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exposed to fire and to water, and has been made by
many other things, each of which has its own individual
property and nature, has lost some of its qualities
and has been mixed and combined with others.
PART 14
XIV. Of course I know also that it makes a difference
to a man's body whether bread be of bolted or
of unbolted flour, whether it be of winnowed or of
unwinnowed wheat, whether it be kneaded with
much water or with little, whether it be thoroughly
kneaded or unkneaded, whether it be thoroughly
baked or underbaked, and there are countless other
differences. Barley-cake varies in just the same
way. The properties too of each variety are
powerful, and no one is like to any other. But how
could he who has not considered these truths, or
who considers them without learning, know anything
about human ailments ? For each of these differences
produces in a human being an effect and a change of
one sort or another, and upon these differences is
based all the dieting of a man, whether he be in
health, recovering from an illness, or suffering from
one. Accordingly there could surely be nothing
more useful or more necessary to know than these
things, and how the first discoverers, pursuing their
inquiries excellently and with suitable application
of reason to the nature of man, made their discoveries,
and thought the art worthy to be ascribed
to a god, as in fact is the usual belief. For they did
not consider that the dry or the moist or the hot or
the cold or anything else of the kind injures a man,
or that he has need of any such thing, but they
considered that it is the strength of each thing, that
which, being too powerful for the human constitution,
it cannot assimilate, which causes harm, and
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