On Medicine

...believed must be maintained; I mean the principle that demands one follow the manuscript codices closely. I never departed from the Medicean I and Vatican VIII codices unless they were suffering from an incurable ulcer. As much as I could, I diligently refrained from conjectures. I viewed the amendments of Lindenius as suspect everywhere, at least as often as the logic of the facts, the words, or the syntax did not prove their necessity. Furthermore, I have appended below (in the Critical Annotations) an index of all the places where I have changed something in the context edited by Targa in 1810, adding the arguments that moved me to decide to act in such a way. Moreover, I wish for readers to be warned about two matters in particular: first, I have dedicated effort, as much as possible, to ensure that the same words are always spelled with the same letters, not only regarding those terms whose correct spelling had to be sought from the manuscripts (cf. Critical Annotations), but also where greater trust should be placed in the precepts that the most skilled men of the Latin language order to be observed, regarding which I decided no mention needed to be made in the Critical Annotations. Nevertheless, even though I have diligently attended to this matter, and the volume of Celsus is not very long, reading through the proofs fresh from the press again, I encountered some anomalies (e.g., everywhere legas read ceteri, not caeteri; circuitus, not circuitusThe distinction here refers to orthographic variations of 'c' and 'ae' or prefixes.; demptus, not demptus; promptus, not promptus; exemptus, not exemptus, etc.; otherwise, for more serious anomalies, see Critical Annotations) pertinent to this, which, God willing, I will be able to remove later.

The question that concerns the method of representing Greek is closely connected by a tight bond to the correct spelling of Latin words. In this matter, it should be noted that both most ancient codices show the same Greek words sometimes written in Greek letters, sometimes in Latin, if Targa is to be trusted: hence it is hardly possible to establish a rule to which all may be directed. I have transcribed the Greek words into my text almost always in the same way they were written in Greek letters in Targa, who himself followed Lindenius, or corrected them under Targa’s guidance, or adjusted them myself to the laws of the Greek language. However, there are some Greek words so frequently met with in the Celsian books, and they imitate the Latin method of writing (cf. for example pp. 171, 27; 192, 21; 194, 28, 29; 195, 26; 199, 15; 209, 25; 211, 12, 18; 217, 14, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26,