[p. 61]
rumbling noise naturally occurs in the hollow, broad
parts, such as the bowels and the chest. For when
the flatulence does not fill a part so as to be at rest,
but moves and changes its position, it cannot be but
that thereby noise and perceptible movements take
place. In soft, fleshy parts occur numbness and
obstructions, such as happen in apoplexy. And when
flatulence meets a broad, resisting body, and rushes
on it, and this happens by nature to be neither strong
so as to endure its violence without harm, nor soft
and porous so as to give way and admit it, but tender,
fleshy, full of blood, and close, like the liver, because
it is close and broad it resists without yielding, while
the flatulence being checked increases and becomes
stronger, dashing violently against the obstacle. But
owing to its tenderness and the blood it contains,
the part cannot be free from pain, and this is why
the sharpest and most frequent pains occur in this
region, and abscesses and tumours are very common.
Violent pain, but much less severe, is also felt under
the diaphragm. For the diaphragm is an extended,
broad and resisting substance, of a stronger and more
sinewy texture, and so there is less pain. But here
too occur pains and tumours.
PART 23
XXIII. There are many other structural forms,
both internal and external, which differ widely from
one another with regard to the experiences of a
patient and of a healthy subject, such as whether
the head be large or small, the neck thin or thick,
long or short, the bowels long or round, the chest and
