[All that Suetonius says in his Life of Tiberius is that this emperor, after he was thirty years old, governed his health without the aid of physicians; and what Plutarch tells us, in his essay on the Rules and Precepts of Health, is that Tiberius said that the man who, having attained sixty years, held out his pulse to a physician was a fool.]

and he might have learned it of Socrates, who, advising his disciples to be solicitous of their health as a chief study, added that it was hard if a man of sense, having a care to his exercise and diet, did not better know than any physician what was good or ill for him.  And physic itself professes always to have experience for the test of its operations:  so Plato had reason to say that, to be a right physician, it would be necessary that he who would become such, should first himself have passed through all the diseases he pretends to cure, and through all the accidents and circumstances whereof he is to judge.  ’Tis but reason they should get the pox, if they will know how to cure it; for my part, I should put myself into such hands; the others but guide us, like him who paints seas and rocks and ports sitting at table, and there makes the model of a ship sailing in all security; but put him to the work itself, he knows not at which end to begin.  They make such a description of our maladies as a town crier does of a lost horse or dog—­such a color, such a height, such an ear—­but bring it to him and he knows it not, for all that.  If physic should one day give me some good and visible relief, then truly I will cry out in good earnest: 

“Tandem effcaci do manus scientiae.”

     ["Show me and efficacious science, and I will take it by the hand.” 
     —­Horace, xvii.  I.]

The arts that promise to keep our bodies and souls in health promise a great deal; but, withal, there are none that less keep their promise.  And, in our time, those who make profession of these arts amongst us, less manifest the effects than any other sort of men; one may say of them, at the most, that they sell medicinal drugs; but that they are physicians, a man cannot say.

     [The edition of 1588 adds:  “Judging by themselves, and those
     who are ruled by them.”]

I have lived long enough to be able to give an account of the custom that has carried me so far; for him who has a mind to try it, as his taster, I have made the experiment.  Here are some of the articles, as my memory shall supply me with them; I have no custom that has not varied according to circumstances; but I only record those that I have been best acquainted with, and that hitherto have had the greatest possession of me.