In the days of Asclepius; and this I infer from the circumstance that

the hero Eurypylus, after he has been wounded in Homer, drinks a posset

of Pramnian wine well besprinkled with barley-meal and grated cheese,

which are certainly inflammatory, and yet the sons of Asclepius who

were at the Trojan war do not blame the damsel who gives him the drink,

or rebuke Patroclus, who is treating his case.

Well, he said, that was surely an extraordinary drink to be given

to a person in his condition.

Not so extraordinary, I replied, if you bear in mind that in former

days, as is commonly said, before the time of Herodicus, the guild

of Asclepius did not practise our present system of medicine, which

may be said to educate diseases. But Herodicus, being a trainer, and

himself of a sickly constitution, by a combination of training and

doctoring found out a way of torturing first and chiefly himself,

and secondly the rest of the world.

How was that? he said.

By the invention of lingering death; for he had a mortal disease which

he perpetually tended, and as recovery was out of the question, he

passed his entire life as a valetudinarian; he could do nothing but

attend upon himself, and he was in constant torment whenever he departed

In anything from his usual regimen, and so dying hard, by the help

of science he struggled on to old age.

A rare reward of his skill!

Yes, I said; a reward which a man might fairly expect who never understood

that, if Asclepius did not instruct his descendants in valetudinarian

arts, the omission arose, not from ignorance or inexperience of such

a branch of medicine, but because he knew that in all well-ordered

states every individual has an occupation to which he must attend,

and has therefore no leisure to spend in continually being ill. This

we remark in the case of the artisan, but, ludicrously enough, do

not apply the same rule to people of the richer sort.

How do you mean? he said.

I mean this: When a carpenter is ill he asks the physician for a rough

and ready cure; an emetic or a purge or a cautery or the knife, --these

are his remedies. And if some one prescribes for him a course of dietetics,

and tells him that he must swathe and swaddle his head, and all that

sort of thing, he replies at once that he has no time to be ill, and

that he sees no good in a life which is spent in nursing his disease

to the neglect of his customary employment; and therefore bidding

good-bye to this sort of physician, he resumes his ordinary habits,

and either gets well and lives and does his business, or, if his constitution

falls, he dies and has no more trouble.

Yes, he said, and a man in his condition of life ought to use the

art of medicine thus far only.

Has he not, I said, an occupation; and what profit would there be

In his life if he were deprived of his occupation?

Quite true, he said.

But with the rich man this is otherwise; of him we do not say that

he has any specially appointed work which he must perform, if he would

live.

He is generally supposed to have nothing to do.

Then you never heard of the saying of Phocylides, that as soon as

a man has a livelihood he should practise virtue?

Nay, he said, I think that he had better begin somewhat sooner.

Let us not have a dispute with him about this, I said; but rather

ask ourselves: Is the practice of virtue obligatory on the rich man,

or can he live without it? And if obligatory on him, then let us raise

a further question, whether this dieting of disorders which is an