ickness. The name
is just; for this sickness does outrage to the rational part of the
soul, which is by far the most holy.

[Footnote 16: _putredo_ (conj. Helm).]

51. You recognize, Maximus, the theory of Plato, as far as I have been
able to give it a lucid explanation in the time at my disposal. I put
my trust in him when he says that the cause of epilepsy is the
overflowing of this pestilential humour into the head. My inquiry
therefore was, I think, reasonable when I asked the woman whether her
head felt heavy, her neck numb, her temples throbbing, her ears full
of noises. The fact that she acknowledged these noises to be more
frequent in her right ear was proof that the disease had gone home.
For the right-hand organs of the body are the strongest, and therefore
their infection with the disease leaves small hope of recovery. Indeed
Aristotle has left it on record in his _Problems_ that whenever in the
case of epileptics the disease begins on the right side, their cure is
very difficult. It would be tedious were I to repeat the opinion of
Theophrastus also on the subject of epilepsy. For he has left a most
excellent treatise on convulsions. He asserts, however, in another
book on the subject of animals ill-disposed towards mankind, that the
skins of newts--which like other reptiles they shed at fixed intervals
for the renewal of their youth--form a remedy for fits. But unless you
snatch up the skin as soon as it be shed, they straightway turn upon
it and devour it, whether from a malign foreknowledge of its value to
men or from a natural taste for it. I have mentioned these things, I
have been careful to quote the arguments of renowned philosophers, and
to mention the books where they are to be found, and have avoided any
reference to the works of physicians or poets, that my adversaries may
cease to wonder that philosophers have learnt the causes of remedies
and diseases in the natural course of their researches. Well then,
since this woman was brought to be examined by me in the hope that she
might be cured, and since it is clear both from the evidence of the
physician who brought her and from the arguments I have just set forth
that such a course was perfectly right, my opponents must needs assert
that it is the part of a magician and evildoer to heal disease, or, if
they do not dare to say that, must confess that their accusations in
regard to this epileptic boy and woman are false, absurd, and indeed
epilepti