The most healthful season then is the spring, next to that the winter, the summer is more dangerous than either, the autumn by far the most dangerous of all. With regard to the weather, that is best, which is equal, whether it be cold or hot: that, which varies most, is the worst. For this reason it is, that the autumn destroys the greatest number. For generally in the middle of the day it is hot, the nights, mornings, and evenings too, are cold: thus the body relaxed by the preceding summer, and by the frequent meridian heats of autumn, is exposed to sudden cold. But as this is most common in this season, so it is hurtful, whenever it happens. When the weather is equal, serene days are most healthful: rainy are better than those that are only misty or cloudy: and in winter those days are best, that have no wind at all; in summer, that have the westerly breezes. If the winds blow from any of the other quarters, the northerly are more salutary than the easterly or southerly. Nevertheless these sometimes differ according to the situation of countries. For generally in every place a wind, that comes from the inland parts, is healthful; one from the sea is sickly. And not only health is more certain in a good temperature of the weather, but even the more malignant distempers, which happen to come on then, are more mild and sooner removed. That air is the worst for a sick person, which has occasioned his distemper; insomuch that in such a case, a change for weather in it’s own nature worse is favourable.

The middle age is safest, because it is neither endangered by the heat of youth, nor the coldness of old age. Old age is more liable to chronical diseases, and youth to acute ones. The body most promising for health is the square, neither over slender, nor over fat. For a tall stature, as it is comely in youth, so it quickly wears out by age. A slender body is weak, a corpulent heavy.

Whatever disorders arise from the motion of the humours, are generally to be most apprehended in the spring(2); so that, at this season, lippitudes, pimples, hæmorrhages, abscesses of the body, which the Greeks call apostemata[ AF ], atrabilis, which they name melancholia[ AG ], madness, epilepsy, angina, gravedoes, and catarrhs, usually occur. Also those distempers in the joints and nerves, which sometimes are troublesome, and sometimes easy, at this time of the year are the most apt both to begin and return. Neither is the summer altogether free from most of the above-mentioned distempers; but adds moreover fevers, either ardent, or tertian, vomitings, purgings, ear-achs, ulcers of the mouth, gangrenes, both in the other parts of the body, and chiefly in the private parts; and all these disorders that waste a man by sweat. There is hardly any of these, that is not found in the autumn; but there arise then, besides irregular fevers, pain of the spleen, dropsical disorders(3), consumption, which the Greeks call phthisis[ AH ]; difficulty of urine, which they term stranguria[ AI ]; the distemper of the smaller intestine which they name ileos[ AJ ], there happens also what the Greeks call lienteria[ AK ]; pains of the hips, epileptic disorders. And the same season is mortal to those that are worn out with long diseases, and such, as have been oppressed by the preceding summer; and it dispatches some by new distempers, and involves others in very tedious ones, especially quartan agues, which may even continue through the winter. Nor is any season more liable to the plague, of whatever kind it be, however various in its manner of hurting. The winter provokes pains of the head, the cough, and whatever disorder is contracted in the fauces, sides, or bowels.

With regard to the varieties of weather, the north wind raises a cough, exasperates the fauces, binds the belly, suppresses urine, excites shudderings, also pain of the side and breast; yet it braces a sound body(4), and renders it more mobile and brisk. The south wind causes dulness of hearing, blunts the senses, raises a pain of the head, opens the belly, and renders the whole body heavy, moist, and languid. The other winds, by how much they approach more nearly to either of these, produce effects the more similar to each of them. All heat inflames the liver and spleen, enervates the mind, and occasions faintings, and hæmorrhages. Cold causes sometimes convulsions, and sometimes a tetanus, the Greek name for the first is spasmos[ AL ], and for the other tetanos[ AM ]: it produces blackness in ulcers, and a shuddering in fevers. In dry weather we meet with acute fevers, lippitudes, dysenteries, stranguries, pains of the joints; in rainy, tedious fevers, diarrhœas, angina, gangrenes, epilepsies, palsy, which the Greeks call paralysis[ AN ]. Nor is the present weather only to be considered, but also what has been its course for some time. If a dry winter has been attended with northerly winds, and the spring with southerly, and rains, there most commonly ensue lippitudes, dysenteries, fevers, and these chiefly in more delicate bodies, particularly women. But if southerly winds and rains have prevailed in the winter, and the spring be cold and dry, then indeed pregnant women, whose time is near, are in danger of a miscarriage; and those, that go their full time, bring forth weakly children, not likely to live. Other people are attacked with dry lippitudes, and if they are old, with bad gravedoes and catarrhs. But if the southerly winds have continued from the beginning of winter to the end of spring, people are very quickly taken off by pleurisies, and fevers attended with a delirium, which is called phrenitis[ AO ]. But when the heat begins with the spring, and continues through the summer, profuse sweating in fevers necessarily follows. But if a dry summer has been attended with northerly winds, and the autumn with rains, and southerly, all the following winter we find coughs, catarrhs, hoarseness, and in some a consumption. But if the autumn too is equally dry, and the same northerly winds blow, all the more delicate bodies, amongst which I placed women, enjoy a good state of health: and for the more robust, they may possibly be attacked with dry lippitudes, and fevers either acute, or tedious, and atrabiliary disorders.

As to the different ages, children, and those a little more advanced, have their health best in the spring, and are most safe in the beginning of summer; old men in the summer, and beginning of autumn; young and middle aged men in the winter. The winter is more hurtful to old men, and the summer to youths. For the peculiar weaknesses, that appear at different times of life, first of all infants and young children will be troubled with spreading ulcers of the mouth, which the Greeks call aphthæ[ AP ], vomitings, nightly watching, humour in the ears, and inflammations about the navel. The peculiar complaints of such as are teething, are exulcerations in the gums, convulsions, slight fevers, purgings, and these are chiefly troublesome about the cutting of the canine teeth. Infants of the fullest habit, and whose bellies are very much bound, are most liable to these dangers. But when they have grown up a little, there appear disorders of the glands, and different inclinations of the vertebræ, which compose the spine, scrophulous swellings, some painful kinds of warts, by the Greeks called acrochordones[ AQ ], and many other tubercles. In the beginning of puberty, many of the above-named, and long fevers, and hæmorrhages from the nose. And generally all children are most in danger first about the fortieth day, then the seventh month, then the seventh year, after these at the time of puberty. Moreover any distempers, which commence in infancy, and are terminated neither by puberty, nor in men by their first commerce with women, nor in women by the appearance of their menses, commonly continue long: yet more frequently these puerile disorders of long standing are removed by these means. Youth is most subject to acute disorders, and epileptic, and to a consumption: and they are commonly young men, who spit blood. After this age, come on pleurisies and peripneumonies, lethargy, cholera, madness, and discharges of blood from certain mouths, as it were, of the veins, by the Greeks called hæmorrhoides[ AR ]. In old age, difficulty of breathing, and making urine, gravedo, pains of the joints and kidneys, palsies, bad habit of body, which the Greeks call cachexia[ AS ], nightly watchings, tedious disorders of the ears, of the eyes, and nose, and especially a loose belly, and its consequences a dysentery, or lientery, and other indispositions incident to that habit. Besides these the slender are distressed with consumptions, purgings, catarrhs, and pains of the bowels, and sides. The corpulent generally are oppressed with acute diseases, and difficulty of breathing, and often die suddenly, which seldom happens in a more slender body.