[De epidemia et peste]

Chapter Eight: On preservation through the accidents of the soul.

The sixth aid is taken from the preservation of the accidents of the soul The emotional states or "passions" of the mind.. Beware of anger, because anger is a fervor of heat existing in the heart due to a strong motion of the soul, Second [book] On Disease, chapter two. Excessive joy also, because it heats, on account of which Johannes Jacobi says that coitus, anger, and excessive joy bring harm. For their bad impression appears quickly. Temperate joy helps, and to be happy in honest things.

Regarding coitus, however, we do not make a singular chapter, but in my advice, it is to be dismissed, especially if it is excessive. For he who abuses coitus in pestilential time quickly risks mortal shipwreck, as I have seen frequently. If, however, one is accustomed to coitus and does not hold a strict regimen, then to avoid the constriction of the semen and its corruption, let it be done by the advice of Galen, creating intervals so that in the uses of coitus, he feels no dissolution and seems lighter than he was, etc.

Chapter Nine: On preservative remedies from an epidemic.

The best aid, most principal and best, is taken from those things by which, if anyone uses them with good regimen, he will be liberated from the epidemic with God's help. Therefore, the first remedy is to use the pills which Rasis and Avicenna set down. Take: citrine aloes, 2 parts; Oriental saffron, myrrh, of each 1 part. Let him take every day about half a dram or one dram. These pills do not allow the humors nor the body to putrefy, and consequently do not allow pernicious abscesses to be generated. For myrrh, according to Galen and Avicenna and Algafaqui Likely referring to an Arabic medical authority., and according to almost all the ancients, prohibits putrefaction. And Avicenna says that it is evident by experiment because it retains