Decisiones praecipuorum aliquot aporēmatōn iatrophilosophikōn

through which the force of heat from the fire placed below may rise. They arrange many hundreds of eggs on the upper surface of the vaults: from which, on set days, a crowd erupts: which they sell not by number, but by measure. The heat proceeds to the generation of the worm, while it makes a path for itself through the excess of excretion ἐκκρίσεως: which some of the most famous elders of our order designate by the notion of flow ῥύσεως, which Aristotle asserted particularly where "what is partially perishing is spoken of." As for pus, we say this is generated by digestion πέψεως rather than putrefaction σήψεως: which Galen, compelled by truth, also clearly admits in his book On Inequality of Temperament, ch. 3. For then pus is made when Nature separates the useful part of the inflamed blood from the useless, so that the former may yield to the nourishment of the part, while the latter, since it is a superfluity περίττόν τι, is cast out. Just as putrefied blood, which has already turned to ash, will never be turned into pus, so neither will putrefying [blood], insofar as it is putrefying; since here the heat of the mixture is required to be driven outward, which the material must necessarily overcome in the elaboration of pus. And if pus is a middle condition between praised and unpraised humors, as the Galenic school affirms, why does Nature rise to the expulsion of pus, which is less harmful (for it has already been made: Galen, On Tumors Beyond Nature, ch. 2), and did not rise when the humor was putrefying? Thus we see that fleshless ἀσάρκους and cartilaginous parts, if they suffer inflammation φλεγμονὴν, do not easily suppurate, since because of coldness the humor cannot be overcome by heat (Aretaeus, Book 1 On the Causes and Signs of Chronic Diseases, ch. 9). Therefore, maturing ἐκπυητικὰ medicines ought to be plastering ἐμπλαστικὰ, obstructing ἐμφρακτικὰ, and agglutinating ἐχέκολλα: so that with the passages closed on all sides, the heat, driven into a narrow space and increased, may mature and cook the corrupted matter of the ulcers; for which reason Hollerius (Book 7, Surgical Institutions, ch. 5) calls them digestives πεπτικὰ. For the same reason, a cloud νεφέλη, a suspended substance ἐναιώρημα, a semen-like γονοειδὲς and cloud-like νεφελοειδὲς substance, and the sediment ὑπόστασις are generated in urines. They indicate that the force of innate heat was such that it could induce perfection τελέωσιν: which is nothing other than a certain equalization, through which thicker things are thinned, thinner things are thickened, homogeneous and like-natured things are joined, and heterogeneous things are separated; according to the opinion