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OF ARETÆUS, THE CAPPADOCIAN, ON THE CAUSES AND SYMPTOMS OF CHRONIC DISEASE
BOOK I.
CHAPTER VIII. ON PHTHISIS
[p. 310]
ceasing, indeed, at no time, but concealed during the day by
the sweating and coldness of the body; for the characteristics
of phthoe are, that a febrile heat is lighted up, which breaks
out at night, but during the day again lies concealed in the
viscera, as is manifested by the uneasiness, loss of strength,
and colliquative wasting. For had the febrile heat left the
body during the day, how should not the patient have acquired
flesh, strength, and comfortable feeling? For when it retires
inwardly, the bad symptoms are all still further exacerbated,
the pulse small and feeble; insomnolency, paleness, and all the
other symptoms of persons in fever. The varieties of the
sputa are numerous: livid, black, streaked, yellowish-white, or
whitish-green; broad, round; hard, or glutinous; rare, or diffluent;
devoid of smell, fetid. There are all these varieties of
pus. But those who test the fluids, either with fire or water,
would appear to me not to be acquainted with phthoe;
Our author would appear to
allude here to certain passages in
the pseudo-Hippocratic treatises,
wherein these tests of pus are recommended.
See de Morbis, ii.
47, t. vii. p. 72, ed. Littr・ Coæ
prænot. et alibi. See also Paulus
Ægineta, t.i. 452, etc., Syd. Soc. edit.
for the
sight is more to be trusted than any other sense, not only with
regard to the sputa, but also respecting the form of the disease.
For if one of the common people see a man pale, weak,
affected with cough, and emaciated, he truly augurs that it is
phthoe (consumption). But in those who have no ulcer in the
lungs, but are wasted with chronic fevers--with frequent, hard,
and ineffectual coughing, and bringing up nothing, these, also,
are called consumptive, and not without reason. There is present
weight in the chest (for the lungs are insensible of pain),--anxiety,
discomfort, loss of appetite; in the evening coldness,
and heat towards morning; sweat more intolerable than the
heat as far as the chest; expectoration varied, as I have
described.
Voice hoarse; neck slightly bent, tender, not flexible,
