LIST OF DISEASES 



More important for our appreciation of antiquity than the 

 identilication of specific diseases is to ascertain vvhich, if 

 any, modern diseases were unknown in the Hellenistic age. 

 Here the evidence, especially that relating to infectious fevers, 

 is most disappointing. These fevers are endemic in the 

 modern world, and figure largely in treatises on pathology. 

 But the old medical writers — " Hippocrates," Celsus, Galen 

 and the many comj:»ilers who succeeded Galen — do not 

 describe, or give treatment for, small-pox, chicken-pox, 

 measles, scarlatina, typhoid or even influenza. The most that 

 can be said is that in isolated chnical histories or in chance 

 aphoristic remarks one or other of them may be referred to ; 

 the evidence is strongest for diphtheria. Moreover, in the 

 pseudo-Aristotelian Problems {VII 8) it is said that con- 

 sumption, ophthalmia and the itch are infectious, but that 

 fevers are not. It is difficult to believe that a people who 

 knew that consumption is infectious would have caUed scarla- 

 tina non-infectious if it had been endemic among them. 



The Romans borrowed many names of diseases from the 

 Greeks. Usually, of course, the Latin word refers to the 

 same disease as does the Greek, especially in tlie works of 

 medical writers. But care must be exercised; Xenpa, for 

 instance, seems to be much narrower than lepra. 



Celsus is by far the most trustworthy authority to follow 

 in identifying the diseases mentioned by Phny, for both 

 were Romans, both (probably) laymen and nearly con- 

 temporaries. 



Aegilops. — A lacrimal fistula at count of it, saying that it 



the angle near the nose. occurred in the hair and 



Albugo. — An unknown kind of beard. He distinguishes it 



white ulcer on the eye. In from 6(f>iaais, probably ring- 



XXVI § 160 used of a head worm, for this had a winding 



ulcer. Theword occurs only in shape, whereas alopecia ^' sub 



the Vulgate Bible and in Pliny. qualibet figura dilatatur." 



Alopecia. — A disease in wliich A^nphemerinos. — Quotidian ma- 



the hair fell out. Meaning laria. 



literally " fox mange," it is .'ingina. — An acute swelling in 



translated " niange " in the the neck, generally quinsy. A 



text. It is perhaps unsafe to loose term like our " sore 



limititto thomodernalopecia. throat." Sometimes possibly 



Celsus (VI 4) has a brief ac- diphtheria. 



