Physiologia Medica

type of medicine without a plan. By this very fact, he proves that Art is the imitator and servant of nature. It is possible that those who lack artificial medicine are helped by natural medicine. From this, the breadth, necessity, and efficacy of Medicine can easily be gathered.

Furthermore, with respect to the Instruments through which it acts and heals, insofar as they are considered Natural Beings in themselves, one remedy will be corporeal and another incorporeal. Often the spirits of the healing Men themselves become instruments. Insofar as the Instruments themselves are known, if their impression is hidden and escapes the sense, being understood only from the subsequent effect, the remedy will be called Intelligible. Such is the celestial Touch, and Magical thoughts, imaginations, and effects. But if it is manifest to the sense, the remedy will be called Sensible. Thus it is probable that one can be bewitched by sight, and also protected against bewitchment by sight. Through musical Hearing, Ismenias used to cure those with sciatica. Experience teaches that those struck by a tarantula or seized by St. Vitus' dance are cured by musical harmony. By Smell, Democritus sustained failing spirits for three days with the scent of fresh bread. Finally, insofar as the Subject is considered, to which the Instruments are applied and upon which they act: one remedy will be called Alimentary, which nourishes and sustains the thing with the similarity of its substance. Another affects the subject with dissimilarity and contrariety, called pharmakôdês pharmacological in general. Among the Greeks, pharmakon drug or remedy is used for both sides. Specifically, if it benefits by its alteration, it is called Medicinal. If it hinders and corrupts, it will be called a Poisonous remedy.

Finally, by weighing the End Goal, all
The goal of the medical skill. medication is referred to something better. This is either in itself, with respect to the thing it must perfect, or with respect to the healer or others for whose sake it is undertaken. Thus Plato reproached Lycurgus because he wanted to restrain Bacchus and heal the madness from drunkenness by the cutting down of vines rather than by the marriage of the Water-Nymphs meaning, diluting wine with water. Thus purified Iron is made better than itself. The Goal of medication in general is therefore the Good, either in reality or only in opinion. I say the Good is partly ontôs truly or actually, namely the preservation of a present good or the acquisition of an absent one; and partly semainôs significantly or notably, namely the driving away of a present evil or the precaution against an absent one.

From what has been said so far, we gather that since Medicine takes its name from healing original: medendo, and to Heal is to act, and to Act belongs to an agent equipped with a certain habit of medication: and this habit is various, Medicine will also be various. There will be as many kinds as there are kinds of Healing, derived from the specific description of the causes. They will be even more numerous if a composition of causes is made among themselves.

And so that we may test this for the sake of teaching, beginning from the Subject itself, we say that there is a Medicine of the Earth (which is Agriculture); of Water, insofar as it is treated or sweetened; of Air, insofar as it is altered; of Fire, insofar as it is nourished, made eternal, or inhibited; of Stones, insofar as they are softened or made meltable (a kind of healing known to the ancients, which had already disappeared by Pliny's age); of Metals, in which Miners and Chemists labor; of Stems, which belong to Gardeners.