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

Q. From whence do nails proceed? A. Of the tumosity and humours, which are resolved and go into the extremities of the fingers; and they are dried through the power of the external air, and brought to the hardness of horn.

Q. Why do the nails of old men grow black and pale? A. Because the heat of the heart decaying causeth their beauty to decay also.

Q. Why are men judged to be good or evil complexioned by the colour of the nails? A. Because they give witness of the goodness or badness of their heart, and therefore of the complexion, for if they be somewhat red, they betoken choler well tempered; but if they be yellowish or black, they signify melancholy.

Q. Why do white spots appear in the nails? A. Through mixture of phlegm with nutriment.

Q. Why are the paps placed upon the breasts? A. Because the breast is the seat of the heart, which is most hot; and therefore the paps grow there, to the end that the menses being conveyed thither as being near the heat of the heart, should the sooner be digested, perfected and converted with the matter and substance of the milk.

Q. Why are the paps below the breasts in beasts, and above the breast in women? A. Because woman goes upright, and has two legs only; and therefore if her paps were below her breasts, they would hinder her going; but beasts having four feet prevents that inconveniency.

Q. Whether are great, small or middle-sized paps best for children to suck? A. In great ones the heat is dispersed, there is no good digestion of the milk; but in small ones the power and force is strong, because a virtue united is strongest; and by consequence there is a good digestion for the milk.

Q. Why have not men as great paps and breasts as women? A. Because men have not monthly terms, and therefore have no vessel deputed for them.

Q. Why do the paps of young women begin to grow about thirteen or fifteen years of age? A. Because then the flowers have no course to the teats, by which the young one is nourished, but follow their ordinary course and therefore wax soft.

Q. Why hath a woman who is with child of a boy, the right pap harder than the left? A. Because the male child is conceived in the right side of the mother; and therefore the flowers do run to the right pap, and make it hard.

Q. Why doth it show weakness of the child, when the milk doth drop out of the paps before the woman is delivered? A. Because the milk is the proper nutriment of the child in the womb of its mother, therefore if the milk run out, it is a token that the child is not nourished, and consequently is weak.

Q. Why do the hardness of the paps betoken the health of the child in the womb? A. Because the flowers are converted into milk, and thereby strength is signified.

Q. Why are women's paps hard when they be with child, and soft at other times? A. Because they swell then, and are puffed, and the great moisture which proceeds from the flowers doth run into the paps, which at other seasons remaineth in the matrix and womb, and is expelled by the place deputed for that end.

Q. By what means doth the milk of the paps come to the matrix or womb? A. There is a certain knitting and coupling of the paps with the womb, and there are certain veins which the midwives do cut in the time of the birth of the child, and by those veins the milk flows in at the navel of the child, and so it receives nourishment by the navel.

Q. Why is it a sign of a male child in the womb when the milk that runneth out of a woman's breast is thick, and not much, and of a female when it is thin? A. Because a woman that goeth with a boy hath a great heat in her, which doth perfect the milk and make it thick; but she who goes with a girl hath not so much heat, and therefore the milk is undigested, imperfect, watery and thin, and will swim above the water if it be put into it.

Q. Why is the milk white, seeing the flowers are red, of which it is engendered? A. Because blood which is well purged and concocted becomes white, as appeareth in flesh whose proper colour is white, and being boiled, is white. Also, because every humour which is engendered of the body, is made like unto that part in colour where it is engendered as near as it can be; but because the flesh of the paps is white, therefore the colour of the milk is white.

Q. Why doth a cow give milk more abundantly than other beasts? A. Because she is a great eating beast, where there is much monthly superfluity engendered, there is much milk; because it is nothing else but the blood purged and tried.

Q. Why is not milk wholesome? A. 1. Because it curdeth in the stomach, whereof an evil breath is bred. 2. Because the milk doth grow sour in the stomach, where evil humours are bred, and infect the breath.

Q. Why is milk bad for such as have the headache? A. Because it is easily turned into great fumosities, and hath much terrestrial substance in it, the which ascending, doth cause the headache.

Q. Why is milk fit nutriment for infants? A. Because it is a natural and usual food, and they were nourished by the same in the womb.

Q. Why are the white-meats made of a newly milked cow good? A. Because milk at that time is very springy, expels fumosities, and, as it were, purges at that time.

Q. Why is the milk naught for the child, if the woman giving suck uses carnal copulation? A. Because in time of carnal copulation, the best part of the milk goes to the seed vessels, and to the womb, and the worst remain in the paps, which hurts the child.

Q. Why do physicians forbid the eating of fish and milk at the same time? A. Because they produce a leprosy, and because they are phlegmatic.

Q. Why have not birds and fish milk and paps? A. Because paps would hinder the flight of birds. And although fish have neither paps nor milk, the females cast much spawn, which the male touches with a small gut, and causes their kind to continue in succession.

Q. Why have beasts a back? A. 1. Because the back is the way and mien of the body from which are extended and spread throughout, all the sinews of the backbone. 2. Because it should be a guard and defence for the soft parts of the body, as for the stomach, liver, lights and such like. 3. Because it is the foundation of all the bones, as the ribs, fastened to the back bone.

Q. Why hath the back bone so many joints or knots, called spondyli? A. Because the moving and bending it, without such joints, could not be done; and therefore they are wrong who say that elephants have no such joints, for without them they could not move.

Q. Why do fish die after their back bones are broken? A. Because in fish the back bone is instead of the heart; now the heart is the first thing that lives and the last that dies; and when that bone is broken, fish can live no longer.

Q. Why doth a man die soon after the marrow is hurt or perished? A. Because the marrow proceeds from the brain, which is the principal part of a man.

Q. Why have some men the piles? A. Those men are cold and melancholy, which melancholy first passes to the spleen, its proper seat, but there cannot be retained, for the abundancy of blood; for which reason it is conveyed to the back bone, where there are certain veins which terminate in the back, and receive the blood. When those veins are full of the melancholy blood, then the conduits of nature are opened, and the blood issues out once a month, like women's terms. Those men who have this course of blood, are kept from many infirmities, such as dropsy, plague, etc.

Q. Why are the Jews much subject to this disease? A. Because they eat much phlegmatic and cold meats, which breed melancholy blood, which is purged with the flux. Another reason is, motion causes heat and heat digestion; but strict Jews neither move, labour nor converse much, which breeds a coldness in them, and hinders digestion, causing melancholic blood, which is by this means purged out.

Q. Why are the lungs light, spongy and full of holes? A. That the air may be received into them for cooling the heart, and expelling humours, because the lungs are the fan of the heart; and as a pair of bellows is raised up by taking in the air, and shrunk by blowing it out, so likewise the lungs draw the air to cool the heart, and cast it out, lest through too much air drawn in, the heart should be suffocated.

Q. Why is the flesh of the lungs white? A. Because they are in continual motion.

Q. Why have those beasts only lungs that have hearts? A. Because the lungs be no part for themselves, but for the heart, and therefore, it were superfluous for those creatures to have lungs that have no hearts.

Q. Why do such creatures as have no lungs want a bladder? A. Because such drink no water to make their meat digest and need no bladder for urine; as appears in such birds as do not drink at all, viz., the falcon and sparrow hawk.

Q. Why is the heart in the midst of the body? A. That it may import life to all, parts of the body, and therefore it is compared to the sun, which is placed in the midst of the planets, to give light to them all.

Q. Why only in men is the heart on the left side? A. To the end that the heat of the heart may mitigate the coldness of the spleen; for the spleen is the seat of melancholy, which is on the left side also.

Q. Why is the heart first engendered; for the heart doth live first and die last? A. Because the heart is the beginning and original of life, and without it no part can live. For of the seed retained in the matrix, there is first engendered a little small skin, which compasses the seed; whereof first the heart is made of the purest blood; then of blood not so pure, the liver; and of thick and cold blood the marrow and brain.

Q. Why are beasts bold that have little hearts? A. Because in a little heart the heat is well united and vehement, and the blood touching it, doth quickly heat it and is speedily carried to the other parts of the body, which give courage and boldness.

Q. Why are creatures with a large heart timorous, as the hare? A. The heart is dispersed in such a one, and not able to heat the blood which cometh to it; by which means fear is bred.

Q. How is it that the heart is continually moving? A. Because in it there is a certain spirit which is more subtle than