because the same thing will not relieve all, that labour under similar distempers. For though there are certain things, which either bind the belly, or open it in most people; yet some are to be met with, in whom the same intention is gained by means contrary to the common. So that in such, the general observation is hurtful, and the peculiar only salutary. And a right apprehension of the cause often removes a distemper. Upon this account it was, that the most ingenious physician of our age, the late Cassius, being called to one in a fever distressed with violent thirst, when he found, that his complaints began after hard drinking, ordered him to drink plentifully of cold water. When his patient had drank this, and by the mixture had weakened the force of the wine, he was presently freed from the fever by a sleep, and a sweat. Which remedy the physician very judiciously adapted to the case, not from the consideration of his body being either bound or loose, but from the cause that had preceded. There is also another peculiarity to be regarded, which is that of place and season, according to these authors themselves; who, when they are giving directions for the management of the healthy, order them more carefully to avoid cold, heat, satiety, labour, and venery, in sickly places or seasons; and to take more rest in such seasons or places, if they have any sense of weight hanging upon their body; and in such circumstances neither to disturb the stomach by vomiting, nor the belly by purging. These things indeed are certain; yet they descend from generals to some things that are particular: unless they would have us believe, that healthy men should observe the temper of the air, and the season of the year, and that sick people don’t need to take that care, to whom all precaution is so much the more necessary, by how much an infirm state of health is more liable to receive injury. Besides, there are very different properties of distempers in the same person. And one, who has been sometimes unsuccessfully tried by medicines, which seemed proper for his disorder, is often recovered by the contrary. There are also many distinctions to be observed in the giving of food, of which I shall only name one instance. A youth bears hunger more easily than a boy; better in a thick, than a clear air; more easily in winter than summer; with more ease, one, that is accustomed to a single meal, than another, who eats a dinner also(15); a sedentary person more easily, than one that takes exercise. Now generally food ought to be prescribed so much the sooner, as the person is less able to bear the want of it in health. For these reasons I am apt to think, that he, who is not acquainted with the peculiarities, ought only to consider the general: and that he, who can find out the peculiar, ought not to neglect, but take them in too for the direction of his practice. And therefore, where the knowledge is equal, yet a friend is a more useful physician, than a stranger.