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Fevers
and Chills in Classical Greece
Patients complaining of periodic fevers, excessive sweating, and nausea
would be familiar to a classical Greek doctor. To understand the disease,
the doctor would ask about the course of the disease, and the symptoms
the patient was suffering from. The doctor would also ask about the atmosphere
and waters where the patient lived. As was explained in the text "On
Airs, Waters, and Places," environments often led to particular diseases.
Such waters then as are marshy, stagnant, and belong to lakes,
are necessarily hot in summer, thick, and have a strong smell, since they
have no current; but being constantly supplied by rain-water, and the
sun heating them, they necessarily want their proper color, are unwholesome
and form bile; in winter, they become congealed, cold, and muddy with
the snow and ice, so that they are most apt to engender phlegm, and bring
on hoarseness; those who drink them have large and obstructed spleens,
their bellies are hard, emaciated, and hot; and their shoulders, collar-bones,
and faces are emaciated; for their flesh is melted down and taken up by
the spleen, and hence they are lender; such persons then are voracious
and thirsty; their bellies are very dry both above and below, so that
they require the strongest medicines. (From Adams, Francis (translator),
The Genuine Works of Hippocrates. New York: William Wood and Company,
1886. Volume 1, p. 161.)
Treatment was likely to consist of a restricted diet, confined primarily
to water, broths, and other liquids. The patient would also be encouraged
to lie down and conserve strength. If the patient passed into a coma and
was unresponsive, it was very likely he would die. Giving a prognosis
was an important part of medicine. Once a patient entered a coma as a
result of periodic fever, the doctor was instructed announce the patient's
imminent death.
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