第24章 PHYSICIANS(2)

Until the earth is again completely dry, and for three days afterwards, no one ought to go abroad in the fields.During this time the diet should be simple, and people should be cautious in avoiding exposure in the cool of the evening, at night, and in the morning.Poultry and water-fowl, young pork, old beef, and fat meat in general, should not be eaten; but, on the contrary, meat of a proper age, of a warm and dry, but on no account of a heating and exciting nature.Broth should be taken, seasoned with ground pepper, ginger, and cloves, especially by those who are accustomed to live temperately, and are yet choice in their diet.Sleep in the day-time is detrimental; it should be taken at night until sunrise, or somewhat longer.At breakfast one should drink little; supper should be taken an hour before sunset, when more may be drunk than in the morning.Clear light wine, mixed with a fifth or six part of water, should be used as a beverage.Dried or fresh fruits, with wine, are not injurious, but highly so without it.Beet-root and other vegetables, whether eaten pickled or fresh, are hurtful; on the contrary, spicy pot-herbs, as sage or rosemary, are wholesome.Cold, moist, watery food in is general prejudicial.Going out at night, and even until three o'clock in the morning, is dangerous, on account of dew.Only small river fish should be used.Too much exercise is hurtful.

The body should be kept warmer than usual, and thus protected from moisture and cold.Rain-water must not be employed in cooking, and every one should guard against exposure to wet weather.If it rain, a little fine treacle should be taken after dinner.Fat people should not sit in the sunshine.Good clear wine should be selected and drunk often, but in small quantities, by day.Olive oil as an article of food is fatal.Equally injurious are fasting and excessive abstemiousness, anxiety of mind, anger, and immoderate drinking.Young people, in autumn especially, must abstain from all these things if they do not wish to run a risk of dying of dysentery.In order to keep the body properly open, an enema, or some other simple means, should be employed when necessary.Bathing is injurious.Men must preserve chastity as they value their lives.Every one should impress this on his recollection, but especially those who reside on the coast, or upon an island into which the noxious wind has penetrated."On what occasion these strange precepts were delivered can no longer be ascertained, even if it were an object to know it.It must be acknowledged, however, that they do not redound to the credit either of the faculty of Paris, or of the fourteenth century in general.This famous faculty found themselves under the painful necessity of being wise at command, and of firing a point-blank shot of erudition at an enemy who enveloped himself in a dark mist, of the nature of which they had no conception.In concealing their ignorance by authoritative assertions, they suffered themselves, therefore, to be misled; and while endeavouring to appear to the world with eclat, only betrayed to the intelligent their lamentable weakness.Now some might suppose that, in the condition of the sciences of the fourteenth century, no intelligent physicians existed; but this is altogether at variance with the laws of human advancement, and is contradicted by history.The real knowledge of an age is shown only in the archives of its literature.Here alone the genius of truth speaks audibly--here alone men of talent deposit the results of their experience and reflection without vanity or a selfish object.

There is no ground for believing that in the fourteenth century men of this kind were publicly questioned regarding their views;and it is, therefore, the more necessary that impartial history should take up their cause, and do justice to their merits.