NOTES

BOQK II

:'"The leading authority in Arabic on the poxes, »arsolae (which
may include chicken—pox), and morbWl, which includes measles
and scarlet fever, was the Persian Razes (Ar—Rä&zi), Director of the
pest—house of Baghdad (850—923 ^. ».). From the Arabian writers
and their followers Fracastorius derives his statement that these
fevers, which they regarded as closely related, are depurative, and
due to the menstrual blood which nourished the foetus or remained
in "*the pores of the flesh,' in porosatatibus carnis. Hence they are
almost peculiar to childhood and it is desirable to have them early.

^Such translators of Arabian medical works were Gerard of
Cremona (1114—1187) and Alpagus of Belluno (ffor. 1540), who both.
translated into Latin the Canon of Avicenna.

s At Milan, morbilli was called sofersa, and elsewhere, sometimes,
rosagia or rosalia. ''*Es bedarf keines Wortes mehr, um die Ansicht
dass die Morbilli der Aerzte, die Sofersa, Sturola, Scurola und
Rosagia des Volkes den Masern (measles), vorzüglich aber dem
Scharlach entsprechen (worauf vielleicht selbst der Name 'Scu—
rola' hindeutet), über jeden Zweifel zu erheben. Haeser, Vol.
III. p. 69. I

4 Exanthemata (Greek 4»6os, flower), lit. "outflowerings.*

5 Since small—pox, under »arsoZae, is so lightly treated by Fracas—
torius, as & malady to which praectically everyone was then subject,
it must have been & mild and rarely fatal strain.  In fact Widmann,
at the end of the 15th cent., says that morbilli are more dangerous
on the whole than »artolae. But in 'A Letter to a Friend', 1690,
Sir Thomas Browne says: '"The Small—pox grows more pernicious
than the Great"', i. e. than syphilis, often called Great Pox, from
the French, grosse v&role.

$Tn Greek medicine, the equivalent of sanies is ïxop, ichor.
Celsus, V. 26. 20, on the discharges from ulcers, distinguishes sanies
from true pus; it i is, he says, thinner than blood, and glutinous, but
less so than pus. Fo avoid a longer term such as sero-sangulnolent
secretion', I regularly translate sanies by 'matter'.

7L1terally (gofter', i. e. it has more moisture and warmth; see
p. 109.

8 For occult properties (abditae causae), to which were referred
all insoluble questions, a resource peculiarly alien to the truly

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