instit. cap. 11_, and many others.

Waters] Standing waters, thick and ill-coloured, such as come forth of
pools, and moats, where hemp hath been steeped, or slimy fishes live, are
most unwholesome, putrefied, and full of mites, creepers, slimy, muddy,
unclean, corrupt, impure, by reason of the sun's heat, and still-standing;
they cause foul distemperatures in the body and mind of man, are unfit to
make drink of, to dress meat with, or to be [1386]used about men inwardly
or outwardly. They are good for many domestic uses, to wash horses, water
cattle, &c., or in time of necessity, but not otherwise. Some are of
opinion, that such fat standing waters make the best beer, and that
seething doth defecate it, as [1387]Cardan holds, _Lib. 13. subtil._ "It
mends the substance, and savour of it," but it is a paradox. Such beer may
be stronger, but not so wholesome as the other, as [1388]Jobertus truly
justifieth out of Galen, _Paradox, dec. 1. Paradox 5_, that the seething of
such impure waters doth not purge or purify them, Pliny, _lib. 31. c. 3_,
is of the same tenet, and P. Crescentius, _agricult. lib. 1. et lib. 4. c.
11. et c. 45._ Pamphilius Herilachus, _l. 4. de not. aquarum_, such waters
are naught, not to be used, and by the testimony of [1389]Galen, "breed
agues, dropsies, pleurisies, splenetic and melancholy passions, hurt the
eyes, cause a bad temperature, and ill disposition of the whole body, with
bad colour." This Jobertus stiffly maintains, _Paradox, lib. 1. part. 5_,
that it causeth blear eyes, bad colour, and many loathsome diseases to such
as use it: this which they say, stands with good reason; for as geographers
relate, the water of Astracan breeds worms in such as drink it. [1390]
Axius, or as now called Verduri, the fairest river in Macedonia, makes all
cattle black that taste of it. Aleacman now Peleca, another stream in
Thessaly, turns cattle most part white, _si polui ducas_, L. Aubanus
Rohemus refers that [1391]struma or poke of the Bavarians and Styrians to
the nature of their waters, as [1392]Munster doth that of Valesians in the