The Art of Medicine

for, because of innate heat, something flows away from our substance, as will be said later) and by expelling the excrements which are necessarily collected in the body from what has been assumed: which is done when these things that we have just mentioned are administered moderately, as can be seen from Galen’s books on the preservation of health. But we preserve those who are removed from the mean in their state with the same measures, or we restore them to a better state by applying contraries, with as much excess as their innate temperament recedes from the mean state. We also deliver the sick from disease by administering measures with as much excess as the disease has receded from the natural temperament of the sick person: as is evident from Galen’s method of healing. From these things, it is clear that the proposed definition contains not only the general chapters, but also those subject to the general chapters of all medicine. For it first embraces the general chapters, namely: physiologien physiology, that is, the part that treats of human nature; aitiologien aetiology, in which the causes of things that are in man, both according to nature and contrary to nature, are investigated; hygieinen hygiene, which preserves health and meets incoming diseases; semeiötiken semeiotics, which teaches the signs of both conditions of health, namely, the prosperous and the adverse; and therapeutiken therapeutics, which holds the method of curing diseases. Furthermore, physiology treats of the elements of man, the humors, spirits, temperaments, parts, and their

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