The laughable stories collected by Mâr Gregory John Bar Hebræ

PROFITABLE SAYINGS AND LEGENDS OF PHYSICIANS. 87
— "They are either antagonistic to each other when
"mixed together, or they are equal; now if they be
"antagonistic it is meet that one of them should be
"the bane of the other, and if they are equal why are
"they injurious when mixed together and when separate
"are not so? the mixture being injurious in each case."
With such words did the sophist shut the mouth of
the physician. But the truth of the dispute is that
when they are gathered together they destroy each
other through the properties which they possess, and
thus they together become unwholesome, even without
being mixed together.
CCCLX. When a certain man with a delicate
stomach came to a physician, he asked him the reason
why he was sick, and he replied, "I have eaten burnt
"bread." And the physician said unto him, "Paint thine
"eyes with stibium
or with something that will sharpen
"thy vision." And the man said, "I did not ask thee
"about mine eyes, but about my belly;'" and the physician
said to him, "I know that, but I say unto thee,
"Paint thine eyes' with something that will sharpen
"thy vision, in order that thou mayest observe the bread
"which is burnt and mayest not eat of it."
CCCLXI. Another physician said, "It is not right
"for a man to hold intercourse with fools, because in
"the place where they sit fever cleaveth to the soul,
"even as the sitting under the shadow of nut trees in-
;'flameth the body."
CCCLXII. While a physician was sitting in the presence
of a certain king, a nobleman to whom a child
had been newly born, entered, and the king asked him,
I
For (Ju^, read v>Ail^.