The Signs and Causes of a Dangerous Disease

Abstract

The disease is grave when it parches and fire consumes within, and yet the outside is freezing: if he lose flesh of a sudden and must stand to breathe: if he spits pus, if he is too wakeful or weighed down with sleep, has vomiting or gasping and the eyes are red, if sleep is marked by fear and trembling and profuse sweating and he lies on his back with arms and legs outstretched: if, with vocal plaint, a lugubrious voice heralds his pain continually like a man hard pressed, if he has distended flanks but does not go to stool: or if, the ill redoubling, his mind is troubled, if all the belly is cold but head and hands are hot: if, despite himself, he weeps as the cruel fever agitatedly mounts from hour to hour, if breathing is fast and forceful and all he vomits is of a piece: if his urine is pale and the brain, now burning, is seized with frenzy: or if the sediment is like scurf or threads, or if, during the fever, there is violent diarrhoea: then these symptoms can only be of terrible import. For they prove that a humour without mercy or an excess of heat attacks all parts and organs and, unless soon counteracted, will lead to early death.