Airs Waters Places (6-10)

Such are the conditions in these cities. Those that lie towards the settings of the sun, and are

sheltered from the east winds, while the hot winds and the cold north winds blow past them—these cities must have a most unhealthy situation. In the first place, the waters are not clear, the reason being that in the morning mist is generally prevalent, which dissolves in the water and destroys its clearness, as the sun does not shine upon it before it is high on the horizon. In the summer cold breezes blow in the morning and there are heavy dews; for the rest of the day the sun as it advances towards the west thoroughly scorches the inhabitants, so that they are likely to be pale and sickly, subject to all the diseases aforesaid, for none are peculiar to them.[*] They are likely to have deep, hoarse voices, because of the atmosphere, since it is usually impure and unhealthy in such places. For while it is not clarified much by the north winds, which are not prevalent there, the winds that do prevail insistently are very rainy, such being the nature of westerly winds. Such a situation for a city is precisely like autumn in respect of the changes of the day, seeing that the difference between sunrise and afternoon is great.

So much for winds, healthy and unhealthy. I wish now to treat of waters, those that bring disease or very good health, and of the ill or good that is likely to arise from water. For the influence

of water upon health is very great. Such as are marshy, standing and stagnant must in summer be hot, thick and stinking, because there is no outflow; and as fresh rain-water is always flowing in and the sun heats them, they must be of bad colour, unhealthy and bilious. In winter they must be frosty, cold and turbid through the snow and frosts, so as to be very conducive to phlegm and sore throats. Those who drink it have always large, stiff spleens, and hard, thin, hot stomachs, while their shoulders, collar-bones and faces are emaciated; the fact is that their flesh dissolves to feed the spleen, so that they are lean. With such a constitution they eat and drink heavily. Their digestive organs, upper and lower, are very dry and very hot, so that they need more powerful drugs. This malady is endemic both in summer and in winter. In addition the dropsies that occur are very numerous and very fatal. For in the summer there are epidemics of dysentery, diarrhoea and long quartan fever, which diseases when prolonged cause constitutions such as I have described to develop dropsies that result in death. These are their maladies in summer. In winter young people suffer from pneumonia and illnesses attended by delirium, the older, through the hardness of their digestive organs, from ardent fever. Among the women occur swellings and leucophlegmasia; they conceive hardly and are delivered with difficulty. The babies are big and swollen, and then, as they are nursed, they oecome emaciated[*] and miserable. The discharge after childbirth is bad. Children are very subject to hernia and men to enlarged veins and to ulcers on the legs, so that such constitutions cannot be long-lived but must grow prematurely old. Moreover, the women appear to be with child, yet, when the time of delivery comes, the fullness of the womb disappears, this being caused by dropsy in that organ. Such waters I hold to be absolutely bad. The next worst will be those whose springs are from rocks—for they must be hard—or from earth where there are hot waters, or iron is to be found, or copper, or silver, or gold, or sulphur, or alum, or bitumen, or soda. For all these result from the violence of the heat. So from such earth good waters cannot come, but hard, heating waters, difficult to pass and causing constipation. The best are those that flow from high places and earthy hills. By themselves they are sweet and clear, and the wine they can stand is but little. In winter they are warm, in summer cold. They would naturally be so, coming from very deep springs. I commend especially those whose flow breaks forth towards the rising—by preference the summer rising—of the sun. For they must be brighter, sweet-smelling and light; while all that are salt, harsh and hard are not good to drink, though there are some constitutions and some diseases which are benefited by drinking such waters, concerning which I will speak presently. Aspect affects spring waters thus. Those whose sources face the risings of the sun are the very best. Second in excellence come those between the summer risings and the summer settings, by preference in the direction of the risings. Third best are those between the summer and winter settings. The worst are those that face the south, and those between the winter rising and setting. These are very bad indeed when the winds are in the south, less bad when they are in the north. Spring waters should be used thus. A man in health and strength can drink any water that is at hand without distinction, but he who because of disease wishes to drink the most suitable can best attain health in the following way. Those whose digestive organs are hard and easily heated will gain benefit from the sweetest, lightest and most sparkling waters. But those whose bellies are soft, moist, and phlegmatic, benefit from the hardest, most harsh and saltish waters, for these are the best to dry them up. For waters that are best for cooking and most solvent naturally loosen the digestive organs the most and relax them; but harsh waters, hard and very bad for cooking, contract most these organs and dry them up. In fact the public are mistaken about saline waters through inexperience, in that they are generally considered to be laxative. The truth is that they are just the reverse; they are harsh and bad for cooking, so that the digestive organs too are stiffened by them rather than loosened.

Such are the facts about spring waters. I will now proceed to speak of rain water and snow water. Rain waters are the lightest, sweetest, finest and clearest. To begin with, the sun raises and draws up the finest and lightest part of water, as is proved by the formation of salt. The brine, owing to its coarseness and weight, is left behind and becomes salt; the finest part, owing to its lightness, is drawn up by the sun. Not only from pools does the sun raise this part, but also from the sea and from whatever has moisture in it—and there is moisture in everything. Even from men it raises the finest and lightest part of their juices. The plainest evidence thereof is that when a man walks or sits in the sun wearing a cloak, the parts of his skin reached by the sun will not sweat, for it draws up each layer of sweat as it appears. But those parts sweat which are covered by his cloak or by anything else. For the sweat drawn forcibly out by the sun is prevented by the covering from disappearing through the sun’s power. But when the man has come into a shady place, his whole body sweats alike, as the sun no longer shines upon it. For this reason too rain-water grows foul quicker than any other, and has a bad smell; being a mixture gathered from very many sources it grows foul very quickly. Furthermore, when it has been carried away aloft, and has combined with the atmosphere as it circles round, the turbid, dark part of it separates out, changes and becomes mist and fog, while the clearest and

lightest part of it remains, and is sweetened as the heat of the sun produces coction, just as all other things always become sweeter through coction. Now as long as it is scattered and uncondensed, it travels about aloft, but as soon as it collects anywhere and is compressed into one place owing to sudden, contrary winds, then it bursts wherever the most compression happens to take place. For this is more likely to occur when the clouds, set in motion and carried along by a wind that allows them no rest, are suddenly encountered by a contrary blast and by other clouds.[*] In such cases the front is compressed, the rear comes on and is thus thickened, darkened and compressed into one place, so that the weight bursts it and causes rain. Such waters are naturally the best. But they need to be boiled and purified[*] from foulness if they are not to have a bad smell, and give sore throat, coughs and hoarseness to those who drink them.

Waters from snow and ice are all bad. For, once frozen, water never recovers its original nature, but the clear, light, sweet part is separated out and disappears, while the muddiest and heaviest part remains. The following experiment will prove it. Pour by measure, in winter, water into a vessel and set it in the open, where it will freeze best; then on the next day bring it under cover, where the ice will

melt best; if, when it is dissolved, you measure it again you will find it much diminished. This shows that freezing dries up and causes to disappear the lightest and finest part, not the heaviest and coarsest, to do which it has no power. In this way, therefore, I am of opinion that such waters, derived from snow or ice, and waters similar to these, are the worst for all purposes.

Such are the properties of rain waters, and of those from snow and ice. Stone, kidney disease, strangury and sciatica are very apt to attack people, and ruptures occur, when they drink water of very many different kinds, or from large rivers, into which other rivers flow, or from a lake fed by many streams of various sorts, and whenever they use foreign waters coming from a great, not a short, distance. For one water cannot be like another; some are sweet, others are impregnated with salt and alum, others flow from hot springs. These when mixed up together disagree, and the strongest always prevails. But the strongest is not always the same; sometimes it is one, sometimes another, according to the winds. One has its strength from a north wind, another from the south wind, and similarly with the others. Such waters then must leave a sediment of mud and sand in the vessels, and drinking them causes the diseases mentioned before. That there are exceptions I will proceed to set forth.

Those whose bowels are loose and healthy, whose bladder is not feverish, and the mouth of whose bladder is not over narrow, pass water easily, and no

solid matter forms in their bladder. But feverishness of the bowels must be accompanied by feverishness of the bladder. For when it is abnormally heated its mouth is inflamed. In this condition it does not expel the urine, but concocts and heats it within itself. The finest part is separated off, and the clearest passes out as urine, while the thickest and muddiest part forms solid matter, which, though at first small, grows in course of time. For as it rolls about in the urine it coalesces with whatever solid matter forms, and so it grows and hardens. When the patient makes water, it is forced by the urine to fall against the mouth of the bladder, and staying the flow of the urine causes violent pain. So that boys that suffer from stone rub and pull at their privy parts, under the impression that there lies the cause of their making water.[*] That my account is correct is shown by the fact that sufferers from stone emit urine that is very clear, as the thickest and muddiest part of it remains and solidifies. This in most cases is the cause of stone. Children get stone also from the milk, if it be unhealthy, too hot and bilious. For it heats the bowels and the bladder, so that the urine is heated and affected as I have described. And my opinion is that we should give to young children only very diluted wine, which heats and parches the veins less. Females suffer less from stone. For their urethra is short and broad, so that the urine is easily expelled. Nor do they rub the privy parts as do males, nor handle the urethra. For it opens directly into the privy parts, which is not so with males, nor is their urethra wide. And they drink more than boys do.

This, or something very like this, is the truth concerning these matters. As to the seasons, a consideration of the following points will make it possible to decide whether the year will prove unhealthy or healthy. If the signs prove normal when the stars set and rise; if there be rains in autumn, if the winter be moderate, neither too mild nor unseasonably cold, and if the rains be seasonable in spring and in summer, the year is likely to be very healthy. If, on the other hand, the winter prove dry and northerly, the spring rainy and southerly, the summer cannot fail to be feverladen, causing ophthalmia and dysenteries. For whenever the great heat comes on suddenly while the earth is soaked by reason of the spring rains and the south wind, the heat cannot fail to be doubled, coming from the hot, sodden earth and the burning sun; men’s bowels not being braced nor their brain dried—for when spring is such the body and its flesh must necessarily be flabby—the fevers that attack are of the acutest type in all cases, especially among the phlegmatic. Dysenteries are also likely to come upon women and the most humid constitutions. If at the rising of the Dog Star stormy rain occurs and the Etesian winds blow, there is hope that the distempers will cease and that the autumn will be healthy. Otherwise there is danger lest deaths

occur among the women and children, and least of all among the old men; and lest those that get better lapse into quartans, and from quartans into dropsies. But if the winter be southerly, rainy and mild, and the spring be northerly, dry and wintry, in the first place women with child whose delivery is due by spring suffer abortion; and if they do bring forth, their children are weak and sickly, so that either they die at once, or live puny, weak and sickly. Such is the fate of the women. The others have dysenteries and dry ophthalmia, and in some cases catarrhs descend from the head to the lungs. Phlegmatics are liable to dysenteries, and women also, phlegm running down from the brain because of the humidity of their constitution. The bilious have dry ophthalmia because of the warm dryness of their flesh. Old men have catarrhs because of their flabbiness and the wasting of their veins, so that some die suddenly, while others become paralyzed on the right side or the left. For whenever, owing to the winter being southerly and the body warm, neither brain nor veins are hardened, a northerly, dry, cold spring supervening, the brain, just at the time when it ought to have been relaxed along with spring and purged by cold in the head and hoarseness, congeals and hardens, so that the heat of summer having suddenly supervened and the change supervening, these diseases befall. Such cities as are well situated with regard to sun and winds, and use good waters, are less affected by such changes; but if they use marshy or standing waters, and are not well situated with regard to winds and sun, they are more affected. If the summer prove dry, the diseases cease more quickly; if it be rainy, they are protracted. Sores are apt to fester from the slightest cause. Lienteries and dropsies supervene on the conclusion of the diseases, as the bowels do not readily dry up. If the summer and the autumn be rainy and southerly, the winter must be unhealthy; phlegmatics and men over forty are likely to suffer from ardent fevers, bilious people from pleurisy and pneumonia. If the summer prove dry and northerly, and the autumn rainy and southerly, it is likely that in winter headaches occur and mortifications of the brain,[*] and in addition hoarseness, colds in the head, coughs, and in some cases consumption as well. But if the weather be northerly and dry, with no rain either during the Dog Star or at Arcturus, it is very beneficial to those who have a phlegmatic or humid constitution, and to women, but it is very harmful to the bilious. For these dry up overmuch, and are attacked by dry ophthalmia and by acute, protracted fevers, in some cases too by melancholies. For the most humid and watery part of the bile is dried up and is spent, while the thickest and most acrid part is left, and similarly with the blood. Consequently these diseases come upon them. But all these conditions are helpful to the phlegmatic, for they dry up and reach winter dried up and not flabby.