PRÆFATIO.

prescribed Laws and Statutes for them, had the right of life and death most liberally granted by God, the All-Good, All-Great, the author of Nature herself. But we withdraw to those who applied themselves by profession to this way of life, so that they might confer all their study and industry upon the single Medical art, who, by a certain indicator, collected from the instinct of Brutes, [discovered] that there is no natural Disease for which there is not some equal Medicine. They attained this by such assiduity and contention of wit that they were ranked in the order of the immortal Gods, and vows and supplications were made to them by the consent of the whole People.

And indeed, perfect Medicine, absolute in all respects, was given by the Most High to the human race from His inexhaustible beneficence toward His noble creature, as is in Sirach chapter 38; and it would be foolish to think otherwise, since He manifested it for the sake of removing the attacks of morbid effects and warding off harmful things from the body to Animals that are lacking that more divine Reason, and were produced for no other purpose than the use of Man. For He who brought forth the salvation of the now-lost soul, so deeply affected, in the poured-out blood and Spirit of the only-begotten Son; will He withdraw it from this Corporeal prison, which is a servant to this Greater Nature for the sake of guarding its