Pharmacy

Medicine should hold well-understood powers and distinguish health-giving things from pestilential ones. It foresees and avoids the latter from afar, while it seeks out and pursues the former. Medicine applies these things so opportunely that it may use its own strength to soften diseases that would otherwise be fatal. It makes them healthy in ways that nature alone could never overcome. Now truly, the goal original: "scopus," meaning the target or aim of medicine is health. Healing restores health when it has been damaged. This occurs sometimes by nature and of its own accord, and sometimes through art. Nature usually heals lighter diseases by itself without any help from art. More serious diseases often require art. Nature does not heal these by itself, but heals them once treatment is applied. Indeed, the healing that happens through art is only achieved through treatment.

Treatment is the correct and appropriate use of remedies. We call remedies whatever drives away an affliction of the body that is contrary to nature. Their use is correct and appropriate when they are applied in a suitable quantity and in a fitting manner and reasoning. All treatment consists of these factors.

There are three things by which the whole art of healing is established: the type of remedy, the quantity, and the method of use. It is my plan to follow these accurately in this book. To better understand the type of remedy, one must decide if it should be one or many. If it is one, is it simple or composite? If there are many, should they be given all at once or one by one, and in what order? This is considered the correct method. Quantity is correctly determined if it is clear how strong the remedy is, to what degree it departs from a moderate state, what weight it has, and how often and how long it should be given.

The method of use explains through which parts of the body the disease must be driven out, to which location the remedies should be applied, in what form, at what stage of the disease, and at what hour. One must know all these things so the use of remedies is appropriate. When a remedy is applied with the right quantity and reasoning, healing succeeds through art.

Chapter II. On the discovery of the remedy.

Every disease must be routed by its contraries, for remedies are the opposites of diseases. A remedy is that which drives away a disease. Whatever drives away a disease exerts force upon it. That which exerts force is a contrary. By every logic, it is necessary that a remedy be the contrary of the disease. Every removal and cure of illness is achieved through contraries. We speak of contraries in many ways. Those which are not in quality The text cuts off here at the word "quality," continuing on the next page.