Rhipiros

From Simon Online
Jump to: navigation, search

Rhipiros .g. Cassius felix tipus sordidus tertiane nothe.


Translation:

Rhipiros {"foul"} is the Greek word used by Cassius Felix for a foul intermittent fever of the tertian nothus kind.


Commentary:

Simon's extremely truncated entry refers to Cassius Felix, De medicina, 58, ed. Fraisse (2001: 164): Ad typum tertianum non manifestum.

1. Non manifestus tertianus a Graecis nothus appellatur. Hic typus sordidus Graecis ryparos appellatus... "On the type of tertian fever with an unpredictable progression. A tertian fever with an unpredictable progression is said by the Greeks to be nothus {"bastard or spurious, departing from the normal"}. This foul intermittent fever is called by the Greeks ryparos {'foul'}...".

The fever is called nothus "bastard, not the real son, not the real thing" because – as Cassius goes on to report - "it behaves similar to a true tertian fever on one day in two but it is found departing from the normal pattern at the actual hours of attack, and if it survives into autumn it often turns into a quartan fever".

τύπος /týpos/ here is used in its medical sense as "type or form of disease (esp. fever) with reference to the order and spacing of its attacks and intervals" (LSJ) as defined by Galen.

The basic meaning of Greek ῥυπαρός /rhyparós/ is "filthy, dirty; (metaph.) sordid, mean; uncultured" < ῥύπος /rhypos/ "dirt, filth".

νόθος /nóthos/ is a Greek adj. glossed by LSJ "bastard, baseborn, i.e. born of a slave or concubine; (of animals) cross-bred; (generally) spurious, counterfeit". This word was adopted into Latin as an adj. nothus id.


See also: Tipus

Next entry