Celsus, De Medicina
W. G. Spencer, Ed.

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14 Passing from the framework of the body to the viscera, we come first to the lung, where a grave and acute disease arises, which the Greeks name peripleumoniacon. The conditions are these: the lung is attacked as a whole; this is followed by a cough which draws up bile or pus; there is a feeling of weight over the praecordia and all the chest; there is difficult breathing, high fever, persistent insomnia, loss of appetite, wasting. This sort of disease has in it more of danger than of pain. Blood should be let if there is strength enough; if not, dry cups should be applied over the praecordia. Then if the patient is strong enough he should be rocked to disperse the [p. 411] disease; if not, he should yet be moved about in the house: his drink should then be a decoction of hyssop with a dried fig, or hydromel in which hyssop or rue has been boiled; he should be rubbed twice daily, longest between the shoulder-blades, then the arms, feet and legs, but lightly over the lung. As regards food too, in this instance it should be neither salted nor acrid nor bitter nor constipating, but of the rather blander kinds. Therefore on the first days pearl barley or spelt or rice gruel in which fresh lard has been boiled are to be given; with this raw eggs, pine kernels in honey, bread or washed groats of spelt in hydromel; then he may drink not only water by itself but also lukewarm hydromel, or even this cold in summer, unless there is some objection. But whilst the disease is on the increase, it is enough to give these every other day. When the increase has come to a stand, he should abstain, so far as is practicable, from everything except lukewarm water. If the strength begins to fail, hydromel is to be added. For the relief of pain it is helpful to apply foments hot, or those which both repress and soothe. The application to the chest of salt, well rubbed up and mixed with wax-salve, is beneficial because it slightly erodes the skin, and thereby draws out that flood of the matter by which the lung is being oppressed. Useful also is any one of the emollients which draw out the matter. During the pressure of the disease it is not wrong to keep the patient with the windows shut: when he is somewhat better, some windows should be opened three or four times a day to let in a little air. Next during recovery he should for several days abstain from wine, use rocking, rubbing and gruels; to the previous foods add: of vegetables,[p. 413] leeks, of meat, trotters and tit-bits, also small fish, so long as for a while nothing but what is soft and bland is consumed.