The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher by Aristotle (top reads .txt) 📕

Drawing of blood was first invented for good and salutary purposes, although often abused and misapplied. To bleed in the left arm removes long continued pains and headaches. It is also good for those who have got falls and bruises.

Bleeding is good for many disorders, and generally proves a cure, except in some extraordinary cases, and in those cases bleeding is hurtful. If a woman be pregnant, to draw a little blood will give her ease, good health, and a lusty child.

Bleeding is a most certain cure for no less than twenty-one disorders, without any outward or inward applications; and for many more with application of drugs, herbs and flowers.

When the moon is on the increase, you may let blood at any time day or night; but when she is on the decline, you must bleed only in the morning.

Bleeding may be performed from the month of March to November. No bleeding in December, January or February, unless an occasion require it. The months of March, April and November, are the three chief months of the year for bleeding in; but it may be performed with safety from the ninth of March to the nineteenth of November.

To prevent the dangers that may arise from she unskilful drawing of blood, let none open a but a person of experience and practice.

There are three sorts of people you must not let draw blood; first ignorant and inexperienced persons. Secondly, those who have bad sight and trembling hands, whether skilful or unskilled. For when the hand trembles, the lance is apt to start from the vein, and the flesh be thereby damaged, which may hurt, canker, and very much torment the patient. Thirdly, let no woman bleed, but such as have gone through a course of midwifery at college, for those who are unskilful may cut an artery, to the great damage of the patient. Besides, what is still worse, those pretended bleeders, who take it up at their own hand, generally keep unedged and rusty lancets, which prove hurtful, even in a skilful hand. Accordingly you ought to be cautious in choosing your physician; a man of learning knows what vein to open for each disorder; he knows how much blood to take as soon as he sees the patient, and he can give you suitable advice concerning your disorder.

Q. Among all living creatures, why hath man only his countenance lifted up towards Heaven. A. 1. From the will of the Creator. But although this answer be true, yet it seemeth not to be of force, because that so all questions might be easily resolved. Therefore, 2. I answer that, for the most part, every workman doth make his first work worse, and then his second better! so God creating all other animals before man gave them their face looking down to the earth; and then secondly he created man, unto whom he gave an upright shape, lifted unto heaven, because it is drawn from divinity, and it is derived from the goodness of God, who maketh all his works both perfect and good. 3. Man only, among all living creatures, is ordained to the kingdom of heaven, and therefore hath his face elevated and lifted up to heaven, because that despising earthly and worldly things, he ought often to contemplate on heavenly things. 4. That the reasonable man is like unto angels, and finally ordained towards God; and therefore he hath a figure looking upward. 5. Man is a microcosm, that is, a little world, and therefore he doth command all other living creatures and they obey him. 6. Naturally there is unto everything and every work, that form and figure given which is fit and proper for its motion; as unto the heavens, roundness, to the fire a pyramidical form, that is, broad beneath and sharp towards the top, which form is most apt to ascend; and so man has his face towards heaven to behold the wonders of God's works.

Q. Why are the heads of men hairy? A. The hair is the ornament of the head, and the brain is purged of gross humours by the growing of the hair, from the highest to the lowest, which pass through the pores of the exterior flesh, become dry, and are converted into hair. This appears to be the case, from the circumstance that in all man's body there is nothing drier than the hair, for it is drier than the bones; and it is well known that some beasts are nourished with bones, as dogs, but they cannot digest feathers or hair, but void them undigested, being too hot for nourishment. 2. It is answered, that the brain is purged in three different ways; of superfluous watery humours by the eyes, of choler by the nose, and of phlegm by the hair, which is the opinion of the best physicians.

Q. Why have men longer hair on their heads than any other living creature? A. Arist. de Generat. Anim. says, that men have the moistest brain of all living creatures from which the seed proceedeth which is converted into the long hair of the head. 2. The humours of men are fat, and do not become dry easily; and therefore the hair groweth long on them. In beasts, the humours easily dry, and therefore the hair groweth not so long.

Q. Why doth the hair take deeper root in man's skin than in that of any other living creatures? A. Because it has greater store of nourishment in man, and therefore grows more in the inward parts of man. And this is the reason why in other creatures the hair doth alter and change with the skin, and not in man, unless by a scar or wound.

Q. Why have women longer hair than men? A. Because women are moister and more phlegmatic than men, and therefore there is more matter for hair to them, and, by consequence, the length also of their hair. And, furthermore, this matter is more increased in women than men from their interior parts, and especially in the time of their monthly terms, because the matter doth then ascend, whereby the humour that breedeth the hair, doth increase. 2. Because women want beards; so the matter of the beard doth go into that of the hair.

Q. Why have some women soft hair and some hard? A. 1. The hair hath proportion with the skin; of which some is hard, some thick, some subtle and soft, some gross; therefore, the hair which grows out of thick, gross skin, is thick and gross; that which groweth out of a subtle and fine skin, is fine and soft; when the pores are open, then cometh forth much humour, and therefore hard hair is engendered; and when the pores are strait, then there doth grow soft and fine hair. This doth evidently appear in men, because women have softer hair than they; for in women the pores are shut and strait, by reason of their coldness. 2. Because for the most part, choleric men have harder and thicker hair than others, by reason of their heat, and because their pores are always open, and therefore they have beards sooner than others. For this reason also, beasts that have hard hair are boldest, because such have proceeded from heat and choler, examples of which we have in the bear and the boar; and contrariwise, those beasts that have soft hair are fearful, because they are cold, as the hare and the hart. 3. From the climate where a man is born; because in hot regions hard and gross hair is engendered, as appears in the Ethiopians, and the contrary is the case is cold countries toward the north.

Q. Why have some men curled hair, and some smooth? A. From the superior degree of heat in some men, which makes the hair curl and grow upward; this is proved by a man's having smooth hair when he goes into a hot bath, and it afterwards becomes curled. Therefore keepers of baths have often curled hair, as also Ethiopians and choleric men. But the cause of this smoothness, is the abundance of moist humours.

Q. Why do women show ripeness by hair in their privy parts, and not elsewhere, but men in their breasts? A. Because in men and women there is abundance of humidity in that place, but most in women, as men have the mouth of the bladder in that place, where the urine is contained, of which the hair in the breast is engendered, and especially that about the navel. But of women in general, it is said, that the humidity of the bladder of the matrix, or womb, is joined and meeteth in that lower secret place, and therefore is dissolved and separated in that place into vapours and fumes, which are the cause of hair. And the like doth happen in other places, as in the hair under the arms.

Q. Why have not women beards? A. Because they want heat; which is the case with some effeminate men, who are beardless from the same cause, to have complexions like women.

Q. Why doth the hair grow on those that are hanged? A. Because their bodies are exposed to the sun, which, by its heat doth dissolve all moisture into the fume or vapour of which the hair doth grow.

Q. Why is the hair of the beard thicker and grosser than elsewhere; and the more men are shaven, the harder and thicker it groweth? A. Because by so much as the humours or vapours of a liquid are dissolved and taken away, so much the more doth the humour remaining draw to the same; and therefore the more the hair is shaven, the thicker the humours gather which engender the hair, and cause it to wax hard.

Q. Why are women smooth and fairer than men? A. Because in women much of the humidity and superfluity, which are the matter and cause of the hair of the body, is expelled with their monthly terms; which superfluity, remaining in men, through vapours passes into hair.

Q. Why doth man, above all other creatures, wax hoary and gray? A. Because man hath the hottest heart of all living creatures; and therefore, nature being most wise, lest a man should be suffocated through the heat of his heart, hath placed the heart, which is most hot, under the brain, which is most cold; to the end that the heat of the heart may be tempered by the coldness of the brain; and contrariwise, that the coldness of the brain may be qualified by the heat of the heart; and thereby there might be a temperature in both. A proof of this is, that of all living creatures man hath the worst breath when he comes to full age. Furthermore, man doth consume nearly half his time in sleep, which doth proceed from the great excess of coldness and moisture in the brain, and from his wanting natural heat to digest and consume that moisture, which heat he hath in his youth, and therefore, in that age is not gray, but in old age, when heat faileth; because then the vapours ascending from the stomach remain undigested and unconsumed for want of natural heat, and thus putrefy, on which putrefaction of humours that the whiteness doth follow, which is called grayness or hoariness. Whereby it doth