Disputationis medicae de hydrope theses inaugurales LXV

46. Nature, indeed, heals dropsy in such a way that by deriving the water troubling the body into the belly, it subsequently draws it off through spontaneous evacuation by the bowels.

47. Therefore, in the same way, a good physician, when he has discovered that an excessive abundance of humor is present, having taken the indication from the nature of the affection through sagacious reasoning, will evacuate it immediately at the beginning, though cautiously and by turns, gradually, according to the precept of Asclepiades, which Galen repeats in the 9th book On the Composition of Medicines.

48. For it is better to hasten slowly, and by acting little by little to preserve strength, than to overthrow it once and altogether, and with the disease to take the patient from the midst of life.

49. Therefore, equal regard for the disease and the cause must always be held.

50. Just as there are degrees of concoction, so too should purgations be done at intervals, and effort must always be given uniquely so that the efficient cause may be removed by suitable remedies. For as Horace truly sings:

The dire dropsy grows by indulging itself,
Nor does it repel thirst, unless the cause of the disease
Has fled from the veins, and the watery
languor from the white body.

51. Because of this, we must also consider the four kairoi critical times of the disease, or the times of acting, from which the occasion for operating arises: namely the beginning, the increase, the vigor, and the decline. For in the beginning, the same aids are suitable for all differences, except only the removal of blood through the incision of a vein. This, indeed, is suitable only for Anasarca generalized swelling, if strength, age, and other things permit, though not always.

52. Avicenna also rightly orders two general canons to be observed