ntages: A natural disposition;
instruction; a favourable position for the study; early tuition; love of
labour; leisure. First of all, a natural talent is required, for, when
Nature opposes, everything else is vain; but when Nature leads the way
to what is most excellent, instruction in the art takes place, which the
student must try to appropriate to himself by reflection, becoming an
early pupil in a place well adapted for instruction. He must also bring
to the task a love of labour and perseverance, so that the instruction
taking root may bring forth proper and abundant fruits.

"(3) Instruction in medicine is like the culture of the productions of
the earth. For our natural disposition is, as it were, the soil; the
tenets of our teacher are, as it were, the seed; instruction in youth is
like the planting of the seed in the ground at the proper season; the
place where the instruction is communicated is like the food imparted to
vegetables by the atmosphere; diligent study is like the cultivation of
the fields; and it is time which imparts strength to all things and
brings them to maturity.

"(4) Having brought all these requisites to the study of medicine, and
having acquired a true knowledge of it, we shall thus, in travelling
through the cities, be esteemed physicians not only in name but in
reality. But inexperience is a bad treasure, and a bad friend to those
who possess it, whether in opinion or reality, being devoid of
self-reliance and contentedness, and the nurse both of timidity and
audacity. For timidity betrays a want of powers, and audacity a want of
skill. There are, indeed, two things, knowledge and opinion, of which
the one makes its possessor really to know, the other to be ignorant.

"(5) These things which are sacred are to be imparted only to sacred
persons; and it is not lawful to impart them to the profane until they
have been initiated in the mysteries of the science."

"THE OATH.

"I swear by Apollo, the physician, and AEsculapius, and Health, and
Panacea, and all the gods and goddesses, that, according to my ability
and judgment, I will keep this oath and this stipulation--to reckon him
who taught me this art equally dear to me as my parents, to share my
substance with him, and relieve his necessities if required; to look
upon his offspring in the same footing as my own brothers, and to teach
them this art, if they shall wish to learn it, without fee or
stipulation; and that by precept,