On Glands — First Draft Translation

ON GLANDS. Concerning the glands of the whole body, the matter stands thus. 1 Their nature is spongy — loose-textured and rich — and they resemble neither small pieces of flesh like the rest of the body, nor anything else like the body, but are friable and contain many vessels. If you cut through them, bleeding is violent. In appearance they are white and like phlegm; to the touch, like wool. And if you work them with your fingers, pressing hard for some time, the gland releases an oily fluid, and it itself crumbles considerably and is destroyed. They are not much afflicted by pain on their own, but suffer along with the rest of the body when the body is in distress, or through their own disease; and only rarely do they suffer together with the body. 2 Their diseases are: swellings (phymata) arise, scrofulous growths (choirades) spring up, and fever seizes the body. These things befall them when they fill with moisture that flows into them from the rest of the body. It flows in from the rest of the body through the vessels, which are stretched through them in great numbers and are hollow, so that whatever fluid they draw follows easily into them. If the flow is copious and carries disease, the glands then draw the rest of the body toward themselves; thus a fever is kindled, and the glands swell and become inflamed. Glands are present in the body in greater number — or greater size — in its hollows and at its joints, and wherever the body is moist, and in regions rich in blood: some glands to receive what flows down from above into the hollow parts and draw it toward themselves, others to receive the moisture that is generated anew by exertion and to draw off the excess that the joints release. 3 In this way there is no waterlogging in the body: for even if some arises immediately, waterlogging does not follow afterward, because both the large amount and the small are consumed into the glands. And so the glands, making profit of the surplus of the rest of the body, have this as their own nourishment. Hence wherever there is stagnant moisture, there glands are a sign; and wherever a gland, there also hair. For nature produces both glands and hairs, both receiving the same function: the glands, with respect to what flows in, as has been said above; and hairs, having their timely supply from the glands, grow and increase, gathering up the excess that is pushed out to the extremities. 4 Wherever the body is dry, there is neither gland nor hair; but in soft, working, and well-moistened parts, glands and hairs are present. Glands are present beside each ear, on either side along the jugular region of the neck, and hairs likewise on each side; at the armpits, glands and hairs; the groins and the pubic region, similarly to the armpits — gland and hair. These are the hollows of the body, and easily disposed to excess of fluid; for these parts work and move more than any other parts of the body. The other parts that have glands only — such as the intestines, which also have glands, larger ones toward the omentum — have no hairs. 5 For in stagnant and waterlogged places of the earth the seed does not grow nor is it willing to come up out of the ground, but rots and is suffocated by the excess; for the seed is overcome. So also in the intestines, the excess and the abundant fluid overcome, and they would not grow hairs. The glands there are larger than anywhere else in the body; and the glands in the intestines function by squeezing out the waterlogging, while the intestines receive from their vessels into the omenta and pass the moisture down; and the omentum distributes it to the glands. The kidneys also have glands; for these too are saturated with much moisture — the glands here being larger than the other glands; for the fluid that flows into the kidneys is not absorbed by them but flows through down toward the bladder, so that whatever they profit from the channels, this they draw toward themselves. 7 There are also other glands in the body, very small, but I do not wish to lead the account astray; for the writing is directed toward the most significant ones. Now I shall ascend in the account and speak of the glands of the whole body in the neck. The neck has glands on each of its sides, one on each side, and these glands are called the tonsils (paristhmia). Their function is as follows: the head lies above, being hollow and rounded and full of the moisture that comes to it from the rest of the body; and at the same time the body sends up all manner of vapors into the head from below, which the head in turn sends back again; for what flows in cannot remain settled without a resting-place — unless the head is in pain; then it does not release it but holds it fast. But when it releases the drawing toward the glands, the flow occurs, and the stream does no harm, so long as it is small and moderate and the glands are in control. For if a sharp flux flows in abundantly: if it is sharp and glutinous, the neck becomes inflamed, swells up, and is drawn taut, and so it proceeds to the ear — if into both sides, each side; if into one side, that side is in pain. If the flux is phlegm-like and copious and sluggish, inflammation arises in this way also; and the inflammation, being a fluid at a standstill, produces scrofulous growths (choirades). These are the more serious diseases of the neck. Into the armpits the flux also runs, but when there is an abundance of sharp ichor, in this way too swellings (phymata) arise. 8 In the same manner in the groins the gland draws the moisture from the parts above it; if otherwise it receives an excess, a bubo forms, suppuration follows, and inflammation arises, similarly to the armpits and the neck — it seems to him to yield the same benefits and harms. So much for these matters. The intestines receive large saturation from both foods and drinks, and also the moisture from beneath the skin; all this is consumed in a similar way to what was described before; and the intestines do not for the most part produce diseases, just as occurs also in the joints; for there are many glands there, spread open and not deeply hollow, and no great excess falling to one rather than another, since as each one tends to gain an advantage, not a single one is then able to hold an excess, but each receives a small confluent amount, divided into many in the joint: there is equality among them. 10 The head too has its glands — the brain resembling a gland. For the brain is both white and friable, just like glands, and it renders the same benefits to the head as the glands do, for the reasons I have stated: the brain, serving in defense, deprives the moisture of its place and sends the excess from the flows outward to the extremities. The brain is larger than the other glands, and the hairs on the head are larger than other hairs — for the brain is larger and lies in the wide space of the head. It also produces diseases, both lesser and greater than the other glands, whenever it sends its own surplus downward into the body. 11 Flows from the head, until they are separated off, go by nature through the ears, through the eyes, through the nostrils — these three; and others through the palate into the pharynx, into the stomach; and others through vessels to the spinal marrow, to the hips — all told, seven. These, as they depart, are the waste-products of the brain; and if they do not depart, disease comes to it. 12 So also for the rest of the body: if they go inward and not outward, there is great disturbance for the flows themselves, and from within there is ulceration. If the brain sends out a sharp flux, it eats into and ulcerates the surfaces it flows upon; and when the descent is a sufficient mass coming down, the flow does not relent until it draws off the bulk of what is coming down — dispatching outward what flows in, receiving another, always settling into the same condition — and draws the fluids and causes diseases. Both together in a state of neglect enfeeble the nature; and if it suffers, there are two kinds of harm. For the passions of the nature, the aforementioned flows bear the excess badly and cause biting that is unaccountable and unfamiliar; and the brain itself incurs suffering and is itself not healthy. If it is being gnawed, it falls into great turmoil, and the mind goes senseless, and the brain goes into spasm and draws the whole human being with it, and sometimes the person cannot speak and is suffocated — this condition is called apoplexy. At other times the flux itself is not sharp, but being a large mass that has fallen upon it, it causes distress, and the mind is disturbed, and the person goes about thinking strange things and seeing strange things, bearing the character of the disease with grinning smiles and bizarre apparitions. Another flow toward the eyes produces eye-inflammations (ophthalmiai), and the eyes swell. 13 If the catarrh runs toward the nostrils, it causes a biting sensation in the nasal passages, and nothing else serious; for the passages of these are wide and sufficient to serve themselves; and besides, what comes out through them is not congested. The ears, on the other hand, have a winding and narrow channel; and the brain is close to them and presses in upon them. One suffering this disease for the most part separates off discharge through the ear in the course of time from the dense flow, at fixed intervals, and foul-smelling pus flows out. Thus flows that come out externally are visible to the eye and not at all deadly. But if the flux goes backward through the palate, the phlegm reaching the belly — the bellies of these patients run, but they are not diseased by it; if the phlegm stays below and does not pass, ileus results. 14 The conditions are chronic. In others, through the palate to the pharynx — if it flows copiously and for a long time — the diseases are wasting ones (phthinades); for the lungs fill up with phlegm, and pus forms; this eats through the lungs, and the sick do not recover easily. And the judgment of the physician — whether he be good and whether he be quick-witted — is in most cases at a loss as to the cause. Another disease comes through vessels to the spinal marrow from a catarrh of the head; it shoots down there upon the sacrum, the spinal marrow carrying the flow with it, and deposits it in the sockets of the hips. The hips — and if wasting is produced, the person wastes away and grows faint, both in this way and that, and has no will to live. For the spine suffers quickly, and the feet and thighs suffer along with it, and in the end they are entirely destroyed over a long time of caring, and so the person is exhausted and dies. These things I have said concerning flows from the head. And the passions of the brain and other diseases — derangements and manias — are all dangerous, and both the brain and the other glands are in distress; for there is both tension and another meeting-point of the body right there. 16 But glands in the chest are called breasts (mastoi), and when separated out they produce milk — in those in whom they produce milk; in those in whom they do not, not. Women produce it; men do not. In women the constitution is loose-textured around the glands, as in the rest of the body, and they transform the nourishment they draw toward themselves into milk; and from the womb it comes to the breasts as nourishment for the child after birth, which the omentum squeezes out and pushes upward in excess, being compressed by the embryo. In males, both the constriction and the density of the body contribute greatly to the glands not being large; for the male is compact and like a dense garment both to sight and to touch, while the female is loose-textured and slack and like wool both to sight and to touch. So the loose-textured and soft does not hold back the moisture but lets it pass; while the male constitution would not admit it, being dense and unyielding, and exertion strengthens his body, so that there is no passage through which the surplus will be taken up. Thus this account compels both the chest and the breasts and the rest of the body of women to be slack and soft, both because of inactivity and because of what has been said before; and for men the opposite. The breasts too produce swellings (phymata), inflammations, when the milk putrefies; but they have the same benefits as those spoken of before — they ward off the surplus of the rest of the body. 17 Evidence in women who have lost a breast by disease or some other misfortune: the voice becomes bold, fluid goes into the stomach, they salivate, they suffer headache, and from these things they fall ill. For the milk coming from the womb and flowing on, just as it was sent upward before into the upper vessels — having no appropriate vessels of its own — falls in with the governing parts of the body, the heart and the lung, and they are suffocated.