LIBER XXVI · CAPUT 2
COLIC
Latine · Mayhoff 1906
Hippocratis certe, qui primus medendi praecepta clarissime condidit, referta herbarum mentione invenimus volumina, nec minus Diocli Carysti, qui secundus aetate famaque extitit, item Praxagorae et Chrysippi ac deinde Erasistrati Cei, Herophilo quidem, quamquam subtilioris sectae conditori, ante omnis celebratam rationem, iam paulatim, usu efficacissimo rerum omnium magistro, peculiariter utique medicinae, ad verba garrulitatemque descendentem. sedere namque in scholis auditioni operatos gratius erat quam ire per solitudines et quaerere herbas alias aliis diebus anni.
English · Bostock & Riley 1855–57
Hippocrates, it is well known, was the first to compile a code of medical precepts, a thing which he did with the greatest perspicuity, as his treatises, we find, are replete with information upon the various plants. No less is the information which we gain from the works of Diocles of Carystus, second only in reputation, as well as date, to Hippocrates. The same, too, with reference to the works of Praxagoras, Chrysippus, and, at a later period, Erasistratus of Cos. Herophilus too, though himself the founder of a more refined system of medicine, was extremely profuse of his commendations of the use of simples. At a later period, however, experience, our most efficient instructor in all things, medicine in particular, gradually began to be lost sight of in mere words and verbiage: it being found, in fact, much more agreeable to sit in schools, and to listen to the talk of a professor, than to go a simpling in the deserts, and to be searching for this plant or that at all the various seasons of the year.