Tes iatrikes kartos, or, A treatise de morborum capitis essentiis & pronosticis adorned with above three hundred choice and rare observations ... / by Robert Bayfield ...

CAP. VII. De Capitis Contusione.

COntusio capitis, The contusion of the head, is a smiting or knocking together of the same (the external part thereof mean while, for the most part, appearing sound and entire) by some∣thing that is weighty, hard, obtuse and blunt.

Si musculi temporales contundantur, delirium, pa∣ralysis, convulsio, & mors inde sequitur.

Petrus Pachequus, a famous Physitian, declares that a nephew of his, receiving a bruise on his head, became sad, and complained a little of head∣ach. A moneth after he fell into a Fever, cum somnolentia & capitis dolore: Ever and anon he rose up and cryed out; on the seventh day of his fever, he voided corrupt matter from his nose, and presently died.

A maid, twenty years of age, received a blow with a stone a little above her forehead, and went for all that about her usual business. Howbeit three days after she complained of a dull pain in her

head, she became sleepy, and was a little feverish. Upon the seventeenth day certain convulsive mo∣tions appear; upon the twenty an Imposthume breaking, and greenish quittour coming out of her nostrils, she died.

A certain Gentleman fell backwards; he re∣mained some days intent upon his business, after∣ward he began to rave, to desire fire, saying that he was cold; to be sleepy. He had a bad night, ever and anon putting his hand unto his head. Up∣on the eleventh day the imposthume broke, and voiding purulent quittour out of his mouth, he suddenly died.

A certain young man, twenty eight years old, fell down headlong upon the left Bregma, upon a marble pavement, whence he received a contu∣sed wound, without any fracture of the skull, and being he was of a sanguine temperature; by occa∣sion of this wound a Fever took him on the se∣venth day, with a continual delirium, and a Phleg∣monous tumor, which possessed his whole head and neck; yet was he cured by losing twenty se∣ven saucers of blood, drawn away at five times, within the space of four days.