The Canon of Medicine (Canon Medicinae), Vol. II

the causes of them arrive with their vehemence to the point that the heat which inflames the spirit passes through, for if they pass through it, they cause a fall into hectic fever a chronic, wasting fever, or into the type of fever of the humors, which we shall describe. For primitive causes generally move the antecedent ones, and if they have moved them to putrefaction, there will be putrid fevers. And there are some men who believe that the ephemera short-lived or daily fever is not from anything other than the exhaustion of the spirit and the body, and that is an error. And these fevers indeed, for the most part, recede in one day, and rarely pass the third day. For if they pass that quantity, it is considered in their nature that they are permuted transformed. And the intention of permutation is that b B. ignition. b the retention of heat passes through the spirit, or to the body, or to the humor: although there are men who say that it sometimes remains for six days, and is consumed by a complete consumption, which would not be similar if it were permuted to another genus. And this fever is indeed of easy cure and difficult diagnosis, and similarly the beginning of hectic fever. And those men falling most quickly into ephemera fevers, and who are most vehemently harmed by them if there is an error in their treatment, are those in whom heat and dryness are more dominant, since they arrive quickly at hectic and tertian fever. Next, those in whom heat and humidity dominate, since they arrive quickly at putrid fever. Next, those in whom there is more heat. Next, those in whom there is more dryness, and when hunger and c B. are associated with it. c [arrival with it] insomnia and animal labor mental or emotional exertion, and bodily labor happen to those who have a dry and hot complexion, the ephemera fever hastens to him with a certain horripilation gooseflesh. But if one is not aided and fed immediately, it will hasten to putrid fever.

Chap. 7. He says the primitive, i.e., external, causes of ephemera fevers are what Galen also writes in Book 1 on the Differences of Fevers, asserting it to be a primary and inseparable sign of ephemera fevers that they occur from procatarctic preceding or external triggering causes. Yet both Galen and Avicenna place here, among the causes of these fevers, anger, insomnia, diarrhea, and swellings, which it is certain are not external, but internal and bodily. Likewise, Avicenna writes a little later that some of these fevers are from obstructions, and their primitive cause is not external. Certainly, this matter has been discussed by us elsewhere on behalf of Galen, nor are we unaware that others assert other things. Now, however, in a few words, by procatarctic causes are understood those things which are manifest to everyone; therefore, in their category are all those things about which we have already spoken. If someone becomes angry, and after anger becomes feverish, everyone believes they have become feverish from anger. We feel the same about the rest: so that they are not incorrectly placed by Galen and Avicenna among the procatarctic causes. But when Avicenna says some of these daily fevers are caused by obstructions, whose causes are not primitive, we believe this is said about daily fevers of several days, which occur from obstruction, as Galen says in Method of Medicine Book 9, because of sticky or thick or copious juices. These fevers, indeed, because there is neither a rotting humor underlying them, nor has the solid substance of the body taken on the febrile heat as a habit, and therefore they are neither putrid nor hectic, are placed among the daily fevers, consisting indeed of the same nature as the daily fevers, but not by the same name. It is clear, therefore, that daily fevers, which are truly daily, depend on external causes.

All of them.
Chap. 2. Chap. 7. This fever is of easy cure, etc. The same is in Galen, Book 1 to Glaucon. But the same Galen, in Book 1 on the Differences of Fevers, asserts that he often recognized daily fevers at the very first accession, and dismissed the whole person to their accustomed exercises as if they would not have another accession: nor was he proven wrong. But to be brief: he truly says that for inexperienced and not sufficiently diligent physicians, this is more difficult to recognize at the first insult than either putrid or hectic fever: however, it is not difficult for the skilled.

Proper signs of ephemera fevers, distinguishing them from others. Chap. 6.

OF their properties is that they do not arise from antecedent causes, nor do they begin with constriction tightening/tension: and it is that they do not begin for the most part with rigor, and coldness of the extremities, and deepening of heat, and a decline toward sluggishness and sleep, and sinking of the pulse, and its diversity, and its smallness. Rather, perhaps there occurs in their beginning a resemblance to cold, and horripilation, and a stinging, the cause of which is a vapor of bad chyme bodily juice or humor, and it is removed quickly; and rigor occurs, but rarely, because of the multitude of vapors harming the muscles due to their stinging from a B. much superfluous. b † B. Another free. dry. [superfluous multitude.] and its inflammation is not biting or harsh, b [ ] rather it is good, like the heat of a laboring or drunken body; and when the urine is digested on the first day, and the pulse is good, then judge that it is an ephemera fever; and that is because the urine is not altered in it, insofar as it is ephemera, and its sediment is digested, not declining toward the color of a humor, and sometimes its cloud is hanging, and sometimes it is swimming, of good color; and sometimes it happens that its color is not equalized, yet its substance is equal, and its color is not altered except because of that which is associated with it from the cause of the alteration of the urine, even though there is no c B. ephemera from labor. ephemera fever there from that which we shall say in c [tertian fever] and similar things; and the pulse is inclined toward thickness, and strength, and magnitude, unless it is from debilitating passions, and unless there is a biting humor in the stomach, d B. smallness. or cold, or another cause from these which d [changes] the pulse besides the fever, and rarely indeed is it diversified; if, however, it is diversified, it will have an order: for if that is diversified, then it will be because of another cause e B. associated. antecedent to the fever, or e [neighboring] to it, as is vehement labor, or vehement biting in the viscera, and similar things; and sometimes it happens that the pulse is hardened because of vehement cold, and thickening, cooling, or because of vehement, drying heat of the sun, or because of vehement drying labor, or hunger, or anxieties, or insomnia, or evacuations; and sometimes dilation hastens in it, and constriction is slowed, and it does not hasten more than natural except rarely, and with little speed, because the need for ventilation in it is more vehement than the need for extracting corrupt vapor. For the vapor in it is not corrupt in comparison f B. heated. to the equal, rather it is f [good] in comparison to it; and when the pulse is ambiguous to you, and its constriction, then know it from the breath, and the pulse...