Book 2
8
But that in phthisis danger threatens a thin man is signified as follows: the expectoration is purulent with admixtures, a persistent fever robs him of his appetite at meal-times and afflicts him with thirst. Death is at hand if, after the patient has dragged on for a long while, the hair falls out, the urine exhibits sediment like cobwebs and has a foul odour, and most of all when upon the above diarrhoea supervenes; especially if it is the autumn season, when patients who have lasted through the rest of the year are generally undone. Moreover, in this disease, after pus has been expectorated, it is fatal for there to be an entire cessation of spitting. In the course of phthisis, even in adolescents, abscesses followed by fistulae arise in the lung; and unless numerous signs of convalescence follow, they do not readily heal. But as regards others, the least easily cured are girls, or those women in whom suppression of menses has supervened upon the phthisis. When again in a man who has been healthy there arises suddenly pain in the head, next he is so overcome by sleep that he snores and cannot be awaked, he will die by the seventh day; the more so, if a loose motion has not preceded, if the eyelids of the sleeper are unclosed and the whites of the eyes show. And in these cases death follows except if the malady has been dispersed by fever.
