2. And it remained unknown for nearly five hundred years down to the time of Artaxerxes, king of the Persians. Then Hippocrates, born in the island of Cos, his father being Asclepius, brought it back to the light of day.
Chapter 4. On the three schools (haereses) of medicine.
1. And so these three men founded as many schools. The first, Methodica,[281] was established by Apollo, and it follows remedies and charms. The second, Empirica,[282] that is, relying on experience, was established by Aesculapius, which depends not on the interpretation of symptoms, but on experience alone. The third, Logica,[283] that is, rational, was invented by Hippocrates.
2. For the latter, separating the qualities of ages, districts, and diseases, examined the practice of the art in a rational way. The Empirici, then, follow experience alone; the Logici add reason to experience; the Methodici observe neither the elements, nor seasons, nor ages, nor causes, but the substances of diseases alone.
Chapter 5. On the four humors of the body.
1. Health is the integrity of the body and the compound (temperantia) made by nature from hot and moist which is the blood, whence also it has been named sanitas, as it were sanguinis status (state of the blood).
2. Under the general name of morbus (disease) all disorders of the body are embraced, to which the ancients gave the name of morbus in order to indicate by the very name the power of death (mortis) which arises from it. Between health and disease the mean is cure, and unless it harmonizes with the disease it does not lead to health.
3. All diseases arise from the four humors, that is, from blood, bile, black bile, and phlegm. Just as there are four elements so also there are four humors, and each humor imitates its element: blood, air; bile, fire; black bile, earth; phlegm, water. There are four humors, as four elements, which preserve our bodies.
4. Sanguis[284] (blood) took its name from a Greek source, because it invigorates, sustains and gives life to the body. Cholera[285] (bile) the Greeks named because it is ended in the space of one day, whence it was named cholera, that is, fellicula, that is, effusion of bile (fel). For the Greeks call bile χολή.
5. Melancholia (black bile) is named because an abundance of bile has been mixed with the dregs of black blood....