Book 2
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But those who have escaped a fatal termination, either by a hemorrhage, or a rapid discharge from the bowels of bilious matters, or from frequent discharges of intense urine, in these cases, after three weeks, the liver is converted into a purulent abscess. But if it pass considerably this period without an abscess, it ends inevitably in dropsy; the patients are thirsty, drink little, are dried in body, lose fat; there is a desire for acids, and an insensibility to taste.
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Autumn engenders this affection, along with the indigestion produced by much summer-fruit and multifarious food. Of all ages, the adult is most subject to it.
CHAPTER VIII. ON THE ACUTE DISEASE OF THE VENA CAVA
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FROM the portæ of the liver, there passes a wide vein through the space intermediate between its extremities, which, being always divided into slender and more numerous branches, is distributed at last all over the liver in vessels imperceptible to the sight; and with their extremities anastomose the extremities of other veins, which, at first, are slender and numerous, grow larger and fewer in number, and, at last, they are collected into one large vein; hence, having become two by division, these pass through the liver. The upper one, then, having passed through the first lobe, appears on its convex side; then, having passed the diaphragm, it is inserted into the heart: this is called the vena cava. The other, having passed through the lower lobe, the fifth, to its concave side, makes its exit near the spine, and is extended along it as far as the ischiatic region; and it, also, is called vena cava. It obtains the same name, as being one and the same vein, which derives its origin from the liver. For if one choose, one may pass a plate of metal from the vena cava connected with the heart to that by the spine, and from the spine through the liver to the heart; for it is the same passage leading upwards.
