1. A spasm from taking hellebore is of a fatal nature.
2. Spasm supervening on a wound is fatal.
3. A convulsion, or hiccup, supervening on a copious discharge of blood is bad.
4. A convulsion, or hiccup, supervening upon hypercatharsis is bad.
5. If a drunken person suddenly lose his speech, he will die convulsed, unless fever come on, or he recover his speech at the time when the consequences of a debauch pass off.
6. Such persons as are seized with tetanus die within four days, or if they pass these they recover.
7. Those cases of epilepsy which come on before puberty may undergo a change; but those which come on after twenty-five years of age, for the most part terminate in death.
8. In pleuritic affections, when the disease is not purged off in fourteen days, it usually terminates in empyema.
9. Phthisis most commonly occurs between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five years.
10. Persons who escape an attack of quinsy, and when the disease is turned upon the lungs, die in seven days; or if they pass these they become affected with empyema.
11. In persons affected with phthisis, if the sputa which they cough up have a heavy smell when poured upon coals, and if the hairs of the head fall off, the case will prove fatal.
12. Phthisical persons, the hairs of whose head fall off, die if diarrhoea set in.
13. In persons who cough up frothy blood, the discharge of it comes from the lungs.
14. Diarrhoea attacking a person affected with phthisis is a mortal symptom.
15. Persons who become affected with empyema after pleurisy, if they get clear of it in forty days from the breaking of it, escape the disease; but if not, it passes into phthisis.
16. Heat produces the following bad effects on those who use it frequently: enervation of the fleshy parts, impotence of the nerves, torpor of the understanding, hemorrhages, deliquia, and, along with these, death.
17. Cold induces convulsions, tetanus, mortification, and febrile rigors.
18. Cold is inimical to the bones, the teeth, the nerves, the brain, and the spinal marrow, but heat is beneficial.
19. Such parts as have been congealed should be heated, except where there either is a hemorrhage, or one is expected.
20. Cold pinches ulcers, hardens the skin, occasions pain which does not end in suppuration, blackens, produces febrile rigors, convulsions, and tetanus.
21. In the case of a muscular youth having tetanus without a wound, during the midst of summer, it sometimes happens that the allusion of a large quantity of cold water recalls the heat. Heat relieves these diseases.
22. Heat is suppurative, but not in all kinds of sores, but when it is, it furnishes the greatest test of their being free from danger.
It softens the skin, makes it thin, removes pain, soothes rigor, convulsions, and tetanus. It removes affections of the head, and heaviness of it. It is particularly efficacious in fractures of the bones, especially of those which have been exposed, and most especially in wounds of the head, and in mortifications and ulcers from cold; in herpes exedens, of the anus, the privy parts, the womb, the bladder, in all these cases heat is agreeable, and brings matters to a crisis; but cold is prejudicial, and does mischief.
23. Cold water is to be applied in the following cases; when there is a hemorrhage, or when it is expected, but not applied to the spot, but around the spot whence the blood flows; and in inflammations and inflammatory affections, inclining to a red and subsaguineous color, and consisting of fresh blood, in these cases it is to be applied but it occasions mortification in old cases; and in erysipelas not attended with ulceration, as it proves injurious to erysipelas when ulcerated.
24. Cold things, such as snow and ice, are inimical to the chest, being provocative of coughs, of discharges of blood, and of catarrhs.
25. Swellings and pains in the joints, ulceration, those of a gouty nature, and sprains, are generally improved by a copious affusion of cold water, which reduces the swelling, and removes the pain; for a moderate degree of numbness removes pain.
26. The lightest water is that which is quickly heated and quickly cooled.
27. When persons have intense thirst, it is a good thing if they can sleep off the desire of drinking.
28. Fumigation with aromatics promotes menstruation, and would be useful in many other cases, if it did not occasion heaviness of the head.
29. Women in a state of pregnancy may be purged, if there be any urgent necessity (or, if the humors be in a state of orgasm?), from the fourth to the seventh month, but less so in the latter case. In the first and last periods it must be avoided.
30. It proves fatal to a woman in a state of pregnancy, if she be seized with any of the acute diseases.
31. If a woman with child be bled, she will have an abortion, and this will be the more likely to happen, the larger the foetus.
32. Haemoptysis in a woman is removed by an eruption of the menses.
33. In a woman when there is a stoppage the menses, a discharge of blood from the nose is good.
34. When a pregnant woman has a violent diarrhoea, there is danger of her miscarrying.
35. Sneezing occurring to a woman affected with hysterics, and in difficult labor, is a good symptom.
36. When the menstrual discharge is of a bad color and irregular, it indicates that the woman stands in need of purging.
37. In a pregnant woman, if the breasts suddenly lose their fullness, she has a miscarriage.
38. If, in a woman pregnant with twins, either of her breasts lose its fullness, she will part with one of her children; and if it be the right breast which becomes slender, it will be the male child, or if the left, the female.