Treatment by Opposites (Contraria Contrariis)
Cool the fever, warm the chill, drain the overfull: cure is the imbalance turned against itself, the body coaxed back to its mean.
Ancient Greek medicine held that health is a balance of the body's qualities — hot and cold, wet and dry — and that disease is that balance gone astray. The healer's task, then, was to push back in the opposite direction: warming what had grown cold, drying what had grown moist, emptying what was overfilled. First crystallized in the Hippocratic writings and given a full theoretical scaffolding by Galen, this principle of "opposites cure opposites" governed the choice of drugs, diet, and regimen in the West for nearly two thousand years.
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- De MedicinaRome · 50explains
- De curatione acutorum morborum libri duoAlexandriaexplains
- De curatione diuturnorum morborum libri duoAlexandriaexplains
Key passages(20)
De curatione acutorum morborum libri duo · Aretaeus of Cappadocia
De curatione acutorum morborum libri duo · Aretaeus of Cappadocia
De curatione acutorum morborum libri duo · Aretaeus of Cappadocia
De curatione diuturnorum morborum libri duo · Aretaeus of Cappadocia
De causis et signis acutorum morborum libri duo · Aretaeus of Cappadocia
De curatione acutorum morborum libri duo · Aretaeus of Cappadocia
De curatione acutorum morborum libri duo · Aretaeus of Cappadocia
De curatione acutorum morborum libri duo · Aretaeus of Cappadocia
De curatione acutorum morborum libri duo · Aretaeus of Cappadocia
De curatione acutorum morborum libri duo · Aretaeus of Cappadocia
De curatione acutorum morborum libri duo · Aretaeus of Cappadocia
De curatione acutorum morborum libri duo · Aretaeus of Cappadocia
De curatione diuturnorum morborum libri duo · Aretaeus of Cappadocia
De curatione diuturnorum morborum libri duo · Aretaeus of Cappadocia