Of Medicine, in Eight BooksCelsus, Aulus Cornelius
History
Of Medicine, in Eight Books
Celsus, Aulus Cornelius
Medicine, Greek and Roman
Whatever disorders arise from the motion of the humours, are generally
to be most apprehended in the spring(2); so that, at this season,
lippitudes, pimples, hæmorrhages, abscesses of the body, which the
Greeks call apostemata[AF], atrabilis, which they name melancholia[AG],
madness, epilepsy, angina, gravedoes, and catarrhs, usually occur.
Also those distempers in the joints and nerves, which sometimes are
troublesome, and sometimes easy, at this time of the year are the
most apt both to begin and return. Neither is the summer altogether
free from most of the above-mentioned distempers; but adds moreover
fevers, either ardent, or tertian, vomitings, purgings, ear-achs,
ulcers of the mouth, gangrenes, both in the other parts of the body,
and chiefly in the private parts; and all these disorders that waste a
man by sweat. There is hardly any of these, that is not found in the
autumn; but there arise then, besides irregular fevers, pain of the
spleen, dropsical disorders(3), consumption, which the Greeks call
phthisis[AH]; difficulty of urine, which they term stranguria[AI];
the distemper of the smaller intestine which they name ileos[AJ],
there happens also what the Greeks call lienteria[AK]; pains of the
hips, epileptic disorders. And the same season is mortal to those that
are worn out with long diseases, and such, as have been oppressed by
the preceding summer; and it dispatches some by new distempers, and
involves others in very tedious ones, especially quartan agues, which
may even continue through the winter. Nor is any season more liable to
the plague, of whatever kind it be, however various in its manner of
hurting. The winter provokes pains of the head, the cough, and whatever
disorder is contracted in the fauces, sides, or bowels.
[AF] ἀποστήματα.
[AG] μελαγχολία.
[AH] φθίσις.
[AI] στραγγουρία.
[AJ] εἰλεος.
[AK] λειεντερία.
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