Disputatio de phrenitide

DISPUTATION ON
PHRENITIS

THESIS FIRST.

Defects that tend to happen to the reasoning faculty (as physicians speak) are of three kinds, as Galen taught in On the Causes of Symptoms, book 2, chapter 7. For it is either diminished, and is called μωρία moria, in Latin called fatuity or stolidity; or it is abolished, and is called ἀνοία anoia, in Latin called ametia meaning absence of mind; or it is depraved, and by Galen in On the Causes of Symptoms, book 2, last chapter, and Epidemics book 3, it is named παρεφροσύνη parephrosyne (our people call it delirium).

II.

This delirium contains two kinds under it. One is what the Greeks call μανία mania, and the Latins sometimes call fury, sometimes by the Greek name mania, and it always affects men without fever. The other is called phrenitis, to which fever is always conjoined either from the beginning, or it follows shortly after.

III.

This is again twofold. Either it is not exquisite, and is called νόθος φρενῖτις bastard phrenitis, and it happens either through the consensus of the whole, as in acute fevers, or through the consensus of some part, such as an inflamed diaphragm, and from almost all lower limbs, or from a true inflammation of the brain. Or it is true and exquisite, which happens due to the inflammation of the brain or its membranes improperly taken. But leaving aside all other species of insanity, for the present we will treat only of true and exquisite phrenitis.

IIII.

But it is called phrenitis from φρενὸς phrenos, that is, from the mind, because we see that the mind is damaged in this affection. Avicenna names this affection by two names. 1. Carabitus, which in Arabic signifies alienation of the mind and fury. 2. Sirsencalidus, which, as Avicenna himself confesses, is a Persian name, and signifies