Aphorisms of Hippocrates

for before the physician perceives by what faculties, in what manner, and in what order he might be able to accomplish this, he is in need of a long time. Through something else, if circumstances and other instruments, as it were, impede, corrupt, or pervert the operation of the medicine. But that opportunity is necessary for the physician, the patient, the attendants, and other external things, there is no doubt, because opportunity, place, method, instruments, and faculties encompass any matter whatsoever. What that is, however, Hippocrates teaches in the book On Precepts, and says: "Time is that in which there is opportunity; opportunity, however, is that in which there is not much time. Healing sometimes occurs by time, sometimes by opportunity." One must certainly know these things, and not approach the cure intent upon a merely probable reasoning, but upon practice combined with reason. And therefore, opportunity is a short time having within itself the fitness of doing or not doing something; which once passed, the action is useless and troublesome. Opportunity, therefore, is that in which the physician may exercise his work so that he may cure the sick, whether with diet, or medicine, or another instrument that can relieve his nature. But in order to know how to use the opportunity, he must know the nature of the patient, the preternatural conditions—such as the cause of the disease, the disease itself, and the accompanying, antecedent, and consequent symptoms; what good or ill the non-natural things bring, such as air, motion and rest, sleep, wakefulness, repletion, inanition, food and drink, and the affections of the mind. Finally, he should know the surrounding circumstances: the time of the year, the present and future constitution, the region, what instruments are to be applied, the method, and things of that kind. For these four being best known, the physician will have both a constant and certain doctrine, and he will grasp the opportunity, however brief and momentary; in which those who are cured, are cured seasonably and