HAMir/rON SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION 57 



present day should call a wasting disease. I^ater on we find 

 it associated with destructive lesions in the lung. No matter 

 whether these destructive processes were suppurative, ulcer- 

 ative or of the nature of abscesses, they were not regarded as 

 differing essentially from the like lesions occurring in other 

 parts of the body. "The most dangerous disease, and the 

 one that proved fatal to the greatest number, was consump- 

 tion," says Hippocrates, and he has left us an excellent 

 clinical picture of the disease. What physician of the present 

 day would care to attempt an improvement on the following 

 description by Aritaeus of Cappadocia, written 50 B.C.? 

 " Voice hoarse ; neck slightly bent, tender, not flexible, some- 

 what extended fingers slender, but joints thick; of the bones 

 alone the figure remains, for the fleshy parts are wasted ; the 

 nails of the fingers crooked, the pulps are shriveled and flat, 

 for, owing to the loss of flesh, they neither retain their tension 

 or rotundity, and, owing to the same cause, the nails are 

 bent, namely, because it is the compact flesh at their points 

 which is intended as a support to them; and the tension 

 thereof is like that of solids. Nose sharp, slender ; cheeks 

 prominent and red ; eyes hollow, brilliant and glittering ; 

 swollen, pale or livid is the countenance ; the slender parts of 

 the jaws rest on the teeth, as if smiling, otherwise a 

 cadaverous aspect. So also, in all other respects slender, 

 without flesh ; the muscles of the arms imperceptible ; not a 

 vestige of the mammse, the nipples only to be seen ; one may 

 not only count the ribs themselves, but easily trace them to 

 their terminations, for even the articulations of the vertebrse 

 are quite visible, and their connections with the sternum are 

 also manifest ; the intercostal spaces are hollow and 

 rhomboidal, agreeably to the configuration of the bone ; 

 hypochondriac region lank and retracted ; the abdomen and 

 flanks contiguous to the spine ; joints clearly developed, 

 prominent, devoid of flesh ; so also with the tibia, ischium and 

 humerus ; the spine of the vertebrae, formerly hollow, now 

 protrudes, the muscles on either side being wasted ; the whole 

 shoulder blades apparent like the wings of birds. If in these 



