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1. Medicine is of all the arts the
most noble; but, owing to the ignorance of those who
practice it, and of those who, inconsiderately, form a
judgment of them, it is at present far behind all the other
arts. Their mistake appears to me to arise principally from
this, that in the cities there is no punishment connected
with the practice of medicine (and with it alone) except
disgrace, and that does not hurt those who are familiar with
it. Such persons are the figures which are introduced in
tragedies, for as they have the shape, and dress, and
personal appearance of an actor, but are not actors, so also
physicians are many in title but very few in
reality.
2.
Whoever is to acquire a competent knowledge of medicine,
ought to be possessed of the following advantages: a natural
disposition; instruction; a
favorable position for the study; early tuition; love of
labour; leisure. First of all, a natural talent is required;
for, when Nature leads the way to what is most excellent,
instruction in the art takes place, which the student must
try to appropriate to himself by reflection, becoming an
early pupil in a place well adapted for instruction. He must
also bring to the task a love of labour and perseverance, so
that the instruction taking root may bring forth proper and
abundant fruits.
3.
Instruction in medicine is like the culture of the
productions of the earth. For our natural disposition, is,
as it were, the soil; the tenets of our teacher are, as it
were, the seed; instruction in youth is like the planting of
the seed in the ground at the proper season; the place where
the instruction is communicated is like the food imparted to
vegetables by the atmosphere; diligent study is like the
cultivation of the fields; and it is time which imparts
strength to all things and
brings them to maturity.
4.
Having brought all these requisites to the study of
medicine, and having acquired a true knowledge of it, we
shall thus, in travelling through the cities, be esteemed
physicians not only in name but in reality. But inexperience
is a bad treasure, and a bad fund to those who possess it,
whether in opinion or reality, being devoid of self-reliance
and contentedness, and the nurse both of timidity and
audacity. For timidity betrays a want of powers, and
audacity a lack of skill. They are, indeed, two things,
knowledge and opinion, of which the one makes its possessor
really to know, the other to be ignorant.
5.
Those things which are sacred, are to be imparted only to
sacred persons; and it is not lawful to impart them to the
profane until they have been initiated into the mysteries of
the science.
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