Advice About Keeping Well (26)

ZEUXIPPUS. I have heard that Tiberius Caesar once said that a man over sixty who holds out his hand to a physician is ridiculous.[*] To me that seems a pretty strong statement, but this does seem to be true, that each person ought neither to be unacquainted with the peculiarities of his own pulse (for there are many individual diversities), nor ignorant of any idiosyncrasy which his body has in regard to temperature and dryness,[*] and what things in actual practice have proved to be beneficial or detrimental to it. For the man has no perception regarding himself, and is but a blind and deaf tenant in his own body, who gets his knowledge of these matters from another, and must inquire of his physician whether his health is better in summer or winter, whether he can more easily tolerate liquid or solid foods, and whether his pulse is naturally fast or slow. For it is useful and easy for us to know things of this sort, since we have daily experience and association with them.

ZEUXIPPUS. In regard to food and drink it is expedient to note what kinds are wholesome rather than what are pleasant, and to be better acquainted with those that are good in the stomach rather than in the mouth, and those that do not disturb the digestion rather than those that greatly tickle the palate. For to inquire of a physician what is hard or easy for oneself to digest, and what is constipating or laxative, is no less disgraceful than to inquire what is sweet and what is bitter and what is sour. But nowadays people correct the chefs, being expert at detecting what dish has in it more sweetening or salt or sourness than is proper; but they do not themselves know what, when taken into their own bodies, will be light and painless and beneficial. Therefore, a mistake is not often made in seasoning a soup at their houses, but by their vile and pernicious seasoning of themselves every day they provide a plentiful business for the physicians. Now such persons do not regard the sweetest soup as the best, but they mix in also bitter and pungent flavourings; on the other hand, they inject into the body numerous cloying pleasures, partly from ignorance, and partly because they do not remember that to whatever is healthful and beneficial nature adds a pleasure which causes neither pain nor repentance. But we must keep in mind both those things that are congenial and suitable to the body, and, conversely, as changes attendant on the season occur and different circumstances arise, we should, in full knowledge of the facts, suitably adjust our mode of living to each.