Note 662 — BOOK I.—OF THE EPIDEMICS.

There is nothing in this case very remarkable, or which stands in need of elucidation; but yet the reader may feel interested in Galen’s reflections upon it. The recovery he holds to have been unexpected, as a different result might have been anticipated from the characters of the alvine discharge, and of the urine at the commencement. The favorable change he attributes to the swelling of the spleen, whereby the peccant humors were attracted to it; and he further remarks, that as the swelling of the spleen diminished, the humors are described as having passed down to the extremities, after having first affected the groin of the side on which the spleen is situated. He further calls attention to the improved characters of the urine when the swelling of the spleen and pains of the limbs supervened. Still, however, he adds, there was a remnant of the cacochymy in the system which gave rise to the relapse on the fourteenth day, so that the complete crisis did not take place until the seventeenth day.