Diseases – Margaret Cavendish's Poems and Fancies, Part I

What Atoms Cause Sickness

When sick and well the body is by fits,¹
Atoms are fighting,² but none the better gets.
If they agree, then health returns again,
And so shall live as long as peace remain.³

What Atoms Make a Dropsy

When atoms round do join into one ball,¹
Then they swell high and grow hydropical.
And joining thus they do² so powerful grow,
As they all other atoms overflow.³

What Atoms Make a Consumption

Sharp atoms when they meet do get such heat,¹
Such power and strength, as they all others² beat,
And being hot, become³ so very dry,
They drink life’s moisture up, make⁴ motion die.

What Atoms Make the Wind Colic

Long airy atoms, when they are combined,
Do spread themselves abroad, and so make¹ wind,
Making a length and breadth extend so far,²
That³ all the rest can neither go nor stir,⁴
And, being forced, not in the right places⁵ lie; 5
Thus⁶ pressed too hard, man in great pain doth lie.⁷

What Atoms Make a Palsy or Apoplexy

When dull flat atoms do together¹ join,
And with each other in a heap combine,
This body thick doth stop all passage so,
Keeps motion out, and makes² the body grow
Numbed. For sharp atoms,³ in which heat doth live, 5
Being close and smothered up⁴ no heat can give,
But if these⁵ atoms flat meet in the brain,
The spirits are choked and can⁶ no heat obtain.

In All Other Diseases, Atoms Are Mixed, Taking Parts and Factions.

In² all other diseases they are mixed,
And not in one united³ body fixed.
But do in factions part, and when they rise,⁴
Striving to beat each other out, man dies.

All Things Are Governed by Atoms.

Thus life and death, and young and old,
Are as the several atoms hold.
Wit, understanding¹ in the brain
Are as the several atoms reign,
And dispositions² good or ill 5
Are as the several atoms still.
And every passion which doth rise
Is as the several³ atoms lie.⁴
Thus sickness, health, and peace and war
Are⁵ as the several atoms are. 10