Of these six non-natural things, the first is diet, properly so called, which consists in meat and drink, in which we must consider substance, quantity, quality, and that opposite to the precedent.  In substance, such meats are generally commended, which are [2896]"moist, easy of digestion, and not apt to engender wind, not fried, nor roasted, but sod” (saith Valescus, Altomarus, Piso, &c.) “hot and moist, and of good nourishment;” Crato, consil. 21. lib. 2. admits roast meat, [2897]if the burned and scorched superficies, the brown we call it, be pared off.  Salvianus, lib. 2. cap. 1. cries out on cold and dry meats; [2898]young flesh and tender is approved, as of kid, rabbits, chickens, veal, mutton, capons, hens, partridge, pheasant, quails, and all mountain birds, which are so familiar in some parts of Africa, and in Italy, and as [2899]Dublinius reports, the common food of boors and clowns in Palestine.  Galen takes exception at mutton, but without question he means that rammy mutton, which is in Turkey and Asia Minor, which have those great fleshy tails, of forty-eight pounds weight, as Vertomannus witnesseth, navig. lib. 2. cap. 5. The lean of fat meat is best, and all manner of broths, and pottage, with borage, lettuce, and such wholesome herbs are excellent good, especially of a cock boiled; all spoon meat.  Arabians commend brains, but [2900]Laurentius, c. 8. excepts against them, and so do many others; [2901]eggs are justified as a nutritive wholesome meat, butter and oil may pass, but with some limitation; so [2902]Crato confines it, and “to some men sparingly at set times, or in sauce,” and so sugar and honey are approved. [2903]All sharp and sour sauces must be avoided, and spices, or at least seldom used:  and so saffron sometimes in broth may be tolerated; but these things may be more freely used, as the temperature of the party is hot or cold, or as he shall find inconvenience by them.  The thinnest, whitest, smallest wine is best, not thick, nor strong; and so of beer, the middling is fittest.  Bread of good wheat, pure, well purged from the bran is preferred; Laurentius, cap. 8. would have it kneaded with rain water, if it may be gotten.

Water.] Pure, thin, light water by all means use, of good smell and taste, like to the air in sight, such as is soon hot, soon cold, and which Hippocrates so much approves, if at least it may be had.  Rain water is purest, so that it fall not down in great drops, and be used forthwith, for it quickly putrefies.  Next to it fountain water that riseth in the east, and runneth eastward, from a quick running spring, from flinty, chalky, gravelly grounds:  and the longer a river runneth, it is commonly the purest, though many springs do yield the best water at their fountains.  The waters in hotter countries, as in Turkey, Persia, India, within the tropics, are frequently purer than ours in the north, more subtile, thin, and lighter, as our merchants observe, by four ounces in a pound, pleasanter to drink, as good as our beer, and some of them, as Choaspis in Persia, preferred by the Persian kings, before wine itself.