Of Medicine, in Eight BooksCelsus, Aulus Cornelius
History
Of Medicine, in Eight Books
Celsus, Aulus Cornelius
Medicine, Greek and Roman
The case of pestilential fevers demands attention and a peculiar
treatment. In this it is by no means good to try fasting, or medicines,
or clysters. If the strength will admit, it is best to let blood;
especially if the fever be attended with a burning heat. If that is not
safe, when the fever is either abated, or less violent, to cleanse the
breast by a vomit. But there is a necessity to order the bath sooner in
this than in other distempers; to give wine strong and hot, and every
thing glutinous; amongst which flesh of the same kind. For the more
quickly that such constitutions of the air destroy, so much the sooner
must remedies be laid hold of, even with a degree of rashness. But if
he be a boy, that labours under it, and have not sufficient strength
for bleeding, he must be cupped, and have a clyster either of water,
or the cream of ptisan; then lastly he is to be nourished by light
food. It is a general rule, that boys ought to be treated altogether
in a different method from men. Wherefore in this, as well as in every
other kind of distemper, greater caution must be used at that age in
the following articles: not to bleed, not to give a clyster without
necessity, nor to torment by watching, or fasting, or excessive thirst,
nor to attempt the cure by wine. The patient must vomit after the
fever: then the lightest kind of food is to be given; after that he is
to sleep: the day following, if the fever continue, he must fast; on
the third day return to the same diet. And we must endeavour, as much
as possible in the midst of a seasonable abstinence to nourish him by
food at proper times, laying aside every thing else.
[Sidenote: _Of an Ardent fever._]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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