Kitap 1
6
. . . . . as in a ship and in a calm. And if the patient have it fortunately at his command, gestation and living on the sea will be beneficial. For the sea-water contributes something desiccant to the ulcers. After the gestation, having rested, the patient is now to be anointed with fat oil. After the frictions . . . . . . . . . . . from a small dose gradually up to five or six heminæ, or even much more; or if not, as much as one can, for often this alone sufficeth in place of all food. For milk is pleasant to take, is easy to drink, gives solid nourishment, and is more familiar than any other food to one from a child. In colour it is pleasant to see: as a medicine it seems to lubricate the windpipe, to clean, as if with a feather, the bronchi, and to bring off phlegm, improve the breathing, and facilitate the discharges downwards. To ulcers it is a sweet medicine, and milder than anything else. If one, then, will only drink plenty of this, he will not stand in need of anything else. For it is a good thing that, in a disease, milk should prove both food and medicine. And, indeed, the races of men called Galactophagi use no food from grain. But yet it is a very good thing to use porridge, pastry, washed groats of spelt (alica), and the other edibles prepared with milk. And if other food is required, let it be of the same nature, as the juice of ptisan, well-concocted and plain; but it is to be so seasoned as that it may become easy to swallow; or if anything be added as a seasoner, let it be something medicinal, as the hair (capillary leaves?) of lovage, penny-royal, mint, and a little of salts, vinegar, or honey. If the stomach suffer from dyspepsia, this is to be given; but if there be no such necessity, ptisan is of all things the best. One may also change the ptisan for alica, for this is less flatulent, and of easier digestion, and becomes detergent if, when used in the ptisan, the grain be bruised. When the sputa are unusually fluid, the bean cleanses the ulcers, but is flatulent. The pea and the pisum ochrys, in so far as they are less flatulent, are in the same degree inferior as cleansers of the ulcers. Forming a judgment, then, from present symptoms, select accordingly. Their condiments are to be such as described respecting the ptisan. Eggs from the fire, in a liquid state, but hot; they are best when newly laid, before the * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
