GREEK BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE 



men and discover the form and amount of 

 nourishment suitable to a constitution weak- 

 ened through disease. 



The obvious fact that some forms of food 

 will make a well person sick tells against those 

 who imagine that disease is produced by an 

 excess of warmth or cold, of dryness or mois- 

 ture. " For if hot, or cold, or moist, or dry, 

 be that which proves injurious to man, and if 

 the person who would treat him properly must 

 apply cold to the hot, hot to the cold, moist to 

 the dry, and dry to the moist — then let a man 

 eat wheat raw from the threshing floor, and 

 raw meat, and drink water with it.^° By using 

 such a diet I know that he will suffer severely; 

 for he will experience pains, his body will be- 

 come weak and his bowels deranged, and he 

 will not live long. What remedy then should 

 be provided him? Hot, or cold? or moist? or 

 dry? For, according to the hypothesis, it must 

 be one of these that is injuring the patient, 

 and must be removed by its contrary. But the 

 surest and most obvious way is to change his 

 diet, give bread instead of wheat, boiled flesh 

 in the place of raw, and a little wine." ^^ 



Having ridiculed and disproved such hypo- 

 theses in their application to medicine, the 



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