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.

Now those who are buried in deep ignorance of the art cannot appreciate what has been said. In fact such men will be shown up as ignorant of medicine, suddenly exalted yet needing good luck. For should wealthy men gain some remission of their trouble, these quacks win reputation through a double good fortune, and if a relapse occurs they stand upon their dignity, having neglected the irreproachable methods of the art, wherewith a good physician, a brother of the art as he is called, would be at his best. But he who accomplishes his cures easily without making a mistake would transgress none of these methods through want of power;He is trusted, and so can do as he likes. Therefore want of power to influence a patient never compels him to transgress the medical code. for he is not distrusted on the ground of wickedness. For quacks do not attempt treatment when they see an alarmingIt is quite uncertain whether φλεβονώδεα is the correct reading, and equally uncertain what it means if it be correct. Erotian’s note recognises two ancient readings, φλεβονώδεα, explained as τὰ μετὰ φλυαρίας καὶ πνευματώδους ταραχῆς ἐκκρινόμενα, and φλεβονώδεα, explained as τὰ μετ’ ἀλγήματος οἰδήματα. But the general meaning must be serious, alarming. condition, and avoid calling in other physicians, because they wickedly hate help. And the patients in their pain drift on a sea of twofold wretchedness for not having intrusted themselves to the end to the fuller treatment that is given by the art. For a remission of a disease affords a sick man much relief. Wherefore wanting a healthy condition they do not wish always to submit to the same treatment, therein being in accord with a physician’s versatility.The reader must suspect that in the words ἰητροῦ ποικιλίη is concealed an allusion to frequent changes of the medical attendant. Changing their doctor every day. The version in the text means that the patients frequently change their minds as do quacks, or as doctors must be ready to change their treatment at a moment’s notice. For the patients are in need through heavy expenditure, worshipping incompetence and showing no gratitude when they meet it;These patients ἀπορέουσιν, and so can scarcely be the same as the εὔποροι of the earlier part of the chapter. Perhaps οὐκ should be read before ἀχαριστέοντες, and the sense would then be, they become poor by showing gratitude to quacks, when they might be well off by employing qualified men. when they have the power to be well off, they exhaust themselves about fees, really wishing to be well for the sake of managing their investments or farms, yet without a thought in these matters to receive anything.The greater part of this chapter is hopeless. There seems to be no connexion between the quack doctors of the first part and the wayward patients of the latter part. I suspect that an incongruous passage has been inserted here by some compiler, just as chapter fourteen was so inserted. Perhaps there are gaps in the text, the filling up of which would clear away the difficulty. Probably there is one after εἵνεκεν. If the latter part be not an interpolation, the general meaning seems to be that when patients grow worse under quack treatment, they change their doctor and hire another quack. So they both grow worse and lose money. They really want to get well to look after their business, but do not think of the right way to return to work again, i. e. of employing a qualified medical man.

So much for such recommendations. For remission and aggravation of a disease require respectively less or more medical assistance. A physician does not violate etiquette even if, being in difficulties on occasion over a patient and in the dark through inexperience, he should urge the calling in of others, in order to learn by consultation the truth about the case, and in order that there may be fellow-workers to afford abundant help. For when a diseased condition is stubborn and the evil grows, in the perplexity of the moment most things go wrong. So on such occasions one must be bold.Or (reading οὐ) on such occasions one must not be self-confident. For never will I lay it down that the art has been condemned in this matter.I. e. that because a consultant is necessary the fault lies with the art of medicine. Physicians who meet in consultation must never quarrel, or jeer at one another. For I will assert upon oath, a physician’s reasoning should never be jealous of another. To be so will be a sign of weakness. Those who act thus lightly are rather those connected with the business of the market-place. Yet it is no mistaken idea to call in a consultant. For in all abundance there is lack.No matter how much help you have you can never have enough.

With all these things it will appear strong evidence for the reality of the art if a physician, while skilfully treating the patient, does not refrain from exhortations not to worry in mind in the eagerness to reach the hour of recovery. For we physicians take the lead in what is necessary for health. And if he be under orders the patient will not go far astray. For left to themselves patients sink through their painful condition, give up the struggle and depart this life. But he who has taken the sick man in hand, if he display the discoveries of the art, preserving nature, not trying to alter it, will sweep away the present depression or the distrust of the moment. For the healthy condition of a human being is a nature that has naturally attained a movement, not alien but perfectly adapted, having produced it by means of breath, warmth and coction of humours, in every way, by complete regimen and by everything combined, unless there be some congenital or early deficiency. Should there be such a thing in a patient who is wasting, try to assimilate to the fundamental nature.I. e. try to bring the patient back to his normal condition. For the wasting, even of long standing, is unnatural.

You must also avoid adopting, in order to gain a patient,Apparently, in order to increase your practice by fastidiousness in the matter of dress. But the expression is very strange, and should mean, in order to effect a cure. luxurious headgear and elaborate perfume. For excess of strangeness will win you ill-repute, but a little will be considered in good taste, just as pain in one part is a trifle, while in every part it is serious. Yet I do not forbid your trying to please, for it is not unworthy of a physician’s dignity.