543 
conversation. This will make him less attracted by the pleasures of 
the table (133 A- 1 34 A). 
Emetics and purges are had. Dieting is the proper remedy for 
indigestion. 11 something must be done, vomiting is the less evil, 
but violent drugs must be avoided. Drinking water or fasting for 
a few days may be tried, or even an injection. Most people take 
refuge at once in strong purgatives, and suffer for it (134 A—F). 
On the other hand, a rigid system of fasting is bad. It is absurd 
to keep well by ceasing to perform the functions of living. Nay, 
idleness is not healthy (135 A—136 A). 
Toil should not be varied by exhausting pleasures. Love of 
honourable pursuits will drown anv desire that is felt for the latter 
(136 A-E). 
A man should learn all he can about his own constitution, what 
suits it and what does not. It is important that care be taken not 
to tax it at the change of the seasons (136 E 137 B). 
Students must not tax their bodies by too much study, as the 
many do by worry and exertion at harvest-time. Otherwise they 
will be compelled to lay aside their books, while they are recovering 
from a fever (13/ C-E). 
It will, I think, be admitted that at the period when the treatise 
was composed there was much ill-health. The precepts given by the 
writer himself arc strict, and he distinctly states that there were some 
who imposed upon themselves such rigid rules of life that health was 
obtained at far too high a cost; for they could not use it without 
interfering with those prescribed habits which kept them well/ The 
writer does not seem to be referring to infectious sickness, for he 
nowhere mentions either contagion or infection.t Indeed, either 
ancient Greece was singularly free from infectious maladies (other 
than occasional epidemics) or else the Greeks did not think the 
danger worth considering. At any rate isolation of the sick, and 
similar prophylactic measures, were not generally recognised. £ The 
great danger, according to Plutarch, was “ fever.”§ The symptoms of 
t When calling 1 on* a sick friend the visitor is not supposed to take any 
^TSgit'ionbv sulphur was known as early as the Homeric period (Odyssey 
481, 4931. but the medical writers appear to know nothing mey 
'gwd it as a superstition ? Certain skin and eye _ diseases, with consumption, 
egarded as infectious, but not fevers (Aristotle, Prob. vn, °-) n • ,72 E • 137 D. 
§ Mentioned several times- 1*3 A; 127 II, E; 128 A, F; 129 lJ , 13- > 37 
''ice a more specific name- <f>p€PiTl<;, is given (124 E). 
