TO THE CANDID READER,

PREFACE.

The writings of the ancients are enigmatic and like the oracles of Apollo.

Hippocrates, the brightest light of Medicine, veiled his Divine oracles in enigmas, and reported his precepts laconically original: "laconicè." This refers to a brief, concise style of speech or writing, named after the Spartans of Laconia who were famous for their short, pithy statements. throughout all the works of his teaching; so much so, that his obscure brevity and his utterances have been distorted into various meanings by writers. Some of these Galen Claudius Galenus (129–c. 216 AD), the Greek physician whose system of "humors" dominated Western medicine for over a millennium. The author suggests Galen was a great organizer but missed the deeper chemical truths. arranged into chapters with wonderful skill of art and a graceful order; but others, and especially the GOLDEN LITTLE BOOK ON DIET original: "AVREVM LIBELLVM DE DIÆTA." This refers to the Hippocratic treatise De Victu, which many 17th-century "chymists" believed contained hidden alchemical instructions regarding the balance of fire and water., which is full of mysteries, he left untouched. For the divine old man A common respectful title for Hippocrates. entrusted these to the cultivators of chemistry alone, which art formerly—and perhaps in the age of Hippocrates—was called natural philosophy. For who