Timaeus: and it produces diarrhoea and dysentery and all suchlike maladies. When a body has become diseased mainly from an excess of fire, it produces constant inflammations and fevers; when from air, quotidian fevers; when from water, tertian fevers, because that element is more sluggish than air or fire; and when from earth, which is the fourth and most sluggish of the elements and is purged in four-fold periods of time, it causes quartan fevers and is cured with difficulty.

He asked : “ To which of the four elements does thy sickness belong, earth, water, fire, or air ? ’ He replied : “ This sickness [of mine] does not...