In Book I, paragraph 2, Priscianus draws a picture of the rude and uncivilized behavior of the practitioners of his day in the sick-room. The following are his words as translated from the German of Meyer-Steineg:-- As the patient lies on his bed prostrated by the severity of the disease, there quickly comes into the room a crowd of us physicians. No feeling of sympathy for the sick man have we, nor do we realize how impotent we all are in the presence of these forces of nature. Instead, we struggle to the utmost of our ability to obtain charge of the case; one depending for success on his powers of persuasion, a second on the strength of the arguments which he is able to bring forward, a third on his readiness to agree with everything that is said, and the fourth on his skill in contradicting the opinion of everybody else. And, as this quarrel goes on, the patient continues to lie there in a state of exhaustion. “For shame!” Nature seems to say, “you men are an ungrateful lot! You do not even permit the patient to die quietly; you simply kill him. And then, moreover, you accuse me of not furnishing sufficient means of effecting a cure. Illness is certainly a painful affair, but I have provided plenty of remedies. Poisons, I admit, are hidden in some of the plants, but the healing agents which may be extracted from them are much more numerous. Away, then, with your angry disputes and your self-glorifying chatter; for in these are not to be found the remedial agents which I have bestowed upon man, but rather in the powerful forces which reside in the seeds, fruits, plants and other objects which I have created in his interests.”