Let us here briefly advert to what may be said on the opposite side; namely, that a change of diet has occurred in these cases, without any change in their body, either as to strength, so as to require an increase of food, or as to weakness, so as to require a diminution. But the strength of the patient is to be taken into consideration, and the manner of the disease, and of the constitution of the man, and the habitual regimen of the patient, not only as regards food but also drink. Yet one must much less resort to augmentation, since it is often beneficial to have recourse to abstraction, when the patient can bear it, until the disease having reached its acme and has become concocted. But in what cases this must be done will be afterwards described. One might write many other things akin to those which have been now said, but there is a better proof, for it is not akin to the matter on which my discourse has principally turned, but the subject-matter itself is a most seasonable proof. For some at the commencement of acute diseases have taken food on the same day, some on the next day; some have swallowed whatever has come in their way, and some have taken cyceon.The cyceonwas a mixture of various articles of food, but generally contained cheese, honey, and wine. See Athenaeus (Deipnos, ii.). It is described by Homer as the potion which Circe administered to the followers of Ulysses. (Odyss. x., 235). There is freqent mention of it in the Hippocratic treatises, as at De Diaeta, ii.; de Muliebribus, ii.; and in the works of the other medical authors. Now all these things are worse than if one had observed a different regimen; and yet these mistakes, committed at that time, do much less injury than if one were to abstain entirely from food for the first two or three days, and on the fourth or fifth day were to take such food; and it would be still worse, if one were to observe total abstinence for all these days, and on the following days were to take such a diet, before the disease is concocted;The meaning here is somewhat obscure, but appears to be this: that if a patient fast for the first two or three days, and take food of a heavy nature on the fourth or fifth, he will be much injured, but that the mistake will be still more fatal if the fast be continued for the first four or five days, and if he then indulge freely in food at the end of these. for in this way death would be the consequence to most people, unless the disease were of a very mild nature. But the mistakes committed at first were not so irremediable as these, but could be much more easily repaired. This, therefore, I think a strong proof that such or such a draught need not be prescribed on the first days to those who will use the same draughts afterwards. At the bottom, therefore, they do not know, neither those using unstrained ptisans, that they are hurt by them, when they begin to swallow them, if they abstain entirely from food for two, three, or more days; nor do those using the juice know that they are injured in swallowing them, when they do not commence with the draught seasonably. But this they guard against, and know that it does much mischief, if, before the disease be concocted, the patient swallow unstrained ptisan, when accustomed to use strained. All these things are strong proofs that physicians do not conduct the regimen of patients properly, but that in those diseases in which total abstinence from food should not be enforced on patients that will be put on the use of ptisans, they do enforce total abstinence; that in those cases in which there should be no change made from total abstinence to ptisans, they do make the change; and that, for the most part, they change from abstinence to ptisans, exactly at the time when it is often beneficial to proceed from ptisans almost to total abstinence, if the disease happen to be in the state of exacerbation. And sometimes crude matters are attracted from the head, and bilious from the region near the chest, and the patients are attacked with insomnolency, so that the disease is not concocted; they become sorrowful, peevish, and delirious; there are flashes of light in their eyes, and noises in their ears; their extremities are cold, their urine unconcocted; the sputa thin, saltish, tinged with an intense color and smell; sweats about the neck, and anxiety; respiration, interrupted in the expulsion of the air, frequent and very large; expression of the eyelids dreadful; dangerous deliquia; tossing of the bed-clothes from the breast; the hands trembling, and sometimes the lower lip agitated. These symptoms, appearing at the commencement, are indicative of strong delirium, and patients so affected generally die, or if they escape, it is with a deposit, hemorrhage from the nose, or the expectoration of thick matter, and not otherwise. Neither do I perceive that physicians are skilled in such things as these; how they ought to know such diseases as are connected with debility, and which are further weakened by abstinence from food, and those aggravated by some other irritation; those by pain, and from the acute nature of the disease, and what affections and various forms thereof our constitution and habit engender, although the knowledge or ignorance of such things brings safety or death to the patient. For it is a great mischief if to a patient debilitated by pain, and the acute nature of the disease, one administer drink, or more ptisan, or food, supposing that the debility proceeds from inanition. It is also disgraceful not to recognize a patient whose debility is connected with inanition, and to pinch him in his diet; this mistake, indeed, is attended with some danger, but much less than the other, and yet it is likely to expose one to much greater derision, for if another physician, or a private person, coming in and knowing what has happened, should give to eat or drink those things which the other had forbidden, the benefit thus done to the patient would be manifest. Such mistakes of practitioners are particularly ridiculed by mankind, for the physician or nonprofessional man thus coming in, seems as it were to resuscitate the dead. On this subject I will describe elsewhere the symptoms by which each of them may be recognized.

And the following observations are similar to those now made respecting the bowels. If the whole body rest long, contrary to usage, it does not immediately recover its strength; but if, after a protracted repose, it proceed to labor, it will clearly expose its weakness. So it is with every one part of the body, for the feet will make a similar display, and any other of the joints, if, being unaccustomed to labor, they be suddenly brought into action, after a time. The teeth and the eyes will suffer in like manner, and also every other part whatever. A couch, also, that is either softer or harder than one has been accustomed to will create uneasiness, and sleeping in the open air, contrary to usage, hardens the body. But it is sufficient merely to state examples of all these cases. If a person having received a wound in the leg, neither very serious nor very trifling, and he being neither in a condition very favorable to its healing nor the contrary, at first betakes himself to bed, in order to promote the cure, and never raises his leg, it will thus be much less disposed to inflammation, and be much sooner well, than it would have been if he had strolled about during the process of healing; but if upon the fifth or sixth day, or even earlier, he should get up and attempt to walk, he will suffer much more then than if he had walked about from the commencement of the cure, and if he should suddenly make many laborious exertions, he will suffer much more than if, when the treatment was conducted otherwise, he had made the same exertions on the same days. In fine, all these things concur in proving that all great changes, either one way or another, are hurtful. Wherefore much mischief takes place in the bowels, if from a state of great inanition more food than is moderate be administered (and also in the rest of the body, if from a state of great rest it be hastily brought to greater exertion, it will be much more injured), or if from the use of much food it be changed to complete abstinence, and therefore the body in such cases requires protracted repose, and if, from a state of laborious exertion, the body suddenly falls into a state of ease and indolence, in these cases also the bowels would require continued repose from abundance of food, for otherwise it will induce pain and heaviness in the whole body.

The greater part of my discourse has related to changes, this way or that. For all purposes it is profitable to know these things, and more especially respecting the subject under consideration,—that in acute diseases, in which a change is made to ptisans from a state of inanition, it should be made as I direct; and then that ptisans should not be used until the disease be concocted, or some other symptom, whether of evacuation or of irritation, appear in the intestines, or in the hypochondria, such as will be described. Obstinate insomnolency impairs the digestion of the food and drink, and in other respects changes and relaxes the body, and occasions a heated state, and heaviness of the head.Galen finds the language in this last sentence so confused, that he does not hesitate to declare that he is convinced the work must have been left by Hippocrates in an unfinished state, and not published until after his death.

One must determine by such marks as these, when sweet, strong, and dark wine, hydromel, water and oxymel, should be given in acute diseases. Wherefore the sweet affects the head less than the strong, attacks the brain less, evacuates the bowels more than the other, but induces swelling of the spleen and liver; it does not agree with bilious persons, for it causes them to thirst; it creates flatulence in the upper part of the intestinal canal, but does not disagree with the lower part, as far as regards flatulence; and yet flatulence engendered by sweet wine is not of a transient nature, but rests for a long time in the hypochondria. And therefore it in general is less diuretic than wine which is strong and thin; but sweet wine is more expectorant than the other. But when it creates thirst, it is less expectorant in such cases than the other wine, but if it do not create thirst, it promotes expectoration better than the other. The good and bad effects of a white, strong wine, have been already frequently and fully stated in the disquisition on sweet wine; it is determined to the bladder more than the other, is diuretic and laxative, and should be very useful in such complaints; for if in other respects it be less suitable than the other, the clearing out of the bladder effected by it is beneficial to the patient, if properly administered. There are excellent examples of the beneficial and injurious effects of wine, all which were left undetermined by my predecessors. In these diseases you may use a yellow wine, and a dark austere wine for the following purposes: if there be no heaviness of the head, nor delirium, nor stoppage of the expectoration, nor retention of the urine, and if the alvine discharges be more loose and like scrapings than usual, in such cases a change from a white wine to such as I have mentioned, might be very proper. It deserves further to be known, that it will prove less injurious to all the parts above, and to the bladder, if it be of a more watery nature, but that the stronger it is, it will be the more beneficial to the bowels.

Hydromel, when drunk in any stage of acute disease, is less suitable to persons of a bilious temperament, and to those who have enlarged viscera, than to those of a different character; it increases thirst less than sweet wine; it softens the lungs, is moderately expectorant, and alleviates a cough; for it has some detergent quality in it, whence it lubricates the sputum. Hydromel is also moderately diuretic, unless prevented by the state of any of the viscera. And it also occasions bilious discharges downwards, sometimes of a proper character, and sometimes more intense and frothy than is suitable; but such rather occurs in persons who are bilious, and have enlarged viscera. Hydromel rather produces expectoration, and softening of the lungs, when given diluted with water. But unmixed hydromel, rather than the diluted, produces frothy evacuations, such as are unseasonably and intensely bilious, and too hot; but such an evacuation occasions other great mischiefs, for it neither extinguishes the heat in the hypochondria, but rouses it, induces inquietude, and jactitation of the limbs, and ulcerates the intestines and anus. The remedies for all these will be described afterwards. By using hydromel without ptisans, instead of any other drink, you will generally succeed in the treatment of such diseases, and fail in few cases; but in what instances it is to be given, and in what it is not to be given, and wherefore it is not to be given,—all this has been explained already, for the most part. Hydromel is generally condemned, as if it weakened the powers of those who drink it, and on that account it is supposed to accelerate death; and this opinion arose from persons who starve themselves to death, some of whom use hydromel alone for drink, as fancying that it really has this effect. But this is by no means always the case. For hydromel, if drunk alone, is much stronger than water, if it do not disorder the bowels; but in some respects it is stronger, and in some weaker, than wine that is thin, weak, and devoid of bouquet. There is a great difference between unmixed wine and unmixed honey, as to their nutritive powers, for if a man will drink double the quantity of pure wine, to a certain quantity of honey which is swallowed, he will find himself much stronger from the honey, provided it do not disagree with his bowels, and that his alvine evacuations from it will be much more copious. But if he shall use ptisan for a draught, and drink afterward hydromel, he will feel full, flatulent, and uncomfortable in the viscera of the hypochondrium; but if the hydromel be taken before the draught, it will not have the same injurious effects as if taken after it, but will be rather beneficial. And boiled hydromel has a much more elegant appearance than the unboiled, being clear, thin, white, and transparent, but I am unable to mention any good quality which it possesses that the other wants. For it is not sweeter than the unboiled, provided the honey be fine, and it is weaker, and occasions less copious evacuations of the bowels, neither of which effects is required from the hydromel. But one should by all means use it boiled, provided the honey be bad, impure, black, and not fragrant, for the boiling will remove the most of its bad qualities and appearances.