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OF ARETÆUS, THE CAPPADOCIAN, ON THE CAUSES AND SYMPTOMS OF CHRONIC DISEASE
BOOK I.
CHAPTER IX.
[p. 346]
evacuation thereof painful, and the pain darts to the extremity
of the member. All things, even those which are opposed to
one another, prove injurious to them; repletion and inanition,
inactivity and exercise, baths and abstinence from baths, food
and abstinence from food, sweet things and acid things; certain
articles being serviceable in certain cases, but proving
injurious in others, not being able to agree in any one.
CHAPTER V.
ON GONORRHŒA.
GONORRHŒA is not, indeed, a deadly affection, but one that
is disagreeable and disgusting even to hear of. For if impotence
and paralysis possess both the fluids and genital organs, the semen
runs as if through dead parts, nor can it be stopped even in sleep;
for whether asleep or awake the discharge is irrestrainable, and
there is an unconscious flow of semen. Women also have this
disease, but their semen is discharged with titillation of the parts,
and with pleasure, and from immodest desires of connection
with men. But men have not the same prurient feelings; the
fluid which runs off being thin, cold, colourless, and unfruitful.
For how could nature, when congealed, evacuate vivifying
semen? And even young persons, when they suffer from this
affection, necessarily become old in constitution, torpid, relaxed,
spiritless, timid, stupid, enfeebled, shrivelled, inactive,
pale, whitish, effeminate, loathe their food, and become frigid;
they have heaviness of the members, torpidity of the legs, are
powerless, and incapable of all exertion. In many cases, this
disease is the way to paralysis; for how could the nervous
power not suffer when nature has become frigid in regard to
the generation of life? For it is the semen, when possessed of
