The cause may also be in the veins being overheated
whereby the spermatical matter flows out because of its thinness. The
external causes may be moistness of the air, eating bad food, anger,
grief, sloth, too much sleep, costiveness.
The signs are bodily disturbances, shortness of breathing, and foul
breath, a distaste for food, swollen eyes and feet, and low spirits;
discharges of different colours, as red, black, green, yellow and white
from the womb. It differs from the flowing of the courses and from too
abundant menstruation, in so far as it keeps no certain period, and is
of many colours, all of which spring from blood.
If the flux be phlegmatic, it will last long and be hard to cure, but if
sickness or diarrhoea supervene, it carries off the humour and cures the
disease. If it is abundant it does not last so long, but it is more
dangerous, for it will cause a cleft in the neck of the womb, and
sometimes also an excoriation of the matrix; if melancholy, it must be
dangerous and obstinate. The flux of the haemorrhoids, however, assists
the cure.
If the matter which flows out be reddish, open a vein in the arm; if
not, apply ligatures to the arms and shoulders. Galen boasts that he
cured the wife of Brutus, who was suffering from this disease, by
rubbing the upper part with honey.
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