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Commentary: A few comments have been posted about On Regimen in Acute Diseases.
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Table of Contents
Appendix Part 10
If, in a winter fever, the tongue be rough, and if there be swoonings, it is likely to be the remission of the fever. Nevertheless such a person is to be kept upon a restricted diet, with water for drink, and hydromel, and the strained juices, not trusting to the remission of the fevers, as persons having these symptoms are in danger of dying; when, therefore, you perceive these symptoms, announce this prognostic, if you shall judge proper, after making the suitable observations. When, in fevers, any dangerous symptom appears on the fifth day, when watery discharges suddenly take place from the bowels, when deliquium animi occurs, or the patient is attacked with loss of speech, convulsions, or hiccup, under such circumstances he is likely to be affected with nausea, and sweats break out under the nose and forehead, or on the back part of the neck and head, and patients with such symptoms shortly die, from stoppage of the respiration. When, in fevers, abscesses form about the legs, and, getting into a chronic state, are not concocted while the fever persists, and if one is seized with a sense of suffocation in the throat, while the fauces are not swelled, and if it do not come to maturation, but is repressed, in such a case there is apt to be a flow of blood from the nose; if this, then, be copious, it indicates a resolution of the disease, but if not, a prolongation of the complaint; and the less the discharge, so much worse the symptoms, and the more protracted the disease; but if the other symptoms are very favorable, expect in such a case that pains will fall upon the feet; if then they attack the feet, and if these continue long in a very painful, and inflamed state, and if there be no resolution, the pains will extend by degrees to the neck, to the clavicle, shoulder, breast, or to some articulation, in which an inflammatory tumor will necessarily form. When these are reduced, if the hands are contracted, and become trembling, convulsion and delirium seize such a person; but blisters break out on the eyebrow, erythema takes place, the one eyelid being tumefied overtops the other, a hard inflammation sets in, the eye become strongly swelled, and the delirium increases much, but makes its attacks rather at night than by day. These symptoms more frequently occur on odd than on even days, but, whether on the one or the other, they are of a fatal character. Should you determine to give purgative medicines in such cases, at the commencement, you should do so before the fifth day, if there be borborygmi in the bowels, or, if not, you should omit the medicines altogether. If there be borborygmi, with bilious stools, purge moderately with scammony; but with regard to the treatment otherwise, administer as few drinks and draughts as until there be some amendment, and the disease is past the fourteenth day. When loss of speech seizes a person, on the fourteenth day of a fever, there is not usually a speedy resolution, nor any removal of the disease, for this symptom indicates a protracted disease; and when it appears on that day, it will be still more prolonged. When, on the fourth day of a fever, the tongue articulates confusedly, and when there are watery and bilious discharges from the bowels, such a patient is apt to fall into a state of delirium; the physician ought, therefore, to watch him, and attend to whatever symptoms may turn up. In the season of summer and autumn an epistaxis, suddenly occurring in acute diseases, indicates vehemence of the attack, and inflammation in the course of the veins, and on the day following, the discharge of thin urine; and if the patient be in the prime of life, and if his body be strong from exercise, and brawny, or of a melancholic temperament, or if from drinking has trembling hands, it may be well to announce beforehand either delirium or convulsion; and if these symptoms occur on even days, so much the better; but on critical days, they are of a deadly character. If, then, a copious discharge of blood procure an issue to the fullness thereof about the nose, or what is collected about the anus, there will be an abscess, or pains in the hypochondrium, or testicles, or in the limbs; and when these are resolved, there will be a discharge of thick sputa, and of smooth, thin urine. In fever attended with singultus, give asafoetida, oxymel, and carrot, triturated together, in a draught; or galbanum in honey, and cumin in a linctus, or the juice of ptisan. Such a person cannot escape, unless critical sweats and gentle sleep supervene, and thick and acrid urine be passed, or the disease terminate in an abscess: give pine-fruit and myrrh in a linctus, and further give a very little oxymel to drink; but if they are very thirsty, some barley-water.