CttAP. li.] Aftt OF KDtlfiVlKG t»Alif IJgEDEi). 163 



appearance, or after a oertain period, that the proscriptions 

 of Sylla and the Trinmvirate were tiifiing to the proscrip- 

 tions of the physicians, by which, with an unjust sentence, 

 they deliver men over to death ; numbers whereof, however^ 

 escape with less difficulty than under the Roman proscrip- 

 tions. A work, therefore, is wanting upon the cures ot 

 reputed incurable diseases, that physicians of eminence and 

 resolution may be encouraged and excited to pursue this 

 matter as far as the nature of things will permit ; since to 

 pronounce diseases incurable, is to establish negligence and 

 carelessness, as it were by a law, and screen ignorance trom 

 reproach. 



And farther, we esteem it the office of a physician to 

 mitigate the pains and tortures of diseases, as well Jis 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 farther 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.'^ 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 desperate, he 

 intoxicated himself with Avine, and died in that condition, 

 which gave rise to the epigram : — 



" Hinc Stygias ebrius transit aquas."' 

 But the physicians of our times make a scruple of attending 

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

 my judgment, if they were not Avanting to their own pro- 

 fession 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 therefore set 

 down as deficient an inquiry after a method of relieving the 

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

 exteriori, to distinguish it from the internal composure, pro- 

 cured to the soul in death. 



Again, we generally find this deficiency in the cures of 

 diseases, that though the present physicians tolerably pursue 



^ Suetonlus's Life Aug. Caes. 100. * Laertius's Life Epic. x. § 1& 



m2 



