Articella (The Little Art of Medicine)

are smiling i.e., appearing bright or clear as in nephritic cases, and as in the beginning stages of quartan fevers.
¶ Thin and white urine in dropsical patients appears because of an abundant cause. ¶ Thin and white urine in those with burdened necks, heads, and shoulders signifies dizziness and fainting. It signifies that a sediment hypostasis sediment/deposit in urine indicating digestion will occur in future time, and in the past, it followed as stated. Much and long-lasting sweat without majesty i.e., not of a healthy or critical nature signifies that the body is consuming too much food. ¶ Much urine appearing in acute and other fevers signifies rest. ¶ Thin and white urine appearing at the end of those fevers that are very acute signifies the departure of fevers into those parts that are below the diaphragm. ¶ Urine appearing similarly in burning fevers signifies frenzy. For the burning fever is made from a multitude of red bile, and urine not colored, carried upward with bile superfluity, has occupied the high place of the head. And if it makes inflammation in the anterior part of the brain, in those membranes that are in it, it causes frenzy. And if the frenzy is quieted because of some cause, such as a flow of blood through the nostrils or because of much sweat made in the head, with thin and white urine appearing, it signifies rest. For if such urine is present and the frenzy remains, the patient disposed in such a way will die. ¶ It is time, therefore, to relate the distinction of colors and to say how many there are and what kind they are, and with what kind of effusion they can be complicated, either all of them or some. ¶ These colors signify indigestion.

There is, therefore, among the primary colors, white; and its breadth is contained within it. For crystal, snow, lime, and very pure water are indeed white, but not all of them in the same way. More imperfect than this color is milky, such as the name itself suggests; then, weaker than this is glaucus bluish-gray/sea-green, like clear horn or the ictidones (that is, the clear tunics of the eyes); then, still weaker than this glaucus is karopos light-colored like camel's wool/off-white. Karopos is like the whitish wool of camels, or like onyx stone. These white colors, therefore, are white according to quantity and according to more and less. ¶ If, however, the white urine receives some infection of bile, according to the first [degree], it makes it yellowish, as the decoction of half-raw meat. ¶ If, however, the decoction remains for some time, making a greater infection, it produces a pale color, signifying that the abundance of the bile has taken up the watery urine. After this, one puts a reddish color similar to gold, as the Celtic [urine] coming forth. Then, truly, red, as it is in truth of their gold; then reddish-black; then red, which is likened to true saffron; then iperitberon a deep red/saffron color, made by that watery blood itself as it comes with the splendor of the other color, which painters call flame-colored, which indeed according to Galen is the end of all. For not everyone is accustomed to judge in the same way, whether to put [a color] under or over this proposition in all colors. For some put it before, some put it after. Eridon a clear, blood-like color is like pure blood itself and without deceit, for more intense or more remiss than this is not healthy, but bastardized. ¶ Inopos wine-colored/dark red is like black wine, or deeper, like purple blood, as is the color of the liver. Kianos cyan/deep blue-black is like pus, corrupted blood from red bile, and super-adusted, and in color like garum fish sauce and like the urine of those with jaundice. ¶ The rule of kianos, however, is such: coming to a splendid white color according to Haly, and falling into much black, it makes kianos. ¶ Fuseus brown/dusky is made from white and black mixed together, like rosigadia. Claron or cloron greenish/yellow-green is like a green cabbage and like grass; breadth is considered in it, for violet, emerald, and isathodis woad-blue are all green according to more and less; all these things are made by much heat. ¶ Pelitinon lead-colored/ashy-gray is deeper than fuseus, like lead, and those that are from accidental wounds of the body, and those that are blackening from bruises. This, however, is made either from cold or from a blow. After this, [it] sometimes indicates coldness, sometimes heat. If it proceeds from green, it is heat; if from livid, it is coldness. There is, however, blackness above those genera of all colors, and blackness having great breadth according to more and less; for many black [colors] are more intense and diffuse than others.

¶ And concerning colors, the doctrine collected from the disciplines of the ancient philosophers and physicians is sufficient. The following discourse will teach what is signified by those of these colors that can be joined with thick effusion and with thin, whether in healthy bodies or in the sick. Since, however, teaching about colors, we have spoken before of the distance from the most clean white, and milky, and glaucus, and karopos, so that we do not omit any incongruous color, we shall join them with thin effusion and explain what they signify.

¶ Thin, milky, and white urine.
Coming in the beginning of fevers, it is bad, because it signifies the chronicity of fevers or diseases; in the decline, however, if it is abundant, it signifies resolution.

¶ Thin, glaucus, and karopos urine.
Since, therefore, thin and white substance is undigested, it is manifest from those wise men who were before us. These colors, however, joining that which is next to white, also signify indigestion. For they are not colored by any weakness of natural heat; therefore, thin [urine] consisting with these colors signifies indigestion.

¶ Thin, yellowish, and thin pale urine.
Such urine signifies the beginning of digestion, for natural heat could not thicken the substance, which is as if more difficult, but it has changed the color, which is as if easier, in the beginning of digestion.

¶ Thin, reddish, and thin red urine.
This is better than the former. For such urine signifies that natural heat has recovered and that it has conceded much color to the urine, since it could not thicken the matter. We call this also undigested, and such urine coming in dropsical patients is dangerous, just as watery [urine] is useful.

¶ Thin hypoxantos pale yellow and xantos yellow urine.
This is thin, as was posited, but hypoxantos or xantos. These are indeed undigested according to substance; according to colors, they have not only existed outside of nature, but demonstrate a deficiency of matter. For when some adolescent is abstaining according to nature and according to age because of a deficiency of matter, the urines appear hypoxantos and golden, because [bile] abounds in the depth; heat indeed, beyond nature, generating an abundance of bile, since blood changes into bile with much heat, and the cause is prolonged most of all in the summer time, in which tertian [fevers] also supervene most of all. Indeed, the urines of those who are [suffering] from these causes, and vigils, and anxiety, and labor, show red. ¶ And concerning the complexions of thin substance with which colors it can be composed, let these things that have been said suffice. It remains that in the description, for the sake of manifestation, we explain them thus: ¶ Thin white, thin milky, thin glaucus, thin karopos, thin hypoxantos, thin xantos, thin pale, thin yellowish, thin red, thin reddish.

¶ Here he makes a transition from thin substance urine to thick.
Since, however, we have sufficiently made all the complexions of thin substance with which they can be joined with colors, and what they signify, and we have explained them in the description, let us pass to the complexions of thick substance, and let us say with which colors they can be joined.

¶ Thick, white urine.
Such a complexion consists and shows that crude humor abounds greatly in the vessels and [shows] different differences of phlegm, as is vitreous phlegm and salt. And without equality, such thick and white urine coming in acute diseases liberates the apostemes abscesses or swellings born in the joints, for those who desired them, and for those who in some way were laboring in a difficult disease, and for those who had been for a long time in a multitude of thick humors.