CHAP. I. Of an Hydrocephalos or watry tumor which commonly affects the heads of Infants;
THe Greeks call this Disease Hydrocephalos, as it were a Dropsie of the Head,* 1.1 by a waterish humor; being a disease almost peculiar to Infants newly born. It hath for an external cause the violent compression of the head by the hand of the Midwife, or otherwise at the birth, or by a fall, contusion, and the like. For hence comes a breaking of a vein, or artery, & an effusion of the bloud under the skin. Which by corruption becoming whayish, lastly, degenerateth into a certain waterish humor. It hath also an inward cause, which is the abundance of serous and acrid bloud, which by its tenuity and heat sweats through the pores of the vessels, sometimes between the Musculous skin of the head, and the Pericranium; sometimes between the Pericranium and the skull; and sometimes between the skull and membrane called Dura mater,* 1.2 and otherwhiles in the ventricles of the Brain.
The signs of it, contained in the space between the Musculous skin and the Pericranium,* 1.3 are a ma∣nifest tumor without pain, soft, and much yielding to the pressure of the fingers. The Signs when it remaineth between the Pericranium and the skull, are for the most part like the fore-named, un∣less it be that the Tumor is a little harder, and not so yielding to the finger, by reason of the parts between it and the finger; And also there is somewhat more sense of pain. But when it is in the space between the skull and Dura-mater, or in the ventricles of the Brain, or of the whole substance thereof, there is a dulness of the senses, as of the sight and hearing; the tumor doth not yield to the touch, unless you use strong impression, for then it sinketh somewhat down, espe∣cially in Infants newly born; who have their skuls almost as soft as wax, and the junctures of their Sutures lax, both by nature, as also by accident, by reason of the humor contained therein moisten∣ing and relaxing all the adjacent parts; the humor contained here lifts up the skull somewhat more high, especially at the meetings of the Sutures; which you may thus know, because the Tu∣mor being pressed, the humor flies back into the secret passage of the Brain.
To conclude, the pain is more vehement, the whole head more swollen, the fore-head stands somewhat further out, the eye is fixt and immoveable, and also weeps by reason of the serous hu∣mor sweating out of the Brain.
Vesalius writes, that he saw a Girl of two years old,* 1.4 whose head was thicker than any man's head by this kind of Tumor, and the skull not bony, but membranous, as it useth to be in Abortive-births, and that there was nine pound of water ran out of it.
Abucrasis tells, that he saw a child whose head grew every day bigger by reason of the watery moisture contained therein, till at length the tumor became so great, that his neck could not bear