Book 1
7
But those fevers which were altogether continuous and never intermitted at all, but in all cases grew worse after the manner of semitertians, with remission during one day followed by exacerbation during the next, were the most severe of all the fevers which occurred at this time, the longest and the most painful. Beginning mildly, and on the whole increasing always, with exacerbation, and growing worse, they had slight remissions followed quickly after an abatement by more violent exacerbations, generally becoming worse on the critical days. All patients had irregular rigors that followed no fixed law, most rarely and least in the semitertians,I take the pronoun αὖτος throughout this chapter to refer to the remittent semitertian, or to sufferers from it. but more violent in the other fevers. Copious sweats, least copious in the semitertians; they brought no relief, but on the contrary caused harm. These patients suffered great chill in the extremities, which grew warm again with difficulty. Generally there was sleeplessness, especially with the semitertians, followed afterwards by coma. In all the bowels were disordered and in a bad state, but in the semitertians they were far the worst. In most of them urine either (a) thin, crude, colourless, after a time becoming slightly concocted with signs of crisis, or (b) thick enough but turbid, in no way settling or forming sediment, or (c) with small, bad, crude sediments, these being the worst of all. Coughs attended the fevers, but I cannot say that either harm or good resulted from the coughing on this occasion.
