more severe, but that no pain had ever been experienced in the feet.
Hence I was unwilling to bleed him at all from the left hand, but I
bled him from the right foot. A physician who had treated him before,
and had bled him from the right hand for acute swelling of the joints
of the left, quieted, indeed, the pain in the left hand, but diverted
the disease to the right, where a swelling developed larger than in
the left. And when I asked him about this, he understood that I knew
more about medicine than the other doctor did. And this is one of
the reasons why one ought to divert the material to another part,
especially when the pain is so located that it may be increased at
the beginning. For under such conditions we ought to refrain from
bleeding, frictions and other treatment which may attract the
_materies morbi_ to the part. Indeed we ought to require derivation of
the materies to another part whenever the affected locality contains
one of the nobler organs, towards which the material is directing, or
may direct its course. For instance: A person is suffering pain in
the joints of the right hand, but has also an acute swelling in the
bladder, the kidneys or the womb. Now, I say that in such a case we
ought not to bleed from the hand, because if we do we shall injure the
organ affected by the swelling. Perhaps, however, we may bleed from
the right foot, provided we understand that there is on the right side
a sanguineous tumor, the danger of which is greater than that of the
swelling on the right hand. Again, suppose in the liver or in the
right kidney an acute tumor, and in the joints of the right hand there
is present a moderate pain. I say that we ought first to medicate the
more dangerous lesion, and, possibly, two results may be obtained by
the attraction of the peccant material. Or suppose a woman has gout in
her hand, and with this a suppression of the menstrual flow. I say she
ought to be bled from the foot and not from the hand for two objects,
to solicit the material from the diseased hand, and to provoke a