was a kind of leaf, which required to be accompanied
by a charm, and if a person would repeat the charm at the same time that
he used the cure, he would be made whole; but that without the charm the
leaf would be of no avail.

Then I will write out the charm from your dictation, he said.

With my consent? I said, or without my consent?

With your consent, Socrates, he said, laughing.

Very good, I said; and are you quite sure that you know my name?

I ought to know you, he replied, for there is a great deal said about
you among my companions; and I remember when I was a child seeing you in
company with my cousin Critias.

I am glad to find that you remember me, I said; for I shall now be more
at home with you and shall be better able to explain the nature of the
charm, about which I felt a difficulty before. For the charm will do
more, Charmides, than only cure the headache. I dare say that you have
heard eminent physicians say to a patient who comes to them with bad
eyes, that they cannot cure his eyes by themselves, but that if his eyes
are to be cured, his head must be treated; and then again they say that
to think of curing the head alone, and not the rest of the body also, is
the height of folly. And arguing in this way they apply their methods
to the whole body, and try to treat and heal the whole and the part
together. Did you ever observe that this is what they say?

Yes, he said.

And they are right, and you would agree with them?

Yes, he said, certainly I should.

His approving answers reassured me, and I began by degrees to regain
confidence, and the vital heat returned. Such, Charmides, I said, is the
nature of the charm, which I learned when serving with the army from one
of the physicians of the Thracian king Zamolxis, who are said to be so
skilful that they can even give immortality. This Thracian told me that
in these notions of theirs, which I was just now mentioning, the Greek
physicians are quite right as far as they go; but Zamolxis, he added,
our king, who is also a god, says further, 'that as you ought not to
attempt to cure the eyes without the head, or the head without the body,
so neither ought you to attempt to cure the body without the soul; and
this,' he said, 'is the reason why the cure of many diseases is unknown
to the physicians of Hellas, because they are ignorant of the whole,
which ought to be studied also; for the part can never be well unless
the whole is well.' For all g