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tended. If the livers were diseased and livid, they triedothers, in order to ascertain whether accident or diseasewas the cause of the imperfection; but if the greaterpart of the experiments proved, by the sound andhealthy appearance of the livers, that the water and foodof the spot were wholesome, they selected it for the gar-rison. If the reverse, they inferred, as in the case ofcattle, so in that of the human body, the water and foodof such a place would become pestiferous; and theytherefore abandoned it, in search of another, valuinghealth above all other considerations. That the salubrityof a tract of land is discovered by the pastures or foodwhich it furnishes, is sufficiently clear, from certain qua-lities of the lands in Crete, situate in the vicinity of theriver Pothereus, which lie between the two states ofGnosus and Gortyna. There are pasturages on each sideof this river: the cattle, however, pastured on the Gnossianside, when opened, are found with their spleens perfect;whilst those on the opposite side, nearer to Gortyna, re-tain no appearance of a spleen. Physicians, in their endea-vours to account for this singular circumstance, discovereda species of herb eaten by the cattle, whose property wasthat of diminishing the spleen. Hence arose the use of theherb which the Cretans call aWx^os, as a cure for thoseaffected with enlarged spleen. When, therefore, a city isbuilt in a marshy situation near the sea-coast, with anorthern, north-eastern, or eastern aspect, on a marshwhose level is higher than the shore of the sea, the site isnot altogether improper ; for by means of sewers the wa-ters may be discharged into the sea: and at those times,when violently agitated by storms, the sea swells and runsup the sewers, it mixes with the water of the marsh, and