[Essays and Miscellanies by Plutarch]@TWC D-Link book
Essays and Miscellanies

BOOK VI
13/33

And therefore with very good reason Erasistratus called moisture the vehicle of the meat; for as soon as this is mixed with things which by reason of their dryness, or some other quality, are slow and heavy, it raises them up and carries them aloft.

Moreover, several men, when they have drunk nothing at all, but only washed themselves, all on a sudden are freed from a very violent hunger, because the extrinsic moisture entering the pores makes the meat within more succulent and of a more nourishing nature, so that the heat and fury of the hunger declines and abates; and therefore a great many of those who have a mind to starve themselves to death live a long time only by drinking water; that is, as long as the siccity does not quite consume whatever may be united to and nourish the body.
QUESTION IV.

WHAT IS THE REASON THAT A BUCKET OF WATER DRAWN OUT OF A WELL, IF IT STANDS ALL NIGHT IN THE AIR THAT IS IN THE WELL, IS, MORE COLD IN THE MORNING THAN THE REST OF THE WATER?
A GUEST, PLUTARCH, AND OTHERS.
One of the strangers at the the table, who took wonderful great delight in drinking of cold water, had some brought to him by the servants, cooled after this manner; they had hung in the well a bucket full of the same water, so that it could not touch the sides of the well, and there let it remain, all night: the next day, when it was brought to table, it was colder than the water that was newdrawn.

Now this gentleman was an indifferent good scholar, and therefore told the company that he had learned this from Aristotle, who gives the reason of it.

The reason which he assigned was this.


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