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 like 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 in the mysteries of the
science.
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