Aphorisms of Hippocrates

and so, that diseases are made and are cured through the same. And in the Book on Critical Days, one must precisely learn each constitution of the seasons. Concerning the remaining circumstances, he deals in many places, just as concerning opportunity, medical instruments, the manner of curing through them, facility and difficulty, order, and things of that kind. Concerning preternatural things, which are called by physicians cause, disease, and symptoms, he discourses in all his books: for in Book 1 on Women's Diseases, he orders the physician to inquire immediately and precisely into the cause of the disease: for the cure of women's diseases differs greatly from that of men. And in Book 1 on Diseases, he writes this: "It behooves one to observe first from what all diseases are made." And below he adds: "All diseases are made from those things that are within the body, as much from bile as from phlegm: but from external things, from labors and wounds, but also from heat and what over-heats, and from cold and what over-cools, and dry and what over-dries, and from moist and what over-moistens." Furthermore, regarding these causes, it has been set forth in the Book on the Nature of Man copiously, and in other places. Concerning diseases, however, he treats everywhere and commands him who wishes to heal to be a good investigator of diseases, as he teaches in the Book on Art. But in the Book on Critical Days, one must precisely learn each disease, and which disease is good and which is dangerous, either in the constitution or in the disease: and which disease is long and lethal, and which is long but not lethal, and which is acute and lethal: and which is acute and not lethal: for from these, the faculty of considering and predicting the order of critical days is given, and from these, to know to whom, when, and to what end one ought to prescribe a diet. He reviews almost these same things in Book 1 on Diseases. Regarding symptoms, however, it is dealt with everywhere. It is necessary, therefore, for him who desires to cure diseases rightly, to have the art of curing, and that is had by knowing