Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
Rosa Anglica (Author: [unknown])

section 13

13

However, since Nature hates a sudden change, let the matter be drawn off gradually, to evacuate that which is superfluous. If it be asked of you what amount is excessive in physic,41 since all the blood is good here, and therefore if one part of it is rightly excessive, then the other part is excessive too, and so it should all be drawn, if one part is drawn; I say, for example as follows, that one pound only is excessive, and if it be drawn off, Nature arranges the remaining part thereof; and since she gets help from the things nearest, she makes good what is lacking.42 Neither is the reasoning correct43 that all the blood is peccant and therefore it were right to draw it all off, for if some be evacuated, the other parts do not err; or else it is the parts farthest from the heart that are to blame, and the blood should be drawn from them. So the evacuation is in the branches and the deficiency likewise, and not in the root.