[499] The observations of Andral have in some measure confirmed the opinion of Hippocrates and other authors, ancient and modern, that there are certain days in the duration of the disease in which there is a greater tendency to amelioration. Of ninety-three cases, he found twenty-three give way on the seventh, thirteen on the eleventh, eleven on the fourteenth, and nine on the twentieth days. The recoveries in the remaining cases commenced on twelve out of forty-two non-critical days, as many as eleven being ascribed to the tenth day. Thus the recoveries on critical days averaged as high as fourteen, while those on non-critical scarcely exceeded three. (Dr. C. J. B. Williams on Pneumonia, Cyclop. of Pract. Med., vol. iii., p. 405.) See also Andral, Clin. Med., c. ii., p. 365.
[500] Stephanus has a lengthened and most important commentary on this passage, containing an elaborate disquisition on empyema. (pp. 184–91.)
[501] This is taken pretty closely from the Coacæ Prænotiones, 395.
[502] A part of this is copied from the Coacæ Prænotiones, 396.
[503] It will be seen in our analysis of several of the Hippocratic treatises, such as De Affect. Intern., De Morbis, etc., that it was the common practice in such cases to evacuate the matter either by the cautery or the knife. See also Aphorism, vii., 44.
[504] Part of this is borrowed from the Coacæ Prænotiones, 108.
[505] This is in part derived from the Coacæ Prænotiones, 471. Galen, in his commentary, is at pains to explain that by a hard bladder Hippocrates means a bladder in a state of inflammation.
[506] The subject of the critical days is not touched upon in the Coacæ Prænotiones, so that the contents of this section are either original or taken from some source with which we are totally unacquainted. Galen, indeed, does not hesitate to declare that Hippocrates himself was the first who treated of the critical days; but whether he had any competent authority for pronouncing this opinion cannot be satisfactorily determined. The critical days are incidentally treated of in the Epidemics and Aphorisms; but, as we have stated in our critique on the Hippocratic treatises in the Preliminary Discourse, the work “On Critical Days” is in all probability spurious. The system of the critical days taught by Hippocrates was adopted by almost all the ancient authorities, with the exception of Archigenes and his followers, who, however, were not numerous nor of any great name, with the exception of Celsus. See the Commentary on Paulus Ægineta, B. II., 7, Syd. Soc. edition.
[507] The contents of this section are borrowed in a great measure from the Coacæ Prænotiones, 160. Dr. Ermerins remarks that the headache here described is probably of a catarrhal or rheumatic nature. (Specimen Hist. Med. Inaug., etc., p. 84.)
[508] This is taken in great measure from the Coacæ Prænotiones, 189. Galen in his commentary, remarks that patients die of violent pains of the ear, owing to the brain sympathizing, which brings on delirium, and sometimes occasions sudden death. I may be allowed to remark that every experienced physician must have met with such cases.