LEECH BOOK. II. 243 



XXXVl. 



Of milt wark, or acute pahi in the spleen, and 

 that the milt is on the left side, and tokens of the 

 disease, how colourless the patients are, and there are. 

 wounds not easy of cure. The men are meagi-e and 

 uncomfortable, pale of aspect, though ere this they 

 were fat, and still are constitutionally disposed that 

 way ; and the wamb is not under control, and scarcely 

 can it he that the mie is healthy, but rather it will 

 be swartish and greenish, and blacker than its right is 

 to be, and the breathing is very hard drawn. If the 

 disease is too longsome, then it turneth to dropsy, one 

 may not then cure it; the tongue is uncontrolled and 

 unsmooth, and the wounds which are upon the body 

 are not easy of cure, and they are on the left side 

 afflicted with ache, and in the joining of the shoulders, 

 betwixt the shoulder blades, there is mickle ache, and 

 in the turning about of the bones of the neck ; they 

 have also brawny feet, their knees fail them. We 

 tell how the milt is alongside and adjacent to the 

 wamb, it hath a thin film, which hath fat and thick 

 veins, and the film covereth and embraceth the wamb 

 and the inwards, and warmeth them ; and it is ex- 

 tended on the left part of the lower abdomen, and it 

 is held by sinewy attachments, and it is in the one 

 quarter broad ; it toucheth the side, on the other it 

 is in contact with the viscera. Of the laughter which 

 cometh from the spleen. Some say that the milt is the 

 servant of the sinews, and that the milt in some parts 

 is dead in men, or is wholly absent, and that for this 

 reason they are able to laugh. In fact, in the same 

 wise that other limbs suffer inconveniences, the milt 

 in the same wise sufiers. We treat also of immoderate 

 cold, of heat, of dryness, of mickle evil wet, since the 

 milt waxeth unnaturally, and diminishes, and harden- 

 eth, and mostly of cold and immoderate wet ; further, 



Q 2 



Book ir. 

 Ch. xxxvi. 



