On Regimen In Acute Diseases   

Ardent fever (causus) takes place when the veins, being dried up
in the summer season, attract acrid and bilious humors to
themselves; and strong fever seizes the whole body, which
experiences aches of the bones, and is in a state of lassitude and
pain. It takes place most commonly from a long walk and protracted
thirst, when the veins being dried up attract acrid and hot defluxions
to themselves. The tongue becomes rough, dry, and very black; there
are gnawing pains about the bowels; the alvine discharges are watery
and yellow; there is intense thirst, insomnolency, and sometimes
wandering of the mind. To a person in such a state give to drink water
and as much boiled hydromel of a watery consistence as he will take;
and if the mouth be bitter, it may be advantageous to administer an
emetic and clyster; and if these things do not loosen the bowels,
purge with the boiled milk of asses. Give nothing saltish nor acrid,
for they will not be borne; and give no draughts of ptisan until the
crisis be past. And the affection is resolved if there be an
epistaxis, or if true critical sweats supervene with urine having
white, thick, and smooth sediments, or if a deposit take place
anywhere; but if it be resolved without these, there will be a relapse
of the complaint, or pain in the hips and legs will ensue, with
thick sputa, provided the patient be convalescent. Another species
of ardent fever: belly loose, much thirst, tongue rough, dry, and
saltish, retention of urine, insomnolency, extremities cold. In such a
case, unless there be a flow of blood from the nose, or an abscess
form about the neck, or pain in the limbs, or the patient
expectorate thick sputa (these occur when the belly is constipated),
or pain of the hips, or lividity of the genital organs, there is no
crisis; tension of the testicle is also a critical symptom. Give
attractive draughts.
2. Bleed in the acute affections, if the disease appear strong,
and the patients be in the vigor of life, and if they have strength.
If it be quinsy or any other of the pleuritic affections, purge with
electuaries; but if the patient be weaker, or if you abstract more
blood, you may administer a clyster every third day, until he be out
of danger, and enjoin total abstinence if necessary.
3. Hypochondria inflamed not from retention of flatus, tension of
the diaphragm, checked respiration, with dry orthopnoea, when no pus
is formed, but when these complaints are connected with obstructed
respiration; but more especially strong pains of the liver,
heaviness of the spleen, and other phlegmasiae and intense pains above
the diaphragm, diseases connected with collections of humors,- all
these diseases do not admit of resolution, if treated at first by
medicine, but venesection holds the first place in conducting the
treatment; then we may have recourse to a clyster, unless the
disease be great and strong; but if so, purging also may be necessary;
but bleeding and purging together require caution and moderation.
Those who attempt to resolve inflammatory diseases at the commencement
by the administration of purgative medicines, remove none of the
morbific humors which produce the inflammation and tension; for the
diseases while unconcocted could not yield, but they melt down those
parts which are healthy and resist the disease; so when the body is
debilitated the malady obtains the mastery; and when the disease has
the upper hand of the body, it does not admit of a cure.
4. When a person suddenly loses his speech, in connection with
obstruction of the veins,- if this happen without warning or any other
strong cause, one ought to open the internal vein of the right arm,
and abstract blood more or less according to the habit and age of
the patient. Such cases are mostly attended with the following
symptoms: redness of the face, eyes fixed, hands distended, grinding
of the teeth, palpitations, jaws fixed, coldness of the extremities,
retention of airs in the veins.
5. When pains precede, and there are influxes of black bile and of
acrid humors, and when by their pungency the internal parts are
pained, and the veins being pinched and dried become distended, and