the bowels into six sections, viz., the duodenum
jejunum and ileum, and the orobus, colon and longaon (rectum).
Intestinal worms are not generated in the stomach, as Gilbert says,
because of the great heat produced by the process of digestion. In the
intestines they originate chiefly from the varieties of phlegm, e.g.,
saline, sweet, acid, natural, etc. The species mentioned specifically
are lumbrici and ascarides or cucubitini, though the terms long,
round, short and broad are also employed, and probably include the
tape worm or taenia lata. The treatment of these parasites consists
generally in the use of aromatic, bitter or acid mixtures, among which
gentian, serpentaria, tithymal and cucumis agrestis are especially
commended for lumbrici, and enemata of wormwood, lupinus, scammony,
salt, aloes, etc., for ascarides.
The diseases of the liver, though not numerous, are allotted
considerable space most of which is occupied by scholastic
speculations and the usual rich supply of therapeutical suggestions.
Discrasia of the liver has several varieties, warm, cold, moist and
dry, and seems nearly equivalent to our somewhat overworked term of
"biliousness." Gilbert's favorite compounds for the relief of this
condition are the Trifera sarracenica, the Electuarium psilliticum and
above all the Dyantos Besonis.
Obstruction (_oppilatio_) of the liver or enfraxis is defined as a
disease of the canals (_pori_), of which four are enumerated, to-wit,
the meseraic, that of the convexity of the organ (_gibbus--ubi sunt
exitus capillarium venarum_), the duct leading to the gall-bladder
and that leading to the spleen. With an abundance of symptoms, it is
singular that this comprehensive disease does not seem characterized
by any constant or severe pain, as we might reasonably expect.
Abscess of the liver depends upon some vice of the blood, the bile,
the phlegm or the black-bile. The general treatment is poultices and
other maturatives, but, as the author adds rather sadly at the close,
_ultima cura est per incisionem_.
Dropsy is discussed as an independent disease through the exhaustive
speculations of thirty-two pages. Gilbert tells us it depends upon
some fault of the digestive faculty of the liver, and he divides
it into four species, to-wit, leucoflantia, yposarcha, alchitis and
tympanitis, each of which has its special and appropriate treatment.
In the dreary waste of speculative discussion it is cheering, however,
t
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