On Medicine (De Re Medica)

Among those things that attenuate are vomiting and purging. What warms the body. What cools it. What moistens it. What dries it. What constipates the bowels. What loosens them. Section XII. What observations the sexes require. This part is missing. Section XIII. What various ages require. Section XIV. What the various seasons of the year require. Chapter II. Concerning diseases and their cures. Section I. What the life of those suffering from head ailments should be. Section II. What for those suffering from ophthalmia eye inflammation, heaviness, catarrh, and tonsillitis. Section III. What for those whose bowels are moved frequently. Section IV. What for those suffering from pain in the colon. Section V. What for those suffering from stomach pain. Section VI. What for those suffering from nerve pain. Section VII. Observation during times of pestilence.

PRÆFATIO.

PREFACE.

As agriculture promises food to healthy bodies, so does medicine promise health to the sick. Indeed, this is found everywhere; for even the most unskilled peoples know of herbs and other things ready at hand to aid in cases of wounds and diseases. Nevertheless, it has been cultivated among the Greeks somewhat more than in other nations, and not even among them from the very beginning, but only a few centuries before our time, since Æsculapius a mythical or early historical healer later deified is celebrated as the most ancient author; who, because he refined this science, which was until then crude and common, was received into the number of the gods. Then his two sons, Podalirius and Machaon, having followed their leader Agamemnon to the Trojan War, provided no small...