The seven books of Paulus Ægineta, volume 2 (of 3) : $b translated from the Greek: with a commentary embracing a complete view of the knowledge possessed by the Greeks, Romans, and Arabians on all subjects connected with medicine and surgeryPaulus, Aegineta
History
The seven books of Paulus Ægineta, volume 2 (of 3) : $b translated from the Greek: with a commentary embracing a complete view of the knowledge possessed by the Greeks, Romans, and Arabians on all subjects connected with medicine and surgery
Paulus, Aegineta
Medicine; Medicine, Arab; Medicine, Greek and Roman
Vegetius, the great ancient authority on veterinary surgery, describes
elephantiasis as it affects cattle. The symptoms are hardness and
roughness of the skin, squamæ, eruptions on the feet and head, and a
fetid discharge from the nose. He approves of bleeding, and the other
means recommended by the regular surgeons.
We shall next give the descriptions of the Greek authorities.
Aretæus gives a most elaborate but surely somewhat overstrained
description of elephas, which he paints in colours the most hideous and
disgusting. We shall endeavour to convey to the reader an idea of his
sketch, stripping his picture of its flowery ornaments, and contracting
its bulk. The disease is called _elephas_, he says, from its magnitude,
_leontium_ or _morbus leoninus_, from the supposed resemblance of the
eyebrows to those of the lion; and _satyriasis_, from the venereal
desires with which it is attended. The disease is described as escaping
notice at first, being deep-seated and preying upon the vitals, but
afterwards it is determined to the superficies, commencing sometimes with
the face, and at other times with the extremities. The belly is dry,
because, as he ingeniously remarks, the distribution of the food is
performed regularly, and the vitiated parts strongly attract the chyle
to them as a pabulum to the disease. There are large callous eminences
on the skin, and the veins appear enlarged, owing to a thickening of the
vessels and not to a plethora of blood. The hairs of the head, pubes, and
other parts of the body, drop off. The face in particular is affected
with callous tubercles or warts, and it is not uncommon for the tongue,
and most parts of the body, to be also covered with them. The eyebrows
are thickened, stripped of their hair, and hang down like those of the
lion. The general appearance of the skin, covered as it is with hard
tubercles, and intersected with deep fissures, is said to bear some
resemblance to that of the elephant. Sometimes particular members, such
as the nose, feet, fingers, the whole hand, or the pudenda, will die and
drop off; and it is not uncommon for incurable ulcers to break forth on
different parts of the body. Dyspnœa, and a sense of suffocation, are
occasionally present. He says, it is dangerous to have any intercourse
with persons labouring under the disease, no less so than in the case of
the plague, as both are readily communicated by respiration. He directs
us, at the commencement, to abstract blood freely, because blood is the
_pabulum morbi_. He recommends us to purge with hiera, and to procure
vomiting by radishes, but more particularly by the white hellebore,
upon which he bestows a glowing and eloquent eulogy. Like our author,
he approves of the theriac of vipers. He makes mention of many external
applications of a detergent nature, and in particular praises a soap
used by the Celts for cleaning their clothes. He also commends natron,
alcyonium, sulphur, alum, ammoniac with vinegar, and the like, for the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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