Kitap 2
1
There are many varieties, each having different names. For if the watery suffusion float in the flanks, and, owing to its fulness, when tapped it sound like a drum, the disease is called Tympanites. But if the water be confined in large quantity in the peritonæum, and the intestines float in the liquid, it gets the appellation of Ascites. But if the lower belly contain none of these, but the whole body swell, if in connexion with a white, thick, and cold phlegm, the disease is called Phlegmatias; but if the fleshy parts are melted down into a sanguineous, watery, or thin humour, then the species of dropsy called Anasarca is formed. The constitution of each of them is bad; but the combination of them is much worse. For sometimes the variety which forms in the lower belly (Ascites), is associated with that variety in which the fluid is diffused all over the body. But the most dangerous is that form in which Tympanites is mixed with Anasarca. For of the dropsies that form in the lower belly, Tympanites is particularly worse than Ascites. But of those affecting the whole body, Leucophlegmatia is less than Anasarca. It is mild then, so to speak of such hopeless diseases, when a smaller affection is combined with another smaller one. But it is much worse if one of the smaller enters into combination with one of the greater. But if a complete mixture of two great affections take place, the product thereof is a greater evil.
