[p. 71] now said, but there is a better proof, for it is not akin to
the matter on which my discourse has principally turned, but the subject-matter
itself is a most seasonable proof. For some at the commencement of
acute diseases have taken food on the same day, some on the next day;
some have swallowed whatever has come in their way, and some have
taken cyceon.| The cyceonwas a mixture of various articles of food, but generally contained cheese, honey, and wine. See Athenaeus (Deipnos, ii.). It is described by Homer as the potion which Circe administered to the followers of Ulysses. (Odyss. x., 235). There is freqent mention of it in the Hippocratic treatises, as at De Diaeta, ii.; de Muliebribus, ii.; and in the works of the other medical authors. |
Now all these things are worse than if one had observed
a different regimen; and yet these mistakes, committed at that time,
do much less injury than if one were to abstain entirely from food
for the first two or three days, and on the fourth or fifth day were
to take such food; and it would be still worse, if one were to observe
total abstinence for all these days, and on the following days were
to take such a diet, before the disease is concocted;| The meaning here is somewhat obscure, but appears to be this: that if a patient fast for the first two or three days, and take food of a heavy nature on the fourth or fifth, he will be much injured, but that the mistake will be still more fatal if the fast be continued for the first four or five days, and if he then indulge freely in food at the end of these. |
for in this
way death would be the consequence to most people, unless the disease
were of a very mild nature. But the mistakes committed at first were
not so irremediable as these, but could be much more easily repaired.
This, therefore, I think a strong proof that such or such a draught
need not be prescribed on the first days to those who will use the
same draughts afterwards. At the bottom, therefore, they do not know,
neither those using unstrained ptisans, that they are hurt by them,
when they begin to swallow them, if they abstain entirely from food
for two, three, or more days; nor do those using the juice know that
they are injured in swallowing them, when they do not commence with
the draught seasonably. But this they guard against, and know that
it does much mischief, if, before the disease be concocted, the patient
swallow unstrained ptisan, when accustomed to use strained. All these
things are strong proofs that physicians do not conduct the regimen
of patients properly, but that in those diseases in
|
