Hippocrates
460-377 B.C.E. - Wrote in Greek
Aphorisms
Written 400 B.C.E
Translated by Francis Adams
Aphorisms
By Hippocrates
Section I
1. Life is short, and Art long; the crisis fleeting; experience
perilous, and decision difficult. The physician must not only be prepared
to do what is right himself, but also to make the patient, the attendants,
and externals cooperate.
2. In disorders of the bowels and vomitings, occurring spontaneously,
if the matters purged be such as ought to be purged, they do good, and
are well borne; but if not, the contrary. And so artificial evacuations,
if they consist of such matters as should be evacuated, do good, and are
well borne; but if not, the contrary. One, then, ought to look to the country,
the season, the age, and the diseases in which they are proper or
not.
3. In the athletae, embonpoint, if carried to its utmost
limit, is dangerous, for they cannot remain in the same state nor be stationary;
and since, then, they can neither remain stationary nor improve, it only
remains for them to get worse; for these reasons the embonpoint should
be reduced without delay, that the body may again have a commencement of
reparation. Neither should the evacuations, in their case, be carried to
an extreme, for this also is dangerous, but only to such a point as the
person's constitution can endure. In like manner, medicinal evacuations,
if carried to an extreme, are dangerous; and again, a restorative course,
if in the extreme, is dangerous.
4. A slender restricted diet is always dangerous in chronic
diseases, and also in acute diseases, where it is not requisite. And again,
a diet brought to the extreme point of attenuation is dangerous; and repletion,
when in the extreme, is also dangerous.
5. In a restricted diet, patients who transgress are thereby
more hurt (than in any other?); for every such transgression, whatever
it may be, is followed by greater consequences than in a diet somewhat
more generous. On this account, a very slender, regulated, and restricted
diet is dangerous to persons in health, because they bear transgressions
of it more difficultly. For this reason, a slender and restricted diet
is generally more dangerous than one a little more liberal.
6. For extreme diseases, extreme methods of cure, as to
restriction, are most suitable.
7. When the disease is very acute, it is attended with extremely
severe symptoms in its first stage; and therefore an extremely attenuating
diet must be used. When this is not the case, but it is allowable to give
a more generous diet, we may depart as far from the severity of regimen
as the disease, by its mildness, is removed from the
extreme.
8. When the disease is at its height, it will then be necessary
to use the most slender diet.
9. We must form a particular judgment of the patient, whether
he will support the diet until the acme of the disease, and whether he
will sink previously and not support the diet, or the disease will give
way previously, and become less acute.
10. In those cases, then, which attain their acme speedily,
a restricted diet should be enjoined at first; but in those cases which
reach their acme later, we must retrench at that period or a little before
it; but previously we must allow a more generous diet to support the
patient.
11. We must retrench during paroxysms, for to exhibit food
would be injurious. And in all diseases having periodical paroxysms, we
must restrict during the paroxysms.
12. The exacerbations and remissions will be indicated by
the diseases, the seasons of the year, the reciprocation of the periods,
whether they occur every day, every alternate day, or after a longer period,
and by the supervening symptoms; as, for example, in pleuritic cases, expectoration,
if it occur at the commencement, shortens the attack, but if it appear
later, it prolongs the same; and in the same manner the urine, and alvine
discharges, and sweats, according as they appear along with favorable or
unfavorable symptoms, indicate diseases of a short or long
duration.
13. Old persons endure fasting most easily; next, adults;
young persons not nearly so well; and most especially infants, and of them
such as are of a particularly lively spirit.
14. Growing bodies have the most innate heat; they therefore
require the most food, for otherwise their bodies are wasted. In old persons
the heat is feeble, and therefore they require little fuel, as it were,
to the flame, for it would be extinguished by much. On this account, also,
fevers in old persons are not equally acute, because their bodies are
cold.
15. In winter and spring the bowels are naturally the hottest,
and the sleep most prolonged; at these seasons, then, the most sustenance
is to be administered; for as the belly has then most innate heat, it stands
in need of most food. The well-known facts with regard to young persons
and the athletae prove this.
16. A humid regimen is befitting in all febrile diseases,
and particularly in children, and others accustomed to live on such a
diet.
17. We must consider, also, in which cases food is to be
given once or twice a day, and in greater or smaller quantities, and at
intervals. Something must be conceded to habit, to season, to country,
and to age.
18. Invalids bear food worst during summer and autumn, most
easily in winter, and next in spring.
19. Neither give nor enjoin anything to persons during periodical
paroxysms, but abstract from the accustomed allowance before the
crisis.
20. When things are at the crisis, or when they have just
passed it, neither move the bowels, nor make any innovation in the treatment,
either as regards purgatives or any other such stimulants, but let things
alone.
21. Those things which require to be evacuated should be
evacuated, wherever they most tend, by the proper outlets.
22. We must purge and move such humors as are concocted,
not such as are unconcocted, unless they are struggling to get out, which
is mostly not the case.
23. The evacuations are to be judged of not by their quantity,
but whether they be such as they should be, and how they are borne. And
when proper to carry the evacuation to deliquium animi, this also should
be done, provided the patient can support it.
24. Use purgative medicines sparingly in acute diseases,
and at the commencement, and not without proper circumspection.
25. If the matters which are purged be such as should be
purged, the evacuation is beneficial, and easily borne; but, not withstanding,
if otherwise, with difficulty.
Section II
1. In whatever disease sleep is laborious, it is a deadly symptom;
but if sleep does good, it is not deadly.
2. When sleep puts an end to delirium, it is a good
symptom.
3. Both sleep and insomnolency, when immoderate, are
bad.
4. Neither repletion, nor fasting, nor anything else, is
good when more than natural.
5. Spontaneous lassitude indicates disease.
6. Persons who have a painful affection in any part of the
body, and are in a great measure sensible of the pain, are disordered in
intellect.
7. Those bodies which have been slowly emaciated should
be slowly recruited; and those which have been quickly emaciated should
be quickly recruited.
8. When a person after a disease takes food, but does not
improve in strength, it indicates that the body uses more food than is
proper; but if this happen when he does not take food, it is to be understood
evacuation is required.
9. When one wishes to purge, he should put the body into
a fluent state.
10. Bodies not properly cleansed, the more you nourish the
more you injure.
11. It is easier to fill up with drink than with
food.
12. What remains in diseases after the crisis is apt to
produce relapses.
13. Persons in whom a crisis takes place pass the night
preceding the paroxysm uncomfortably, but the succeeding night generally
more comfortably.
14. In fluxes of the bowels, a change of the dejections
does good, unless the change be of a bad character.
15. When the throat is diseased, or tubercles (phymata)
form on the body, attention must paid to the secretions; for if they be
bilious, the disease affects the general system; but if they resemble those
of a healthy person, it is safe to give nourishing food.
16. When in a state of hunger, one ought not to undertake
labor.
17. When more food than is proper has been taken, it occasions
disease; this is shown by the treatment.
18. From food which proves nourishing to the body either
immediately or shortly, the dejections also are immediate.
19. In acute diseases it is not quite safe to prognosticate
either death or recovery.
20. Those who have watery discharges from their bowels when
young have dry when they are old; and those who have dry discharges when
they are young will have watery when they are old.
21. Drinking strong wine cures hunger.
22. Diseases which arise from repletion are cured by depletion;
and those that arise from depletion are cured by repletion; and in general,
diseases are cured by their contraries.
23. Acute disease come to a crisis in fourteen
days.
24. The fourth day is indicative of the seventh; the eighth
is the commencement of the second week; and hence, the eleventh being the
fourth of the second week, is also indicative; and again, the seventeenth
is indicative, as being the fourth from the fourteenth, and the seventh
from the eleventh.
25. The summer quartans are, for the most part, of short
duration; but the autumnal are protracted, especially those occurring near
the approach of winter.
26. It is better that a fever succeed to a convulsion, than
a convulsion to a fever.
27. We should not trust ameliorations in diseases when they
are not regular, nor be much afraid of bad symptoms which occur in an irregular
form; for such are commonly inconstant, and do not usually continue, nor
have any duration.
28. In fevers which are not altogether slight, it is a bad
symptom for the body to remain without any diminution of bulk, or to be
wasted beyond measure; for the one state indicates a protracted disease,
and the other weakness of body.
29. If it appear that evacuations are required, they should
be made at the commencement of diseases; at the acme it is better to be
quiet.
30. Toward the commencement and end of diseases all the
symptoms are weaker, and toward the acme they are stronger.
31. When a person who is recovering from a disease has a
good appetite, but his body does not improve in condition, it is a bad
symptom.
32. For the most part, all persons in ill health, who have
a good appetite at the commencement, but do not improve, have a bad appetite
again toward the end; whereas, those who have a very bad appetite at the
commencement, and afterward acquire a good appetite, get better
off.
33. In every disease it is a good sign when the patient's
intellect is sound, and he is disposed to take whatever food is offered
to him; but the contrary is bad.
34. In diseases, there is less danger when the disease is
one to which the patient's constitution, habit, age, and the season are
allied, than when it is one to which they are not allied.
35. In all diseases it is better that the umbilical and
hypogastric regions preserve their fullness; and it is a bad sign when
they are very slender and emaciated; in the latter case it is dangerous
to administer purgatives.
36. Persons in good health quickly lose their strength by
taking purgative medicines, or using bad food.
37. Purgative medicines agree ill with persons in good
health.
38. An article of food or drink which is slightly worse,
but more palatable, is to be preferred to such as are better but less
palatable.
39. Old have fewer complaints than young; but those chronic
diseases which do befall them generally never leave
them.
40. Catarrhs and coryza in very old people are not
concocted.
41. Persons who have had frequent and severe attacks of
swooning, without any manifest cause, die suddenly.
42. It is impossible to remove a strong attack of apoplexy,
and not easy to remove a weak attack.
43. Of persons who have been suspended by the neck, and
are in a state of insensibility, but not quite dead, those do not recover
who have foam at the mouth.
44. Persons who are naturally very fat are apt to die earlier
than those who are slender.
45. Epilepsy in young persons is most frequently removed
by changes of air, of country, and of modes of life.
46. Of two pains occurring together, not in the same part
of the body, the stronger weakens the other.
47. Pains and fevers occur rather at the formation of pus
than when it is already formed.
48. In every movement of the body, whenever one begins to
endure pain, it will be relieved by rest.
49. Those who are accustomed to endure habitual labors,
although they be weak or old, bear them better than strong and young persons
who have not been so accustomed.
50. Those things which one has been accustomed to for a
long time, although worse than things which one is not accustomed to, usually
give less disturbance; but a change must sometimes be made to things one
is not accustomed to.
51. To evacuate, fill up, heat, cool, or otherwise, move
the body in any way much and suddenly, is dangerous; and whatever is excessive
is inimical to nature; but whatever is done by little and little is safe,
more especially when a transition is made from one thing to
another.
52. When doing everything according to indications, although
things may not turn out agreeably to indication, we should not change to
another while the original appearances remain.
53. Those persons who have watery discharges from the bowels
when they are young, come off better than those who have dry; but in old
age they come off worse, for the bowels in aged persons are usually dried
up.
54. Largeness of person in youth is noble and not unbecoming;
but in old age it is inconvenient, and worse than a smaller
structure.
Section III
1. The changes of the season mostly engender diseases, and in the
seasons great changes either of heat or of cold, and the rest agreeably
to the same rule.
2. Of natures (temperaments?), some are well- or ill-adapted
for summer, and some for winter.
3. Of diseases and ages, certain of them are well- or ill-adapted
to different seasons, places, and kinds of diet.
4. In the seasons, when during the same day there is at
one time heat and at another time cold, the diseases of autumn may be
expected.
5. South winds induce dullness of hearing, dimness of visions,
heaviness of the head, torpor, and languor; when these prevail, such symptoms
occur in diseases. But if the north wind prevail, coughs, affections of
the throat, hardness of the bowels, dysuria attended with rigors, and pains
of the sides and breast occur. When this wind prevails, all such symptoms
may be expected in diseases.
6. When summer is like spring, much sweating may be expected
in fevers.
7. Acute diseases occur in droughts; and if the summer be
particularly such, according to the constitution which it has given to
the year, for the most part such diseases maybe expected.
8. In seasons which are regular, and furnish the productions
of the season at the seasonable time, the diseases are regular, and come
readily to a crisis; but in inconstant seasons, the diseases are irregular,
and come to a crisis with difficulty.
9. In autumn, diseases are most acute, and most mortal,
on the whole. The spring is most healthy, and least
mortal.
10. Autumn is a bad season for persons in
consumption.
11. With regard to the seasons, if the winter be of a dry
and northerly character, and the spring rainy and southerly, in summer
there will necessarily be acute fevers, ophthalmies, and dysenteries, especially
in women, and in men of a humid temperament.
12. If the but the spring dry and northerly, women whose
term of delivery should be in spring, have abortions from any slight cause;
and those who reach their full time, bring forth children who are feeble,
and diseased, so that they either die presently, or, if they live, are
puny and unhealthy. Other people are subject to dysenteries and ophthalmies,
and old men to catarrhs, which quickly cut them off.
13. If the summer be dry and northerly and the autumn rainy
and southerly, headaches occur in winter, with coughs, hoarsenesses, coryzae,
and in some cases consumptions.
14. But if the autumn be northerly and dry, it agrees well
with persons of a humid temperament, and with women; but others will be
subject to dry ophthalmies, acute fevers, coryzae, and in some cases
melancholy.
15. Of the constitutions of the year, the dry, upon the
whole, are more healthy than the rainy, and attended with less
mortality.
16. The diseases which occur most frequently in rainy seasons
are, protracted fevers, fluxes of the bowels, mortifications, epilepsies,
apoplexies, and quinsies; and in dry, consumptive diseases, ophthalmies,
arthritic diseases, stranguries, and dysenteries.
17. With regard to the states of the weather which continue
but for a day, that which is northerly, braces the body, giving it tone,
agility, and color, improves the sense of hearing, dries up the bowels,
pinches the eyes, and aggravates any previous pain which may have been
seated in the chest. But the southerly relaxes the body, and renders it
humid, brings on dullness of hearing, heaviness of the head, and vertigo,
impairs the movements of the eyes and the whole body, and renders the alvine
discharges watery.
18. With regard to the seasons, in spring and in the commencement
of summer, children and those next to them in age are most comfortable,
and enjoy best health; in summer and during a certain portion of autumn,
old people; during the remainder of the autumn and in winter, those of
the intermediate ages.
19. All diseases occur at all seasons of the year, but certain
of them are more apt to occur and be exacerbated at certain
seasons.
20. The diseases of spring are, maniacal, melancholic, and
epileptic disorders, bloody flux, quinsy, coryza, hoarseness, cough, leprosy,
lichen alphos, exanthemata mostly ending in ulcerations, tubercles, and
arthritic diseases.
21. Of summer, certain of these, and continued, ardent,
and tertian fevers, most especially vomiting, diarrhoea, ophthalmy, pains
of the ears, ulcerations of the mouth, mortifications of the privy parts,
and the sudamina.
22. Of autumn, most of the summer, quartan, and irregular
fevers, enlarged spleen, dropsy, phthisis, strangury, lientery, dysentery,
sciatica, quinsy, asthma, ileus, epilepsy, maniacal and melancholic
disorders.
23. Of winter, pleurisy, pneumonia, coryza, hoarseness,
cough, pains of the chest, pains of the ribs and loins, headache, vertigo,
and apoplexy.
24. In the different ages the following complaints occur:
to little and new-born children, aphthae, vomiting, coughs, sleeplessness,
frights inflammation of the navel, watery discharges from the
ears.
25. At the approach of dentition, pruritus of the gums,
fevers, convulsions, diarrhoea, especially when cutting the canine teeth,
and in those who are particularly fat, and have constipated
bowels.
26. To persons somewhat older, affections of the tonsils,
incurvation of the spine at the vertebra next the occiput, asthma, calculus,
round worms, ascarides, acrochordon, satyriasmus, struma, and other tubercles
(phymata), but especially the aforesaid.
27. To persons of a more advanced age, and now on the verge
of manhood, the most of these diseases, and, moreover, more chronic fevers,
and epistaxis.
28. Young people for the most part have a crisis in their
complaints, some in forty days, some in seven months, some in seven years,
some at the approach to puberty; and such complaints of children as remain,
and do not pass away about puberty, or in females about the commencement
of menstruation, usually become chronic.
29. To persons past boyhood, haemoptysis, phthisis, acute
fevers, epilepsy, and other diseases, but especially the
aforementioned.
30. To persons beyond that age, asthma, pleurisy, pneumonia,
lethargy, phrenitis, ardent fevers, chronic diarrhoea, cholera, dysentery,
lientery, hemorrhoids.
31. To old people dyspnoea, catarrhs accompanied with coughs,
dysuria, pains of the joints, nephritis, vertigo, apoplexy, cachexia, pruritus
of the whole body, insomnolency, defluxions of the bowels, of the eyes,
and of the nose, dimness of sight, cataract (glaucoma), and dullness of
hearing.
Section IV
1. We must purge pregnant women, if matters be turgid (in a state
of orgasm?), from the fourth to the seventh month, but less freely in the
latter; in the first and last stages of pregnancy it should be
avoided.
2. In purging we should bring away such matters from the
body as it would be advantageous had they come away spontaneously; but
those of an opposite character should be stopped.
3. If the matters which are purged be such as should be
purged, it is beneficial and well borne; but if the contrary, with
difficulty.
4. We should rather purge upward in summer, and downward
in winter.
5. About the time of the dog-days, and before it, the administration
of purgatives is unsuitable.
6. Lean persons who are easily made to vomit should be purged
upward, avoiding the winter season.
7. Persons who are difficult to vomit, and are moderately
fat, should be purged downward, avoiding the summer
season.
8. We must be guarded in purging phthisical persons
upward.
9. And from the same mode of reasoning, applying the opposite
rule to melancholic persons, we must purge them freely
downward.
10. In very acute diseases, if matters be in a state of
orgasm, we may purge on the first day, for it is a bad thing to procrastinate
in such cases.
11. Those cases in which there are tormina, pains about
the umbilicus, and pains about the loins, not removed either by purgative
medicines or otherwise, usually terminate in dry dropsy.
12. It is a bad thing to purge upward in winter persons
whose bowels are in a state of lientery.
13. Persons who are not easily purged upward by the hellebores,
should have their bodies moistened by plenty of food and rest before taking
the draught.
14. When one takes a draught of hellebore, one should be
made to move more about, and indulge less in sleep and repose. Sailing
on the sea shows that motion disorders the body.
15. When you wish the hellebore to act more, move the body,
and when to stop, let the patient get sleep and rest.
16. Hellebore is dangerous to persons whose flesh is sound,
for it induces convulsion.
17. Anorexia, heartburn, vertigo, and a bitter taste of
the mouth, in a person free from fever, indicate the want of purging
upward.
18. Pains seated above the diaphragm indicate purging upward,
and those below it, downward.
19. Persons who have no thirst while under the action of
a purgative medicine, do not cease from being purged until they become
thirsty.
20. If persons free from fever be seized with tormina, heaviness
of the knees, and pains of the loins, this indicates that purging downward
is required.
21. Alvine dejections which are black, like blood, taking
place spontaneously, either with or without fever, are very bad; and the
more numerous and unfavorable the colors, so much the worse; when with
medicine it is better, and a variety of colors in this case is not
bad.
22. When black bile is evacuated in the beginning of any
disease whatever, either upward or downward, it is a mortal
symptom.
23. In persons attenuated from any disease, whether acute
or chronic, or from wounds, or any other cause, if there be a discharge
either of black bile, or resembling black blood, they die on the following
day.
24. Dysentery, if it commence with black bile, is
mortal.
25. Blood discharged upward, whatever be its character,
is a bad symptom, but downward it is (more?) favorable, and so also black
dejections.
26. If in a person ill of dysentery, substances resembling
flesh be discharged from the bowels, it is a mortal
symptom.
27. In whatever cases of fever there is a copious hemorrhage
from whatever channel, the bowels are in a loose state during
convalescence.
28. In all cases whatever, bilious discharges cease if deafness
supervenes, and in all cases deafness ceases when bilious discharges
supervene.
29. Rigors which occur on the sixth day have a difficult
crisis.
30. Diseases attended with paroxysms, if at the same hour
that the fever leaves it return again next day, are of difficult
crisis.
31. In febrile diseases attended with a sense of lassitude,
deposits form about the joints, and especially those of the
jaws.
32. In convalescents from diseases, if any part be pained,
there deposits are formed.
33. But if any part be in a painful state previous to the
illness, there the disease fixes.
34. If a person laboring under a fever, without any swelling
in the fauces, be seized with a sense of suffocation suddenly, it is a
mortal symptom.
35. If in a person with fever, the become suddenly distorted,
and he cannot swallow unless with difficulty, although no swelling be present,
it is a mortal symptom.
36. Sweats, in febrile diseases, are favorable, if they
set in on the third, fifth, seventh, ninth, eleventh, fourteenth, seventeenth,
twenty-first, twenty-seventh, and thirty-fourth day, for these sweats prove
a crisis to the disease; but sweats not occurring thus, indicate pain,
a protracted disease, and relapses.
37. Cold sweats occurring with an acute fever, indicate
death; and along with a milder one, a protracted disease.
38. And in whatever part of the body there is a sweat, it
shows that the disease is seated there.
39. And in whatever part of the body heat or cold is seated,
there is disease.
40. And wherever there are changes in the whole body, and
if the body be alternately cold and hot, or if one color succeed another,
this indicates a protracted disease.
41. A copious sweat after sleep occuring without any manifest
cause, indicates that the body is using too much food. But if it occur
when one is not taking food, it indicates that evacuation is
required.
42. A copious sweat, whether hot or cold, flowing continuously,
indicates, the cold a greater, and the hot a lesser
disease.
43. Fevers, not of the intermittent type, which are exacerbated
on the third day, are dangerous; but if they intermit in any form, this
indicates that they are not dangerous.
44. In cases attended with protracted fevers, tubercles
(phymata) or pains occur about the joints.
45. When tubercles (phymata) or pains attack the joints
after fevers, such persons are using too much food.
46. If in a fever not of the intermittent type a rigor seize
a person already much debilitated, it is mortal.
47. In fevers not of the intermittent type, expectorations
which are livid bloody, fetid and bilious, are all bad; but if evacuated
properly, they are favorable. So it is with the alvine evacuations and
the urine. But if none of the proper excretions take place by these channels,
it is bad.
48. In fevers not of the intermittent type, if the external
parts be cold, but the internal be burnt up, and if there be thirst, it
is a mortal symptom.
49. In a fever not of the intermittent type, if a lip, an
eye-brow, an eye, or the nose, be distorted; or if there be loss of sight
or of hearing, and the patient be in a weak state-whatever of these symptoms
occur, death is at hand.
50. Apostemes in fevers which are not resolved at the first
crisis, indicate a protracted disease.
51. When in a fever not of the intermittent type dyspnoea
and delirium come on, the case is mortal.
52. When persons in fevers, or in other illnesses, shed
tears voluntarily, it is nothing out of place; but when they shed tears
involuntarily, it is more so.
53. In whatever cases of fever very viscid concretions form
about the teeth, the fevers turn out to be particularly
strong.
54. In whatever case of ardent fever dry coughs of a tickling
nature with slight expectoration are long protracted, there is usually
not much thirst.
55. All fevers complicated with buboes are bad, except
ephemerals.
56. Sweat supervening in a case of the fever ceasing, is
bad, for the disease is protracted, and it indicates more copious
humors.
57. Fever supervening in a case of confirmed spasm, or of
tetanus, removes the disease.
58. A rigor supervening in a case of ardent fever, produces
resolution of it.
59. A true tertian comes to a crisis in seven periods at
furthest.
60. When in fevers there is deafness, if blood run from
the nostrils, or the bowels become disordered, it carries off the
disease.
61. In a febrile complaint, if the fever do not leave on
the odd days, it relapses.
62. When jaundice supervenes in fevers before the seventh
day, it a bad symptom, unless there be watery discharges from the
bowels.
63. In whatever cases of fever rigors occur during the day,
the fevers come to a resolution during the day.
64. When in cases of fever jaundice occurs on the seventh,
the ninth, the eleventh, or the fourteenth day, it is a good symptom, provided
the hypochondriac region be not hard. Otherwise it is not a good
symptom.
65. A strong heat about the stomach and cardialgia are bad
symptoms in fevers.
66. In acute fevers, spasms, and strong pains about the
bowels are bad symptoms.
67. In fevers, frights after sleep, or convulsions, are
a bad symptom.
68. In fevers, a stoppage of the respiration is a bad symptom,
for it indicates convulsions.
69. When the urine is thick, grumoss, and scanty in cases
not free from fever a copious discharge of thinner urine proves beneficial.
Such a discharge more commonly takes place when the urine has had a sediment
from the first, or soon after the commencement.
70. When in fevers the urine is turbid, like that of a beast
of burden, in such a case there either is or will be
headache.
71. In cases which come to a crisis on the seventh day,
the urine has a red nubecula on the fourth day, and the other symptoms
accordingly.
72. When the urine is transparent and white, it is bad;
it appears principally in cases of phrenitis.
73. When the hypochondriac region is affected with meteorism
and borborygmi, should pain of the loins supervene, the bowels get into
a loose and watery state, unless there be an eruption of flatus or a copious
evacuation of urine. These things occur in fevers.
74. When there is reason to expect that an abscess will
form in joints, the abscess is carried off by a copious discharge of urine,
which is thick, and becomes white, like what begins to form in certain
cases of quartan fever, attended with a sense of lassitude. It is also
speedily carried off by a hemorrhage from the nose.
75. Blood or pus in the urine indicates ulceration either
of the kidneys or of the bladder.
76. When small fleshy substances like hairs are discharged
along with thick urine, these substances come from the
kidneys.
77. In those cases where there are furfuraceous particles
discharged along with thick urine, there is scabies of the
bladder.
78. In those cases where there is a spontaneous discharge
of bloody urine, it indicates rupture of a small vein in the
kidneys.
79. In those cases where there is a sandy sediment in the
urine, there is calculus in the bladder (or kidneys).
80. If a patient pass blood and clots in his urine, and
have strangury, and if a pain seize the hypogastric region and perineum,
the parts about the bladder are affected.
81. If a patient pass blood, pus, and scales, in the urine,
and if it have a heavy smell, ulceration of the bladder is
indicated.
82. When tubercles form in the urethra, if these suppurate
and burst, there is relief.
83. When much urine is passed during the night, it indicates
that the alvine evacuations are scanty.
Section V
1. A spasm from taking hellebore is of a fatal
nature.
2. Spasm supervening on a wound is fatal.
3. A convulsion, or hiccup, supervening on a copious discharge
of blood is bad.
4. A convulsion, or hiccup, supervening upon hypercatharsis
is bad.
5. If a drunken person suddenly lose his speech, he will
die convulsed, unless fever come on, or he recover his speech at the time
when the consequences of a debauch pass off.
6. Such persons as are seized with tetanus die within four
days, or if they pass these they recover.
7. Those cases of epilepsy which come on before puberty
may undergo a change; but those which come on after twenty-five years of
age, for the most part terminate in death.
8. In pleuritic affections, when the disease is not purged
off in fourteen days, it usually terminates in empyema.
9. Phthisis most commonly occurs between the ages of eighteen
and thirty-five years.
10. Persons who escape an attack of quinsy, and when the
disease is turned upon the lungs, die in seven days; or if they pass these
they become affected with empyema.
11. In persons affected with phthisis, if the sputa which
they cough up have a heavy smell when poured upon coals, and if the hairs
of the head fall off, the case will prove fatal.
12. Phthisical persons, the hairs of whose head fall off,
die if diarrhoea set in.
13. In persons who cough up frothy blood, the discharge
of it comes from the lungs.
14. Diarrhoea attacking a person affected with phthisis
is a mortal symptom.
15. Persons who become affected with empyema after pleurisy,
if they get clear of it in forty days from the breaking of it, escape the
disease; but if not, it passes into phthisis.
16. Heat produces the following bad effects on those who
use it frequently: enervation of the fleshy parts, impotence of the nerves,
torpor of the understanding, hemorrhages, deliquia, and, along with these,
death.
17. Cold induces convulsions, tetanus, mortification, and
febrile rigors.
18. Cold is inimical to the bones, the teeth, the nerves,
the brain, and the spinal marrow, but heat is beneficial.
19. Such parts as have been congealed should be heated,
except where there either is a hemorrhage, or one is
expected.
20. Cold pinches ulcers, hardens the skin, occasions pain
which does not end in suppuration, blackens, produces febrile rigors, convulsions,
and tetanus.
21. In the case of a muscular youth having tetanus without
a wound, during the midst of summer, it sometimes happens that the allusion
of a large quantity of cold water recalls the heat. Heat relieves these
diseases.
22. Heat is suppurative, but not in all kinds of sores,
but when it is, it furnishes the greatest test of their being free from
danger. It softens the skin, makes it thin, removes pain, soothes rigor,
convulsions, and tetanus. It removes affections of the head, and heaviness
of it. It is particularly efficacious in fractures of the bones, especially
of those which have been exposed, and most especially in wounds of the
head, and in mortifications and ulcers from cold; in herpes exedens, of
the anus, the privy parts, the womb, the bladder, in all these cases heat
is agreeable, and brings matters to a crisis; but cold is prejudicial,
and does mischief.
23. Cold water is to be applied in the following cases;
when there is a hemorrhage, or when it is expected, but not applied to
the spot, but around the spot whence the blood flows; and in inflammations
and inflammatory affections, inclining to a red and subsaguineous color,
and consisting of fresh blood, in these cases it is to be applied but it
occasions mortification in old cases; and in erysipelas not attended with
ulceration, as it proves injurious to erysipelas when
ulcerated.
24. Cold things, such as snow and ice, are inimical to the
chest, being provocative of coughs, of discharges of blood, and of
catarrhs.
25. Swellings and pains in the joints, ulceration, those
of a gouty nature, and sprains, are generally improved by a copious affusion
of cold water, which reduces the swelling, and removes the pain; for a
moderate degree of numbness removes pain.
26. The lightest water is that which is quickly heated and
quickly cooled.
27. When persons have intense thirst, it is a good thing
if they can sleep off the desire of drinking.
28. Fumigation with aromatics promotes menstruation, and
would be useful in many other cases, if it did not occasion heaviness of
the head.
29. Women in a state of pregnancy may be purged, if there
be any urgent necessity (or, if the humors be in a state of orgasm?), from
the fourth to the seventh month, but less so in the latter case. In the
first and last periods it must be avoided.
30. It proves fatal to a woman in a state of pregnancy,
if she be seized with any of the acute diseases.
31. If a woman with child be bled, she will have an abortion,
and this will be the more likely to happen, the larger the
foetus.
32. Haemoptysis in a woman is removed by an eruption of
the menses.
33. In a woman when there is a stoppage the menses, a discharge
of blood from the nose is good.
34. When a pregnant woman has a violent diarrhoea, there
is danger of her miscarrying.
35. Sneezing occurring to a woman affected with hysterics,
and in difficult labor, is a good symptom.
36. When the menstrual discharge is of a bad color and irregular,
it indicates that the woman stands in need of purging.
37. In a pregnant woman, if the breasts suddenly lose their
fullness, she has a miscarriage.
38. If, in a woman pregnant with twins, either of her breasts
lose its fullness, she will part with one of her children; and if it be
the right breast which becomes slender, it will be the male child, or if
the left, the female.
39. If a woman who is not with child, nor has brought forth,
have milk, her menses are obstructed.
40. In women, blood collected in the breasts indicates
madness.
41. If you wish to ascertain if a woman be with child, give
her hydromel to drink when she is going to sleep, and has not taken supper,
and if she be seized with tormina in the belly, she is with child, but
otherwise she is not pregnant.
42. A woman with child, if it be a male, has a good color,
but if a female, she has a bad color.
43. If erysipelas of the womb seize a woman with child,
it will probably prove fatal.
44. Women who are very lean, have miscarriages when they
prove with child, until they get into better condition.
45. When women, in a moderate condition of body, miscarry
in the second or third month, without any obvious cause, their cotyledones
are filled with mucosity, and cannot support the weight of the foetus,
but are broken asunder.
46. Such women as are immoderately fat, and do not prove
with child, in them it is because the epiploon (fat?) blocks up the mouth
of the womb, and until it be reduced, they do not conceive.
47. If the portion of the uterus seated near the hip-joint
suppurate, it gets into a state requiring to be treated with
tents.
48. The male foetus is usually seated in the right, and
the female in the left side.
49. To procure the expulsion of the secundines, apply a
sternutatory, and shut the nostrils and mouth.
50. If you wish to stop the menses in a woman, apply as
large a cupping instrument as possible to the breasts.
51. When women are with child, the mouth of their womb is
closed.
52. If in a woman with child, much milk flow from the breasts,
it indicates that the foetus is weak; but if the breasts be firm, it indicates
that the foetus is in a more healthy state.
53. In women that are about to miscarry, the breasts become
slender; but if again they become hard, there will be pain, either in the
breasts, or in the hip-joints, or in the eyes, or in the knees, and they
will not miscarry.
54. When the mouth of the uterus is hard, it is also necessarily
shut.
55. Women with child who are seized with fevers, and who
are greatly emaciated, without any (other?) obvious cause, have difficult
and dangerous labors, and if they miscarry, they are in
danger.
56. In the female flux (immoderate menstruation?), if convulsion
and deliquium come on, it is bad.
57. When the menses are excessive, diseases take place,
and when the menses are stopped, diseases from the uterus take
place.
58. Strangury supervenes upon inflammation of the rectum,
and of the womb, and strangury supervenes upon suppuration of the kidney,
and hiccup upon inflammation of the liver.
59. If a woman do not conceive, and wish to ascertain whether
she can conceive, having wrapped her up in blankets, fumigate below, and
if it appear that the scent passes through the body to the nostrils and
mouth, know that of herself she is not unfruitful.
60. If woman with a child have her courses, it is impossible
that the child can be healthy.
61. If a woman's courses be suppressed, and neither rigor
nor fever has followed, but she has been affected with nausea, you may
reckon her to be with child.
62. Women who have the uterus cold and dense (compact?)
do not conceive; and those also who have the uterus humid, do not conceive,
for the semen is extinguished, and in women whose uterus is very dry, and
very hot, the semen is lost from the want of food; but women whose uterus
is in an intermediate state between these temperaments prove
fertile.
63. And in like manner with respect to males; for either,
owing to the laxity of the body, the pneuma is dissipated outwardly, so
as not to propel the semen, or, owing to its density, the fluid (semen?)
does not pass outwardly; or, owing to coldness, it is not heated so as
to collect in its proper place (seminal vessels?), or, owing to its heat,
the very same thing happens.
64. It is a bad thing to give milk to persons having headache,
and it is also bad to give it in fevers, and to persons whose hypochondria
are swelled up, and troubled with borborygmi, and to thirsty persons; it
is bad also, when given to those who have bilious discharges in acute fevers,
and to those who have copious discharges of blood; but it is suitable in
phthisical cases, when not attended with very much fever; it is also to
be given in fevers of a chronic and weak nature, when none of the aforementioned
symptoms are present, and the patients are excessively
emaciated.
65. When swellings appear on wounds, such cases are not
likely to be attacked either with convulsions, or delirium, but when these
disappear suddenly, if situated behind, spasms and tetanus supervene, and
if before, mania, acute pains of the sides, or suppurations, or dysentery,
if the swellings be rather red.
66. When no swelling appears on severe and bad wounds, it
is a great evil.
67. In such cases, the soft are favorable; and crude,
unfavorable.
68. When a person is pained in the back part of the head,
he is benefited by having the straight vein in the forehead
opened.
69. Rigors commence in women, especially at the loins, and
spread by the back to the head; and in men also, rather in the posterior
than the anterior side of the body, as from the arms and thighs; the skin
there is rare, as is obvious from the growth of hair on
them.
70. Persons attacked with quartans are not readily attacked
with convulsions, or if previously attacked with convulsions, they cease
if a quartan supervene.
71. In those persons in whom the skin is stretched, and
parched and hard, the disease terminates without sweats; but in those in
whom the skin is loose and rare, it terminates with
sweats.
72. Persons disposed to jaundice are not very subject to
flatulence.
Section VI
1. In cases of chronic lientery, acid eructations supervening when
there were none previously, is a good symptom.
2. Persons whose noses are naturally watery, and their seed
watery, have rather a deranged state of health; but those in the opposite
state, a more favorable.
3. In protracted cases of dysentery, loathing of food is
a bad symptom, and still worse, if along with fever.
4. Ulcers, attended with a falling off of the hair, are
mali moris.
5. It deserves to be considered whether the pains in the
sides, and in the breasts, and in the other parts, differ much from one
another.
6. Diseases about the kidneys and bladder are cured with
difficulty in old men.
7. Pains occurring about the stomach, the more superficial
they are, the more slight are they; and the less superficial, the more
severe.
8. In dropsical persons, ulcers forming on the body are
not easily healed.
9. Broad exanthemata are not very itchy.
10. In a person having a painful spot in the head, with
intense cephalalgia, pus or water running from the nose, or by the mouth,
or at the ears, removes the disease.
11. Hemorrhoids appearing in melancholic and nephritic affections
are favorable.
12. When a person has been cured of chronic hemorrhoids,
unless one be left, there is danger of dropsy or phthisis
supervening.
13. Sneezing coming on, in the case of a person afflicted
with hiccup, removes the hiccup.
14. In a case of dropsy, when the water runs by the veins
into the belly, it removes the disease.
15. In confirmed diarrhoea, vomiting, when it comes on spontaneously,
removes the diarrhoea.
16. A diarrhoea supervening in a confirmed case of pleurisy
or pneumonia is bad.
17. It is a good thing in ophthalmy for the patient to be
seized with diarrhoea.
18. A severe wound of the bladder, of the brain, of the
heart, of the diaphragm, of the small intestines, of the stomach, and of
the liver, is deadly.
19. When a bone, cartilage, nerve, the slender part of the
jaw, or prepuce, are cut out, the part is neither restored, nor does it
unite.
20. If blood be poured out preternaturally into a cavity,
it must necessarily become corrupted.
21. In maniacal affections, if varices or hemorrhoids come
on, they remove the mania.
22. Those ruptures in the back which spread down to the
elbows are removed by venesection.
23. If a fright or despondency lasts for a long time, it
is a melancholic affection.
24. If any of the intestines be transfixed, it does not
unite.
25. It is not a good sign for an erysipelas spreading outwardly
to be determined inward; but for it to be determined outward from within
is good.
26. In whatever cases of ardent fever tremors occur, they
are carried off by a delirium.
27. Those cases of empyema or dropsy which are treated by
incision or the cautery, if the water or pus flow rapidly all at once,
certainly prove fatal.
28. Eunuchs do not take the gout, nor become
bald.
29. A woman does not take the gout, unless her menses be
stopped.
30. A young man does not take the gout until he indulges
in coition.
31. Pains of the eyes are removed by drinking pure wine,
or the bath, or a fomentation, or venesection, or purging.
32. Persons whose speech has become impaired are likely
to be seized with chronic diarrhoea.
33. Persons having acid eructations are not very apt to
be seized with pleurisy.
34. Persons who have become bald are not subject to large
varices; but should varices supervene upon persons who are bald, their
hair again grows thick.
35. Hiccup supervening in dropsical cases is
bad.
36. Venesection cures dysuria; open the internal veins of
the arm.
37. It is a good symptom when swelling on the outside of
the neck seizes a person very ill of quinsy, for the disease is turned
outwardly.
38. It is better not to apply any treatment in cases of
occult cancer; for, if treated, the patients die quickly; but if not treated,
they hold out for a long time.
39. Convulsions take place either from repletion or depletion;
and so it is with hiccup.
40. When pains, without inflammation, occur about the hypochondria,
in such cases, fever supervening removes the pain.
41. When pus formed anywhere in the body does not point,
this is owing to the thickness of the part.
42. In cases of jaundice, it is a bad symptom when the liver
becomes indurated.
43. When persons having large spleens are seized with dysentery,
and if the dysentery pass into a chronic state, either dropsy or lientery
supervenes, and they die.
44. When ileus comes on in a case of strangury, they prove
fatal in seven days, unless, fever supervening, there be a copious discharge
of urine.
45. When ulcers continue open for a year or upward, there
must necessarily be exfoliation of bone, and the cicatrices are
hollow.
46. Such persons as become hump-backed from asthma or cough
before puberty, die.
47. Persons who are benefited by venesection or purging,
should be bled or purged in spring.
48. In enlargement of the spleen, it is a good symptom when
dysentery comes on.
49. In gouty affections, the inflammation subsides in the
course of forty days.
50. When the brain is severely wounded, fever and vomiting
of bile necessarily supervene.
51. When persons in good health are suddenly seized with
pains in the head, and straightway are laid down speechless, and breathe
with stertor, they die in seven days, unless fever come
on.
52. We must attend to the appearances of the eyes in sleep,
as presented from below; for if a portion of the white be seen between
the closed eyelids, and if this be not connected with diarrhaea or severe
purging, it is a very bad and mortal symptom.
53. Delirium attended with laughter is less dangerous than
delirium attended with a serious mood.
54. In acute diseases, complicated with fever, a moaning
respiration is bad.
55. For the most part, gouty affections rankle in spring
and in autumn.
56. In melancholic affections, determinations of the humor
which occasions them produce the following diseases; either apoplexy of
the whole body, or convulsion, or madness, or blindness.
57. Persons are most subject to apoplexy between the ages
of forty and sixty.
58. If the omentum protrude, it necessarily mortifies and
drops off.
59. In chronic diseases of the hip-joint, if the bone protrude
and return again into its socket, there is mucosity in the
place.
60. In persons affected with chronic disease of the hip-joint,
if the bone protrude from its socket, the limb becomes wasted and maimed,
unless the part be cauterized.
Section VII
1. In acute diseases, coldness of the extremities is
bad.
2. Livid flesh on a diseased bone is
bad.
3. Hiccup and redness of the eyes, when they supervene on
vomiting, are bad.
4. A chill supervening on a sweat is not
good.
5. Dysentery, or dropsy, or ecstacy coming on madness is
good.
6. In a very protracted disease, loss of appetite and unmixed
discharges from the bowels are bad symptoms.
7. A rigor and delirium from excessive drinking are
bad.
8. From the rupture of an internal abscess, prostration
of strength, vomiting, and deliquium animi result.
9. Delirium or convulsion from a flow of blood is
bad.
10. Vomiting, or hiccup, or convulsion, or delirium, in
ileus, is bad.
11. Pneumonia coming on pleurisy is bad.
12. Phrenitis along with pneumonia is
bad.
13. Convulsion or tetanus, coming upon severe burning, is
bad.
14. Stupor or delirium from a blow on the head is
bad.
15. From a spitting of blood there is a spitting of
pus.
16. From spitting of pus arise phthisis and a flux; and
when the sputa are stopped, they die.
17. Hiccup in inflammation of the liver
bad.
18. Convulsion or delirium supervening upon insomnolency
is bad.
18a. Trembling upon lethargus is bad.
19. Erysipelas upon exposure of a bone (is
bad?).
20. Mortification or suppuration upon erysipelas is
bad.
21. Hemorrhage upon a strong pulsation in wounds is
bad.
22. Suppuration upon a protracted pain of the parts about
the bowels is bad.
23. Dysentery upon unmixed alvine discharges is
bad.
24. Delirium upon division of the cranium, if it penetrate
into the cavity of the head, is bad.
25. Convulsion upon severe purging is
mortal.
26. Upon severe pain of the parts about the bowels, coldness
of the extremities coming on is bad.
27. Tenesmus coming on in a case of pregnancy causes
abortion.
28. Whatever piece of bone, cartilage, or nerve (tendon?)
is cut off, it neither grows nor unites.
29. When strong diarrhoea supervenes in a case of leucophlegmatia,
it removes the disease.
30. In those cases in which frothy discharges occur in diarrhoea
there are defluxions from the head.
31. When there is a farinaceous sediment in the urine during
fever, it indicates a protracted illness.
32. In those cases in which the urine is thin at first,
and the sediments become bilious, an acute disease is
indicated.
33. In those cases in which the urine becomes divided there
is great disorder in the body.
34. When bubbles settle on the surface of the urine, they
indicate disease of the kidneys, and that the complaint will be
protracted.
35. When the scum on the surface is fatty and copious, it
indicates acute diseases of the kidneys.
36. Whenever the aforementioned symptoms occur in nephritic
diseases, and along with them acute pains about the muscles of the back,
provided these be seated about the external parts, you may expect that
there will be an abscess; but if the pains be rather about the internal
parts, you may also rather expect that the abscess will be seated
internally.
37. Haematemesis, without fever, does not prove fatal, but
with fever it is bad; it is to be treated with refrigerant and styptic
things.
38. Defluxions into the cavity of the chest suppurate in
twenty days.
39. When a patient passes blood and clots, and is seized
with strangury and pain in the perineum and pubes, disease about the bladder
is indicated.
40. If the tongue suddenly lose its powers, or a part of
the body become apoplectic, the affection is of a melancholic
nature.
41. In hypercatharsis, of old persons, hiccup supervening
is not a good symptom.
42. In a fever, is not of a bilious nature, a copious allusion
of hot water upon the head removes the fever.
43. A woman does not become ambidexterous.
44. When empyema is treated either by the cautery or incision,
if pure and white pus flow from the wound, the patients recover; but if
mixed with blood, slimy and fetid, they die.
45. When abscess of the liver is treated by the cautery
or incision, if the pus which is discharged be pure and white, the patients
recover, (for in this case it is situated in the coats of the liver;) but
if it resemble the lees of oil as it flows, they die.
46. Pains of the eyes are removed by drinking undiluted
wine, plenteous bathing with hot water, and venesection.
47. If a dropsical patient be seized with hiccup the case
is hopeless.
48. Strangury and dysuria are cured by drinking pure wine,
and venesection; open the vein on the inside.
49. It is a good sign when swelling and redness on the breast
seize a person very ill of quinsy, for in this case the disease is diverted
outwardly.
50. When the brain is attacked with sphacelus, the patients
die in three days; or if they escape these, they recover.
51. Sneezing arises from the head, owing to the brain being
heated, or the cavity (ventricle) in the head being filled with humors;
the air confined in it then is discharged, and makes a noise, because it
comes through a narrow passage.
52. Fever supervening on painful affections of the liver
removes the pain.
53. Those persons to whom it is beneficial to have blood
taken from their veins, should have it done in spring.
54. In those cases where phlegm is collected between the
diaphragm and the stomach, and occasions pain, as not finding a passage
into either of the cavities, the disease will be carried off if the phlegm
be diverted to the bladder by the veins.
55. When the liver is filled with water and bursts into
the epiploon, in this case the belly is filled with water and the patient
dies.
56. Anxiety, yawning, rigor,-wine drunk with an equal proportion
of water, removes these complaints.
57. When tubercles (phymata) form in the urethra, if they
suppurate and burst, the pain is carried off.
58. In cases of concussion of the brain produced by any
cause, the patients necessarily lose their speech.
59. In a person affected with fever, when there is no swelling
in the fauces, should suffocation suddenly come on, and the patient not
be able to swallow, except with difficulty, it is a mortal
symptom.
59a. In the case of a person oppressed by fever, if the
neck be turned aside, and the patient cannot swallow, while there is no
swelling in the neck, it is a mortal sign.
60. Fasting should be prescribed the those persons who have
humid flesh; for fasting dries bodies.
61. When there are changes in the whole body, and the body
becomes sometimes cold and sometimes hot, and the color changes, a protracted
disease is indicated.
62. A copious sweat, hot or cold, constantly flowing, indicates
a superabundance of humidity; we must evacuate then, in a strong person
upward, and in a weak, downward.
63. Fevers, not of the intermittent type, if they become
exacerbated every third day are dangerous; but if they intermit in any
form whatever, this shows that they are not dangerous.
64. In cases of protracted fever, either chronic abscesses
or pains in the joints come on.
65. When chronic abscesses (phymata) or pains in the joints
take place after fevers, the patients are using too much
food.
66. If one give to a person in fever the same food which
is given to a person in good health, what is strength to the one is disease
to the other.
67. We must look to the urinary evacuations, whether they
resemble those of persons in health; if not at all so, they are particularly
morbid, but if they are like those of healthy persons, they are not at
all morbid.
68. When the dejections are allowed to stand and not shaken,
and a sediment is formed like scrapings (of the bowels), in such a case
it is proper to purge the bowels; and if you give ptisans before purging,
the more you give the more harm you will do.
69. Crude dejections are the product of black bile; if abundant,
of more copious, and if deficient, of less copious collections of
it.
70. The sputa in fevers, not of an intermittent type, which
are livid, streaked with blood, and fetid, are all bad, it is favorable
when this evacuation, like the urinary and alvine, passes freely; and whenever
any discharge is suppressed and not purged off it is
bad.
71. When you wish to purge the body, you must bring it into
a state favorable to evacuations; and if you wish to dispose it to evacuations
upward, you must bind the belly; and if you wish to dispose it to evacuations
downward, you must moisten the belly.
72. Sleep and watchfulness, both of them, when immoderate,
constitute disease.
73. In fevers which do not intermit, if the external parts
be cold, and the internal burning hot, and fever prevail, it is a mortal
sign.
74. In a fever which does not intermit, if a lip, the nose,
or an eye be distorted, if the patient lose his sense of sight or of hearing,
while now in a weak state,-whatever of these symptoms occurs it is
mortal.
75. Upon leucophlegmatia dropsy supervenes.
76. Upon diarrhoea dysentery.
77. Upon dysentery lientery.
78. Upon sphacelus exfoliation of the
bone.
79 and 80. Upon vomiting of blood consumption, and a purging of
pus upward; upon consumption a defluxion from the head; upon a defluxion
diarrhoea; upon diarrhoea a stoppage of the purging upward; upon the stoppage
of it death.
81. In the discharges by the bladder, the belly, and the
flesh (the skin?) if the body has departed slightly from its natural condition,
the disease is slight; if much, it is great; if very much, it is
mortal.
82. Persons above forty years of age who are affected with
frenzy, do not readily recover; the danger is less when the disease is
cognate to the constitution and age.
83. In whatever diseases the eyes weep voluntarily, it is
a good symptom, but when involuntarily, it is a bad.
84. When in quartan fevers blood flows from the nostrils
it is a bad symptom.
85. Sweats are dangerous when they do not occur on critical
days, when they are strong, and quickly forced out of the forehead, either
in the form of drops or in streams, and if excessively cold and copious;
for such a sweat must proceed from violence, excess of pain, and prolonged
squeezing (affliction?).
86. In a chronic disease an excessive flux from the bowels
is bad.
87. Those diseases which medicines do not cure, iron (the
knife?) cures; those which iron cannot cure, fire cures; and those which
fire cannot cure, are to be reckoned wholly incurable.
THE END
|
