De epilepsia disputatio

or bile, can excite this affection: for this disease happens quickly, and is resolved quickly: and it appears quite rarely once the paroxysm has been resolved, because that matter has been transmitted. It was therefore not something thick and viscous, but thin, which could quickly rush in and be easily dissipated.

XXIII.
The proegoumene antecedent/remote cause, however, from which the proximate cause of this disease is accustomed to exist and proceed, is any vicious humor—phlegm, melancholy, and if there are others that are contrary to nature—in whatever part of the body they may adhere, semen corrupted in the uterus, suppressed menstrual blood, worms in the intestines dying and putrefying: for it is as certain as anything can be that from all these, sharp and caustic vapors or flatus can exhale, troublesome to the brain even in their entire substance, a fact which everyone understands.

XXIV.
Perhaps this is at least obscure: through which paths, through which "blind ducts," as they say, that vaporous matter from the parts located below the head is carried and ascends into the brain; I shall show this in a few words, as it is fitting for a physician to know, not only in the present disease but in others as well.

XXV.
Vapors are carried from the capacity of the stomach into the brain through the palate, through the nostrils, through the sense of smell: although for the most part they are carried out through the mouth, something is still communicated to the brain.

XXVI.
This transmission of matter also happens through perspiration: but especially through the straight duct of the nerves of the sixth pair referring to the vagus nerve or associated cranial nerves lying below the stomach, just as smoke—which, although it is not carried straight upward from a chimney—if you were to insert a rod, it is manifest that it is carried upward through the straight duct of the same.

XXVII.
But if it adheres outside the sinus of the stomach, namely in its membranes, there is no doubt that that matter is raised into the head through the veins and arteries: through the former more slowly and with more impediment.