Milk for consumptives was a favourite recommendation. The tradition had come down from very old times, and Galen insisted that fresh air and milk and eggs was the best possible treatment for consumption. The Salernitan physicians recommended various kinds of milk, goat's, camel's, ass's, and sheep's milk as well as cow's. It is probable, as I pointed out in my "Psychotherapy," that the mental influence of taking some one of the unusual forms of milk did a good deal to produce a favourable reaction in consumptives, who are so prone to be affected favourably by unusual remedies. The _Regimen_ warned, however, that milk will not be good if it produces headache or if there is fever. Apparently some patients had been seen with the idiosyncrasy for milk, and the tendency to constipation and disturbance after it which have been noted also in the modern time. Goat's milk and camel's, as by all is known, Relieve poor mortals in consumption thrown; While ass's milk is deemed far more nutritious, And e'en beyond all cow's or sheep's, officious. But should a fever in the system riot, Or headache, let the patient shun this diet. Salerno's common sense with regard to diet is very well illustrated by a number of maxims. Diet tinkering was not much in favour. We hold that men on no account should vary Their daily diet until necessary: For, as Hippocrates doth truly show, Diseases sad from all such changes flow. A stated diet, as it is well known, Of physic is the strongest cornerstone-- By means of which, if you can nought impart, Relief or cure, vain is your Healing Art. They believed firmly that many of the conditions of eating were quite as important as the diet itself, and said: Doctors should thus their patients' food revise-- _What_ is it? _When_ the meal? And what its _size_? How _often_? _Where?_ lest, by some sad mistake, Ill-sorted things should meet and trouble make. They recommended the various simples, mallow, mint, sage, rue, the violet for headache and catarrh, the nettle, mustard, hyssop, elecampane, pennyroyal, cresses, celandine, saffron, leeks--a sovereign remedy for sterility--pepper, fennel, vervaine, henbane, and others. There were certain special affections, as hoarseness, catarrh, headaches, fistula, for which specific directions for cure were given. Here for instance are the directions to be given a patient suffering from rheum or catarrh. The verses conveyed interesting information with nice long names for the various affections, as well as the directions for its management. Fast well and watch. Eat hot your daily fare, Work some, and breathe a warm and humid air; Of drink be spare; your breath at time suspend; These things observe if you your cold would end. A cold whose ill-effects extend as far As in the chest, is known as a catarrh; Bronchitis, if into the throat it flows; Coryza, if it reach alone the nose.