tly fitted to each part of the body, not applied,
as they would have it, to little vessels and pores, but united and
incorporated with the whole substance. And unless the thing were
explained after this manner, the hardest knot in the question would
still remain unsolved. For a man that has a thirst upon him, supposing
he eats and doth not drink, is so far from quenching, that he does
highly increase it. This point is yet undiscussed. But mark, said I,
whether the positions on my side be clear and evident or not. In
the first place, we take it for granted that moisture is wasted and
destroyed by heat, that the drier parts of the nourishment qualified and
softened by moisture, are diffused and fly away in vapors. Secondly, we
must by no means suppose that all hunger is a total privation of dry,
and thirst of humid nutriment, but only a moderate one, and such as
is sufficient to cause the one or the other; for whoever are wholly
deprived of either of these, they neither hunger nor thirst, but die
instantly. These things being laid down as a foundation, it will be no
hard matter to find out the cause. For thirst is increased by eating
for this reason, because that meat by its natural siccity contracts and
destroys all that small quantity of moisture which remained scattered
here and there through the body; just as happens in things obvious to
our senses; we see the earth, dust, and the like presently suck in the
moisture that is mixed with them. Now, on the contrary, drink must of
necessity assuage hunger; for the moisture watering and diffusing itself
through the dry and parched relics of the meat we ate last, by turning
them into thin juices, conveys them through the whole body, and succors
the indigent parts. And therefore with very good reason Erasistratus
called moisture the vehicle of the meat; for as soon as this is mixed
with things which by reason of their dryness, or some other quality,
are slow and heavy, it raises them up and carries them aloft. Moreover,
several men, when they have drunk nothing at all, but only washed
themselves, all on a sudden are freed from a very violent hunger,
because the extrinsic moisture entering the pores makes the meat within
more succulent and of a more nourishing nature, so that the heat and
fury of the hunger declines and abates; and therefore a great many of
those who have a mind to starve themselves to death live a long time
only by drinking water; that is, as long as the siccit