cramps. In many, a debauch ends in a dead palsy, when the
wine stupefies and extinguisheth all the heat. And the physicians use
this method in curing the qualms and diseases gotten by debauch; at
night they cover them well and keep them warm; and at day they annoint
and bathe, and give them such food as shall not disturb, but by degrees
recover the heat which the wine hath scattered and driven out of the
body. Thus, I added, in these appearances we trace obscure qualities and
powers; but as for drunkenness, it is easily known what it is. For, in
my opinion, as I hinted before, those that are drunk are very much like
old men; and therefore great drinkers grow old soonest, and they are
commonly bald and gray before their time; and all these accidents
certainly proceed from want of heat. But mere vinegar is of a vinous
nature, and nothing quenches fire so soon as that; its extreme coldness
overcomes and kills the flame presently. And of all fruits physicians
use the vinous as the greatest coolers, as pomegranates and apples.
Besides, do they not make wine by mixing honey with rain-water or snow;
for the cold, because those two qualities are near akin, if it prevails,
changes the luscious into a poignant taste? And did not the ancients of
all the creeping beasts consecrate the snake to Bacchus, and of all the
plants the ivy, because they were of a cold and frozen nature? Now, lest
any one should think this is a proof of its heat, that if a man takes
juice of hemlock, a large dose of wine cures him, I shall, on the
contrary affirm that wine and hemlock juice mixed is an incurable
poison, and kills him that drinks it presently. So that we can no more
conclude it to be hot because it resists, than to be cold because it
assists, the poison. For cold is the only quality by which hemlock juice
works and kills.

QUESTION VI. WHICH IS THE FITTEST TIME FOR A MAN TO KNOW HIS WIFE?

YOUTHS, ZOPYRUS, OLYMPICHUS, SOCLARUS.

Some young students, that had not gone far in the learning of the
ancients, inveighed against Epicurus for bringing in, in his Svmposium,
an impertinent and unseemly discourse, about what time was best to lie
with a woman; for an old man at supper in the company of youths to talk
of such a subject, and dispute whether after or before supper was the
most convenient time, argued him to be a very loose and debauched man.
To this some said that Xenophon, after his entertainment was ended, sent
all his guests home o