CHAPTER XI
TREATMENT OF ELEPHANTIASIS

Those writers who have discussed the treatment of elephan—
tia have considered simply the substance of which it consists,
and moreover have spoken of the treatment of that type only
which arises originally in ourselves. 'The form of elephantia
which is contraeted by contagion from another person, they
have certainly failed to discuss with reference to the fact that
it contains germs of contagion, and this is true also of the type
that arises originally in ourselves; yet this was surely what they
ought to have done. 'Take a case of elephantia that has been
contracted by contagion, though the patient is otherwise in
good health, and there is no excess of blacek bile present. I ask,
in Heaven's name, what are you going to do in the initial stage?
If you reply that you will try to mature and evacuate the sub—
stance, why then did Archigenes, in treating cases that arise
originally in ourselves, employ depilatory salves'*3 and caustics,
or remedies akin to caustics? Why do we not employ these
means in treating cancer, since the same sort of substance is
present in both maladies? 'The answer ought not to have been
simply that when there is an excess of melancholic humor in
the blood—vessels, which cannot be drawn away and digested by
the spleen, nature expels it to the outer skin, and there it causes
the pustules. No, they should have proceeded to state that
there is putrefaction there, and moreover that the putrefaction
is foul and confined, and that for this reason it contains also
germs of contagion; and that in this respect it differs from can—
cer.  Hence cancer calls for one sort of remedies and elephantia
for another sort, although the two correspond as to their deep—
seated substance. 'Therefore, when you hear Galen say some—
where that elephantia and cancer ought to be treated by one
and the same method because they consist of the same sub—
stance, you ought to understand him to mean the original deep—
seated substance.

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