Of the Tongue.

Q. Why is the tongue full of pores? A. Because the tongue is the means whereby which we taste; and through the mouth, in the pores of the tongue, doth proceed the sense of tasting. Again, it is observed, that frothy spittle is sent into the mouth by the tongue from the lungs, moistening the meat and making it ready for digestion.

Q. Why do the tongues of such as are sick of agues judge all things bitter? A. Because the stomachs of such persons are filled with choleric humours; and choler is very bitter, as appeareth by the gall; therefore this bitter fume doth infect their tongues; and so the tongue, being full of these tastes, doth judge everything bitter.

Q. Why doth the tongue water when we hear sour and sharp things spoken of? A. Because the imaginative virtue or power is of greater force than the power or faculty of tasting; and when we imagine a taste, we conceive the power of tasting as a swan; there is nothing felt by the taste, but by means of the spittle the tongue doth water.

Q. Why do some persons stammer and lisp? A. Sometimes through the moistness of the tongue and brain, as in children, who cannot speak plainly nor pronounce many letters. Sometimes it happeneth by reason of the shrinking of certain sinews which go to the tongue, which are corrupted with phlegm.

Q. Why are the tongues of serpents and mad dogs venomous? A. Because of the malignity and tumosity of the venomous humour which predominates in them.

Q. Why is a dog's tongue good for medicine, and a horse's tongue pestiferous? A. By reason of some secret property, or that the tongue of a dog is full of pores, and so doth draw and take away the viscosity of the wound. It is observed that a dog hath some humour in his tongue, with which, by licking he doth heal; but the contrary effect is the lick of a horse's tongue.

Q. Why is spittle white? A. By reason of the continual moving of the tongue, whereof heat is engendered, which doth make this superfluity white; as seen in the froth of water.

Q. Why is spittle unsavoury and without taste? A. If it had a certain determinate taste, then the tongue would not taste at all, but only have the taste of spittle, and could not distinguish others.

Q. Why doth the spittle of one that is fasting heal an imposthume? A. Because it is well digested and made subtle.

Q. Why do some abound in spittle more than others? A. This doth proceed of a phlegmatic complexion, which doth predominate in them; and such are liable to a quotidian ague, which ariseth from the predominance of phlegm; the contrary in those that spit little, because heat abounds in them, which consumes the humidity of the spittle; and so the defect of spittle is a sign of fever.

Q. Why is the spittle of a man that is fasting more subtle than of one that is full? A. Because the spittle is without the viscosity of meat, which is wont to make the spittle of one who is full, gross and thick.

Q. From whence proceeds the spittle of a man? A. From the froth of the lungs, which according to the physicians, is the seat of the phlegm.

Q. Why are beasts when going together for generation very full of froth and foam? A. Because then the lights and heart are in greater motion of lust; therefore there is engendered in them much frothy matter.

Q. Why have not birds spittle? A. Because they have very dry lungs.

Q. Why doth the tongue sometimes lose the use of speaking? A. It is occasioned by a palsy or apoplexy, which is a sudden effusion of blood, and by gross humours; and sometimes also by infection of spiritus animates in the middle cell of the brain which hinders the spirits from being carried to the tongue.



Of the Roof of the Mouth.

Q. Why are fruits, before they are ripe, of a bitter and sour relish, and afterward sweet? A. A sour relish or taste proceeds from coldness and want of heat in gross and thick humidity; but a sweet taste is produced by sufficient heat; therefore in the ripe fruit humidity is subtle through the heat of the sun, and such fruit is commonly sweet; but before it is ripe, as humidity is gross or subtle for want of heat, the fruit is bitter or sour.

Q. Why are we better delighted with sweet tastes than with bitter or any other? A. Because a sweet thing is hot and moist, and through its heat dissolves and consumes superfluous humidities, and by this humidity immundicity is washed away; but a sharp, eager taste, by reason of the cold which predominates in it, doth bind overmuch, and prick and offend the parts of the body in purging, and therefore we do not delight in that taste.

Q. Why doth a sharp taste, as that of vinegar, provoke appetite rather than any other? A. Because it is cold, and doth cool. For it is the nature of cold to desire to draw, and therefore it is the cause of appetite.

Q. Why do we draw in more air than we breathe out? A. Because much air is drawn in that is converted into nutriment, and with the vital spirits is contained in the lungs. Therefore a beast is not suffocated as long as it receives air with its lungs, in which some part of the air remaineth also.

Q. Why doth the air seem to be expelled and put forth, seeing the air is invisible, by reason of its variety and thinness? A. Because the air which is received in us, is mingled with vapours and fumes from the heart, by reason whereof it is made thick, and so is seen. And this is proved by experience, because that in winter, we see our breath, for the coldness of the air doth bind the air mixed with fume, and so it is thickened and made gross, and by consequence is seen.

Q. Why have some persons stinking breath? A. Because of the evil fumes that arise from the stomach. And sometimes it doth proceed from the corruption of the airy parts of the body, as the lungs. The breath of lepers is so infected that it would poison birds if near them, because the inward parts are very corrupt.

Q. Why are lepers hoarse? A. Because the vocal instruments are corrupted, that is, the lights.

Q. Why do persons become hoarse? A. Because of the rheum descending from the brain, filling the conduit of the lights; and sometimes through imposthumes of the throat, or rheum gathering in the neck.

Q. Why have the females of all living creatures the shrillest voices, the crow only excepted, and a woman a shriller and smaller voice than a man? A. By reason of the composition of the veins and vocal arteries the voice is formed, as appears by this similitude, that a small pipe sounds shriller than a great. Also in women, because the passage where the voice is formed is made narrow and strait, by reason of cold, it being the nature of cold to bind; but in men, the passage is open and wider through heat, because it is the property of heat to open and dissolve. It proceedeth in women through the moistness of the lungs, and weakness of the heat. Young and diseased men have sharp and shrill voices from the same cause.

Q. Why doth the voice change in men at fourteen, and in women at twelve; in men they begin to yield seed, in women when their breasts begin to grow? A. Because then the beginning of the voice is slackened and loosened; and this is proved by the similitude of the string of an instrument let down or loosened, which gives a great sound, and also because creatures that are gelded, as eunuchs, capons., etc., have softer and slenderer voices than others, by the want of their stones.

Q. Why do small birds sing more and louder than great ones, as appears in the lark and nightingale? A. Because the spirits of small birds are subtle and soft, and the organ conduit strait, as appeareth in a pipe; therefore their notes following easily at desire, they sing very soft.

Q. Why do bees, wasps, locusts and many other such like insects, make a noise, seeing they have no lungs, nor instruments of music? A. Because in them there is a certain small skin, which, when struck by the air, causeth a sound.

Q. Why do not fish make a sound? A. Because they have no lungs, but only gills, nor yet a heart, and therefore they need not the drawing in of the air, and by consequence they make no noise, because a voice is a percussion of the air which is drawing.



Of the Neck.

Q. Why hath a living creature a neck? A. Because the neck is the supporter of the head, and therefore the neck is in the middle between the head and the body, to the intent that by it, and by its sinews, motion and sense of the body might be conveyed through all the body; and that by means of the neck, the heart, which is very hot, might be separated from the brain.

Q. Why do some creatures want necks, as serpents and fishes? A. Because they want hearts, and therefore want that assistance which we have spoken of; or else they have a neck in some inward part of them, which is not distinguished outwardly.

Q. Why is the neck full of bones and joints? A. That it may bear and sustain the head the better. Also, because the back bone is joined to the brain in the neck, and from thence it receives marrow, which is of the substance of the brain.

Q. Why have some creatures long necks, as cranes, storks and such like? A. Because such birds seek their food at the bottom of waters. And some creatures have short necks, as sparrows, hawks, etc., because such are ravenous, and therefore for strength have short necks, as appeareth in the ox, who has a short neck and strong.

Q. Why is the neck hollow, and especially before, about the tongue? A. Because there are two passages, whereof the one doth carry the meat to the nutritive instrument, or stomach and liver, which is called by the Greeks Aesophagus; and the other is the windpipe.

Q. Why is the artery made with rings and circle? A. The better to bow and give a good sounding.



Of the Shoulders and Arms.

Q. Why hath a man shoulders and arms? A. To lift and carry burdens.

Q. Why are the arms round? A. For the swifter and speedier work.

Q. Why are the arms thick? A. That they may be strong to lift and bear burdens, and thrust and give a strong blow; so their bones are thick, because they contain much marrow, or they would be easily corrupted and injured.

Q. Why do the arms become small and slender in some diseases, as in mad men, and such as are sick of the dropsy? A. Because all the parts of the body do suffer the one with the other; and therefore one member being in grief, all the humours do concur and run thicker to give succour and help to the aforesaid grief.

Q. Why have brute beasts no arms? A. Their fore feet are instead of arms, and in their place.



Of the Hands.

Q. For what use hath a man hands, and an ape also, like unto a man? A. The hand is an instrument a man doth especially make use of, because many things are done by the hands, and not by any other part.

Q. Why are some men ambo-dexter, that is, they use the left hand as the right? A. By reason of the great heat of the heart, and for the hot bowing of the same, for it is that which makes a man as nimble of the left hand as of the right.

Q. Why are the fingers full of joints? A. To be more fit and apt to receive and keep what is put in them.

Q. Why hath every finger three joints, and the thumb but two? A. The thumb hath three, but the third is joined to the arm, therefore is stronger than the other fingers; and is called pollex or polico, that is, to excel in strength.

Q. Why are the fingers of the right hand nimbler than the fingers of the left? A. It proceedeth from the heat that predominates in those parts, and causeth great agility.



Of the Nails.

Q. From whence do nails proceed? A. Of the tumosity and humours, which are resolved and go into the extremities of the fingers; and they are dried through the power of the external air, and brought to the hardness of horn.

Q. Why do the nails of old men grow black and pale? A. Because the heat of the heart decaying causeth their beauty to decay also.

Q. Why are men judged to be good or evil complexioned by the colour of the nails? A. Because they give witness of the goodness or badness of their heart, and therefore of the complexion, for if they be somewhat red, they betoken choler well tempered; but if they be yellowish or black, they signify melancholy.

Q. Why do white spots appear in the nails? A. Through mixture of phlegm with nutriment.



Of the Paps and Dugs.

Q. Why are the paps placed upon the breasts? A. Because the breast is the seat of the heart, which is most hot; and therefore the paps grow there, to the end that the menses being conveyed thither as being near the heat of the heart, should the sooner be digested, perfected and converted with the matter and substance of the milk.

Q. Why are the paps below the breasts in beasts, and above the breast in women? A. Because woman goes upright, and has two legs only; and therefore if her paps were below her breasts, they would hinder her going; but beasts having four feet prevents that inconveniency.

Q. Whether are great, small or middle-sized paps best for children to suck? A. In great ones the heat is dispersed, there is no good digestion of the milk; but in small ones the power and force is strong, because a virtue united is strongest; and by consequence there is a good digestion for the milk.

Q. Why have not men as great paps and breasts as women? A. Because men have not monthly terms, and therefore have no vessel deputed for them.

Q. Why do the paps of young women begin to grow about thirteen or fifteen years of age? A. Because then the flowers have no course to the teats, by which the young one is nourished, but follow their ordinary course and therefore wax soft.

Q. Why hath a woman who is with child of a boy, the right pap harder than the left? A. Because the male child is conceived in the right side of the mother; and therefore the flowers do run to the right pap, and make it hard.

Q. Why doth it show weakness of the child, when the milk doth drop out of the paps before the woman is delivered? A. Because the milk is the proper nutriment of the child in the womb of its mother, therefore if the milk run out, it is a token that the child is not nourished, and consequently is weak.

Q. Why do the hardness of the paps betoken the health of the child in the womb? A. Because the flowers are converted into milk, and thereby strength is signified.

Q. Why are women's paps hard when they be with child, and soft at other times? A. Because they swell then, and are puffed, and the great moisture which proceeds from the flowers doth run into the paps, which at other seasons remaineth in the matrix and womb, and is expelled by the place deputed for that end.

Q. By what means doth the milk of the paps come to the matrix or womb? A. There is a certain knitting and coupling of the paps with the womb, and there are certain veins which the midwives do cut in the time of the birth of the child, and by those veins the milk flows in at the navel of the child, and so it receives nourishment by the navel.

Q. Why is it a sign of a male child in the womb when the milk that runneth out of a woman's breast is thick, and not much, and of a female when it is thin? A. Because a woman that goeth with a boy hath a great heat in her, which doth perfect the milk and make it thick; but she who goes with a girl hath not so much heat, and therefore the milk is undigested, imperfect, watery and thin, and will swim above the water if it be put into it.

Q. Why is the milk white, seeing the flowers are red, of which it is engendered? A. Because blood which is well purged and concocted becomes white, as appeareth in flesh whose proper colour is white, and being boiled, is white. Also, because every humour which is engendered of the body, is made like unto that part in colour where it is engendered as near as it can be; but because the flesh of the paps is white, therefore the colour of the milk is white.

Q. Why doth a cow give milk more abundantly than other beasts? A. Because she is a great eating beast, where there is much monthly superfluity engendered, there is much milk; because it is nothing else but the blood purged and tried.

Q. Why is not milk wholesome? A. 1. Because it curdeth in the stomach, whereof an evil breath is bred. 2. Because the milk doth grow sour in the stomach, where evil humours are bred, and infect the breath.

Q. Why is milk bad for such as have the headache? A. Because it is easily turned into great fumosities, and hath much terrestrial substance in it, the which ascending, doth cause the headache.

Q. Why is milk fit nutriment for infants? A. Because it is a natural and usual food, and they were nourished by the same in the womb.

Q. Why are the white-meats made of a newly milked cow good? A. Because milk at that time is very springy, expels fumosities, and, as it were, purges at that time.

Q. Why is the milk naught for the child, if the woman giving suck uses carnal copulation? A. Because in time of carnal copulation, the best part of the milk goes to the seed vessels, and to the womb, and the worst remain in the paps, which hurts the child.

Q. Why do physicians forbid the eating of fish and milk at the same time? A. Because they produce a leprosy, and because they are phlegmatic.

Q. Why have not birds and fish milk and paps? A. Because paps would hinder the flight of birds. And although fish have neither paps nor milk, the females cast much spawn, which the male touches with a small gut, and causes their kind to continue in succession.



Of the Back.

Q. Why have beasts a back? A. 1. Because the back is the way and mien of the body from which are extended and spread throughout, all the sinews of the backbone. 2. Because it should be a guard and defence for the soft parts of the body, as for the stomach, liver, lights and such like. 3. Because it is the foundation of all the bones, as the ribs, fastened to the back bone.

Q. Why hath the back bone so many joints or knots, called spondyli? A. Because the moving and bending it, without such joints, could not be done; and therefore they are wrong who say that elephants have no such joints, for without them they could not move.

Q. Why do fish die after their back bones are broken? A. Because in fish the back bone is instead of the heart; now the heart is the first thing that lives and the last that dies; and when that bone is broken, fish can live no longer.

Q. Why doth a man die soon after the marrow is hurt or perished? A. Because the marrow proceeds from the brain, which is the principal part of a man.

Q. Why have some men the piles? A. Those men are cold and melancholy, which melancholy first passes to the spleen, its proper seat, but there cannot be retained, for the abundancy of blood; for which reason it is conveyed to the back bone, where there are certain veins which terminate in the back, and receive the blood. When those veins are full of the melancholy blood, then the conduits of nature are opened, and the blood issues out once a month, like women's terms. Those men who have this course of blood, are kept from many infirmities, such as dropsy, plague, etc.

Q. Why are the Jews much subject to this disease? A. Because they eat much phlegmatic and cold meats, which breed melancholy blood, which is purged with the flux. Another reason is, motion causes heat and heat digestion; but strict Jews neither move, labour nor converse much, which breeds a coldness in them, and hinders digestion, causing melancholic blood, which is by this means purged out.



Of the Heart.

Q. Why are the lungs light, spongy and full of holes? A. That the air may be received into them for cooling the heart, and expelling humours, because the lungs are the fan of the heart; and as a pair of bellows is raised up by taking in the air, and shrunk by blowing it out, so likewise the lungs draw the air to cool the heart, and cast it out, lest through too much air drawn in, the heart should be suffocated.

Q. Why is the flesh of the lungs white? A. Because they are in continual motion.

Q. Why have those beasts only lungs that have hearts? A. Because the lungs be no part for themselves, but for the heart, and therefore, it were superfluous for those creatures to have lungs that have no hearts.

Q. Why do such creatures as have no lungs want a bladder? A. Because such drink no water to make their meat digest and need no bladder for urine; as appears in such birds as do not drink at all, viz., the falcon and sparrow hawk.

Q. Why is the heart in the midst of the body? A. That it may import life to all, parts of the body, and therefore it is compared to the sun, which is placed in the midst of the planets, to give light to them all.

Q. Why only in men is the heart on the left side? A. To the end that the heat of the heart may mitigate the coldness of the spleen; for the spleen is the seat of melancholy, which is on the left side also.

Q. Why is the heart first engendered; for the heart doth live first and die last? A. Because the heart is the beginning and original of life, and without it no part can live. For of the seed retained in the matrix, there is first engendered a little small skin, which compasses the seed; whereof first the heart is made of the purest blood; then of blood not so pure, the liver; and of thick and cold blood the marrow and brain.

Q. Why are beasts bold that have little hearts? A. Because in a little heart the heat is well united and vehement, and the blood touching it, doth quickly heat it and is speedily carried to the other parts of the body, which give courage and boldness.

Q. Why are creatures with a large heart timorous, as the hare? A. The heart is dispersed in such a one, and not able to heat the blood which cometh to it; by which means fear is bred.

Q. How is it that the heart is continually moving? A. Because in it there is a certain spirit which is more subtle than air, and by reason of its thickness and rarefaction, seeks a larger space, filling the hollow room of the heart; hence the dilating and opening of the heart, and because the heart is earthly the thrusting and moving ceasing, its parts are at rest, tending downwards. As a proof of this, take an acorn, which, if put into the fire, the heat doth dissolve its humidity, therefore occupies a greater space, so that the rind cannot contain it, but puffs up, and throws it into the fire. The like of the heart. Therefore the heart of a living creature is triangular, having its least part towards its left side, and the greater towards the right; and doth also open and shut in the least part, by which means it is in continual motion; the first motion is called diastole, that is extending the heart or breast; the other systole, that is, shutting of the heart; and from these all the motions of the body proceed, and that of the pulse which the physicians feel.

Q. How comes it that the flesh of the heart is so compact and knit together? A. Because in thick compacted substances heat is commonly received and united. And because the heart with its heat should moderate the coldness of the brain, it is made of that fat flesh apt to keep a strong heat.

Q. How comes the heart to be the hottest part of all living creatures? A. It is so compacted as to receive the heat best, and because it should mitigate the coldness of the brain.

Q. Why is the heart the beginning of life? A. It is plain that in it the vital spirit is bred, which is the heat of life; and therefore the heart having two receptacles, viz., the right and the left the right hath more blood than spirits; which spirit is engendered to give life and vivify the body.

Q. Why is the heart long and sharp like a pyramid? A. The round figure hath an angle, therefore the heart is round, for fear any poison or hurtful matter should be retained in it; and because that figure is fittest for motion.

Q. How comes the blood chiefly to be in the heart? A. The blood in the heart has its proper or efficient place, which some attribute to the liver; and therefore the heart doth not receive blood from any other parts but all other parts of it.

Q. How happens it that some creatures want a heart? A. Although they have no heart, yet they have somewhat that answers for it, as appears in eels and fish that have the back bone instead of the heart.

Q. Why does the heart beat in some creatures after the head is cut off, as in birds and hens? A. Because the heart lives first and dies last, and therefore beats longer than other parts.

Q. Why doth the heat of the heart sometimes fail of a sudden, and in those who have the falling sickness? A. This proceeds from the defect of the heart itself, and of certain small skins with which it is covered, which, being infected and corrupted, the heart faileth on a sudden; sometimes only by reason of the parts adjoining; and therefore, when any venomous humour goes out of the stomach that turns the heart and parts adjoining, that causeth this fainting.



Of the Stomach.

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 heat of 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 very green 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 is better 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.



Of the Blood.

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 than men'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.



Of the Urine.

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.



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 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 there consumed; 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.



Of Carnal Copulation.

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, because they 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.



Of the Seed of Man and Beasts.

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 part of 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 termed menstrua, from the word mensis, 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 have so 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.



Of Hermaphrodites.

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 a man or a woman? A. In the name of a man, because names are given ad placitum, and therefore he should be baptized, according to the worthiest name, because every agent is worthier than its patient.



Of Monsters.

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 some to 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 coming out 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.



Of the Child in the Womb.

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.



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 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.



Of Divers Matters.

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 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 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 sooner when 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 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 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. 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 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 physicians flava 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. 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 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, 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 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 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 after they 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 of sleep 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 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, 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 judging the 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. 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 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.

* * * * *



THE PROBLEMS OF

MARCUS ANTONINUS SANCTIPERTIAS

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 seem good, 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 intelligent beings 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 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 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, the imagination; 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.

* * * * *



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 stirred up and drawn the humidity of the wax, it is softened; but in the 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 dry medicines, as physicians assert.

Q. Why is honey sweet to all men, but to such as have 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 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 in tubs or 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 do men wink in the act of copulation, and find a little alteration in all other senses? A. Because, being overcome by the effect of that pleasure, they do comprehend it the better.

Q. Why have children gravel breeding in their bladders, and old men in their kidneys and veins? A. Because children have straight passages in their kidneys, and an earthly thick humour is thrust with violence by the urine to the bladder, which hath wide conduits or passages, that give room for the urine and humour whereof gravel is engendered, which waxes thick, and seats itself, as the manner of 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 earthly 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 overheated or roasted, turn to sand. And by this means it happens that small stones are avoided, 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 of the veins 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 kidneys 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 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 quantity; seeing, therefore that of its own nature, it can easily be mingled, and consumed by that which it is annexed onto, 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 in its coldness.

Q. Why have we oftentimes 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 drinking.

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 small invisible bodies in them, not in 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 the 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 rock 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 drunk, 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 the earth can it enter into it.

Q. Why are water and oil frozen in cold weather, and wine and vinegar not? A. Because that oil being without quality, and fit to be compounded with anything, 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 over much 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 and small passages.

Q. Why doth a shaking or quivering seize us oftentimes when any fearful matter doth happen, as a great noise or a 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. So treacle hath this effect, and many such like, which are hot and dry when taken after connexion.

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 in 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 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 hear. 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 ceases? 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 is 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 conduit of the nostrils, as belching doth from the stomach or farting 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 carcasses 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 greyness. The hair of the secrets grows very late, because of the place, and because that in carnal copulation it dissolves the phlegm also.

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 condity of the sore.

Q. Why doth the 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 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 be 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 hiccups do ease themselves by holding their breath? A. The breath retained doth heat the interior parts of the body, and the hiccups 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 then 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 causeth 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 earthly 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 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 cause 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 see that women's paps do grow great, do hold and gather milk, and also those places that are above their hips, in which the young fruit would remain. Likewise men's breasts and shoulders, which then can bear great and heavy burdens; also their stones in which their seed may increase and abide, and in their privy members, to let out the seed with ease. Further all the body is made bigger and dilated, as the alteration 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 being unequal to the throat, the air going out the rough, unequal and 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 follow; it happens by reason of the drooping humidity that a slight small skin filled unequally causes the uneven going forth of the spirit and air. Understand, that the windpipe 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 again; 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 the 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 daytime, and that she came to him when he was asleep, because she did give the philosopher the solution of the course 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 of 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 windpipe doth close together by reason of the straitness of it.

Q. Why do swine delight in dirt? A. As physicians do say, they are naturally delighted with it, because they have a great liver, in which desire it, as Aristotle saith, the wideness of their snout is the case, for he that hath smelling which doth dissolve itself, and as it were strive with stench.

Q. Why do many beasts 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 greatly 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 has 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 on grass.

Q. Why do grief and vexation bring grey hairs? A. Because they dry, which bringeth on greyness.

Q. How come those to have most mercy 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 it is 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 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 of the hens.

Q. Why is our smell less in winter than in 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 almost impossible or hard.

* * * * *



PART IV

DISPLAYING THE SECRETS OF

NATURE

RELATING TO

PHYSIOGNOMY

* * * * *



CHAPTER I

SECTION 1.—Of Physiognomy, showing what it is, and whence it is derived.

Physiognomy is an ingenious science, or knowledge of nature, by which the inclinations and dispositions of every creature are understood, and because some of the members are uncompounded, and entire of themselves, as the tongue, the heart, etc., and some are of a mixed nature, as the eyes, the nose and others, we therefore say that there are signs which agree and live together, which inform a wise man how to make his judgment before he be too rash to deliver it to the world.

Nor is it to be esteemed a foolish or idle art, seeing it is derived from the superior bodies; for there is no part of the face of man but what is under the peculiar influence or government, not only of the seven planets but also of the twelve signs of Zodiac; and the dispositions, vices, virtues and fatality, either of a man or woman are plainly foretold, if the person pretending to the knowledge thereof be an artist, which, that my readers may hereby attain it I shall set these things in a clearer light.

The reader should remember that the forehead is governed by Mars; the right eye is under the domination of Sol; the left is ruled by the Moon; the right ear is under Jupiter; the left, Saturn, the rule of the nose is claimed by Venus, which, by the way, is one reason that in all unlawful venereal encounters, the nose is too subject to bear the scars that are gotten in those wars; and nimble Mercury, the significator of eloquence claims the dominion of the mouth, and that very justly.

Thus have the seven planets divided the face among them, but not with so absolute a way but that the twelve signs of the Zodiac do also come in with a part (see the engraving) and therefore the sign Cancer presides in the upper part of the forehead, and Leo attends upon the right eyebrow, as Saggittarius does upon the right eye, and Libra upon the right ear, upon the left eyebrow you will find Aquarius; and Gemini and Aries taking care of the left ear; Taurus rules in the middle of the forehead, and Capricorn the chin; Scorpio takes upon him the protection of the nose; Virgo claims the precedence of the right cheek, Pisces the left. And thus the face of man is cantoned out amongst the signs and planets; which being carefully attended to, will sufficiently inform the artist how to pass a judgment. For according to the sign or planet ruling so also is the judgment to be of the part ruled, which all those that have understanding know easily how to apply.



In the judgment that is to be made from physiognomy, there is a great difference betwixt a man and a woman; the reason is, because in respect of the whole composition men more fully comprehend it than women do, as may evidently appear by the manner and method we shall give. Wherefore the judgments which we shall pass in every chapter do properly concern a man, as comprehending the whole species, and but improperly the woman, as being but a part thereof, and derived from the man, and therefore, whoever is called to give judgment on such a face, ought to be wary about all the lines and marks that belong to it, respect being also had to the sex, for when we behold a man whose face is like unto a woman's and we pass a judgment upon it, having diligently observed it, and not on the face only, but on other parts of the body, as hands, etc., in like manner we also behold the face of a woman, who in respect to her flesh and blood is like unto a man, and in the disposure also of the greatest part of the body. But does physiognomy give the same judgment on her, as it does of a man that is like unto her? By no means, but far otherwise, in regard that the conception of the woman is much different from that of a man, even in those respects which are said to be common. Now in those common respects two parts are attributed to a man, and a third part to a woman.