PART 9
And if it were simply, as is laid down, that such things as are stronger
prove injurious, but such as are weaker prove beneficial and nourishing,
both to sick and healthy persons, it were an easy matter, for then
the safest rule would be to circumscribe the diet to the lowest point.
But then it is no less mistake, nor one that injuries a man less,
provided a deficient diet, or one consisting of weaker things than
what are proper, be administered. For, in the constitution of man,
abstinence may enervate, weaken, and kill. And there are many other
ills, different from those of repletion, but no less dreadful, arising
from deficiency of food; wherefore the practice in those cases is
more varied, and requires greater accuracy. For one must aim at attaining
a certain measure, and yet this measure admits neither weight nor
calculation of any kind, by which it may be accurately determined,
unless it be the sensation of the body; wherefore it is a task to
learn this accurately, so as not to commit small blunders either on
the one side or the other, and in fact I would give great praise to
the physician whose mistakes are small, for perfect accuracy is seldom
to be seen, since many physicians seem to me to be in the same plight
as bad pilots, who, if they commit mistakes while conducting the ship
in a calm do not expose themselves, but when a storm and violent hurricane
overtake them, they then, from their ignorance and mistakes, are discovered
to be what they are, by all men, namely, in losing their ship. And
thus bad and commonplace physicians, when they treat men who have
no serious illness, in which case one may commit great mistakes without
producing any formidable mischief (and such complaints occur much
more frequently to men than dangerous ones): under these circumstances,
when they commit mistakes, they do not expose themselves to ordinary
men; but when they fall in with a great, a strong, and a dangerous
disease, then their mistakes and want of skill are made apparent to
all. Their punishment is not far off, but is swift in overtaking both
the one and the other.
1
