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.

Of the Paps and Dugs.

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.