physicians

for there is no sensation in the body, but, as not only the natural philosophers teach but also the physicians, who have seen these things laid open and exposed, there are, as it were, certain channels pierced from the seat of the soul to the eyes, the ears, the nostrils.

For as the distempers of the body are arrested by the discoveries of physicians, so savagery is expelled from the soul by the wise purposes of the legislator.

The physician must not only be prepared to do what is right himself, but also to make the patient, the attendants, and externals cooperate.

For if we were right in what we were just saying and falsehood is in very deed useless to gods, but to men useful as a remedy or form of medicine, it is obvious that such a thing must be assigned to physicians and laymen should have nothing to do with it.

Because from physician and teacher they pass over into friends, and lay us under obligation, not by the art which they sell, but by a kindly and familiar good will.

But what reason is there why you should not believe that this firmness of mind can fall to the wise man, when you may observe the same thing in others, though not from the same cause?

Other wise men treat us gently and soothingly, much as the household physician, intimate with his patients, tends ailing bodies not by the best and quickest method but by what is permitted;

This is the disposition the wise man has toward all men—that of the physician toward his patients, whose private parts, if they need a remedy, he does not disdain to handle, nor to inspect their leavings and discharges, nor to take the insults of those raving in their delirium.

By what titles all these things are named, and by what divisions out of themselves they are held, and by what allotted stations in the body they are sequestered, the physicians will rather consider together with the philosophers;

But more, both philosophers — against Dicaearchus, Plato, Strato, Epicurus, Democritus, Empedocles, Socrates, Aristotle — and physicians against Andreas and Asclepiades, Herophilus, Erasistratus, Diocles, Hippocrates, and Soranus himself;

but whereas one deals chiefly with the organism itself, the other is concerned primarily with the surrounding material, and the analogy holds good throughout;

But in a question of health, men take the advice of physicians rather than that of their parents;

and I think, he added, that you will find that I have with me men eminent in the medical profession.

Yes, my son, but just as there are menders of torn garments, so also these physicians whom you mention heal us when we fall sick.