On the Sects of Physicians

...lest the memory of me utterly fade away in your mind. Farewell, be happy, and may you live happily through the years of Nestor Nestor was the legendary king in Homer’s Iliad famed for his extreme old age and wisdom; continue to hold us in your affection, and admit us among those most devoted to you.

And since mention has been made of the sects The word "sect" here refers to a school of thought or a specific philosophical approach to medicine of physicians, it does not seem inappropriate to me to bring them forward here into the light. They are currently divided into three parts: some are Greeks, others Arabs, and the third are Latins; and thus there is a threefold form of healing.

Decorative woodcut initial G containing a scene with two figures, possibly putti, in a wooded landscape.The Greeks followed various paths of healing. To Hippocrates The "Father of Medicine" (c. 460–370 BCE), it seemed that the original causes of disease lay in the spirit or breath original: "spiritu siue flatu", which he calls the father and grandfather of all diseases. To Herophilus An Alexandrian physician (c. 335–280 BCE) who was one of the first to perform scientific dissections, every defect seemed to reside in the fluids original: "humidis"; referring to the theory of bodily humors. But to Asclepiades A Greek physician who practiced in Rome (c. 124–40 BCE) and rejected the humoral theory, it was pleasing to think that the origin of ailments was that if flowing corpuscles original: "corpuscula"; Asclepiades believed the body was composed of "atoms" or particles should halt within invisible pores, they would block the path and obstruct the passages. For Erasistratus An Alexandrian physician (c. 304–250 BCE) often credited as the father of physiology contended that food is ground down original: "atteri"; a mechanical view of digestion in the stomach. Hippocrates favored the idea that food is "cooked" original: "concoqui"; the concept of "coction" or metabolic heat by heat, which Galen Galen of Pergamon (129–c. 216 CE), whose writings dominated Western medicine for over a millennium confirms. Many...