Ancient Medicine (1-5)

All who, on attempting to speak or to write on medicine, have assumed for themselves a postulate as a basis for their discussion—heat, cold, moisture, dryness, or anything else that they may fancy—who narrow down the causal principle of diseases and of death among men, and make it the same in all cases, postulating one thing or two, all these obviously blunder in many points even of their statements,[*] but they are most open to censure because they blunder in what is an art, and one which all men use on the most important occasions, and give the greatest honours to the good craftsmen and practitioners in it. Some practitioners are poor, others very excellent; this would not be the case if an art of medicine did not exist at all, and had not been the subject of any research and discovery, but all would be equally inexperienced and unlearned therein, and the treatment of the sick would be in all respects haphazard. But it is not so; just as in all other arts the workers vary much in skill and in knowledge,[*] so also is it in the case of medicine. Wherefore I have deemed that it has

But medicine has long had all its means to hand, and has discovered both a principle and a method, through which the discoveries made during a long period are many and excellent, while full discovery will be made, if the inquirer be competent, conduct his researches with knowledge of the discoveries already made, and make them his starting-point. But anyone who, casting aside and rejecting all these means, attempts to conduct research in any other way or after another fashion, and asserts that he has found out anything, is and has been the victim of deception.[*] His assertion is impossible; the causes of its impossibility I will endeavour to expound by a statement and exposition of what the art is.[*] In this way it will be manifest that by any other means discoveries are impossible. But it is particularly necessary, in my opinion, for one who discusses this art to discuss things familiar to ordinary folk. For the subject of inquiry and discussion is simply and solely the sufferings of these same

For the art of medicine would never have been discovered to begin with, nor would any medical research have been conducted—for there would have been no need for medicine—if sick men had profited by the same mode of living and regimen as the food, drink and mode of living of men in health, and if there had been no other things for the sick better than these. But the fact is that sheer necessity has caused men to seek and to find medicine, because sick men did not, and do not, profit by the same regimen as do men in health. To trace the matter yet further back, I hold that not even the mode of living and nourishment enjoyed at the present time by men in health would have been discovered, had a man been satisfied with the same food and drink as satisfy an ox, a horse, and every animal save man, for example the products of the earth—fruits, wood and grass. For on these they are nourished, grow, and live without pain, having no need at all of any other kind of living. Yet I am of opinion that to begin with man also used this sort of nourishment. Our present ways of living have, I think, been

That it is not commonly considered an art is not unnatural, for it is inappropriate to call anyone an artist in a craft in which none are laymen, but all possess knowledge through being compelled to use it. Nevertheless the discovery was a great one, implying much investigation and art. At any rate even at the present day those who study gymnastics and athletic exercises are constantly making some fresh discovery by investigating on the same method what food and what drink are best assimilated and make a man grow stronger.

Let us consider also whether the acknowledged art of medicine, that was discovered for the treatment of the sick and has both a name and artists, has the same object as the other art,[*] and what its origin was. In my opinion, as I said at the beginning, nobody would have even sought for medicine, if the same ways of life had suited both the sick and those in health. At any rate even at the present day such as do not use medical science, foreigners and some Greeks, live as do those in health, just as they please, and would neither forgo nor restrict the satisfaction of any of their desires. But those who sought for and discovered medicine, having the same intention as the men I discussed above, in the first place, I think, lessened the bulk of the foods, and, without altering their character, greatly diminished their quantity. But they found that this treatment was