CHAPTER VIII. CURE OF THE AFFECTIONS ABOUT THE COLUMELLA (OR
UVULA).
OF the affections which form about the
columella, some
require
to be treated by excision; but the surgical treatment of such
cases does not come within the design of this work. Some
are to be treated as acute affections; for some of them readily
prove fatal by suffocation and dyspnœa. These are the diseases
which we call
uva and
columella; for both are attended
with inflammation and increase in thickness and length, so
that the parts hang down, and come into the
arteria aspera.
The
columna is of equal thickness from the base to the extremity
in the palate: the
uva is of unequal thickness; for its base
at the palate is slender, whereas at its extremity it is rounded
and thick, with redness and lividity, whence it gets the appellation
of
uva. These, then, must be speedily relieved; for the
death from suffocation is very speedy.
If, then, the patients be young, we must open the vein at the
elbow, and evacuate copiously by a larger incision than usual;
for such an abstraction frees one from suffocation, as it were,
from strangulation. It is necessary, also, to inject with a mild
clyster, but afterwards with an acrid one, again and again,
until one has drawn from the parts above by revulsion; and
let ligatures be applied to the extremities above the ankles
and knees, and above the wrists and forearms to the arms.
But if the suffocation be urgent, we must apply a cupping-instrument
to the occiput and to the thorax, with some scarifications,
and also do everything described by me under
synanche; for the mode of death is the same in both. We
must also use the same medicines to the mouth, both astringents
and emollients, with fomentation of the external parts,
cataplasms, and liniments to the mouth. For the forms named
columella and
uva, as an astringent medicine take the juice of
pomegranate, acacia dissolved in honey or water, hypocistis,
Samian, Lemnian, or Sinopic earth, and the inspissated juice
of sour grapes. But if the diseased part be ulcerated, gum
and starch moistened in the decoction of roses or of dates, and
the juice of ptisan or of spelt (
tragus). But in
columella let
there be more of the stronger medicines, from myrrh,
costus,
1
and cyperus;
2 for the
columella endures
these acrid substances.
But should the part suppurate, in certain cases even the bones
of the palate have become diseased, and the patients have
died, wasted by a protracted consumption. The remedies of
these will be described elsewhere.
