I I4 BACON 



preservation of health; 2d, the cure of diseases; and 3d, the 

 prolongation of life. For this last part, physicians seem 

 to think it no capital part of medicine, but confound it with the 

 other two ; as supposing, that if diseases be prevented, or cured 

 after invasion, long life must follow, of course. But, then, they 

 do not consider that both preservation and cure regard only 

 diseases, and such prolongation of life as is intercepted by them : 

 whence the means of spinning out the full thread of life, or 

 preventing, for a season, that kind of death which gradually 

 steals upon the body by simple resolution, and the wasting of 

 age, is a subject that no physician has treated suitably to its 

 merit. Let none imagine we are here repealing the decrees of 

 fate and Providence, by establishing a new office of medicine ; 

 for, doubtless, Providence alike dispenses all kinds of deaths, 

 whether they proceed from violence, diseases, or the course and 

 period of age ; yet without excluding the use of remedies and 

 preventions, for art and industry do not here overrule, but ad- 

 minister to nature and fate. 



Many have unskilfully written upon the preservation of 

 health, particularly by attributing too much to the choice, and 

 too little to the quantity of meats. As to quantity, they, like the 

 moral philosophers, highly commend moderation ; whereas, 

 both fasting changed to custom, and full feeding, where a man 

 is used to it, are better preservatives of health than those medi- 

 ocrities they recommend, which commonly dispirit nature, and 

 unfit her to bear excess, or want, upon occasion. And for the 

 several exercises, which greatly conduce to the preservation of 

 health, no physician has well distinguished or observed them, 

 though there be scarce any tendency to a disease, that may not 

 be corrected by some appropriate exercise. Thus bowling is 

 suited to the diseases of the kidneys, shooting with the long 

 bow to those of the lungs, walking and riding to those of the 

 stomach, etc. 



Great pains" have been bestowed upon the cure of diseases, 

 but to small purpose. This part comprehends the knowledge 

 of the diseases incident to the human body, together with 

 their causes, symptoms, and cures. In this second office of 

 medicine there are many deficiencies. And first, we may note 

 the discontinuance of that useful method of Hippocrates,^ in 

 writing narratives of particular cures with diligence and exact- 

 ness, containing the nature, the cure, and event of the distem- 



