Aphorisms of Hippocrates

as ought to be purged." To be purged of such things as ought to be, does not signify humors more than food, drink, and other humidities, provided they have qualities suitable for purging. What these qualities are, he explains in the Book on Ancient Medicine in these words: "When we have been freed from yellow bile, and purged either spontaneously or by medicine, provided that what is done of them is done in a timely manner, we are manifestly freed from both pains and heat. But for as long a time as the same has been elevated, both crude, and neat, and intemperate, you will be able to appease neither pains nor fevers by any art." From these we understand that those things must be purged which are neither elevated, nor crude, nor simple, nor intemperate. In this way, they will be conquered by nature, which will expel the redundant or turn them into nourishment. He explains these things, and sets forth how the matter is thus, in the Book on the Nature of Man when he says: "Blood, phlegm, and both biles are the nature of the body; and through these it is sick, and is healthy. It is most healthy when these have a temperament among themselves moderate in faculty and quantity, and when they have been most mixed. But it is sick when any of these is less or more, or separated in the body, and has not been tempered with all the others: for, when any of these has been secreted and has stood by itself, necessarily not only the place from which it withdrew becomes morbid, but also that in which it stands, and into which it has been diffused because of excessive quantity, is vexed with pain and disease: for just as excessive quantity, or repletion, so does evacuation cause pain." We have, therefore, what those things ought to be which are purged: so that they may be useful, and the sick may not bear the evacuation with difficulty. But let us approach what kind of inanition of the vessels ought to be made. It ought to be that which is neither excessively thin nor excessively thick: for every excess is dangerous. But they regard the nature of the region, time, age, or person of the sick, and...