PART 9
IX. 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
[p. 97]
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.
1 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
[p. 99]
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.
