Pliny Natural History, Vol. VI (Loeb Latin-English)

Superficial malignant disease would be included under carcinoma, but neither Celsus nor Pliny mentions internal cancer, though this was known to Hippocrates (Aphorisms VI. 38).

Podagra presents a problem to the translator. "Gout" is really too narrow an equivalent, as podagra and chiragra were used for any pain in the joints of the feet and hands. Usually, however, our "gout" is intended, unless Dr. Spencer is correct in suggesting (Celsus I. 464) that chronic lead poisoning, which presents symptoms similar to gout, may have been common in Rome due to the extensive use of lead water pipes.

Two terms are very troublesome to the translator—opisthotonus and orthopnoea—and a third, angina, is almost equally so. The diseases concerned are discussed by Celsus in IV. 6, 1, IV. 8, 1, and IV. 7, 1. These are translated by Dr. W. G. Spencer as follows:

(a) "There is, however, no disease more distressing and more acute than that which, by a sort of rigidity of the sinews, sometimes draws the head down to the shoulder blades, sometimes the chin to the chest, and sometimes stretches the neck out straight and immobile. The Greeks call the first opisthotonus, the next emprosthotonus, and the last tetanus, although some, with less exactitude, use these terms indiscriminately." — IV. 6, 1.

(b) "There is also in the region of the throat a malady which among the Greeks has different names according to its intensity. It consists entirely of a difficulty in breathing. When moderate and without any choking, it is called dyspnoea; when more severe, so that the patient cannot breathe..."