THE PHILOSOPHER, OR THE PHYSICIAN

CONSULTED BY NATURE

...would lie about his name, I do not think he would therefore be snatched away as prey by the Nymphs, nor would Apollo call the shade of the slain man back into a small flower. Indeed, so that I may make a most complete Physician consulted by Nature in this regard, I cannot help but uniquely recommend to him alone—according to the Hippocratic precept—both the skillful wisdom of preparing medicines, which comes from fire, and the care of the healing art itself. This is true regardless of what others might think, who are always straying upon the same string original: "eadem chorda oberrantibus"; a metaphor for repeating the same mistakes.

But where will this speech finally end? Why do I not cease being troublesome? Come now, I agree with you not unwillingly, AUDIENCES. I have exercised our Philosopher long enough in these externally adopted aids. It was in his interest to be found in no way unskilled in these things, from which, as if from the front-line soldiers, the entire army of all Medicine might be led. Therefore, I lead the future Physician consulted by Nature out from scholastic dust and chemical enclosures, and I place him at the peaks of Practice. For this is the hinge upon which the entire glory or reproach of the Physician turns. This is that Rhodes, where one must dance A reference to Aesop's fable "The Boastful Athlete," meaning this is the place to prove one's skill with action rather than words; where one must heal; that is, nature must be moved through nature. Here, infinite myriads of diseases and monstrous horrors present themselves. To cut these down, one needs a very faithful leader under the guidance of God alone, like a second Perseus the hero who slew Medusa. For how could he have cut off the head of Medusa the Gorgon whose gaze turned men to stone without seeing her, or without hardening into stone like the others upon seeing her? He attacked Medusa while turned away so that he would not see her. To see her, he looked at what he held, the mirror of Pallas Athena, goddess of wisdom. By that art, he acted so that, without seeing, he saw Medusa safely, and he cut off her head with the hooked iron blade of Mercury. What then? The Physician consulted by Nature must not only be present to all disease while absent, but must also see, recognize, and heal all afflictions without seeing them. He is one who does not use the light of the Sun for this knowledge, but prudence, with which all medical virtue grows, and without which it withers. It is necessary, therefore, for him

to have, as if ready for counting, the lineages of diseases, their causes, mineral sources, effects, locations, differences, species, and whatever is related to them. Thus, once the disease is correctly recognized along with its fruits, the medication can afterward be more correctly established. But truly, if anything in the entire complex of Medicine is exposed to great and inexplicable difficulties, it is certainly the practical or Therapeutic curative duty. It is made horrid, monstrous, and perplexed—filled with so many briars, so many steep rocks, and so many heavy windings—not from any other source than from the perpetual duels and most stubborn disputes of the Practitioners themselves. For among those who hold discussions about disease and the causes and accidents of diseases, and their cures, how much everything is in disagreement! How absurd some things are! How few things hit the mark original: "ad Rhombum facientia"; literally "making toward the spinning-top" or "hitting the target". Indeed, my mind shudders as often as I think how many troubles must be swallowed by the Candidates of Medicine hurrying toward the goal, and how many difficulties must be overcome, surely terminable by nothing other than death itself. For while Practitioners have sawed this iron back and forth between themselves, three hundred years have passed, and it is still not fully determined which opinion of perfect judgment should be held. Furthermore, through quarrels and wagon-loads of disputes, it has come to pass that Medicine can now be compared almost equally to a most chaste virgin or to an impure harlot. In the Schools, she behaves like a prostitute. Those giving lectures in the theaters to their disciples desire to seem most absolute in the medical business if, in those theatrical gatherings, they, as unconquered disputants, fill the walls and benches with shouts. However, when it comes to the sick, who desire to be healed with anxious groans and mournful sighs and who call out for a Physician, there at last his flexible boldness recoils. By no obscure argument, he reveals his impostures of his own accord and leaves the vocal "Little-Talkers" term: "Locutulejos"; a derisive term for wordy, empty talkers a long distance behind him. Those men, covered in shame, knit their brows, and as if agitating deep matters...