"All illnesses structurally resemble living creatures, in the sense that the composition of creatures lasts for an ordained number of years, not only as members of a given species, but also as individuals: each individual creature comes into existence with a predetermined lifespan, leaving aside unavoidable accidents... Diseases have analogous structures, and so if one tries to eliminate a disease by the use of drugs before its time, problems are liable to increase both in severity and number. Hence, control of this whole area should be achieved by means of regimen, to the extent that one has time to do so, and one should avoid exacerbating an obstinate nuisance by the application of drugs."
Plato's warning against medicines - better to keep a healthy body resistant to diseases than to depend on drugs