Chapter 9: On remedies and medicines

1. The curative power of medicine must not be despised. For we remember that Isaiah sent something of medicinal nature to Hezekiah when he was sick, and Paul the apostle said a little wine was good for Timothy.

3. There are three kinds of cures in all. The first is the dietetic; the second, the pharmaceutical; the third, the surgical. Diet (_diaeta_) is the observance of the law of life. Pharmacy is curing by medicines. Surgery is cutting with the knife; for with the knife is cut away that which does not feel the healing of medicines....

5. Every cure is wrought either by contraries or by likes. By contraries, as cold by warm and dry by moist, just as in man pride cannot be cured except by humility.

6. By likes, as a round bandage is put on a round wound, or an oblong one on an oblong wound. For the very bandage is not the same for all wounds, but like is fitted to like....

7. _Antidotum_ in the Greek means in the Latin _ex contrario datum_. For contraries are cured by contraries in the medical system. On the other hand likes are cured by likes, as for example, πικρὰ which means bitters because its taste is bitter. It received a suitable name because the bitterness of disease is dispelled by its bitterness.