Book 5
26
On the following point no practitioner should be ignorant so that he has to enquire as to the special treatment required for the internal organs, which I have spoken of above. For whilst an external wound is to be treated either by suture, or by some sort of medicine; in the case of the internal organs, nothing is to be moved, unless it be to cut away some bit of liver or spleen or lung which hangs outside. Otherwise internal wounds will be cured by the regulation of diet, and by those medicaments which I have stated in the preceding book to suit each individual organ.
26
So then, after this has been done on the first day, the patient is to be put to bed; if the wound is severe, before inflammation sets in, he should abstain from food, as far as his strength permits; he should drink warm water until his thirst is quenched; or, if it is summer and he has neither fever nor pain, even cold water. There is, however, in this no standing order, for always account has to be taken of the bodily strength, since weakness may render it necessary for him to take food even from the first, light of course and scanty, just enough to sustain him; and many who are actually fainting from loss of blood must, before any treatment, be resuscitated by wine, which in other cases is most inimical to a wound.
