[p. 20]
PART 2
From these things he must proceed to investigate everything else.
For if one knows all these things well, or at least the greater part
of them, he cannot miss knowing, when he comes into a strange city,
either the diseases peculiar to the place, or the particular nature
of common diseases, so that he will not be in doubt as to the treatment
of the diseases, or commit mistakes, as is likely to be the case provided
one had not previously considered these matters. And in particular,
as the season and the year advances, he can tell what epidemic diseases
will attack the city, either in summer or in winter, and what each
individual will be in danger of experiencing from the change of regimen.
For knowing the changes of the seasons, the risings and settings of
the stars, how each of them takes place, he will be able to know beforehand
what sort of a year is going to ensue. Having made these investigations,
and knowing beforehand the seasons, such a one must be acquainted
with each particular, and must succeed in the preservation of health,
and be by no means unsuccessful in the practice of his art. And if
it shall be thought that these things belong rather to meteorology,
it will be admitted, on second thoughts, that astronomy contributes
not a little, but a very great deal, indeed, to medicine. For with
the seasons the digestive organs of men undergo a change.
PART 3
But how of the aforementioned things should be investigated and explained,
I will now declare in a clear manner. A city that is exposed to hot
winds (these are between the wintry rising, and the wintry setting
of the sun), and to which these are peculiar, but which is sheltered
from the north winds; in such a city the waters will be plenteous
and saltish, and as they run from an elevated source, they are necessarily
hot in summer, and cold in winter; the heads of the inhabitants are
of a humid and pituitous constitution, and their bellies subject to
frequent disorders, owing to the phlegm running down from the head;
the forms of their bodies, for the most part, are rather flabby; they
do not eat nor drink much; drinking wine in particular, and more especially
if carried to intoxication, is oppressive to them; and the following
diseases are peculiar to the district: in the first place, the women
are sickly and subject to excessive menstrua-
