first of the Head, in which the animal Organs are contained, and brain it self, which by his nerves give sense and motion to the rest, and is (as it were) a privy Counsellor, and Chancellor to the Heart.

The second Region is the Chest, or middle Belly, in which the Heart as King keeps his court, and by his Arteries communicates life to the whole body. The third Region is the lower Belly, in which the Liver resides as a Legat à latere, with the rest of those naturall Organs, serving for concoction, nourishment, expelling of excrements.

This lower Region is distinguished from the upper by the Midriffe, or Diaphragma, and is subdivided again by some into three concavities, or Regions, upper, middle, and lower. The upper of the Hypocondries, in whose right side is the Liver, the left the Spleen: From which is denominated Hypocondriacal Melancholy. The second of the Navel and Flanks, divided from the first by the Rim. The last of the water-course, which is again subdivided into three other parts. The Arabians make two parts of this Region, Epigastrium, and Hypogastrium; upper, or lower. Epigastrium they call Mirach, from whence comes Mirachialis Melancholia, sometimes mentioned of them. Of these several Regions I will treat in brief apart: and first of the third Region, in which the natural Organs are contained.

But you that are Readers in the mean time, Suppose you were now brought into some sacred Temple, or Majestical Palace (as Melancthon saith) to behold not the matter only, but the singular Art, Workmanship, and counsel of this our great Creator. And ’tis a pleasant and profitable speculation, if it be considered aright.

The parts of this Region, which present themselves to your consideration and view, are such as serve to nutrition, or generation. Those of nutrition serve to the first or second concoction: as the æsophagus or gullet, which brings meat and drink into the Stomack. The Ventricle or Stomack, which is seated in the midst of that part of the belly beneath the Midriffe, the kitchin (as it were) of the first concoction, and which turns our meat into Chylus: It hath two mouthes, one above, another beneath. The upper is sometimes taken for the stomack it self; the lower and nether door (as Wecker calls it) is named Pylorus. This stomack is sustained by a large Kell or Kaull, called Omentum; which some will have the same with Peritoneum, or Rim of the belly.

From the Stomack to the very fundament, are produced the Guts, or Intestina, which serve a little to alter and distribute the Chylus, and convey away the excrements. They are divided into small and great, by reason of their site and substance, slender or thicker: the slender is Duodenum, or whole gut, which is next to the stomack, some twelve inches long, (saith Fuschius.) Jejunum or empty gut, continuate to the other, which hath many Meseraick veines annexed to it, which take part of the Chylus to the Liver from it. Ilion the third, which consists of many crinckles, which serves with the rest to receive, keep, and distribute the chylus from the stomack.

The thick guts are three, the Blinde gut, Colon, and Right gut. The blinde is a thick & short gut, having one mouth, in which the Ilion and Colon meet: it receives the excrements, and conveyes them to the Colon. This Colon hath many windings, that the excrements pass not away too fast: the Right gut is straight, and conveys the excrements to the fundament, whose lower part is bound up with certain Muscles, called Sphincteres, that the excrements may be the better contained, until such time a man be willing to go to the stool. In the midst of these guts is situated the Mesenterium or Midriffe, composed of many veins, Arteries, & much fat, serving chiefly to sustain the guts. All these parts serve the first concoction.

To the second, which is busied either in refining the good nourishment, or expelling the bad, is chiefly belonging to the liver, like in colour to congealed bloud, the shop of bloud, situate in the right Hypocondry, in figure like to an halfe Moone, Generosum membrum, Melancthon stiles it, a generous part; it serves to turne the Chylus to bloud, for the nourishment of the Body. The excrements of it are either Cholerick or Watery, which the other subordinate parts convey.

The Gall placed in the concave of the Liver, extracts Choler to it: the Spleen, Melancholy; which is situate on the left side, over against the Liver, a spungy matter, that drawes this black Choler to it by a secret vertue, and feeds upon it, conveying the rest to the bottom of the stomack, to stir up appetite, or else to the guts as an excrement. That watery matter the two Kidnies expurgate, by those emulgent veines, and Ureteres. The emulgent draw this superfluous moisture from the bloud; the two Ureteres convey it to the Bladder, which by reason of his site in the lower belly, is apt to receive it, having two parts, necke and bottom: the bottom holds the water, the necke is constringed with a muscle, which as a Porter, keeps the water from running out against our will.

Members of generation are common to both sexes, or peculiar to one; which because they are impertinent to my purpose, I do voluntarily omit.

Next in order is the middle Region, or chest, which comprehends the vital faculties & parts: which (as I have said) is separated from the lower belly, by the Diaphragma or Midriffe, which is a skin consisting of many nerves, membranes: and amongst other uses it hath, is the instrument of laughing. There is also a certain thin membrane, full of sinews, which covereth the whole chest within, and is called Pleura, the seat of the disease called Pleurisie, when it is inflamed; some adde a third skin, which is termed Mediastinus, which divides the chest into two parts, right & left:

of this region the principal part is the Heart, which is the seat and fountain of life, of heat, of spirits, of pulse and respiration; the Sun of our Body, the King and sole commander of it: the seat and Organ of all passions and affections. Primum vivens, ultimum moriens, it lives first, and dies last in all creatures: Of a pyramidical forme, and not much unlike to a Pine-apple; a part worthy of admiration, that can yeild such variety of affections, by whose motion it is dilated or contracted, to stir & command the humors in the body: As in sorrow, melancholy; in anger, choler; in joy, to send the bloud outwardly; in sorrow, to call it in; moving the humors, as Horses do a Chariot.

This heart, though it be one sole member, yet it may be divided into two creeks right & Left. The right is like the Moone increasing, bigger then the other part, & receives bloud from Vena cava, distributing some of it to the Lungs to nourish them, the rest to the left side, to ingender spirits. The left creeke hath the forme of a Cone, & is the seat of life, which as a torch doth oyl, draws bloud unto it, begetting of it spirits & fire; and as fire in a torch, so are spirits in the bloud, & by that great Artery called Aorta, it sends vital spirits over the body, & takes aire from the Lungs, by that Artery which is called Venosa; So that both Creeks have their Vessels; the Right two Veines; the left two Arteries, besides those two common anfractuous ears, which serve them both; the one to hold bloud, the other aire, for several uses.

The Lungs is a thin spungy part, like an Oxe hoof, (saith Fernelius) the Town-Clark, or Cryer (one termes it) the instrument of voice, as an Orator to a King; annexed to the heart, to express their thoughts by voice. That it is the instrument of voice, is manifest, in that no creature can speak, or utter any voice, which wanteth these lights. It is besides the instrument of respiration, or breathing; & its office is to cool the heart, by sending ayre unto it, by the Venosal Artery, which veine comes to the lungs by that aspera arteria, which consists of many gristles, membranes, nerves, taking in ayre at the nose and mouth, and by it likewise, exhales the fumes of the Heart.

In the upper Region serving the animal faculties, the chief Organ is the Brain, which is a soft, marrowish, & white substance, ingendred of the purest part of seed and spirits, included by many skins, and seated within the skull or brain pan, and it is the most noble Organ under heaven, the dwelling house and seat of the Soul, the habitation of wisdom, memory, judgement, reason, & in which man is most like unto God: and therefore nature hath covered it with a skull of hard bone, and two skins or membranes, whereof the one is called dura mater, or meninx, the other pia mater. The dura mater is next to the skull, above the other, which includes & protects the brain. When this is taken away, the pia mater is to be seen, a thin membrane, the next and immediate cover of the brain, and not covering only, but entring into it.