190 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



And further, we esteem it the office of a physician 

 to mitigate the pains and tortures of diseases, as well as to 

 restore health; and this not only when such a mitigation, 

 as of a dangerous symptom, may conduce to recovery; but 

 also, when there being no further hopes of recovery, it can 

 only serve to make the passage out of life more calm and 

 easy. For that complacency in death, which Augustus 

 Caesar so much desired, is no small felicity. 10 This was 

 also observed in the death of Antoninus Pius, who seemed 

 not so much to die as to fall into a deep and pleasing sleep. 

 And it is delivered of Epicurus, that he procured himself 

 this easy departure; for after his disease was judged des 

 perate, he intoxicated himself with wine, and died in that 

 condition, which gave rise to the epigram: 



&quot;Kinc Stygias ebrius transit aquas.&quot; n 



But the physicians of our times make a scruple of attending 

 the patient after the disease is thought past cure, though, 

 in my judgment, if they were not wanting to their own 

 profession and to humanity itself, they should here give 

 their attendance to improve their skill, and make the dying 

 person depart with greater ease and tranquillity. We there 

 fore set down as deficient an inquiry after a method of re 

 lieving the agonies of the dying, calling it by the name 

 of euthanasia exteriori, to distinguish it from the internal 

 composure, procured to the soul in death. 



Again, we generally find this deficiency in the cures of 

 diseases, that though the present physicians tolerably pur 

 sue the general intentions of cures, yet they have no par 

 ticular medicines, which, by a specific property, regard 

 particular diseases; for they lose the benefit of traditions 

 and approved experience by their authoritative procedure 

 in adding, taking away, and changing the ingredients of 

 their receipts at pleasure, after the manner of apothecaries 

 substituting one thing for another, and thus haughtily com- 



10 Suetonius Life Aug. Cses. 100. &quot; Laertius Life Epic. x. 15. 



