labour, can eat fat bacon, salt gross meat, hard cheese, &c., (_O dura
messorum illa_), coarse bread at all times, go to bed and labour upon a
full stomach, which to some idle persons would be present death, and is
against the rules of physic, so that custom is all in all. Our travellers
find this by common experience when they come in far countries, and use
their diet, they are suddenly offended, [1457]as our Hollanders and
Englishmen when they touch upon the coasts of Africa, those Indian capes
and islands, are commonly molested with calentures, fluxes, and much
distempered by reason of their fruits. [1458]_Peregrina, etsi suavia solent
vescentibus perturbationes insignes adferre_, strange meats, though
pleasant, cause notable alterations and distempers. On the other side, use
or custom mitigates or makes all good again. Mithridates by often use,
which Pliny wonders at, was able to drink poison; and a maid, as Curtius
records, sent to Alexander from King Porus, was brought up with poison from
her infancy. The Turks, saith Bellonius, lib. 3. c. 15, eat opium
familiarly, a dram at once, which we dare not take in grains. [1459]Garcias
ab Horto writes of one whom he saw at Goa in the East Indies, that took ten
drams of opium in three days; and yet _consulto loquebatur_, spake
understandingly, so much can custom do. [1460] Theophrastus speaks of a
shepherd that could eat hellebore in substance. And therefore Cardan
concludes out of Galen, _Consuetudinem utcunque ferendam, nisi valde
malam_. Custom is howsoever to be kept, except it be extremely bad: he
adviseth all men to keep their old customs, and that by the authority of
[1461]Hippocrates himself, _Dandum aliquid tempori, aetati regioni,
consuetudini_, and therefore to [1462]continue as they began, be it diet,
bath, exercise, &c., or whatsoever else.

Another exception is delight, or appetite, to such and such meats: though
they be hard of digestion, melancholy; yet as Fuchsius excepts, _cap. 6.
lib. 2. Instit. sect. 2_, [1463]"The stomach doth readily digest, and