Q. What is the reason, that if you cast a stone into 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 that 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 heard. 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 cease? 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 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 conduits of the nostrils, as belching doth the stomach, or breaking wind 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 carcases 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 grayness.