BOOK XXVI. VIII. 14-17 



tive methods of treatment, such as suspended beds, 

 so that by rocking them he could either reheve 

 diseases or induce sleep ; again, he organized a 

 system of hydropathy, which appeals to man's 

 greedy love of baths, and many other things pleasant 

 and dehghtful to speak of, which won him a great 

 professional reputation. His fame was no less great 

 when, on meeting the funeral cortege of a man 

 unknown to liim, he had him removed from the pyre 

 and saved his life. This incident I give lest any 

 should think that it was on sHght grounds that so 

 violent a change <^ took place. One thing alone 

 moves me to anger : that one man, of a veiy super- 

 ficial race, beginning with no resources, in order to 

 increase his income suddenly gave to the human race 

 rules for health, which however have subsequently 

 been generally discarded. The success of Asclepiades 

 owed much to the manv distressing and crude features 

 of ancient medical treatment ; for instance, it was 

 the custom to bury patients under coverings, and to 

 promote perspiration by every possible means, now 

 to roast the body before a fire, or continually to 

 make them seek sunshine in our rainy city, nay 

 throughout rainy imperial ^ Italy : then for the 

 first time were used hot-air baths, heated from below,<^ 

 treatment of infinite attractiveness. Besides this 

 he did away with the agonizing treatment em- 

 ployed in certain diseases ; for example in quinsy, 

 which physicians used to treat by thrusting an 



' Pliny says in IX, § 168, that the pensiles balineae were 

 invented by one Sergius Orata. This kind of bath had 

 a flooring suspended over the hypocaust. Asclepiades 

 apparently prescribed a " Turkisli bath " as a substitute for 

 sunsliine in cases where genial warmth was beneficial. 



277 



