uently seen in low fevers?

The following section, "_De inflatione vesice et dolore ejus_,"
discusses the retention of urine in fevers, and its treatment. Gilbert
says: "Inflation of, and pain in the bladder are sometimes symptoms
of acute fevers, since the humors descend into and fill the bladder."
If this occurs in an interpolated (remittent) fever, he directs the
patient to be placed in a bath of a decoction of pellitory up to the
umbilicus, "_et effundet urinam_." If the complication occurs in one
suffering from a continued fever, the bath should be made of wormwood
and a poultice should be placed over the bladder and genitals, "_et
statim minget_." The same effect may be produced by poultice mixed
with levisticum (lovage) or leaves of parsley. Singularly enough the
catheter is not mentioned, though this instrument, under the medieval
name of _argalia_ (cf. French algalie), is noticed frequently in the
section devoted to vesical calculus.

With the second book of the Compendium the system of the discussion of
diseases _a capite ad pedes_ is commenced, and produces some curious
associates. To the modern physician the sudden transition from
diseases of the scalp to fractures of the cranium seems at least
abrupt, if not illogical. It seems, therefore, wiser, in a hasty
review like the present, to take up the various pathological
conditions described by Gilbert in their modern order and relations,
and to thus facilitate the orientation of the reader.

The second book then opens with a consideration of the hair and scalp,
and their respective disorders.

The hair is a dry fume (_fumus siccus_), escaping from the body
through the pores of the scalp and condensed by contact with the air
into long, round cylinders. It increases rather by accretion than by
internal growth, and its color depends upon the humors. Thus red hair
arises from unconsumed blood or bile; white hair, from an excess of
phlegm; black hair, from the abundance of black-bile (_melancholia_),
etc. The use of the hair is for ornament, for protection and for the
distinction of the sexes. Numerous prescriptions for dyeing the hair,
for depilatories (_psilothra_), for the removal of misplaced hair and
for the destruction of vermin in the hair are carefully recorded.

Three varieties of soaps for medicinal use are described, and the
process of their manufacture indicated. The base of each is a
lixivium made from two parts of the ashes of burned bean-stalks