Book 1
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The old seldom suffer from this disease, but very rarely recover from it; the young, until manhood, become phthisical from spitting of blood, and do recover, indeed, but not readily; children continue to cough even until the cough pass into phthoe, and yet readily recover. The habits most prone to the disease are the slender; those in which the scapulæ protrude like folding doors, or like wings; in those which have prominent throats; and those which are pale and have narrow chests. As to situations, those which are cold and humid, as being akin to the nature of the disease.
CHAPTER IX. ON PERSONS AFFECTED WITH EMPYEMA.
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THOSE persons in whose cavities above, along the region of the chest, or, in those below the diaphragm, abscesses of matter form, if they bring it up, they are said to be affected with Empyema; but if the matter pass downwards, they are said to labour under Apostemes. And in the ulcers in the chest, or in the lungs, if phthoe supervene, or in the pleura, or the sternum, or anywhere below at the junction of the lungs with the spine — in all these cases the passage for the matter upwards is by the lungs. But in the viscera below the diaphragm, the liver, spleen, and kidneys, it is by the bladder; and in women by the womb. And I once made an opening into an abscess in the colon on the right side near the liver, and much pus rushed out, and much also passed by the kidneys and bladder for several days, and the man recovered.
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The common causes of all are a blow, indigestion, cold and the like. Of those in the chest also, chronic cough, pleuritis, peripneumony, and protracted defluxion; but also the determination of some acute diseases to any one of them.
