To return to my point then, my opinion is, that medicine ought to be rational, but to draw its methods from the evident causes, all the obscure being removed, not from the attention of the artist, but from the practice of the art. Again, to dissect the bodies of living men is both cruel and superfluous. But the dissection of dead subjects is necessary for learners: for they ought to know the position and order of the parts, which dead bodies will show better, than a living and wounded man. But as for the other things, which can only be observed in living bodies, practice itself will discover them in the cure of the wounded, somewhat more slowly, but with more tenderness. Having delivered my sentiments upon these points, I shall lay down the proper rules for the management of people in health, and then proceed to what relates to diseases and their cure. CHAP. I. RULES FOR THE HEALTHY. A sound man, who is both in health, and his own master, ought to confine himself to no rules; and neither call for the assistance of a physician nor an iatroalipta(16). ’Tis good for him to diversify his way of life; to be sometimes in the country, sometimes in the city, and frequently in the fields; to sail, to hunt; sometimes to rest, but exercise himself frequently: for indolence enervates the body, labour strengthens it: the first brings on a quick old age, the other makes a long youth. ’Tis also proper to make use sometimes of the warm bath(17), and sometimes of the cold; to anoint sometimes, and at other times to neglect it; to avoid no kind of food, that may be in common use; sometimes to eat in company, at other times to retire from it; sometimes to eat more than is sufficient, and at other times no more; to take food rather twice in the day than once; and always as much as he can, provided he concoct it. But as exercise and food of this kind are necessary, so the exercise and diet of wrestlers are inconvenient: both because the order of exercise being interrupted by some necessary business of life, hurts the body; and because those bodies, which are very high fed, like their’s, soonest decay, and are most liable to diseases. [Sidenote: _Of Coition._] Coition is neither to be too much desired, nor too much feared. Seldom used, it excites the body; frequent, relaxes. But as the frequency is to be judged of, not by the number of repetitions, but by nature, regard being had to the age and constitution, we may know it not to be useless, when it is neither followed by a languor of the body, nor pain. It is worse in the day-time, but safer in the night; _but the general rule will hold for both_, if neither meat be taken after the first, nor the other be followed by wakefulness and labour. These things are to be observed by strong people; and care must be taken, that the reliefs of sickness be not wasted in good health. CHAP. II. RULES FOR VALETUDINARY PEOPLE.