On the Sacred Dissease   

neither be able to endure the sun nor cold. Or, if the melting take
place from any one part, either from the eye or ear, or if a vein
has become slender, that part will be deranged in proportion to the
melting. Or, should depuration not take place, but congestion
accumulate in the brain, it necessarily becomes phlegmatic. And such
children as have an eruption of ulcers on the head, on the ears, and
along the rest of the body, with copious discharges of saliva and
mucus,-these, in after life, enjoy best health; for in this way the
phlegm which ought to have been purged off in the womb, is
discharged and cleared away, and persons so purged, for the most part,
are not subject to attacks of this disease. But such as have had their
skin free from eruptions, and have had no discharge of saliva or
mucus, nor have undergone the proper purgation in the womb, these
persons run the risk of being seized with this disease.

But should the defluxion make its way to the heart, the person is
seized with palpitation and asthma, the chest becomes diseased, and
some also have curvature of the spine. For when a defluxion of cold
phlegm takes place on the lungs and heart, the blood is chilled, and
the veins, being violently chilled, palpitate in the lungs and
heart, and the heart palpitates, so that from this necessity asthma
and orthopnoea supervene. For it does not receive the spirits as
much breath as he needs until the defluxion of phlegm be mastered, and
being heated is distributed to the veins, then it ceases from its
palpitation and difficulty of breathing, and this takes place as
soon as it obtains an abundant supply; and this will be more slowly,
provided the defluxion be more abundant, or if it be less, more
quickly. And if the defluxions be more condensed, the epileptic
attacks will be more frequent, but otherwise if it be rarer. Such
are the symptoms when the defluxion is upon the lungs and heart; but
if it be upon the bowels, the person is attacked with diarrhoea.

And if, being shut out from all these outlets, its defluxion be
determined to the veins I have formerly mentioned, the patient loses
his speech, and chokes, and foam issues by the mouth, the teeth are
fixed, the hands are contracted, the eyes distorted, he becomes
insensible, and in some cases the bowels are evacuated. And these
symptoms occur sometimes on the left side, sometimes on the right, and
sometimes in both. The cause of everyone of these symptoms I will
now explain. The man becomes speechless when the phlegm, suddenly
descending into the veins, shuts out the air, and does not admit it
either to the brain or to the vena cava, or to the ventricles, but
interrupts the inspiration. For when a person draws in air by the
mouth and nostrils, the breath goes first to the brain, then the
greater part of it to the internal cavity, and part to the lungs,
and part to the veins, and from them it is distributed to the other
parts of the body along the veins; and whatever passes to the
stomach cools, and does nothing more; and so also with regard to the
lungs. But the air which enters the veins is of use (to the body) by
entering the brain and its ventricles, and thus it imparts sensibility
and motion to all the members, so that when the veins are excluded
from the air by the phlegm and do not receive it, the man loses his
speech and intellect, and the hands become powerless, and are
contracted, the blood stopping and not being diffused, as it was wont;
and the eyes are distorted owing to the veins being excluded from
the air; and they palpitate; and froth from the lungs issues by the
mouth. For when the breath does not find entrance to him, he foams and
sputters like a dying person. And the bowels are evacuated in
consequence of the violent suffocation; and the suffocation is
produced when the liver and stomach ascend to the diaphragm, and the
mouth of the stomach is shut up; this takes place when the breath does
not enter by the mouth, as it is wont. The patient kicks with his feet
when the air is shut up in the lungs and cannot find an outlet,
owing to the phlegm; and rushing by the blood upward and downward,