Aphorisms of Hippocrates

IN BOOK I. OF THE APHORISMS OF HIPPOCRATES.

III. The euexia good condition of athletes, which has reached the limit of perfection, is dangerous: for nature cannot remain in its own state, nor can it rest idly. Since, therefore, it is not in idleness, and nothing further can be added to its goodness, it remains that it slides into the worse. From this it happens that it is necessary to break up such a condition without hesitation, so that the body—with nutrition restored—may increase again. Nor, however, should an extreme inanition be brought about, by which the vessels might collapse entirely, for that is full of danger: but [it should be led] only as far as the nature of him who will endure it can bear. Furthermore, just as evacuations led to the extreme are full of danger, so in turn, extreme replenishments are dangerous.

Why athletic fullness is dangerous.

On euexia, ch. 5. On the Republic, book 2.

Leovik. fol. 5. munief. Seneca

And elsewhere he says, "Athletes, whom we call gymnastic because of their exercise, do not have a good habit of body." And Plato says that athletic bulk is useless. Indeed, to this constitution, the more one adds, the more danger is added and security is lost. "Whatever has reached its limit," says Seneca, "hastens to its end." The brighter a fire has shone, the sooner it is extinguished. Hence Cornelius Celsus used to say, if someone seems fuller, and more beautiful, and more florid than himself, he ought to regard his goods with suspicion. But let us now see the reason why this most habituated constitution is of such great danger. First, there is a fear that those delicate vessels (in which the blood boils) of the respirable parts and of the liver might burst: or that, with the native heat extinguished, men might be seized by a sudden collapse of strength from the excessive abundance of blood: or that, with the paths of the carotid arteries intercepted, the vital spirit might be prohibited from entering the brain: whence a small apoplexy, if it is compared with that which happens from intercepted animal spirits, while these are prohibited from exiting from the brain.