Part 8
Wherefore it should be known that one constitution differs much from
another as to the facility with which dislocations in them may be
reduced, and one articular cavity differs much from another, the one
being so constructed that the bone readily leaps out and another less
so; but the greatest difference regards the binding together of the
parts by the nerves (
ligaments?) which are slack in some and tight
in others. For the humidity in the joints of men is connected with
the state of the ligaments, when they are slack and yielding; for
you may see many people who are so humid (
flabby?) that when they
choose they can disarticulate their joints without pain, and reduce
them in like manner. The
[p. 215] habit of the body also occasions a certain
difference, for in those who are in a state of embonpoint and fleshy
the joint is rarely dislocated, but is more difficult to reduce; but
when they are more attenuated and leaner than usual, then they are
subject to dislocations which are more easily reduced. And the following
observation is a proof that matters are so; for in cattle the thighs
are most apt to be dislocated at the hip-joint, when they are most
particularly lean, which they are at the end of winter, at which time
then they are particularly subject to dislocations (if I may be allowed
to make such an observation while treating of a medical subject);
and therefore Homer has well remarked, that of all beasts oxen suffer
the most at that season, and especially those employed at the plow
as being worked in the winter season. In them, therefore, dislocations
happen most frequently, as being at that time most particularly reduced
in flesh. And other cattle can crop the grass when it is short, but
the ox cannot do so until it becomes long; for, in the others, the
projection of the lip is slender, and so is the upper lip, but in
the ox the projection of the lip is thick, and the upper jaw is thick
and obtuse, and therefore they are incapable of seizing short herbs.
But the
solidungula as having prominent teeth in both their front
jaws, can crop the grass and grasp it with their teeth while short,
and delight more in short grass than in rank; for, in general, short
grass is better and more substantial than rank, as having not yet
given out its fructification. Wherefore the poet has the following
line:
"As when to horned cattle dear the vernal season comes,"
1
because rank grass appears to be most sought after by them. But otherwise in the ox, this joint is slacker than in other animals, and, therefore, this
animal drags his foot in walking more than any other, and especially
when lank and old. For all these reasons the ox is most particularly
subject to dislocations; and I have made the more observations respecting
him, as they confirm
[p. 216]all that was said before on this subject. With
regard, then, to the matter on hand, I say that dislocations occur
more readily, and are more speedily reduced in those who are lean
than in those who are fleshy; and in those who are humid and lank
there is less inflammation than in such as are dry and fleshy, and
they are less compactly knit hereafter, and there is more mucosity
than usual in cases not attended with inflammation, and hence the
joints are more liable to luxations; for, in the main, the articulations
are more subject to mucosities in those who are lean than in those
who are fleshy; and the flesh of lean persons who have not been reduced
by a proper course of discipline abounds more with mucosity than that
of fat persons. But in those cases in which the mucosity is accompanied
with inflammation, the inflammation binds (
braces?) the joint, and
hence those who have small collections of mucosities are not very
subject to dislocations, which they would be if the mucosity had not
been accompanied with more or less inflammation.
