PART 13
XIII. But I want to return to the theory of those
who prosecute their researches in the art after
the novel fashion, building on a postulate. For if
there be such a thing as heat, or cold, or dryness,
or moistness, which injures a man, it necessarily
follows that the scientific healer will counteract cold
with hot, hot with cold, moist with dry and dry
with moist. Now suppose we have a man whose
constitution is not strong, but weaker than the
average. Let this man's food be wheat straight
from the threshing-floor, unworked and uncooked,
and raw meat, and let his drink be water. The use
of this diet will assuredly cause him much severe
suffering ; he will experience pains and physical
weakness, his digestion will be ruined and he will
not be able to live long. Well, what remedy should
be prepared for a man in this condition ? Heat or
cold or dryness or moistness ? One of these, plainly ;
for, according to the theory of the new school, if
the injury was caused by one of the opposites, the
other opposite ought to be a specific. Of course the
most obvious as well as the most reliable medicine
would be to abandon his old diet, and to give him
bread instead of wheat, boiled meat instead of raw
meat, and besides these things, a little wine to
drink. This change must restore him to his health,
unless indeed it has been entirely ruined by long
continuance of the diet. What then shall we say ?
That he was suffering from cold, and that the taking
of these hot things benefited him ? Or shall we say
the opposite ? I think that I have nonplussed my
opponent. For is it the heat of the wheat, or the
cold, or the dryness, or the moistness, that the baker
took away from it ? For a thing which has been
[p. 37]
exposed to fire and to water, and has been made by
many other things, each of which has its own individual
property
1 and nature, has lost some of its qualities
and has been mixed and combined with others.
