Chap. 5. Of the Diseases of the Caul, or Omentum.
BEcause the Omentum is a soft part and fat, fit by reason of its loosness to receive Humors that come from other parts: It is subject to divers Diseases, as the Mesentery and Pancreas: And these are not described by Authors, because they can scare be seen in living men, but only by Ana∣tomy, as you may see in some Stories in our Observations. Vesalius saith that he saw in a Body o∣pened, an Omentum so swoln that is weighed five pounds, when in its Natural condition it would weigh scare half a pound. Roussetus in lib. de partu Caesareo, reports that in Paris there was found a great Imposthume in the Omentum. Riolanus in his Anthropographia, saith that he saw an O∣mentum in a Noble Youth of ninteen yeers of age, so full of kernels, by which it received abundance of filthy Humors, the Mesentery and Pancreas being imposthumated, and the Spleen almost consu∣med. We also saw a Scirrhus Omentum in a Fryar of Montpelior all over the lower part of the Belly, and four fingers thick; it was of the color of the Spleen, so that it was probable that it was caused by Melancholly from thence, because he was of a Melanchollick temper, and the passage is ve∣ry open by the branches of the Spleen Veins, to the Omentum; by which branches (as Hippocrates teacheth, the water in a Dropsie is brought from the Spleen to the Omentum, from which by degrees it distils into the Cavity of the Abdomen.
But because the swelling of the Omentum can by no means be distinguished from that of the Mesen∣tery, therefore we cannot appoint a distinct knowledg. It is true, that the Tumors of the Omentum are easier known at the first touch, because it is immediately under the Peritonaeum; but the Me∣sentery is so united to it, and the Muscles of the lower Belly, that they are sent forth by suppuration through the Navel, or other external parts.
Yet this Difficulty of Knowledg, doth not hinder the Cure, because the same Medicines serve for all Tumors that are alike in all the parts of the belly: but the Cure is worse to be made in the Omen∣tum, because it hath not fit way, as other parts have for the purging of its self.