Complete Works of Celsus, Vitruvius, Censorinus, and Frontinus

TREATISE ON MEDICINE, BK. I.

to the curative means. If evident causes cannot guide science, those that are doubtful will be able to do so even less; and since there is nothing there but uncertainty and mystery, it is better to rely on certain and recognized things, those that in the treatment of diseases have received the sanction of experience. It is the same for all arts; it is through practice and not through controversy that one becomes a farmer or a pilot. One must believe that medicine can do without these conjectures, since with contrary opinions, physicians have been seen to succeed equally in saving their patients. If they obtained this result, it was not by virtue of occult causes and natural actions, which they explained differently, but because each of them had discovered through experience the path to follow in the treatment. It is not true that medicine at its origin was the consequence of the questions that one had posed, for it was born from the observation of facts. Among patients who did not yet have physicians, some, given over to their intemperance, had taken food from the first days, and others had abstained through repugnance; it was noticed that the disease of the latter received more relief. Similarly, one saw patients among whom some had eaten during the fever, others a little time before the attack, and others only after complete remission; the latter fared infinitely better. Finally, among those eating to excess at the beginning of the malady and those taking little nourishment, those who had gorged themselves on food added by that very fact to the danger of their state. Each day, similar incidents...