Disputationis medicae de hydrope theses inaugurales LXV

proven by the nature of the disease and experience: yet, in the beginning, it is not most difficult, especially in the younger and stronger, where neither many nor worse symptoms are present. But if the evil has become deep-seated, and has already corrupted the habit of the body, it will not be easily driven away. The poet does not say in vain:

Resist the beginnings, medicine is prepared too late,
When evils have grown strong through long delays. From Ovid, Remedia Amoris.

33. It must also be attended to again and again with diligence whether the dropsy we undertake to cure proceeds from the liver affected καθ' ἕξιν habitually or primarily and by itself, or indeed κατὰ σχέσιν relationally or by consent.

34. And the symptoms of a primarily injured liver are: pain and distension of the part, a light, dry, and bothersome cough, few and arid evacuations, and others, of which more fully in their place.

35. But where none of these have been detected, but rather the belly is troubled by fluxes, and there is a continuous flow of the bowels, yet without the resolution of pain and the softening of the belly: it is established that the stomach or intestines are primarily injured, and the liver suffers by consent; thus, if dropsy has occurred from an affected spleen, kidneys, uterus, diaphragm, or lung, the signs of those same affected viscera will present themselves.

36. One must also know this, that dropsies become more difficult or easier to cure according to causes, locations, nature or sex, ages, seasons of the year, the constitution of the weather, and other annexed factors.

37. Some of the moderns, perhaps following Averroes and Aetius, consider Tympanites windy dropsy (which is, however, minor according to Oribasius) to be more dangerous than the others. Avicenna and Rhases, however, consider Ascites abdominal dropsy to be so, and Lusitanus and others consider leukophlegmatia white phlegm dropsy to be the most dangerous. But in such a variety of opinions, we say that the one which is confirmed and which occurs through the corruption of the viscera is worse