SECT. XLIX.—ON BURNING OVER THE STOMACH.
In chronic defluxions of the stomach the moderns have recourse to burning,—some with knobbed cauteries, forming three eschars, one at the ensiform cartilage, and the other two below, so as to make a triangle, the depth of the burning being the thickness of the skin. Some form only one large eschar at the mouth of the stomach. But others do not burn with iron but with the substances called iscæ. The iscæ are spongy bodies forming on oaks and walnuts, being mostly in use with the barbarians. They allow the ulcers to remain for some time without cicatrizing, and rather stimulate them in order that by the great diaphoresis thereby occasioned, the mouth of the stomach may be freed from the defluxions.
Commentary. Hippocrates, Galen, and Celsus say nothing about burning over the stomach in affections of it. Aëtius’s account is similar to our author’s. He calls the iscæ the medullary part of the wood of walnuts. (vii, 91.) They are mentioned likewise by Haly Abbas, who says they are called ducanum in the Persian language. (Pract. ix, 77.) Albucasis directs us to burn with iron. (Chirurg. i, 28.)