Dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

396' DIAETETICA. DjIAETETAE.
the meaning which it always bears in the earlier ing, are also much insisted upon by the writers on
medical writers, and that which will be adhered diet and regimen; but for further particulars on
to in the present article; in some of the later au- these subjects the articles BALNEAE and GYssINAthors, it seems to comprehend Celsus's second grand siu1 must be consulted. It may, however, h)b
division, P/7armaceutica, and is used by Scribonllis added that the bath could not have been very
Largus (De Comzpos. Medicnam. ~ 200) simply in common, at least in private families, in the time (;f
opposition to clirurpgia, so as to answer exactly to Hippocrates, as he says (De Rant. IVict. in Mlor,.
the province of our plsysician. Acut. p. 62) that c there are few houses in which
No attention seems to have been paid to this the necessary conveniences are to be found."
branch of medicine before the date of Hippo- Another very favourite practice with the an.
crates. Homer represents Machaon, who had been cients, both as a preventive of sickness and as a
wounded in the shoulder by an arrow (II. xi. 507) remedy, was the taking of an emetic from time to
and forced to quit the field, as taking a draught time. The author of the treatise De Victus Hrtcomposed of wine, goat's-milk cheese, and flour tione, falsely attributed to Hippocrates, recom(ibid. 638), which certainly no modern surgeon mends it two or three times a month (lib. iii. p.
would prescribe in such a case. (See Plat. De 710). Celsus considers it more beneficial in the
Republ. iii. pp. 405, 406; Max. Tyr. Senrm. 29; winter than in the summer (De MlWedic. i. 3. p. 28),
Athen. i. p. 10.) Hippocrates seems. to claim for and says that those who take an emetic twi.ce a
himself the credit of being the first person who month had better do so -on two successive days
had studied this subject, and says that " the an- than once a fortnight (Ibrd. p. 29). At the time
cients had written nothing on it worth mention- in which Celsus wrote, this practice was so coming" (De Rat. Vict. in M11orb. Acut. vol. ii. p. 26, monly abused, that Asclepiades, in his work De
ed. Kiihn). Among the works commonly ascribed Sanitet Tuede2ca, rejected the use of emetics altoto Hippocrates, there are four that bear upon this gether,' Offensus," says Celsus (Ibid. p. 27),
subject. It would be out of place here to attempt "eorumn consuetudine, qui quotidie ejiciendo voany thing like a complete account of the opinions randi facultatem moliuntur." (See also Plin.
of the ancients on this point; those who wish for 11. -V. xxvi. 8.) It was the custom among the
more detailed information must be referred to the ilomans to take an emetic immediately before their
different works on medical antiquities, while in meals, in order to prepare themselves to eat more
this article mention is made of only such parti- plentifully; and again soon after, so as to avoid
culars as may be supposed to have some interest any injury from repletion. Cicero, in his account
for the general reader. of the day that Caesar spent with him at his
In the works of Hippocrates ansd his successors house in the country (adl Att. xiii. 52), says, " Acalmost all the articles of food used by the ancients. cubuit, EstEl-cis agebat, itaque et edit et bibit
are mentioned, and their real or supposed pro- damSs et jucunde;" and this seems to have been
perties discussed, sometimes quite as fancifully as considered a sort of compliment paid by Caesar to
by Burton in his Asnatom7sy of Mlelanclo7,y. In his host, as it intimated a resolution to pass the
some respects they appear to have been much less day cheerfully, and to eat and drink freely with
delicate in their tastes than the moderns, as we him. I-He is represented as having done the same
find the flesh of the fox, the dog, the horse, and thing when he was entertained by King Deiotarus
the ass spoken of as common articles of food. (Cic. Pr'o Deiot. c. 7). The glutton Vitellius is
(Pseudo-Ilippocr. De Vict. Rat. lib. ii. vol. i. pp. said to have preserved his own life by constanlt
679, 680.) With regard to the quantity of wine emetics, while lie destroyed all his companioils
dtrank by the ancients, we may arrive at some- who did not use the same precaution (Suet. Vitell.
thing like certainty from the fact that Caelius c. 13; Dion Cass. lxv. 2), so that one of them,
Aurelianus mentions it as something extraordinary who was prevented by illness from dining with
that the famous Asclepiades at Rome in the first him for a few days, said, " I should certainly
century a. c., sometimes ordered his patients to have been dead if I had not fallen sick." Even
double and treble the quantity of wine, till at last women, after bathingr before supper, used to drink
they drank half wine and half water (De l3Iorb. wine and throw it up again to sharpen their apCboeon. lib. iii. c. 7. p. 386), from which it appears petite -
that wine was commonly diluted with five or six [Falerni] " sextarius alter
times its quantity of water. Hippocrates recom- Ducitur ante cibilm, rabidam factures oreximn."
mends wine to be mixed with an equal quantity Juv. Sat. vi. 427, 428.
of water, and Galen approves of the proportion; so that it might truly be said, in the strong lanbut Le Clerc (Hist. de la il&l.) thinkls that this guage of Seneca (Cons. ad HIelv. 9. ~ 10), " Vomunt,
was only in particular cases. In one place ut edant; edunt, ut vomrant." (Compare Seneca,
(Pseudo-Hippocr. De Vict. Rat. lib. iii. ine file.) oe Provid. c. 4. ~ 11, Epist. 95. ~ 21.) By
the patient, after great fatigue, is recommended some, the practice was thought so effectual for
LeOvOse6vaL _era~ ] Bis, in which passage it has been strengthening the constitution, that it was the
much doubted whether actual inztoxicationz is meant, constant regimen of all the athletae, or professed
or only the " drinking freely and to cheerfulness," wrestlers, trained for the public shows, in order
in which sense the same word is used by St. John to make them more robust. Celsus, however,
(ii. 10) and the LIXX. (Goen. xliii. 34; Cant. v. (I. c. p. 28), warns his readers against the too
1; and perhaps Gen. ix. 21). According to Hip- frequent use of emetics without necessity and
pocrates, the proportions in which wine and water nmerely for luxury and gluttony, and says that
should be mixed together, vary according to the no one who has any regard for his health, and
season of the year; for instance, in summer the wishes to live to old age, ought to make it a daily
wine should be most diluted, and in winter the practice. [W. A. G.]
least so. (Comlrare Celsus, De Medic. i. 3. p. 31. I)IAETE'TAE (iaeTrrtsat), arbitrators, um.
ed. Argent.) Exercise of various sorts, and bath- pires. The diaetetae mentioned by the Athenian