De tuenda sanitate praecepta

MOSCHION. So, Zeuxippus, yesterday you drove away Glaucus, the physician, when he wished to join in your philosophical discussions.

ZEUXIPPUS. No, my dear Moschion, I did not drive him away, nor did he wish to join in philosophical discussion, but I avoided him and feared giving an opening to a man fond of contention. In medicine the man is, as Homer puts it, Worth many others together, but he is not kindly disposed towards philosophy, and there is always a certain harshness and ill-nature inherent in his remarks. And just then he was coming at us full tilt, crying out, even before he came near us, that it was no small or suitable task, amounting in fact to a confusion of all bounds, which had been boldly assumed by us in discussing a healthful manner of living. For he asserted that the subjects of philosophy and medicine are as “far remote” from each other as “are the boundaries of” any “Mysians and Phrygians”; and thereupon, as he had at the tip of his tongue some statements of ours, which, though not very carefully formulated, are certainly not without utility, he proceeded to tear them to pieces.