Declamation of the Philosopher, Physician, and Orator

Archiatros (Chief Physician).

Fragrances against pestilence.

Nothing more common than health. Medicine of bodies.

Dietetics, Pharmaceutics, Surgery.

The archiatros chief physician and medicine is a sacred thing. And as the wisdom of Solomon testifies, all healing is from God. And therefore, that most wise man most healthfully taught that the physician must be honored because of necessity, since the Most High created him. But as for the philosopher brother having boasted that philosophers were most honored in the ancient age among kings, lest I yield to him in this part also—since we have received that physicians were almost worshipped in the place of gods: for that Hippocrates, the greatest of physicians, because of the pestilence coming from Illyria into Greece which he drove away with medical art, deserved those honors from the Greeks which they decreed for Hercules. In this matter, that thought of Galen from his book on antidotes comes to mind: how, specifically, the divine Hippocrates ordered fires to be made, seasoned with fragrances and sweet-smelling ointments, so that the death-bringing air might be cleansed and become more innocent and sincere in the breathing. Avicenna also taught that this should be done in a pestilence. What of Asclepiades, who among ancient physicians (I always except Hippocrates) is easily the prince? Did he not direct almost the entire human race toward himself in no other way than if he had arrived sent from heaven, professing five things of the greatest common help: abstinence from food, wine, friction of the body, walking, and being carried? He, sought after by Mithridates, the greatest of kings, spurned and put aside the legates sent to him and their huge promises for the sake of the quiet of his studies. Critobolus also and Erasistratus were held in the greatest esteem among the greatest kings, since the one had healed Philip, the father of Alexander, and the other Antiochus, the King of Syria, by their skillful care. What more? Since nothing is more useful to mortals than health, which Galen also asserts in his book on sects. Since medicine provides health, we clearly conclude that the physician is far more useful to the city than both the philosopher and the orator. For if philosophy is called the medicine of the soul, medicine is also rightly held to be the philosophy of bodies, whose help the infirmity of men invokes, and wherever sickness persuades, it continuously seeks the comforts of the physician, with philosophers and orators put aside, in whom there are no salutary helps, no aids for the languishing. To whom the physician is present and helps with most present remedies. Therefore, legal experts place physicians before professors of the liberal arts, since these act for the health of men, while those act for the care of studies. What should I now enumerate the parts of medicine, which I consider all sacred and salutary: dietetics, which cures by food; pharmaceutics, which cures by medicines; surgery, which cures by the hand? From this, it comes about that he who does not see the utility of medicine does not see it, not as one who is merely squinting, but as one who is blinded and sees absolutely nothing at all. Therefore, judges, if you consult for the public utility, you recognize that the physician is most useful in the city, to me who [proffers] the most healthful [remedies].