SECT. LIV.—OF THE REGIMEN OF PERSONS ACTIVELY EMPLOYED.
He who spends his time in business ought to consider whether, in the former period of life, he had been in the habit of taking exercise, or whether, though not taking exercise, he bears that habit well, and escapes from diseases by having free perspiration. Such a state of body is not to be suddenly changed to another habit, neither the mode of those who have long been in ill health. But if constantly ill and plethoric, the indication of cure ought to be by a healthful regimen, to supply moderate nourishment; or, if cacochymy was the cause, the indication will be to supply proper juices. Those who suffer from fulness are to be directed when they go into the bath to use friction, and to take some exercise, or, if they have already done so, to increase it a little, but to detract from their food, and use less nutritious kinds than formerly; but if from collections of bad humours, one indication of cure is not sufficient, because there is more than one kind of bad humours; for some have a collection of cold and pituitous, some of hot and bilious, and others of the melancholic. Every one, therefore, ought to avoid those articles of food and drink which are apt to engender that sort of humour which is collected. And in all these cases the common remedy is purging of the belly.
Commentary. This is taken from Oribasius (Synops. v, 29), who extracts it from the ‘Commentaries’ of Galen. See also Rhases (Cont. xxxiii.) Galen and Rhases remark that persons who lead an active life, such as ploughmen and labourers, digest gross food more readily than any others; but that, their bodies being wasted by excessive fatigue, the vessels take up the chyle before it is properly concocted, and carry it over the system. Hence, such persons seldom attain to an old age, as their bodies get loaded with improper juices.