23
There are many other structural forms, both internal and external, which differ widely from one another with regard to the experiences of a patient and of a healthy subject, such as whether the head be large or small, the neck thin or thick, long or short, the bowels long or round, the chest and ribs broad or narrow, and there are very many other things, the differences between which must all be known, so that knowledge of the causes of each thing may ensure that the proper precautions are taken.
24
As I have said before, we must examine the powers of humours, and what the effect of each is upon man, and how they are related to one another. Let me give an example. If a humour that is sweet assumes another form, not by admixture, but by a self-caused change, what will it first become, bitter, or salt, or astringent, or acid? I think acid. Therefore where sweet humour is the least suitable of all, acid humour is the next least suitable to be administered.Because:— (1) Health is a crasis of all the humours, none being in excess; (2) Sweet humour passes readily into acid; (3) Therefore, when sweet is the least suitable as a remedy (there being an excess of it already), acid (which is likely to be reinforced from the sweet) is the next least suitable. Kéhlewein’s text makes sense only if we transpose ὀξύς and γλυκύς. If you want ὀξὺς χυμός for crasis you can get it best by adding ὀξύς, next best by adding γλυκύς, which naturally turns into ὀξύς. If a man can in this way conduct with success inquiries outside the human body, he will always be able to select the very best treatment. And the best is always that which is farthest removed from the unsuitable.
APPENDIX ON CHAPTER XX, p. 54.
appendix
οἰνος ἄκρητος πολλὸς ποθεὶς διατίθησί πως τὸν ἄνθρωπον· καὶ πάντες ἄν αἱ εἰδότες τοῦτο γνοίησαν, ὅτι αὕτη δύναμις οἲνου καὶ αὺτὸς αἴτιος.
appendix
So A; other MSS. have ἀσθενέα after ἄνθρωπον, ἰδόντες for οἱ εἰδότες, ἡ after αὕτη and ἐστιν after αὐτός.
