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
Galen explains that the term _phlegmone_ is used either to signify
inflammations in general, or a red, resisting, and painful tumour in
particular. It is here used in the latter acceptation. He says, when a
defluxion of blood of good quality and of moderate consistence takes
place to a part, and from its quantity becomes fixed in it, the person
is seized with a violent pain, unless the part be very insensible; it is
also accompanied with a deep-seated throbbing; it seems stretched and
broken; there is a sensation of increased heat, so that the part feels
as if it were burnt and desires cooling; there is a florid redness as in
those who have been in the bath, or have been warmed at the fire, and
by other means. This affection, he says, gets the generic appellation
of phlegmone, or inflammation. He enumerates many causes of it, such as
bruises, fractures, and dislocations; but even without these, he adds,
it may arise from the veins being immoderately distended with humours,
and the superfluity being cast off upon a part fitted to receive them at
the time. Such a part, from some cause or other, happens to be weaker,
or more lax, or more calculated to attract, or is more inactive than
the other parts of the body. He lays it down as a general principle,
that the cure of such affections is to be accomplished by evacuation.
Reason and experience, he adds, teach us that the general system is to be
evacuated by the suitable means, and the inflamed part by embrocations
and cataplasms of a repellent nature, and such as are calculated to give
tone and strength to it. Such are his general principles of treatment.
His particular remedies we need not mention, as in fact our author’s are
entirely borrowed from him. Oribasius, Aëtius, Actuarius, and Nonnus,
in like manner, borrow from him everything which they advance upon this
subject.
Celsus does not treat of phlegmon in particular, but he has given
an excellent account of inflammation in general. His definition of
inflammation is singularly appropriate: “Notæ inflammationis sunt
quatuor, rubor, et tumor, cum calore et dolore.” Isidorus attempts the
same not so successfully: “Phlegmone est fervor cum extensione et dolore;
sive est inquietudo cum rubore, et dolore, et extensione, et duritie, et
vastitate: quæ quum cæperit fieri, inquietudo et febris insequitur.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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