Physiologia Medica

Moses sweetened with his rod. Empedocles freed the people of Selinus, who were suffering from a plague due to the stench of a nearby river, by the introduction of two neighboring streams. By this treatment of the river, he saved the men themselves, as Diogenes Laërtius testifies. Furthermore, fire is nourished by the addition of fuel, diminished by its subtraction, and made eternal by chemical means, as was done by Maximus Olybius formerly at Padua. Stones are polished. Metals are melted, drawn out, and even transformed. Hail is driven away by the sound of bells and the noise of cannons. Frost is warded off by lighting fires or by the vapor of manure. Ice is preserved in wells. Laurel is hung against lightning. Stems are nourished and transmuted. Brute animals are tamed, instructed, exercised, and fed; they are subjected to the care of Veterinarians. Humans are likewise cured by various remedies in both body and soul.

Diverse Form. Secondly, if you consider the Form that is introduced by healing, which is different from the form that was previously inside, the Remedy will be in respect to Substance, Quantity, and Quality.

According to the whole Substance, it is when that which was not is generated or produced (thus the Farmer makes the earth fertile) or that which Was is preserved, if it is good, through similar nourishment. If it is bad, it is driven away: as when the Ibis cleans its belly with its beak, or the Hippopotamus, opening a vein with a reed, removes the fullness of blood. According to the parts, it is when thick things are thinned, hard things are softened, rigid things are loosened, resistant things become tender, dense things are made rare, tough things are made brittle, constricted things are relaxed, flowing things become solid, and solid things become

fluid (thus Wine from grapes, Oil from olives). Fat things become thin, thin things become fat (thus the Myrmidones made sterile Aegina most fertile by transferring the rich underground soil to the upper surface of the ground). Full things are emptied, empty things are filled, obstructed things are opened, and filthy things are purified (as Hercules purified the Augean stable by the introduction of the river Alpheus). Pure things are stained, and raw things are cooked.

Regarding the Quantity of medication, the types are to increase and to decrease, to divide what is joined, and to unite what is divided. For example, leather is cut into parts, and in turn, the parts are sewn together into a shoe. Galen himself, and before him Xenophon, compares Medicine to the akeiai mending or repairing arts, that is, those that restore. The OCR reads "aspìas," likely a corruption of "akestikàs."

Regarding Quality, the remedy is likewise varied, whether you look at the Matter or the Form.

For there are Formal qualities, in respect to energemata actions and pathemata affections or sufferings.

With respect to the former, the quality is possessed by the thing, either as an Act, by which act the thing is made such; or as a natural Power, by merit of which the thing existing in act is said to be such in power—that is, it can act or suffer. In the first way, we are said to Heal things in which we generate a habit or any kind of disposition, both in humans and in brutes, by taming, animating, instructing, or un-teaching. In the latter way, Food is prepared so that it can be digested. Man is strengthened so that he can digest. Sterility is removed from fields and from man, and at the same time, the genital power is introduced.

With respect to the latter, namely the Affection which this quality impresses, if it is not long-lasting, it is called only pathos a passion or temporary state