BOOK XXVI. VII. I2-VIII. 14 



brilliant enough for success in otlier professions, 

 suddenly abandoned rhetoric for medicine." A man 

 vvho neither had practised it nor knew anything 

 of remedies that call for sharp eyes and personal 

 experience, but could attract by his eloquent and 

 daily-practised oratoiy, was forced to reject all 

 simples, and reducing the whole of medicine to the 

 discovery of causes, made it a matter of guess- 

 work. He recognised especially five principles of 

 general appHcation : fasting from food, in other 

 cases abstinence from wine, massage, walking, and 

 the various kinds of caiTiage-rides. Since everv 

 man realised that he could provide these things 

 for himself, and since all applauded *• him as if 

 the easiest things were also triie, Asclepiades 

 hrought round to his view almost all the human 

 race, just as if he had been sent as an apostle from 

 heaven. 



VIII. He iised, moreover, to attract men's minds 

 by the empty artifice " of promising the sick, now 

 wine, which he administered as opportunity occurred, 

 while now he woukl prescribe cold water ; and since 

 Herophihis had anticipated him in inquiring into the 

 causes of diseases, and Cleophantus among the 

 ancient physicians had brought to prominent notice 

 the treatment by wine, he preferred, according to 

 Marcus Varro, to win for himself the surname of 

 " cold-water giver."'* He devised also other attrac- 



corrupted to animalia. Personally I thought for a time that 

 amabili (" alhiring ") might be right, and fricnds have sug- 

 gested anili (" old woman's trick ") and animae (" psycho- 

 logical trick "). Perhaps promitlendo is " by prescribing." 

 See XXIV § 80. 



■* Asclepiades was actually nicknamed " wine-giver." See 

 Anonymus Londinensis XXIV 30 'KoKXriTnahrjs 6 olvoh<JoTr)s. 



275 



