Lipsius’s Singular Study of Food and Drink

...justice and reason; Look! Paracelsus The Swiss physician and alchemist (1493–1541) who argued that a mother’s thoughts could physically shape her unborn child. will affirm that it happens partly from the mother's imagination, and partly from things she vehemently craved. Indeed, he thinks that the things craved, once the waste products are cast off, are not digested in the stomach but are snatched away to the womb. There, they are "cooked" like any other food, and while this occurs, the "seed" of that thing is carried along, clings to the fetus, and transforms it into such an appearance.

But truly, the real and adequate cause of this affliction and of the discord of antipathy original: ἀντιπαθείας (antipatheias). In early modern medicine, this referred to an innate, often inexplicable, physical repulsion between two substances. is by no means to be sought from the horoscope, or from the fictional and painted "houses" of heaven, or from any particular position of the stars. Nor should anyone think I say this as if I wished to do away with all the force and efficacy of the stars, which they exercise upon these lower things—as anyone understands who has a healthy forehead and a brain located in their head rather than in their heels. I do not unskillfully original: ἀτέχνως (atechnos), meaning without professional or artistic method. or ignorantly deny that the positions of the stars are causes of plague, war, and famine. But just as I attribute great and singular power to the stars, I will confidently say that I DENY that this power is the perpetual, immutable, and primary cause of this antipathy. And those who say the heavens themselves are the cause of everything, including this affliction, I say are blind even in the sun itself; for many antipathies or discords sometimes arise, originate, and depend not on celestial power but on other manifest causes, and the heavens have no empire over human wills.

Nor can it arise and depend solely from a defect of natural appetite, Auditors, or from some symptom of the stomach, whether it be an acquired or a congenital condition. [Rather, we must call it] a physical antipathy original: Φυσikὴν ἀντιπαθείαν (Physiken antipatheian)., Auditors—that is, a manifest natural repugnance and resistance, a hidden contrariety of things, a force, and a certain specific property. This property, which frequently—just as I unsociably original: ἀκοινωνήτως (akoinonetos), meaning in a manner that is isolated or does not share common properties with others. do not de-