Q. Why do men wink in the act of copulation, and find a little
alteration in all other senses? A. Because, being overcome by the effect
of that pleasure, they do comprehend it the better.
Q. Why have children gravel breeding in their bladders, and old men in
their kidneys and veins? A. Because children have straight passages in
their kidneys, and an earthly thick humour is thrust with violence by
the urine to the bladder, which hath wide conduits or passages, that
give room for the urine and humour whereof gravel is engendered, which
waxes thick, and seats itself, as the manner of it is. In old men it is
the reverse, for they have wide passages of the veins, back and kidneys,
that the urine may pass away, and the earthly humour congeal and sink
down; the colour of the gravel shows the humour whereof the stone comes.
Q. Why is it, if the stone do congeal and wax hard through heat, we use
not contrary things to dissolve it by coldness, but light things, as
parsley, fennel and the like? A. It is thought, to fall out by an
excessive scorching heat, by which the stones do crumble into sand, as
in the manner of earthen vessels, which, when they are overheated or
roasted, turn to sand. And by this means it happens that small stones
are avoided, together with sand, in making water.
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