Ioannis Vuieri medicarum observationum rararum Liber I

To those who have large spleens, he asserts that the gums are infected and rot. That is one symptom. Hence he adds: "Those who have large spleens, and neither do the gums rot, nor does a bleeding of blood occur, their shins suffer malignant ulcers, and from this, black scars." Here it clearly appears that Hippocrates is of the opinion that he does not combine both of those symptoms in a large spleen at the same time: but that the ulcers of the shins follow only when that sharp melancholic humor does not carry upward to the gums, or reduce itself through a bleeding of blood, but flows down to the shins, ulcerates them foully, and leaves black scars afterwards. In scurvy, however, the gums rot and stink at the same time, and the large blotches on the shins turn blue, which also very rarely reach ulceration. These also precede those rare and malicious ulcers, if perhaps they finally emerge. There is no mention in Hippocrates of these large spots that almost always appear in this disease, but only of the scars left behind after the ulcers, which are also common to all ulcerations born from melancholic humor. For they heal with great difficulty; therefore, Paul Aegineta also affirms in book 3, chapter 49, that a scar does not admit them in a scirrhus of the spleen. Regarding the opinion of Celsus, who rendered those words of Hippocrates into Latin in book 2, chapter 7, I want the same to be said. For the same reason, let there be an answer to the authorities of Caelius and the rest of the ancients of the same opinion. Furthermore, I have observed through long medical practice that scurvy is different from black jaundice and the third species of ileus, which Hippocrates calls haemathites blood-like/stagnation, and the most excellent physician Balduinus Ronffeus, joined to me by no ordinary bond of friendship, learnedly shows in his distinguished booklet on the great spleens of Hippocrates.