Q. Why have some persons stinking breath? A. Because of the evil fumes
that arise from the stomach. And sometimes it doth proceed from the
corruption of the airy parts of the body, as the lungs. The breath of
lepers is so infected that it would poison birds if near them, because
the inward parts are very corrupt.
Q. Why are lepers hoarse? A. Because the vocal instruments are
corrupted, that is, the lights.
Q. Why do persons become hoarse? A. Because of the rheum descending from
the brain, filling the conduit of the lights; and sometimes through
imposthumes of the throat, or rheum gathering in the neck.
Q. Why have the females of all living creatures the shrillest voices,
the crow only excepted, and a woman a shriller and smaller voice than a
man? A. By reason of the composition of the veins and vocal arteries the
voice is formed, as appears by this similitude, that a small pipe
sounds shriller than a great. Also in women, because the passage where
the voice is formed is made narrow and strait, by reason of cold, it
being the nature of cold to bind; but in men, the passage is open and
wider through heat, because it is the property of heat to open and
dissolve. It proceedeth in women through the moistness of the lungs, and
weakness of the heat. Young and diseased men have sharp and shrill
voices from the same cause.
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