Disputation on Dropsy.

Thesis I.

Dropsy, which is also called hydrops, hyderiaseis, hydropikos by the Greeks: and by the Latins, following Celsus, the authority of this name, aqua intercus water under the skin, is an equivocal term. It signifies at times the condition original: "διάθεσιν" and morbid intemperance itself, and at other times the swelling of the belly.

II.

That swelling, which is a certain replenishment of parts that ought not to have been replenished and affected by swelling and distension, even if it is a symptom of a liver disease, can nevertheless be called the cause of the disease.

III.

If by the word dropsy we understand the condition and the cold affection of the liver, it will not be an obstruction or an organic disease, but a similar one due to the cold dyscrasia imbalance of bodily humors of the liver. It no longer transforms chyle into blood, but rather transforms it into phlegm, flatulence, or a serous superfluity, such that either the whole body or the belly swells beyond nature into a larger mass.

IIII.

Hence, we judge that those are not to be heeded who think that if the veins of the liver are strained by inflammation or scirrhus a hard, tumorous growth, this swelling constricts the path of the blood. From this, they argue, it happens that the thinner and more watery part of the blood is transformed and carried through the entire body, while the sincere blood, because of its thickness and the narrowness of the visceral veins, is retained and carried simply to the empty intestine, the colon, and the rectum, and thus to the bowels, from whence some bloody matter is excreted through the stool. Thus, they have described the cause of the hydropic affection as an obstruction of the veins of the liver.