CHAPTER II. CURE OF DIABETES.
THE affection of diabetes is a species of dropsy, both in cause
and in condition, differing only in the place by which the
humour runs. For, indeed, in ascites the receptacle is the
peritonæum, and it has no outlet, but remains there and accumulates.
But in diabetes, the flow of the humour from the
affected part and the melting are the same, but the defluxion
is determined to the kidneys and bladder; and in dropsical
cases this is the outlet when the disease takes a favourable
turn; and it is good when it proves a solution of the cause,
and not merely a lightening of the burden. In the latter
disease the thirst is greater; for the fluid running off dries
the body.
But the remedies for the stoppage of the melting are
the same as those for dropsy. For the thirst there is need
of a powerful remedy, for in kind it is the greatest of
all sufferings; and when a fluid is drunk, it stimulates the
discharge of urine; and sometimes as it flows off it melts and
carries away with it the particles of the body. Medicines,
then, which cure thirst are required, for the thirst is great with
an insatiable desire of drink, so that no amount of fluid would
be sufficient to cure the thirst. We must, therefore, by all
means strengthen the stomach, which is the fountain of the
thirst. When, therefore, you have purged with the hiera, use
as epithemes the nard, mastich, dates, and raw quinces; the
juice of these with nard and rose-oil is very good for lotions;
their pulp, with mastich and dates, form a cataplasm. And the
mixture of these with wax and the nard ointment is good;
or the juice of acacia and of hypocistis, both for lotions and
cataplasms.
But the water used as drink is to be boiled with autumn
fruit. The food is to be milk, and with it the cereals, starch,
groats of spelt (
alica), gruels. Astringent wines to give tone
to the stomach, and these but little diluted, in order to dissipate
and clear away the other humours; for thirst is engendered
by saltish things. But wine, which is at the same
time astringent and cooling, proves beneficial by inducing a
change and good temperament; for to impart strength, sweet
wine is like blood, which also it forms. The compound
medicines are the same, as that from vipers, the Mithridate,
that from autumn fruit, and the others which are useful in
dropsy. But the whole regimen and course of life is the
same.
