Note 279 — THIRD SECTION. Relation of the Physician to Diseases consequent upon the Use or Misuse of the Genital Organs.

Galen, Method. medendi, bk. VIII. ch. 6., edit. Kühn Vol. X. p. 580., σχεδὸν εἴρηταί μοι πάντα περὶ τῶν ἐφημέρων πυρετῶν· οἱ γὰρ ἐπὶ βουβῶσι πυρέξαντες οὐδὲ πυνθάνονται τῶν ἰατρῶν ὅ τι χρὴ ποιεῖν· ἀλλὰ τοῦθ’ἕλκους ἐφ’ᾧπερ ἂν ὁ βουβὼν αὐτοῖς εἴη γεγεννημένος, αὐτοῦ τε τοῦ βουβῶνος προνοησάμενοι, λούονται κατὰ τὴν παρακμὴν τοῦ γενομένου κ. τ. λ. (for translation see text above). The Diatriton mentioned in the next sentence was the fast till the third day, which was generally prescribed by Thessalus and the methodic school. For this reason it was called διάτριτον θεσσαλείον (Thessalus’ diatriton), and the physicians who held to it διατριτάριοι ἰατροὶ (doctors of the diatriton), as we gather from the subsequent statement of Galen. Of the ephemera in case of buboes Galen also speaks, ad Glauconem meth. med. bk. I. ch. 2., edit. Kühn Vol. XI. p. 6., καὶ οἱ ἐπὶ βουβῶσι δὲ πυρετοὶ τούτου τοῦ γένους εἰσὶ, πλὴν εἰ μὴ χωρὶς ἕλκους φανεροῦ γένοιντο, (Moreover the fevers that follow on buboes are of this kind, the exception being if they have not been without open ulceration). Celsus moreover, De re med. bk. VI. ch. 18., says à propos of diseases of the genitals, that he means to undertake their description, quia in vulgus eorum curatio praecipue cognoscenda est, quae invitissimus quisque alteri ostendit, (because a general acquaintance is particularly desirable with the means of curing such complaints as every man is most reluctant to make known to another).