Frenesis is so called either because it is a disorder of the mind (G. phrenes) or because its victims grind their teeth (L. frendere ‘to gnash the teeth’). This is a form of mental disturbance with violent behavior and dementia, a choleric affliction.
Hydrophobia is literally ‘fear of water’ (Gr. hydor ‘water’, phobos ‘fear’); compare the Latin term morbus lymphaticus, from lympha ‘water’. This is caused by the bite of a mad dog, or even by coming into contact with its saliva spilled on the ground, which will provoke either man or beast to madness and rage.
Epilemsia amounts to an attack or assault (Gr. epilepsia) on both mind and body. It arises from a superabundance of black bile acting on the brain. It is also called the falling (Lat. caduca) sickness because during an attack the patient falls down. Lay persons call victims of this disorder lunatici because they imagine that the demons follow the phases of the moon in playing their tricks, and also larvatici. Still other names are the great, divine, or comitial disease. Great it certainly is, in that it can make a healthy man fall down and foam at the mouth. It is called comitialis because, in pagan times, if someone had such an attack on a day set aside for a public assembly [Lat. comitium], the assembly was postponed. Among the Romans such a day was set aside each year in January.
Vertigo means a whirlwind that stirs up earth and throws it around. In the vertex of the human body, arteries and veins can likewise stir up a wind from undue moisture and relaxation, and cause the eyes to spin, and that too we call vertigo.
Cancer, Latin for ‘crab’, is named for its similarity to the sea creature. According to the physicians, no medicine can cure such a lesion. Although the part in which it arises is often excised so as to prolong the patient’s life, death nonetheless eventually ensues.