... Theses de pleuritide

one must also bring to bear careful reasoning, and we must take care lest, when this disease appears more benign at the beginning, it should eventually seem to have gained strength through our negligence.

XXXIV.
The strength of the vital forces must then be carefully weighed. For if in any other disease, certainly in this one, strong forces are required; and therefore, one must provide so that they do not collapse.

XXXV.
Where, therefore, we have observed them to be weakened, whatever the cause may be, we shall rely on stronger aids, having rejected the lighter ones, such as using cupping glasses instead of phlebotomy, and clysters enemas instead of purgative medicines.

XXXVI.
Nor should the nature of the fluxion be neglected. For that too brings no small moment to the cure. For the force of the fluxion is great, and a large quantity of flowing matter demands stronger remedies. If both of these are absent, lighter ones will suffice. And if the fluxion is fostered either from the whole body or from other more remote parts, those efficacious aids should not be deferred unless something of greater importance stands in the way. But if it receives fomentation only from neighboring parts, with little or no fullness occupying the whole or the principal parts, lighter and more benign remedies will be able to suffice.

XXXVII.
Furthermore, the nature of the fluxion provides us with two things. It teaches what time is more opportune for phlebotomy and which for a purgative medicine; then it shows which vein especially ought to be opened.

XXXVIII.
For since Hippocrates instructs that in pleurisy, if pain is ascending, the vein should be cut, and if it is descending, one should use a pharmacological agent, nothing can persuade us of this as well as the mode of the fluxion.

XXXIX.
For when the fluxion is carried upward and subsists in the veins of the four upper ribs, one may offer aid to the pleuritic pain by nothing more quickly than by the section of that vein which is nearer to it, from which the upper ribs receive their veins. This is the inner vein of the arm, which is nearest to the one ascending to the throat and distributing its veins to the upper four ribs. But to the lower eight ribs, the vein is supplied from the azygos unpaired vein, into which, when...