... Theses de pleuritide

XLVIII.
And although in this disease, phlebotomy, in the redundancy of blood, is to be preferred to other instruments related to it, yet other lighter instruments are not to be entirely neglected, such as frictions, ligatures, and cupping glasses, since those, when administered at the right time, are accustomed to be of great use.

XLIX.
For we use frictions and ligatures as revulsive remedies whenever copious humor flowing into the affected part causes the disease (unless, however, it has a fever joined to it). By these, the fluxion is either intercepted, or with some pain excited, the flowing humor is pulled back and turned away from the affected place. Therefore, they are used usefully during the beginnings of the influx.

L.
Cupping glasses with incision of the skin sometimes take the place of phlebotomy when the strength of the patients does not seem sufficient to bear phlebotomy. Therefore, they are used at the same time as it would be permitted to use phlebotomy. And with matter flowing into the pleura, either from the whole body or the principal limbs, they are attached to the hips. Once the influx has settled and the humor is impacted, they are applied to the affected place.

LI.
Medicines that can have some use in pleurisy are of two kinds. Some look to the pain, others to the cause of the pain.

LII.
Pain often infests pleuritic patients so greatly that, because it threatens danger to the strength—which must be conserved with all effort if any hope is to be placed in the cure—it turns all cure toward itself. This, therefore, must be quieted by those things that can in some way dull the sensation, which act either by moistening or cooling.

LIII.
Moistening agents, provided they soothe the pain with the least harm, seem to be most suitable. For by their pleasant quality, they soften the parts that are already tense and, having become drier, they reduce them to a certain evenness, and they diminish burning heat by expanding and pouring it out, and render it to a state that is milder and more benign.

LIV.
We do not use cooling agents, especially narcotics, safely unless the highest necessity urges it.