CENTURY IX. 73 



other maketh them sharper. So we see both extremes 

 bring the gout. 



829. Worms, vermin, &c., do foreshew likewise 

 rain : for earthworms will come forth, and moles will 

 cast up more, and fleas bite more, against rain. 



830. Solid bodies likewise foreshew rain. As stones 

 and wainscot, when they sweat : and boxes and pegs 

 of wood, when they draw and wind hard ; though the 

 former be but from an outward cause ; for that the 

 stone or wainscot turneth and beateth back the air 

 against itself; but the latter is an inward swelling of 

 the body of the wood itself. 



Experiment solitary touching the nature of appetite in 

 the stomach. 



831. Appetite is moved chiefly by things that are 

 cold and dry : the cause is, for that cold is a kind of 

 indigence of nature, and calleth upon supply ; and so 

 is dryness : and therefore all sour things (as vinegar, 

 juice of lemons, oil of vitriol, &c.) provoke appetite. 

 And the disease which they call appetitus caninus, con- 

 sisteth in the matter of an acid and glassy phlegm in 

 the mouth of the stomach. Appetite is also moved by 

 sour thino-s : for that sour things induce a contraction 



cT 1 * 



in the nerves placed in the mouth of the stomach ; 

 which is a great cause of appetite. As for the cause 

 why onions, and salt, and pepper, in baked meats, 

 move appetite, it is by vellication of those nerves ; for 

 motion whetteth. As for wormwood, olives, capers, 

 and others of that kind, which participate of bitterness, 

 they move appetite by abstersion. So as there be four 

 principal causes of appetite ; the refrigeration of the 

 stomach, joined with some dryness ; contraction ; velli- 



