BookIII OF LENTICULAR FEVER—TVPHUS 225

liquors, very efficiently, for they caused the deaths of numerous
persons, and led many others up to the very gates of Orcus
(Hades), though certain others were completely cured by them.
A majority of the doctors, like the empiries, accepted the resem—
blance of this contagion to poisons, and therefore employed the
remedies which are usually administered for poisons, such as
Armenian bole, Lemnian earth, and others of the same sort.
On the other hand, other doctors said that these ought not to
be employed, on the ground that they obstructed the veins
and pores, and hindered expulsions, and so they used common
digestives. Some thought that the disease consisted in adus—
tion (a parched condition of the humors), and gave remedies
that oppose adustion. While these controversies were pro—
ceeding, a great number of persons and the nobility ss in the
cities, perished.

For myself, I shall now present to the public the views at
which I have arrived, in part from. long experience, in part
from reasoning, in the hope that in a question of such great
importance I may be able to benefit humanity. And this I
shall surely do, if the theories about contagions that I have
thought out are not hereafter rejected by men.

First of all, then, we must keep in view what I have said
aboves? about the analogy of this fever and its causes. I have
said that it has analogy not with the spirits per se, nor with the
acute (keen) humors, but with a substance midway between
these, such as the blood, and in that substance the vital energy
is dissipated, though not violently or quickly.  Beginning, then,
with the diet, I believe that those who prescribed a moderate
diet took the wiser course. For thus the patient was not over—
loaded and the vital force was preserved. Hence I have always
put my patients on this moderate diet, sometimes reducing it
somewhat, or again adding to it; for these fevers are not always
uniform in their behavior, since some of them approach more
nearly to acute, others behave like sluggish, fevers, according as
the blood is more bilious or more pituitous. If the patient
can be given a drink, do not give him wine, because these fevers
are accompanied by great evaporation, and delirium very easily
results; this is the worst possible symptom, not only because it
means that the malady has now reached a very important organ,
but also because the patients refuse to obey orders. Let water
be given, either unmixed boiled, or with vinegar added, and