then, from a comparison of the weights
of the plants and their various parts when compared with the
weight of the blood and the urine, how to make an application
and a dosage of drugs from the concordances and differences of
the medicaments, and even might be able to make an excellent
prognosis in the same way. Thus, from static experiments, he
would approach by a more precise knowledge to every kind of
information.

"Do you not think if you would permit the water from the
narrow opening of a clepsydra [water-clock] to flow into a
basin for as long as was necessary to count the pulse a
hundred times in a healthy young man, and then do the same
thing for an ailing young man, that there would be a
noticeable difference between the weights of the water that
would flow during the period? From the weight of the water,
therefore, one would arrive at a better knowledge of the
differences in the pulse of the young and the old, the healthy
and the unhealthy, and so, also, as to information with regard
to various diseases, since there would be one weight and,
therefore, one pulse in one disease, and another weight and
another pulse in another disease. In this way a better
judgment of the differences in the pulse could be obtained
than from the touch of the vein, just as more can be known
from the urine about its weight than from its color alone.

"Just in the same way would it not be possible to make a more
accurate judgment with regard to the breathing, if the
inspirations and expirations were studied according to the
weight of the water that passed during a certain interval? If,
while water was flowing from a clepsydra, one were to count a
hundred expirations in a boy, and then in an old man, of
course, there would not be the same amount of water at the end
of the enumeration. Then this same thing might be done for
other ages and states of the body. As a consequence, when the
physician once knew what the weight of water that represented
the number of expirations of a healthy boy or youth, and then
of an individual of the same age ill of some infirmity or
other, there is no doubt that, by this observation, he will
come to a knowledge of the health or illness and something
about the case, and, perhaps, also with more certainty would
b