Q. Why do some dream in their sleep that they are in the water and
drowned, and some that they were in the water and not drowned;
especially such as are phlegmatic? A. Because when the phlegmatic
substance doth turn to the high parts of the body, then many think they
are in the water and drowned; but when that substance draweth into the
internal parts, then they think they escape. Another reason may be,
overmuch repletion and drunkenness: and therefore, when men are overmuch
filled with meat, the fumes and vapours ascend and gather together, and
they think they are drowned and strangled; but if they cannot ascend so
high then they seem to escape.
Q. May a man procure a dream by an external cause? A. It may be done. If
a man speak softly in another man's ear and awake him not, then of his
stirring of the spirits there are thunderings and buzzings in the head,
which cause dreamings.
Q. How many humours are there in a man's body? A. Four, whereof every
one hath its proper place. The first is choler, called by physicians
_flava bilis_, which is placed in the liver. The second is melancholy,
called _atra bilis_, whose seat is in the spleen. The third is phlegm,
whose place is in the head. The fourth is blood, whose place is in the
heart.
Q. What condition and quality hath a man of a sanguine complexion? A.
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