Aristotle's works:: Containing the Master-piece, Directions for Midwives, and Counsel and Advice to Child-bearing Women with Various Useful Remedies
Aristotle · en
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 earthy matter mixed
with it, that makes it somewhat salt.
Q. How is women’s blood thicker than men’s? A. 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, &c. to nourish all the body.
_Of the Urine._
Q. How doth the urine come into the bladder, seeing the bladder is shut?
A. Some say by sweating; 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 and 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 hinders digestion.
Q. Why is it unwholesome to drink new wine? A. 1. It cannot be digested;
therefore it causes 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 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. But 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
superfluities 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 agues if they should remain
in it; and purges the eyes and head, clearing the brain.
Q. How comes sleep to strengthen the stomach and digestive faculty? A.
Because in sleep the heat draws inwards, and helps digestion: but when
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
guts is blueish and yellow; therefore when its pores are stopped, the
humours 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, no gall? A. Those creatures have
no gall in one place, as in a purse or vessel, yet they have one
dispersed in small veins.