Hippocrates

“ If woman with a child have her courses, it is impossible that the child can be healthy.
61. If a woman's courses be suppressed, and neither rigor nor fever has followed, but she has been affected with nausea, you may reckon her to be with child.
62. Women who have the uterus cold and dense (compact?) do not conceive; and those also who have the uterus humid, do not conceive, for the semen is extinguished, and in women whose uterus is very dry, and very hot, the semen is lost from the want of food; but women whose uterus is in an intermediate state between these temperaments prove fertile. ”

“ With regard to the seasons, in spring and in the commencement of summer, children and those next to them in age are most comfortable, and enjoy best health; in summer and during a certain portion of autumn, old people; during the remainder of the autumn and in winter, those of the intermediate ages. ”

“ In seasons which are regular, and furnish the productions of the seasons at the seasonable time, the diseases are regular, and come readily to a crisis; but in inconstant seasons, the diseases are irregular, and come to a crisis with difficulty.
9. In autumn, diseases are most acute, and most mortal, on the whole. The spring is most healthy, and least mortal.
10. Autumn is a bad season for persons in consumption. ”

“ To evacuate, fill up, heat, cool, or otherwise, move the body in any way much and suddenly, is dangerous; and whatever is excessive is inimical to nature; but whatever is done by little and little is safe, more especially when a transition is made from one thing to another. ”

“ Those persons who have watery discharges from the bowels when they are young, come off better than those who have dry; but in old age they come off worse, for the bowels in aged persons are usually dried up.
54. Largeness of person in youth is noble and not unbecoming; but in old age it is inconvenient, and worse than a smaller structure.
Section 3 1. The changes of the season mostly engender diseases, and in the seasons great changes either of heat or of cold, and the rest agreeably to the same rule. ”

“ Young people for the most part have a crisis in their complaints, some in forty days, some in seven months, some in seven years, some at the approach to puberty; and such complaints of children as remain, and do not pass away about puberty, or in females about the commencement of menstruation, usually become chronic. ”

“ When a patient passes blood and clots, and is seized with strangury and pain in the perineum and pubes, disease about the bladder is indicated.
40. If the tongue suddenly lose its powers, or a part of the body become apoplectic, the affection is of a melancholic nature.
41. In hypercatharsis, of old persons, hiccup supervening is not a good symptom.
42. In a fever, is not of a bilious nature, a copious allusion of hot water upon the head removes the fever.
43. A woman does not become ambidexterous. ”

“ Persons in whom a crisis takes place pass the night preceding the paroxysm uncomfortably, but the succeeding night generally more comfortably.
14. In fluxes of the bowels, a change of the dejections does good, unless the change be of a bad character.
15. When the throat is diseased, or tubercles (phymata) form on the body, attention must paid to the secretions; for if they be bilious, the disease affects the general system; but if they resemble those of a healthy person, it is safe to give nourishing food.
16. When in a state of hunger, one ought not to undertake labor. ”

“ When there is reason to expect that an abscess will form in joints, the abscess is carried off by a copious discharge of urine, which is thick, and becomes white, like what begins to form in certain cases of quartan fever, attended with a sense of lassitude. ”

“ Upon vomiting of blood consumption, and a purging of pus upward; upon consumption a defluxion from the head; upon a defluxion diarrhoea; upon diarrhoea a stoppage of the purging upward; upon the stoppage of it death.
81. In the discharges by the bladder, the belly, and the flesh (the skin?) if the body has departed slightly from its natural condition, the disease is slight; if much, it is great; if very much, it is mortal.
82. Persons above forty years of age who are affected with frenzy, do not readily recover; the danger is less when the disease is cognate to the constitution and age. ”

“ If the winter be southerly, rainy, and calm, but the spring dry and northerly, women whose term of delivery should be in spring, have abortions from any slight cause; and those who reach their full time, bring forth children who are feeble, and diseased, so that they either die presently, or, if they live, are puny and unhealthy. ”

“ When persons in good health are suddenly seized with pains in the head, and straightway are laid down speechless, and breathe with stertor, they die in seven days, unless fever come on.
52. We must attend to the appearances of the eyes in sleep, as presented from below; for if a portion of the white be seen between the closed eyelids, and if this be not connected with diarrhaea or severe purging, it is a very bad and mortal symptom.
53. Delirium attended with laughter is less dangerous than delirium attended with a serious mood. ”

“ When women, in a moderate condition of body, miscarry in the second or third month, without any obvious cause, their cotyledones are filled with mucosity, and cannot support the weight of the foetus, but are broken asunder.
46. Such women as are immoderately fat, and do not prove with child, in them it is because the epiploon (fat?) blocks up the mouth of the womb, and until it be reduced, they do not conceive.
47. If the portion of the uterus seated near the hip-joint suppurate, it gets into a state requiring to be treated with tents. ”

“ It softens the skin, makes it thin, removes pain, soothes rigor, convulsions, and tetanus. It removes affections of the head, and heaviness of it. It is particularly efficacious in fractures of the bones, especially of those which have been exposed, and most especially in wounds of the head, and in mortifications and ulcers from cold; in herpes exedens, of the anus, the privy parts, the womb, the bladder, in all these cases heat is agreeable, and brings matters to a crisis; but cold is prejudicial, and does mischief. ”

“ In the seasons, when during the same day there is at one time heat and at another time cold, the diseases of autumn may be expected.
5. South winds induce dullness of hearing, dimness of visions, heaviness of the head, torpor, and languor; when these prevail, such symptoms occur in diseases. But if the north wind prevail, coughs, affections of the throat, hardness of the bowels, dysuria attended with rigors, and pains of the sides and breast occur. When this wind prevails, all such symptoms may be expected in diseases. ”

“ Those diseases which medicines do not cure, iron (the knife?) cures; those which iron cannot cure, fire cures; and those which fire cannot cure, are to be reckoned wholly incurable. ”

“ In a restricted diet, patients who transgress are thereby more hurt (than in any other?) ; for every such transgression, whatever it may be, is followed by greater consequences than in a diet somewhat more generous. On this account, a very slender, regulated, and restricted diet is dangerous to persons in health, because they bear transgressions of it more difficultly. ”

“ When abscess of the liver is treated by the cautery or incision, if the pus which is discharged be pure and white, the patients recover, (for in this case it is situated in the coats of the liver;) but if it resemble the lees of oil as it flows, they die.
46. Pains of the eyes are removed by drinking undiluted wine, plenteous bathing with hot water, and venesection.
47. If a dropsical patient be seized with hiccup the case is hopeless.
48. Strangury and dysuria are cured by drinking pure wine, and venesection; open the vein on the inside. ”

“ Eunuchs do not take the gout, nor become bald. ”

“ 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. ”

“ With regard to the seasons, if the winter be of a dry and northerly character, and the spring rainy and southerly, in summer there will necessarily be acute fevers, ophthalmies, and dysenteries, especially in women, and in men of a humid temperament. ”

“ Sleep and watchfulness, both of them, when immoderate, constitute disease. ”

“ We must form a particular judgment of the patient, whether he will support the diet until the acme of the disease, and whether he will sink previously and not support the diet, or the disease will give way previously, and become less acute. ”

“ Persons attacked with quartans are not readily attacked with convulsions, or if previously attacked with convulsions, they cease if a quartan supervene.
71. In those persons in whom the skin is stretched, and parched and hard, the disease terminates without sweats; but in those in whom the skin is loose and rare, it terminates with sweats.
72. Persons disposed to jaundice are not very subject to flatulence. ”

“ In persons attenuated from any disease, whether acute or chronic, or from wounds, or any other cause, if there be a discharge either of black bile, or resembling black blood, they die on the following day.
24. Dysentery, if it commence with black bile, is mortal.
25. Blood discharged upward, whatever be its character, is a bad symptom, but downward it is (more?) ”

“ In protracted cases of dysentery, loathing of food is a bad symptom, and still worse, if along with fever.
4. Ulcers, attended with a falling off of the hair, are mali moris.
5. It deserves to be considered whether the pains in the sides, and in the breasts, and in the other parts, differ much from one another.
6. Diseases about the kidneys and bladder are cured with difficulty in old men. ”

“ Of persons who have been suspended by the neck, and are in a state of insensibility, but not quite dead, those do not recover who have foam at the mouth.
44. Persons who are naturally very fat are apt to die earlier than those who are slender. ”

“ With regard to the states of the weather which continue but for a day, that which is northerly, braces the body, giving it tone, agility, and color, improves the sense of hearing, dries up the bowels, pinches the eyes, and aggravates any previous pain which may have been seated in the chest. ”

“ Persons who are benefited by venesection or purging, should be bled or purged in spring.
48. In enlargement of the spleen, it is a good symptom when dysentery comes on.
49. In gouty affections, the inflammation subsides in the course of forty days.
50. When the brain is severely wounded, fever and vomiting of bile necessarily supervene. ”