Dementia and foolishness

The difference between clouding of consciousness and dementia and foolishness is that although both are disorders of the mind and the cause that gives rise to both of these diseases is rooted in the middle ventricle of the brain, clouding of consciousness is damage to mental abilities in the direction of their change, and dementia and foolishness there is damage to them towards insufficiency or disappearance. The condition of such a patient resembles old age and childishness. You already know that there are three types of brain disorders. As for the causes of this disease, it can be either simple coldness, or coldness with dryness, covering the substance of the middle ventricle of the brain over the course of days and over long periods, or coldness with mucous matter located in the cavities of the blood vessels of the brain. The cause of such damage is precisely coldness, and not warmth, for this damage represents the disappearance or reduction of mental abilities, and warmth stimulates thinking, which is one of the types of pneuma movement; Thanks to heat, the pneuma moves from the front of the brain to its back and back. Warmth excites and promotes movement, while hardening inhibits movement. That is why the nature of this part of the brain was created to be prone to warmth, and this part is placed in the middle, so that in it the transition of what is imagined into memorization takes place. You have already learned about representation and memorization in your place.

This disease is treated by warming and moistening the brain if it is caused by dryness, or by dissolving the matter in the brain, and by strong stools and vomiting with shikanjubin from sea onions and radish seeds, if the disease is due to matter. Along with this, you should take up strengthening the heart with the help of medicines intended for this, for example, musk medicine, mithridate, mufarrikh and the like. We should not delay the discussion here, because the methods of applying this kind of measures are explained above in the rules of treatment. The patient should be placed in a bright room, and in general - wakefulness, insomnia, light and reduced nutrition, the desire to make the nature more substantial, thinning and balancing the blood and reducing its quantity, as well as warming it to such an extent that it does not boil too much and does not form vapors and would only be hot and rarefied - all this is among the means that sharpen and enlighten the mind. There is no greater enemy to reason than overflowing with food and moisture. Dryness harms the mind not in the sense of reduction, but in the sense of excessive acceleration of the movement of the pneuma, or because the pneuma greatly decreases and dissipates from the slightest movement.