Of Abortion and Untimely Birth.
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 most noble 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 at the pores of the matrix.
Q. Why doth much joy cause a woman to miscarry? A. Because in a time of joy woman is destitute of heat, and so 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 or ligaments are weak, so it is with a child in the womb.
Q. Why is it hard to miscarry in the third, fourth, fifth, or sixth months? A. Because the ligaments are stronger and well fortified.
Of Divers Matters.
Q. Why has not a man a tail like a beast? A. Because a man is a noble creature, whose property it 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 cannot drunken men judge of taste as well as sober men? A. Because the tongue being full of pores and spongy, receives great 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 be also understood why drunkards have not a perfect speech.
Q. Why have melancholy beasts long ears? A. The ears proceed from a cold and dry substance, called a gristle, which is apt to become bone; and because melancholy beasts do abound 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 eye-lids short, therefore never quite shut. 2. They are timorous, and, as a safeguard 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 gall, the cause of anger.
Q. How comes it that birds do not make water? A. Because that superfluity which would be converted in urine, is turned into feathers.
Q. How do we hear better by 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 mean is more fit than in the day; and the mean being fit, the motion is better received, which is said to be caused by a sound.
Q. For what reason doth a man laugh sooner when touched in the arm-pits than in the other parts 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 cause laughter.
Q. Why do some women love white men and some black men? A. 1. Some have a 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 to 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 parts: and then, the external parts being cold and thick, by reason of the coldness of the brain, sleep is easily procured. By this it appeareth, that 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 digested and consumed 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 colour, 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 are 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 they think they are in the water and drowned; but when that substance draweth into the internal parts, then they think they escape. Another reason 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 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 at another’s ear and awake him not, then of this stirring of the spirits there are thunderings and buzzings in the head, which cause dreaming.
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 physicians stava bilis, which is placed in the liver. The second is melancholy, called atra 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. He 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 dull of wit, their hair never curls, they are seldom very thirsty, much given to sleep, dream of things belonging to water, are fearful, covetous, and given to heap up riches.
Q. What are the properties of a choleric man? A. He is soon angry, furious, and quarrelsome, given to war, pale coloured, and unquiet, drinks much, sleeps little, and desires women’s company much.
Q. What are the properties of a melancholy 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, exceeding 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. The 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 blood, is an enemy to mirth, and bringeth on an aged appearance and death, being cold and dry.
Q. What is the cause that some men die joyful, 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 of the head proceeds from the vapours which arise from the stomach, and ascend to the head, and also from 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 that any other creature, and also more superfluities in the brains, which the heat expelleth: hence it followeth that he hath more hair than any other living creature.
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 after they are gathered? A. It proceedeth from the humidity that is in them.
Q. Why do men feel cool 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 subject to the plague like 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 that 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 the soonest stricken with the sun-beams, 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, causes the voice to be effeminate.
Q. Wherefore doth it proceed that want of sleep doth weaken the brain and the body? A. Much watching doth engender choler, the which being hot doth 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 the 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 saltier in summer than in winter? A. From the heat of the sun, seeing by experience 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 sun-beams, is very heavy, and hath much earthy 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 lie 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 own proper 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, these 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 salt is very heavy of itself? A. Although bread is 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 purified 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 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, when 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 the represented unto the mind that action, and judging the same to be pleasant and delightful, 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 and from what cause do we suffer hunger better that thirst? A. When the stomach has 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 an ague, the humours of the head are dried up through over much heat, and, therefore, wanting nourishment, the hair falls.
Q. Why doth the hair of the eye-brows grow long in old men? A. Because through their age the bones of the eye-lids are thin for want of heat, and therefore the hair doth grow there, by reason of the rheum of the eyes.
Q. Whereof proceedeth gaping? A. Of gross 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 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 vivicate all things; but cold bringeth death, withering and decaying all things.
Q. Why doth grief cause men to grow old and gray? A. Age is nothing else but dryness and want of humours of 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.
THE PROBLEMS
of
MARCUS ANTONIUS ZIMARAS SANCTIPERTIAS.
Q. Why is it esteemed in the judgement 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 which has neither compass nor 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 natural 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 any thing, 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 seem good, and yet naturally shuns labour, though he attain no virtue by it.
Q. Why is man the proudest of all living creatures? A. By reason of his great knowledge; or as philosophers say, all intelligent beings have 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 side? A. To moderate the cold on that side.
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 is sharpest 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 men’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 the things themselves; for the image and representation of cold and heat is such as the nature of things are. Or it is, 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 which 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, it is carried unto 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 fleshy, 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 has 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 fore part, the imagination; if the middle, the cogitative part? A. It is because the brain is appointed by Nature to cool the heat of the heart; whereof it is, that in divers parts it serveth the powers and instruments with their heat, for every action of the soul doth not proceed from one measure of heat.
THE PROBLEMS
OF
ALEXANDER APHRODISEUS.
Q. Why doth the sun make a man black, and dirt white, wax soft, and dirt hard? A. By reason of the disposition of the substance that doth suffer. All humours, phlegm excepted, when heated above measure, do seem black about the skin; and dirt, being full either of saltpetre, or salt liquor, when the sun hath consumed its dregs and filth, doth become white again; when the sun hath drawn and stirred up the humidity of wax, it is softened; but in dirt the sun doth consume the humidity, which is very much, and makes it hard.
Q. Why are round ulcers hard to be cured? A. Because they are bred of a sharp choler, which eats and gnaws; and because it doth run, dropping and gnawing, it makes a round ulcer; for which reason it requires drying medicines, as physicians assert.
Q. Why is honey sweet to all men but such as have the jaundice? A. Because they have much bitter choler all over their bodies, which abounds in the tongue; whence it happens, when they eat honey the humours are stirred, and the taste itself, by the bitterness, of choler, causes an imagination that the honey is bitter.
Q. Why doth water cast on serpents cause them to fly? A. Because they are dry and cold by nature, having but little blood, and therefore fly from excessive coldness.
Q, Why doth an egg break if it be roasted and not if boiled? A. When moisture comes near the fire, it is heated very much, and so breeds wind, which being put up in little room, forces its way out, and breaks the shell: the like happens to tubs, and earthen vessels, when new wine is put into them: too much phlegm breaks the shell of an egg in roasting; it is the same with earthen pots too much heated; wherefore some people wet an egg when they intend to roast it. Hot water, by its softness, doth dissipate its humidity by little and little, and dissolves it through the thinness and passages of the shell.
Q. Why have children gravel breeding in their bladders, and old men in their kidneys and reins? A. Because children have strait passages in their kidneys, and an earthy thick humour is thrust with violence by the urine to the bladder, which hath wide conduits and passages, that give room for the urine and humour whereof gravel is engendered, which waxes thick, and seats itself, in the manner it is. In old men it is the reverse, for they have wide passages of the veins, back, and kidneys, that the urine may pass away, and the earthy humour congeal and sink down; the colour of the gravel shows the humour whereof the stone comes.
Q. Why is it, if the stone do congeal and wax hard through heat, we use not contrary things to dissolve it by coldness, but light things, as parsley, fennel, and the like? A. It is thought to fall out by an excessive scorching heat, by which the stones do crumble into sand, as in the manner of earthen vessels, which, when they are over-heated or roasted, turn to sand. And by this means it happens that small stones are voided, together with sand, in making water. Sometimes cold drink thrusts out the stone, the kidneys being stretched, and casting it out by a great effort, thus easing the belly of its burden. Besides, it often happens that immoderate heat of the kidneys, or reins of the back (through which the stone doth grow) is quenched with coldness.
Q. Why is the curing of an ulcer or bile in the kidney or bladder very hard? A. Because the urine, being sharp, doth ulcerate the sore. Ulcers are worse to cure in the bladder than in the kidneys, because the urine stays in the former, but runs away from the latter.
Q. Why do chaff and straw keep water hot, but make snow cold? A. Because the nature of chaff wants a manifest quality; seeing, therefore, that of its own nature it can be easily mingled, and consumed by that which it is annexed unto, it easily assumes the same nature, and being put into hot things, it is easily hot, heats again, and keeps hot; and, on the contrary, being made cold by the snow, and making the snow cold, it keeps it in its coldness.
Q. Why have we oftentime a pain in making water? A. Because sharp choler issuing out, and pricking the bladder of the urine, doth provoke and stir up the whole body to ease the part offended and to expel the humour moderately. This doth happen most of all unto children, because they have moist excrements, by reason of their often filling.
Q. Why have some medicines of one kind contrary effects, as experience proves; for mastich doth expel, dissolve, and also knit; and vinegar cools and heats? A. Because there are some invisible bodies in them, not by confusion, but by interposition; as sand moistened doth clog together and seem to be but one body, though indeed there are many small bodies in sand. And since this is so, it is not absurd that contrary qualities and virtues should be hidden in mastich, and that nature hath given that virtue to these bodies.
Q. Why do nurses rock and move their children when they would draw them to sleep? A. To the end that the humours being scattered by moving, may move the brains; but those of more years cannot endure this.
Q. Why doth oil, being drank, cause one to vomit, and especially yellow choler? A. Because, being light, and ascending upwards, it provoketh the nutriment in the stomach, and lifteth it up, and so the stomach being grieved, summoneth the ejective virtue to vomit, and especially choler, because that is light, and consisteth of subtle parts, and therefore the sooner carried upward; for when it is mingled with any moist thing, it runneth into the highest room.
Q. Why doth not oil mingle with moist things? A. Because, being pliant, soft, and thick in itself, it cannot be divided into parts, and so cannot be mingled; neither if it be put on earth can it enter into it.
Q. Why are water and oil frozen in cold weather, and wine and vinegar are not? A. Because that oil, being without quality, and fit to be compounded with any thing, is cold quickly, and so extremely, that it is most cold. Water, being cold of nature, doth easily freeze when it is made colder than its own nature. Wine being hot, and of subtle parts, suffereth no freezing.
Q. Why do contrary things in quality bring forth the same effect? A. That which is moist is hardened and bound alike by heat and cold. Snow and liquid do freeze with cold; a plaster, and gravel in the bladder, are made dry with heat. The effect indeed is the same, but by two divers actions; the heat doth consume and eat the abundance of moisture; but the cold stopping and shutting with its overmuch thickness, doth wring out the filthy humidity, like as a sponge wrung with the hand doth cast out the water which it hath in the pores or small passages.
Q. Why doth a shaking or quivering seize us oftentimes when any fearful matter doth happen, as a great noise or crack made, the sudden downfall of water, or the fall of a large tree? A. Because that oftentimes the humours being digested and consumed by time, and made thin and weak, all the heat, vehemently, suddenly, and sharply flying into the inward part of the body, consumeth the humours which cause the disease.
Q. Why do steel glasses shine so clearly? A. Because they are lined in the inside with white lead, whose nature is shining, and being put to glass, which is lucid and transparent, doth shine much more; and casts its beams through its passages, and without the body of the glass; and by that means the glass is very shining and clear.
Q. Why do we see ourselves in glasses and clear water? A. Because the quality of the sight, passing into the bright bodies by reflection, doth return again on the beam of the eyes, as the image of him who looketh on it.
Q. What is the reason, that if you cast a stone into standing water which is near the surface of the earth it causes many circles, and not if the water be deep in the earth? A. Because that the stone with the vehemence of the cast, doth agitate the water in every part of it, until it come to the bottom; and if there be a very great vehemence in the throw, the circle is still greater, the stone going down to the bottom causing many circles. For, first of all, it doth divide the outermost and superficial parts of the water in many parts, and so always going down to the bottom, again dividing the water, it maketh another circle, and this is done successively until the stone resteth; and because the vehemence of the stone is slackened still as it goes down, of necessity the last circle is less than the first, because by that and also by its force the water is divided.
Q. Why are such as are deaf by nature dumb? A. Because they cannot speak and express that which they never heard. Some physicians do say, that there is one knitting and uniting of sinews belonging to the like disposition. But such as are dumb by accident are not deaf at all, for then there ariseth a local passion.
Q. Why doth itching arise when an ulcer doth wax whole and phlegm cease? A. Because the part which is healed and made sound doth pursue the relic of the humours which remained there against nature, and which was the cause of the bile, and so going out through the skin, and dissolving itself, doth originally cause the itch.
Q. How comes a man to sneeze oftener and more vehemently than a beast? A. Because he uses more meats and drinks, and of more different sorts, and that more than requisite; the which, when he cannot digest as he would, he doth gather together much air and spirit, by reason of much humidity; the spirits then very subtle, ascending into the head, often force a man to void them, and so provoke sneezing. The noise caused thereby proceeds from a vehement spirit or breath passing through the conduits of the nostrils, as belching doth the stomach, or breaking wind by the fundament, the voice by the throat, and a sound by the ear.
Q. How come the hair and nails of dead people to grow? A. Because the flesh rotting, withering, and falling away, that which was hidden about the root of the hair doth now appear as growing. Some say that it grows indeed, because carcases are dissolved in the beginning to many excrements and superfluities by putrefaction. These going out at the uppermost parts of the body by some passages, do increase the growth of the hair.
Q. Why does not the hair of the feet soon grow grey? A. For this reason, because that through great motion they disperse and dissolve the superfluous phlegm that breeds grayness.
Q. Why, if you put hot burnt barley upon a horse’s sore, is the hair which grows upon the sore not white but like the other hair? A. Because it hath the force of expelling, and doth drive away and dissolve the phlegm, as well as all other unprofitable matter that is gathered together through the weakness of the parts, or crudity of the sore.
Q. Why doth hair never grow on an ulcer or bile? A. Because man hath a thick skin, as is seen by the thickness of his hair; and if the scar be thicker than the skin itself, it stops the passages from whence the hair should grow. Horses have thinner skins, as is plain by their thick hair; therefore all passages are not stopped in their wounds and sores; and after the excrements which were gathered together have broken a passage through those small pores, the hair doth grow.
Q. Why is Fortune painted with a double forehead, the one side bald and the other hairy? A. The baldness signifies adversity; and hairiness prosperity, which we enjoy when it pleaseth her.
Q. Why have some commended flattery? A. Because flattery setteth forth before our eyes what we ought to be, though not what we are.
Q. Wherefore should virtue be painted girded? A. To show that virtuous men should not be slothful, but diligent, and always in action.
Q. Why did the ancients say it was better to fall into the hands of a raven than a flatterer? A. Because ravens do not eat us till we are dead, but flatterers devour us alive.
Q. Why have choleric men beards before others? A. Because they are hot, and their pores large.
Q. How comes it that such as have the hiccough do ease themselves by holding their breath? A. The breath retained doth heat the interior parts of the body and the hiccough proceeds from cold.
Q. How comes it that old men remember well what they have seen and done in their youth, and forget such things as they see and do in their old age? A. Things learned in youth take deep root and habitude in a person, but those learned in age are forgotten, because the senses are weakened.
Q. What kind of covetousness is best? A. That of time, when employed as it ought to be.
Q. Why is our life compared to a play? A. Because the dishonest do occupy the place of the honest, and the worst sort the room of the good.
Q. Why do dolphins, when they appear above the water, denote a storm or tempest approaching? A. Because at the beginning of a tempest there do arise from the bottom of the sea certain hot exhalations and vapours which heat the dolphins, causing them to rise up for cold air.
Q. Why did the Romans call Fabius Maximus the target of the people, and Marcellus the sword? A. Because the one adapted himself to the service of the commonwealth, and the other was very eager to revenge the injuries of his country; and yet they were in the senate joined together, because the gravity of the one would moderate the courage and boldness of the other.
Q. Why doth the shining of the moon hurt the head? A. Because it moves the humours of the brain, and cannot afterwards dissolve them.
Q. If water do not nourish, why do men drink it? A. Because water causes the nutriment to spread through the body.
Q. Why is sneezing good? A. Because it purgeth the brain, as milk is purged by the cough.
Q. Why is hot water lighter than cold? A. Because boiling water has less ventosity, and is more light and subtle, the earthy and heavy substance being separated from it.
Q. How comes marsh and pond water to be bad? A. By reason they are phlegmatic, and do corrupt in summer; the fineness of the water is turned into vapours, and the earthiness doth remain.
Q. Why are studious and learned men soonest bald? A. It proceeds from a weakness of the spirits, or because warmth of digestion causes phlegm to abound in them.
Q. Why doth much watching make the brain feeble? A. Because it increases choler, which dries and extenuates the body.
Q. Why are boys apt to change their voices about fourteen years of age? A. Because that then nature doth cause a great and sudden change of voice, experience proves this to be true; for at that time we may say that women’s paps do grow great, do hold and gather milk, and also those places that are above the hips, in which the young fruit would remain. Likewise men’s breasts and shoulders, which then can bear great and heavy burdens. The body is bigger and dilated, as the alternation and change of every part doth testify, and the harshness of the voice and hoarseness; for the rough artery, the wind-pipe, being made wide in the beginning, and the exterior and outward part within being unequal to the throat, the air going out the rough uneven pipe doth then become unequal and sharp, and after hoarse, something like unto the voice of a goat, wherefore it has its name called Bronchus. The same doth also happen to them unto whose rough artery distillation doth flow; it happens by reason of the drooping humidity that a light small skin filled unequally causes the uneven going forth of the spirit and air. Understand that the wind-pipe of goats is such by reason of the abundance of humidity. The like doth happen unto all such as nature hath given a rough artery, as unto cranes. After the age of fourteen they leave off that voice, because the artery is made wider and reacheth its natural evenness and quality.
Q. Why do hard dens, hollow and high places, send back the likeness and sound of the voice? A. Because that in such places also by reflection do return back the image of a sound, for the voice doth beat the air, and the air the place, which the more it is beaten the more it doth bear, and therefore doth cause the more vehement sound of the voice; moist places, and as it were soft, yielding to the stroke, and dissolving it, give no sound; for according to the quantity of the stroke, the quality and quantity of the voice is given, which is called an echo. Some do idly fable that she is a goddess; some say that Pan was in love with her, which without doubt is false. He was some wise man, who did first desire to search out the cause of that voice; and as they who love, and cannot enjoy that love, are grieved, so in like manner was he very sorry until he found out the solution of that cause: as Endymion also, who first found out the course of the moon, watching all night, and observing her course, and searching her motion, did sleep in the day-time, and therefore they do fable that he was beloved of her, and that she came to him when he was asleep, because she did give the philosopher the solution of the course of herself. They say also that he was a shepherd, because that in the desert and high places he did mark the course of the moon. And they gave him also the pipe, because that the high places are blown with wind, or else because he sought out the consonancy of figures. Prometheus, also, being a wise man, sought the course of the star, which is called the eagle in the firmament, his nature and place; and when he was as it were wasted with the desire of learning, then at last he rested, when Hercules did resolve unto him all doubts with his wisdom.
Q. Why do not swine cry when they are carried with their snouts upwards? A. Because that above all other beasts they bend more to the earth. They delight in filth, and that they seek, and therefore in the sudden change of their face, they be as it were strangers, and being amazed with so much light do keep that silence; some say the wind-pipe doth close together by reason of the straitness of it.
Q. Why do swine delight in dirt? A. As the physicians do say, they are naturally delighted with it, because they have a great liver, in which desire is, as Aristotle saith; the wideness of the snout is the cause, for he hath smelling which doth dissolve itself, and as it were strive with stench.
Q. Why do many beasts wag their tails when they see their friends, and a lion and a bull beat their sides when they are angry? A. Because they have the marrow of their backs reaching to the tail, which hath the force of motion in it, the imagination acknowledging that which is known to them as it were with the hand, as happens to men, doth force them to move their tails. This doth manifestly show some secret force to be within them, which doth acknowledge what they ought. In the anger of lions and bulls nature doth consent to the mind, and causeth it to be gently moved, as men do sometimes when they are angry, beating their hands on other parts; when the mind cannot be revenged on that which doth hurt, it presently seeks out some other source, and cures the malady with a stroke or blow.
Q. How come steel glasses to be better for the sight than any other kind? A. Because steel is hard, and doth present unto us more substantially the air that receiveth the light.
Q. How doth love show its greater force; by making the fool to become wise, or the wise to become a fool? A. In attributing wisdom to him that hath it not; for it is harder to build than to pull down; and ordinarily love and folly are but an alteration of the mind.
Q. How comes much labour and fatigue to be bad for the sight? A. Because it dries the blood too much.
Q. Why is goat’s milk reckoned best for the stomach? A. Because it is thick, not slimy; and they feed on wood and boughs rather than grass.
Q. Why do grief and vexation bring gray hairs? A. Because they dry, which bringeth on grayness.
Q. How come those to be most merry who have the thickest blood? A. Because the blood which is fat and thick makes the spirits firm and constant, wherein consists the force of all creatures.
Q. Whether is it hardest to obtain a person’s love, or to keep it when obtained? A. It is hardest to keep it, by reason of the inconstancy of man, who is quickly angry, and soon weary of a thing; hard to be gained, and slippery to keep.
Q. Why do serpents shun the herb rue? A. Because they are very cold, dry, and full of sinews, and that herb is of a contrary nature.
Q. Why is a capon better to eat than a cock? A. Because a capon loses not his moisture by treading the hens.
Q. Why is our smell less in winter than summer? A. Because the air is thick, and less moveable.
Q. Why does hair burn so quickly? A. Because it is dry and cold.
Q. Why is love compared to a labyrinth? A. Because the entry and coming in is easy, and the going out impossible, or very hard.