Peri tōn periptōmatōn tēs prōtēs pepseōs disputatio

or become causes of tardy or involuntary excretion.

56. The excrements of the alvus bowels/gut become proximate causes of diseases either by quantity or by quality.

57. By quantity, when they are retained longer than is right. For, when retained, they are dried out and hardened; once hardened, they produce an obstruction, and thus they restrain the distribution of nutrients and the discharge and evacuation of subsequently arriving excrements.

58. By quality: indeed, when sharp and biting excrements glide through sensitive parts, they ulcerate them, as in dysentery.

59. Human kopriōn excrement/dung, according to Galen in the 5th book of Simple Medicines, chapter 17, is hot and dry, and because of putrefaction, it has a remarkable power of attraction. Therefore, he teaches in the 20th book of Simple Medicines that its use is miraculous in inflammations of the throat and tumors. In whitlows also, it has been seen that common people have used it with success. Furthermore, it is reported by some to have been given as a drink against poisons.

60. Yet, even though, according to Galen, this medicine is abominable, he nonetheless wishes the excellent physician to know such things too—not so that he may use them on refined people of some standing, especially with such an abundance of far more pleasant medicines available, but only where the use of better ones is not at hand, or in rustic people and those similar to asses (10th book of Simple Medicines, on goat dung). Therefore, we wished to make mention of these here only for the sake of the method.

61. In the feces of the bowels, sēmeiōn sign weighs that which signals and that which is signaled.

62. That which signals is the feces themselves according to their substance, quantity, quality, mode of excretion, location, and time.

63. That which is signaled is health, disease, the affected location, and external error.

64. Health and the optimal constitution of the whole body