Celsus, De Medicina
W. G. Spencer, Ed.

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[p. 13] and digest food and drink, as also those actions through which food and drink are distributed into every part of the members. Moreover, they also inquire why our blood-vessels now subside, now swell up; what is the explanation of sleep and wakefulness: for without knowledge of these they hold that no one can encounter or remedy the diseases which spring up in connexion with them. Among these natural actions digestion seems of most importance, so they give it their chief attention. Some following Erasistratus hold that in the belly the food is ground up; others, following Plistonicus, a pupil of Praxagoras, that it putrefies; others believe with Hippocrates, that food is cooked up by heat. In addition there are the followers of Asclepiades, who propound that all such notions are vain and superfluous, that there is no concoction at all, but that material is transmitted through the body, crude as swallowed. And on these points there is little agreement indeed among them; but what does follow is that a different food is to be given to patients according as this or that view is true. For if it is ground up inside, that food should be selected which can be ground up the most readily; if it putrefies, that which does so most expeditiously; if heat concocts it, that which most excites heat. But none of these points need be inquired into if there be no concoction but such things be taken which persist most in the state in which they were when swallowed. In the same way, when breathing is laboured, when sleep or wakefulness disturbs, they deem him able to remedy it who had understood beforehand how these same natural actions happen.

Moreover, as pains, and also various kinds of