De Medicina

De Medicina
By Celsus
Edited by: W. G. Spencer (trans.)

Cambridge, Massachusetts Harvard University Press 1971 (Republication of the 1935 edition).

Digital Hippocrates Collection Table of Contents

A. Cornelii Celsi De Medicina
Prooemium

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A. Cornelii Celsi De Medicina

Prooemium

[p. 40] adsuetus, facilius inexercitatus quam exercitatus homo sustinet: saepe autem in eo magis necessaria cibi festinatio est, qui minus inediam tolerat. Ob quae conicio eum, qui propria non novit, communia tantum debere intueri; eumque, qui nosse proprietates potest, non illas quidem oportere neglegere, sed his quoque insistere; ideoque, cum par scientia sit, utiliorem tamen medicum esse amicum quam extraneum.

Igitur, ut ad propositum meum redeam, rationalem quidem puto medicinam esse debere, instrui vero ab evidentibus causis, obscuris omnibus non ab cogitatione artificis sed ab ipsa arte reiectis. Incidere autem vivorum corpora et crudele et supervacuum est, mortuorum discentibus necessarium: nam positum et ordinem nosse debent, quae cadaver melius quam vivus et vulneratus homo repraesentat. Sed et cetera, quae modo in vivis cognosci possunt, in ipsis curationibus vulneratorum paulo tardius sed aliquanto mitius usus ipse monstrabit.

His propositis, primum (lib. I) dicam, quemadmodum sanos agere conveniat, tum ad ea transibo (lib. II, 1‑8), quae ad morbos curationesque eorum (lib. II, 9‑33) pertinebunt.