Yet what is striking is that in spite of that theoretical apparatus, which would in principle mean that one might abandon talk in terms of hot, cold, wet and dry at higher levels of explanation—in particular, in the advanced medical realm of disease description and treatment—precisely these terms remain the central ones. Other descriptive and experiential terms are used, of course; but it is remarkable that, precisely in that area where Galen makes his most elaborate attempt to classify substances according to their properties and effects, namely in his extremely lengthy accounts of drugs—accounts which include, one should add, a significant element of quantificatory analysis—the “scientific” terms of description remain precisely these: hot, cold, wet and dry.