Book 2
1
Sometimes the dropsy forms in a small space, such as the head in hydrocephalus; or in the lungs alone; or in the liver, or the spleen; or the womb in women; and this last is easier to cure than any of the others, for provided its mouth relax from its former constriction, if it contains a fluid, it discharges the same outwardly, and if a flatus, it is dissipated. But if the uterus suffer at all in anasarca, for the most part the whole woman becomes dropsical.
1
This other form of dropsy is known: small and numerous bladders, full of fluid, are contained in the place where ascites is found; but they also float in a copious fluid, of which this is a proof; for if you perforate the abdomen so as to evacuate the fluid, after a small discharge of the fluid, a bladder within will block up the passage; but if you push the instrument farther in, the discharge will be renewed. This species, then, is not of a mild character; for there is no ready passage by which the bladders might escape. It is said, however, that in certain cases such bladders have come out by the bowels. I have never seen such a case, and therefore write nothing of them; for I am unable to tell whether the discharge be from the colon, or the stomach. What is the mode of their formation? For the passage whereby all matters may be discharged by the anus is patent; but the discharge of the water collected about the loins by the bowels is incredible. For a wounded intestine is not free from trouble and danger.
CHAPTER II. ON DIABETES.
