‘He [the physician] should observe thus in acute diseases: first, the countenance of the patient, if it be like to those who are in health, _and especially if it be like itself, for this would be the best_; but the more unlike to this, the worse it is; such would be these: _sharp nose, hollow eyes, collapsed temples_; _ears cold, contracted, and their lobes turned out_; _skin about the forehead rough, distended, and parched_; _the colour of the whole face greenish or dusky_. If the countenance be so at the beginning of the disease, and if this cannot be accounted for from the other symptoms, inquiry must be made whether he has passed a sleepless night; whether his bowels have been very loose; or whether he is suffering from hunger; and if any of these be admitted the danger may be reckoned as less; and it may be judged in the course of a day and night if the appearance of the countenance proceed from these. But if none of these be said to exist, and the symptoms do not subside in that time, be it known for certain that death is at hand.’[114] Again, in the work _On the Art [of Medicine]_ we read: ‘I hold it to be physicianly to abstain from treating those who are overwhelmed by disease’,[115] a prudent if inhumane procedure among a people who might regard the doctor’s powers as partaking of the nature of magic, and perhaps a wise course to follow at this day in some places not very far from Cos. Yet in the book _On Diseases_ we are advised even in the presence of an incurable disease ‘to give relief with such treatment as is possible’.[116] [114] Littré, ii. 112; Kühlewein, i. 79. The texts vary: Kühlewein is followed except in the last sentence. [115] Περὶ τέχνες, § 3. [116] Περὶ νούσων α’, § 6. Furthermore, works by authors of the Hippocratic school stand sometimes in a position of direct controversy with each other. Thus in the treatise _On the Heart_ an experiment is set forth which is held to prove that a part at least of imbibed fluid passes into the cavity of the lung and thence to the parts of the body, a popular error in antiquity which recurs in Plato’s _Timaeus_. This view, however, is specifically held to be fallacious by the author of the work _On Diseases_, who is supported by a polemical section in the surviving Menon fragment.