Eight Books on Medicine

the lower parts, where there is greater softness, the flesh itself is changed by the most severe wounds and by the very act of butchery. Nor is there anything more foolish than to believe that the condition of any part in a living man is the same as it is in a dying man, or indeed in one already dead. For instance, can the uterus, which is less relevant to the matter, be laid open while a man is breathing? But as soon as the blade touches the internal organs original: "præcordia", and the transverse septum—which the Greeks call diaphragma diaphragm, a membrane that separates the upper parts from the lower—is cut through, the man immediately loses his life. Thus, it is only after death that the internal organs and the entire viscera are presented to the sight of the marauding physician, and they must necessarily be as they are in a dead man, not as they were in a living one. Consequently, the physician succeeds only in cruelly slaughtering a man, not in learning what our internal organs are like while we are alive.

If, however, there is anything that can be observed while a man is still breathing, that opportunity is often provided by accident to those who provide care. Sometimes, for instance, a gladiator in the arena, a soldier on the battlefield, or a traveler attacked by robbers is wounded in such a way that some internal part is opened. In one person or another, a prudent physician who seeks health rather than carnage can observe the location, position, order, shape, and other similar things, and thus learn through compassion what others have learned through dire cruelty.

For these reasons, they argue that even the dissection of the dead is not necessary, as it is a repulsive act, even if it is not explicitly cruel, since most things function differently in the dead. Furthermore, as much as can be known in the living is revealed by the treatment itself. Since these matters have been and are often debated by physicians through many volumes with great contention, one must submit what appears to be closest to the truth. These views are neither bound to one opinion nor do they stray too far from either, remaining in a way midway between the opposing stances. This middle ground can be detected in most disputes by those who seek the truth without ambition, as is the case here.

For the ultimate causes that either maintain health or trigger diseases, and how the breath or food is either depleted or digested, are not understood by scientific knowledge even by professors of philosophy; they pursue these through conjecture. But where there is no certain knowledge of a thing, opinion cannot find a certain remedy. It is true that nothing contributes more to the art of healing itself than experience. Although there are many things that do not properly pertain to the arts themselves, they nonetheless aid them by sharpening the ingenuity of the practitioner. Thus, this contemplation of the nature of things, even if it does not make a physician more capable, makes him a more accomplished one. It is likely that Hippocrates, Erasistratus, and others—who were not content with merely treating fevers and ulcers but also studied the nature of things to some extent—were not physicians because of this study, but were greater physicians because of it. Reason is, however, necessary for medicine itself, if not for understanding obscure causes or natural actions, then certainly in many other instances. For this art is conjectural, and it is often not only conjecture that fails to provide an answer,