Of Medicine, in Eight BooksCelsus, Aulus Cornelius
History
Of Medicine, in Eight Books
Celsus, Aulus Cornelius
Medicine, Greek and Roman
Whatever has relieved it, he must begin with a moist diet, and
especially hydromel; then take soft food, and not acrid, till the
fauces return to their former soundness. It is a vulgar opinion,
that if a person eats a young swallow, he will be in no danger of an
angina for the whole year: and that if it be preserved in salt, to
burn it, and powder the coal of it, and give it to drink in hydromel,
does service in this distemper. And as this is confidently reported
by men of good credit among the common people, and the practice can
be attended with no danger, although I have not read of it in medical
treatises, yet I thought fit to give it a place in this work.
[Sidenote: _Of a difficulty of breathing._]
There is also a disorder about the fauces, which amongst the Greeks has
different names, according to its different degrees. The whole consists
in a difficulty of breathing: but while it is moderate, and does not
wholly suffocate, it is called dyspnœa[CN]; when it is more severe,
that the patient cannot breath without a noise, and quick fetches,
asthma[CO]; when the difficulty is so great, that respiration cannot
be performed, unless the neck be kept erect, orthopnœa[CP]. The first
of these may be of long continuance without endangering life: the two
following are commonly acute. These symptoms are common to them all,
that by the straitness of the passage, through which the breath comes,
a wheezing is occasioned; there is a pain in the breast and præcordia,
sometimes also in the shoulders, and that goes and comes; besides these
there is a slight cough.
[CN] δύσπνοια.
[CO] ̃ἀσθμα.
[CP] ὀρθόπνοια.
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