Q. What are the properties of a choleric man?  A. He is brown in complexion, unquiet, his veins hidden, eateth little and digesteth less, dreameth of dark and confused things, is sad, fearful, exceedingly covetous, and incontinent.

Q. What dreams do follow these complexions?  A. Pleasant, merry dreams do follow the sanguine; fearful dreams, the melancholic; the choleric dream of children fighting and fire; the phlegmatic dream of water.  This is the reason why a man’s complexion is said to be known by his dreams.

Q. What is the reason that if you cover an egg over with salt, and let it lie in it a few days, all the meat within is consumed?  A. A great dryness of the salt consumes the substance of the egg.

Q. Why is the melancholic complexion the worst?  A. Because it proceeds from the dregs of the blood, is an enemy to mirth and bringeth on aged appearance and death, being cold and dry.

Q. What is the cause that some men die joyful, and some in extreme grief?  A. Over-great joy doth overmuch heat the internal parts of the body; and overmuch grief doth drown and suffocate the heart, which failing, a man dieth.

Q. Why hath a man so much hair on his head?  A. The hair on his head proceeds from the vapours which arise from the stomach, and ascend to the head, and also of the superfluities which are in the brain; and those two passing through the pores of the head are converted into hair, by reason of the heat and dryness of the head.  And because man’s body is full of humours, and he hath more brains than any other living creatures.

Q. How many ways is the brain purged and other hidden places of the body?  A. Four; the watery and gross humours are purged by the eyes, melancholy by the ears, choler by the nose, and phlegm by the hair.

Q. What is the reason that such as are very fat in their youth, are in danger of dying on a sudden?  A. Such have very small and close veins, by reason of their fatness, so that the air and the breath can hardly have free course in them; and thereupon the natural heat wanting the refreshment of air, is put out, and as it were, quenched.

Q. Why do garlic and onions grow after they are gathered?  A. It proceedeth from the humidity that is in them.

Q. Why do men feel cold sooner than women?  A. Because men, being more hot than women, have their pores more open, and therefore it doth sooner enter into them than women.

Q. Why are not old men so subject to the plague as young men and children?  A. They are cold, and their pores are not so open as in youth; and therefore the infecting air doth not penetrate so soon by reason of their coldness.

Q. Why do we cast water in a man’s face when he swooneth?  A. Because through the coldness of water the heat may run to the heart, and so give strength.

Q. Why are those waters best and most delicate which run towards the rising sun?  A. Because they are soonest stricken with the sunbeams, and made pure and subtle, the sun having them under it, and by that means taking off the coldness and gross vapours which they gather from the ground they run through.