LETTER

numbered and fixed, how can a physician, being ignorant of these things, be excused for the incompetence of his art? For among the instruments which the art of healing uses in the treatments of diseases are the plants themselves and their roots, bark, pith, leaves, flowers, fruit, seeds, juices, tears original: "lacrymæ" — refers to the resins, gums, or saps that naturally exude from a plant's bark, and other such things. It is inevitable that physicians of this sort must often hesitate and wander about like lost men, falling into the gravest and most ruinous errors.

Indeed, we have heard from trustworthy sources that this happened not long ago in a certain famous city to a certain physician, who nevertheless prided himself on a magnificent title. He had prescribed to a patient two drachms A drachm was a unit of apothecary weight; two drachms of a potent resin would be a massive, potentially fatal overdose of Diagridium Diagridium: a preparation of scammony (a harsh resinous juice from the root of Convolvulus scammonia) used as a very powerful laxative. However, when the Pharmacist Pharmacopœus: an apothecary or person who prepares medicines warned him that the quantity was far too great, and asked him whether he had intended to write Diatragachanth Diatragachantes: a mild, soothing medicinal powder made from gum tragacanth, often used for chest complaints instead of Diagridium, the physician replied by asking whether Diagridium and Diatragachanth were not the same thing.

So stupid and ignorant of all medicinal materials—and even of the art itself—was this magnificent word-doctor λογιάτρος: (logiatros) a "doctor of words"; a derisive term for a physician who has theoretical learning or eloquence but lacks practical skill and knowledge of materials. He did not know how great a difference exists between Diatragachanth, a composition for the windpipe original: "arteriacam" — referring to the arteria aspera or trachea; these medicines were meant to soothe the throat and lungs, and Diagridium, a most potent medication for purging bile through the bo-