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Aphorisms

By Hippocrates
Commentary: A few comments have been posted about Aphorisms.

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Aphorisms

By Hippocrates

Written 400 B.C.E

Translated by Francis Adams

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Section VI
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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.


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