sure which he took to
see her so much altered, and said to her: Oh! how much more this garb
becomes and is commendable in the daughter of Augustus. But she, having
her excuse ready, answered: This day, sir, I dressed myself to please my
father's eye; yesterday, to gratify that of my husband. Thus disguised in
looks and garb, nay even, as formerly was the fashion, with a rich and
pleasant gown with four sleeves, which was called philonium according to
Petrus Alexandrinus in 6. Epidem., a physician might answer to such as
might find the metamorphosis indecent: Thus have I accoutred myself, not
that I am proud of appearing in such a dress, but for the sake of my
patient, whom alone I wholly design to please, and no wise offend or
dissatisfy. There is also a passage in our father Hippocrates, in the book
I have named, which causes some to sweat, dispute, and labour; not indeed
to know whether the physician's frowning, discontented, and morose Catonian
look render the patient sad, and his joyful, serene, and pleasing
countenance rejoice him; for experience teaches us that this is most
certain; but whether such sensations of grief or pleasure are produced by
the apprehension of the patient observing his motions and qualities in his
physician, and drawing from thence conjectures of the end and catastrophe
of his disease; as, by his pleasing look, joyful and desirable events, and
by his sorrowful and unpleasing air, sad and dismal consequences; or
whether those sensations be produced by a transfusion of the serene or
gloomy, aerial or terrestrial, joyful or melancholic spirits of the
physician into the person of the patient, as is the opinion of Plato,
Averroes, and others.

Above all things, the forecited authors have given particular directions to
physicians about the words, discourse, and converse which they ought to
have with their patients; everyone aiming at one point, that is, to rejoice
them without offending God, and in no wise whatsoever to vex or displease
them. Which causes Herophilus much to blame the physician Callianax, who,
being asked by a patient of his, Shall I die? impudently made him this
answer:

Patroclus died, whom all allow
By much a better man than you.

Another, who had a mind to know the state of his distemper, asking him,
after our merry Patelin's way: Well, doctor, does not my water tell you I
shall die? He foolishly answered, No; if Latona, the mother of those
lovely twins, Phoebus