CELSUS

a myrtle leaf shape, so that it may heal more easily: and this is the constant practice, wherever and for whatever reason the doctor excises skin. When the pus has been poured out, in the armpits or groins, lint is not needed, but a sponge dipped in wine must be applied. In other parts, if lint is likewise unnecessary, a little honey should be poured in for the sake of cleansing, and then agglutinants substances that cause healing/knitting of flesh should be applied on top: if those are necessary, a sponge squeezed out in the same way in wine ought to be placed over them as well. When lint is needed and when it is not, has been said elsewhere (V. 28. 11 E). The same things must be done after an incision into a suppuration that I proposed should be done when it has been ruptured by medicaments (V. 28. 11 D seqq.).

3. Now, how much the treatment achieves, and how much ought to be hoped for or feared, can be understood from certain signs, and they are generally the same as those set forth for wounds (V. 26. 26). For good signs are: to sleep, to breathe easily, not to be exhausted by thirst, not to loathe food: if there has been a slight fever, to be free from it; and likewise to have white, light pus, without a foul odor. Bad signs are: sleeplessness, heaviness of breath, thirst, loathing of food, fever, black or sediment-like pus and foul odor. Likewise, in the course of the treatment, a hemorrhage is bad, or if, before the sinus is filled with flesh, the edges become fleshy, and that flesh itself is insensitive and not firm. However, for the spirit to fail, either during the treatment itself or afterwards, is the worst of all. Moreover, if the disease itself suddenly resolves and then suppuration arises, or if it remains after the pus has been poured out, it is not without reason a cause for fear. And it is among the causes for fear if there is no sensation in the wound from corrosives. But just as fortune determines these matters one way or the other, so it is the physician's part to strive toward finding health.