Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
Rosa Anglica (Author: [unknown])

section 15

15

Item the seasons of the year aid in the generating of this sickness, for it792 often comes in the autumn through malice of digestion, and the humours, on account of dilation of the pores in the summer preceding it; and through the violence of the heat in mid-summer at mid-day,793 and the excessive cold at the beginning and end thereof. It comes in the summer through the dissolution of the humours, and in the winter through the strength of the cold humours shutting in the matter, and by reason of the paucity of evacuation of excess then from the body. So it is clear that these sicknesses come from changes in the weather,794 and the people of the pangs (gouty subjects) can tell then, that rain and foul weather will come before it does. The cause thereof is frequently sought of leeches, and this is the answer, as Philaretus says: wherever there is anything,795 that that is there, changes to the complexion of the place wherein it is, and therefore when wet turbid weather is at hand, the air becomes moist, gross, cold and turbid, by reason of the higher cause.796 The sign that

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the which is true, is that walls and stones drip, as they were sweating, not from themselves, but from the air becoming gross; and this air goes into the mouth and the nose and through the pores of the body, and, as Galen says, it changes the body to its own disposition. For the active thing equates797 the passive to itself;798 and this is clear in the joints, as it is easier for the air to go into them on account of their emptiness, dilatation, and looseness than into any other part; this799 is the reason they ache soonest.