Q. How doth the urine come into the bladder, seeing the bladder is shut? A. Some say by sweating; 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 and 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 hinders digestion.
Q. Why is it unwholesome to drink new wine? A. 1. It cannot be digested; therefore it causes 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 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. But 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 superfluities 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 agues if they should remain in it; and purges the eyes and head, clearing the brain.
Q. How comes sleep to strengthen the stomach and digestive faculty? A. Because in sleep the heat draws inwards, and helps digestion: but when awake, the heat returns, and is dispersed through the body.
Of the Gall and Spleen.
Q. How come living creatures to have a gall? A. Because choleric humours are received into it, which through their acidity helps the guts to expel superfluities, also it helps digestion.
Q. How comes the jaundice to proceed from the gall? A. The humour of the guts is blueish and yellow; therefore when its pores are stopped, the humours cannot go into the sack thereof, but are mingled with the blood, wandering throughout all the body, and infecting the skin.