Peri tōn periptōmatōn tēs prōtēs pepseōs disputatio

is signaled if, according to the proportion of age, temperament, etc., the feces are moderately thick, soft, smooth, and equal regarding their substance; proportionate in quantity to the food consumed; not overly foul-smelling; and if they are excreted without difficulty at the usual time and place.

65. Disease, and first indeed the hot and dry intemperance of the natural parts, is noted if they are thick, hard, hot, dry, black, odorless, and excreted with difficulty.

66. A cold intemperance is signaled if food is excreted in the same amount as it was ingested, with nothing or only little changed, and if it is excreted with flatulence.

67. A moist one [is signaled], if the evacuations become liquid, copious, and frequent, which leads out various humors generated either in the natural parts or flowing there from elsewhere, whether this happens critically or symptomatically.

68. The signs that denote organic or common disease almost coincide with the signs of the affected part.

69. Thus, liquid and frothy evacuations denote a distillation from the head into the stomach and a flow from there into the intestines.

70. Crude evacuations indicate a smoothness of the stomach and intestines.

71. Chylous evacuations note obstructed mesenteric veins.

72. Egestions similar to the washings of meat are a sign of the weakness of the liver.

73. White feces signify an obstruction of the gallbladder or a transfer of bile to some other part, as in frenzy.

74. Black feces, if they are such due to a confessed melancholic humor, denote some vice of the spleen or a hot intemperance of the liver by which the blood is, as it were, roasted.