Page:The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart.pdf/162

158 way, and then ran back to the bodies which had been cut up, and spread the herbs over the limbs, measuring them together according to length, width, breadth. One said that this fitted that, another that it did not; then they wrangled about this with much screaming—nay, even as to the very names of these herbs there was much dispute. Him who knew most names of herbs, and was able to measure and weigh them, they crowned with a garland of such herbs; and they ordered that he should be called doctor of this science.

3. Then I perceive that they bring and carry to these men many who, either inwardly or outwardly, had wounds, and were purulent and rotten. Stepping towards them, they looked at their putrefied limbs, smelt the stench that proceeded from them, handled the filth that leaked out from above and below till it was loathsome to behold. And this they called examination. Then they immediately cooked, stewed, roasted, broiled, cauterised, cooled, burnt, hacked, sawed, pricked, sewed together, bound up, greased, hardened, softened, wrapped up, poured out medicines; and I know not what other things they did not. Meanwhile, the patients none the less perished under their hands, many railing at them, and saying that it was either through their ignorance or their carelessness that they had come to ruin. I saw generally that though their science awarded these good healers