And yet some patients ask for what is out of the way and doubtful, through prejudice, deserving indeed to be disregarded, but not to be punished. Wherefore you must reasonably oppose them, as they are embarked upon a stormy sea of change. For, in heaven’s name, who that is a brotherlyThe word so translated is fairly common in the Corpus in the sense of related. Here it evidently means a loyal member of the family of physicians. physician practises with such hardness of heart as not at the beginning to conduct a preliminary examination of every illnessWith Ermerins’ reading, all the illness. and prescribe what will help towards a cure, to heal the patient and not to overlook the reward, to say nothing of the desire that makes a man ready to learn?

I urge you not to be too unkind, but to consider carefully your patient’s superabundance or means. Sometimes give your services for nothing, calling to mind a previous benefaction or present satisfaction.Or, with εὐδοκιμίην, your present reputation. And if there be an opportunity of serving one who is a stranger in financial straits, give full assistance to all such. For where there is love of man, there is also love of the art. For some patients, though conscious that their condition is perilous, recover their health simply through their contentment with the goodness of the physician. And it is well to superintend the sick to make them well, to care for the healthy to keep them well, but also to care for one’s own self, so as to observe what is seemly.