[p. 249]
cases this condition of the bowels constituted the
disease itself, fever being sometimes absent and
sometimes present. Painful tormina and malignant
colic. There were evacuations, though the bulk of
the contents remained behind.It is hard to separate
διέξοδοι from τῶν πολλῶν, yet the
sense seems to require it. The next sentence states that
these evacuations caused no relief, evidently because they
did not clear the trouble from the bowel. Now if διέξοδοι be
taken with τῶν πολλῶν, the only possible translation is
" evacuations of the many contents which were retained
there," implying complete evacuation. Galen's comment
(Kéhn XVII, Part I, p. 708) bears out the former interpretation
: τὰς δὲ διεξόδους, τουτέστὶ τὰς κενώσεις,
αὐτοῖς συμβῆναι,
πολλῶν ἐνόντων καὶ ἐπισχόντων . . . . . καὶ διὰ τοῦτο
μηδὲ τοὺς
πόνους λύειν τὰ διεξιόντα. πῶς γαρ ὀ̂όν τε λύειν αὐτά,
πολλῶν ἔτι
τῶν ἐπεχομένων όντων ; It should be noticed that
ἐπισχόντων
is probably from ἐπίσχω (Galen's ἐπεχομένων) and not
from
ἐπέχω, although I cannot find a parallel for intransitive
ἐπίσχω in this sense. | The evacuations
did not take away the pains, and yielded with difficulty
to the remedies administered. Purgings, in
fact, did harm in most cases. Of those in this condition
many died rapidly, though a few held out
longer. In brief, all patients, whether the disease
was prolonged or acute, died chiefly from the bowel
complaints. For the bowels carried all off together.The writer has
not expressed himself clearly in this
chapter, which seems to be the roughest of rough notes. The
last two sentences apparently mean :--
(a) It was always the bowel complaints which caused most
deaths. This was natural, since (b) all attacked by bowel
complaints died.
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PART 9
IX. Loss of appetite, to a degree that I never
met before, attended all the cases described above,
but most especially the last, and of them, and of the
others also, especially such as were fatally stricken. The
emendation of Blass permits the translator of this
passage to harmonize both sense and grammar. Before it
was impossible to do so. |
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