Of the causes and signs of acute and chronic disease / Translated from the Greek by T.F. Reynolds.

  • Aretaeus, of Cappadocia
Date:
1837
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Of the causes and signs of acute and chronic disease / Translated from the Greek by T.F. Reynolds. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    is that it is merely a disease of the breath, from its being converted by some morbid action into a very hot and acrid state, without any inflammation of the body; and there is nothing so very extraordinary in this notion, for the suffocation from mephitic caves is exceedingly severe without there being any bodily disease, and persons die merely from a single inspira- tion before the body can be possibly in any way affected : and again, a person becomes rabid from the tongue of a dog merely breathing on him in expiration, without his being at all bitten ; it is therefore not impossible that a similar change in the breath may occur internally, since many of the in- ternal affections of man have the same phenomena with external causes, the humours going to corrup- tion within and without; for diseases are like dele- terious poisons, and, as is the case in fevers, are ejected by the instrumentality of medicine : so there was no such violent improbability in some persons, during the plague of Athens, thinking that poison had been thrown by the Peloponnesians into the wells of the Piraeus, for men were not aware of the affinity between the disease of the plague and noxious sub- stances. In those affected with Cynanche, the tonsils, pha- rynx, and whole mouth, become inflamed, the tongue inclines over the teeth and lips, they beslaver them- selves, and a very thick cold matter keeps dribbling away; the face is red and bloated, the eyes start- ing, wide open, and bloodshot; drink is forced back