Aphorisms of Hippocrates

...it clarifies afterwards what diet is suitable for acute diseases, and what for chronic; what for parts of diseases, what for the strength of the sick, what for the age of old, mature, young, and child-like; and what for the seasons of the year, such as winter, spring, summer, and autumn. Hippocrates, therefore, in this aphorism teaches the physician that the evacuation of the vessels through diet ought to be such as the disease, region, age, and time of year require. Now, however, let us come to explain the remaining parts of the aphorism. “In perturbations of the belly,” that is, in spontaneous purgings. For "perturbation" in this place is taken for purging, though what it truly is, Hippocrates declares in the Book on the Nature of the Child, and he says: "To those not carrying a womb, where the menses have not appeared, pain arises on that account because the blood is perturbed every month by such a necessity, because one month differs much from another." Where we understand that perturbation precedes evacuation. Nevertheless, for evacuation, it is described at the end of the Book of Affections in this way: "The belly is sometimes perturbed, sometimes stayed, sometimes it even yields according to reason." Some call spontaneous vomiting and spontaneous evacuation that which nature, governing, performs, or which has been rightly performed by nature. That this is in no way true becomes plain from the words of Hippocrates: for if the perturbation of the belly or vomiting were caused by nature governing our body, or by nature acting rightly, it would for the most part be beneficial; for while nature governs, it conquers all injurious things and overcomes them. But he says himself: "If in perturbations of the belly and spontaneous vomitings such things are purged as ought to be purged, it is beneficial, and they bear it lightly." Wherefore, if nature governing were to effect such an evacuation, it would be superfluous to say "if," that is, by this law, that such things are purged as ought to be. Furthermore, in the Book on Places in Man, it is set forth: "When bile has erupted of its own accord, either downward or upward, it is more difficult to appease: for what spontaneously proce-