De anodinis medicamentis eorumque causis et usibus Physica & Medica consideratio in Theses aliquot digesta

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Ecclesiastes, chapter 3.

THAT HEBREW sage, most illustrious men, who bound all things within the tie of vanity, yet, compelled by a certain necessity, finally excepted two things, and those alone: namely, to do good and to rejoice. In these words, he proposed a twofold pleasure for us: one for the soul, to do good; the other for the body, to rejoice. And rightly, indeed. For what is more pleasant to the soul than to feel, by the testimony of good works, the Holy Spirit working within and exhilarating the heart? What, on the contrary, is more bitter to every sense of pain than for men, agitated by the furies of conscience, to find no rest anywhere, and to carry a soul struck with continuous fear and terror on account of their sins? As for the body, what is more desirable than health and cheerfulness, without which, as Euripides in Phœnissae original: "ὁ βίος ἄλυπος ὁ βίος ἀσύμφορος" - "a life without pain is a useless life" says, there would be no life. We have more than excessive evidence of this every day. Here, some cry out lamentably, half-burned by fevers, as if in the brazen bull of Perillus. There, one burns with greater thirst than Tantalus among the dead. On the right, the vultures of Titius, or rather ulcers, devour his liver. On the left, Diodorus is torn by gout, as if his joints were being tortured. Before him, the sides of Archilochus are pricked as if by a spear. Behind him lies Achilles, whose chest walls are broken by coughing as if by the strike of a catapult. In the field, Antinous implores your help, changed by tetanus as if into a statue. In the infirmary, Lazarus scratches his scab and leprosy with his nails, but in vain. In the country, Democritus goes mad; in the field, Chremes is bent by colic; in the city, Plutus suffers now from the plague, now from the