herbs, and fruits when they become putrid; for we see that such animals and putrefactions take place in humid bodies. Those things which are intensely bitter (I call those things such which have no other manifest quality) are uneatable, not only by men, but by almost all animals, because every living creature is more or less humid, and bitter things are dry in like manner as ashes and cinders. As, therefore, that which is truly sweet is nutritive, and that which is purely bitter innutritive, so those things which are intermediate are nutritive indeed, but less so than the sweet. The salt juice is allied to the bitter, for both are terrene and hot; but they differ from one another perceptibly in this, that the bitter is more attenuated and wrought by the heat and dryness; and thus, too, of salts, such as are hard, denser, and more terrene (as are almost all the fossils), are less calefacient and attenuating; but such as are brittle and porous are at the same time more attenuating and hotter; and some of them are bitterish, being intermediate between the hard salts and aphronitrum; and if you will warm any saltish thing to a great degree it will straightway become bitter. Thus, the water of the Lake Asphaltitis, which they call the Dead Sea, being contained within a hollow and hot place, and overheated by the sun, becomes bitter, and for this reason it becomes more bitter in summer than in winter. And if you will draw some of it, and put it into a hollow vessel in a place exposed to the sun during the summer season it will straightway become more bitter than it generally is. For no animals appear to be found in such water, neither plants; and although the rivers which fall into it contain many large fishes, more especially the river near Jericho called Jordan, none of the fishes pass the mouth of the river, and if you will catch some and throw them into the Lake, you will see that they die immediately, and hence it is called the Dead Lake or Sea. Thus, that which is intensely bitter is inimical to all plants and animals, and is of a parched and dry nature, becoming like soot from roasting. Having, therefore, settled the powers of bitter juices, and said that they are cutting, detergent, attenuant, and decidedly hot, to such a degree only as not to burn, we shall next proceed to the acrid; and first we may say of them that they are truly hot, then corrosive, caustic, escharotic, and of a dissolvent nature, when applied externally to the skin; but when taken internally, those which, in their whole substance are adverse to certain animals, are all septic and destructive to them, as the cantharis and buprestis are to men. But such as are distinguished only by excess of their heating powers, if thicker and terrene, as arsenic, sandarach, and the like, we call ulcerative of the internal parts; but if they consist of subtile parts, such as the common seeds, carrot, anise, and the like, they are diuretic, diaphoretic, and, in a word, cutting and