BIOLOGICAL BEGINNINGS 5 



Cold sweats, occurring with high fever, indicate death; with a milder 

 fever they indicate a protracted disease. 



And on whatever part of the body there is sweat, it means that the 

 disease has settled there. 



Those who are attacked by tetanus either die in four days or, if they 

 survive these, recover. 



Consumption occurs chiefly between the ages of eighteen and thirtv-five. 



When unnaturally fat women cannot conceive, it is because the fat 

 presses the mouth of the womb, and conception is impossible until they 

 grow thinner. 



Kidney troubles, and affections of the bladder, are cured with difficulty 

 when the patient is aged. 



If one of the small intestines be severed it does not unite. 



It is better to give no treatment in cases of hidden cancer; treatment 

 causes speedy death, but to omit treatment is to prolong life. 



Both sleep and sleeplessness, when beyond due measure, constitute dis- 

 ease. 



Those diseases that medicines do not cure are cured by the knife. Those 

 that the knife does not cure are cured by fire. Those that fire does not cure 

 must be considered incurable. 



REGIMEN 



I maintain that he who aspires to treat correctly of human regimen must 

 first acquire knowledge and discernment of the nature of man in general 

 — knowledge of its primary constituents and discernment of the com- 

 ponents by which it is controlled. 



Now all animals, including man, are composed of two things, different 

 in power but working together in their use, namely, fire and water. Both 

 together these are sufficient for one another and for everything else, but 

 each by itself suffices neither for itself nor for anything else. Now the 

 power that each of them possesses is this. Fire can move all things always, 

 while water can nourish all things always; but in turn each masters or is 

 mastered to the greatest maximum or the least minimum possible. Neither 

 of them can gain the complete mastery for the following reason. The 

 fire, as it advances to the limit of the water, lacks nourishment, and so turns 

 to where it is likely to be nourished; the water, as it advances to the limit of 

 the fire, finds its motions fail, and so stops at this point. When it stops 

 its force ceases, and hereafter is consumed to nourish the fire which assails 

 it. 



Males and females would be formed, so far as possible, in the following 

 manner. Females, inclined more to water, grow from foods, drinks, and 

 pursuits that are cold, moist, and gentle. Males, inclined to fire, grow from 

 foods and regimen that are dry and warm. So if a man would beget a girl, 

 he must use a regimen inclined to water. If he wants a boy, he must live 



