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

LEECH BOOK. II. 243
XXXVl.
Book ir.
Ch. xxxvi.
Of milt wark, or acute pahi in the spleen, and
that the milt is on the left side, and tokens of the
disease, how colourless the patients are, and there are.
wounds not easy of cure. The men are meagi-e and
uncomfortable, pale of aspect, though ere this they
were fat, and still are constitutionally disposed that
way ; and the wamb is not under control, and scarcely
can it he that the mie is healthy, but rather it will
be swartish and greenish, and blacker than its right is
to be, and the breathing is very hard drawn. If the
disease is too longsome, then it turneth to dropsy, one
may not then cure it; the tongue is uncontrolled and
unsmooth, and the wounds which are upon the body
are not easy of cure, and they are on the left side
afflicted with ache, and in the joining of the shoulders,
betwixt the shoulder blades, there is mickle ache, and
in the turning about of the bones of the neck ; they
have also brawny feet, their knees fail them. We
tell how the milt is alongside and adjacent to the
wamb, it hath a thin film, which hath fat and thick
veins, and the film covereth and embraceth the wamb
and the inwards, and warmeth them ; and it is extended
on the left part of the lower abdomen, and it
is held by sinewy attachments, and it is in the one
quarter broad ; it toucheth the side, on the other it
is in contact with the viscera. Of the laughter which
cometh from the spleen. Some say that the milt is the
servant of the sinews, and that the milt in some parts
is dead in men, or is wholly absent, and that for this
reason they are able to laugh. In fact, in the same
wise that other limbs suffer inconveniences, the milt
in the same wise sufiers. We treat also of immoderate
cold, of heat, of dryness, of mickle evil wet, since the
milt waxeth unnaturally, and diminishes, and hardeneth,
and mostly of cold and immoderate wet ; further,
Q 2