The Works of Sir Thomas Browne, Volume 2. Browne Thomas
is made, there is also required in the aliment a familiarity of matter, and such a community or vicinity unto a living nature, as by one act of the soul may be converted into the body of the living, and enjoy one common soul. Which cannot be effected by air, it concurring only with our flesh in common principles, which are at the largest distance from life, and common also unto inanimated constitutions. And therefore when it is said by Fernelius, and asserted by divers others, that we are only nourished by living bodies, and such as are some way proceeding from them, that is, the fruits, effects, parts, or seeds thereof; they have laid out an object very agreeable unto assimulation; for these indeed are fit to receive a quick and immediate conversion, as holding some community with our selves, and containing approximate dispositions unto animation.
Secondly, (as is argued by Aristotle against the Pythagoreans) whatsoever properly nourisheth before its assimulation, by the action of natural heat it receiveth a corpulency or incrassation progressional unto its conversion; which notwithstanding cannot be effected upon air; for the action of heat doth not condense but rarifie that body, and by attenuation, rather then for nutrition, disposeth it for expulsion.
Thirdly, (which is the argument of Hippocrates) all aliment received into the body, must be therein a considerable space retained, and not immediately expelled. Now air but momentally remaining in our bodies, it hath no proportionable space for its conversion; only of length enough to refrigerate the heart; which having once performed, lest being it self heated again, it should suffocate that part, it maketh no stay, but hasteth back the same way it passed in.
Fourthly, The use of air attracted by the lungs, and without which there is no durable continuation in life, is not the nutrition of parts, but the contemperation and ventilation of that fire always maintained in the forge of life; whereby although in some manner it concurreth unto nutrition, yet can it not receive the proper name of nutriment. And therefore by HippocratesDe Alimento. it is termed Alimentum non Alimentum, a nourishment and no nourishment. That is, in a large acception, but not in propriety of language; conserving the body, not nourishing the same; nor repairing it by assimulation, but preserving it by ventilation; for thereby the natural flame is preserved from extinction, and so the individuum supported in some way like nutrition.
And though the air so entreth the Lungs, that by its nitrous Spirit doth affect the heart, and several ways qualifie the blood; and though it be also admitted into other parts, even by the meat we chew, yet that it affordeth a proper nutriment alone, it is not easily made out.
Again, Some are so far from affirming the air to afford any nutriment, that they plainly deny it to be any Element, or that it entreth into mixt bodies as any principle in their compositions, but performeth other offices in the Universe; as to fill all vacuities about the earth or beneath it, to convey the heat of the sun, to maintain fires and flames, to serve for the flight of volatils, respiration of breathing Animals, and refrigeration of others. And although we receive it as an Element, yet since the transmutation of Elements and simple bodies, is not beyond great question, since also it is no easie matter to demonstrate that air is so much as convertible into water;Wherein Vapour is commonly mistaken for air. how transmutable it is into flesh, may be of deeper doubt.
And although the air attracted may be conceived to nourish the invisible flame of life, in as much as common and culinary flames are nourished by the air about them; we make some doubt whether air is the pabulous supply of fire, much less that flame is properly air kindled. And the same before us, hath been denied by the Lord of Verulam, in his Tract of Life and Death, and also by Dr. Jorden in his book of Mineral waters. What the matter of Culinary or Kitchin fire is. For that which substantially maintaineth the fire, is the combustible matter in the kindled body, and not the ambient air, which affordeth exhalation to its fuliginous atomes; nor that which causeth the flame properly to be termed air, but rather as he expresseth it, the accension of fuliginous exhalations, which contain an unctuosity in them, and arise from the matter of fuel, which opinion will salve many doubts, whereof the common conceit affordeth no solution.
As first, How fire is stricken out of flints? that is, not by kindling the air from the collision of two hard bodies; for then Diamonds should do the like better than Flints: but rather from sulphureous inflamed and even vitrified effluviums and particles, as hath been observed of late. The like saith Jorden we observe in canes and woods, that are unctuous and full of oyl, which will yield fire by frication, or collision, not by kindling the air about them, but the inflamable oyl within them. Why fire goes out commonly wanting air, and why sometimes continued many ages in flame without fuel. Why the fire goes out without air? that is, because the fuliginous exhalations wanting evaporation recoil upon the flame and choak it, as is evident in cupping glasses; and the artifice of charcoals, where if the air be altogether excluded, the fire goes out. Why some lamps included in those bodies have burned many hundred years, as that discovered in the Sepulchre of Tullia, the sister of Cicero, and that of Olibius many years after, near Padua? because whatever was their matter, either a preparation of gold, or Naptha, the duration proceeded from the purity of their oyl which yielded no fuliginous exhalations to suffocate the fire; For if air had nourished the flame, it had not continued many minutes, for it would have been spent and wasted by the fire. Why a piece of flax will kindle, though it touch not the flame? because the fire extendeth further, then indeed it is visible, being at some distance from the week, a pellucide and transparent body, and thinner then the air it self. Why Mettals in their liquation, although they intensly heat the air above their surface, arise not yet into a flame, nor kindle the air about them? because their sulphur is more fixed, and they emit not inflamable exhalations. And lastly, why a lamp or candle burneth only in the air about it, and inflameth not the air at a distance from it? because the flame extendeth not beyond the inflamable effluence, but closely adheres unto the original of its inflamation; and therefore it only warmeth, not kindleth the air about it. Which notwithstanding it will do, if the ambient air be impregnate with subtile inflamabilities, and such as are of quick accension; as experiment is made in a close room; upon an evaporation of spirits of wine and Camphire; as subterraneous fires do sometimes happen, and as Creusa and Alexanders boy in the bath were set on fire by Naptha.
Lastly, The Element of air is so far from nourishing the body, that some have questioned the power of water; many conceiving it enters not the body in the power of aliment, or that from thence there proceeds a substantial supply. For beside that some creatures drink not at all; Even unto our selves, and more perfect Animals, though many ways assistent thereto, it performs no substantial nutrition, serving for refrigeration, dilution of solid aliment, and its elixation in the stomack; which from thence as a vehicle it conveys through less accessible cavities, and so in a rorid substance through the capillary cavities, into every part; which having performed, it is afterward excluded by Urine, sweat and serous separations. And this opinion surely possessed the Ancients; for when they so highly commended that water which is suddenly hot and cold, which is without all savour, the lightest, the thinnest, and which will soonest boil Beans or Pease, they had no consideration of nutrition; whereunto had they had respect, they would have surely commended gross and turbid streams, in whose confusion at least, there might be contained some nutriment; and not jejune or limped water, nearer the simplicity of its Element. Although, I confess, our clearest waters and such as seem simple unto sense, are much compounded unto reason, as may be observed in the evaporation of large quantities of water; wherein beside a terreous residence some salt is also found, as is also observable in rain water; which appearing pure and empty, is full of seminal principles, and carrieth vital atomes of plants and Animals in it, which have not perished in the great circulation of nature; A seed of plants and animals contained in rain-water. Zibavius, tom. 4. Chym.as may be discovered from several Insects generated in rain water, from the prevalent fructification of plants thereby; and (beside the real plant of Cornerius) from vegetable figurations, upon the sides of glasses, so rarely delineated in frosts.
All which considered, severer heads will be apt enough to conceive the opinion of this Animal, not much unlike that of the Astomi, or men without mouths, in Pliny; sutable unto the relation of the Mares in Spain, and their subventaneous conceptions, from the Western wind; and in some way more unreasonable then the figment of Rabican the famous horse in Ariosto, which being conceived by flame and wind, never tasted grass, or fed