THE LAW
by Hippocrates
translated by Francis
Adams
Medicine is of all the Arts the most noble;
but, not withstanding,
owing
to the ignorance of those who practice it, and of those who,
inconsiderately,
form a judgment of them, it is at present far
behind
all the other arts. Their mistake appears to me to arise
principally
from this, that in the cities there is no punishment
connected
with the practice of medicine (and with it alone) except
disgrace,
and that does not hurt those who are familiar with it.
Such
persons are like the figures which are introduced in tragedies,
for
as they have the shape, and dress, and personal appearance of an
actor,
but are not actors, so also physicians are many in title but
very
few in reality.
2. Whoever is to acquire a competent knowledge
of medicine, ought to
be
possessed of the following advantages: a natural disposition;
instruction;
a favorable position for the study; early tuition; love
of
labor; leisure. First of all, a natural talent is required; for,
when
Nature opposes, everything else is in vain; but when Nature leads
the
way to what is most excellent, instruction in the art takes place,
which
the student must try to appropriate to himself by reflection,
becoming
an early pupil in a place well adapted for instruction. He
must
also bring to the task a love of labor and perseverance, so
that
the instruction taking root may bring forth proper and abundant
fruits.
3. Instruction in medicine is like the culture
of the productions of
the
earth. For our natural disposition is, as it were, the soil; the
tenets
of our teacher are, as it were, the seed; instruction in
youth
is like the planting of the seed in the ground at the proper
season;
the place where the instruction is communicated is like the
food
imparted to vegetables by the atmosphere; diligent study is
like
the cultivation of the fields; and it is time which imparts
strength
to all things and brings them to maturity.
4. Having brought all these requisites to the
study of medicine, and
having
acquired a true knowledge of it, we shall thus, in traveling
through
the cities, be esteemed physicians not only in name but in
reality.
But inexperience is a bad treasure, and a bad fund to those
who
possess it, whether in opinion or reality, being devoid of
self-reliance
and contentedness, and the nurse both of timidity and
audacity.
For timidity betrays a want of powers, and audacity a want
of
skill. There are, indeed, two things, knowledge and opinion, of
which
the one makes its possessor really to know, the other to be
ignorant.
5. Those things which are sacred, are to be
imparted only to
sacred
persons; and it is not lawful to import them to the profane
until
they have been initiated in the mysteries of the science.
THE END
