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OF ARETÆUS, THE CAPPADOCIAN, ON THE CAUSES AND SYMPTOMS OF ACUTE DISEASE
BOOK II.
[p. 270]
whereas the absence of pain, even in the great illnesses,
is attended with absence of the fear of death, and is more
dangerous than dreadful.
CHAPTER III. ON SYNCOPE
WELL by all means has the physician, and well have the common
people succeeded in the appellation of this affection! It
is, indeed, the name of a very acute malady; for what is there
greater or more acute than the power of Syncope ? and what
other name more appropriate for the designation of this
matter? what other organ more important than the heart for
life or for death? Neither is it to be doubted that syncope is
a disease of the heart, or that it is an injury of the vital powers
thereof--such is the rapidity and such the mode of the destruction.
For the affection is the solution of the bonds of the vital
power, being antagonistic to the constitution of the man; for
having seized fast thereon, it does not let go its hold, but
brings him to dissolution. Nor is it any great wonder; for
other diseases are peculiar to, and prove fatal to, certain organs,
in which they are engendered, and to which they attach
themselves. Thus pestilential and very malignant buboes
derive their origin from the liver, but from no other part;
tetanus, in like manner, from the nerves, and epilepsy from
the head. Thus, therefore, syncope is a disease of the heart
and of life. But such persons as regard it to be an affection of
the stomach, because by means of food and wine, and in
certain cases by cold substances, the powers have been restored
and the mischief expelled--these, it would seem to me, ought
to hold phrenitis to be a disease of the hair and skin of the
