Kitap 1
2
If, therefore, the time for the administering of food be come, in the first place, it must be enquired whether it be necessary to abstract blood. If, then, the delirium have come on with fever at the commencement, in the first or second day, it will be proper to open a vein at the elbow, especially the middle. But if the delirium supervene on the third or fourth day, we are to open a vein up to the first period of critical days. But if it was past the proper time for bleeding, on the sixth or seventh day, it will be proper to evacuate considerably before the crises in acute diseases, either by giving purgative medicines, or by using other stimulants. But when opening a vein you must not abstract much, even if you open the vein at the commencement; for phrenitis is an ailment easily convertible into syncope. But if the patient be plethoric and youthful, and if the ailment be connected with fulness in eating and drinking, those indications have nothing to do with the phrenitis; for even without the delirium, it would be proper to abstract much blood in such circumstances; but much less is to be abstracted, if such persons labour under phrenitis. But we may open a vein the more boldly in these cases, if the disease proceed from the præcordia, and not from the head; for there (in the præcordia) is the origin of life. But the head is the seat of sensation, and of the origin of the nerves; and it attracts more blood from the heart than it imparts to the others. If it therefore suffer, it is not proper to open the vein at the elbow; for these affections are such that it is no small injury to evacuate in them. And if the strength be sufficient to withstand the evacuation, we must abstract only once, lest during the interval between the acts of evacuation, the proper season for food be lost. The fevers, in cases of phrenitis, are of a continual type, neither have they long intermissions, but experience short and ill-marked remissions. But if the patient give way before a sufficient quantity has been abstracted, it must be put off until another remission, unless it occur at a distant period; but, if not, having resuscitated the patient by odours, stroking the face, and pricking the feet, we are immediately to abstract blood. The measure of sufficiency is the strength.
