PART 8
And if one would compare the diet of sick persons with that of persons
in health, he will find it not more injurious than that of healthy
persons in comparison with that of wild beasts and of other animals.
For, suppose a man laboring under one of those diseases which are
neither serious and unsupportable, nor yet altogether mild, but such
as that, upon making any mistake in diet, it will become apparent,
as if he should eat bread and flesh, or any other of those articles
which prove beneficial to healthy persons, and that, too, not in great
quantity, but much less than he could have taken when in good health;
and that another man in good health, having a constitution neither
very feeble, nor yet strong, eats of those things which are wholesome
and strengthening to an ox or a horse, such as vetches, barley, and
the like, and that, too, not in great quantity, but much less than
he could take; the healthy person who did so would be subjected to
no less disturbance and danger than the sick person who took bread
or
[p. 6]cake unseasonably. All these things are proofs that Medicine is
to be prosecuted and discovered by the same method as the other.