Note 622 — BOOK I.—OF THE EPIDEMICS.

Galen thinks our author expresses himself confusedly in this place, but Littré justly defends him from this charge. According to Littré, Hippocrates means that those who had been long affected with consumption (the term used, ὑποφθειρομένων, rather signifies had obscure symptoms of consumption), then betook themselves to bed; but those who were in a doubtful state, then first manifested signs of confirmed phthisis; and, finally, that there were some who then for the first time felt the attack of phthisis, and that these were persons who were predisposed to it. According to Galen, the phthisical constitution is marked by a narrow and shallow chest, with the scapulæ protuberant behind like wings; and hence he says chests of this construction have been named alar. He further states that there are two forms of consumption, the one originating in a defluxion from the head, and the other being connected with the rupture of a vessel in the lungs. I may be allowed to mention in this place, in confirmation of our author’s accuracy of observation with regard to the connection of hemoptysis with phthisis, that Louis found hemoptysis to a greater or less extent in two thirds of his cases. (Researches on Phthisis, p. 166, Sydenham Society edition.) The same author relates several cases in which death occurred suddenly and unexpectedly, as Hippocrates states to have happened to some of his patients. (Ibid.)