Prognosticon

as it is done: we shall pass over this in the present instance, since it would be too long to recount. Therefore, I would like to warn those who may at some time have need of medical work: that they should approach skilled, faithful, and wise physicians, and consult them diligently. We recommend the clyster enema in a wonderful way. According to Mesue, it renders us safe and secure from great terrors. For it is a noble medicine, says Avicenna in the fourth book of the first referring to the Canon of Medicine, in expelling superfluities that are in the intestines, and in soothing pains of the kidneys and bladder and their apostemes abscesses/swellings and colic abdominal pain diseases, and in drawing excrement from the principal and superior members. And furthermore, there is an aid in clysters for ejecting that which the medicine has left behind. However, we disapprove of an acute clyster. For it weakens the liver and provokes fevers. And as for clysters, that which is considered of common aid is that which, as Avicenna attests in the first of the fourth, is made from the juice of beet leaves, violet oil, egg yolk, red sugar, and broth, and without salt. The better position for receiving a clyster is that one should lie supine, and then turn oneself onto the side one prefers. The most laudable hour for receiving a clyster is when the coldness of the air is present. For then, heaviness, pain, heat, and nausea are not increased. Furthermore, we administer catapocia pills, which are called pills by unlearned physicians, to those going to bed after supper, if we are concerned with the purgation of the head, and these should be somewhat larger and for the evacuation of the stomach. They ought not to be exhibited after they have dried out like stones. Nor should they be so soft that they stick to the fingers when pressed. Furthermore, I cannot here pass over or refrain from criticizing those physicians who hand pills made from aloe to the elderly, if we listen to and commend Galen, the prince of physicians, discussing the art of health in the fifth book. For aloe is not at all suitable for that age; rather, it harms and injures. Nor should it be forgotten that the principal members, such as the heart and the brain, and the liver, must be comforted in every evacuation, as Avicenna mentions in the fourth of the first. Especially should the heart be refreshed. For the meeting of all accidents to the body happens to the heart itself, as to the base of life. We shall also refresh the stomach as the receiver of superfluities. Furthermore, it should be known that among suitable medications that confer aid, there is that which comforts the animal and vital virtues, such as joy, and meeting with what pleases oneself, and frequently sitting with those with whom one rejoices. Avicenna repeats this same thing in the eleventh of the third. Whose words are these: "And you should know that virtue is augmented by food and by subtle wine that is suitable, and by good odors, and by tranquility, and by joy, and by the dismissal of those things which bring sadness