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第4章

29. If it appear that evacuations are required, they should be made at the commencement of diseases; at the acme it is better to be quiet.

30. Toward the commencement and end of diseases all the symptoms are weaker, and toward the acme they are stronger.

31. When a person who is recovering from a disease has a good appetite, but his body does not improve in condition, it is a bad symptom.

32. For the most part, all persons in ill health, who have a good appetite at the commencement, but do not improve, have a bad appetite again toward the end; whereas, those who have a very bad appetite at the commencement, and afterward acquire a good appetite, get better off.

33. In every disease it is a good sign when the patient's intellect is sound, and he is disposed to take whatever food is offered to him; but the contrary is bad.

34. In diseases, there is less danger when the disease is one to which the patient's constitution, habit, age, and the season are allied, than when it is one to which they are not allied.

35. In all diseases it is better that the umbilical and hypogastric regions preserve their fullness; and it is a bad sign when they are very slender and emaciated; in the latter case it is dangerous to administer purgatives.

36. Persons in good health quickly lose their strength by taking purgative medicines, or using bad food.

37. Purgative medicines agree ill with persons in good health.

38. An article of food or drink which is slightly worse, but more palatable, is to be preferred to such as are better but less palatable.

39. Old have fewer complaints than young; but those chronic diseases which do befall them generally never leave them.

40. Catarrhs and coryza in very old people are not concocted.

41. Persons who have had frequent and severe attacks of swooning, without any manifest cause, die suddenly.

42. It is impossible to remove a strong attack of apoplexy, and not easy to remove a weak attack.

43. 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.

45. Epilepsy in young persons is most frequently removed by changes of air, of country, and of modes of life.

46. Of two pains occurring together, not in the same part of the body, the stronger weakens the other.

47. Pains and fevers occur rather at the formation of pus than when it is already formed.

48. In every movement of the body, whenever one begins to endure pain, it will be relieved by rest.

49. Those who are accustomed to endure habitual labors, although they be weak or old, bear them better than strong and young persons who have not been so accustomed.

50. Those things which one has been accustomed to for a long time, although worse than things which one is not accustomed to, usually give less disturbance; but a change must sometimes be made to things one is not accustomed to.

51. 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.

52. When doing everything according to indications, although things may not turn out agreeably to indication, we should not change to another while the original appearances remain.

53. 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.