[p. 323]
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 ἀχαριστέοντεσ2, 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. |
PART 8
VIII. 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
|