XCV
Medicine
-
Every one of the three humours described by sages, beginning with the windy one,35 would cause disease whenever they go to either extreme.
-
The body requireth no medicine if new food is eaten only after the old food is fully digested.
-
Eat with moderation and after the food that thou hast taken is digested: that is the way to prolong thy days.
-
Wait till thy food is digested and thy appetite is keen: then eat moderately the food that agreeth with thee.
-
If thou eat abstemiously the food that doth not disagree with thee thou wilt have no troubles in the body.
-
Even as Health seeketh the man who eateth only when his stomach is empty, even so doth Disease seek the man who eateth to excess.
-
Behold the man who glutteth himself foolishly beyond the measure of his internal heat: his diseases will exceed all measure.
-
Consider the disease and its origin and the means of curing it: and then set about the cure with every precaution.
-
Let the physician take the measure of the patient and the disease and the season that is: and then let him undertake the cure.
-
The patient, the physician, the medicine, and the apothecary, on these four doth all cure depend: and four again are the attributes of each of them.36