Part 8

In the department of the diseases of women chapters are devoted to amenorrhea, menorrhagia, hysteria (suffocatio matricis), prolapse, ulceration, abscess, cancer, dropsy and "ventosity" of the uterus (physometra).

In the allied department of obstetrics we find chapters on the signs of conception, on the urine in pregnant women, on difficult labor, prolapsus uteri, retention of the placenta, post partum hemorrhage, afterpains, and the oedema of pregnancy. The causes of difficult labor, according to Gilbert, are malposition, dropsy, immoderate size and death of the fetus, debility of the uterus and obstruction of the maternal passages. Malpositions are to be corrected by the hand of the midwife (obstetrix). Adjuvant measures are hot baths, poultices, inunctions, fumigations and sternutatories, and the use of certain herbs.

In the departments of general medicine not as yet entirely appropriated by specialists it will suffice to mention scrofula, pleurisy and pneumonia, hemoptysis, empyema, phthisis, cardiac affections, diseases of the stomach, liver and spleen, diarrhoea and dysentery, intestinal worms, dropsy, jaundice, cancer, rheumatism and gout, small-pox, measles, leprosy and hydrophobia, all of which claim more or less attention.

Peripneumonia and pleurisy are both inflammations of the chest, the former affecting the lungs, the latter the diaphragm and the pellicle which lines the ribs. The prominent symptoms of both diseases are pain in the chest or side, cough and fever and dyspnoea. Accidents or sequelae are hemoptysis, empyema and phthisis.

Empima (empyema) is the hawking-up of sanies, with infection of the lung and a sanious habit. Hence persons laboring under pneumonia or pleurisy are not necessarily empyemics, but when these diseases progress to such a point that blood and sanies are expectorated and the lung is infected, that is when the ulceration of the lungs fails to heal and corruption and infection occur, the disease becomes empima, and is with difficulty, or never cured.

Ptisis is a substantial consumption of the humidity of the body, due to ulceration of the lungs. For when a solution of continuity occurs in the lungs, the inspiratory and expiratory forces fail. Hence the lungs do not inspire sufficient air to mitigate the innate heat of the heart, and the heart fails to purify itself of the fumosity or fumous vapors generated in itself. Accordingly, deprived of the means of mitigating its heat or ventilating its fumosities, the spirits within it become unduly heated, and a consuming fire is generated in the entire body.

The symptoms of ptisis are a continued fever, greater or less, detected in the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet, thirst, a roughness of the tongue, slenderness of the neck, wasting of the entire body, constipation, wasting and shrinking of the finger-nails and fingers, hollowness of the eyes, pain in the left scapula extending to the shoulder, pharyngeal catarrh with abundant and mucilaginous sputum and a tendency to lachrymation. If the sputum thrown upon the coals emits a fetid odor, it is a sign of confirmed ptisis, which is incurable. The disease when it occurs in youths and young persons rarely lasts longer than a year, often terminates in less time, and may sometimes, by the aid of medicine, be prolonged for a greater period. If the sputum received during the night in a vessel is flushed in the morning with warm water, while some impurities remain upon the surface, the putrid matter will sink to the bottom (sputum fundum petens), and the indications are fatal. Likewise sharpness of the nose, hollow eyes, slender nails, falling hair, flattened temples and diarrhoea are of evil omen. These patients converse while dying, and die conversing (moriendo loquentur, sed loquendo moriuntur). Gilbert, of course, supplies a formidable array of remedies for the disease, but tells us that the "very latest" is cauterization over the clavicles (Novissimum autem consilium est cauterium in furcula pectoris).

The varieties of difficulty of breathing are classified under the titles of asma, dispnea, orthomia, hanelitus and sansugium. The last title is given to a condition in which, as Gilbert says, "A superfluous humor is abundant in the superficies of the lung, which compresses that organ and renders it unable to dilate in inspiration. Hence it labors in inspiration like a leech, from which the dyspnea derives its name."

Under the single title of "cardiaca passio" are included all possible diseases of the heart. The symptoms of this disease are said to be "palpitation, twitching of the limbs (saltus membrorum), perspiration, weakness of the nerves, facial pallor, weakness of the body as in hectic fever or phthisis, excessive pain and faintness over the precordia, a disposition to sleep and often constipation." The treatment is, of course, entirely symptomatic.

Diseases of the digestive apparatus are discussed under the headings of difficulties of deglutition, canine appetite, bolismus (boulimia), disturbances of thirst, eructations, hiccup, nausea and anorexia, vomiting, anathimiasis (gastric debility), anatropha and catatropha (varieties of obstinate vomiting), pain in the stomach, abscess of the stomach, salivation, colic, dysentery and diarrhoea, intestinal worms, hemorrhoids, rectal tenesmus, prolapsus ani, fistula in ano, diseases of the liver, dropsy, jaundice and diseases of the spleen.

Abscess of the stomach sometimes manifests a circumscribed tumor, and accordingly, probably includes cancer of that organ. Approved remedies are the Al'mirabile, the stomatichon frigidum, calidum or laxativumvum, etc., stereotyped formulae, of which the composition is carefully recorded.

Dysentery is a flux of the bowels with a sanguinolent discharge and excoriation of the intestines. A variety called hepatic dysentery, however, lacks the intestinal excoriation. Diarrhoea is a simple flux of the bowels, without either the sanguinolent discharges or the intestinal excoriation. Lientery is a flux of the bowels with the discharge of undigested food, occasioned by irritability (levitas) of the stomach or intestines. Colical passion and iliac passion derive their names from the supposed origin of the pain in the colon or ileum, a remark which furnishes occasion for the statement that Gilbert divides the bowels into six sections, viz., the duodenum jejunum and ileum, and the orobus, colon and longaon (rectum).

Intestinal worms are not generated in the stomach, as Gilbert says, because of the great heat produced by the process of digestion. In the intestines they originate chiefly from the varieties of phlegm, e.g., saline, sweet, acid, natural, etc. The species mentioned specifically are lumbrici and ascarides or cucubitini, though the terms long, round, short and broad are also employed, and probably include the tape worm or taenia lata. The treatment of these parasites consists generally in the use of aromatic, bitter or acid mixtures, among which gentian, serpentaria, tithymal and cucumis agrestis are especially commended for lumbrici, and enemata of wormwood, lupinus, scammony, salt, aloes, etc., for ascarides.

The diseases of the liver, though not numerous, are allotted considerable space most of which is occupied by scholastic speculations and the usual rich supply of therapeutical suggestions.

Discrasia of the liver has several varieties, warm, cold, moist and dry, and seems nearly equivalent to our somewhat overworked term of "biliousness." Gilbert's favorite compounds for the relief of this condition are the Trifera sarracenica, the Electuarium psilliticum and above all the Dyantos Besonis.

Obstruction (oppilatio) of the liver or enfraxis is defined as a disease of the canals (pori), of which four are enumerated, to-wit, the meseraic, that of the convexity of the organ (gibbus--ubi sunt exitus capillarium venarum), the duct leading to the gall-bladder and that leading to the spleen. With an abundance of symptoms, it is singular that this comprehensive disease does not seem characterized by any constant or severe pain, as we might reasonably expect.

Abscess of the liver depends upon some vice of the blood, the bile, the phlegm or the black-bile. The general treatment is poultices and other maturatives, but, as the author adds rather sadly at the close, ultima cura est per incisionem.

Dropsy is discussed as an independent disease through the exhaustive speculations of thirty-two pages. Gilbert tells us it depends upon some fault of the digestive faculty of the liver, and he divides it into four species, to-wit, leucoflantia, yposarcha, alchitis and tympanitis, each of which has its special and appropriate treatment. In the dreary waste of speculative discussion it is cheering, however, to observe Gilbert's positive recognition of the sphere of percussion indicated in the passage:

"Et venter percussus sonat ad modum utris semipleni aqua et venta." (f. 250b.)

Ycteritia or jaundice receives equally thorough discussion through eight weary pages, including the usual polypharmacal treatment.

The spleen, Gilbert says, is sometimes the name of an organ, sometimes of a disease. As an organ it is spongy and loose in texture, and attracts and retains the superfluities of the black-bile, expelled from the liver for its own cleansing. Hence it is a servile and insensitive organ, and accordingly suffers different diseases, such as obstruction, tumors, hardening, softening, abscess, and sometimes flatulence or repletion. The symptoms and treatment of each of these morbid conditions, arising from either heat or cold, are discussed with exasperating thoroughness, and the chapter concludes with the composition and use of various specific remedies of compound character, bearing the impressive titles of Dyasene, Dyacapparis, Dyaceraseos (a mixture of cherry juice, honey, cinnamon, mastic and scammony) and Agrippa.

Scrofulous swellings are carefully considered in a chapter entitled "De scrophulis et glandulis." "Scrophulae and glandulae are hard swellings developing in the soft parts, as in the emunctory localities of the veins and arteries, particularly in the neck, armpits and groins, and sometimes in other places. They spring from the superfluities of the principal organs, which nature expels, as it were, to the emunctories and localities designed to receive this flux." ... "Hence they are often found the cause of scabies, tinea, malum mortuum, cancer, fistula, etc., and are called glandes. Sometimes, however, a dryer matter is finely divided and falls into several minute portions, from which arise many hard and globular swellings, called scrofulae from the multiplicity of their progeny, like that of the sow (scrofa). The disease is also called morbus regius, because it is cured by kings."

Gilbert advises that these swellings should not be "driven in" (repercutienda), but brought to suppuration generally by emollients and poultices. When softened they may be opened with a lancet and the pus allowed to escape gradually, but as this process is tedious, he prefers the entire removal of the glands with the knife, premissing, however, that no gland should be cut into which cannot be well grasped by the hand and pulled from its seat. This surgical manipulation is fully described, and is undoubtedly taken from the similar chapter of Roger. It is worthy of notice also that just at the close of this chapter, Gilbert mentions a swelling called "testudo," a gland-like, gaseous (ventosa) tumor, usually solitary and found in "nervous" localities, like the joints of the wrist and hand. He says it often occurs from fracture (cassatura?) of the nerves, is cured by pressure, friction or incision, but is not entirely free from danger. Possibly this may refer to ganglion. Now, Roger makes no mention whatever of "testudo," while Roland says:

"Nota quod quamvis Rogerius non designat inter glandulum et testudinem, scias igitur quod testudo fit ex majori parte flegmatica, minori melancholie, glandula vero a contrario," a statement which might readily suggest the suspicion that Gilbert had before his eyes the text of Roland, or that, at least, he had not acquired his knowledge of testudo from Roger, his usual surgical authority.

Gilbert's sections on goitre (bocium gulae) are interesting in themselves, and characteristic of the method adopted by him in his discussion of surgical or semi-surgical subjects. An introduction relative to the pathology of the disease and which seems to be original, is followed by a treatment, medical and surgical, adopted almost literally from the Chirurgia of Roger. Thus he says: "Goiter occurs most commonly among the inhabitants of mountainous regions, and is due to an amplification and dilatation of the veins, arteries and nerves, together with the soft tissues, occasioned by the north wind (ventum boreale), or some other confined wind, which during childhood has accumulated in (coadunabatur) and enlarged the part to the size of the goiter." After suggesting an analogy between the disease and the redness and turgidity of the neck produced by passion or in singing, he adds that some cases are due to an accumulation of spongy tissue between the veins and arteries, or to the use of flatulent food, and he even tells us that some old women know how to produce and remove goitrous swellings by means of certain suitable herbs known to them.

Under medical treatment we find the following: "Dig out of the ground while chanting a pater noster, a nut which has never borne fruit. The roots and other parts pound well with two hundred grains of pepper, and boil down in the best wine until reduced in volume to one-half. Let the patient take this freely on an empty stomach until cured."

Another more elaborate prescription consists of a long list of ingredients, including burnt sponge, saponaria, the milk of a sow raising her first litter, with numerous simple herbs, and the sole object for which this nonsensical farrago is introduced here is to add that both these prescriptions are copied from the surgery of Roger. It is important too to remark here that we owe to Roger the introduction of iodine, under the form of burnt sponge, into the treatment of goiter.

In the failure of medical treatment, Gilbert directs the employment of surgical means, e.g., the use of setons, or, in suitable cases, extirpation of the goiter with the knife. If, however, the tumor is very vascular, he prefers to leave the case to nature rather than expose the patient to the dangers of a bloody operation. The whole discussion of goiter is manifestly a paraphrase of the similar chapter of Roger, who also introduced into surgical practice the use of the seton.