Note 538 — ON REGIMEN IN ACUTE DISEASES.

Our author now enters upon the consideration of one of his principal objects in the present work, namely, to describe the modes of preparing ptisan (or the decoction of barley), and its uses in acute diseases. He is so full on this subject that the present treatise is quoted by Athenæus (Deipnos. ii., 16), by the name of the work On the Ptisan. Galen states that, on the principle that diseases are to be cured by their contraries, as the essence of a febrile disease is combined of heat and dryness, the indication of cure is to use means of a cooling and moistening nature, and that the ptisan fulfils both these objects. I may be allowed to remark in this place, that probably there is not a more important rule in the whole practice of medicine than this, that fevers are to be treated by things of a cooling and diluent nature. I may mention further regarding the ptisan of the ancients, that it would appear to have been very little different from the decoction of barley, as now in use; that is to say, it was prepared from pearl-barley roughly pounded and boiled for a time in water. As will be seen by the text, it was given to the sick either strained or entire, according to circumstances. A similar decoction was prepared from wheat, and was called πτιαάνη πυρίνη. See Galen (De Aliment., i.) The simple term ptisan, however, is always to be understood as applying to the decoction of barley.