Travels in the Mogul Empire (Bernier) 6.7.8

6.7.8

On physic they have a great number of small books, which are rather collections of recipes than regular treatises. The most ancient and the most esteemed is written in verse. I shall observe, by the way, that their practice differs essentially from ours, and that it is grounded on the following acknowledged principles : a patient with a fever requires no great nourishment; the sovereign remedy for sickness is abstinence ; nothing is worse for a sick body than meat broth, for it soon corrupts in the stomach of one afflicted with fever ; a patient should be bled only on extraordinary occasions, and where the necessity is most obvious— as when there is reason to apprehend a brain fever, or when an inflammation of the chest, liver, or kidneys, has taken place.