Hippocrates, De morbis popularibus
W. H. S. Jones, Ed.

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PART 3

III. But when summer came, and during autumn occurred many continuous but not violent fevers, which attacked persons who were long ailing without suffering distress in any other particular manner ; for the bowels were in most cases quite easy, and hurt to no appreciable extent. Urine in most cases of good colour and clear, but thin, and after a time near the crisis it grew concocted. Coughing was slight, and caused no distress. No lack of appetite ; in fact it was quite possible even to give food. In general the patients did not sicken, as did the consumptives,

[p. 153] with shivering fevers, but with slight sweats, the paroxysms being variable and irregular.¹ The earliest crisis was about the twentieth day ; in most cases the crisis was about the fortieth day, though in many it was about the eightieth. In some cases the illness did not end in this way, but in an irregular manner without a crisis. In the majority of these cases the fevers relapsed after a brief interval, and after the relapse a crisis occurred at the end of the same periods as before. The disease in many of these instances was so protracted that it even lasted during the winter.

Out of all those described in this constitution only the consumptives showed a high mortality-rate ; for all the other patients bore up well, and the other fevers did not prove fatal.