Pulse due to food intake

The food taken changes the pulse by its quality and quantity. The amount of food influences by inclining the body to heat up or cool down, and the heart rate changes accordingly. As for quantity, if the food is balanced in this respect, the size, speed and frequency of the pulse increase due to an increase in animal strength and warmth, and this phenomenon remains stable for some time. If the amount of food is very large, then the pulse becomes randomly uneven; since food burdens animal strength, and any burden causes uneven pulse. Archigen claims that the speed of the pulse is greater than the frequency. Such a change is long-lasting, because its cause is stable.

If the abundance of food is less, then the irregularity of the pulse is regulated. When the excess food is small in quantity, the pulse is less uneven, less large and less rapid, and its change is not very stable, since the matter is small and is quickly digested.

Then, if animal strength diminishes and weakens from excess or want of food, whatever may be the case, the pulse eventually becomes smaller and less frequent.

If nature copes with the digestion and transformation of food, the pulse again becomes balanced.

Drinking has a certain peculiarity, namely, heavy drinking, although it causes unevenness of the pulse, does not cause it to the extent that should be taken into account, and not to the extent that a corresponding amount of food causes. This is explained by the rarefied nature of the drinking substance, its softness, subtlety and lightness.

When the drink is actually cold, it causes what all cold substances cause, that is, a decrease in the pulse, and also quickly gives rise to a rare and slow pulse, since it passes inside with great speed. Then, when the cold drink warms up in the body, the phenomena caused by it almost stop.

When the drink enters the body hot, it is not very far from the innate warmth, and it is quickly absorbed. If it penetrates the body cold, then it reaches a degree of harmfulness that other cold substances do not reach, since the latter linger in the passages until they warm up and do not penetrate inside as quickly as drink; the drink rushes to get inside before it warms up. The harm from this is very great, especially to a body prone to suffer from cooling, and is not so small as the harm from heating by drinking, when the drink passes into the body hot, for the heating at the first contact does not reach such a degree as to cause great harm. On the contrary, nature, encountering a hot drink, distributes it, dividing it and sucking it in. As for cold drink, sometimes it does not melt the nature and extinguishes its power before the nature takes up distribution, division and absorption.

This is what determines drinking by its large quantity, hotness and coldness. If we consider drinking from the point of view of strengthening strength, then its effect is different, for by its very essence it strengthens healthy people and increases strength, quickly increasing the substance of pneuma. As for the cooling and warming resulting from drinking, although they are harmful to the body of most people, each of these effects is sometimes suitable for a particular nature, and sometimes not suitable for it. Cold things sometimes strengthen those who have a hot nature disorder. Thus, Galen says that pomegranate juice always strengthens people with a hot nature, and boiled water always strengthens people with a cold nature. Drink, depending on whether it is naturally hot or cold, sometimes strengthens one category of people and weakens another. But now we are not talking about this, but about the power of drinking, due to which it quickly turns into pneuma, this in itself always strengthens. And if one of the specified qualities in the human body contributes to this, then its strengthening effect increases, and if it counteracts, then its strengthening effect therefore ceases. Thus, the change in pulse from drinking occurs accordingly; if the drink strengthens, then the strength of the pulse increases; if it warms, then the “need for cooling” increases, and if it cools, then the “need” decreases. In most cases, the “need” increases, so that the heart rate increases.

As for water, it strengthens by carrying food into the body. It also acts similarly to wine, but since water does not warm, but rather cools, it does not reach the same degree as wine in increasing the “need”.