书城公版APHORISMS
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第5章

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.

2. Of natures (temperaments?), some are well- or ill-adapted for summer, and some for winter.

3. Of diseases and ages, certain of them are well- or ill-adapted to different seasons, places, and kinds of diet.

4. 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.

6. When summer is like spring, much sweating may be expected in fevers.

7. Acute diseases occur in droughts; and if the summer be particularly such, according to the constitution which it has given to the year, for the most part such diseases maybe expected.

8. In seasons which are regular, and furnish the productions of the season 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.

11. 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.

12. If the 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. Other people are subject to dysenteries and ophthalmies, and old men to catarrhs, which quickly cut them off.

13. If the summer be dry and northerly and the autumn rainy and southerly, headaches occur in winter, with coughs, hoarsenesses, coryzae, and in some cases consumptions.

14. But if the autumn be northerly and dry, it agrees well with persons of a humid temperament, and with women; but others will be subject to dry ophthalmies, acute fevers, coryzae, and in some cases melancholy.

15. Of the constitutions of the year, the dry, upon the whole, are more healthy than the rainy, and attended with less mortality.

16. The diseases which occur most frequently in rainy seasons are, protracted fevers, fluxes of the bowels, mortifications, epilepsies, apoplexies, and quinsies; and in dry, consumptive diseases, ophthalmies, arthritic diseases, stranguries, and dysenteries.