BOOK I.

To every disease its opposite remedy.

For a hot temperament, a cooling medicine is the remedy; for a cold one, a heating medicine; for a moist one, a drying medicine; and for a dry one, a moistening medicine. For the agitation of the humors, a calming and repressing remedy is used. For a flow of fluids, one that both inhibits and repels is required. An overabundance is countered by evacuation through vomiting, the bowels, the womb, through urine and sweat, and by that which draws through the nose or another part, or that which dissolves and digests through the skin. For thickness, one uses τὸ λεπτυντικὸν (to leptyntikon), a thinning remedy. For thinness, τὸ παχυντικὸν (to pachyntikon), a thickening remedy. For hardness, τὸ μαλακτικόν (to malaktikon), a softening remedy. For softness, τὸ σκληρυντικὸν (to skleryntikon), a hardening remedy. For stickiness, τὸ ῥυπτικὸν (to rhyptikon) and τμητικὸν (tmētikon), a cleansing and cutting remedy. For acrimony Acrimony refers to sharp, biting, or irritating qualities in the bodily fluids., one uses τὸ ὑδατῶδες ἐμπλαστικὸν (to hydatōdes emplastikon), a cold, glutinous, and soothing application. For the laxity of the parts, τὸ σταλτικὸν (to staltikon), a tightening and strengthening remedy. For corruption, one uses that which inhibits it: an alexiterium and alexipharmacum These are traditional terms for medicines that preserve against contagion or act as antidotes to poison.. For putrefaction, a ripening, suppurating, and cleansing remedy is used, to which poisonous, corrupting, and septic Septic medicines were those that caused tissues to rot or break down, often used to clear away dead flesh. substances are the opposites. For smoothness of the passages, τραχῦνον (trachynon), a roughening remedy, is the opposite; for roughness, λεῖον (leion), a smoothing remedy. For narrowness, a dilating remedy; for dilation, a narrowing or astringent remedy. For density, ἀραιωτικὸν (araiōtikon), a thinning remedy; for thinness, πυκνωτικὸν (pyknōtikon), a condensing remedy. For blockage, ἀναστομωτικὸν (anastomōtikon), an opening remedy; for an opening, συνακτικὸν (synaktikon), a closing remedy. For a break in continuity A "break in continuity" is the classical medical term for a wound or fracture., one uses an agglutinating, sarcoticum A flesh-making medicine that helps fill a wound., and epuloticum A medicine that promotes the formation of a scar. remedy. The opposites to these are ulcerating, eating away, caustic, and escharoticum A substance that produces a scab or slough of dead skin. medicines. Thus, I believe I have briefly reviewed all simple unnatural conditions as well as the powers of medicines. This is the general method and highest principle for finding remedies for the variety of conditions. From this principle, the powers of all medicines, both simple and compound, ought to be sought.

A simple condition is to be driven out by a simple remedy, and a compound condition by a compound remedy. For the nature of the contrary remedy matches the nature of the disease. Just as a condition is sometimes simple, and at other times compound or complex, so must the contrary remedy be either simple, compound, or made of various complex parts. Therefore, the simplest cure for a simple condition is through its opposite. To one who has clearly understood the nature of the disease, it should be easy, even without formal art but by a common understanding of the mind, to apply the opposite remedy for the purpose of healing. For...