Kitap 5
28
28 From those lesions which are due to something from without we come to those which originate from within, when some bodily part has become corrupted. Of these none are worse than carbuncles, the signs of which are: redness, with a few pustules projecting a little, mostly black, sometimes livid or pallid; their contents seems to be sanies; the colour underneath is black; the actual tissue is dry, and harder than it should be naturally; and round them there is a sort of crust, and outside that an inflammatory ring; and there the skin cannot be pinched up, but is as it were fixed in the underlying flesh. The patient is somnolent; sometimes there is shivering or fever or both. And this lesion spreads, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, pushing out a sort of root underneath; on the surface too as it spreads the skin gets paler, then becomes livid, and a ring of small pustules arises; and if this occurs in the region of the gullet or fauces, often it suddenly stops the patient's breathing. The best thing is to apply a cautery at once; this is not a severe procedure, because the patient does not feel it, since the flesh is dead; and the cauterizing is topped when pain is felt all over the lesion. After that the wound is to be treated like other burns; for under erodent medicaments it follows that the crust becomes separated on all sides from the liv gate flesh, and takes off with it whatever has become corrupted; and the cavity when clean can be dressed with some preparation to make flesh. But when the lesion is on the surface of the skin, it is possible to cure it simply by exedents or at any rate by caustics. The strength of the remedy adopted is to be proportionate to the lesion. But whatever the medicament is, if it is sufficiently effectual, it forthwith detaches the corrupted part from the living; we may be confident that wherever the application works, the diseased flesh everywhere sloughs off. If the medicament is being mastered by the disease, certainly there must be no delay in applying the cautery. But in such a case there should be abstinence from food and from wine; it is a good thing to drink water freely. And this should be done all the more when there is feverishness as well.
