Hippocrates De prisca medicina 7

[7] What other object, then, had he in view who is called a physician, and is admitted to be a practitioner of the art, who found out the regimen and diet befitting the sick, than he who originally found out and prepared for all mankind that kind of food which we all now use, in place of the former savage and brutish mode of living? To me it appears that the mode is the same, and the discovery of a similar nature. The one sought to abstract those things which the constitution of man cannot digest, because of their wildness and intemperature, and the other those things which are beyond the powers of the affection in which any one may happen to be laid up. Now, how does the one differ from the other, except that the latter admits of greater variety, and requires more application, whereas the former was the commencement of the process?

[7] What difference then can be seen between the purpose of him we call physician, who is an acknowledged handicraftsman, the discoverer of the mode of life and of the nourishment suitable for the sick, and his who discovered and prepared originally nourishment for all men, which we now use, instead of the old savage and brutish mode of living? My own view is that their reasoning was identical and the discovery one and the same. The one sought to do away with those things which, when taken, the constitution of man in health could not assimilate because of their brutish and uncompounded character, the other those things which the temporary condition of an individual prevented him from assimilating. How do the two pursuits differ, except in their scope ¹ and in that the latter is more complex and requires the greater application, while the former is the starting point and came first in time?