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Subsect. 3. Custom of Dyet, Delight, Appetite, Necessity, how they cause or hinder.
No rule is so general, which admits not some exception; to this therefore which hath been hitherto said, (for I shall otherwise put most men out of commons) and those inconveniences which proceed from the substance of meats, an intemperate or unseasonable use of them, custom somewhat detracts, and qualifies, according to that of Hippocrates 2. Aphorif. 50. Such things as we have been long customed to, though they be evill in their own nature; yet they are less offensive.
Otherwise it might well be objected, that it were a meer tyrannie to live after those strict rules of Physick; for custom doth alter nature it self, and to such as are used to them it makes bad meats wholsome, and unseasonable times to cause no disorder.
Cider and Perry are windy drinks, so are all fruits windy in themselves, cold most part, yet in some shires of England, Normandy in France, Guipuscoa in Spain, tis their common drink, and they are no whit offended with it. In Spain, Italy, and Africk, they live most on roots, raw hearbs, Camels milk, and it agrees well with them; which to a stranger will cause much grievance.
In Wales, lacticiniis vescuntur, as Humfrey Lluyd confesseth, a Cambro-Brittain himself, in his elegant Epistle to Abraham Ortelius, they live most on white meats: in Holland on Fish, Roots, Butter; and so at this day in Greece, as Bellonius observes, they had much rather feed on fish then flesh. With us Maxima pars victus in carne consistit, we feed on flesh most part, saith Polydor Virgil, as all Northern countries do;
and it would be very offensive to us to live after their dyet, or they to live after ours: We drink beer, they Wine; they use Oyl, we Butter: we in the North are great eaters, they most sparing in those hotter Countries: and yet they and we following our own customs, are well pleased.
An Æthiopian of old seeing an European eat bread, wondred, quomodo stercoribus vescentes viverimus, how we could eat such kinde of meats: so much differed his Country-men from ours in dyet, that as mine Author infers, si quis illorum victum apud nos æmulari vellet; if any man should so feed with us, it would be all one to nourish, as Cicuta, Aconitum, or Hellebor it self.
At this day in China the common people live in a maner altogether on roots and herbs, and to the wealthiest, Horse, Ass, Mule, Dogs, Cat-flesh is as delightsom as the rest, so Mat. Riccius the Jesuit relates, who lived many years amongst them. The Tartars eat raw meat, and most commonly hors-flesh, drink milk and blood, as the Nomades of old.
Et lac concretum cum sanguine potat equino.
They scoff at our Europeans for eating bread, which they call tops of weeds, and horse meat, not fit for men; and yet Scaliger accounts them a sound and witty Nation, living an hundred yeers; even in the civilest Countrey of them they do thus, as Benedict the Jesuite observed in his travels, from the great Mogors Court by Land to Paquin, which Riccius contends to be the same with Cambulu in Cataia.
In Scandia their bread is usually dryed fish, and so likewise in the Shetland Iles: and their other fare, as in Island, saith Dithmarus Bleskenius, Butter, Cheese, and fish; their drink, water, their lodging on the ground. In America in many places their bread is roots, their meat Palmitos, Pinas, Potatos, &c. and such fruits.
There be of them too that familiarly drink salt Sea-water, all their lives, eat raw meat, grass, and that with delight. With some, Fish, Serpents, Spiders; and in divers places they eat mans flesh raw, and rosted, even the Emperor MetaZuma himself.
In some coasts again, one tree yields them Coquernuts, meat and drink, fire, fuel, apparel; with his leaves, oyl, vinegar, cover for houses, &c. and yet these men going naked, feeding course, live commonly a hundred yeers, are seldom or never sick; all which dyet our Physitians forbid.
In Westphaling they feed most part on fat meats and wourts, knuckle deep, and call it cerebrum Jovis: in the Low Countries with roots, in Italy Frogs and Snails are used. The Turks, saith Busbequius, delight most in fryed meats. In Muscovy, Garlick and Onions are ordinary meat and sauce, which would be pernicious to such as are unaccustomed unto them, delightsom to others; and all is because they have been brought up unto it.
Husbandmen and such as labor, can eat fat Bacon, salt gross meat, hard cheese, &c. (O dura messorum ilia) course bread at all times, go to bed and labor upon a full stomack, which to some idle persons would be present death, and is against the rules of Physick; so that custom is all in all.
Our travellers finde this by common experience when they come in far Countries, and use their diet, they are suddenly offended, as our Hollanders and Englishmen when they touch upon the coasts of Africk, those Indian Capes and Islands, are commonly molested with Calentures, Fluxes, and much distempered by reason of their fruits. Peregrina, etsi suavia, solent vescentibus perturbationes insignes adferre, strange meats, though pleasant, cause notable alterations and distempers.
On the other side, use or custom mitigates or makes all good again. Mithridates by often use, which Pliny wonders at, was able to drink poyson; and a maid as Curtius records, sent to Alexander from K. Porus, was brought up with poyson from her infancy. The Turks, saith Bellonius, lib. 3. c. 15. eat Opium familiarly, a dram at once, which we dare not take in grains.
Garcius ab Horto writes of one whom he saw at Goa in the East Indies, that took ten drams of Opium in three days; and yet consultò loquebatur, spake understandingly, so much can custom do. Theophrastus speaks of a Shepherd that could eat Hellebor in substance.