A compleat discourse of wounds, both in general and particular whereunto are added the severall fractures of the skull, with their variety of figures : as also a treatise of gunshot-wounds in general / collected and reduced into a new method by John Brown ...

CHAP. XXXVI.

Of an Abscess of the Brain.

THis is the Second Mischief which may happen to the Brain; yet many there are who deny any Ab∣scesses can or may be made in the body of the Brain; and thus endeavouring to prop up their Opinions, do strive to bring many others into their Opinion and Errour.

But these both Authority and Experience do easily confute and contradict: For here first Hippocrates writes, If either Matter, Water or Blood, do flow through the Nostrils, Mouth or Ears, of any which is troubled with Pain in his Head, these will soon discharge it. And Ga∣len, Avicen, and Rhasis do affirm, That Nature hath found out these as its most proper Channels, to empty and discharge its Excrements, and hereby to exonerate the Matter which is bred in the Brain.

* 1.1 And although this Event is by many Authors propo∣sed desperate, yet Franciscus Arcaeus Lib. 1. Cap. 6. doth relate some Stories, wherein he hath cured some People hereof, and doth bring in an Example of one who received a hurt at the City of Valuerda, ten miles from the Town of Llerena; (such a History he writes is not extant) who by the Divine Assistance, who gives the chief blessing to the means, was perfectly recover∣ed: And thus it was; While some Workmen were at

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their Labours, about building a Tower in that City, a Stone falling from the rest, which was a Cubit inlength and breadth, and 12 inches in thickness, and in weight 24 pounds: This Stone falling from the others, as it was hoisting up, fell down, and bruised, depressed, and shivered his Skull. Hereupon the Patient fell to the ground, and there lay near half an hour, and was given over for a dead man, being sensless, and was thence car∣ried to his House; and hence followed commotion of his Brain, and for three whole days he not only lost his Speech, but Motion too; a great part of his bones of his Head were depressed, and laid upon the Brain, and blood flew both out of his Eyes and Ears; his Head and Neck was tumified, and looked of a black colour. After the 8th day, the Head opened spontaneously, both from the Sinciput and Occiput, and also in either side; and then three Apostemes brake forth, the Bones being restored to the proper places. The 3d day following his Speech came to him, although imperfectly, and his Eyes open∣ed; and the 20th day following he began to see, and re∣cover his senses, and within the space of four months he was perfectly cured, and being a young man was after∣wards married.

And because Putrifaction and Sphacelus of the Brain are deadly Symptoms, and not to be found out by the open∣ing of the Skull after the Party be dead, I shall not en∣large on these, save only I will conclude this Chapter with that of Coiter. Lib. Observat. Anatom. & Chirurg. who writes of having dissected many Heads which have been wounded, in which he hath found more than half of the Brain putrified, and the Ventricle on the same side to be accompanied with a fetid, green, and thick Matter, and to have seen in the Cerebellary Substance very putrid Apostemes.

Notes

• * 1.1

  History.