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fell away in large quantities. The flux which formed
was not like pus, but was a different sort of putre-faction
with a copious and varied flux. If any of these
symptoms occurred in the head, there was loss of
hair from all the head and from the chin ; the bones
were bared and fell away, and there were copious
fluxes. Fever was sometimes present and sometimes
absent. These symptoms were terrifying rather
than dangerous. For whenever they resulted in
suppuration or some similar coction the cases usually
recovered. But whenever the inflammation and the
erysipelas disappeared without producing any such
abscession, there were many deaths. The course of
the disease was the same to whatever part of the
body it spread. Many lost the arm and the entire
forearm. If the malady settled in the sides there
was rotting either before or behind. In some cases
the entire thigh was bared, or the shin and the
entire foot. But the most dangerous of all such
cases were when the pubes and genital organs were
attacked. Such were the sores which sprang from
an exciting cause. In many cases, however, sores
occurred in fevers, before a fever, or supervening on
fevers. In some of these also, when an abscession
took place through suppuration, or when a seasonable
disturbance of the bowels occurred or a passing of
favourable urine, this gave rise to a solution ; but
when none of these events happened, and the symptoms
disappeared without a sign, death resulted. It
was in the spring that by far the greater number of
cases of erysipelas occurred, but they continued
throughout the summer and during autumn.
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