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Table of Contents
Appendix Part 11
Peripneumonia, and pleuritic affections, are to be thus observed: If the fever be acute, and if there be pains on either side, or in both, and if expiration be if cough be present, and the sputa expectorated be of a blond or livid color, or likewise thin, frothy, and florid, or having any other character different from the common, in such a case, the physician should proceed thus: if the pain pass upward to the clavicle, or the breast, or the arm, the inner vein in the arm should be opened on the side affected, and blood abstracted according to the habit, age, and color of the patient, and the season of the year, and that largely and boldly, if the pain be acute, so as to bring on deliquium animi, and afterwards a clyster is to be given. But if the pain be below the chest, and if very intense, purge the bowels gently in such an attack of pleurisy, and during the act of purging give nothing; but after the purging give oxymel. The medicine is to be administered on the fourth day; on the first three days after the commencement, a clyster should be given, and if it does not relieve the patient, he should then be gently purged, but he is to be watched until the fever goes off, and till the seventh day; then if he appear to be free from danger, give him some unstrained ptisan, in small quantity, and thin at first, mixing it with honey. If the expectoration be easy, and the breathing free, if his sides be free of pain, and if the fever be gone, he may take the ptisan thicker, and in larger quantity, twice a day. But if he do not progress favorably, he must get less of the drink, and of the draught, which should be thin, and only given once a day, at whatever is judged to be the most favorable hour; this you will ascertain from the urine. The draught is not to be given to persons after fever, until you see that the urine and sputa are concocted (if, indeed, after the administration of the medicine he be purged frequently, it may be necessary to give it, but it should be given in smaller quantities and thinner than usual, for from inanition he will be unable to sleep, or digest properly, or wait the crisis); but when the melting down of crude matters has taken place, and his system has cast off what is offensive, there will then be no objection. The sputa are concocted when they resemble pus, and the urine when it has reddish sediments like tares. But there is nothing to prevent fomentations and cerates being applied for the other pains of the sides; and the legs and loins may be rubbed with hot oil, or anointed with fat; linseed, too, in the form of a cataplasm, may be applied to the hypochondrium and as far up as the breasts. When pneumonia is at its height, the case is beyond remedy if he is not purged, and it is bad if he has dyspnoea, and urine that is thin and acrid, and if sweats come out about the neck and head, for such sweats are bad, as proceeding from the suffocation, rales, and the violence of the disease which is obtaining the upper hand, unless there be a copious evacuation of thick urine, and the sputa be concocted; when either of these come on spontaneously, that will carry off the disease. A linctus for pneumonia: Galbanum and pine-fruit in Attic honey; and southernwood in oxymel; make a decoction of pepper and black hellebore, and give it in cases of pleurisy attended with violent pain at the commencement. It is also a good thing to boil opoponax in oxymel, and, having strained it, to give it to drink; it answers well, also, in diseases of the liver, and in severe pains proceeding from the diaphragm, and in all cases in which it is beneficial to determine to the bowels or urinary organs, when given in wine and honey; when given to act upon the bowels, it should be drunk in larger quantity, along with a watery hydromel.