2. Because it should be a guard and defence for the
soft parts of the body, as for the stomach, liver, lights and such like.
3. Because it is the foundation of all the bones, as the ribs, fastened
to the back bone.
Q. Why hath the back bone so many joints or knots, called _spondyli_? A.
Because the moving and bending it, without such joints, could not be
done; and therefore they are wrong who say that elephants have no such
joints, for without them they could not move.
Q. Why do fish die after their back bones are broken? A. Because in fish
the back bone is instead of the heart; now the heart is the first thing
that lives and the last that dies; and when that bone is broken, fish
can live no longer.
Q. Why doth a man die soon after the marrow is hurt or perished? A.
Because the marrow proceeds from the brain, which is the principal part
of a man.
Q. Why have some men the piles? A. Those men are cold and melancholy,
which melancholy first passes to the spleen, its proper seat, but there
cannot be retained, for the abundancy of blood; for which reason it is
conveyed to the back bone, where there are certain veins which terminate
in the back, and receive the blood. When those veins are full of the
melancholy blood, then the conduits of nature are opened, and the blood
issues out once a month, like women's terms.
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