Advice About Keeping Well (1-3)

MOSCHION. So, Zeuxippus, yesterday you drove away Glaucus, the physician, when he wished to join in your philosophical discussions.

ZEUXIPPUS. No, my dear Moschion, I did not drive him away, nor did he wish to join in philosophical discussion, but I avoided him and feared giving an opening to a man fond of contention. In medicine the man is, as Homer [*] puts it, Worth many others together, but he is not kindly disposed towards philosophy, and there is always a certain harshness and ill-nature inherent in his remarks. And just then he was coming at us full tilt, crying out, even before he came near us, that it was no small or suitable task, amounting in fact to a confusion of all bounds, which had been boldly assumed by us in discussing a healthful manner of living. For he asserted that the subjects of philosophy and medicine are as far remote from each other as are the boundaries of any Mysians and Phrygians [*]; and thereupon, as he had at the tip of his tongue some statements of ours, which, though not very carefully formulated, are certainly not without utility, he proceeded to tear them to pieces.

MOSCHION. Well, in this and in other matters, Zeuxippus, I should be very glad to be your attentive listener.

ZEUXIPPUS. That is because you, Moschion, have a natural gift for philosophy, and you feel incensed at the philosopher who does not take an interest in medicine, and you are indignant that such a man should imagine it more becoming for him, in the eyes of mankind, to profess some knowledge of geometry, logical discussion, and music, than to desire to seek out and know

All that of evil and good may have chanced to betide in the dwelling [*]

which is his own body. And yet you will see a larger number of spectators in the theatres where money to pay for admission is distributed to those who gather together, as at Athens; and of the liberal arts medicine is inferior to none in elegance, distinction, and the satisfaction which it yields, and it gives to its students admission to something of very great importance — the preservation of their life and health. Consequently, the charge of trespass ought not to lie against philosophers if they discuss matters of health, but rather should they be blamed if they do not consider it their duty to abolish all boundarylines altogether, and to make a single field, as it were, of all honourable studies, and therein to cultivate them in common, thus aiming in their discussion at both the pleasant and the essential.

MOSCHION. Well, Zeuxippus, let us say no more about Glaucus, who is so self-important that he wants to be a law unto himself, needing no help from philosophy; but do you tell us in detail the whole discussion; or, if you prefer, just those statements [*] which you first referred to as not altogether carefully formulated, which you say Glaucus seized upon.

ZEUXIPPUS. Well, our companion [*] asserted that he had heard somebody say that keeping the hands always warm, and never allowing them to get cold, is in no small measure conducive to health, and, conversely, the chilling of the extremities, by concentrating the warmth in the interior of the body, creates, as it were, a habit or a predisposition towards feverishness; and for a man to divert the substances in his body toward the surface, and to conduct and distribute them, along with the warmth, to all parts of his body, is healthful. [*] If therefore we happen to be doing something with our hands and using them, the motion itself brings the warmth to these parts, and keeps it there; but when not engaged in such activities we must by no means allow the cold to find lodgement in our extremities.

ZEUXIPPUS. This, then, was one of the things ridiculed. The second, I think, concerned the food which you people serve to the sick. For he urged that we should partake of it and taste it from time to time, and get ourselves used to it in time of health, and not abhor and detest such a regimen, like little children, but gradually make it familiar and congenial to our appetites, so that in sickness we may not be disaffected over our fare as if it were so much medicine, and may not show impatience at receiving something simple, unappetising, and savourless. [*] For this reason, too, omitting the bath now and then before going to a meal is not a thing to be avoided, nor drinking only water when wine is at hand, nor drinking anything lukewarm in the summer-time when there is snow on the table; and while dismissing once for all time the ostentatious and studied abstinence from such things and the bragging over it, we should silently, by our own selves, habituate the appetite to be obedient to expediency with all serenity, and long beforehand we must rid our soul of its squeamishness in times of sickness about such trifles, and its lamentation thereat, as it deplores how it has been driven away from great and fond pleasures to an ignoble and humiliating way of living.

ZEUXIPPUS. Well has it been said, Choose the life that is best, and constant habit will make it pleasant, [*] and, in particular, it is profitable for a man, experimenting with each several department of life and especially with those which have to do with the practices which affect the body, to inculcate a fixed habit during periods of soundest health, so thus to make these things agreeable, familiar, and congenial to his nature, [*] bearing in mind how some men feel and act in times of sickness, being angry and fretful when hot water and gruel, or plain bread, is served to them, calling these things abominable and unpleasant, and abominable and hard-hearted also those who would force such things upon them. A bath has proved to be the death of many men who at the outset had not much the matter with them, save only that they could not and would not bear to taste food unless they had first had their bath; of whom Titus the Emperor [*] was one, as those who attended him in his illness affirm.