Book 1
15
The general system, likewise, is most powerful in producing icterus; for the cause is seated in the whole body. It is of this nature: in every part there is heat for concoction; in every part for the creation and secretion of humours, different in different places, but in each that which is peculiar to it: in flesh, indeed, sweat; in the eyes, tears; in the joints and nose, mucus; in the ears, wax. If the heat, then, fails in the performance of each of its operations, it is itself converted into that which is acrid and fiery; but all the fluids become bile, for the products of heat are bitter, and stained with bile. But if indigestion happens in the blood, the blood assumes the appearance of bile, but is distributed as nourishment to all parts, wherefore bile appears everywhere. For it is a dire affection, the colour being frightful in appearance, and the patients of a golden colour; for the same thing is not becoming in a man which is beautiful in a stone. It is superfluous in me to tell whence the name is derived, further than that it is derived from certain four-footed and terrestrial animals, called ἰκτίδες, whose eyes are of this colour.A species of ferret; either the Mustela Erminea or the M. Furo.
