Note 286 — THIRD SECTION. Relation of the Physician to Diseases consequent upon the Use or Misuse of the Genital Organs.

Scribonius Largus, De compos. medicam. edit. Bernhold, Strasburg 1786., p. 2., writes in his Introduction to the Callistus: Siquidem verum est, antiquos herbis ac radicibus eorum corporis vitia curasse: quia etiam tunc genus mortalium inter initia non facile se ferro committebat. Quod etiam nunc plerique faciunt, ne dicam omnes; et, nisi magna compulsi necessitate speque ipsius salutis, non patiunter sibi fieri, quae sane vix sunt toleranda. (If in fact it is true that the Ancients cured the diseases of their bodies by means of herbs and roots: for even then the race of mortals at the beginning did not readily entrust its cure to the knife. And this is what even now the most part do; and, unless constrained by a sore need and by the hope of actual recovery, do not suffer operations to be performed on them, which in very deed are hardly to be endured).