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.