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CHAP. II. GENERAL DIAGNOSTICS OF ACUTE AND CHRONIC, INCREASING AND DECLINING DISEASES; THE DIFFERENCE OF REGIMEN IN EACH; AND PRECAUTIONS NECESSARY UPON THE APPREHENSION OF AN APPROACHING ILLNESS.
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It is easy to know in the beginning, whether a distemper be acute, or chronic: not in those only, that are always the same; but in those also, that vary. For when the paroxysms and violent pains without intermissions distress, the disease is acute. When the pains are gentle, or the fever slow, and there are considerable intervals betwixt the fits, and those symptoms accede, which have been explained in the preceding book, it is plain, that the distemper will be of long continuance.
It is necessary also to observe, whether the distemper increases, or is at a stand, or abates: because some remedies are proper for disorders increasing, more for those, that are upon the decline. And those, which are suitable to increasing disorders, when an acute distemper is gaining ground, ought rather to be tried in the remissions. Now a distemper increases, while the pains and paroxysms grow more severe; when the paroxysms return after a shorter interval, and last longer than the preceding did. And even in chronic disorders, that have not such marks, we may know them to be increasing, if sleep is uncertain, if concoction grows worse, if the intestinal excretion is more fetid, if the senses are more heavy, the understanding more slow, if cold or heat runs over the body, if the skin grows more pale. But the contrary symptoms to these are marks of its decrease.