Kitap 2
1
Dropsy sometimes is occasioned suddenly by a copious cold draught, when, on account of thirst, much cold water is swallowed, and the fluid is transferred to the peritonæum; by which means the innate heat in the cavities is congealed, and then the drops which formerly were converted into air and dissipated, flow into the cavities. If this, therefore, happen, the cure of these cases is easier before any of the viscera or the whole person is affected. Moreover flatulent food, indigestion, and the BuprestisThe Meloe vesicatoria. See Paulus Ægineta, Syd. Soc. edit., t.iii. p. 74; and Dioscorides, ii. 69. have sometimes occasioned dropsies.
1
It is an illness common to all, men and women, in every period of life, only that certain ages are more exposed to certain species of the disease; children to Anasarca and Leucophlegmatia; young men until manhood are subject to swelling about the lower belly (Ascites?) Old persons are prone to suffer all kinds, as being deficient in heat, for old age is cold; but they are not exposed to collections of humours, and to them, therefore, Tympanites is the familiar form.
1
All the species, indeed, are unfavourable; for dropsy, in all its forms of disease, is bad. But of these, leucophlegmatia is the more mild; for in it there are many and various chances of good fortune, such as an evacuation of sweat, of urine, or from the bowels, by which the dropsical habit is carried off. But tympanites is of a difficult nature, and still more so anasarca; for in this affection the physician would require to change the whole person, a thing not easy for the gods themselves to accomplish.
