and makes the previously mentioned disorders still greater. There are
other and worse diseases which are prior to these; as when the bone through
the density of the flesh does not receive sufficient air, and becomes
stagnant and gangrened, and crumbling away passes into the food, and the
food into the flesh, and the flesh returns again into the blood. Worst of
all and most fatal is the disease of the marrow, by which the whole course
of the body is reversed. There is a third class of diseases which are
produced, some by wind and some by phlegm and some by bile. When the lung,
which is the steward of the air, is obstructed, by rheums, and in one part
no air, and in another too much, enters in, then the parts which are
unrefreshed by air corrode, and other parts are distorted by the excess of
air; and in this manner painful diseases are produced. The most painful
are caused by wind generated within the body, which gets about the great
sinews of the shoulders--these are termed tetanus. The cure of them is
difficult, and in most cases they are relieved only by fever. White
phlegm, which is dangerous if kept in, by reason of the air bubbles, is not
equally dangerous if able to escape through the pores, although it
variegates the body, generating diverse kinds of leprosies. If, when
mingled with black bile, it disturbs the courses of the head in sleep,
there is not so much danger; but if it assails those who are awake, then
the attack is far more dangerous, and is called epilepsy or the sacred
disease. Acid and salt phlegm is the source of catarrh.

Inflammations originate in bile, which is sometimes relieved by boils and
swellings, but when detained, and above all when mingled with pure blood,
generates many inflammatory disorders, disturbing the position of the
fibres which are scattered about in the blood in order to maintain the
balance of rare and dense which is necessary to its regular circulation.
If the bile, which is only stale blood, or liquefied flesh, comes in little
by little, it is congealed by the fibres and produces internal cold and