Note (5) — BOOK I.

5. Distribution of the same.) The word in the original is digero, which, by the modern physicians, is generally applied to the digestion of the aliment in the stomach. But that is what our author never intends by it. Digero he uses in three different senses; 1st, for the distribution of the aliment from the stomach (after its concoction) to all the other parts of the body, which appears to be his meaning here: 2dly, for any evacuation made by the pores of the skin, as sudore digerit in the end of the ninth chapter of this book: 3dly, for discussing any collection of humour, so as to prevent its coming to suppuration; vel avertenda concurrens eo materia, vel digerenda, vel ad maturitatem perducenda est: si priora contigerunt, nihil praeterea necessarium est. Lib. vii. c. 2. ad fin. p. 408. Unless we restrain the meaning of this last passage to discussing by the skin, which would bring it under the second sense.