Articella (The Little Art of Medicine)

marginal notes are in a cryptic or abbreviated style
If the flow is through the night, it may be the movement of the spirits.
It is a bloody hand: and it is not of phlegm and...
It is a choleric hand: and if the hour is favorable.
The worst? doubtful? flow should be solely just.
For the flow in the smoke? should be a new beginning?.

Of all blood primarily.
Late, I desire the means hence
Thus the hour comes.
It gives to the mass, it strengthens.
In the night, you are the first wolf.
Cholera and pain at night.
By phlegm the hour.

He who has fully understood the books of those who previously learned that art through experiments, and he who is himself an expert, does not refuse to pass on what he has actually experienced in other books, until the art is rendered entirely complete. The intention of both is confirmed in this way: since he says human life is too short for the length of the art, it is impossible for anyone to grasp it fully unless they have created books through their own experience, and others have successively added to them, until this art arrives at the perfection of the experiments of both. He added the following after this, to confirm the length of the art, as if he had said: "Life is short, and art is long," because time is acute and strict, and experimentation is frightening, while judgment is truly difficult. The art is indeed long, because the time for working it is strict, since, as we have said, we cannot operate this art without these two instruments: the aid of reason, and the experience of things to be performed. Experimentation is frightening, and judgment is truly difficult.

I am not to be blamed, nor should the reader be tired, if I briefly recap everything said above, almost in the manner of an epilogue. Time is strict because of the subject, namely the human body, which is what is to be treated. For it moves suddenly and in a small amount of time. The nobility of that same subject creates the fear of the experiment, because it is not assimilated to other subjects when we apply medicine to it. For in stone, leather, wood, and similar things, in which we work artificially, hardly any corruption follows if the arts performed on them do not succeed well. But it must be highly tested, that fear, if an experiment should turn out badly regarding the human body, because the subject itself is destroyed, and it is almost like its death. Judgment, that is, reason, seems difficult because, since experiment is comprehended through it, the multitude of those disagreeing in attaining it testifies that this is heavy. If this reason were easily found, one would not have to disagree on it. Others say Hippocrates intended judgment not to be reason, but rather the determination of the thing to be experimented upon, which is evidently difficult. For if someone is medicated with diverse medicines, if they are helped or disturbed by any of these, it is not easy to see which of them helped or harmed. For example: if a sick person sleeps sweetly, and after sleep applies an ointment, then uses a poultice or enema, and after this eats something, and a spontaneous solution occurs from this, it is not easy to see which of these helped or harmed. Hence, universally, art is long compared to the lives of individual men. Therefore, books had to be made from this and left to posterity, especially abbreviated aphoristically, so that it might not seem superfluous to flow from a full chest.

He subjoins the same: "It is necessary not only for oneself to provide..." It is fitting that this should be continued in such a way from the preceding. But if you wish to certify these things that must be said, it is not only necessary that what must be done is done on your part, but also that the sick person obeys, and it is not fitting for him to oppose you in anything. It is necessary that those ministering are also studious and pleasing to him, indeed externally attuned to the will of the sick, and as is fitting, apparently doing everything by which medicine is not mocked and health is not opposed through unsuitable things. By "externally," a harmful or helpful residence is understood, or a messenger announcing something angry or distressing, or even less joyful things, and the noise that prohibits him from sleep, indeed many other things which are almost innumerable. If all these things are done as is fitting, I find nothing inconvenient in what I have written here.

Aphorism ... ... when ... ... ... ... ...?
... ... ...?

Concerning the disturbances of the belly and vomitings that occur spontaneously: if indeed they purge what ought to be purged, it is beneficial and they are well borne. If not, the contrary. So also with inanition: if what ought to happen is done, it is beneficial and they are well borne. If not, the contrary.

phlegm stomach humor health ... ...?
... ... ... ... ...?

Here is that status... form?
(Note on the similarity that the physician himself is from...
This should be weighed... figure...
the ruling of the body? is...
...

Therefore, it is necessary to contemplate both time and region, and ages, and the diseases in which it is necessary or not.

In these words of his, he did not look to the quantity of the purgation, but solely to the quality, which is manifest from the fact that he says "what ought to be." He begins with natural things, since he said "which occur spontaneously." And he touched upon artificial things when he subjoined, "So also in inanition," and the rest. For if he had wished to treat both quantities, he would have said "how much" in spontaneous, and "how much" in artificial. Here many impious expositors err, attending neither to the words nor to the intention of their words, whose error is detected where it is said: "So also inanition." For others foolishly understood him to mean abstinence from food, others bloodletting, which is done because Hippocrates is accustomed to call every purgation "inanition." But here, as I have said, he understood it concerning quality alone. And where he says, "So also inanition," it means that just as nature does, so should the craftsman. Because he always ordered the physician to follow the action of nature, he permitted it when they occur spontaneously. Let those things that ought to be purged be purged, provided that the harmful is weighed. For so it is beneficial, and they are well borne. If however an evacuation of other things has been made, and not of the distressing harmful things, the contrary occurs; that is, it is neither beneficial, and the suffering ones bear it with difficulty. Similarly, in artificial purgation, it is necessary to purge the harmful, as he himself says elsewhere: "It is necessary therefore that harmful humors and others be purged." For if phlegm dominates, it is necessary that it be purged with the medicines that are fitting. And if cholera or melancholy dominates, let the purging of phlegm be omitted, and let the intention be upon evacuating these. The same should be understood concerning blood.

If, however, the humors cannot be understood by the quality of the body unless the internal humors are not the same as the external humors, Hippocrates testifies elsewhere: "The color of the bodily humors shows the condition if they have not settled in the depth of the body," and since they are not equal in words, whence it is necessary to investigate the time, region, age, and disease with the investigation of the humors. For since each of the humors shows its own signs, it is understood quickly, which we will follow up on more clearly afterward.

First, we must treat of time, then of region, age, and infirmity, so that if cholera is shown to be present in the body, it is necessary to know the time—that is, if it is summer—then the region, if it is hot, and if the sick person is in the perfection of youth or adulthood. Similarly in phlegmatic people, if it is winter, and the region is cold, and if the sick person is an elder. These things having been explored, it is necessary to investigate the nature of the disease, because tertians are of the nature of red cholera, quartans of black cholera, quotidian of phlegm, cancer of melancholy, erysipelas of red cholera, whence diseases will have to be investigated individually, because if they are well examined, we will know the utility and the reason for the things to be purged.

It is therefore plain that they interpret him badly who thought that Hippocrates said "inanition" is only abstinence from food in fevers, when he never named fevers, but rather touched universally upon things that happen outside of nature. He also shows that he intended the quality of the purgation, not the quantity, since in the following he is about to speak of quantity. I am about to speak elsewhere of the times of curing diseases and the manner of curing, how or when they ought to be purged or cured. For I am not compelled by any necessity here to pursue this, since if I were to touch upon this in this place, I would not be bettering what Hippocrates has touched upon, and I would be touching what should not be touched, and I would be prolonging a sermon that should not be prolonged.

Habits are deceptive.

To those exercising to the summit, good habits are deceptive, if they are at the ultimate limit.

For they cannot remain in the same state, nor rest. Those who do not rest cannot add anything for the better, so it is left to the worse. Therefore, for their sake, it is beneficial to dissolve a good habit, and not slowly, so that it may again receive the beginning of nourishment.