Celsus, De Medicina
W. G. Spencer, Ed.

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1 Thus far I have dealt with those classes of diseases which so affect bodies as a whole, that fixed situations cannot be assigned to them: I will now speak of diseases in particular parts. Diseases of all the internal parts and their treatment, however, will come under view more readily if I first describe briefly their institutions.

The head, then, and the structures within the mouth are not only bounded by the tongue and palate, but also by whatever is visible to our eyes. On the right and left sides around the throat, great blood-vessels named sphagatides, also arteries called carotids, run upwards in their course beyond the ears. But actually within the neck are placed glands, which at times become painfully swollen.

From that point two passages begin: one named the windpipe, the more superficial, leads to the lung; the deeper, the gullet, to the sm; the former takes in the breath, the latter food. Though their courses diverge, where they are joined, there is a little tongue in the windpipe, just below the fauces, which is raised when we[p. 357] breathe, and, when we swallow food and drink, closes the windpipe. Now the actual windpipe is rigid and gristly; in the throat it is prominent, in the remaining parts it is depressed. It consists of certain little rings, arranged after the likeness of those vertebrae which are in the spine, but in such a way that whilst rough on the outer surface, the inside is smooth like the gullet; descending to the praecordia, it makes a junction with the lung.

The lung is spongy, and so can take in the breath, and at the back it is joined to the spine itself, and it is divided like the hoof of an ox into two lobes. To the lung is attached the heart, which, muscular in nature, is placed under the left breast, and has two small stomach-like pockets. Now, under the heart and lung is a transverse partition of strong membrane, which separates the belly from the praecordia; it is sinewy, and many blood-vessels also take their course through it; it separates from the parts above not only the intestines but also the liver and the spleen. These organs are placed against it but under it, on the right and left sides respectively.

The liver, which starts from the actual partition under the praecordia on the right side, is concave within, convex without; its projecting part rest lightly on the stomach, and it is divided into four lobes. Outside its lower part the gall-bladder adheres to it: but the spleen to the left is not connected to the same partition, but to the intestine; in texture it is soft and loose, moderately long and thick; and it hardly projects at all from beneath the ribs into the belly, but is hidden under them for the most[p. 359] part. Now the foregoing are joined together. The kidneys on the other hand are different; they adhere to the loins above the hips, being concave on one surface, on the other convex; they are both vascular, have ventricles, and are covered by coats.

These then are the situations of the viscera. Now the gullet, which is the commencement of the intestines, is sinewy; beginning at the seventh spinal vertebra, it makes a junction in the region of the praecordia with the stomach. And the stomach, which is the receptacle of the food, consists of two coats; and it is placed between the spleen and the liver, both overlapping it a little. There are also fine membranes by which these three are interconnected, and they are joined to that partition, which I have described above as transverse.

Thence the lowest part of the stomach, after being directed a little to the right, is narrowed into the top of the intestine. This juncture the Greeks call pylorus, because, like a gateway, it lets thru into the parts below whatever we are to excrete.

From this point begins the fasting intestine, not so much infolded; it has this name because it does not hold what it has received, but forthwith passes it on into the parts below.

Beyond is the thinner intestine, infolded into many loops, its several coils being connected with the more internal parts by fine membranes; these coils are directed rather to the right side, to end in the region of the right hip; however, they occupy mostly the upper parts.

After that spot this intestine makes a junction crosswise with another, the thicker intestine; which, beginning on the right side, is long and pervious[p. 361] towards the left, but not towards the right, which is therefore called the blind intestine.

But that one which is pervious being widespread and winding, and less sinewy than the upper intestines, has a flexure on both sides, right and left, especially on the left side and in the lower parts and touches the liver and stomach, next it is joined to some fine membranes coming from the left kidney, and thence bending backwards and to the right, it is directed straight downwards to the place where it excretes; and so it is there named the straight intestine.

The omentum too, which overlies all these, is at its lower part smooth and compact, softer at its upper part; fat also is produced in it, which like the brain and marrow is without feeling.

Again from the kidneys, two veins, white in colour, lead to the bladder; the Greeks call them ureters, because they believe that through them the urine descending drops into the bladder.

Now the bladder, sinewy and in two layers at its bag, is at its neck bulky and fleshy; it is connected by blood-vessels with the intestine, and with that bone which underlies the pubes. The bladder itself is loose and rather free, and situated differently in men and women: for in men it is close to the straight intestine, being inclined rather to the left side; in women it is situated over the genitals, and whilst free above, is supported actually by the womb.

Again, in males, a longer and narrower urinary passage descends from the neck of the bladder into the penis; in women, a shorter and wider one presents itself over the neck of the womb. Now the womb in virgins is indeed quite small; in women, unless they are[p. 363] pregnant, it is not really much larger than a handful. Beginning over against the middle of the rectum by a straight narrow neck, which they call canalis, it is then turned a little towards the right hip joint; next, as it rises above the right intestine, its sides are fastened into the woman's ilia. Again, these ilia are situated between the hip joints and the pubes at the bottom of the abdomen. From them and from the pubes the abdominal wall extends upwards to the praecordia; it is covered visibly upon the outside by skin, inside by a smooth membrane which makes a junction with the omentum; and it is named by the Greeks peritoneal membrane.