ing,
excites an appetite for more substantial food.

QUESTION II. WHETHER WANT OF NOURISHMENT CAUSETH HUNGER AND THIRST OR
THE CHANGE IN THE FIGURES OF THE PORES.

PHILO, PLUTARCH.

After these things were spoke, Philo the physician started the
first question, asserting that thirst did not arise from the want of
nourishment, but from the different transfiguration of certain passages.
For, says he, this may be made evident, partly from what we see happens
to those that thirst in the night, who, if sleep chance to steal upon
them, though they did not drink before, are yet rid of their thirst;
partly from persons in a fever, who, as soon as the disease abates or is
removed, thirst no more. Nay, a great many men, after they have bathed
or vomited, perceive presently that their thirst is gone; yet none
of these add anything to their former moisture, but only the
transfiguration of the pores causeth a new order and disposition. And
this is more evident in hunger; for many sick persons, at the same time
when they have the greatest need of meat, have no stomach. Others,
after they have filled their bellies, have the same stomachs, and their
appetites are rather increased than abated. There are a great many
besides who loathe all sorts of diet, yet by taking of a pickled olive
or caper recover and confirm their lost appetites. This doth clearly
evince, that hunger proceeds from some change in the pores, and not
from any want of sustenance, forasmuch as such kind of food lessens the
defect by adding food, but increases the hunger; and the pleasing relish
and poignancy of such pickles, by binding and straitening the mouth of
the ventricle, and again by opening and loosening of it, beget in it
a convenient disposition to receive meat, which we call by the name of
appetite.

I must confess this discourse seemed to carry in it some shadow of
reason and probability; but in the main it is directly repugnant to the
chief end of nature, to which appetite directs every animal. For that
makes it desire a supply of what they stand in need of, and avoid a
defect of their proper food. For to deny what especially makes a
living creature differ from an inanimate object as given to us for our
preservation and conservation (being as it were the receiver of what
supplements and agrees with the nature of our body) is the argument of
one who takes no account of natural law, especially when he would add
that the characteristic proceeds from