PART 5
About the equinox, and until the season of the Pleiades, and at
the approach of winter, many ardent fevers set in; but great numbers
at that season were seized with phrenitis, and many died; a few cases
also occurred during the summer. These then made their attack at the
commencement of ardent fevers, which were attended with fatal symptoms;
for immediately upon their setting in, there were acute fever and
small rigors, insomnolency, aberration, thirst, nausea, insignificant
sweats about the forehead and clavicles, but no general perspiration;
they had much delirious talking, fears, despondency, great coldness
of the extremities, in the feet, but more especially in their hands:
the paroxysms were on the even days; and in most cases, on the fourth
day, the most violent pains set in, with sweats, generally coldish,
and the extremities could not be warmed, but were livid and rather
cold, and they had then no thirst; in them the urine was black, scanty,
thin, and the bowels were constipated; there was an hemorrhage from
the nose in no case in which these symptoms occurred, but merely a
trifling epistaxis; and none of them had a relapse, but they died
on the sixth day with sweats. In the phrenitic cases, all the symptoms
which have been described did not occur, but in them the disease mostly
came to a crisis on the eleventh day, and in some on the twentieth.
In those cases in which the phrenitis did not begin immediately, but
about the
[p. 110]third or fourth day, the disease was moderate at the commencement,
but assumed a violent character about the seventh day. There was a
great number of diseases, and of those affected, they who died were
principally infants, young persons, adults having smooth bodies, white
skins, straight and black hair, dark eyes, those living recklessly
and luxuriously; persons with shrill, or rough voices, who stammered
and were passionate, and women more especially died from this form.
In this constitution, four symptoms in particular proved salutary;
either a hemorrhage from the nose, or a copious discharge by the bladder
of urine, having an abundant and proper sediment, or a bilious disorder
of the bowels at the proper time, or an attack of dysentery. And in
many cases it happened, that the crisis did not take place by any
one of the symptoms which have been mentioned, but the patient passed
through most of them, and appeared to be in an uncomfortable way,
and yet all who were attacked with these symptoms recovered. All the
symptoms which I have described occurred also to women and girls;
and whoever of them had any of these symptoms in a favorable manner,
or the menses appeared abundantly, were saved thereby, and had a crisis,
so that I do not know a single female who had any of these favorably
that died. But the daughter of Philo, who had a copious hemorrhage
from the nose, and took supper unseasonably on the seventh day, died.
In those cases of acute, and more especially of ardent fevers, in
which there is an involuntary discharge of tears, you may expect a
nasal hemorrhage unless the other symptoms be of a fatal type, for
in those of a bad description, they do not indicate a hemorrhage,
but death.
