Cough of Perinthus
EPIDEMICS 6.7
SECTION 7
1. Coughs began around the winter solstice, on the
fifteenth or twentieth day after frequent change between
southerly weather and northerly with snow. Some affec-
tions were shorter, some longer. Pneumonia frequently
followed the longer ones. Before the equinox in most
affections there was relapse, generally around fort)' days
from the commencement. Some had brief affections with
successful crises. Others had inflammations of the throat
and others quinsy, others paralyses, others, primarily chil-
dren, night blindness. The pneumonias were verv brief.
Night blindness did not develop subsequently in those
with coughs or it quickly replaced the coughs, and the
inflammations of the throat were brief, more so than the
night blindness. The quinsy and paralyses: coughs pro-
duced hard, dry matter or rarely small amounts of con-
cocted matter, sometimes very rarely. Those who were
more affected in the voice, or had more chills, more fre-
quently ended in quinsy. Those who labored with their
hands had paralyses only in them, those who rode horses
or did more walking or other exertion with their legs had
paralytic weakness in the hip or legs and pain and fatigue
in hams and shanks. Weakness that led to paralysis was
particularly harsh and violent. All these complications
developed in the relapses, not much at the commence-
ment. For mam patients the coughs relented in the
meantime but did not stop entirely. But they were there
at the relapse. Those whose speech would break into
coughing were mostly not feverish, but some had brief
fevers. None of these developed pneumonia or paralvses,
nor was there anvthing else exhibited, but it reached a
crisis in the voice. The night blindness became esta-
blished just as the affections from other causes. Night
blindness problems developed mostly in children. The
dark parts of the eyes which have the small pupil were var-
icolored, and so was the whole dark part generallv.
Patients were large-eyed more often, not small-eyed, and
with straight hair and dark hair.
Women did not suffer similarly from the cough, but
few of them had fever, and of those very few went into
pneumonia, and those the older. All survived. I attributed
this to their not going out as the men did and because thev
were not otherv\'ise susceptible like the men. Two free
women got quinsy, and that was of the mildest sort. Slave
women got it in a more extreme wav, and those with verv
violent cases died very quickly. But many men got it; some
survived, some died. For the most part if they only could
not drink it was mild and bearable. Those who also spoke
unintelligibly had more troublesome and longer cases.
Those whose blood vessels swelled at the temple and neck
had piiinful cases. Those whose breathing was elevated
had it worst since thev also became hot externally.
As I have written, these were the relationships of the
affections. The first described occurred also without the
later, but the later ones not without the former. Patients
died most quickly when thev were chilled with a feverish
chill. Nothing I tried worth notice helped these, not when
they were pressed to evacuate the bowels, not roiling the
stomach, not phlebotomy. And I cut the vein under the
tongue, and tried emetics on some. Those affections con-
tinued for the whole summer as did the outbreaks gen-
erally. Initially with the dr\' weather painful ophthalmias
were epidemic.
2. Stopping blood from the veins; fainting; posture;
withdrawing it elsewhere; wrapping in lint; application;
bandaging; plastering. Most cases have swollen glands
because of the hepatic vein. There was also a bad indica-
tion from degeneration of the artery (windpipe?) as in
Posidonia. In death those who hemorrhaged did not sweat
on the forehead, but, as it were, collapsed. Those with
lung affections and those laid low by sweat, unfavorable.
Easiness of the intestine foretold upset, as with Posidonia,
and effects such as worms produced. Along with loss of
flesh, stretching before death, and the navel was drawn
out large by it. There were ulcerations of the gums where
they came over the teeth.
3. The fact that one can prescribe many things prop-
erly for each person: some are effective, some not. For
example, this sort of thing: to be scattered and to be
compressed; to be hardened and to be softened and
ripened; and to force them to where they incHne. The
diffident, change being necessarv', must be roused when
they grow torpid.
4. Areas of neglect: incise the dropsical quickly, cau-
terize the consumptive, immediately trephine heads, and
so on. Do not palpate the liver of the dropsical, nor any of
the insides. It is similar with most knees.
5. In Xenarchus' affection by the heart: inhaling ade-
quate warmth into the sore; warm to counter the evacua-
tion.
6. From the outset, a sign of derangement and the like:
the quality of the voice in people in passion: whether it is
that way bv nature when he is not angr\'. Or the eves, for
those in whom they are by nature disturbed like those of
nornial people who are angr\', and the other things on the
same rationale. And of diseases, the wav consumption
makes the bod\-: if he is that way naturally he will come
into that kind of disease. And the rest similarly.
7. Exhausting coughs also attach themselves to dam-
aged areas, especially the joints. In exhausting fe\ers,
however, coughs become dry. Dry coughs become fixed in
the joints with fever if thev settle there.
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