De metallorum ortu & causis

he is cast out. There are, moreover, other Empirics who more boldly feign being physicians. These are unskilled in natural science and logic. Because of them, those insults which Pliny hurled with a more than tragic voice against almost all the unskilled practitioners of his time—the "word-healers" Logiatros, the followers of Themison Themisiones, and those of Thessalus Thessalos—do not cease to fall upon true physicians, who were called naturalists Physici by the ancients. Some of these, especially the more cunning ones, act as parasites. Others are flatterers and "word-crafters" logodædali or chatterboxes, who "cure" the sick only through a multitude of words. For they know how to deceive the unskilled and prideful common people with the sweetness and allure of words, as fish are caught by a hook. In truth, however, these people are not distinguished from true and skilled physicians except by public disputes and by a specimen of each person's talent being openly given, where indeed the splendor of learning shines for all the learned, whose only concern is to distinguish the literate from the ignorant. Furthermore, if