It is a surprising fact that, in common with Erasistratus, he taught the doctrine that physical exercise was not at all necessary to persons in normal health. At the same time he approved of it, when carefully graded, for those who were affected with bodily ills of a certain nature. Wine was another remedy which Asclepiades was fond of prescribing in all sorts of maladies, but his rules in regard to the manner in which it should be employed were quite different from those adopted by his contemporaries. A few illustrations will suffice to show the different conditions for which he was wont to advocate the taking of wine: He gave it, for example,--though probably much diluted with water--to patients affected with fever, but only after the stage of greatest activity had been passed. Strange as it may appear to-day, he was rather in favor of giving to patients ill with inflammation of the brain (_phrenitis_) wine in sufficient quantity to produce intoxication; his belief being that he could in this way induce drowsiness and eventually sleep--a thing so desirable for those affected with that disease. Further, he instructed sufferers from catarrh to drink twice or three times as much wine as they usually drank, in consequence of which instructions the patients found it necessary to dilute their wine with water to a less degree than usual--that is, to such a degree that the proportion would be one-half of each; thus showing, as Le Clerc remarks, how sober the ancients must have been when they were in perfect health. They probably--he adds--drank their wine ordinarily in the proportion of five-sixths water to one-sixth wine, or, at most, three-quarters water to one-quarter wine. In some cases Asclepiades prescribed the drinking of wine (particularly the wine of Cos) to which sea-water had been added; his idea being that the addition of salt would enable the wine to penetrate farther into the tissues and thus open the pores more freely. This idea of added salt was not original with him, for Pliny states that in certain parts of Greece it was customary to place casks filled with new wine in the sea and to leave them there for some time. The wine, it was claimed, was rendered by this procedure mature and pleasanter to drink. They called wine thus treated “Thalassite wine” (from the Greek word “thalassa,” sea). In cases of jaundice he occasionally recommended the drinking of plain sea-water, whereby the bowels were stimulated to act more freely. Under ordinary circumstances he employed, for the relief of constipation, clysters, but he was sparing in their use. The remedial measures enumerated above, together with dieting, are those upon which Asclepiades chiefly relied in his practice. In acute diseases he made very little use of drugs that were to be taken internally, but in maladies of a chronic character he employed them quite freely. Gargles, poultices and inunctions are mentioned among the external remedies which he often prescribed.