Comments on Corpulency. 287 



upon it while she was asleep. It is even stated that Cardinal 

 Caraffa and a noble Venetian, one of the Barbarage, were con- 

 fined to their palaces during the rose season, for fear of their 

 lives ! 



Johannes e Querceto, a Parisian, and secretary to Francis 

 the First, king of France, was forced to stop his nostrils with 

 bread when there were any apples at table ; and so offensive 

 was the smell of them to him, that if an apple had been held 

 near his nose, he would fall a-bleeding. Such a peculiar and 

 innate hatred to apples had the noble family of Fystates in 

 Aquitain. Schenck. Obs. Med. 1. vii. 890. 



I saw a noble countess, saith Horstius, who (at the table of 

 a count) tasted of some udder of beef, had her lips suddenly 

 swelled thereby, who, observing that I took notice of it, told me 

 that she had no dislike to that kind of dish, but as oft as she 

 did eat of it she was troubled in this manner, the cause of which 

 she was utterly ignorant of. 



Bruverinus knew a girl sixteen years of age, who, up to that 

 time, had lived entirely on milk, and could not bear the smell 

 of bread, the smallest particle of which she would discover by 

 the smelL 



An antipathy to pork is very common, Shenckius tells us 

 of one who would immediately swoon as often as a pig was set 

 before him, even though it be inclosed in paste — he falls down 

 as one that is dead, nor doth he return to himself till the pig is 

 taken from the table. 



Marshal Albret fainted away whenever he saw the head of 

 a boar. Hereupon Bussi forms a sort of ludicrous case of con- 

 science, whether a man who was to fight against the Marshal, 

 should, in honour, be allowed to carry with him in his left hand 

 the head of a boar. I have seen, says Montaigne, some run 

 away at the smell of apples, as if a musket were presented at 

 them ; others frightened out of their wits at a mouse, and 

 others not able to abide the sight of cream, or the stirring of 

 a featherbed, without something very unseemly happening to 

 them. 



The mildest medicines create in some as great disturbance 

 as if they were the most violent. Manna and senna are dread- 



U2 



