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THE FOURTH BOOK OF EPIDEMICS. - Hippocrates, The Writings of Hippocrates and Galen [1846]

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The Writings of Hippocrates and Galen. Epitomised from the Original Latin translations, by John Redman Coxe (Philadelphia: Lindsay and Blakiston, 1846).

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THE FOURTH BOOK OF EPIDEMICS.

Fœsius, p. 1120.

Of all the books on Epidemics, says Haller, this one to me appears of the least importance. All is intermingled and confused; imperfect histories of diseases, and aphorisms inadequately confirmed. Some few things appear, which possibly were written by Hippocrates, or were transcribed from him. Galen refers it to the Collectanea of Hippocrates, edited without the corrections of Thessalus,—nor is it unlikely. Much is interspersed respecting the seasons, and the atmospheric changes. Mention is made of the Cynic, who called the author to a patient. Now, as Diogenes was posterior to Hippocrates, and was also the founder of that sect, it is by many supposed, that the author of this book must be some physician posterior to Hippocrates.

Gardeil, in a note to this book, says, it is difficult to determine the country in which the patients herein mentioned are to be assigned, since this is not expressly mentioned. The same may be said of the books that follow. Nor must we, from the title of Epidemics, believe that they are confined to such diseases. They are rather to be viewed as a choice collection of observations.

Outline of contents.—Metastasis of certain humours after the vernal equinox; notice of various patients, some of them of interest; relapses frequent after the autumnal equinox; the state of the atmosphere, and the diseases in winter; frequent abortions; other cases. State of the urine in different persons; notice of the state of the sick towards the end of autumn; interesting case of a young man attacked with copious epistaxis on the third day of his illness, continuing till the sixth, with delirium and coma on the seventh. He seems to have surmounted this, and had a relapse, and that more than once. A discharge from the left ear of a viscous, thick, and ichorous matter, fell upon the teeth, inducing great destruction of the parts adjoining, viz., the palate bones, and upper jaw, and septum nasi, with other effects; the result is not mentioned.—Crises, &c., with detached remarks and cases. A cursory notice of a large star or meteor,a followed by an earthquake. Menstruation during pregnancy not uncommon; case of delivery on the seventh day of seventh month; the woman goes out in four days; injury from, &c. Another case of injury to the jaws and teeth; various cases; a curious one stated of a woman, whose mouth was twisted to the right side, but which was turned to the left in the fifth month of pregnancy. A slave relieved from a swelling and tension of the belly by the return of menstruation, after a suspension of seven years. Observations on errhines, on tumours, on sciatica, &c.; peculiarities or diversity in the onset of diseases; observations on the intestinal evacuations, &c. Diseases occurring at Æno and elsewhere; various results of cough in this state of the air; nyctalopia; decay of the teeth; expectoration; some few aphoristic remarks towards the conclusion.

After the equinox and the setting of the Pleiades, a sort of corroding mucus, that opened the head, broke out above the ear; but in him who was with Leocydes, upon the foot; and in Phanodicus, upon the toes by the sole.

He, whose tibia was cut, had a blackness come upon the part. The ulcer was large on the outside, and the discharge from the hinder part. When it was cleansed, he was seized with a pain of the side and left breast opposite to it, grew feverish, and died of his fever.

The ropemaker complained of a very bilious disorder; and, upon applying caustical (or burning) remedies, he lost a great deal of blood downwards about the equinox.

A very old man, who had a great abscess, held out not above fourteen days.

He, who was marked and burned by Antiphilus, was freed from a bilious ardent fever (of that kind which is called τυφος) the seventh day. Three days after the crisis or thereabouts he spit blood, recovered, and had a relapse afterwards. His first crisis after this was, as it ought to be, about the setting of the Pleiades; and after their setting his biliousness extended to madness. Another crisis happened the ninth day without a sweat, and he got over it.

The Chalcidonian, who was brought from the gates to the market-place, about the equinox, being in pain from a rupture about the right breast, spit up now and then a pale greenish matter. The belly was in good order. A sweat began the seventh, which lasted for the most part to the eighth, and the crisis happened the fourteenth. About the fortieth, swellings appeared behind both ears; nor was it unlikely that a suppuration should follow, though it did not.

Aristodemus was burnt upon his breast; and so was the son of Philis, for an abscess that came after a fall; but he had had a pain higher before this.

After the autumnal equinox relapses happen, and at other times to the winter solstice.

After the summer solstice, the wife of Achelous miscarried the sixth day, being full of blood and chilly. She sweated afterwards, and had a crisis the fourteenth. How many months gone with child I know not. Twenty days after this she said she miscarried of another male child; but, whether she said true or no, I cannot tell.

About the winter solstice the wind was northerly. Jaundices of very deep colours appeared, sometimes with a chilliness, sometimes without. The tongue was burnt up the third day. About the sixth and seventh, great disorders that lasted long. The fourteenth, an astringency in the belly that could not be removed by physic; and no sweats, as is usual in fevers. In some the spleens were small, extended to the right hypochondre, and rumbled upon being touched. Hemorrhages succeeded, and such depurations by urine, but more especially by stool (for the belly had been long bound), as produced a crisis. Where these things did not happen, but the spleens were tumefied, they bled at the left nostril.

After the solstice, rough winter weather, with northerly winds, and in a short time southerly, for fifteen days; and then abundance of snow for fourteen days more. About this season deep-coloured jaundices came on, that terminated not in a clear and evident manner, but returned again. After the snow came southerly winds and gentle showers. Runnings at the nose ensued, with and without a fever. In one person, who had been in moderate pain before, it fell upon the teeth on the right side, the eyebrows, and the eye. They were hoarse too; the throat was inflamed, and the glands called σπογγοι (amygdalæ) swelled, attended with soft swellings about the ears and jaws, that subsided with the fever. Many of these happened above and on each side, at the beginning of the fever; and some had the tonsils swelled in the autumn and the winter. Add to this, branny foulnesses of the skin came on; and many women miscarried all kind of ways, and had hard labours.

A maid, who had a crisis the sixth day, had a relapse the sixth, and another crisis in six days. And in six or eight days all the crises happened at that time.

About the setting of the Pleiades, the wife of Meander, the blind man, spit from the first a pale greenish matter, and soon after, about the sixth day, purulent. The liver swelled, and she had a little purging. What she spit was in a small quantity, white, broad, and like purulent flesh. She had an aversion to food, and died about the twentieth.

Thestor’s servant, in the neighbourhood, was taken with a bilious severe purging, and a distension of the hypochondres, occasioned by something that was caustical. The sixth day after the purging was stopped, she had one large thin stool, fell into a sweat immediately, and had a crisis, without any more purging. The same hour she shivered and grew feverish, but it went off again the same hour.

The wife of Thersander, who was not very leucophlegmatic, fell into an acute fever upon suckling. Her tongue, as other parts were burnt up, was likewise burnt at the same time, and became rough like thick hail. Worms also came out of her mouth. About the twentieth she had not a perfect crisis.

About the setting of the Pleiades, Metrophantus’s son, who was wounded on the head with a brickbat by another boy, was taken with a fever twelve days after; occasioned by rubbing the parts about the wound in cleansing it. A coldness succeeded, and the lips swelled immediately, but the skin beyond the ulcer was in many places very thin. Upon trepanning without delay, neither pus came out, nor was the patient relieved; but upon the left jaw, by the ear, (for here the wound was,) there seemed to be a collection of matter. This, however, went off too without suppuration, and there was immediately a collection in the right arm. The patient died the twenty-fourth.

After the setting of the Pleiades, he who had a pain in his ear lost his speech twenty days after, and became paralytic on the right side, without a fever, but not without sweating. The right ear and the right eye gave way a little, and drew something from the lower part. The eye was distorted to the left with a great deal of pain; the neck became hard, and within three hours was equally painful.

After the setting of the Pleiades, the servant of the Attican, who had been ill with a quartan, had a stupid foolishness fixed upon him.

Another at the same time was taken with a true typhomania; which, upon the hips and legs becoming painful, went off; but what day I know not.

About the same time chillinesses; vomitings; and, after the crisis, aversions to food; bilious discharges; great, hard, painful spleens, and likewise hemorrhages were the complaints of some; and of others, at the same time, hemorrhages from the nose of a pale greenish colour, occasioned by the spleens.

In Cranon, the wife of Nicostratus, who was seized with a fever, complained at once upon the fourteenth day of a paralytic disorder (or imbecility) in her neck and other parts. She had had no stool to the tenth; breathed often and little; could not contain herself, but felt about with her fingers; was delirious, sweated, and had her neck, mouth, eye, and nose drawn to the right side. The sediment in her urine was white, like pulse, at one time; at another, white, stringy, and membranous; and at another, somewhat pale with a greenish cast, like the meal of lentils. Sometimes again the surface would be fat and greasy, and that in a heap, resembling sheep’s wool; and not much dispersed, as a scattered cloud appears in urine. After this her urine would have no sediment at all, but something of this kind. Again, it would have some such sediment, at one time broad and scattered up and down; at another, turbid. Sometimes the cloud would resemble a blackish cloud of some consistence; at another time it would be soft and thin. Again, it would be thin, and of this kind; at another time, like horses’ urine; and at another, dark and shady.

The lad, that was first taken delirious, made thin clear urine; and his evacuations the other way were thin and plentiful, without bile. His tongue was very rough; his fever burning; his belly tumefied; and he could get no sleep. In his ravings upon the eighth day (if I mistake not) he behaved very wantonly, getting up, fighting, and talking very obscenely, contrary to his usual manner. Upon making a great deal of thin water in a gushing manner (for it had been suppressed), sleep came on, together with a continual sweat, that seemed from the circumstances to be critical, much about the tenth day. After this his madness returned, and he died suddenly the eleventh; occasioned (I imagine) by his drinking much neat wine a little before his madness. His age was about twenty.

In the autumn, Eumenes’s wife vomited black bile, as was also evident from the smell. A fever ensued with chilliness, heartburn, and little bilious vomitings, in which came away a worm. Her stools were thin all along before the setting of the Pleiades, and stopped about that time.

Hemorrhages; short fevers, that returned immediately for a little while; aversions to food; extreme languors and lassitudes; nauseas and heartburns happened about the same time, together with a discharge of worms about the crisis, shiverings, and bilious complaints.

The young man that was a stranger bled much at the nose the third, the fourth, and the fifth day; the sixth it stopped, and a moderate delirium followed. The seventh, no stool; a comatose disorder. The third day a relapse; the belly loosened; the urine I saw not. About the crisis things were as they ought. But about the setting of the Pleiades southerly winds set in, with gentle showers. The young man had then a great many mucous, bilious, digested, viscid stools; and a violent fever continually, with a dry tongue. The sixth day it came to its crisis. The seventh it returned again, and went off the same day with a trembling. The sixth day there was a glutinous thick discharge from the left ear.

The boy, that had the phagedænic ulcer, had his lower teeth, and the fore-teeth of the upper and lower jaw fall out by suppuration, and a cavity was left there. Now, where the bone of the palate comes away, the nose sinks in the middle: and where the upper teeth before, the end of the nose becomes broad. The fifth from the fore-teeth has four roots, two of which are united to both the next teeth, and all the extremities turned inwards. The third tooth is more liable to suppuration than all the other, and to occasion thick rheums from the nose, as well as pain in the temples. This was eaten away, especially the fifth, and in the middle was a tubercle of the two fore-teeth; the less was first eaten away in the inside by the two next. The seventh had a thick sharp root.

The Athenian boy had a pain of his tooth, the left side below, the right above, that was carried off by an abscess in the right ear.

After the Pleiades the weather was mild, cloudy, and misty. The crises happened upon the fifth, sixth, seventh day, and even later. The fevers were subject to return, to be erratic, to be bilious, and attended with aversions to food. Dysenteries also, with aversions to food, and vehement fevers, were complained of. About the setting of the Pleiades the southerly winds came strong, attended with hemorrhages, and fevers nearly resembling tertians, besides others of another kind, in which the patient is cold and shivering perpetually. They call them Ηπιαλα.

He that belonged to the shoemaker bled plentifully, purged a little, and had his crisis upon the seventh, with a shivering.

He that lived at the last public house bled plentifully the fourth, and immediately was lightheaded, bound in his body, and his hypochondres hard and painful. By means of a suppository the sixth day he had a yellow bad stool. The seventh in the morning early, was exceedingly restless, bawled out greatly, and had a pulsation of the vessels about the navel.

In the acutest fevers the pulsations are oftenest and strongest, as the paroxysms are in every disease, towards the evening.

With respect to the beginnings, the paroxysms, the first of the morning, the continuation of the distemper, and the season of the year, are to be taken into consideration.

The wind was southerly after the setting of the Pleiades. Crises came the fifth, then an intermission for one day, and a return the next. Eruptions of a soft and lax kind, like bladders, or like the effects of the prickly acanthus, also appeared. About the same time a great roughness came upon the skin, but without itchings or weepings, especially now. There were also tetters above the skin, like what happened to Pythodorus’s wife, and him who kept the public house; not without a fever. But as to Pythodorus’s wife, she was seized, pretty near the beginning of her fever, with a great weakness in the hips.

After the setting of the Pleiades came chilliness and hemorrhages from the nose.

The shoemaker had his crisis the seventh, an intermission one day, the next a return, and another crisis the fourth.

One who belonged to Leocydes, had his crisis the seventh; and another the fourth.

Moschus bled plentifully from the left nostril the ninth, and a little from the right; had his crisis the fourteenth, as he ought; but at the beginning was much disturbed. The seventeenth, was guilty of mismanagements in diet. The nineteenth at night arose a small tumour on the right ear, hard within, but a little soft without, and painful without remission.

In those who are very bilious, especially where a suppuration is, what comes away by purging is like the ink of the cuttle-fish. Such was the purging of him who had the cupping-glass applied, when his hip was in pain. It removed downwards into his leg, and he was easy.

He who fell from the horse of clay, and had a cupping-glass applied immediately, complained of an inward burning. The twentieth, upon its breaking out again afresh, a hemorrhage ensued, with a discharge of feculent corroding matter.

The Tenedian woman miscarried the fourth day of a child, that, as she said, was thirty days old. She had also a loose small stool, a burnt tongue, and a crisis the fourth.

After the setting of the Pleiades disorders of the spleen came on, and to the fifth day hemorrhages with a crisis. Upon the seventh, the urine was like the water in which tares have been washed, all of a piece, and after that clear. A relapse followed. Megaris’s son had also an intermission, and that without a hemorrhage, but the urine was white, thick, and all alike, as in Artigenes’s case.

About the winter solstice a great stara appeared, and the fifth and sixth day after, an earthquake.

Antigenes’s wife, who was in Perinthus, remained asthmatical, and had her menses come down at a time when she did not know whether she was with child or not. Her belly was sometimes small, sometimes large; for she was always coughing, as if she had been walking faster than ordinary. She was eight months gone when it stopped, and had been feverish before.

The wife of Apemantus’s brother miscarried the seventh day of a girl, that, as she said, was sixty days old; and about the ninth was in great disorder. After the crisis she had a pain in the right side, as if from a distortion of the womb. She conceived again soon, and miscarried.

Another was delivered of a daughter with the whites upon her, another with the reds, as it should be.

Chillinesses, nauseas, aversions to food, relapses, bilious complaints, hemorrhages, and disorders of the spleen were to be met with, and most of them attended with pain from the left side.

Apemantus’s wife, when she was turned on this side, was affected in her right eye; when on the contrary, in her flank.

Aristophon’s daughter was feverish the third and fifth day, and remained dry for the most part; but her belly was lax and discomposed, the crisis difficult, and about the thirtieth day she lost her fever.

Pustules, that come upon no violent exercise, reach the seventh day, and are somewhat livid (the maid that lived behind Herous was taken with a shivering); the white and large are not of any great service in those who are seized with a deep stupidness, or dozing, or in diseases that are not of the falling kind, or where the bile stops; neither are those serviceable that subside not, whether the body be loose or bound.

Zoilus, the carpenter, had a trembling slow pulse; the discharges by stool and urine moderate, but without colour; the bottom of the belly distended on both sides directly to the navel, with an acute fever, an aversion to food, and no thirst.

The clerk of the market’s daughter at Tecomaius’s, when her pregnancy was uncertain, vomited for two months, sometimes phlegm, sometimes bile. After this she had a hard labour, was perfectly well cleansed, and vomited as before to the thirtieth. Then a purging came on, and her vomiting stopped. A lientery followed, and her menses kept up, but for two years she had the piles in the winter.

The two brothers, that lived by Cecrops’s, were at the beginning seized with black stools; had afterwards feculent bloody stools, and, from very frothy ones, bilious.

He, who by agreement lift up the ass, immediately grew feverish, and bled the third, the fourth, the fifth, and the seventh. A crisis came the eighth by stool.

He, who was concerned in the mines, and had his right hypochondre stretched; his spleen large; his belly distended, hardish, and flatulent, without colour; was taken with a pain in his left knee, but had a relapse again, and after that a perfect crisis.

Temeneus’s son had a little difficulty of breathing, so as to make him pale with a greenish cast, which colour reached to his hands too.

The husband of the woman that lyed-in near Sitodocus’s, who had a jaundice upon him, and sent for me the seventh day, died the eighth without any evacuation by stool or urine. His flanks were large and hard, and his breathing quick; nor was his forehead moist with the pain, before he died.

The wife of this person miscarried of a girl the seventh day in her seventh month, the signs of which appeared the fourth. A pain seized her in her feet at the beginning, and, upon the fever ceasing, her difficulty of breathing was not carried off, but remained still. The pain likewise affected her hands and arms.

Where the urine stopped before the crisis, relapses were of long continuance.

Temeneus’s sister’s crisis was with a shivering. A pain seized her hands and shoulders upon the sudden going off of her pale greenish colour. These pains ceasing, her head was affected; the upper eyelids were tumefied, and the tears ran out. The rest I am a stranger to. Her first crisis was the seventh day.

The case of him who kept Menander’s vineyard was the same, except that at the beginning he had thin stools, which stopped afterwards, as well as the urine; but a crisis followed, without any shivering the seventh day, because of the purging that had happened before.

Potamon’s son had no purging the seventh day, nor a shivering two days before the crisis, nor, for the same reason, a suppression of urine.

Hegesistratius, who had had an abscess near his eye, had a collection of matter about his last tooth. The eye was healed, and the nose discharged thick matter; but about the gums little round caruncles broke out, which about the third day seemed to suppurate, but it went off afterwards, and immediately his jaws and eyes swelled. Now, wherever abscesses form themselves about the eyes in burning fevers, a redness appears upon the cheeks, and a hemorrhage follows. The like happens in abscesses behind the ears; and perhaps abscesses in the joints are more likely to follow; but this I am not perfectly satisfied in.

Shiverings, with tremblings, distensions of the hypochondres, and a breaking out of the menses, happened the seventeenth day. If these things continued thus, in some the crisis was the third, in others the fifth, and in others the seventh.

Hegesistratius’s two last teeth were in their turns eaten away. The last had two tubercles above the gums, one near the erosion, the other opposite. Where they both touched, there the roots were broad, alike, and answered to one another. On either side half remained that was almost round.

The woman, that had a hemorrhage the fourth and sixth day, had a crisis the seventh, with great redness.

The other, that had a violent pain in her head, had her crisis about the twentieth; at which time her hypochondres were hot and burning. The seventh day she did not bleed much; her stools were thin; and about the eighth an abscess appeared by the right eye.

A man was affected in the same manner, except that his crisis happened the seventh day, with a moderate swelling of the spleen on the left side. The eightieth day the eye was affected in this person, and longer too; perhaps, because it came after the crisis, and because there was much to come away.

Temeneus’s sister had a difficulty of breathing, and a distension of the flanks a long time. Whether she was with child or no, I know not. Her body was bound at first, and then it was she vomited; afterwards the vomiting stopped, upon a great deal of viscid bilious matter passing downwards, without any hindrance from the hypochondres. The eleventh, the phlegmon attacked the right thumb: it broke, and the vomiting returned. Upon this she grew better, her dozing and fever abating. Her breath was also freer; because she brought up foul nasty stuff. The sixteenth her breath was little and quick, her fever came on, and she died.

She had a fever before the abscess, and died the seventh day after the abscess. She was also something florid.

Apemantus’s sister’s son had a swelling upon his hypochondres and spleen; a difficulty of breathing; a discharge of viscid, bilious, and somewhat stercoraceous matter downwards; and a weariness after working. The twentieth, his feet were affected. Query? Whether the crisis after such weariness does not happen upon the joints, rather than on the eyes? His hypochondres were distended too, and he had a dry gentle little cough.

What is left after a crisis is apt to cause relapses, and what is separated in the course of the disease. So will a spitting digested before its time; so will the belly, as it happens to be affected; so will intemperance, and the like.

Apemantus, who complained of pains in his fundament, his right flank, and a little below his navel, made bloody urine before the pain in his right side, which gave over the third day. The carpenter too made bloody urine from a pain of the contrary side in the same direction, and upon its stopping, both of them had a sediment the third day. Apemantus was very much heated; the other felt nothing but on the left side.

Nicostratus had also something at the extremity of the right side, lower than where it happened on the left. It reached too in both above the flank even to the navel.

The old woman at Sosileus’s, who was of a leucophlegmatic habit, had hard, white, rough and scaly swellings upon her legs, and upon her feet too, but less. The parts below the thighs were also affected, and in many this complaint passes off with difficulty. Add to this, that the loins were also affected, the belly slender, the flanks softish, and the breath not very short. Most of these ceasing, our next care was about the eyes becoming grayish; a disorder that was somewhat milder than the other. The pains of the hip and leg seemed to depend upon the womb: for a sweet-smelling suppository of meal and ointment dispersed and put an end to them quickly. The time of the abscess (or disorder) about the eye was a year.

One had a pain about the navel, where the pustules were not perfectly suppurated. The like happens too from dysenteric complaints.

In the village of Hippolochus there was a boy, who had something in both his hypochondres, that was in the lower part like the brasier’s wife, who had a dropsy, which upon watery stools passing off was softened a little. This was upon the right side, all alike, but raised above the rest, and in some measure round. His navel was black from the birth, and deeply ulcerated; nor was any scar brought upon it. The glans of the penis was naked too, but not on a sudden, or from the birth; and became more so afterwards. He vomited for the most part, was feverish, and averse to food, but recovered. About the seventh day of his confinement to the bed (for he had been ill before), upon drinking much water, and perhaps committing other irregularities, he grew very restless and uneasy, and was somewhat convulsed. The convulsion ceasing, he died before we were aware of it; but first made water plentifully, and wind passed off audibly. The parts above were not at all softened; but, immediately upon his dying, a great relaxation followed; and the whole body appeared red as if beaten with rods, except where the tumour and the heat remained long.

One of Abdera had an evacuation downwards. Another had a swelling forwards, without a fever; and the swelling was to the touch like an abscess.

A servant maid that was asthmatical, and subject to hemorrhages, at the time of her menses was taken with an asthma. These stopping, a fever came on; her left breast suppurated above, and her ear from the beginning.

Olympiodorus’s servant bled at the right nostril, and had a crisis the twentieth in the way that fevers generally terminate; and his stools were such as were commonly in the summer, like those of Hipponax.

Hyle, the servant of Aristides, upon taking a purge the eighth day, had the appearance of those who bear purging well, if their strength is not unreasonably pulled down by it; and voided neither frothy nor bloody stools, but like eggs, as the wife of Heraclides did, who was purged briskly, and bore it with ease.

One, in the village of Bulagoras, upon purging began to be feverish from the spleen. Now those who have a rising on the right side, but no distension, are red. She was rather red than otherwise, and had a purging from the beginning; and it was expected it would have fixed upon the eye. The seventh day a salt humour ran down from the eyes like tears. It ran likewise through the nose, and into the throat, and upon the left ear. The fifteenth, she sweated, and shivered, but had no crisis. Before the shivering she grew very pale with a greenish cast; the countenance was distended, and fell. The opposite ear to the spleen, and the side, grew painful.

Children were subject to purgings, and dry coughs; and sometimes, towards the conclusion of the coughs, an abscess was formed in the shoulder.

The fuller was in pain about his neck and head. The seventh day his hand was numb. The ninth, his leg was numb too, and his cough ceased.

She, whose jaw was drawn aside, felt a contraction in her womb to the left side five months after.

In Cranon, Lycinus the grammarian, who was ill of a bilious fever that came upon a swelling of the spleen, was taken with a heaviness of the head, and some little hard tubercles or roughnesses about the spleen. Both his lips had ulcers on them, round within and small, and afterwards a little blood came out of the opposite part.

The bought servant, that I saw, who had a great hardness on the right side, not very painful, with a belly large and distended, but not like a dropsy; and who in other respects was fat, and not very short-breathed, but without colour, missed her menses for seven years. A dysentery attended her without a tenesmus, and after this the hardness became painful. A slow fever came on, but not above seven days, and her stools were like amber, somewhat glutinous, and large. She was well some days, and after that her menses came down; the hardness grew soft; her colour laudable; and her body thick.

Minois’s wife, who fell into a mortification from too great a pressure upon an incision, presently gave notice, (upon the matters fixing on the lungs,) how many days she was to live, and that something else was concealed within.

Upon putting any thing up the nose, if a fever ensues, or if the pain is removed, a flux is produced of thick matter from the nostril. But if neither the pain is removed, nor a fever excited, the matter is thin, and perhaps burning; as the thin matter in Hegesippus, who had something put up over night; but it was thick in Celeuris’s son, of Corinth, who was like an eunuch.

Digested abscesses in diseases are known to be critical by these marks, viz., if, being of a hot burning nature, a fever follows not; or if, hard to be borne, they are nevertheless easily borne: as was the case of Charon, in what settled upon his fundament. But in Leambius, whose intestine was thought to be ulcerated, his arm and seat on the left side, upon taking medicines for a dysentery, were ulcerated, and a fever followed.

He, who was distended with wind, had his flank tumefied and painful. Upon drinking much milk and pure wine, and sleeping afterwards, he was taken presently with a sickness at his stomach and heat. Afterwards, making a fire, and, instead of meat, eating meal baked over the coals, his body was tied up, and something like pus came away. But, though the anus was inflamed, I affirm he had neither fever nor pain.

The old man, who lived in the stone-porch, had a pain in his loins and both his legs, which also affected both his thighs, and sometimes his shins; sometimes also his knees. This continued long, and returned often. His feet, legs, and loins swelled; the glands in his groin swelled a little too; the belly was hard; and all the lower part of his belly distended and painful. For the most part his bladder was hard and painful, attended with eruptions and heats.

Aristæas, of Amphilochus’s village, was lightheaded the fourth day. His stools were pale and greenish; his sleeps sound; and his colour white.

Some at the beginning had a sort of trembling in the fingers, and lips, when they spoke; but in other respects were nimble-tongued enough, though not with the best manners. Such had a redness in their faces for the most part; were lovers of wine to excess; or, after vomiting advantageously, swelled.

He that lived at Medosadas’s, who had many thin watery stools that were not bilious, had his hypochondres yielding and tumid. He was also comatose. About the fourteenth, while the crisis was going forward, a shivering seized him without trembling, attended with a relaxation, a languidness, and a falling down of his limbs; his belly was loose; the coma continued; and he was lightheaded after sleeping, but not mad. The fourteenth, had a crisis, none of the critical signs opposing it.

Just so it was with the other person, who at the beginning had stools that were glutinous, of which the thick part proved critical. He was watchful too; and afterwards had stools that were somewhat glutinous, somewhat bilious, digested, more bilious, and not thin: but, when they began to have a consistence, the crisis soon came on. The hypochondre appeared distended about the sixth, with heat and pain, as when the veins are distended and agitated. After that he slept the seventh, and had a crisis the ninth. Both of them were white-coloured, not yellow. The watery stools, exposed to the air, were smooth and thin upon the surface, very like woad or yellow amber, and had a sediment at the bottom.

A softish distension of the right side denotes a phrensy, if it does not go off upon the fever’s going off.

If, upon the softness of the belly, something happens to be collected there, hard, and painful, and of such a bad quality as not to be dispersed, perhaps a suppuration will follow from such a swelling.

Swellings on the right side, as many as are in a great measure soft, especially upon pressing, if a murmuring follows, are not to be deemed of a bad quality; as in the Amphilochian, and the Medosadean, who were both of them comatose and delirious in their sleep.

He who had an ulcer upon his shin had red large pustules break out, upon using the Attick ointment: and this, instead of a cough that was afterwards troublesome, for he had no cough before.

In Ænus, as many as were chilly, and wounded in the head, were in a bad way, and came to suppuration. They had also a pain in their feet upon travelling, from a tenesmus; and, in often attempting to discharge, a weariness. Such was the case of Clinias, who was averse to food, fell away, and discharged a matter that was sometimes a little bloody, at other times pure pus.

Hippeus’s wife, who was dropsical, coughed for three years in the beginning of the spring, collected a great quantity of matter, and in the winter became dropsical, but was relieved by purges for that purpose. The maid-servant died.

Those among the coughers, who laboured with their hands, as the boy that twisted osiers, and Amyntas’s son, were both of them paralytic in the right hand only, and the cough ceased; after which they had it with the cough. Those who rid on horseback, or travelled, had it in their loins and thighs. But the coughs were for the most part dry; or, if not, very violent.

Enmyris’s wife, who was taken ill (but not in the usual manner) seemed to be without a fever, and yet had something of a typhus. After this a trembling came on all over, a wasting, an aversion to food, a thirst, and a coldness.

Those who had the disease of the eyes called nyctalopia, and made a great deal of water, afterwards made but little; but upon coughing and growing feverish had abscesses broke behind the ears about the seventh or eighth day.

Enmyris’s daughter was feverish, and pus came out of her ear about the eighth day; but I am not certain. Some had a tooth eaten away, especially the third of the upper jaw. In some it was painful, and suppurated; in others the suppuration was in the ears; and these coughed much more vehemently than those. Others again had a collection of matter with a fever, and were freed the seventh. Upon the hypochondres being irritated no solution happened; and, upon the belly’s being softened, there were little glutinous concretions, not of any service; the urine like blood; the spittle frothy.

He the Cynick brought me to, was much disordered the seventh day, and had a crisis the fourteenth. The bad symptoms dwindled away by degrees. His throat was clear; and what he spit was little, broad, and digested. A few drops fell from his nose; his head was heavy; his hands and legs somewhat paralytic; his belly loose, and to good purpose; and his feet always warm. He also slept, and had nothing behind his ears, because of his digested spittings.

Demaratus’s wife was warm in her feet, even when chilly; but, whether it tended to suppuration or not, she died.

The old man who died was taken ill with his wife, who had something concealed in her very furious; but upon a thickish worm coming away, and the refreshment of a little food, her complaints immediately ceased; she slept, and was quite well. The old man had the skin of his body stretched, and his extremities cold. He was also soft, and trembled from the beginning in his lips, hands, and speech; was moderately lightheaded; and laid with his mouth open, not much oppressed in his breathing. He died at last, but how many days beyond twenty I know not.

Where the hypochondres and the belly discharge compressed matter in abundance, without any rumbling, as in Abdera, the excrement is variegated.

What is spit up in peripneumonies is in some bilious, when the disease will go off; in others very yellow, when the crisis will be short.

If such, as appear at the beginning, appear the same afterwards, this is an argument of very little concoction; and the crisis is as in him who lived with the master, or as I have seen it at other times.

Nicippus in his fever had frequent emissions, without any inconvenience; and was foretold that they would cease, when the fever was come to its crisis; and so it happened.

Critias was pestered with dreams in his fever, from which I know he was freed after the crisis.

Alcippus, who was subject to the piles, was forbid to be cured, and upon being cured went mad. An acute fever coming on, carried the other off.

In acute fevers, those who are thirsty, and deprived of drink by heir physicians or themselves (though they could drink a great deal), are the better for cold water given to vomit them; for much bilious matter will come away.

That the nerves (or tendons) attract one another, is plain from this: for, if the upper tendons of the hand are wounded, the hand will incline downwards, drawn by the lower; and so vice versa.

A dry cough produces a swelling of the testicle; and what comes from a cough upon the testicle must be cured by bleeding. Inflammations cause coughs. They also come upon fevers that arise from swelled glands.

[a ]Sydus insigne visum est, quinto autem post sextoque die terræ motus extetit. Hal. ii. 255; Fœs., 1128.

[a ]“As to the great star that is said, in the fourth book of Epidemics, to have appeared about the winter solstice, attended with an earthquake, all the information I have been able to get (and for which I am very much obliged to that most ingenious and learned gentleman, Mr. Machin, Astronomy Professor at Gresham College, and Secretary to the Royal Society) amounts to this, viz., that there were two comets in the days of Hippocrates, and both of them attended with an earthquake. The first appeared about the time of the winter solstice, in the month Gamelion, in the second year of the 88th Olympiad, i. e. in the 427th year before Christ, the 5th year of the Peloponnesian war, and the 33d year of Hippocrates’s age (according to Soranus’s account of his birth); Eucleis (or Euclides, the son of Molon), the successor of Diotimus, being then Archon of Athens. See Arist. Meteorolog., cap. 6, lib. i. and Joh. Philopon. Meteorol. Arist., f. 96, p. 2, edit. Ven. 1551.

“The other was a great comet, called by Aristotle ὁ μεγας ϰομητης, i. e. the great comet, to distinguish it from all others. This appeared also in the winter in a clear frost, about sunset, and was attended with the earthquake and inundation of Achaia, that destroyed so many places and cities mentioned by Seneca (nat. quæst. lib. 7,) and others; Aristæus (or Asteus, as he is called by some) being then Archon of Athens, viz., in the fourth year of the 101st Olympiad, i. e. in the 373d year before Christ, and the 87th year of Hippocrates’s age. But the appearance of this comet, though it is said to be in the winter, is not so particularly described as that of the other; Aristotle mentioning the appearance of the first to be about the winter solstice, agreeable to the Hippocratic memorandum; but of the second to have been in the winter only, without mentioning what time in the winter. Thucydides likewise observes, that in the fifth and sixth years of the Peloponnesian war there were many tremblings or shakings of the earth, and the plague, that had not been quite extinguished, broke out again at that time, and continued above a year after; so that it is very probable, if the malignant year already mentioned did not happen about the time of the plague in the beginning of the war, it was about the time of this comet’s appearance, viz., in the fifth year of the same war; such appearances, and such tremblings, generally producing very sickly seasons.”—Clifton, Preface.