420. These are the _four_ elementary qualities, hot, cold, dry, moist; [41] Milton, Par. Lost, ii. 898. Diseases were supposed to be caused by an undue excess of some one quality; and the mixture of prevalent qualities in a man's body determined his complexion or temperament. Thus the _sanguine_ man was thought to be hot and moist; the _phlegmatic_, cold and moist; the _choleric_, hot and dry; the _melancholy_, cold and dry. The whole system rested on the teaching of Galen, and was fundamentally wrong, as it assumed that the 'elements,' or 'simple bodies,' were four, viz. earth, air, fire, and water. Of these, earth was said to be cold and dry; water, cold and moist; air, hot and moist; and fire, hot and dry. They thus correspond to the four complexions, viz. melancholy, phlegmatic, sanguine, and choleric. Each principal part of the body, as the brain, heart, liver, stomach, &c., could be 'distempered,' and such distemperance could be either 'simple' or 'compound.' Thus a simple distemperature of the brain might be 'an excess of heat'; a compound one, 'an excess of heat and moisture.' See the whole system explained in Sir Thos. Elyot's Castel of Helthe; at the beginning. 422. _parfit practisour_, perfect practitioner. 424. _his bote_, his remedy; A. S. _b[=o]t_, a remedy; E. _boot_. 426. _drogges._ MS. Harl. _dragges_; the rest _drogges_, _drugges_, drugs. As to _dragges_ (which is quite a different word), the Promptorium Parvulorum has '_dragge_, dragetum'; and Cotgrave defines _dragée_ (the French form of the word _dragge_) as 'a kind of digestive powder prescribed unto weak stomachs after meat, and hence any jonkets, comfits, or sweetmeats served in the last course for stomach-closers.' _letuaries_, electuaries. '_Letuaire, laituarie_, s. m., électuaire, sorte de médicament, sirop'; Godefroy.