PART 13
But I wish the discourse to revert to the new method of those who
prosecute their inquiries in the Art by hypothesis. For if hot, or
cold, or moist, or dry, be that which proves injurious to man, and
if the person who would treat him properly must apply cold to the
hot, hot to the cold, moist to the dry, and dry to the moist- let
me be presented with a man, not indeed one of a strong constitution,
but one of the weaker, and let him eat
[p. 9]wheat, such as it is supplied
from the thrashing-floor, raw and unprepared, with raw meat, and let
him drink water. By using such a diet I know that he will suffer much
and severely, for he will experience pains, his body will become weak,
and his bowels deranged, and he will not subsist long. What remedy,
then, is to be provided for one so situated? Hot? or cold? or moist?
or dry? For it is clear that it must be one or other of these. For,
according to this principle, if it is one of the which is injuring
the patient, it is to be removed by its contrary. But the surest and
most obvious remedy is to change the diet which the person used, and
instead of wheat to give bread, and instead of raw flesh, boiled,
and to drink wine in addition to these; for by making these changes
it is impossible but that he must get better, unless completely disorganized
by time and diet. What, then, shall we say? whether that, as he suffered
from cold, these hot things being applied were of use to him, or the
contrary? I should think this question must prove a puzzler to whomsoever
it is put. For whether did he who prepared bread out of wheat remove
the hot, the cold, the moist, or the dry principle in it?- for the
bread is consigned both to fire and to water, and is wrought with
many things, each of which has its peculiar property and nature, some
of which it loses, and with others it is diluted and mixed.
