Now at Babylon they say the air is so suffocating, so intolerably hot, that many of the more prosperous sleep upon skins full of water, that they may lie cool.
QUESTION III.

WHY WOMEN ARE HARDLY, OLD MEN EASILY, FOXED.
FLORUS, SYLLA.
Florus thought it strange that Aristotle in his discourse of Drunkenness, affirming that old men are easily, women hardly, overtaken, did not assign the cause, since he seldom failed on such occasions.
Therefore he proposed it to us (we were a great many acquaintance met at supper) as a fit subject for our inquiry.

Sylla began: One part will conduce to the discovery of the other; and if we rightly hit the cause in relation to the women, the difficulty, as it concerns the old men, will be easily despatched; for their two natures are quite contrary.
Moistness, smoothness, and softness belong to the one; and dryness, roughness, and hardness are the accidents of the other.

As for women, I think the principal cause is the moistness of their temper; this produceth a softness in the flesh, a shining smoothness, and their usual purgations.

Now when wine is mixed with a great deal of weak liquor, it is overpowered by that, loses its strength, and becomes flat and waterish.