Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
Rosa Anglica (Author: [unknown])

section 4

4

Item he who does this, takes to himself a disease from fulness of humours; so it is not a wasting sickness he contracts.119 Item he who forsakes his work, becomes cold thereby, therefore I say there are two hecticas: hectica that comes from old age, and that which comes accompanied by fever. He who avoids his work, contracts the hectica of old age, for the excess remains in the body, and that weakens it and the digestion, and causes diseases from fulness of humours: that being so, it throws a man into old age, the which age is cold and dry as the heat is weakened on account of the excess remaining in the body, and so the digestion is weakened, and the food is not sufficiently digested in the stomach or the liver: for the error produced in the first digestion is not corrected in the second, according to Isidorus; nor in the third, therefore the members receive neither plentiful nor sufficient nourishment, and are impoverished, and so hectica follows the

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swelling.120 Through this we should say, the first thing to be consumed in hectica is the recent fattening surrounding the firm solid members internally (the which is not the fat bordering on the skin), and thereafter the older fattening is consumed.121 Or the species of hectica are defined (?)122, not according to the consumption123 of the various liquids, but because of that of the various members, such as the fat and flesh first, the arteries and veins thereafter, the bones and the cartilages in part.124 Thus he who contracts hectica passes into diseases produced by fulness of humours125 per accidens, into accidental flux, and moisture, such as dropsy.