Book 1
14
SCIRRHUS, a chronic disease, is habitual to the spleen (suppuration does not readily occur in it, and yet it does occur sometimes), when the pain is not severe, but swelling much greater than the pain; for it has been seen swelled on the right side as far as the liver in the whole common space between them, hence many have been deceived in supposing that it is not an affection of the spleen, but of the membrane, for it appears to them that the peritonæum is inflamed. It is hard and unyielding as stone. Such the spleen generally becomes in scirrhus, when also it is attended with great discomfort.
14
But if it suppurate, it is soft to the touch, yielding to pressure at its top, when there is a formation of pus; but when it is not suppurated it does not yield. Sometimes it hangs entire in the abdomen, being moved about to this side and to that, whilst it remains a small body, and has space to float in. Nausea, restlessness, especially about the time of breaking.
