Pain changes the pulse either because of its strength, or because it is felt in the dominant organ, or because of its duration. At first, pain excites the animal force and moves it to fight and protect itself from pain and ignites heat; therefore, the pulse becomes larger, faster and less frequent, because the “need for cooling” ultimately leads to a large and rapid pulse. When the pain, for the reasons we mentioned, reaches the level of harmfulness, the pulse begins to fall and deviate from the norm until it loses its great magnitude and speed, which are first replaced by a high frequency, and then the pulse becomes small, worm-shaped and ant-like. If the pain intensifies even more, this leads to a slow pulse and then to death.
Paragraph seventeen. About pulse in tumors
Among tumors there are those that cause fever, and this is due to their size or the importance of the organ affected by them. At the same time, they cause a change in the pulse throughout the body - I want to say: a change characteristic of fever; We will explain this issue further in its place.
Other tumors do not cause fever and change the normal pulse of the organ where they are located, due to their nature. Sometimes tumors change the pulse throughout the body, affecting it in a secondary way, that is, not because it is a tumor, but because it causes pain.
A tumor that changes the pulse changes it either due to its type, or according to its stage of development, or due to its size. Either it changes the pulse due to the fact that it is located in a given organ, or, finally, it changes it due to the obligatory side effects accompanying it.
As for the change in pulse due to the type of tumor, such is, for example, a hot tumor. Its quality causes the pulse to become sawtooth, shaking, trembling, fast and frequent, if this is not counteracted by some moisturizing factor; then the sawtooth disappears and is replaced by undulation. As for trembling, speed and pulse rate, they constantly accompany hot tumors.
Just as there are reasons that destroy the sawtooth of the pulse, there are also reasons that increase the sawtooth and make it more obvious.
A soft tumor makes the pulse wavy, but if it is very cold, the pulse becomes slow and rare. A hard tumor increases the sawtooth, and a boil, when it accumulates pus, due to the accompanying moistening and softening, turns the sawtooth pulse into a wave-like one and increases the unevenness with its severity. a As for speed and frequency, they often become easier due to the calming of incidental heat due to the maturation of the abscess.
The change in the pulse according to the stage of development of the tumor is expressed as follows: while the hot tumor is in the stage of increase, the sawtooth of the pulse and other irregularities that we mentioned also increase, and the pulse gradually becomes harder due to the increasing tension of the arteries and trembles more and more due to pain. When the development of the tumor approaches its end, then all manifestations of irregularities increase, except those that are subject to animal force; these manifestations in the pulse weaken, and its frequency and speed increase. Then, if this stage continues, the rapidity disappears and the pulse again becomes like an ant. When the tumor subsides and resolves or bursts, the pulse becomes strong, relieving the severity of the tumor, which suppressed the strength, and its trembling is relieved, since the stretching pain has decreased.
As for the size of the tumor, a large tumor requires that all these qualities of the pulse be larger and stronger, and a small one requires that they be smaller and weaker.
With regard to the organ where there is a tumor, it should be said that a tumor in the nervous organs causes an increase in the hardness and sawtooth of the pulse, and a tumor in the vascular organs causes an increase in size and increased unevenness - especially if arteries predominate in these organs, such as in the spleen and in the lungs. This large quantity is stable only as long as the force is stable.
Swelling in moist and soft organs, such as the brain and lungs, makes the pulse wavelike.
As for the change in the pulse of a tumor through a side effect, then, for example, a tumor in the lungs makes the pulse like that of those suffering from a sore throat, a tumor in the liver makes it like that of a skinny person, a tumor in the kidneys makes it stranguric. A tumor of a very sensitive organ, for example, the mouth of the stomach or the abdominal obstruction, makes the pulse spasmodic, leading to fainting.
Laws of pulse in mental phenomena
As for anger, it excites the mental force and suddenly spreads the pneuma, thereby making the pulse large, very high, fast and frequent. With anger, there should be no unevenness in the pulse, for this is an essentially homogeneous reaction, unless fear is mixed with anger, and one feeling or another predominates. The same thing happens if shame is mixed with anger, or if the mind argues with anger and tries to keep the angry person from getting excited, so that anger does not force him to rush at the person subjected to anger. But pleasure affects the pulse, moving outward slowly, and does not determine the speed of the pulse to the same extent as anger, without also determining its frequency; sometimes the “need” is satisfied even by increasing the pulse value, so that the pulse becomes slow and rare.
The pulse is the same during joy: in most cases it becomes larger, being soft, and tends to slow down and become less frequent.
As for grief, because of grief, warmth is locked up and goes deeper, and animal strength weakens. In this case, the pulse should be small, weak, rare and slow.
As for fright, sudden fright makes the pulse rapid, trembling, uneven and disorderly, but prolonged and gradual fright changes the pulse in the same way as grief.