Book 1
11
Let us now treat of regimen, in order that, respecting all the system of treatment, there may be no mistake. For in food will consist the medicines, but also the medicines in food. In kind, then, it is to be hot and humid, smooth and consistent, detergent, solvent, having the power of dissolving and attenuating phlegm. Of all kinds of food, therefore, ptisan is to be preferred; at the commencement, then, strained to its juice, so that the solid part of it may be separated; and made with honey only; and let the usual articles added to it for seasoning and variety be absent (for now the juice alone is sufficient). It will be calculated to moisten and warm, and able to dissolve and clear away phlegm, to evacuate upwards without pain such matters as should be brought up, and also readily evacuate the bowels downwards. For its lubricity is agreeable and adapted to deglutition. Moreover, its glutinous quality soothes heat, purges the membranes, concocts coughs, and softens all the parts. These are the virtues of barley. The next place to it is held by chondrus,Spelt, Triticum spelta, deprived of its husks and broken down into granules. See Paul. Ægin. t. i. p.123, Syd. Soc. Edit. being possessed of some of the good qualities of ptisan. For in regard to its glutinous quality, its lubricity, and its appropriateness for deglutition, it is equal to the other, but in other respects inferior. They are to be made plain, with honey alone. The tragus also is excellent.The tragus (called tragum by Pliny, H. N. xviii. 10) was a culinary preparation frym Spelt, and would seem to have been much the same as the chondrus. See Galen, Comment. in lib. de ratione victus in morb. acut. But rice is worse than these, inasmuch as it has the property of drying, roughening, and of stopping the purgation of the sides, rather than of making it more fluid. A very excellent thing is dry bread, broken into pieces, passed through a sieve, gently warmed, well concocted, which with honeyed-water is sufficient nourishment. But if the disease have already progressed, and the patient have given up his food, the ptisan of barley is to be administered in a soft state, and well boiled. Dill and salts are to be the condiments of the ptisan, and oil which is thin, without quality, without viscidity, without asperity; it is better, however, not to boil much of the oil with the ptisan; for thus the draught becomes fatty, and the oil loses its badness, and with much boiling is no longer perceptible, being drunk up by the juice. And let leek with its capillary leaves, and bitter almonds, be boiled with the juice of ptisan; for the draught thus promotes perspiration, and becomes medicinal, and the leeks eaten out of the juice are beneficial and very delicious. Now also is the season for using wholesome eggs; but if the expectoration be fluid and copious, sprinkle on them some native sulphur and natron. But the best thing of all is to give new-laid eggs which have never been subjected to the fire; for the heat of the hen is more humid than fire, and more congenial to the patient, as proceeding from one animal to another. But if the phlegm be glutinous and viscid, pour oil into the eggs, and sprinkle some of the dried resin of pine—so that the sulphur may be more powerful; melting also with them some of the resin of turpentine; pepper also and all cognate substances are beneficial in eggs, and in all kinds of food; the extremities of animals melted down in soups, pigeons, boiled hens; the brains of swine roasted with the cawl, but without it they are not savoury. If the patient has no râle, we must give him fish from the depth of the sea, or rock fish, the best which the country produces. And that the patient may not transgress in regimen, owing to his appetite, nor become wasted by a spare diet, he is to be gratified with some fruit; such as apples boiled in water, or honeyed-water, or stewed in suet (but we must take off the skin and rough parts within along with the seeds,); and in season we may give some figs. We must give likewise of any other kind of autumn fruit which is not only not hurtful but also beneficial. So much with regard to diet.
