Kitap 3
22
22 Longer and more dangerous is the illness which follows when wasting disease attacks a patient. This also has several species. There is one in which the body is not nourished enough, and as there is some natural loss going on all the time without replacement, extreme emaciation ensues, which unless countered, kills. The Greeks call it atrophia. It proceeds commonly from two causes: for either from excessive dread the patient consumes less, or from excessive greed more, than he ought: thus either the deficiency weakens, or the superfluity undergoes decomposition. There is another species which the Greeks call cachexia, in which owing to bad habit of body all the aliments undergo decomposition. This occurs generally in those whose bodies have become vitiated by prolonged disease, and even if they have rid themselves of this, yet they do not regain health; or when the system has become affected by bad medicaments; or for a long while necessaries of life have been deficient; or unusual or unserviceable food has been consumed; or something similar has happened. In this case besides the wasting, it not unfrequently occurs that the skin surface undergoes irritation by persistent pustulation or ulceration, or else some parts of the body become swollen. The third species, which the Greeks call phthisis, is the most dangerous by far. The malady usually arises in the head, thence it drips into the lung; there ulceration supervenes, from this a slight feverishness is produced, which even after it has become quiescent nevertheless returns; there is frequent cough, pus is expectorated, sometimes blood-stained. When the sputum is thrown upon a fire, there is a bad odour, hence those who are in doubt as to the disease employ this as a test.
