Kitap 1
9
The common causes of all are a blow, indigestion, cold and the like. Of those in the chest also, chronic cough, pleuritis, peripneumony, and protracted defluxion; but also the determination of some acute diseases to any one of them.
9
The humour is sometimes inert, weak, and rests on something else; sometimes bitingly acrid, and occasioning putrefactions even unto death. And there are many other varieties, as I shall presently declare. It is a wonder how from a thin, slender membrane, having no depth, like that which lines the chest, so much pus should flow; for in many cases there is a great collection. The cause is an inflammation from redundancy of blood, by which the membrane is thickened; but from much blood much pus is formed intermediately. But if it be determined inwards, the ribs being the bones in this region. . . . . . . I have said above, that another species of phthisis would naturally occur. But if it point outwards, the bones are separated, for the top of the abscess is raised in one of the intercostal spaces, when the ribs are pushed to this side or to that.
