The "De morbo quem gallicum nuncupant" (1497) of Coradinus Gilinus / by Cyril C. Barnard.

  • Cyril Cuthbert Barnard
Date:
1930
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: The "De morbo quem gallicum nuncupant" (1497) of Coradinus Gilinus / by Cyril C. Barnard. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    anger, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure”. Such then I deem to be the cause of this raging epidemic, but enough of these matters, I refrain from mentioning the lower causes, for they are the same as those which produce plague, alopecia, leprosy, scabies and other pustules, and these have been invest* igated by our predecessors. II. Essence. As regards the essence of this disease, I maintain that it may be classified under Ignis Persicus, which is proved in the first place on the authority of Galen (De sanitatis ingenio, lib. XIV, cap. 7) ]) for he says, “There is moreover another disease proceeding from gross and hot matter. It begins for the most part in a pustule, sometimes however without it. In the latter case the patients become aware of an itching sensation and generally scratch the place. Soon a pustule arises, which afterwards breaks and forms an ulcer with a crust like that caused by the cautery. Sometimes, however, when they scratch, not one but several small pustules arise resembling millet-seeds and clustering close together. From these likewise a crusty ulcer is formed”. This is exactly what is described by Avicenna (Book 4, Fen 3, Treatise 1, chapter 9, de igne persico), “But sometimes the name of Ignis Persicus is withheld from these cases in which there is a pustule of the rodent formica kind, adustive and blistering, containing movable, moist, choleric matter and slight blackness and putrefaction, accompanied by numerous variable pustules, moisture and an itching sensation of much ebullition”. Here also may be cited a passage from Cornelius Celsus (lib. V, cap. XXVIII, de igne persico sive sacro igne) “and often that which seemed to be sound, ulce¬ rates again” -). This confutes what some people say, that it may be elephantia, because elephantia begins in the face, as PLINY says (Historia naturalis, lib. XXVI, cap. I, de elephantia), it began for the most part in the face, and namely it took the nose first, where it put forth a little specke or pimple no bigger than a small lentill; but soon after, as it spread farther and ran over the whole bodie, a man should perceive the skin to be 1) Galen, Methodus medendi, lib. 14, cap. 10. 2) James Grieve’s translation, 1756, p, 306.