[405d]
but, because of sloth and such a
regimen as we described, to fill one's body up with winds and humors like a
marsh and compel the ingenious sons of Aesculapius to invent for diseases
such names as fluxes and flatulences—don't you think that
disgraceful?1”
“Those surely are,” he said, “new-fangled and
monstrous strange names of diseases.” “There was nothing
of the kind, I fancy,” said I, “in the days of
Aesculapius. I infer this from the fact that at Troy his sons
1 Plato ridicules the unsavory metaphors required to describe the effects of auto-intoxication. There is a similar bit of somewhat heavier satire in Spencer's Social Statics, 1868, p. 32: “Carbuncled noses, cadaverous faces, foetid breaths, and plethoric bodies meet us at every turn; and our condolences are prepetually asked for headaches, flatulences, nightmare, heartburn, and endless other dyspeptic symptoms.”
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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