On the Sects of Physicians

...of things; from there comes the Logical physician, who is also called Dogmatic The Dogmatic school believed that a doctor must understand the hidden causes of disease, not just the symptoms; for this Medicine is a sacred thing. And as the opinion of Solomon testifies, all healing is from God. Therefore, that wisest of men most healthfully commands that the Physician should be honored because of necessity, since the Most High has created him. This refers to the Book of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) 38:1, which was traditionally associated with the wisdom of Solomon in this period. For that Hippocrates, the greatest of Physicians, because he drove away through the medical art the pestilence coming from Illyricum A region in the western Balkans into Greece, earned those honors from the Greeks which they decreed for Hercules. Homer, that most ancient author, says this regarding Physicians: "A man who is a Physician is alone worth many others." original: "Vir Medicus multis alijs ęquabitur unus" — a reference to the Iliad, book 11 Furthermore, the Gentiles Non-Christian classical authors hold that the authors of this art were Gods. Hippocrates of Cos confirmed this in his Letter to the Abderites The people of Abdera, a city in Thrace, saying that Medicine is a gift of the Gods, and it is free. And to Philemon he said: "Medicine is close to prophecy: for Apollo is the single parent of both arts."

A decorative woodcut initial 'I' featuring two figures standing before a trellis or architectural structure in a landscape.

Interestingly, among the Empiricists there is a fight and contention almost greater than among soldiers, and Mages, and Soothsayers: their dogmas are infinite, and their opinions manifold. From this arise those strange disputes around the sick, with no one agreeing on the same thing; lest one should seem to [yield to another].