Note 447 — ON AIRS, WATERS, AND PLACES.

The origin and signification of this term are by no means well defined. See Galen (Exeges, etc.), Foës (Œcon. Hippocr.), and Coray (ad h. l.). It has been applied first, to certain varieties of morbus coxarius; secondly, to chronic buboes, superinduced by disease of the hip-joint; thirdly, to paralysis of the muscles about the genital organs; fourthly, aneurismal varix. (See Aretæus, Morb. Acut., ii., 8; and the note in Boerhaave’s edition.) I must own that I find some difficulty in deciding to which of these significations I should give the preference; I rather incline, however, to the first, from what our author says towards the end of this section, namely, that all men who ride much “are afflicted with rheums in the joints, sciatica and gout, and are inept at venery.”