On the Sacred Dissease   

it occasions convulsions and pain, and therefore he kicks with his
feet. All these symptoms he endures when the cold phlegm passes into
the warm blood, for it congeals and stops the blood. And if the
deflexion be copious and thick, it immediately proves fatal to him,
for by its cold it prevails over the blood and congeals it; or, if
it be less, it in the first place obtains the mastery, and stops the
respiration; and then in the course of time, when it is diffused along
the veins and mixed with much warm blood, it is thus overpowered,
the veins receive the air, and the patient recovers his senses.

Of little children who are seized with this disease, the greater
part die, provided the defluxion be copious and humid, for the veins
being slender cannot admit the phlegm, owing to its thickness and
abundance; but the blood is cooled and congealed, and the child
immediately dies. But if the phlegm be in small quantity, and make a
defluxion into both the veins, or to those on either side, the
children survive, but exhibit notable marks of the disorder; for
either the mouth is drawn aside, or an eye, the neck, or a hand,
wherever a vein being filled with phlegm loses its tone, and is
attenuated, and the part of the body connected with this vein is
necessarily rendered weaker and defective. But for the most it affords
relief for a longer interval; for the child is no longer seized with
these attacks, if once it has contracted this impress of the
disease, in consequence of which the other veins are necessarily
affected, and to a certain degree attenuated, so as just to admit
the air, but no longer to permit the influx of phlegm. However, the
parts are proportionally enfeebled whenever the veins are in an
unhealthy state. When in striplings the defluxion is small and to
the right side, they recover without leaving any marks of the disease,
but there is danger of its becoming habitual, and even increasing if
not treated by suitable remedies. Thus, or very nearly so, is the case
when it attacks children.

To persons of a more advanced age, it neither proves fatal, nor
produces distortions. For their veins are capacious and are filled
with hot blood; and therefore the phlegm can neither prevail nor
cool the blood, so as to coagulate it, but it is quickly overpowered
and mixed with the blood, and thus the veins receive the air, and
sensibility remains; and, owing to their strength, the aforesaid
symptoms are less likely to seize them. But when this disease
attacks very old people, it therefore proves fatal, or induces
paraplegia, because the veins are empty, and the blood scanty, thin,
and watery. When, therefore, the defluxion is copious, and the
season winter, it proves fatal; for it chokes up the exhalents, and
coagulates the blood if the defluxion be to both sides; but if to
either, it merely induces paraplegia. For the blood being thin,
cold, and scanty, cannot prevail over the but being itself
overpowered, it is coagulated, so that those parts in which the
blood is corrupted, lose their strength.

The flux is to the right rather than to the left because the veins
there are more capacious and numerous than on the left side, for on
the one side they spring from the liver, and on the other from the
spleen. The defluxion and melting down take place most especially in
the case of children in whom the head is heated either by the sun or
by fire, or if the brain suddenly contract a rigor, and then the
phlegm is excreted. For it is melted down by the heat and diffusion of
the but it is excreted by the congealing and contracting of it, and
thus a defluxion takes place. And in some this is the cause of the
disease, and in others, when the south wind quickly succeeds to
northern breezes, it suddenly unbinds and relaxes the brain, which
is contracted and weak, so that there is an inundation of phlegm,
and thus the defluxion takes place. The defluxion also takes place
in consequence of fear, from any hidden cause, if we are the at any