Book 2
7
If from a greater cause—a stroke, or continued indigestion of much and bad food, and intoxication, or great cold—an inflammation forms in the portal system, a very speedy death is the result. For there is a latent, smothered, and acrid heat; pulse languid; the kind of pain varied, and every way diversified, sometimes darting to the right side, so as to resemble a sharp weapon fixed in the place, and sometimes resembling tormina; again, at other times the pain is deep—nay, very deep; and, intermediate between the pain, atony and loss of utterance. The diaphragm and succingens (pleura) are dragged downwards; for from them the liver is suspended as a weight. For this reason, a strong pain extends to the clavicle on the same side; an ineffectual cough, or only a desire thereof, and when it comes to a conclusion, dry; respiration bad, for the diaphragm does not co-operate with the lungs, by assisting them in contraction and dilatation. They draw in a small breath, but expire a larger; colour, a dark-green, leaden; they loathe food, or if they force themselves to take any, they become flatulent in the epigastrium; eructations bilious, acid, fetid; nausea, retchings, belly mostly loose, discharges bilious, viscid, small in quantity. The affections always go on increasing; mind not very much deranged, but torpid, unsettled, stupid; much timidity; coldness of the extremities, tremblings, rigors, hiccup of a spasmodic nature, jaundice, bile intense, the whole body tinged with bile. But if it appear before the seventh day, it proves fatal in many cases.
