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.