Bion[203] uses it in consecutive lines for the wound caused by a spear, and in the generic sense:
Ἃγριον, ἄγριον ἓλκος ἔχει κατὰ μηρὸν Αδωνις, μεῖζον δ’ ἁ Κυθέρεια φέρει ποτικάρδιον ἕλκος.
Aeschylus[204] and Sophocles[205] use it also in the wider sense, as in
πόλει μὲν ἕλκος ἕν τὸ δήμιον τυχεῖν
and
τί γὰρ γένοιτ’ ἄν ἕλκος μεῖζον ἤ φίλος κακός;
The inference to be drawn from these passages is that ἕλκος, although usually indicating an open wound, is used with no precise significance.
The same difficulty attaches to the word φλύκταινα. Though Hippocrates uses the word frequently, there is no single passage in which the precise significance is clear beyond all doubt. He applies it to chilblains,[206] to an eruption on the skin of subjects of empyema,[207] to lesions appearing on the tongue in fatal septic cases, and so on. In one passage, in which he speaks of a φλύκταινα arising from rubbing the skin with vinegar, he seems to indicate a blister.
The first clear definition of the term we have is from the pen of Celsus, who defines it as a discoloured pustule that breaks and leaves an ulcerated base (‘genus pustularum, cum plures similes varis oriuntur nonnunquam maiores, lividae aut pallidae aut nigrae aut aliter naturali colore mutato: subestque iis humor, ubi hae ruptae sunt, infra quasi exulcerata caro apparet’). There are several passages in Aristophanes, which indicate that he at any rate applied the term as we do to a blister lesion: but at the same time, there are other passages in which this exclusive use is by no means so sure. The lesion resulting from rowing[208] or carrying a lance[209] cannot well be other than a blister. And there is a passage in the Ecclesiazusae,[210] which seems even clearer:
ἀλλ’ ἔμπουσά τις ἐξ ἁἵματος φλύκταιναν ἠμφιεσμένη,