Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
A Treatise on Fevers (Author: [unknown])
Section 22
{TCD 1302 fol col and line fol 7a1line31} Let it be asked here can disease be contagious. It seems it cannot, for Aristotle says these words: ‘Accidens autem ...’, i.e. the accident does not pass from subject to subject, and disease is an accident, so it does not affect one person from another. Avicenna opposes this in the first canon, and Hippocrates in the sixth section of Aphorisms and Avicenna in the twenty-seventh canon, saying {TCD 1302 fol col and line fol 7a2line1}) ‘arteitica ...’ i.e. arthritis and gout are hereditary contagious diseases, so disease can be contagious, as Gordonius says these words: ‘Antrax...’, these are the contagious diseases: Anthrax, i.e. an ulcer caused by a mixture of the three humours red blood, reddish bile and black bile, so that it has these three colours, red, yellow and black, and on account of the violence of the matter making it, it is contagious . ‘Lipa’ i.e. a disease of the eyes; ‘lepra’ i.e. leprosy. ‘Frenisis’ i.e. madness, and these give contagion to another, and Galenus says here one should not dwell in the neighbourhood of people suffering from the contagious diseases we have mentioned,
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and especially pestilence patients. And he says too not to associate with them in confined places. And the same man says further one should avoid people who die in these attacks, and especially in pestilence, and the air round them should be avoided, and the herbs which grow in graveyards where these bodies are buried should be avoided by people and animals, tor the philosopher says these words: ‘Virtus pabili ...’. And the same man says one should avoid every evil odour in a time of plague, and one should avoid the fruits of trees and herbs likewise, the body should be given plenty of food and drink and frequent evacuation as is fitting. We answer that and say a similar or dissimilar disease can be created from imitation (?), as Galenus says paralysis and syncope and epilepsy are formed from reddish bile, and peripneumonia, pleurisy, and lethargy from frenzy, and leprosy and albus from morfea. And Avicenna says the accidental ailment of an illness causes a complete disease in a member, such as frenzy causing headache. And the same man says that just as a disease is generated by a disease, so a disease is cured by another disease, as is clear in the fever that comes after spasm, and in quartana coming from melancholy. Then Avicenna says there are certain waters and herbs creating contagious disease directly, such as euphorbia and acosinne, and it is created likewise from a change in the direction of the weather, and the illnesses we have mentioned are cured by that {TCD 1302 fol col and line fol 7b1line1} change. And the same man says that disease is created from the thoughts, by the movement of the animal (?) energy, as is evident in people who are nauseated by seeing sour fruits being eaten, such as crab apples and the like.