were Aged, that is to say, above sixty years old, or thereabouts when they died, without any curious determination; whether such Aged persons died purely of Age, as for that the Innate heat was quite extinct, or the Radical moisture quite dried up (for I have heard some Candid Physicians complain of the darkness which themselves were in hereupon[1] I say, that these Distin-|20|guishments being but matter of sense, I concluded the Searchers Report might be sufficient in the Case.
7. As for Consumptions, if the Searchers do but truly Report (as they may) whether the dead Corps were very lean and worn away, it matters not to many of our purposes, whether the Disease were exactly the same, as Physicians define it in their Books. Moreover, In case a man of seventy five years old died of a Cough (of which had he been free, he might have possibly lived to ninety) I esteem it little errour (as to many of our purposes) if this Person be in the Table of Casualties, reckoned among the Aged, and not placed under the Title of Coughs.
8. In the matters of Infants I would desire but to know clearly, what the Searchers mean by Infants, as whether Children that cannot speak, as the word Infant seems to signifie, or Children under two or three years old, although I should not be satisfied, whether the Infant died of Wind, or of Teeth, or of the Convulsion, &c. or were choaked with Phlegm, or else of Teeth, Convulsion and Scowring, apart, or together, which, they say, do often cause one another; for, I say, it is somewhat to know how many die usually before they can speak, or how many live past any assigned number of years |21|.
9. I say, it is enough, if we know from the Searchers but the most predominant Symptoms; as that one died of the Headach, who was sorely tormented with it, though the Physicians were of Opinion, that the Disease was in the Stomach. Again, if one died suddenly, the matter is not great, whether it be reported in the Bills, Suddenly, Apoplexy, or Planet-strucken, &c.
- ↑ "For both the common phrases of physicians concerning Radical Heat and Natural Moisture are deceptive." Bacon, x. 11.
