Leechdoms, wortcunning, and starcraft of early England. Being a ...

LEECH BOOK. IT. 163
xxiii. Leechdoms, telling what the sick man hath Book 11.
to forego in hver disorder, what he hath to hold by,
either in leechdoms or in meat, and tokens that the
swelling may not dwindle nor run off in the liver.
xxiv. Leechdoms and wort drinks for all liver pains,
thirteen in all, and if the liver wax.
XXV. Leeches also have found a plain token for all
wamb ' diseases and disorders, and leechdoms, and how
a man shall treat the evil humours of the wamb, and
when disease will be at the wamb, for the evil inflammatory
humours ; the knees " are hot,'' the loins are
lieavy, the sinews of the loins are sore, there are
spasms between the shoulders, the discharge is of a
mixed nature.
xxvi. Leechdoms if the wamb be wounded, and how
a man may understand that, and lioiv cure it ; five
crafts
or receii^ts.
xxvii. Leechdoms regarding the various nature and
misbehaviour of the wamb, how a man may understand
and how treat that, and of the hot nature of
the wamb: and of its cold and moist nature, and of
its hot and dry nature,^ and how the congressus
sexuum is not holesome for a dry body, and how it
scatheth not a hot nor a wet one : seven crafts : and
that swiving most severely hurteth them who have
the disease of foul humours.
xxviii. Leechdoms in case that the upper part of the
belly of a man be filled with evil humour, and of
the windy wamb.
xxix. Leechdoms in case that meat digest not well,
and turn to foul and evil humour or feeces.
Contents.
'
The maw is the organ of digestion,
the stomach ; the wamb
is the venter, -whatever that may
mean.
3 The " hot and cold, wet and
" dry " theory was an attempt of
the " rationalis disciplina " of the
Hellenes to arrive at scientific
generalizations ; it is traceable
among the works attributed to Hippokrates
and in Aristoteles.
l2