THE HIPPOCRATICS 



religious, and as knowing more than other 

 people. Such persons, then, using the divinity 

 as a pretext and screen of their own inability to 

 afford any assistance, have given out that the 

 disease is sacred, adding suitable reasons for 

 this opinion; they have instituted a mode of 

 treatment which is safe for themselves, namely 

 by applying purifications and incantations, and 

 enforcing abstinence from baths and many 

 articles of food which are unwholesome to 

 sick men. . . ." 13 



After a statement of the causes of the dis- 

 ease within the human body or arising from 

 outer influences, the conclusion follows, that 

 " this disease called sacred comes from the 

 same causes as the others, from cold, from the 

 sun, or from changing winds. These are 

 divine; but they do not make this disease more 

 divine than others. All are human and divine 

 and each has its own nature and power." , 



So each disease has its own nature and can-^ 

 not arise "without natural causes, — a beautiful 

 and enlightened view for which we have so 

 largely to thank Hippocrates. 



The principle that disease and health are 

 due to natural causes is exemplified in the large 

 by the Hippocratic tract On Airs, Waters and 



[25] 



