Allopathic Remedies. Humoral theory was not just a diagnostic tool, but also provided a framework for therapy. With few exceptions, Hippocratic medicine used diet and regimen as its primary means of cure. Since disease was defined as humoral imbalance, both preventative care and restorative treatment generally took the form of allopathic remedies—that is, a cure by opposites. On the one hand, removal of excess humors was attempted by administering various purgative drugs, some of them unfortunately quite toxic. For instance hellebore, a poisonous herb of the lily family, was frequently used to induce vomiting. On the other, a careful categorization of foods and beverages in terms of what were believed to be their active qualities (hot/cold or wet/dry) offered a way of returning the patient to a balanced condition by prescribing diets to compensate for whichever humoral excess...