Prognosticon

fiery vein, choleric vomiting, mordicative ejections, bitterness of the mouth, strong thirst, heat of the stomach, dryness of the tongue with roughness, a citron color, as in the jaundiced. The signs of melancholy are these: a small pulse with hardness, blackness of the urine or redness verging into obscurity or greenness, a canine appetite, blackness of the skin, especially under the eyelid, phlebotomized blood that is black and much congealed, leprosy, cancer, quartan fever, spleen, varices, madness with anger and audacity, detractions and cunning. But morphea and a black wart are both most effective arguments of the melancholic humor, as Averroes is the author in the fourth of the Colliget. The signs of phlegm are these: white urine, a small and rare pulse, a white and soft color of the body, sluggishness of the mind, sleep, paucity of thirst with much viscous sputum. Phlegm has been false to me, yawnings, stupors, heaviness of the head, oral rheum, when phlegm is gathered in the stomach. The said things nor dreams, which not only by the argumentation of philosophers, but also by the authority of physicians, signify the fertility of the humors, are to be neglected. Whence if anyone should see red things, dancing, choreas, and similar things through rest, it announces an abundance of blood. If truly a fire's burning, rages, contentions, and similar things, it affirms the dominion of choler. If, however, black things, the dead, darkness, weeping, and the rest of that kind, it brings a plenty of melancholy. If, however, rains, seas, rivers, snows, and other things of this kind, it notes a redundance of phlegm. But the time which squares and is convenient for the purging of such humors, the Spring, is considered immune. Whence Hippocrates: "To whomever phlebotomy or pharmacy is beneficial, it is convenient to phlebotomize or give pharmacy in the spring." For humors gathered in winter are dissolved in the spring, flowing through the whole body. Furthermore, neither is Autumn neglected by Avicenna in the second of the first in evacuating humors. For which reason, we will exhibit no medicine, then especially a violent one, in summer and winter, unless the greatest necessity is prevailing. For in the former, a superfluous evacuation and dissolution is feared; in the latter, fever and scorching. Whence Hippocrates: "Under the dog star and the counter-dog, that is, opposite the dog, purgings are troublesome." It is not, however, to be read 'before the dog', for then the Hippocratic sense would be corrupted. Thus I corrected and amended this place, which I would say with the peace of other physicians. Whence I cannot wonder enough that Jacobus Foroliviensis, an otherwise most erudite man, should have been entirely ignorant of this very literature. But of this, elsewhere. If, however, the humors should be in the orifice of the stomach, we evacuate these more conveniently by vomiting, with the exception of blood, which is only extracted by the incision of a vein.