the Eater, it generates abundance of crude and noxious Humours. 2. Cleanness in Houses, especially in Beds, is a great Preserver of Health. Now Beds for the most part stand in Corners of Chambers, and being ponderous close Substances, the refreshing Influences of the Air have no power to penetrate or destroy the gross Humidity that all such Places contract, where the Air hath not its free egress and regress. In these shady dull Places Beds are continued for many Years, and hardly see the Sun or Elements. Besides, Beds suck in and receive all sorts of pernicious Excrements that are breathed forth by the Sweating of various sorts of People, which have Leprous and Languishing Diseases, which lie and die on them: The Beds, I say, receive all these several Vapours and Spirits, and the same Beds are often continued for several Generations, without changing the Feathers, until the Ticks be rotten. Besides, we have many Feathers that are Imported from several Countries, which are the Drivings of old Beds, the Uncleanness whereof is not considered. As to the Nature of Feathers, they are of a strong, hot, fulsom Quality: for, Fowls, of all Creatures, are for the most part the hottest; and their Feathers contain the same Nature: Therefore the constant lying on soft Feather-beds, does not only over-heat the Back and Reins, weakning the Joynts and Nerves; but they have power also not only to receive but retain all evil Vapours and Excrements that proceed from, and are breathed forth by various Diseased People. Hence it comes to pass, that sundry Distempers are transferred from one to another, by lying upon or in such Beds, which Distempers do secretly steal on a Man by degrees, so that he cannot imagine whence the disorder proceeds, or what the Cause thereof should be. But I would not have the Reader mistake me; all People are not subject to get Diseases this way: There are some whose Constitutions are strong, and their Natural Heat and Spirits are vigorous and lively, by the Power and Vertue whereof they withstand and repel all such evil Vapours and Scents as do proceed from such Beds, when a Man is hot and sweats in them, that they have no power to seise the Spirit: But, on the contrary, when such People shall lie on such Beds, whose Natural Heat is weak, their Spirits few, and whose Central Heat is not able to withstand or repel those Vapours and Scents which such Beds send forth when a Man is hot in them, this last sort of People are subject to receive Injuries, and contract Diseases: For those evil Vapours do powerfully penetrate the whole Body; and if they are not withstood by the Central Heat and Power of the Spirits, then these evil Vapours do seise the Spirits, and incorporate themselves with their Likenesses: For every particular thing does sensibly and powerfully seek out its Likeness, and wheresoever it finds its Simile, it hath power to incorporate, and become essential. These are the chief Reasons why one