GALEN: ON THE TREATMENT OF DISEASES, TO GLAUCON

Ed. Chart. X. [346.] Ed. Bas. IV. (198.)

...we will explain clearly. It is no small matter whether you command the patient to bathe and feel confident, or whether you guide them through a regimen of total caution and safety. Therefore, when visiting a sick person, one must first observe the most important features of their condition. Then, one should examine the other signs, omitting nothing, not even the smallest detail, if it is at all possible. For our level of confidence in the primary indications indication: "endeixis" (ἔνδειξις) in Greek; a sign or symptom that points a physician toward a specific diagnosis or treatment strategy. is strengthened by the addition of these other details.

Indeed, for all those suffering from fevers, the most significant signs are found in the pulses and the urine. To these, one must add everything else: what Hippocrates said about the appearance of the face original: "ta peri to prosōpon" (τὰ περὶ τὸ πρόσωπον). This refers to the famous "Hippocratic facies," a specific sunken and cold appearance of the face that indicates a patient is near death., the patient’s posture in bed, their style of breathing, and everything evacuated from the body, whether from above or below.

Furthermore, if you see any symptom symptom: in Galen's time, "symptoma" (σύμπτωμα) referred specifically to a "consequence" of a disease, such as a cough or a rash, rather than the disease itself. arising in any part of the body or its physical functions, you must not pass over them lazily. Hippocrates wrote of thousands upon thousands of such signs in many places. These signs are common to all types of fevers. Therefore, even in the simplest cases, which are the subject of our present discussion, none of these observations should be neglected. After you have examined...