Aphorisms   

SECTION I

Life is short, and Art long; the crisis fleeting; experience
perilous, and decision difficult. The physician must not only be
prepared to do what is right himself, but also to make the patient,
the attendants, and externals cooperate.

2. In disorders of the bowels and vomitings, occurring
spontaneously, if the matters purged be such as ought to be purged,
they do good, and are well borne; but if not, the contrary. And so
artificial evacuations, if they consist of such matters as should be
evacuated, do good, and are well borne; but if not, the contrary. One,
then, ought to look to the country, the season, the age, and the
diseases in which they are proper or not.

3. In the athletae, embonpoint, if carried to its utmost limit, is
dangerous, for they cannot remain in the same state nor be stationary;
and since, then, they can neither remain stationary nor improve, it
only remains for them to get worse; for these reasons the embonpoint
should be reduced without delay, that the body may again have a
commencement of reparation. Neither should the evacuations, in their
case, be carried to an extreme, for this also is dangerous, but only
to such a point as the person's constitution can endure. In like
manner, medicinal evacuations, if carried to an extreme, are
dangerous; and again, a restorative course, if in the extreme, is
dangerous.

4. A slender restricted diet is always dangerous in chronic
diseases, and also in acute diseases, where it is not requisite. And
again, a diet brought to the extreme point of attenuation is
dangerous; and repletion, when in the extreme, is also dangerous.

5. In a restricted diet, patients who transgress are thereby more
hurt (than in any other?); for every such transgression, whatever it
may be, is followed by greater consequences than in a diet somewhat
more generous. On this account, a very slender, regulated, and
restricted diet is dangerous to persons in health, because they bear
transgressions of it more difficultly. For this reason, a slender
and restricted diet is generally more dangerous than one a little more
liberal.

6. For extreme diseases, extreme methods of cure, as to
restriction, are most suitable.

7. When the disease is very acute, it is attended with extremely
severe symptoms in its first stage; and therefore an extremely
attenuating diet must be used. When this is not the case, but it is
allowable to give a more generous diet, we may depart as far from
the severity of regimen as the disease, by its mildness, is removed
from the extreme.

8. When the disease is at its height, it will then be necessary to
use the most slender diet.

9. We must form a particular judgment of the patient, whether he
will support the diet until the acme of the disease, and whether he
will sink previously and not support the diet, or the disease will
give way previously, and become less acute.

10. In those cases, then, which attain their acme speedily, a
restricted diet should be enjoined at first; but in those cases
which reach their acme later, we must retrench at that period or a
little before it; but previously we must allow a more generous diet to
support the patient.