[737] Galen considers it a remarkable feature in this case that although the crisis occurred on the sixth day, there was no relapse. The recovery he ascribes to the copious menstruation which then took place for the first time. He also calls attention to the characters of the urine, which, he says, are those which usually accompany delirium, although this is omitted in the Prognostics.
[738] Galen, in his Commentary, merely remarks that Hippocrates, at the conclusion of the report, briefly enumerates the more prominent symptoms from which a fatal result might have been confidently prognosticated. By enlarged viscera, in this case, we are informed by Galen in another place, that our author meant inflammation and swelling (Comment. in Rat. Vict. in Acut. c. iii.) There can be no doubt that by viscera Hippocrates meant the liver and spleen (see the work just referred to). Galen briefly remarks on this case towards the end of the Second Book of his work, On Difficulty of Breathing.
[739] Cyzicus was a flourishing city on the Propontis. See Strabo, Geogr. xii.; and Pliny, H. N. v. 32.
[740] Galen, in his Commentary, accounts for this fatal disease upon the supposition that the uterus was inflamed, and affected the brain by sympathy, hence maniacal delirium and convulsions were the consequence. Galen, both in his Commentary, and in his work On Crises, refers to this case, in confirmation of his doctrine of critical days.
[741] I will venture to affirm, without much fear of contradiction, that in all the works on medicine, both ancient and modern, there is not to be found so vivid a delineation of the symptoms of fever, complicated with effusion on the brain. Those who have added new features to the picture, have thereby detracted from the general effect. Galen, in his Commentary, insists more especially on the character of the respiration, but there does not appear to me to be any particular obscurity about it. He also touches on this case towards the end of the Second Book, On Difficulty of Breathing. After reading all his prolix disquisition on the subject, one does not feel much better instructed on the subject. Galen, at times, nay, very frequently, seems to forget a favorite saying of his own, namely. that he who would wish to lay in a copious store of knowledge during life, should trouble himself little about words, and attend principally to things.
[742] There were two Thessalian cities of this name, the one in Estiæotis, and the other in Magnesia. This would appear to be the latter. See Pliny, H. N. iv., 9; and Livy, xliv., 13.
[743] Galen’s Commentary contains few observations of much interest, and which are not sufficiently obvious. Excesses in drinking and debauchery, he remarks, hurt the nerves and the origin of them, that is to say, the brain. Thus he accounts for the delirium with which this case of fever was attended. All the other prominent symptoms, such as the palpitation in the epigastric region, the swelling of the hypochondrium, and the like, were noticed previously. Galen also reviews the symptoms of this case in his work On Difficulty of Breathing, II.
[744] “Hippocrates qui tam fallere quam falli nescit.” (Macrobius in Somn. Scipionis, i., 6.)
[745] Hippocratis Coi de Cap. Vuln., etc., a Francisco Vertuniano. Ejusdem textus Græcus a J. Scalig. Castigatus, etc.
[746] Comment. de Ossibus.