A Moft Certaine and True RELATION of a Strange MONSTER or SERPENT, found in the Left Ventricle of the Heart of JOHN PENNANT, Gentleman, of the Age of 21 Yeares. By EDWARD MAT, Doctor of Philofophy and Phyfick, and Profeffor elect of them, in the College of the Academy of Noblemen, called the Mufaum Minerve: Phyfitian alfo Extraordinary unto her moft Sacred Majefty, Queene of great Britany, &c. 1639.

To the Right honovrable Lord and highly renowned Peere of this Kingdom, EDWARD Earle of DORSET, &c. Knight of the most Noble order of the garter, Lord High Chamberlaine unto her moft Soveraigne Majefty, QVEENE of great Britaine, &c. And one of the Lords of his Majefties moft honourable privy Councell.

My LORD,

F

Edward May wifheth all health and glory.

OR this Treatife I feeke no patronage, for if the Relation and the Author cannot defend themselves, let them both fuffer. A Swallow flies better than a Swanne, though his wing be leffe: And one little Diamond will buy 17. of thofe ftones that were drawne to S, Paules Church of 17. Tunnes: yet whether this Defcription of mine be good, or great, worthy or otherwise, it is not dedicated to your Honour as a matter prefuming towards your worth, or prefence, but as a publick obligation in the face of the world, of my future and more folid gratitude: You have honoured me before the Noble Peeres, and highest Councellors of the Kingdom: You have otherwife. done me real Favours, what am I, or what is in me that you have not conquered? and not by these benefits to me only, but these many years my obfervations of your moft Noble nature, your more than human partes, your vast and incredible comprehenfion of all things, both effentiall and accidentall to your place and dignity.. Your innumerable merits and that univerfall acclamation of all men whatsoever, have made me more your humble fervant than you know, and when after a fort. Space God fhall give me to fit a little quiet, tending mine own affairs, your Lordship hall fee, not by my writings but by my doings, that I am more your Lordships. then French or thrice devoted fervant.

any

A Pre

A Preface to the Reader.

W Hat my defigns are in the publishing of this History, the Reader may

find every where in it, to be no other than the Confervation of the workes of God, and nature, and prefervation of men: But for the Printing of it in English, I have neither end nor intent: For these two Years it hath been neglected by me, and perufed up and down in the hands of the best, and beft learned, who have defired fatisfaction touching fo rare an oftent: for the young Gentleman in whom it was found, deceas'd the 6th of October, in the year of our Lord, 1637. My intention in this Defcription was for the Continent, and not for our Inlands only, wherefore I ftayed my hand till fome opportunity to publish fome other Lattine Treatifes of my own with it; which many yeares have been defired: But now this being ftill out of my hands, and licenced for the preffe before any notice given me; for the Satisfaction of our own nation, and for the benefit of them who defired the printing of it, I have freely given way to pleasure any who fhall defire to read it: wherefore if Platonicall and fpecificall Ideas do correfpond: and the readers honest mind answer my fincere truth and good wishes, I have my end.

§. 1.

T

The CONTENT S.

He Preface.

§. 2. The Hiftory itself.

§. 3. The occfiaon of this defcription: and who were present.

§. 4. How Hippocrates and the Ancients are to be understood, who faid that the heart was not fubject to any disease, as alfo an enumeration of difeafes of the

beart.

§. 5. How fuch Monsters are begotten or bred in the heart.

§. 6. That thefe ftrange generations are caused by the Temperament individuall. §. 7. What light and help men may have by fuch relations, and fuch refolution of this difficulty as in the former Paragraph is fet downe: and how that in latent caufes fome exteriour fignature, or beames difcover the disease.

§. 8. That all creatures, things in the world, and difeafes have their radij, as well as the Starres of Heaven: provided by Frier Bacon, and that most learned Philofopher Alkindus, and by reasons and experience, and that there is no action but per radios, and that there is no action immediatione fuppofiti, but onely immediatione virtutis.

§. 9. How fome Phifitians have prefcribed against fuch diseases.

§. 10. One reafon why thefe occult maladies are fo feldome found, and never cured, the many benefits of frequent diffections.

To

To the Right Worshipfull Sir THEODORE MAIHERNE Knight, Chiefe Phyfitian unto his Moft Soveraigne Majefty, King of great Brittany, &c.

A

SIR,

Edward May wisheth all health.

§. I.

Mong those many favours you have offorded me, your private, fweet, most familiar and long Colloquies with me have been fingular: While you laying afide important affaires, out of an admirable candour and love to Learning, (in which few excell you) vouchsafe fometimes to treate with me concerning occult Philofophy and most facred medicines: In one of which meetings, as I had laid open what I had found in the Sinifter Ventricle of the heart of a young Gentleman, which you defired me to defcribe while the Species were yet fresh in my memory, as others many both Phyfitians and Friends have done alfo: So here I have done it: And do firft communicate it unto your felfe, as a smal Texjuniov of my certaine knowledge of your great and admirable perfections in many Sciences, neceffary to him who is Phyfitian to Princes; and of my fingular estimation of them: As alfo to fow fome feeds of future Discourses, both new and worthy of that saving and divine Magick which we both profeffe: Well knowing that good ufe may bee made of this History by all Phyfitians, and profit unto many, as I have partly declared in the Subfequents.

It is an oftent and prodigy, ftrange and incredible which I am to paint: And if in many Phyfitians of best esteeme, and fincerity I had not found Relations very like it, mine owne heart would not have given credit to mine own eyes and hands when first I found it: But you have found one like it in the heart of a Noble Lord; but when you have seen this, I fhall know whether fo grown, or of this forme, or otherwife: Let the Vulgar and Ignorant, beleeve it, or not believe it, Phyfitions and knowing men (as you do) will receive it: And therefore briefly the certaine Hiftory and true Relation is this.

He

§. 2.

The feventh of October this yeare current, 1637 the Lady Herris wife

unto Sir Francis Herris Knight, came unto me and defired that I would bring a Surgeon with me, to diffect the body of her Nephew John Pennant, the night before deceased, to fatisfie his friends concerning the caufes of his long fickneffe and of his death: And that his mother, to whom my felfe had once or twice given helpe fome yeares before concerning the Stone, might be ascertained whether her Sonne died of the Stone or no? Upon which intreaty I fent for Mafter Jacob Heydon Surgeon, dwelling against the Caftle Taverne behind St, Clements Church in the Strand, who with his Man-Servant came unto me: and in a word we went to the house and Chamber where the dead man lay: We diffected the naturall Region and VOL. II. Iii

found

found the bladder of the young man full of purulent and ulcerous matter : The upper parts of it broken, and all of it rotten: The right kidney quite confumed, the left tumified as big as any two kidnies, and full of fanious matter: All the inward and carnofe parts eaten away, and nothing remaining but exteriour skins.

No where did we find in his body either Stone or Gravell. The Spleen and Liver not affected in any difcernable degree, only part of the Liver was growne unto the Coftall membranes, by reason of his writing profeffion.

Wee afcending to the Vitall Region, found the Lungs reasonable good, the Heart more globofe and dilated, than long; the right Ventricle of an Afhe Colour shrivelled, and wrinkled like a Leather Purfe without Money, and not any thing at all in it: the Pericardium, and Nervous Membrane, which conteyneth that illuftrious Liquor of the Lungs, in which the Heart doth bath it felf, was quite dried alfo: The left Ventricle of the Heart, being felt by the Surgions Hand, appeared to him to be as hard as a Stone, and much greater than the right: which upon the first fight gave us fome cause of wonder, feeing (as you know) the right Ventricle is much greater than the left: Wherefore I wished M. Heydon to make incifion, upon which iffued out a very great quantity of blood; and to fpeake the whole verity, all the blood that was in his body left, was gathered to the left Ventricle, and contayned in it *.

No fooner was that Ventricle emptied, but M. Heydon ftill complaining of the greatneffe and hardneffe of the fame, my felfe feeming to neglect his words, because the left Ventricle is thrice as thicke of flesh as the right is in found men for confervation of Vitall Spirits; I directed him to another difquifition but he keeping his hand ftill upon the heart, would not leave it, but faid again that it was of a ftrange greatneffe and hardneffe; whereupon I defired him to cut the Orifice wider: by which meanes we presently perceived a carnoufe fubftance, as it feemed to us wreathed together in foldes like a Worme or Serpent, the felfe fame forme expreffed in the first Iconography: at which we both much wondred, and I intreated him to feperate it from the heart, which he did, and wee carryed it from the body to the win

*Here thofe men may be handfomely queftioned (who fay that the pulfe is nothing elfe but the impulfe, of blood into the Arteryes or the Syftole of the heart) what was become of the pulfe in this man all the while that the whole blood betooke it felfe into the heart, here was either a living man without pulfe, or pulfe without the Syftole of the heart. For what could the Arteryes receive where nothing was to be received? Or, how could there be pulfe where there was no impulfe into the Arteryes? The pulfe then doubtleffe is from another cause, and is a farre other matter than most men conceive: for there are in a found man 4450 pulfations in an houre, in a fick man, fometimes in fome percute fevers and diseases above 35600, and more, which cannot be from fo many feverall expreffions and receptions of blood; for it is impoffible the heart should make compreffion, and the arteryes apertion, fo often in that fpace. Nay in Dicrot. Caprizant, and other inordinate pulfes, diverfe pulfes ftrike in leffe space than the open mouth of an arterey can goe, much more than in leffe times than it can open, fhut, and open againe, which 3. acts are requifite to the beginning of a fecond pulfe. But of this I have largely treated in my 3, Booke De Febribus.

dow,

dow, and there layed it out, in thofe juft dimensions which are here expreffed in the fecond figure.

The body was white, of the very colour of the whiteft skin of mans body: but the skin was bright and fhining, as if it had beene varnished over; the head all bloody, and fo like the head of a Serpent, that the Lady Herris then fhivered to fee it, and fince hath often spoken it, that she was inwardly troubled at it, because the head of it was fo truely like the head of a Snake.

The thighes and branches were of flesh colour, as also all these fibraes, ftrings, nerves, or whatsoever else they were.

After much contemplation and conjectures what strange thing that part of the heart had brought forth unto us, I refolved to try the certainty, and to make full exploration, both for mine owne experience and fatisfaction, as also to give true teftimony to others that fhould heare of it: And thereupon I fearched all parts of it, to finde whether it were a pituitofe and bloody Collection, or the like: Or a true organicall Body, and Conception: I first searched the head, and found it of a thicke substance, bloody and glandulous about the necke, fomewhat broken, (as I conceived) by a fudden or violent feparation of it from the heart, which yet feemed to me to come from it eafily enough.

The body I fearched likewife with a bodkin betweene the Legs or Thighs, and I found it perforate, or hollow, and a folid body, to the very length of a filver bodkin, as is here defcribed: At which the Spectators wondered. And as not crediting me, fome of them tooke the bodkin after me, made triall themselves, and remained fatisfied, that there was a Gut, Veine or Artery, or fome fuch Analogicall thing that was to ferve that Monster for uses naturall: Amongst whom the Lady Herris and the Surgian made tryall after me with their owne hands, and have given their hands that this Relation is true. This Lady dwelleth at the Signe of the Sugar Loafe in S. James street in the Convent Garden.

TH

§. 3.

His ftrange and monftrous Embryon borne in the faid Ventricle, which as Hippocrates faith is nourished neither with, meats nor drinks, Sed purâ & illuftri fubftantia, taking aliment from the blood purified out of the next Cifterne, made mee (importuned with other occafions then) to leave this new and rare Spectacle in the charge of the Surgion, who had a great defire to conferve it, had not the Mother defired that it fhould be buried where it was borne; faying and repeating, As it came with him, fo it fhall goe with him: Wherefore the Mother staying in the place departed not till shee had seene him fow it up againe into the body after my going away.

Which as foon as I heard, I presently defcribed the forme of it at home, inter rariora à me reperta: And thus this Hiftory had alwayes beene buried from the World, (the Mother having thus buried the Creature) if your felfe and others had not defired a figure and narration of it, which caufed me to take the hands, and mindes of fome of them who were prefent: Who being nearest the young man, were most likely to say the best, and therefore being befides

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