第576页 / 共1391页

Until lately they have hardly thought of air and water, the

importance of which was well understood by the ancients; as

Aristotle remarks, 'Air and water, being the elements which we

most use, have the greatest effect upon health' (Polit.). For

ages physicians have been under the dominion of prejudices which

have only recently given way; and now there are as many opinions

in medicine as in theology, and an equal degree of scepticism and

some want of toleration about both. Plato has several good

notions about medicine; according to him, 'the eye cannot be

cured without the rest of the body, nor the body without the

mind' (Charm.).