374 pliny's natural history. [Book XXI X 



prescribed diets to his patients in accordance with the move- 

 ments of the heavenly bodies, as indicated by the almanacks 

 of the mathematicians, taking observations himself of the 

 various times and seasons. It was but recently that he died, 

 leaving ten millions of sesterces, after having expended hardly 

 a less sum upon building the walls of his native place and 

 of other towns. 



It was while these men were ruling our destinies, that 

 all at once, Charmis, a native also of Massilia, took^° tlie 

 City by surprise. Not content with condemning the practice 

 of preceding physicians, he proscribed the use of warm baths 

 as well, and persuaded people, in the very depth of winter 

 even, to immerse themselves in cold water. His patients 

 he used to plunge into large vessels filled with cold water, 

 and it was a common thing to see aged men of consular 

 rank make it a matter of parade to freeze themselves ; a 

 method of treatment, in favour of which Annaeus'^ Seneca gives 

 his personal testimony, in writings still extant. 



There can be no doubt whatever, that all these men, in the 

 pursuit of celebrity by the introduction of some novelty or other, 

 made purchase of it at the downright expense of human life. 

 Hence those woeful discussions, those consultations at the bed- 

 side of the patient, where no one thinks fit to be of the same 

 opinion as another, lest he may have the appearance of being 

 subordinate to another ; hence, too, that ominous inscription 

 to be read upon a tomb, ". It was the multitude of physicians 

 that killed me."^^ 



The medical art, so often modified and renewed as it has 

 been, is still on the change from day to day, and still are we 

 impelled onwards by the puffs'-^ which emanate from the in- 

 genuity of the Greeks. It is quite evident too, that every 

 one among them that finds himself skilled in the art of speech, 

 may fortliwith create himself the arbiter of our life and death : 

 as though, forsooth, there were not thousands-^ of nations who 



-" "Invasit." 



'-' Ep. 53 and 83. llis " adstipulatio " is of a very equivocal character, 

 however. 



" " Turba medicorura peril." This is supposed to be borrowed from a 

 line of Menander — 



no/\X<iv tarpojv iiaoSog fi' inrtljXttTev. 



-'« "Flatu." 



24 Herodotus states this with reference to the Babylonians ; Strabo, the 



