Of Medicine, in Eight BooksCelsus, Aulus Cornelius
History
Of Medicine, in Eight Books
Celsus, Aulus Cornelius
Medicine, Greek and Roman
On the other hand there is hazard of a dangerous distemper, when
the patient lies supine, with his arms and legs extended: when he
inclines to sit up during the greatest violence of an acute distemper,
especially in a peripneumony: when he is distressed with wakefulness
in the night, even although he sleep in the day time. Now sleep, which
happens betwixt the fourth hour(8) and night, is worse than that,
which is betwixt morning and the same hour. But it is worst of all,
if he neither sleep in the night, nor the day time: for that cannot
well happen without a constant delirium. Neither is it a good sign
to be oppressed with sleep beyond measure: and the worse, the nearer
the sleep comes to being continued day and night. It is also a sign
of a dangerous distemper to breathe quickly, and with vehemence; for
shudderings to have come on after the sixth day; to spit matter;
to expectorate with difficulty; to have constant pain; to be much
distressed with the distemper; to toss the arms and legs about; to weep
involuntarily; to have a glutinous humour sticking to the teeth; for
the skin about the navel and pubes to be emaciated; for the praecordia
to be inflamed, painful, hard, swelled, tense: the case is worse, if
these appearances be more on the right side than on the left: but the
danger is still greatly increased, if at the same time the pulsation
of the arteries there be violent. Again, it indicates a bad distemper
to be too quickly emaciated; to have the head, feet, and hands cold,
with the belly and sides hot; or for the extremities to be cold during
the violence of an acute distemper; or to shudder after sweating; or
after vomiting to have the hiccough, or the eyes to be red; or after
having an appetite for food, or at the end of long fevers, to loath
it; to sweat much, and especially a cold sweat; or to have sweats not
equally diffused over the whole body, and such as do not terminate
the fever. They are also bad fevers, which return every day at the
same time; or those, that always have paroxysms equally violent, and
which do not remit every third day; or those, that continue so as to
increase in their paroxysms, and only remit in their intervals, but
never leave the body quite free from disorder. It is worst of all, if
the fever does not at all remit, but continues with equal violence.
It is dangerous too for a fever to come after a jaundice, especially
if the praecordia have continued hard on the right side; or on the
left, if attended with pain there. Every acute fever ought to give us
no small apprehensions: and always in such a fever, or after sleep,
convulsions are terrible. It is also a sign of a bad distemper to wake
with a fright, and likewise in the beginning of a fever for the mind to
be presently disordered, or any limb to become paralytic. In that case,
though the patient escape with life, yet for the most part that limb is
debilitated. A vomiting also of pure phlegm or bile is dangerous; and
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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