De Medicina

10 We must also take into consideration whether fevers exist alone, or whether there are additional troubles, namely whether the head aches, whether the tongue is roughened, whether the chest is tight.

If there is headache, rose oil should be mixed with vinegar and poured over the head; next two strips of linen are taken, each corresponding in length and breadth to the forehead, of which in turn one is placed in the rose oil and vinegar, the other on the forehead; or unscoured wool is soaked in the same and applied. If the vinegar hurts, the rose oil alone is to be used; if rose oil itself irritates, then bitter olive oil. If there is little relief from the above, we may pound up either dried orris root, or bitter almonds, or some other from among refrigerant

herbs; any one of these applied with vinegar lessens pain, one more in one case, another in another. There is benefit from the application of bread soaked in poppy head decoction, or in rose oil containing cerussa or litharge. Also it is not unsuitable to snuff up thyme or dill.

But first there is inflammation and pain in the chest, the first thing is to apply to it repressing plasters, lest more diseased matter should gather there, if hotter ones were applied; next, when the primary inflammation has subsided, and not before, we must go on to hot and moist plasters, in order to disperse what remains of the matter. Now the signs of an inflammation are four: redness and swelling with heat and pain. Over this Erasistratus greatly erred, when he said that no fever occurred apart from inflammation. Therefore if there is pain without inflammation, nothing is to be put on: for the actual fever at once will dissolve the pain. But if there is neither inflammation nor fever, but just pain in the chest, it is allowable to use hot and dry foments from the first.

Again if the tongue is dry and scabrous, it is to be wiped over first with a pledget of wool dipped in hot water, then to be smeared with a mixture of rose oil and honey. Honey cleans, rose oil represses and at the same time does not allow the tongue to dry. But if the tongue is not scabrous, only dry, after being wiped over with the pledget of wool, it should be smeared with rose oil to which a little wax has been added.

11 Generally also preceding fevers there is a chill, and that is a most troublesome class of malady.

When it is expected, the patient is to be prohibited from drinking anything: for this, given a little while beforehand, adds much to the illness. Likewise he is to be covered up quite soon with a quantity of bed-clothes; to the parts about which we feel concern there are to be applied such dry and hot foments as will not immediately set up a very vehement heat, but gradually increase it. The said parts are also to be rubbed by hands anointed with cold olive oil, to which has been added one of the heating agents. And some practitioners are satisfied with one rubbing of any kind of oil. During remissions of these fevers, some give three or four cupfuls of barley water even although some fever still persists; then, the fever having definitely ended, they reinvigorate the stomach with cold and light food. This, I think, should be tried only when there has been little benefit from food given once and at the end of the paroxysm. It must be carefully looked to, however, that the time of the remission is not deceptive; for often in this class of illness the fever seems to diminish, and then again becomes intense. Some degree of trust must be placed in that remission which is prolonged, and diminishes restlessness and the foulness of the mouth which the Greeks term ozaena. This is pretty generally agreed, that if the daily paroxysms are equal, a little food should be given every day: if the paroxysms are unequal, food should be given after the more severe, after the slighter ones hydromel.