Inaugural Medical Dissertation on Blind and Open Hemorrhoids

3. Moderate SLEEP, especially during the day, is capable of promoting this affection, which, as Avicenna, 3, first doctrine, 2, chapter 9 testifies, corrupts heat, burdens the spleen, and interrupts digestion; and for nearly the same reasons, long-continued vigils.

4. More violent MOTION of the body, more vehement horse-riding, long and harsh frictions, excessive effort in bowel movements, and difficult childbirth, which are called Truckblattern pustules/eruptions by German midwives, as noted by the Excellent Lord Sebizius, Medical Practice Specimen, part 4, section 2, chapter 22, page 1189. Leisure and sloth, in a different respect, give the same effect because melancholic superfluities are accumulated in this way, as Gordonius says.

5. Moderate AFFECTIONS and fear also contribute much to this for the same reason, taken from Hippocrates: sadness and pusillanimity, if they have lasted a long time, make a melancholic humor. These are the reasons that were assigned to the Jews a little earlier. Other passions can also approach, such as terror and anger, which move the blood in a surprising way.

6. Finally, suppressed habitual EVACUATIONS, which were otherwise accustomed to happen more frequently through the nose, the womb, phlebotomy, or cupping, or those too much irritated by sharper clysters, of which matter a praiseworthy history is related by Forestus, book 23, observation 4, and the same has been observed by the most experienced Lord President regarding sharper acorns. Other external things, such as a bath prolonged too long in hot water, sitting for a long time on a hard object, and infinite other things, the enumeration of which we supersede, can carry the same calamity.

VIII. PRETERNATURAL THINGS succeed, which many times assume the nature of causes, such as various intemperance of the whole or of the principal viscera, especially the hot type; an incorrect constitution of the spleen; the opening of the vessels; disruption by acrid humors; from an ulcer in the rectum; a cut wound; or a contusion from a blow or fall; or the suppression or diminution of the menses. Compare Plater, Practice, book 1.

IX. Now remain the causes to be assigned for BLIND, suppressed, and painful hemorrhoids, which, besides