ON THE DIAGNOSIS AND THERAPY OF CONTINUOUS FEVERS.

I.

The single fever which claims the university of the body for itself is an igneous heat, an enemy to nature, yet made from natural heat ignited in the heart, and thence diffused through the limbs. The Greeks call it pyretos fever from pyros fire, and the Ionians call it thermōn heat.

II.

Three primary and highest genera of fever exist as heat contrary to nature: simple, putrid, and pestilent.

III.

A simple fever is one whose elemental heat has exceeded the limits of nature and temperament alone in the element. A putrid fever is one whose heat has emerged from putrid filth. A pestilent fever is that which a poisonous and destructive exhalation has brought about.

IV.

Furthermore, simple fever is threefold: ephemeral, synochus a continuous fever, and hectic; they differ only in the subject of the heat, which is either the substance of the body, or a humor, or the spirit; Hippocrates calls them ischon that which contains, ischomenon that which is contained, and enormon soma the acting body.

V.

From the species and location of the putrefying humor, two primary genera of putrid fever are constituted: continuous and intermittent. When there is such putrefaction in the veins and larger arteries that it touches and weakens the heart continuously, either by itself or by its vapor, the fever becomes continuous. When, however, it is either lighter or farther removed from the heart so that it cannot affect it constantly, the fever is intermittent, which does not pertain to our present subject.

VI.

But continuous fever is twofold: one true and primary,