Knowledge of the Ancients, 263 
This direction is relative to the preparation 
of the water, to be drank by the patient, which 
is ordered to be, fuch as has been boiled ; and 
part of the preparation was performed, with the 
water expofed to the air, and part, with the veflel 
clofed up. * 
The fir ft, referred to the boiling or heating 
the water, and the latter, to the cooling of it; 
as I fuppole, it was boiled, to throw out or expel 
the air, and then doled up, that it might not 
recover it again when cooling, which would 
have retarded its refrigeration, according to the 
modern theory. Galen, though he does not 
explain the meaning quite in the f fame manner 
as I have done, imagines, that Hippocrates al¬ 
ludes to the boiling of water, that was afterwards 
to be drank cold, as, in the fentencejuft preceding 
the former, cold things had been recommended. 
Galen accounts for the obfeurity of this paflage, 
by informing us, that thefe works of Hippocrates 
were not written for publication, but as private 
notes to aftift the memory, 
* When water is boiled, car# fhould be taken that air 
fhould be allowed ad million to the veffel, that the veffel be 
not quite full, and that it have a cover, Farr’s Tranfl. 
f Galen, however, feems to think, that the water was 
to be boiled in an open velTel, and, when let down into 
{he Refrigeratory, to be clofed up, fo as to exclude all air. 
yialen Comm, in Lib. VI. §. 4. Epidetn. Hippocr. 
S 4 Qaleq 
