Book 2
8
Again dropsy, if caused by an acute disease, is seldom conducted to a cure, at any rate when signs supervene the reverse of those noted above. Likewise too in this disease a cough takes away hope as is also the case if there is an outburst of blood whether upwards or downwards and water fills the middle of the body. In some also in this disease swellings arise, then subside, and again recur: such patients are in a somewhat safer state than those mentioned above, if they give attention; but generally they are undone by over-confidence in their health. Here we may wonder with good reason why there should be occurrences which cause our bodies harm, and yet at the same time in a measure are beneficial: for whether it is dropsical fluid which has filled a patient up, or whether it is a quantity of pus which has collected in a large abscess, evacuation all at once is as fatal to him, as if a healthy man loses blood by a wound.
8
Those too who suffer in their joints, so that growths of hard stuff are formed upon them, are never relieved entirely: all these damages, whether they have begun in old age, or have lasted from youth up to old age, although there is a possibility of some alleviation, are never entirely cured.
