Note (12) — BOOK II.
James Greive translation
12. If it grow less.) I have chosen to follow the older reading, which omits the negative particle, because it seems plain, that our author is here speaking not of the body, but the belly, in this and the two preceding articles; the sense determines itself.—If the belly yields to purging medicines or spontaneously discharges soft and figured excrements, and the effect of one or both appears in the diminution of its bulk.