Of Medicine, in Eight BooksCelsus, Aulus Cornelius
History
Of Medicine, in Eight Books
Celsus, Aulus Cornelius
Medicine, Greek and Roman
which has begun without any preceding distemper. Of the next favourable
sort is that, which succeeds a long distemper, if at the same time the
bowels be firm; if the breathing be easy; if there is no pain; if the
body is not hot; and is equally lean in its extremities; if the belly
is soft; if there be no cough, no thirst; if the tongue even in sleep
does grow dry; if there is an appetite for meat; if the belly yields
to purging medicines; if spontaneously it discharges excrements soft
and figured; if it grows less(12); if the urine is altered by the
change of wine, and by drinking certain medicinal potions; if the body
is free from lassitude, and easily bears motion: for where one has all
these symptoms, he is altogether safe; where most of them appear, the
patient is in a hopeful way. Diseases of the joints, as the gout in the
feet or hands, if they have attacked the patients young, and have not
brought on a callus, may be removed; and they are most of all allayed
by a dysentery, and when by any means the belly becomes loose. Also
an epilepsy, that begins before puberty, is easily removed; and where
a person sensibly feels the approaching fit first affecting some part
of the body. It is best, that it begin at the hands or feet; next to
them, at the sides; but worst of all, when it begins at the head. And
in these patients also, excretions by the belly are of the greatest
service. Now a purging is not in the least hurtful, which is without
a fever, if it quickly, ceases; if upon feeling the belly, there is no
motion perceived; if wind is discharged at the end of a stool. Nay even
a dysentery is not dangerous, if blood and strigments are discharged,
provided the patient is without a fever, and the other concomitants of
this distemper: insomuch, that a pregnant woman may not only be cured,
but her fœtus also preserved. And it is an advantage in this disorder,
if the patient has come to some age. On the contrary, a lientery is
more easily cured in tender age: especially if the urine begins to
be excreted, and the body to be nourished with food. The same age is
most favourable in pains of the hip, and arms, and in every paralytic
disorder. Amongst these, the hip, if it be without numbness, if its
coldness be slight, although it be greatly pained, yet it is easily and
quickly cured; and a paralytic limb, if it continue to be nourished,
may be recovered. A palsy of the mouth also is cured by a loose belly.
And all purging does good to one labouring under a lippitude. Madness
is removed by the appearance of a varicous swelling, or sudden eruption
of blood from the hæmorrhoidal veins, or a dysentery. Pains of the
arms, which are propagated either to the shoulders, or hands, are
cured by vomiting of atrabilis. And whatever pain moves downward, is
more easily cured. A hiccough is cured by sneezing. A vomiting stops
long purgings. A woman, that vomits blood, is relieved by the flux
of her menses. She, whose menses are deficient, if there has been an
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