veins behind the ears down to the neck and nares, and obstructs the
passages for air, food and drink, so as to threaten suffocation." He
cautions us against the use of repressives, "lest the matter may run
to the heart," and recommends mollitives and dissolvents, such
as butter, dyaltea, hyssop and especially newly shorn wool (_lana
succida_), which, he says, is a strong solvent. Is this a reference
to the septic parotitis not unfrequently seen in low fevers?

The following section, "_De inflatione vesice et dolore ejus_,"
discusses the retention of urine in fevers, and its treatment. Gilbert
says: "Inflation of, and pain in the bladder are sometimes symptoms
of acute fevers, since the humors descend into and fill the bladder."
If this occurs in an interpolated (remittent) fever, he directs the
patient to be placed in a bath of a decoction of pellitory up to the
umbilicus, "_et effundet urinam_." If the complication occurs in one
suffering from a continued fever, the bath should be made of wormwood
and a poultice should be placed over the bladder and genitals, "_et
statim minget_." The same effect may be produced by poultice mixed
with levisticum (lovage) or leaves of parsley. Singularly enough the
catheter is not mentioned, though this instrument, under the medieval
name of _argalia_ (cf. French algalie), is noticed frequently in the
section devoted to vesical calculus.

With the second book of the Compendium the system of the discussion of
diseases _a capite ad pedes_ is commenced, and produces some curious
associates. To the modern physician the sudden transition from
diseases of the scalp to fractures of the cranium seems at least
abrupt, if not illogical. It seems, therefore, wiser, in a hasty
review like the present, to take up the various pathological
conditions described by Gilbert in their modern order and relations,