In order to keep the body properly open, an
enema, or some other simple means, should be employed when
necessary. Bathing is injurious. Men must preserve chastity as
they value their lives. Every one should impress this on his
recollection, but especially those who reside on the coast, or
upon an island into which the noxious wind has penetrated."
On what occasion these strange precepts were delivered can no
longer be ascertained, even if it were an object to know it. It
must be acknowledged, however, that they do not redound to the
credit either of the faculty of Paris, or of the fourteenth
century in general. This famous faculty found themselves under
the painful necessity of being wise at command, and of firing a
point-blank shot of erudition at an enemy who enveloped himself in
a dark mist, of the nature of which they had no conception. In
concealing their ignorance by authoritative assertions, they
suffered themselves, therefore, to be misled; and while
endeavouring to appear to the world with eclat, only betrayed to
the intelligent their lamentable weakness. Now some might suppose
that, in the condition of the sciences of the fourteenth century,
no intelligent physicians existed; but this is altogether at
variance with the laws of human advancement, and is contradicted
by history.
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