7
“Not in a lion’s skin, I was told,” said Deinomachus, “but that of a hind still immature and unmated; and the thing is more plausible that way, for the hind is fleet and her strength lies especially in her legs. The lion is brave, of course, and his fat and his right fore-paw and the stiff bristles of his whiskers are very potent if one knew how to use them with the incantation appropriate to each; but for curing the feet he is not at all promising.”
7
“I myself,” said Cleodemus, “was of that opinion formerly, that it ought to be the skin of a hind because the hind is fleet; but recently a man from Libya, well informed in such things, taught me better, saying that lions were fleeter than deer. ‘No fear!’ said he: ‘They even chase and catch them!’”
8
The company applauded, in the belief that the Libyan was right in what he said. But I said, “Do you really think that certain incantations put a stop to this sort of thing, or external applications, when the trouble has its seat within?” They laughed at my remark andclearly held meconvicted of great stupidity if I did not know the most obvious things, of which nobody in his right mind would maintain that they were not so. The doctor Antigonus, however, seemed to me to be pleased with my question, for he had been overlooked a long time, I suppose, when he wanted to aid Eucrates in a professional — way by advising him to abstain from wine, adopt a vegetarian diet, and in general to “lower his pitch.”
