Note 591 — ON REGIMEN IN ACUTE DISEASES. (continued 2)

Galen finds many things in this section also carelessly and confusedly written, and therefore unworthy of Hippocrates. For example, the list of cases in which purging is inapplicable, Galen holds to be incomplete; and even in some of the cases specified by Hippocrates he demurs to admit his views to be correct; for example, in diseases of the spleen he contends that melanogogues are strongly indicated. Many more of the rules he considers to be vaguely and inaccurately stated. Altogether, then, he holds that it is a loss of time to devote much attention to writings of such a stamp; but, he shrewdly remarks, there is no persuading many people to study only such writings as are clear, and to leave such as are not so to the writers themselves; for it is just that, as they have paid no regard that we should understand what they have written, we should not be very anxious to find out and learn what they say.