Disputationis medicae de hydrope theses inaugurales LXV

THESIS I.

An ornate decorative initial letter F.The affection, which the Greeks call hydrops dropsy, uderos dropsy, udropisis dropsy, and uderia-sis dropsy, or even synecdochically udor water: and to Cicero, Celsus, and other Latin writers, it is called aqua intercus water under the skin or aqua intercutem water under the skin; the disease itself is called hydropicus dropsical, or, as Gentilis interprets from Priscian, an aquosa passio watery affliction: it has acquired this name from the excessive abundance of humor.

2. For a aquosus watery humor necessarily always accompanies this affliction, as Caelius Aurelianus (Book 3, Chapter 8) and Pliny (Book 11, Chapter 3, Chapter 12) attest.

3. Hence, we establish that dropsy is a pathēma affection/suffering in quantity or magnitude, and we define it thus: it is a tumor of the whole kind general category contrary to nature, whether oidēmatōdēs edematous/swelling or flatulent, existing in the lower belly, or even in the lowest parts, or the entire mass of the body, which draws its origin from the excessive cooling of the liver and the veins.

4. This name is attributed generally, both among Celsus and others, to all species or differences of this disease, of which we—together with Galen and the physicians who followed him, whether Greek, Arab, or Latin—establish only three, distinguished by matter and location, no more and no fewer: namely, Tympanites drum-like distension, Ascites dropsy of the abdomen, and Anasarca general dropsy. Although, strictly speaking, the term dropsy applies only to Ascites.

5. And as for the etymology or nomenclature, Tympanitēs drum-like dropsy is named from the drum, an instrument known to all, because in this condition, a great deal of wind mixed with humor distends the zōgasion belly/gut, which, when struck, produces a sound like a drum, as Galen testifies (Book 4, Commentary).