[p. 99]
urethra. For it opens directly into the privy parts,
which is not so with males, nor is their urethra wide.
And they drink more than boys do.
PART 10
X. This, or something very like this, is the truth
concerning these matters. As to the seasons, a
consideration of the following points will make it
possible to decide whether the year will prove
unhealthy or healthy. If the signs prove normal
when the stars set and rise ; if there be rains in
autumn, if the winter be moderate, neither too mild
nor unseasonably cold, and if the rains be seasonable
in spring and in summer, the year is likely to be
very healthy. If, on the other hand, the winter
prove dry and northerly, the spring rainy and
southerly, the summer cannot fail to be feverladen,
causing ophthalmia and dysenteries. For
whenever the great heat comes on suddenly while
the earth is soaked by reason of the spring rains
and the south wind, the heat cannot fail to be
doubled, coming from the hot, sodden earth and
the burning sun ; men's bowels not being braced
nor their brain dried--for when spring is such
the body and its flesh must necessarily be flabby--the
fevers that attack are of the acutest type in
all cases, especially among the phlegmatic. Dysenteries
are also likely to come upon women and
the most humid constitutions. If at the rising
of the Dog Star stormy rain occurs and the
Etesian winds blow, there is hope that the distempers
will cease and that the autumn will be
healthy. Otherwise there is danger lest deaths
