Book 1
13
Is it, then, these facts only which are plainly irreconcilable with the views of Asclepiades? Is not also the fact that in summer yellow bile is evacuated in greater quantity by the same drugs, and in winter phlegm, and that in a young man more bile is evacuated, and in an old man more phlegm? Obviously each drug attracts something which already exists, and does not generate something previously non-existent. Thus if you give in the summer season a drug which attracts phlegm to a young man of a lean and warm habit, who has lived neither idly nor too luxuriously, you will with great difficulty evacuate a very small quantity of this humour, and you will do the man the utmost harm. On the other hand, if you give him a cholagogue, you will produce an abundant evacuation and not injure him at all.
13
Do we still, then, disbelieve that each drug attracts that humour which is proper to it ?Note that drugs also have natures; cf. p. 66, note 3, and pp. 83-84. Possibly the adherents of Asclepiades will assent to this — or rather, they will — not possibly, but certainly — declare that they disbelieve it, lest they should betray their darling prejudices. (1)The ureters. (2) About 4 oz., or one-third of a pint.
PART 14
14
Let us pass on, then, again to another piece of nonsense; for the sophists do not allow one to engage in enquiries that are of any worth, albeit there are many such; they compel one to spend one's time in dissipating the fallacious arguments which they bring forward.
