Acrasia
Acrasia grece intemperantia conplexionis corporis Cassius felix.
Apparatus:
Acrasia BH ef | Actasia AC {'r' misread as 't'}
intemperantia (-pera- C) AC | ĩ tẽperatia BH | intemperancia (ĩ- f) ef
cõplexionis (con- f) CH f | conplexioĩs A | cõplecsioĩs B | complexionis e
Translation:
Acrasia is Greek for humoral imbalance of the body, as mentioned in Cassius Felix.
Commentary:
Greek ἀκρασία /akrasía/ means "bad mixture; ill temperature", a word that occurs already in Theophrastus and Hippocrates.
Simon alludes to Cassius Felix’s De medicina, 6, ed. Fraisse (2001: 17), Ad cantabriem capitis {"On scurf or dandruff of the head"}, where he says:
Cantabriem Graeci pityriasin vocant. Emergit frequenter ex humori acri vel intemperantia corporis quam Graeci acrasian vocant – "Scurf or dandruff the Greeks call pityriasis. It is frequently brought about by a sharp humour or a humoral imbalance of the body, which the Greeks call acrasia {'bad mixture'}".
The words Cassius uses for "scurf dandruff" are cantabries, of uncertain etymology and only occurring in his work, and Greek πιτυρίασις /pityríasis/, id., derived from πίτυρον /pítyron/ "husk of corn, bran"; i.e. pityriasis means "a bran-like skin eruption". The word has survived in medical terminology.
