Castigationes seu Emendationes

...assertion of another; from here comes that inscription on the unhappy monument: "He perished by a crowd of physicians." original: "turba Medicorum se periisse" — a common Latin proverb reflecting the danger of conflicting medical advice I cannot restrain myself from reviewing those words of Pliny Pliny the Elder, a first-century Roman author known for his encyclopedic Natural History which remarkably suit this entire matter. In them, that brilliant writer, speaking against the Empiricists A medical school that relied only on experience and observation, rejecting the search for hidden causes, asserts that no art has been more inconsistent; and there is no doubt that the Empiricists, seeking the fame of all knowledge through some novelty, immediately bargain with our souls. They learn by our dangers, and they conduct experiments through deaths. For an Empiricist Physician, killing a man brings the greatest impunity; indeed, the blame is turned into an insult against the patient, and their "excess" is blamed. It is believed that Portius Cato Cato the Elder, a Roman statesman who famously mistrusted Greek physicians healthfully forbade the Empiricists. With his oracle an authoritative, prophetic-like pronouncement I shall conclude this dispute regarding the Empiricists. These are the words of Cato: "Whenever that race Referring to the Greeks gives us its literature, it will corrupt everything, and even more so if it sends its physicians here."

How much the Dogmatic and Rational Physician is to be praised, and how much the Empiricist and Irrational [physician] is to be censured. Division VII.

Ornamental woodcut initial 'A' featuring a seated figure in a classical robe positioned near an architectural arch or building.
They believed that the mind of the sick person should be cleansed with sacred prayers and reasons or "rational arguments" before the body; because...