Q. For what reason is the stomach large and wide? A. Because in it the food is first concocted or digested as it were in a pot, to the end that which is pure should be separated from that which is not; and therefore, according to the quantity of food, the stomach is enlarged.
Q. How comes it that the stomach is round? A. Because if it had angles and corners, food would remain in them and breed ill-humours, so that a man would never want agues, which humours are evacuated and consumed, and not hid in any such corners, by the roundness of the stomach.
Q. How comes the stomach to be full of sinews? A. Because the sinews can be extended and enlarged, and so is the stomach when it is full; but when empty it is drawn together, and therefore nature provides the sinews.
Q. How comes the stomach to digest? A. Because of the heat which is in it, and comes from the parts adjoining, that is, the liver and the heart. For as we see in metals the heatof the fire takes away the rust and dross from iron, the silver from tin, and gold from copper; so also by digestion the pure is separated from the impure.
Q. For what reason doth the stomach join the liver? A. Because the liver is very hot, and with its heat helps digestion, and provokes appetite.
Q. Why are we commonly cold after dinner? A. Because then the heat goes to the stomach to further digestion, and so the other parts grow cold.
Q. Why is it hurtful to study soon after dinner? A. Because when the heat labours to help the imagination in study, it ceases from digesting the food, which remains undigested; therefore people should walk sometimes after meals.
Q. How cometh the stomach slowly to digest meat? A. Because it swims in the stomach. Now, the best digestion is in the bottom of the stomach, because the fat descends not there; such as eat fat meat are very sleepy by reason that digestion is hindered.
Q. Why is all the body wrong when the stomach is uneasy? A. Because the stomach is knit with the brain, heart and liver, which are the principal parts in man; and when it is not well, the others are indisposed.Again, if the first digestion be hindered, the others are also hindered; for in the first digestion is the beginning of the infirmity in the stomach.
Q. Why are young men sooner hungry than old men? A. Young men do digest for three causes; 1. For growing; 2. For restoring life; and 3. For conservation of life. Also, young men are hot and dry, and therefore the heat doth digest more, and by consequence they desire more.
Q. Why do physicians prescribe that men should eat when they have an appetite? A. Because much hunger and emptiness will fill the stomach with naughty rotten humours, which are drawn in instead of meat; for, if we fast over night we have an appetite to meat, but none in the morning; as then the stomach is filled with naughty humours, and especially its mouth, which is no true filling, but a deceitful one. And, therefore, after we have eaten a little, our stomach comes to us again; for the first morsel, having made clean the mouth of the stomach, doth provoke the appetite.
Q. Why do physicians prescribe that we should not eat too much at a time, but little by little? A. Because when the stomach is full, the meat doth swim in it, which is a dangerous thing. Another reason is, that as verygreen wood doth put out the fire, so much meat chokes the natural heat and puts it out; and therefore the best physic is to use temperance in eating and drinking.
Q. Why do we desire change of meals according to the change of times; as in winter, beef, mutton; in summer light meats, as veal, lamb, etc.? A. Because the complexion of the body is altered and changed according to the time of year. Another reason is, that this proceeds from the quality of the season: because the cold in winter doth cause a better digestion.
Q. Why should not the meat we eat be as hot as pepper and ginger? A. Because as hot meat doth inflame the blood, and dispose it to a leprosy, so, on the contrary, meat too cold doth mortify and chill the blood. Our meat should not be over sharp, because it wastes the constitution; too much sauce doth burn the entrails, and inclineth to too often drinking; raw meat doth the same; and over sweet meats to constipate and cling the veins together.
Q. Why is it a good custom to eat cheese after dinner, and pears after all meat? A. Because, by reason of its earthliness and thickness it tendeth down towards the bottom of the stomach, and so put down the meat; and the like of pears. Note, that new cheese isbetter than old, and that old soft cheese is very bad, and causeth the headache and stopping of the liver; and the older the worse. Whereof it is said that cheese digesteth all things but itself.
Q. Why are nuts good after cheese, as the proverb is, "After fish nuts, and after flesh cheese?" A. Because fish is of hard digestion, and doth easily putrefy and corrupt; and nuts are a remedy against poison.
Q. Why is it unwholesome to wait long for one dish after another, and to eat of divers kinds of meat? A. Because the first begins to digest when the last is eaten, and so digestion is not equally made. But yet this rule is to be noted; dishes light of digestion, as chickens, kids, veal, soft eggs and such like, should be first eaten; because, if they should be first served and eaten and were digested, they would hinder the digestion of the others; and the light meats not digested would be corrupted in the stomach and kept in the stomach violently, whereof would follow belching, loathing, headache, bellyache and great thirst. It is very hurtful too, at the same meal to drink wine and milk, because they are productive of leprosy.
Q. Whether is meat or drink best for the stomach? A. Drink is sooner digested than meat, because meat is of greater substance,and more material than drink, and therefore meat is harder to digest.
Q. Why is it good to drink after dinner? A. Because the drink will make the meat readier to digest. The stomach is like unto a pot which doth boil meat, and therefore physicians do counsel to drink at meals.
Q. Why is it good to forbear a late supper? A. Because there is little moving or stirring after supper, and so the meat is not sent down to the bottom of the stomach, but remaineth undigested, and so breeds hurts; therefore a light supper is best.
Q. Why is it necessary that every living creature that hath blood have also a liver? A. Because the blood is first made in the liver, its seat, being drawn from the stomach by certain principal veins, and so engendered.
Q. Why is the blood red? A. 1. It is like the part in which it is made, viz., the liver, which is red. 2. It is likewise sweet, because it is well digested and concocted; but if it hath a little earthly matter mixed with it, that makes it somewhat salt.
Q. How is women's blood thicker thanmen's? Their coldness thickens, binds, congeals, and joins together.
Q. How comes the blood to all parts of the body through the liver, and by what means? A. Through the principal veins, as the veins of the head, liver, etc., to nourish the body.
Q. How doth the urine come into the bladder, seeing the bladder is shut? A. Some say sweatings; others, by a small skin in the bladder, which opens and lets in the urine. Urine is a certain and not deceitful messenger of the health or infirmity of man. Men make white urine in the morning, and before dinner red, but after dinner pale, and also after supper.
Q. Why is it hurtful to drink much cold water? A. Because one contrary doth hinder and expel another; water is very cold, and lying so in the stomach, doth hinder digestion.
Q. Why is it unwholesome to drink new wine? A. 1. It cannot be digested; therefore it causeth the belly to swell, and a kind of bloody flux. 2. It hinders making water.
Q. Why do physicians forbid us to labour presently after dinner? A. 1. Because the motion hinders the virtue and power of digestion.2. Because stirring immediately after dinner causes the different parts of the body to draw the meat to them, which often breeds sickness. 3. Because motion makes the food descend before it is digested. And after supper it is good to walk a little, that the food may go to the bottom of the stomach.
Q. Why is it good to walk after dinner? A. Because it makes a man well disposed, and fortifies and strengthens the natural heat, causing the superfluity of the stomach to descend.
Q. Why is it wholesome to vomit? A. It purges the stomach of all naughty humours, expelling them, which would breed again if they should remain in it; and purges the eyes and head, clearing the brain.
Q. How comes sleep to strengthen the stomach and the digestive faculty? A. Because in sleep the heat draws inwards, and helps digestion; but when we awake, the heat returns, and is dispersed through the body.
Q. How come living creatures to have a gall? A. Because choleric humours are received into it, which through their acidity helpsthe guts to expel superfluities; also it helps digestion.
Q. How comes the jaundice to proceed from the gall? A. The humour of the gall is bluish and yellow; therefore when its pores are stopped the humour cannot go into the sack thereof, but are mingled with the blood, wandering throughout all the body and infecting the skin.
Q. Why hath a horse, mule, ass or cow a gall? A. Though these creatures have no gall in one place, as in a purse or vessel, yet they have one dispersed in small veins.
Q. How comes the spleen to be black? A. It is occasioned by terrestrial and earthy matter of a black colour. According to physicians, the spleen is the receptacle of melancholy, and that is black.
Q. Why is he lean who hath a large spleen? A. Because the spleen draws much water to itself, which would turn to fat; therefore, men that have a small spleen are fat.
Q. Why does the spleen cause men to laugh, as says Isidorus; "We laugh with the spleen, we are angry with the gall, we are wise with the heart, we love with the liver, we feel with the brain, and speak with the lungs"? A. The reason is, the spleen draws much melancholy to it, being its proper seat, the which melancholy proceeds from sadness, and is thereconsumed; and the cause failing, the effect doth so likewise. And by the same reason the gall causes anger, for choleric men are often angry, because they have much gall.
Q. Why do living creatures use carnal copulation? A. Because it is most natural in them to get their like.
Q. What is carnal copulation? A. It is a mutual action of male and female, with instruments ordained for that purpose to propagate their kind.
Q. Why is this action good in those that use it lawfully and moderately? A. Because it eases and lightens the body, clears the mind, comforts the head and senses, and expels melancholy.
Q. Why is immoderate carnal copulation hurtful? A. Because it destroys the sight, dries the body, and impairs the brain, often causes fevers and shortens life also.
Q. Why doth carnal copulation injure melancholic or choleric men, especially thin men? A. Because it dries the bones much which are naturally so. On the contrary, it is good for the phlegmatic and sanguine, becausethey abound with that substance which by nature, is necessarily expelled.
Q. Why should not the act be used when the body is full? A. Because it hinders digestion; and it is not good for a hungry belly, because it weakens.
Q. Why is it not good soon after a bath? A. Because then the pores are open, and the heat dispersed through the body: for after bathing, it cools the body too much.
Q. Why is it not proper after vomiting or looseness? A. Because it is dangerous to purge twice a day; for in this act the veins are purged, and the guts by the vomit.
Q. Why is there such delight in the act of venery? A. Because this act is such a contemptible thing in itself, that all creatures would naturally abhor it were there no pleasure in it; and therefore nature readily uses it, that all kinds of living things should be maintained and kept up.
Q. Why do such as use it often take less delight in it than those who come to it seldom? A. 1. The passages of the seed are over large and wide; and therefore it makes no stay there, which would cause the delight. 2. Through often evacuation there is little seed left, and therefore no delight. 3. Because such, instead of seed there is cast out blood,undigested and raw, or some other watery substance, which is not hot, and therefore affords no delight.
Q. How, and of what cometh the seed of man? A. Some philosophers and physicians say, it is superfluous humours; others say, that the seed is pure blood, flowing from the brain, concocted and whitened in the testicles; but sweat, urine, spittle, phlegm, choler, and the like, and blood dispersed throughout the whole body, come chiefly from the heart, liver and brain, because those parts are greatly weakened by casting seed; and therefore it appears that frequent carnal copulation is not good.
Q. Why is a man's seed white, and a woman's red? A. It is white in men by reason of great heat and quick digestion, because it is rarefied in the testicles; but a woman's is red, because her terms corrupt the undigested blood, and it hath its colour.
Q. How come females to have monthly courses? A. Because they are cold in respect of men, and because all their nourishment cannot be converted into blood, a great partof which turns to menses, which are monthly expelled.
Q. For what reason do the menses not come down in females before the age of thirteen? A. Because young women are hot, and digest all their nourishment.
Q. For what reason do they leave off at about fifty? A. Because nature is then so exhausted, they cannot expel them by reason of weakness.
Q. Why have not breeding women the menses? A. Because that then they turn into milk, and into the nourishment of the child: for if a woman with child have them, it is a sign that she will miscarry.
Q. Why are they termedmenstrua, from the wordmensis, a month? A. Because it is a space of time that measures the moon, as she ends her course in twenty-nine days, and fourteen hours.
Q. Why do they continue longer with some than others, as with some six or seven, but commonly with all three days? A. The first are cold, therefore they increase most in them, and consequently are longer expelling; other women are hot, and therefore have fewer and are sooner expelled.
Q. Are the menses which are expelled, and those by which the child is engendered, all one?A. No, because the one are unclean, and unfit for that purpose; but the other very pure and clear, therefore the fittest for generation.
Q. Why have not women their menses all one and the same time, but some in the new moon, some in the full, and others at the wane? A. From their several complexions, and though all women (in respect of men) are phlegmatic, yet some are more sanguine than others, some more choleric; and as the moon hath her quarters, so have women their complexions; the first sanguine, the second choleric.
Q. Why do women easily conceive after their menses? A. Because the womb being cleansed, they are better prepared for conception.
Q. Why do women look pale when they first have their menses upon them? A. Because the heat goes from the outward parts of the body to the inward, to help nature to expel their terms, which deprivation of heat doth cause a paleness in the face. Or, because that flux is caused of raw humours, which, when they run, make the face colourless.
Q. Why do they at that time abhor their meat? A. Because nature labours more to expel their terms than digest; and, therefore, if they should eat, their food would remain raw in the stomach.
Q. Why are some women barren and do not conceive? A. 1. It proceeds sometimes from the man who may be of a cold nature, so that his seed is unfit for generation. 2. Because it is waterish, and so doth not stay in the womb. 3. By reason that the seed of them both hath not a like proportion, as if the man be melancholy and the woman sanguine, or the man choleric and the woman phlegmatic.
Q. Why do fat women seldom conceive? A. Because they have a slippery womb, and the seed will not stay in it. Or, because the mouth of the matrix is very strait, and the seed cannot enter it, or, if it does, it is so very slowly that it grows cold and unfit for generation.
Q. Why do those of a hot constitution seldom conceive? A. Because the seed in them is extinguished or put out, as water cast into fire; whereof we find that women who vehemently desire the flesh seldom conceive.
Q. Why are whores never with child? A. By reason of divers seeds, which corrupt and spoil the instruments of conception, for it makes them so slippery, that they cannot retain seed. Or, else, it is because one man's seed destroys another's, so neither is good for generation.
Q. Why do women conceive twins? A. Because there are seven cells or receptacles in the womb; wherefore they may naturally haveso many children at once as there falls seed into these cells.
Q. Why are twins but half men, and not so strong as others? A. The seed that should have been for one, is divided into two and therefore they are weakly and seldom live long.
Q. How are hermaphrodites begotten? A. Nature doth always tend to that which is best, and always intendeth to beget the male and not the female, because the female is only for the male's mate. Therefore the male is sometimes begotten in all its principal parts; and, yet, through the indisposition of the womb and object, and inequality of the seeds, when nature cannot perfect the male, she brings forth the female too. And therefore natural philosophers say, that an hermaphrodite is impotent in the privy parts of a man, as appears by experience.
Q. Is an hermaphrodite accounted a man or a woman? A. It is to be considered in which member he is fittest for copulation; if he be fittest in the woman's, then he is a woman; if in a man's, then he is a man.
Q. Should he be baptized in the name of aman or a woman? A. In the name of a man, because names are givenad placitum, and therefore he should be baptized, according to the worthiest name, because every agent is worthier than its patient.
Q. Doth nature make any monsters? A. She doth; if she did not, then would she be deprived of her end. For of things possible, she doth always propose to bring forth that which is most perfect and best; but in the end, through the evil disposition of the matter, not being able to bring forth that which she intended, she brings forth that which she can. As it happened in Albertus's time, when in a certain village, a cow brought forth a calf, half a man; then the countrymen suspecting a shepherd, would have burnt him with the cow; but Albertus, being skilled in astronomy, said that this did proceed from a certain constellation, and so delivered the shepherd from their hands.
Q. Are they one or two? A. To find out, you must look into the heart, if there be two hearts, there be two men.
Q. Why are some children like their father, some like their mother, some to both and someto neither? A. If the seed of the father wholly overcome that of the mother the child doth resemble the father; but if the mother's predominate, then it is like the mother; but if he be like neither, that doth sometimes happen through the four qualities, sometimes through the influence of some heavenly constellation.
Q. Why are children oftener like the father than the mother? A. It proceeds from the imagination of the mother in the act of copulation, as appeared in a queen who had her imagination on a blackamoor; and in the Ethiopian queen who brought forth a white child, because her imagination was upon a white colour; as is seen in Jacob's skill in casting rods of divers colours into the water, when his sheep went to ram.
Q. Why do children born in the eighth month for the most part die quickly, and why are they called the children of the moon? A. Because the moon is a cold planet, which has dominion over the child, and therefore doth bind it with coldness, which is the cause of its death.
Q. Why doth a child cry as soon as it is born? A. Because of the sudden change from heat to cold: which cold doth affect its tenderness. Another reason is, because the child's soft and tender body is wringed and put together comingout of the narrow and strait passage of the matrix, and especially, the brain being moist, and the head being pressed and wrinkled together, is the cause that some humours distil by the eyes, which are the cause of tears and weeping.
Q. Why doth the child put its fingers into its mouth as soon as it cometh into the world? A. Because that coming out of the womb it cometh out of a hot bath, and entering into the cold, puts them into its mouth for want of heat.
Q. How is the child engendered in the womb? A. The first six days the seed hath this colour of milk, but in the six following a red colour, which is near unto the disposition of the flesh; and then it is changed into a thick substance of blood. But in the twelve days following, this substance becomes so thick and round that it is capable of receiving shape and form.
Q. Doth the child in the womb void excrements or make water? No. Because it hath not the first digestion which is in the stomach. It receives no food by the mouth, but by the navel; therefore, makes no urine but sweats,which is but little, and is received in a skin in the matrix, which at the birth is cast out.
Q. Why do women that eat unwholesome meats, easily miscarry? A. Because they breed putrefied seed, which the mind abhorring doth cast it out of the womb as unfit for the shape which is adapted to receive the soul.
Q. Why doth wrestling and leaping cause the casting of the child, as some subtle women do on purpose? A. The vapour is burning, and doth easily hurt the tender substance of the child, entering in at the pores of the matrix.
Q. Why doth much joy cause a woman to miscarry? A. Because in the time of joy, a woman is destitute of heat, and so a miscarriage doth follow.
Q. Why do women easily miscarry when they are first with child, viz., the first, second or third month? A. As apples and pears easily fall at first, because the knots and ligaments are weak, so it is with a child in the womb.
Q. Why is it hard to miscarry in the third, fourth, fifth and sixth month? A. Because the ligaments are stronger and well fortified.
Q. Why has not a man a tail like a beast? A. Because man is a noble creature, whose property is to sit; which a beast, having a tail, cannot.
Q. Why does hot water freeze sooner than cold? A. Hot water is thinner, and gives better entrance to the frost.
Q. Why is every living creature dull after copulation? A. By reason that the act is filthy and unclean; and so every living creature abhors it. When men do think upon it, they are ashamed and sad.
Q. Why cannot drunken men judge of taste as well as sober men? A. Because the tongue, being full of pores and spongy, receives more moisture into it, and more in drunken men than in sober; therefore, the tongue, through often drinking, is full of bad humours, and so the faculty of tasting is rendered out of order; also, through the thickening of the taste itself, drink taken by drunkards is not presently felt. And by this may also be understood why drunkards have not a perfect speech.
Q. Why have melancholy beasts long ears? A. The ears proceed from a dry and cold substance, called gristle, which is apt to become bone; and because melancholy beasts doabound with this kind of substance, they have long ears.
Q. Why do hares sleep with their eyes open? A. 1. They have their eyes standing out, and their eyelids short, therefore, never quite shut. 2. They are timorous, and as a safe-guard to themselves, sleep with their eyes open.
Q. Why do not crows feed their young till they be nine days old? A. Because seeing them of another colour, they think they are of another kind.
Q. Why are sheep and pigeons mild? A. They want galls, the cause of anger.
Q. Why have birds their stones inward? A. Because if outward, they would hinder their flying and lightness.
Q. How comes it that birds do not piss? A. Because that superfluity which would be converted into urine, is turned into feathers.
Q. Why do we hear better in the night than by day? A. Because there is a greater quietness in the night than in the day, for the sun doth not exhale the vapours by night, but it doth in the day, therefore the moon is more fit than in the day; and the moon being fit, the motion is better received, which is said to be caused by a sound.
Q. For what reason doth a man laugh soonerwhen touched in the armpits than in any other part of the body? A. Because there is in that place a meeting of many sinews, and the mean we touch, which is the flesh, is more subtle than in other parts, and therefore of finer feeling. When a man is moderately and gently touched there the spirits that are dispersed run into the face and causes laughter.
Q. Why do some women love white men and some black men? A. 1. Some have weak sight, and such delight in black, because white doth hurt the sight more than black. 2. Because like delight in like; but some women are of a hot nature, and such are delighted with black, because blackness followeth heat; and others are of a cold nature, and those are delighted with white, because cold produces white.
Q. Why do men incline to sleep after labour? A. Because, through continual moving, the heat is dispersed to the external parts of the body, which, after labour, is gathered together in the internal parts, there to digest; and from digestion, vapours arise from the heart to the brain, which stop the passage by which the natural heat should be dispersed to the external part; and then, the external parts being cold and thick, by reason of the coldness of the brain sleep is easily procured. By this it appeareththat such as eat and drink too much, do sleep much and long, because there are great store of humours and vapours bred in such persons which cannot be consumed and digested by the natural heat.
Q. Why are such as sleep much, evil disposed and ill-coloured? A. Because in too much sleep moisture is gathered together, which cannot be consumed, and so it doth covet to go out through the superficial parts of the body, and especially it resorts to the face, and therefore is the cause of bad colours, as appeareth in such as are phlegmatic and who desire more sleep than others.
Q. Why do some imagine in their sleep that they eat and drink sweet things? A. Because the phlegm drawn up by the jaws doth distil and drop to the throat; and this phlegm is sweet after a sore sweat, and that seemeth so to them.
Q. Why do some dream in their sleep that they are in the water and drowned, and some that they were in the water and not drowned; especially such as are phlegmatic? A. Because when the phlegmatic substance doth turn to the high parts of the body, then many think they are in the water and drowned; but when that substance draweth into the internal parts, then they think they escape. Anotherreason may be, overmuch repletion and drunkenness: and therefore, when men are overmuch filled with meat, the fumes and vapours ascend and gather together, and they think they are drowned and strangled; but if they cannot ascend so high then they seem to escape.
Q. May a man procure a dream by an external cause? A. It may be done. If a man speak softly in another man's ear and awake him not, then of his stirring of the spirits there are thunderings and buzzings in the head, which cause dreamings.
Q. How many humours are there in a man's body? A. Four, whereof every one hath its proper place. The first is choler, called by physiciansflava bilis, which is placed in the liver. The second is melancholy, calledatra bilis, whose seat is in the spleen. The third is phlegm, whose place is in the head. The fourth is blood, whose place is in the heart.
Q. What condition and quality hath a man of a sanguine complexion? A. It is fair and beautiful; hath his hair for the most part smooth; is bold; retaineth that which he hath conceived; is shame-faced, given to music, a lover of sciences, liberal, courteous, and not desirous of revenge.
Q. What properties do follow those of a phlegmatic complexion? A. They are dullof wit, their hair never curls, they are seldom very thirsty, much given to sleep, dream of things belonging to water, are fearful, covetous, given to heap up riches, and are weak in the act of venery.
Q. What are the properties of a choleric man? A. He is brown in complexion, unquiet, his veins hidden, eateth little and digesteth less, dreameth of dark and confused things, is sad, fearful, exceedingly covetous, and incontinent.
Q. What dreams do follow these complexions? A. Pleasant, merry dreams do follow the sanguine; fearful dreams, the melancholic; the choleric dream of children fighting and fire; the phlegmatic dream of water. This is the reason why a man's complexion is said to be known by his dreams.
Q. What is the reason that if you cover an egg over with salt, and let it lie in it a few days, all the meat within is consumed? A. A great dryness of the salt consumes the substance of the egg.
Q. Why is the melancholic complexion the worst? A. Because it proceeds from the dregs of the blood, is an enemy to mirth and bringeth on aged appearance and death, being cold and dry.
Q. What is the cause that some men diejoyful, and some in extreme grief? A. Over-great joy doth overmuch heat the internal parts of the body; and overmuch grief doth drown and suffocate the heart, which failing, a man dieth.
Q. Why hath a man so much hair on his head? A. The hair on his head proceeds from the vapours which arise from the stomach, and ascend to the head, and also of the superfluities which are in the brain; and those two passing through the pores of the head are converted into hair, by reason of the heat and dryness of the head. And because man's body is full of humours, and he hath more brains than any other living creatures.
Q. How many ways is the brain purged and other hidden places of the body? A. Four; the watery and gross humours are purged by the eyes, melancholy by the ears, choler by the nose, and phlegm by the hair.
Q. What is the reason that such as are very fat in their youth, are in danger of dying on a sudden? A. Such have very small and close veins, by reason of their fatness, so that the air and the breath can hardly have free course in them; and thereupon the natural heat wanting the refreshment of air, is put out, and as it were, quenched.
Q. Why do garlic and onions grow afterthey are gathered? A. It proceedeth from the humidity that is in them.
Q. Why do men feel cold sooner than women? A. Because men, being more hot than women, have their pores more open, and therefore it doth sooner enter into them than women.
Q. Why are not old men so subject to the plague as young men and children? A. They are cold, and their pores are not so open as in youth; and therefore the infecting air doth not penetrate so soon by reason of their coldness.
Q. Why do we cast water in a man's face when he swooneth? A. Because through the coldness of water the heat may run to the heart, and so give strength.
Q. Why are those waters best and most delicate which run towards the rising sun? A. Because they are soonest stricken with the sunbeams, and made pure and subtle, the sun having them under it, and by that means taking off the coldness and gross vapours which they gather from the ground they run through.
Q. Why have women such weak and small voices? A. Because their instruments and organs of speaking, by reason of their coldness, are small and narrow; and therefore, receiving but little air, cause the voice to be effeminate.
Q. Whereof doth it proceed that want ofsleep doth weaken the brain and body? A. Much watching doth engender choler, the which being hot both dry up and lessen the humours which serve the brain, the head, and other parts of the body.
Q. Wherefore doth vinegar so readily staunch blood? A. From its cold virtue, for all cold is naturally binding, and vinegar being cold, hath the like property.
Q. Why is sea-water salter in summer than in winter? A. From the heat of the sun, seeing by experiment that a salt thing being heated becometh more salt.
Q. Why do men live longer in hot regions than in cold? A. Because they may be more dry, and by that means the natural heat is better preserved in them than in cold countries.
Q. Why is well-water seldom or ever good? A. All water which standeth still in the spring and is never heated by the sunbeams, is very heavy, and hath much matter in it, and therefore wanting the heat of the sun, is naught.
Q. Why do men sleep better and more at ease on the right side than on the left? A. Because when they be on the left side, the lungs do lie upon and cover the heart, which is on that side under the pap; now the heart, the fountain of life, being thus occupied and hindered with the lungs, cannot exercise its ownproper operation, as being overmuch heated with the lungs lying upon it, and therefore wanting the refreshment of the air which the lungs do give it, like the blowing of a pair of bellows, is choked and suffocated, but by lying on the right side, those inconveniences are avoided.
Q. What is the reason that old men sneeze with great difficulty? A. Because that through their coldness their arteries are very narrow and close, and therefore the heat is not of force to expel the cold.
Q. Why doth a drunken man think that all things about him do turn round? A. Because the spirits which serve the sight are mingled with vapours and fumes, arising from the liquors he has drunk; the overmuch heat causeth the eye to be in continual motion, and the eye being round, causeth all things about it to seem to go round.
Q. Wherefore doth it proceed, that bread which is made with salt is lighter than that which is made without it, considering that salt is very heavy of itself? A. Although bread is very heavy of itself, yet the salt dries it and makes it light, by reason of the heat which it hath; and the more heat there is in it, the better the bread is, and the lighter and more wholesome for the body.
Q. Why is not new bread good for the stomach? A. Because it is full of moistness, and thick, hot vapours, which do corrupt the blood, and hot bread is blacker than cold, because heat is the mother of blackness, and because the vapours are not gone out of it.
Q. Why do lettuces make a man sleep? A. Because they engender gross vapours.
Q. Why do the dregs of wine and oil go to the bottom, and those of honey swim uppermost? A. Because the dregs of wine and oil are earthly, and therefore go to the bottom; but honey is a liquid that cometh from the stomach and belly of the bee; and is there in some sort putrefied and made subtle; on which account the dregs are most light and hot, and therefore go uppermost.
Q. Why do cats' and wolves' eyes shine in the night, and not in the day? A. The eyes of these beasts are by nature more crystalline than the eyes of other beasts, and therefore do so shine in darkness; but the brightness of the sun doth hinder them from being seen in the day-time.
Q. What is the reason that some men, if they see others dance, do the like with their hands and feet, or by other gestures of the body? A. Because the sight having carried and represented unto the mind that action, and judgingthe same to be pleasant and delightful, and therefore the imagination draweth the like of it in conceit and stirs up the body by the gestures.
Q. Why does much sleep cause some to grow fat and some lean? A. Those who are of ill complexion, when they sleep, do consume and digest the superfluities of what they have eaten, and therefore become fat. But such as are of good complexion, when they sleep are more cold, and digest less.
Q. How much, and from what cause do we suffer hunger better than thirst? A. When the stomach hath nothing else to consume, it consumeth the phlegm and humours which it findeth most ready and most at hand; and therefore we suffer hunger better than thirst, because the heat hath nothing to refresh itself with.
Q. Why doth the hair fall after a great sickness? A. Where the sickness is long, as in the ague, the humours of the head are dried up through overmuch heat, and, therefore, wanting nourishment, the hair falls.
Q. Why doth the hair of the eyebrows grow long in old men? A. Because through their age the bones are thin through want of heat, and therefore the hair doth grow there, by reason of the rheum of the eye.
Q. Whereof proceedeth gaping? A. Ofgross vapours, which occupy the vital spirits of the head, and of the coldness of the senses causing sleepiness.
Q. What is the reason that some flowers do open with the sun rising, and shut with the sun setting? A. Cold doth close and shut, as hath been said, but the heat of the sun doth open and enlarge. Some compare the sun to the soul of the body; for as the soul giveth life, so the sun doth give life, and vivificate all things; but cold bringeth death, withering and decaying all things.
Q. Why doth grief cause men to grow old and grey? A. Age is nothing else but dryness and want of humours in the body; grief then causeth alteration, and heat dryness; age and greyness follow immediately.
Q. Why are gelded beasts weaker than such as are not gelded? A. Because they have less heat, and by that means less force and strength.
Q. Why is it esteemed, in the judgment of the most wise, the hardest thing to know a man's self? A. Because nothing can be known that is of so great importance to man for the regulation of his conduct in life. Without this knowledge, man is like the ship without either compass or rudder to conduct her to port, and is tossed by every passion and prejudice to which his natural constitution is subjected. To know the form and perfection of man's self, according to the philosophers, is a task too hard; and a man, says Plato, is nothing, or if he be anything, he is nothing, but his soul.
Q. Why is a man, though endowed with reason, the most unjust of all living creatures? A. Because only man is desirous of honour; and so it happens that every one covets to seemgood, and yet naturally shuns labour, though he attain no virtue by it.
Q. Why doth immoderate copulation do more hurt than immoderate letting of blood? A. The seed is full of nutriment, and better prepared for the nurture of the body, than the blood; for the blood is nourished by the seed.
Q. What is the reason that those that have long yards cannot beget children? A. The seed, in going a long distance, doth lose the spirit, and therefore becomes cold and unfit.
Q. Why do such as are corpulent cast forth but little seed in the act of copulation, and are often barren? A. Because the seed of such goeth to nourish the body. For the same reason corpulent women have but few menses.
Q. How come women to be prone to venery in the summer time and men in the winter? A. In summer the man's testicles hang down and are feebler than in winter, or because hot natures become more lively in the cold season; for a man is hot and dry, and a woman cold and moist; and therefore in summer the strength of men decays, and that of women increases, and they grow livelier by the benefit of the contrary quality.
Q. Why is man the proudest of all living creatures? A. By reason of his great knowledge; or, as philosophers say, all intelligentbeings having understanding, nothing remains that escapes man's knowledge in particular; or it is because he hath rule over all earthly creatures, and all things seem to be brought under his dominion.
Q. Why have beasts their hearts in the middle of their breasts, and man his inclining to the left? A. To moderate the cold on that side.
Q. Why doth the woman love the man best who has got her maidenhead? A. By reason of shame-facedness; Plato saith, shame-facedness doth follow love, or, because it is the beginning of great pleasure, which doth bring a great alteration in the whole body, whereby the powers of the mind are much delighted, and stick and rest immoveable in the same.
Q. How come hairy people to be more lustful than any other? A. Because they are said to have greater store of excrements and seed as philosophers assert.
Q. What is the cause that the suffocation of the matrix, which happens to women through strife and contention, is more dangerous than the detaining of the flowers? A. Because the more perfect an excrement is in its natural disposition, the worse it is when it is altered from that disposition, and drawn to the contrary quality; as is seen in vinegar, which issharpest when it is made of the best wine. And so it happens that the more men love one another the more they fall into variance and discord.
Q. How come women's bodies to be looser, softer and less than man's; and why do they want hair? A. By reason of their menses; for with them their superfluities go away, which would produce hair; and thereby the flesh is filled, consequently the veins are more hid in women than in men.
Q. What is the reason that when we think upon a horrible thing, we are stricken with fear? A. Because the conceit or imagination of things has force and virtue. For Plato saith, the fancy of things has some affinity with things themselves; for the image and representation of cold and heat is such as the nature of things are. Or it is this, because when we comprehend any dreadful matter, the blood runneth to the internal parts; and therefore the external parts are cold and shake with fear.
Q. Why doth a radish root help digestion and yet itself remaineth undigested? A. Because the substance consisteth of divers parts; for there are some thin parts in it, which are fit to digest meat, the which being dissolved, there doth remain some thick and close substance in it, which the heat cannot digest.
Q. Why do such as cleave wood, cleave it easier in the length than athwart? A. Because in the wood there is a grain, whereby, if it be cut in length, in the very cutting, one part naturally separateth from another.
Q. What is the reason, that if a spear be stricken on the end, the sound cometh sooner to one who standeth near, than to him who striketh? A. Because, as hath been said, there is a certain long grain in wood, directly forward, filled with air, but on the other side there is none, and therefore a beam or spear being stricken on the end, the air which is hidden receiveth a sound in the aforesaid grain which serveth for its passage; and, seeing the sound cannot go easily out of it is carried into the ear of him who is opposite; as those passages do not go from side to side, a sound cannot be distinctly heard there.
Q. Why are the thighs and calves of the legs of men flesh, seeing the legs of beasts are not so? A. Because men only go upright; and therefore nature hath given the lower parts corpulency, and taken it away from the upper; and thus she hath made the buttocks, the thighs, and calves of the legs fleshy.
Q. Why are the sensible powers in the heart; yet if the hinder part of the brain be hurt, the memory suffereth by it; if the forepart, theimagination; if the middle, the cogitative part? A. It is because the brain is appointed by nature to cool the blood of the heart; whereof it is, that in divers of its parts it serveth the powers and instruments with their heart, for every action of the soul doth not proceed from one measure of heat.