in good health, what is strength to the one is disease to the
other."

"Such food as is most grateful, though not so wholesome, is to be
preferred to that which is better, but distasteful."

"Life is short and the art long; the opportunity fleeting;
experience fallacious and judgment difficult. The physician must not
only do his duty himself, but must also make the patient, the
attendants and the externals, co-operate."

Hippocrates appears to have travelled a great deal, and to have
practised his art in many places far distant from his native island. A
few traditions of what he did during his long life remain, but
differences of opinion exist as to the truth of these stories.

Thus one story says that when Perdiccas, the King of Macedonia, was
supposed to be dying of consumption, Hippocrates discovered the disorder
to be love-sickness, and speedily effected a cure. The details of this
story scarcely seem to be worthy of credence, more especially as similar
legends have been told of entirely different persons belonging to widely
different times. There are, however, some reasons for believing that
Hippocrates visited the Macedonian court in the exercise of his
professional duties, for he mentions in the course of his writings,
among places which he had visited, several which were situated in
Macedonia; and, further, his son Thessalus appears to have afterwards
been court physician to Archelaus, King of Macedonia.

Another story connects the name of Hippocrates with the Great Plague
which occurred at Athens in the time of the Peloponnesian war. It is
said that Hippocrates advised the lighting of great fires with wood of
some aromatic kind, probably some species of pine. These, being kindled
all about the city, stayed the progress of the pestilence. Others
besides Hippocrates are, however, famous for having successfully adopted
this practice.

A third legend states that the King of Persia, pursuing the plan (which
in the two celebrated instances of Themistocles and Pausanias had proved
successful) of attracting to his side the most distinguished persons in
Greece, wrote to Hippocrates asking him to pay a visit to his court, and
that Hippocrates refused to go. Although the story is discarded by many
scholars, it is worthy of note that Ctesias, a kinsman and contemporary
of Hippocrates, is mentioned by Xenophon in the "Anabasis" as being in
the service of the King of Persia. And, with regard