11. We must retrench during paroxysms, for to exhibit food would
be injurious. And in all diseases having periodical paroxysms, we must
restrict during the paroxysms.

12. The exacerbations and remissions will be indicated by the
diseases, the seasons of the year, the reciprocation of the periods,
whether they occur every day, every alternate day, or after a longer
period, and by the supervening symptoms; as, for example, in pleuritic
cases, expectoration, if it occur at the commencement, shortens the
attack, but if it appear later, it prolongs the same; and in the
same manner the urine, and alvine discharges, and sweats, according as
they appear along with favorable or unfavorable symptoms, indicate
diseases of a short or long duration.

13. Old persons endure fasting most easily; next, adults; young
persons not nearly so well; and most especially infants, and of them
such as are of a particularly lively spirit.

14. Growing bodies have the most innate heat; they therefore require
the most food, for otherwise their bodies are wasted. In old persons
the heat is feeble, and therefore they require little fuel, as it
were, to the flame, for it would be extinguished by much. On this
account, also, fevers in old persons are not equally acute, because
their bodies are cold.

15. In winter and spring the bowels are naturally the hottest, and
the sleep most prolonged; at these seasons, then, the most
sustenance is to be administered; for as the belly has then most
innate heat, it stands in need of most food. The well-known facts with
regard to young persons and the athletae prove this.

16. A humid regimen is befitting in all febrile diseases, and
particularly in children, and others accustomed to live on such a
diet.

17. We must consider, also, in which cases food is to be given
once or twice a day, and in greater or smaller quantities, and at
intervals. Something must be conceded to habit, to season, to country,
and to age.

18. Invalids bear food worst during summer and autumn, most easily
in winter, and next in spring.

19. Neither give nor enjoin anything to persons during periodical
paroxysms, but abstract from the accustomed allowance before the
crisis.

20. When things are at the crisis, or when they have just passed it,
neither move the bowels, nor make any innovation in the treatment,
either as regards purgatives or any other such stimulants, but let
things alone.

21. Those things which require to be evacuated should be
evacuated, wherever they most tend, by the proper outlets.

22. We must purge and move such humors as are concocted, not such as
are unconcocted, unless they are struggling to get out, which is
mostly not the case.

23. The evacuations are to be judged of not by their quantity, but
whether they be such as they should be, and how they are borne. And
when proper to carry the evacuation to deliquium animi, this also
should be done, provided the patient can support it.