Complete Works of Celsus, Vitruvius, Censorinus, and Frontinus

TREATISE ON MEDICINE, BOOK I.

corpses. This operation is undoubtedly not cruel, but it is repulsive, and most of the time it only reveals organs altered by death, whereas treatment teaches everything that is possible to know during life.

So much has been written on these questions, which among physicians have often been and still are the object of the most lively controversies, that it is useful to present the ideas to which we attribute the greatest degree of probability. In this way of looking at things, one adopts no opinion exclusively, just as one does not reject any in an absolute manner; rather, one maintains a middle ground between these contrary sentiments, and this is generally the path that should be taken in discussions by those who seek the truth without ambition, as in the present case. Philosophers, in fact, even the most learned, cannot know with certainty, but only by conjecture, what are in the final analysis the causes that maintain health or produce diseases, nor those that preside over respiration, swallowing, and digestion. There are no positive notions in this regard, and consequently a simple opinion cannot lead to the discovery of an infallible remedy. It is therefore experience that, in medical practice, brings the most useful aid. But just as there are a great number of subjects in the arts that, without belonging directly to their study, serve as auxiliaries by stimulating the genius of the artist; likewise, if the contemplation of natural things does not make a physician, it at least makes him more apt to practice medicine. It is natural to think that Hippo-

crates, Erasistratus, and all those who, not wanting to limit themselves to the treatment of wounds and fevers, have equally questioned the nature of things, were not physicians by that fact alone, but that, through their meditations, they became greater in their art. It is certain that medicine, although it cannot rely on occult causes and natural actions, is often obliged to have recourse to reasoning; for it is a conjectural art which, in many cases, is betrayed not only by theory, but also by practice; in effect, fever, appetite, and sleep do not have an invariable manner of being. More rarely, it is true, one observes new diseases; but it is evident that one encounters them sometimes, since in our day we have seen a woman succumb in a few hours after a fleshy tumor suddenly appeared on the exterior of the genital parts and then withered: the most distinguished practitioners sought in vain to determine the nature of the malady, and could not find a remedy for it either. They made no attempt, I presume, because the patient being of a high class, no one dared to give his opinion for fear of being accused of her death if one did not succeed in saving her; but it is likely that, without this miserable circumspection, they would have sought the means to help her, and that perhaps some would have offered themselves whose application would have been followed by success. Analogy is not always useful in affections of this kind; when it can be, however, it is still by a rational process that, after having examined diseases of a similar species and remedies of the same nature, one arrives at choosing the one that The Latin text provided in the source continues the sentence: "Since therefore such a thing [occurs, the physician must find something...]"