Book XI, 382

Alcimenes lay in bed sore sick of a fever and giving vent to hoarse wheezings from his wind-pipe, his side pricking him as if he had been pierced by a sword, and his breath coming short in ill-sounding gasps. Then came Callignotus of Cos, with his never-ending jaw, full of the wisdom of the healing art, whose prognosis of pains was complete, and he never foretold anything but what came to pass. He inspected Alcimenes’ position in bed and drew conclusions from his face, and felt his pulse scientifically. Then he reckoned up from the treatise on critical days, calculating everything not without his Hippocrates, and finally he gave utterance to Alcimenes of his prognosis, making his face very solemn and looking most serious: “If your throat stops roaring and the fierce attacks of pain in your side cease, and your breathing is no longer made thick by the fever, you will not die in that case of pleurisy, for this is to us a sign of coming freedom from pain. Cheer up, and summoning your lawyer, dispose well of your property and depart from this life, the mother of care, leaving to me, your doctor, in return for my good prognostic, the third part of your inheritance.”