Peri tōn periptōmatōn tēs prōtēs pepseōs disputatio

ON THE EXCREMENTS OF THE FIRST DIGESTION.

POSITION I.

Aristotle, in the third book On the Parts of Animals, chapter 7, and Galen, in the first book On the Preservation of Health, chapter 3, rightly teach that various excrements are necessarily generated daily in the human body due to the variety of digestions.

2. Furthermore, that the knowledge of these—both general and specific—is extremely necessary for a physician, not only insofar as they become signs but also as they become causes of many afflictions, is clearer than the light of noon.

3. Therefore, we have judged that we would be doing something worthwhile if we were to bring forward something concerning the excrements of the first digestion; a subject perhaps exposed to the insults and laughter of misiatrorum haters of medicine, yet not unworthy for a student of medicine; indeed, it is highly necessary to be known.

4. For what of it, if Vespasian declared the odor of urine to be sweet for the sake of base gain? If the partisans of the Venetian and Green factions, as Galen witnesses in the 7th book of Method of Medicine, chapter 6, smelled the dung of horses so that they might understand how they had digested their food? Shall a physician, for the sake of human health, abhor the contemplation and investigation of human excrement?

5. We therefore consider ta perittōmata tēs prōtēs pepsēōs the excrements of the first digestion both as they are being formed and as they already exist, whether still contained in the body or already excreted; and both as occurring according to nature or contrary to it.

6. Insofar as they are formed in the body, this entire consideration will be physiologikē physiological; insofar as they subsist in the body either as symptoms or as morbific causes, it will be pathologikē pathological; if, once excreted, they are considered as signs, they will belong to tēs sēmeiōtikēs semiotics/symptom-study. If they come into medical use, they will be called aitiologika aetiological. Insofar as they demand treatment as morbific causes or symptoms, they will be the province of specific tēs therapeutikēs therapeutics; however, as they require the preservation of their natural state, they will pertain to hygieinēn hygiene.