Chapter VI: Lessio. 1554-1623,

Born at Brechten, a town in Brabant, of influential family, this noted Hygeist, at a very early age, exhibited so exceptional a disposition as to be known among his school-fellows as the “prophet.” His ardour for learning was so intense as to cause him to forget the hours of meals, and to reduce his time for sleep to the shortest period possible. Having obtained a scholarship at the Arras College in Louvain, Lessio pursued the course of studies there with the greatest success, and by his fellow-students was proclaimed “prince of philologers.” At the age of seventeen he entered the Society of Jesus. Two years later he was elected to the Chair of Philosophy at Douai. In 1585 he accepted the Professorship of Theology at Louvain.

So extraordinary were the respect and veneration which he had attracted in his Order and from all who had access to him, that not only did his death cause the greatest regret, but (as we are assured) his friends contended among themselves for possession of every possible relic and memento “of one who had composed so admirable works.” He was interred before the high altar of the church of his college in Louvain. Held in high honour during life, after his death so rare an ornament of his Church was signally eulogised by the Pope, Urbano VIII.; and he was even believed to have worked miracles. His praises are especially recorded in a book entitled _De Vitâ et Moribus R. P. Leonardi Lessii_--reprinted at Paris, 1644.

Principal Writings: _De Justitiâ et de Jure Actionum, Humanarum, &c._ (reprinted seven times). Many of the propositions, it seems, eventually came under the censure of the Theological Faculty, the Bishops, and the Pontiffs.

_Quæ Fides et Religio sit Capessenda, Consultatio._ Anvers, 1610. In the estimation of S. François de Sales, a work “not so much that of Lessio as of an Angel of the Judgment (Ange du Grand Conseil).”

_Hygiasticon_ (Anvers, 1613-14, 8vo); it is superfluous to remark, his really valuable work. It was translated from the Latin into French by Sebastian Hardy, with the title of _Le Vrai Régime de Vivre pour la Conservation du Corps et de l’Ame_. Paris, 1646. Another editor, _La Bonnodière_, added notes, republishing it under the title of _De la Sobriété et de Ses Avantages_. Paris, 1701.

“Lessio,” writes the author of the article in the _Biographie Universelle_, “having been condemned by the physicians to have no more than two years longer to live, himself studied the principles of _Hygiene_, was struck by the example of Cornaro, resolved to imitate him, and found himself so well from such imitation that he translated his book (_Della Vita Sobria_), joining to it the results of his own experience, to which he owed the prolongation of his life by forty years.” For the rest, he was a man of extensive erudition; and Justus Lipsius celebrates, in some fine verse, the variety of his talents. (See _Biog. Universelle Ancienne et Moderne_. À Paris, chez Michaud, 1819.)

The _Hygiasticon_ is prefaced by testimonials from three eminent physicians, setting forth their concurrence in the principles of the author. The English translation (1634) has prefixed to it addresses, in verse, to him; one of which is by Crashaw, the friend of Cowley, and a _Dialogue between Glutton and Echo_, also in verse. Affixed to this edition are an English version of Cornaro, by George Herbert, and a translation of an anonymous treatise by another Italian writer--_That a Spare Diet is better than a Splendid and Sumptuous One: A Paradox_.

In his chap. v. “Of the Advantages which a Sober Diet brings to the Body, and first, That it freeth almost from all Diseases”--Lessio promises the adherents of it, that in the first place:--

“It cloth free a man and preserve him from almost all manner
of diseases. For it rids him of catarrhs, coughs, wheezings,
dizziness, and pain in the head and stomach. It drives away
apoplexies, lethargies, falling-sickness, and other ill-affections
of the brain. It cures the gout in the feet and in the hands; the
sciatica and diseases in the joints. It also prevents crudity
(indigestion), the parent of all diseases. In a word, it so tempers
the humours, and maintains them in an equal proportion, that they
hurt not any way, either in quantity or quality. And this both
reason and experience do confirm. For we see that those who keep
themselves to a sober course of diet are very seldom, or rather
never, molested with diseases; and if at any time they happen to
be oppressed with sickness, _they do bear it much better, and
sooner recover than those others whose bodies are full fraught with
ill-humours_.

“I know very many who, though they be weak by natural constitution,
and well grown in years, and continually busied in employments of
the mind, nevertheless by the help of this temperance, live in
health, and have passed the greater part of their lives, which have
been many years long, without any notable sickness....

“The self-same comes to pass in wounds, bruises, puttings out of
joint, and breaking of bones; in regard that there is either no
flux at all of ill-humours, or, at least, very little of that part
affected.... Furthermore an abstinent diet doth arm and fortify
against the plague; for the venom thereof is much better resisted
if the body be clear and free--wherefore Sokrates brought to pass
that he himself was never sick of the plague, which ofttimes
greatly wasted the city of Athens, where he lived, as Laertius
writeth. The third commodity of the diet is that, although it doth
not cure such diseases as are incurable in their own nature, yet
it doth _so much mitigate and allay them as that they are easily
borne_, and do not much hinder the functions of the mind. This is
seen by daily experience.”

Lessio proceeds to descant upon the other benefits of the reformed regimen--such as that it prolongs life (other things being equal) to extreme old age, produces cheerfulness, activity, memory, and the like.[293]

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Moffet, another hygienic writer of the sixteenth century, demands indignantly:--

“Till God (_i.e._, Superstition or Fraud) would have it so [the
slaying of other animals for food], who dared to touch with his
lips the remnant of a dead carcase? or to set the prey of a wolf,
or the meat of a falcon, upon his table? Who, I say, durst feed
upon those members which, lately, did see, go, bleat, low, feel,
and move?[294]

“Nay, tell me, can civil and human eyes yet abide the slaughter of
an innocent ‘beast,’ the cutting of his throat, the smashing him on
the head, the flaying of his skin, the quartering and dismembering
of his limbs, the sprinkling of his blood, the ripping up of his
veins, the enduring of ill-savours, the heaving of heavy sighs,
sobs, and groans, the passionate struggling and panting for life,
which only hard-hearted butchers can endure to see?

“Is not the earth sufficient to give us meat, but that we must also
rend up the bowels of ‘beasts,’ birds, and fishes? Yes, truly,
there is enough in the earth to give us meat; yea, verily, and
choice of meats, needing either none or no great preparation, which
we may take without fear, and cut down without trembling; which,
also, we may mingle a hundred ways to delight our taste, and feed
on safely to fill our bellies.”--_Health’s Improvement_, by Dr. W.
Moffet (ed. 1746), as quoted by Ritson. The author died in 1604.

* * * * *

The author of the _Anatomy of Abuses_, a writer of the same period, denouncing the unnatural and luxurious living of his time, compares the two diets with equal force and truth:--

“I cannot persuade myself otherwise, but that our _niceness_
and _cautiousness_ in diet hath altered our nature, distempered
our bodies, and made us subject to hundreds of diseases and
_discrasies_ (indigestions) more than ever our forefathers were
subject unto, and consequently of shorter life than they.... Who
are sicklier than they who fare deliciously every day? Who is
corrupter? Who belcheth more? Who looketh worse? Who is weaker and
feebler than they? Who hath more filthy phlegm and putrefaction
(replete with gross humours) than they? And, to be brief, who dieth
sooner than they?

“Do we not see the poor man who eateth brown bread (whereof some
is made of rye, barley, _peason_, beans, oats, and such other
gross grains), and drinketh small drink, yea, sometimes water, and
feedeth upon milk, butter and cheese--I say do we not see such a
one healthfuller, stronger, fairer complexioned, and longer-living
than the other that fares daintily every day; and how should it be
otherwise?”--_Stubbes’s Anatomy of Abuses_, 1583. Quoted by Ritson
(_Abstinence from Flesh: A Moral Duty._).