person's calling aloud, or while crying, when one cannot quickly
recover one's breath, such as often happens to children. When any of
these things occur, the body immediately shivers, the person
becoming speechless cannot draw his breath, but the breath (pneuma)
stops, the brain is contracted, the blood stands still, and thus the
excretion and defluxion of the phlegm take place. In children, these
are the causes of the attack at first. But to old persons winter is
most inimical. For when the head and brain have been heated at a great
fire, and then the person is brought into cold and has a rigor, or
when from cold he comes into warmth, and sits at the fire, he is apt
to suffer in the same way, and thus he is seized in the manner
described above. And there is much danger of the same thing occurring,
if his head be exposed to the sun, but less so in summer, as the
changes are not sudden. When a person has passed the twentieth year of
his life, this disease is not apt to seize him, unless it has become
habitual from childhood, or at least this is rarely or never the case.
For the veins are filled with blood, and the brain consistent and
firm, so that it does not run down into the veins, or if it do, it
does not master the blood, which is copious and hot.

But when it has gained strength from one's childhood, and become
habitual, such a person usually suffers attacks, and is seized with
them in changes of the winds, especially in south winds, and it is
difficult of removal. For the brain becomes more humid than natural,
and is inundated with phlegm, so that the defluxions become more
frequent, and the phlegm can no longer be the nor the brain be dried
up, but it becomes wet and humid. This you may ascertain in
particular, from beasts of the flock which are seized with this
disease, and more especially goats, for they are most frequently
attacked with it. If you will cut open the head, you will find the
brain humid, full of sweat, and having a bad smell. And in this way
truly you may see that it is not a god that injures the body, but
disease. And so it is with man. For when the disease has prevailed for
a length of time, it is no longer curable, as the brain is corroded by
the phlegm, and melted, and what is melted down becomes water, and
surrounds the brain externally, and overflows it; wherefore they are
more frequently and readily seized with the disease. And therefore the
disease is protracted, because the influx is thin, owing to its
quantity, and is immediately overpowered by the blood and heated all
through.

But such persons as are habituated to the disease know beforehand
when they are about to be seized and flee from men; if their own house
be at hand, they run home, but if not, to a deserted place, where as
few persons as possible will see them falling, and they immediately
cover themselves up. This they do from shame of the affection, and not
from fear of the divinity, as many suppose. And little children at
first fall down wherever they may happen to be, from inexperience. But
when they have been often seized, and feel its approach beforehand,
they flee to their mothers, or to any other person they are acquainted
with, from terror and dread of the affection, for being still
infants they do not know yet what it is to be ashamed.

Therefore, they are attacked during changes of the winds, and
especially south winds, then also with north winds, and afterwards
also with the others. These are the strongest winds, and the most
opposed to one another, both as to direction and power. For, the north
wind condenses the air, and separates from it whatever is muddy and
nebulous, and renders it clearer and brighter, and so in like manner
also, all the winds which arise from the sea and other waters; for
they extract the humidity and nebulosity from all objects, and from
men themselves, and therefore it (the north wind) is the most
wholesome of the winds. But the effects of the south are the very
reverse. For in the first place it begins by melting and diffusing the